“I was trying to get you alone, Monsieur Rouget, to explain to you the reason I came here this morning. But since Madame Cooper is a professional, I’ll tell both of you.”
“A reason you’re here, beside the money?”
“Oui, monsieur, I was sent by my captain,” the young officer said, hesitating before he looked Luc in the eye. “There was a body found just a few hours ago.”
“Whose body?” Luc was all business now, his blue-gray eyes as icy as steel, his hands planted firmly on his hips.
“A young woman. We don’t know who she is. I was sent here to ask for your help with an identification.”
“Why my help?” Luc’s pale face had reddened.
“Because we think she was on her way to your celebration last night. The captain believes she might have been one of your guests.”
“Of course we’ll do whatever you need,” I said, thinking of the hairpin turns on the narrow roads that led from the autoroute to this hilltop. “On her way to our dinner party, Claude? Was it an accident, then? A car crash?”
“Perhaps an accident, madame, but it didn’t involve a car. They were taking her body out of the pond when I was dispatched to come here. It’s either an accident, Ms. Cooper, or the young lady was murdered.”
THREE
Half an hour later we were standing at the edge of Fontmerle Pond, twelve acres of water that bordered the enormous forest, almost completely obscured by the green pods of lotus flowers that would bloom later in the summer.
Claude Chenier had passed us off to his boss, Captain Belgarde, who greeted Luc with a handshake as he tossed his cigarette into the murky water.
“Alex, this is Jean-Jacques Belgarde. Jacques, I’d like you to meet Alex Cooper.”
Luc was going through the motions, but his attention was focused on a yellow blanket spread on the ground on the far side of the pond. “He’s married to an American and lived in Baltimore for fifteen years, so his English is better than yours. What’s happened here, Jacques? Who is she?”
Two men were navigating a pontoon back to our position. The morning stillness was ruptured by shrieking birdcalls-dozens of different sounds and cadences-probably occasioned by our unexpected presence in this natural sanctuary.
“Not my forte, Luc. I haven’t seen a body since I left military service.”
“And the slow-motion ferry?”
“Nothing works in the pond but a flat-bottom boat. These pods put down roots that tangle oars or anything else that tries to move through. The boat’ll reach us in a few minutes.”
“That old guy steering the platform looks familiar.”
Belgarde called out to Claude and asked who was poling the pontoon, carrying the other officer back to this side.
“Sorry, I don’t know his name. He’s how you say? The veilleur de nuit. He’s the one who found the lady.”
“The night watchman,” Luc said. “Of course I know him. Emil. He used to be the caretaker for Pablo Picasso’s home, just across from the pond. When I was a teenager, I used to make runs on my motorcycle with food my father sent to Picasso when he didn’t feel like coming to town for dinner.”
The great artist had spent the last twelve years of his life in Mougins and was one of Andre Rouget’s regular customers.
“Pretty swell takeout,” Jacques said. “There you go. Three years in town and I’ve never met this Emil, didn’t even know his name. I’ve heard about him though-that he’s a real loner. Works the midnight shift for the park service just so he doesn’t have to deal with people.”
“How would anyone see a body in this pond, especially before daylight?” I asked. Some of the leaves were three feet in diameter, overlapping one another and appearing so thick that it looked as if I could walk across on them to the other side.
“That brings us back to you, Luc,” the captain said. “The deceased is dressed entirely in white. It’s the clothes that stood out so obviously against the dark water and leaves, even in the dead of night. Sweater, lace camisole, long cotton skirt-and it’s not even summer yet. My officers tell me you hosted a party last evening. A dinner in white.”
“Guilty, Jacques, but all my guests were accounted for,” Luc said, shading his eyes with his hand. “Why didn’t they load the body on the boat and bring her to the dock?”
We were watching the pontoon’s slow progress through the lotus leaves.
“I’ve been instructed not to move the woman. We’ll go across to her.”
“Fine. Perhaps Alex should wait here.”
“I’m more useful with the dead than you are, Luc. Does this mean, Captain, that there’s a medecin legiste on the way?”
“A medical examiner? I wouldn’t know where to find the closest one. I’ve never had the need. But there’s a local coroner. We’re trying to get our hands on him now.”
“Surely you’re not going to leave this woman outside for hours, exposed to the elements?” It wasn’t just the insects and eels above and below the water, but foxes and wild boar that gave the forest its unique character.
“We’ll move her as soon as we’re ready.” Belgarde spoke sharply to me. “Tell me about the event, Luc. Your idea, this Diner en Blanc?”
“No, not mine. It’s been going on in Paris for a quarter of a century, and more recently in New York, Montreal. Who knows where else? I thought I’d bring the concept to Mougins. A touch of civility before tourist season overwhelms us.”
“You and I have shirts on our backs because of the tourists,” Jacques said, cupping his hand over a match as he lighted his next Gitanes. Judging by the pile of butts, he had smoked enough cigarettes in the last couple of hours to blacken the lungs of the purple herons observing us from the middle of the pond. “You feed them, and I’m the uniformed lost and found for their cameras and car keys and iPads. What are these dinners, mon ami?”
The pontoon snagged on a stand of lotus fronds, and the old man used his pole with great deliberation to free the slow-moving vessel. I watched while Luc talked.
“One of my father’s friends returned to Paris in the eighties, after a long time away. He wanted to see a lot of acquaintances, so he made his contacts and people agreed to meet all together, for dinner, even though they didn’t know one another. By the time François assembled his list, there were too many of his friends to fit in a restaurant or home, so he suggested they meet at the Bois de Boulogne.
“Everyone was to bring not only their own food but also tables and chairs, wine and glasses, silver and table linens. And all were to dress entirely in white, so the two hundred or so guests could spot one another inside the park.”
Jacques inhaled and raised his eyebrows. “That’s legal, in an historic landmark?”
“Je ne sais. François made the rules. The hell with the law. He just wanted everyone to enjoy themselves.”
“It worked?”
“So well that it’s grown to incredibly larger numbers each time. Four thousand people in the plaza at the Cathedral of Notre Dame two years ago. Last August, when I was invited for the first time, six thousand showed up in the courtyard of the Louvre.”
“That’s astonishing. And not mobbed by outsiders?”
Luc smiled. “Only friends, and friends of friends. Each time there is a different organizer, deciding who is in and who is out.”
Jacques blew smoke rings in Luc’s face. “Clearly, I was out when you drew up your list.”
“Alors, my pal, you don’t Tweet, do you?” Luc waved the smoke away with his iPhone.
“I’m too old for that bullshit,” Jacques said. I guessed him to be a decade older than Luc, who was forty-eight. “That’s how you invite?”
“Till the very last minute, the Parisian organizers never revealed the location of the dinner. Part of the fun, I guess. Then on the actual day of, they blast out the landmark-whatever it is-and people descend on their Metro stations with all their gear.”