Crime Fraiche Page 7

  “So the poor man was DOA,” Capucine said, fanning the embers of Homais’ description of the body.

  “Dead a good deal before OA,” Homais said with a dry laugh. “He took almost the full charge of shot in the chest. Now, you might not know this, but the physiological effect of shotgun shot is entirely different from solid bullets. Imagine we are shooting a pheasant. No single pellet is lethal, and, in fact, the pellets rarely go into vital organs, but once you reach the critical mass of four pellets, the bird is rendered unconscious. Six pellets and it’s dead. It’s what we medical men call ‘shock.’ ”

  “So you think the victim died instantly?”

  “Or within seconds. There were at least thirty pellets lodged in the reticular layer of the dermis of his chest. None of them were very deep since the penetration was transversal.” He looked at Capucine and decided she was not up to the word. “By that I mean he had been shot from the left and the pellets entered diagonally and did not penetrate the chest very deeply. It was the shock that did him in, all the more since it was number six shot and not the smaller number eight one normally uses for partridge. The heavier pellets create that much more trauma, you see.”

  “Isn’t using heavy shot on partridge unusual?”

  “Remember we’re in the Pays d’Auge here, madame, not the Ile-de-France, close to Paris. Obviously, shooting small birds like partridge with number six is heresy, but here they throw anything that comes to hand into their cartridge bags. I’ve even seen pheasants fall out of the sky cut in half by Brenneke solids. To prove my point, these pellets were lead, which—as I’m sure you know—has been illegal in France for fifteen years. In the civilized world everyone threw out his lead shot when the law went into effect and bought cartridges with steel shot. But not here. Even fifteen years after they stopped selling it, people still have lead shot cartridges in the bottom of their bags.”

  “And you’re convinced it really was an accident?”

  “Madame, as long as people persist in downing three or four Calvas before going out in the hot sun and blazing away at anything that moves, there will be accidents like this. Trust me on that.”

  CHAPTER 12

  The next morning Capucine joined Oncle Aymerie for breakfast in what he liked to call the petit salon, a bright circular room at the bottom of the old turret. Several French windows cut through the thick wall looked out over the old moat and the fields beyond and made the room dance with dappling light reflected from the surface of the water. It was Oncle Aymerie’s refuge, where he spent most of his day and took his meals when he was alone.

  After café au lait and a blotting-paper-dry croissant—one of the many impenetrable gastronomic mysteries of France being the striking inferiority of country bakers compared to their Paris brethren—Oncle Aymerie asked her how her discussion with Homais had gone.

  “We talked about mushrooms mostly. But he is definitely certain that Gerlier’s death was accidental. He says that sort of thing happens all the time.”

  “He’s quite correct, of course. Shooting accidents are very frequent. But this was no accident.” He poured a quarter of a cup of coffee from a delicate silver cafetière and stirred in a lump of sugar. “But what I haven’t told you, ma chère petite nièce, is that I think I can prove it was a murder.”

  “You actually have proof?”

  “An ocular witness, as I believe you say in the police.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “More specific? I’m taking you to lunch with him today. Is that specific enough?”

  Colonel Hubert de Blignières lived in a square two-story house that had been built in the reign of Louis XV as a hunting lodge. Capucine had met him often; since the death of Tante Aymone he had become her uncle’s inseparable companion. A widower himself and not overburdened with intelligence, since his retirement he had become devoted to Phébus—his Brittany spaniel—shooting, and gardening, in that order.

  Lunch was served by a prodigiously rotund woman who not only cooked but also “did” for Blignières. As they sat down at the table, he strictured the housekeeper, Euphémie, sharply. “There can be no wineglasses on the table when we serve eggs. It creates anxiety. The guests wait for wine, which will not come, because it is unthinkable to drink wine with eggs. I’m sure your husband does precisely the same,” he said, addressing Capucine.

