Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery (26 page)

“That's the best one we have,” a soft female voice said.

Verlaque turned around and saw a small, elderly nun with wire-rimmed glasses smiling at him. “I'm glad,” he answered, smiling back. “Soeur Clothilde?”

“Yes,” she replied. She extended her thin, age-spotted hand and gave him a firm handshake. “You looked like a judge; I'm glad I wasn't mistaken.”

Verlaque laughed. “Oh dear, I'm not sure if that's bad or good.”

“Good. It's good,” she replied. “Follow me; we'll go someplace where we can talk.”

Verlaque paid for his book and followed the nun back outside and through a cobbled courtyard lined with potted plants. “This is beautiful,” he said, looking around him at the golden stone buildings built in various centuries.

Soeur Clothilde nodded. “I'll show you the rose garden afterward, if you wish. It's one of my duties here, to select varieties for planting and then tend the roses.”

“My grandmother was a great one for roses,” Verlaque said as they entered what looked more like an elegant manor house than a convent.

“It's our bit of paradise,” the nun said. “Roses don't belong here, in this wild countryside, but I think God will forgive us.” They moved down a hall, lit with what looked like expensive Italian wall sconces. Wooden doors lined both sides of the hall; she
opened one toward the end and gestured for Verlaque to enter. He walked in and stepped aside, letting the nun pass, then looked around the small whitewashed room and stood still, speechless. Finally, he said, “This is your cell.”

“Yes,” she answered. “Please, sit down.” She motioned to a cane-seated chair; Soeur Clothilde sat opposite him, on the edge of her small bed, her feet dangling.

“I'm very sorry about the death of your sister,” he began.

“Thank you.”

“I don't know if you heard, but two other women were attacked the same week, one also in Rognes, and the other in Éguilles.”

Soeur Clothilde closed her eyes and then opened them. “No, I hadn't heard. Are they…?”

“They're dead, yes.”

“And you're here because there may be a relationship between their deaths and my sister's murder?”

Verlaque said, “Yes.” He let the nun think while he glanced behind her head, where a small bookshelf was hung over her bed. Not wanting to be nosy, he looked back at the nun, who again had her eyes closed.

“As Pauline got older, she got more and more angry,” Soeur Clothilde finally said, her hands on her knees. “I rarely spoke to Pauline, but on Saturdays—our day off—my sister Natalie would call me. Complaining.”

“Pauline, Mme d'Arras, had been harassing her sister,
non
?”

“Yes, and it wasn't right. All Natalie's life she had to deal with…with…her parentage, and now Pauline was reminding her of it. Do you know our story?”

Verlaque nodded. “That Natalie's father was an SS officer? Yes, I know.”

Soeur Clothilde retold the story, very much as Philomène Joubert
had told Marine; it took her ten minutes. “Family secrets,” she said. “They have to be dealt with, don't they?”

Verlaque hesitated. “Yes.”

“And since you already knew the Aubanel story, I can't think of why you drove three hours from Aix to here, unless it was because you have your own story you'd like to talk about.”

“That's preposterous.”

“Is it?” she asked, smiling. “Why did
you
come here, instead of sending one of your officers?”

“I was available.” Verlaque shifted in his chair and crossed his legs. He looked around the room and asked, “What do
you
do all day, if you don't mind me asking?”

“I think, pray, read,” she said. “And tend to the garden. I saw you trying to read the spines of my books. I love historical novels—big thick ones that sweep generations, and even centuries.”

“Leon Uris–type stuff?” Verlaque asked. “My grandmother liked his books.”

“Ah, your grandmother again. The rose gardener.”

Verlaque smiled. “Coincidence.”

“What do
you
read?” she asked.

“Poetry,” he answered. “Twentieth-century.”

“Oooh,” she said, teasing, “very dark.”

“More like…lonely,” he said.

“Do you want to be lonely?”

“No, I'm tired of it.”

“What's your next step, then?” she asked. “To rid yourself of this loneliness and get back into the world? The world of love and roses and…unloneliness.”

“I don't know,” Verlaque said. “This afternoon I saw a photograph that a friend had taken—actually, a series of photographs—and one triggered some memories. The memories weren't all bad,
but they were ones I'd been hiding, or ignoring. I'm tired of it, that's all.”

“You could tell me, and then you'd be rid of them,” she said. “We could throw them out the window.” She leaned over and looked at her barred window, about a foot in width. “There's not room for many, though,” she said, winking.

Verlaque tried to smile. “Could we go outside and talk in the garden?” he asked.

“Of course. Your grandmother will be by your side there, won't she?”

“
Oui
.”

L'Agence de la Ville was Aix's biggest and most luxurious real-estate agency, in a town that could almost boast more Realtors than doctors. It had a prime location on the Cours Mirabeau—on the north café side, not the south bank side—so that one could stroll after a coffee and gaze at the framed, backlit color advertisements of bastides, stone
mas, hôtels particuliers,
lavish apartments, and even the converted barn or two. The houses were located in the most desirable areas of Provence: Aix and its environs, the southern Lubéron, and the Marseille coast. Most of the properties had prices in seven digits; for others, no price was given, only the words “Inquire with us….”