  The housekeeper removed the offending glasses with an exasperated shake of her head and retreated to the kitchen to return with a porcelain tureen of creamy scrambled eggs slowly cooked in a bain-marie. It was the way Alexandre loved making eggs on Sundays. Alexandre, of course, got around the no-wine-with-eggs rule by insisting that champagne was a legitimate exception. He also served his eggs with finely chopped black truffles. Still, Capucine admitted to herself that the orange-yoked country eggs, unobtainable in Paris, elevated the dish to its acme.

  After the eggs came a blanquette de veau. Even though this one was well enough prepared and the wineglasses were back for an exceptional Côtes du Rhône, Capucine had never been able to find it in her heart to love blanquettes. The runny white milk sauce always seemed particularly ill-assorted to the veal. Still, it was one of the great classics, and she lavished compliments on Blignières, who beamed.

  As the meal progressed, Oncle Aymerie became progressively more and more agitated. Finally he could contain himself no longer.

  “Hubert, you must share your thoughts with Capucine.”

  “Aymerie, we’ve discussed this. It is not appropriate that I make allegations to the police, and Capucine is not only a police officer but a very senior one.”

  Reflexively, Capucine put a soothing hand on Blignières’ arm. As she did so, she cringed inwardly. It was one of the basic gestures taught in interrogation courses, in the part about dealing with a reluctant witness—“confidence building: use a physical gesture that develops camaraderie and demonstrates the interviewer’s concern.” So she was now using police techniques on her uncle’s friends? Had it come to that?

  “I’m hardly here as a police officer,” she said with what she hoped was her little-girl smile. “Oncle Aymerie tells me you’re troubled about the death at his shoot.”

  “Troubled is precisely the right word. You see, everyone thinks I’m the one who fired the fatal shot. It’s a terrible thing to live with. But I’m quite certain it wasn’t me. I think I can demonstrate that beyond the shadow of a doubt.”

  “You seem very sure,” said Capucine.

  “I am. Let me show you.” He went to the sideboard and returned with two fistfuls of silver knives, which he arranged on the table in a curve. “This is the way the line was set up, a shallow semicircle close to the crest of a steep hill. The victim, Gerlier, was two positions to the left of center. By left I mean from the birds’ point of view, of course.” He put a silver saltcellar slightly to the left of the middle of the line of cutlery. “And I was all the way down here on the right, on point, at the bottom of the hill. Aymerie always puts people on point there in case the birds veer off at the last minute. Maxime Boisson-Brideau, one of our good friends, had the point position opposite me on the left side.” He removed the crystal vessels of oil and vinegar from a silver cruet set and put them perpendicular to the ends of the line to indicate their positions.

  As the battle map was being sketched out in tableware, Capucine heard a barely audible keening and glanced down to find Phébus looking up at her in wide-eyed expectation. She divined correctly that the dog had learned the precise volume that would slip by unnoticed beneath the radar of his master’s diminished hearing. Surreptitiously, she slipped him a large piece of veal.

  “As the birds came in, I fired toward the field.”

  “And got a very elegant double,” Oncle Aymerie said, giving him a playful punch in the arm.

  Another piece of veal descended Phébus’s gullet soundlessly.

  “But,” Blignières continued doggedly, “when the birds started up the hill, they were so low over the ground, it wo
uld not have been sporting to fire. It wasn’t until they reached the crest that they gained enough altitude for anyone to be able to begin shooting. Do you understand?” he asked Capucine anxiously.

  “Absolutely. Go on.”

  “Obviously, once they rose, I started shooting for all I was worth. But Maxime—remember he was opposite me at the bottom of the hill—couldn’t shoot because his gun jammed. He still uses his father’s old Callens et Modé, and he hasn’t had it gone over by a gunsmith in twenty years, so the ejectors are very prone to freeze up, which is exactly what they did. He was dancing quite a merry little jig when the birds flew in, believe me.”

  Capucine nodded her understanding and surreptitiously slipped Phébus some more of her veal.

  “So you see, the only person who could possibly have shot Gerlier accidentally was me, since the people next to him were shooting high in the air at birds well over their heads. And I am absolutely positive it wasn’t me. I saw him jerk when he was hit. A military man knows all too well what that looks like. And at that moment my gun was broken open and I was reloading.”

  “Voilà!” Oncle Aymerie said, banging his fist on the table. “What more proof do you want?”

  “Mon oncle, that’s certainly a very convincing argument, but, unfortunately, courts only consider tangible facts as proof. Let me ask you a question, Colonel. What size shot were you shooting that day? Do you remember?”

  “Do I remember? What kind of question is that? I was shooting number eights, of course. What else would I be shooting?”

  “And there’s no chance that you had the odd number six cartridge in your bag?”

  “There are certain things a gentleman does when he returns home from the field,” Blignières said rigidly. “He cleans and lightly oils his gun, he brushes the mud off his shoes and puts trees in them, and he takes whatever cartridges are left in his bag and puts them back in their boxes. And only then, and not one second before, does he allow himself a whiskey.”

  “And, of course, you use steel shot, not lead.”

  “Madame, I have devoted my life to serving my country and its laws. Lead shot has been prohibited for fifteen years. I would no more use it than powder my garden with DDT, even though I deeply regret the loss of both.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought any less of you, Colonel. It will interest you to learn that the shot in Monsieur Gerlier’s wound was number six lead shot.”

  “Voilà! What a relief. I knew I hadn’t fired that shot, but I still lost a good deal of sleep over it. Ah, that calls for a celebration. Euphémie! Bring us some Calva! No, no, no, not that! The good stuff in the crystal decanter.”

  As they left, Phébus wagged his little stub of a tail vigorously at Capucine. If nothing else, she had made a new friend. Walking home to the château, Oncle Aymerie gave tongue to the two pertinent questions she had been juggling silently. “Well, if it wasn’t Hubert, it had to be intentional. But who? And why?”

  CHAPTER 13

  “You want me to pedal a bicycle all day long? In this freezing weather? Quelle idée! Have you completely taken leave of your senses?” Alexandre asked, outraged. “Capucine, this country living has definitely addled your brain.” It was the first time in their relationship Capucine had seen Alexandre genuinely flabbergasted.

  “You have to come,” Capucine said with almost schoolgirlish enthusiasm. “Jacques and I used to do it all the time when we were kids.” She took a deep breath, realizing this was precisely the wrong thing to have said. “It’ll be great fun. We follow the chasse à courre on bicycles and have one of Odile’s marvelous picnic lunches. We’ll get lots of exercise and fresh air. Just what you need after all your excesses of the past few days.” She poked him playfully in the stomach. Alexandre’s eyes darkened.

  Alexandre had been out of sorts since he had arrived the day before. He had driven down with Jacques, who, it appeared, had regaled him for the hour-and-a-half ride with stories of his and Capucine’s youth at the château. Capucine could easily imagine Jacques lacing the tales of rainy afternoons spent playing hide-and-go-seek in the labyrinthine commons with sexual innuendo and then delighting in Alexandre’s struggle to control his jealousy.

  Of course, Alexandre’s mood had improved conspicuously when Jacques had insisted on taking them and his father to dinner at a nearby two-star restaurant. Later, as they prepared for bed, Alexandre had gone into paeans of delight over the country version of haute cuisine. The marinated boar with chestnuts he had eaten was apparently in a class apart from what could be found in Paris. Capucine could at least attest to the boar’s aphrodisiac qualities.

  But now his mood had fallen back to its nadir. Alexandre, as was his wont, had come down to breakfast rather late, only to discover the plan of following the hunt had been elevated to canonic status by Capucine’s insatiable desire to relive her childhood pursuits. He clung grimly to his opposition until Capucine flicked her trump card on the table: it would be of inestimable value to her investigation since she would pick up all sorts of invaluable gossip from the villagers. A principal bylaw of their marriage was that matters relating to Capucine’s vocation were inviolate. Oncle Aymerie, who had only been half listening, seized on the word investigation and, with the enthusiasm of those who do not have to participate, expounded a series of well-worn chestnuts of the sort that involve wild oats, teams of horses, and ten years of regained youth. Capucine was almost sad to see the light of obstinacy fade in her husband’s eyes.