Paulik had never been inside—he and Hélène abhorred Realtors and had bought their house in Pertuis from a cousin. His shoes squeaked on the marble floor as he walked in; marble also shone on one of the walls and on the receptionist's desktop. A young Aixoise greeted him with a huge smile and a perfect set of teeth. “Welcome to L'Agence de la Ville,” she said. “How may I help you?”

“I have an appointment with Mme Chazeau,” Paulik replied. “Commissioner Paulik.”

The girl jumped up, still young enough to be nervous around policemen. “I'll tell her you're here,” she said. As she left the reception area, she remembered what she was supposed to do, turned around, and asked Paulik if he would like a coffee or a glass of water. He declined.

Within seconds, Mme Chazeau walked out of a double-doored office and came to shake the commissioner's hand firmly. “Commissioner,” she said, “please, come into my office.”

Paulik followed the Realtor into her spacious, high-ceilinged office. Framed oil paintings hung on the wall, showing off Provence's bounty: fields of red poppies, the rugged red cliffs of Cap Canaille in Cassis, and of course, Mont Sainte-Victoire against a deep-blue sky. Mme Chazeau was almost as tall as Paulik, and much slimmer. She had the wide shoulders of an athlete—a swimmer, possibly—and a head of thick, wavy black hair that she kept short, tucked behind her small, delicate ears. Her only jewelry was a pair of large diamond stud earrings. She wore no wedding band, so Paulik assumed she was divorced, or widowed. He knew that Natalie was the oldest of the Aubanel sisters, although she didn't look as if she could be in her late sixties or early seventies.

“My secretary offered you a coffee?” she asked.

“Yes, thank you, but I declined.”

“So…we'll start, then. I assume you're here to ask questions about my sister Pauline, but I must begin this…interview…by telling you how very angry I am that my son was called in for police questioning.”

“I understand,” Paulik answered. “But we have to ask everyone who knew Mme d'Arras the same questions….”

“You know very well you are not answering my question,” she said. “Why was he called in to the police station?”

“He was to inherit….”

“And that makes him a murder suspect?”

Paulik didn't reply. “Was he angry that he was cut out of your sister's will?” he asked.

“No,” she answered quickly and, it seemed to Paulik, honestly. “Christophe wasn't expecting any money from her, so he thought it was a lark that he was even mentioned.”

“When was the last time you saw Mme d'Arras?”

Mme Chazeau paused, resting her large hands on the desk. “Months ago,” she finally said. “Before the summer. May.”

Paulik deliberately showed his surprise. “May? That's four months ago.”

“Precisely. I'm sure it was May, because that's Christophe's birthday, and I had Gilles and Pauline over for dinner. With Christophe, naturally. May 12.”

“And your husband?” Paulik asked.

“My husband died over twenty years ago, of a heart attack.”

“I'm sorry,” Paulik said. “So you haven't seen your sister, who lives in the same town, in four months?”

Mme Chazeau nodded. Paulik could see that she wasn't going to offer any information for free. “Is that normal?” he asked. “To get together with your sister…”

“…who lives in the same town, only every four months,” Mme Chazeau cut in. “Yes.”

“Why?”
If she can answer in one-word sentences, I'll start asking in one-word sentences,
Paulik mused to himself.

“We didn't get along.”

That was obvious. “Why not?”

Mme Chazeau sighed and glanced at her gold watch. “Oh, it's a long story….”

Paulik didn't say anything, just sat back in his chair and crossed his legs.
I have the time.

“We've never been close,” she answered, “since we were very young. Do you have siblings, Commissioner?”

Paulik nodded. “Five.”

“And do you get on with all of your siblings?”

“Yes.”
Liar.

“Well, that's great for you. Pauline and I didn't get on.” Mme Chazeau looked at the field of poppies on the wall and then turned to Paulik. “But I didn't hate her. I used to, but not anymore.”

“Why did you hate her?” he asked, sitting forward again.

“We competed for everything,” she answered. “Don't ask me why. It was always like that. And I've stopped competing.” She then added, “I'd stopped competing
before
Pauline was killed.” She looked at a newspaper sitting open to her right and quickly closed it in half.

“Do you know who may have killed your sister?”

“No. I have no idea.”

“Was she an easy person to get along with?”

“No, as I've been telling you.”

“I meant with strangers, with shop owners, neighbors….” Paulik said.

“She was…difficult….”

Paulik sat back again. “And last Friday evening…where were you?”

“I was here, working. With another sales agent and the secretary,” she said, pointing toward the door. “She stayed late to help us conclude a sale.”

Finally, Paulik stood up and shook her hand; he realized that he could get nothing more from her now. Natalie Chazeau walked him to the door. “Goodbye, Commissioner,” she said.

He nodded, thanked her, and left, saying goodbye to the secretary on the way out. Outside the agency, he looked at a framed notice for one of the houses for sale. “Six bedrooms, two salons, swimming pool and pool house, one acre of landscaped grounds, views of Mont Sainte-Victoire. 6,150,000 euros.” He could remember
when no house in Provence cost more than a million euros—francs back then—except for certain seaside estates on the Côte d'Azur. It didn't seem so long ago.

Mme Chazeau went back into her office and opened the newspaper that had been sitting on her desk. Had the commissioner seen it? she wondered. She picked up her new cell phone, put on her reading glasses, and texted her son: “Have you seen the front page of
Le Monde
today? I think it may interest you.”