  In the garage they unearthed three ancient bicycles that would have been all the rage in Saint-Germain if pedaled by pretty young minettes in stiletto heels but in their native habitat were just cumbersome and squeaky. In the cloakroom they found well-worn Barbours, faded knitted scarves, and ancient rubber Wellingtons and proceeded to waver off down a tree-lined lane, picturesque enough to serve as a screen saver, to the hunt’s “rendezvous.”

  Either the rendezvous had become a much more elaborate affair than it had been in her youth or her childhood memories had been filtered by the years. Well over a hundred people from all walks of life milled enthusiastically. Some were holding bicycles, many had come by car, but all were in some form of olive drab hunting garb. They circulated, shook hands, air-kissed, pounded backs, and wished each other well with the forced gaiety of an office Christmas party. The crowning emotion was an almost palpable sense of anticipation that something of major import was about to happen. At the epicenter, the two dozen members of the hunt in their bright emerald green coats fretted nervously with their grooms over bored-looking horses decked out in elegant blankets with crested monograms.

  Despite the chill, Jacques had opened his Barbour to reveal ostentatiously a magnificent crushed red velvet waistcoat with gold piping and elaborate filigree buttons identifying him as a junior member of the hunt. Capucine told herself she should have known Jacques could not have contented himself with anonymous olive drab for an entire day.

  “Has your dear husband become an adept of the chasse à courre, or is it just his hound’s nose for food and booze?” Jacques asked, indicating a distant Alexandre with his chin. Alexandre had wandered off with his newfound painter friend and was deep in animated conversation with a small group of people.

  “Oh, very definitely the latter,” Capucine said as Alexandre and his crony cheerfully set out on a broad lap among the hunt followers.

  Fifteen minutes later a distinguished gray-haired man, who could easily have been employed as an actor in German luxury car advertisements, separated himself from his horses and called for order. With perfect timing Alexandre sidled up, looking particularly pleased with himself, and insinuated himself between Jacques and Capucine.

  “Ah, the dictum from on high,” Jacques—who had appointed himself Alexandre’s Virgil for the day—whispered in Alexandre’s ear. “The master in all his glory. He’s going to bore us comatose before he gets around to telling us where we’re going.”

  The augury proved painfully accurate. It was only after an et
ernal and seemingly pointless preamble about wind speed and direction, a snap freeze in the night that had been intense enough to ice the lake, and an endless enumeration of the name, gender, and age of each hound who would be running, that the master announced that at six that morning they had seen the tracks of a good-sized stag accompanied by a herd of at least ten other deer leading into a thicket. In the hopes the deer were still there, that was where the hunt would start.

  At long last, the horsemen took off down a lane, leading a pack of forty or so exuberant hounds, followed at a respectful distance by the crowd on bicycles. A far larger group in cars took to the paved road they hoped would keep them close to the hunt.

  Ten minutes later everyone stopped; the hounds were checked by riders cracking their long, snakelike whips; and a lone horseman disappeared into the wood with a single hound. Nothing happened for several minutes. Capucine could see Alexandre getting bored.

  Several antlerless deer crashed out of the wood and ran down the lane. The pack of hounds bayed excitedly but were held in check by more whip cracking and the judicious use of menacing expletives.

  Jacques leaned toward Alexandre with a smirk. “That’s the poor stag’s harem driven out into the cold.”

  Four larger deer with small antlers followed the does. “Now the squires. The stag collects them to amuse the harem while he plays the voyeur and broods, smoking Gauloises bruns and thinking dark existential thoughts. When they’re exhausted, it’s his turn. Curiously, it’s the last time around that puts the bun in the oven. Mr. Big is like a Mexican jefe. All the kids in the village have to look like him.”

  “The perfect phallocrat, eh?” Capucine said. “Too bad Simone de Beauvoir never wrote about it.”

  Finally, there was a tremendous crashing and an enormous stag with the sort of antlers usually seen on whiskey bottles erupted from the wood and tore off with the hounds in close pursuit, baying hysterically, followed by galloping horsemen blaring equally hysterically on their horns.