I looked up at Jacques to be sure he understood the importance of what I was telling him, but he was more interested in the expression on Luc’s face.
“Alex asked whether you know who she is,” Jacques said. “Why don’t you respond?”
Luc rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it hard as he kneeled beside me. I let go of the girl’s hair when he answered. “Of course I know who she is, Jacques. Her name is Lisette. Lisette Honfleur. She used to work for me in the restaurant.”
FOUR
“Busman’s holiday, Alex? Isn’t that what they call it in the States?” Jacques asked. “Working your way through your vacation?”
It was an hour later and we were sitting in Jacques’s cramped office in the gendarmerie of Mougins. The bulletin board behind the captain was littered with celebrity headshots-movie stars, many of them in town for dinner during the Cannes Film Festival throughout the years, thanking the police for one courtesy or another.
“This is all in your capable hands now, Captain. I’ve got another week here to relax with Luc,” I said, turning my head to offer my lover some reassurance, although it didn’t seem that would help. “I’m sure you’ll have things sorted out by then.”
I’d been schooled in murder investigations by the best detectives in New York. The ignorance Belgarde displayed at the crime scene would have shocked Mike Chapman, and I harbored little hope that these village cops would know what to do next.
One of the captain’s men had been dispatched to the restaurant to carry back the bones. They sat on the floor in a large wooden wine crate between Luc and the desk, the three hollow-eyed skulls meeting my gaze with a blank stare.
“Tell me about Lisette, Luc.”
“I thought we were waiting for the investigators to arrive.”
“They’ve been delayed and I’m curious. Tell me about the girl.”
“It must be at least five years since I’ve seen her, Jacques. Maybe more than that.”
“Really?” the captain said, rocking back and forth on his ergonomically correct office chair. “Why so long between visits?”
“I fired her. That’s probably the reason.”
“She couldn’t stand the heat in the kitchen?”
“Lisette wasn’t involved with food. She helped with the books. My accountant placed her with me. He knows more about her than I do, for sure.”
“How long did she work with you?”
“Five, maybe six months.”
“And you let her go, why?”
“Because she liked to help herself to the cash, Jacques. A little too much, a little too often.”
“Ah, oui. Les doigts collants.” The captain saw that I looked puzzled by his words. “Sticky fingers, Alexandra. A common problem in Luc’s business.”
Tax officials in France sat on restaurant owners like hawks, because so much of the business was in cash transactions. And the ready access to all those euros-and occasional dollars-must have been a temptation to the young woman working alone in an office above the chic dining room.
“My ex is the one who actually caught Lisette with her hand in the till.”
Luc had been divorced amicably from Brigitte, his wife of fifteen years, who lived close by with their two kids. He was devoted to the children.
Jacques’s chair was on casters, and he rolled himself toward the corner, where several dilapidated file cabinets stood. “So we have a record of the theft, you think?”
“I never reported it.”
“No?”
“There was no point. I didn’t think she had stolen that much money in such a short time. No need to jam her up. We just-we just let her go.”
“No need to have the taxman in your house, finding out you cook your numbers, eh, Luc?” Jacques scooted back in place behind the desk. “I bet they get that pink foam off her face, she was a looker, this Lisette.”
I studied Luc’s somber face as he answered. “She was a handsome girl.”
“Handsome enough to tempt you?”
“No, Jacques, she was-”
“I realize I’m offending you, Alexandra, but it would be stupid of me not to ask.”
I nodded at the smirking captain while Luc finished what he wanted to say. “I was at the point in the breakup of my marriage, Jacques, that I wasn’t beyond temptation. No secret there. That wasn’t the issue. Plenty of guys in town were attracted to Lisette, but I wasn’t one of them. There was a profound sadness about this girl-une tristesse-not just in her appearance and the way she carried herself, but in her whole spirit.”
Jacques’s head rolled as he leaned backward with his chair. “Ha! You were looking for something perkier, my friend, like a sex crimes prosecutor? Is that what you’re telling me?”
There wasn’t much of my usual good-natured humor in reserve since first seeing Lisette’s body on the edge of the pond, and I had no interest in performing for the captain, who seemed to be growing ruder by the minute.
“Perhaps the next time you’re in New York, you’ll come visit me in the courtroom. I’m long on facts and fairness and the occasional outrage, Captain, but I’ve never been accused of being sad. Buy me some Dewar’s at the end of the day, I might even convince you I’m having a good time,” I said. “Now, Luc planned an absolutely delightful day for me. If you’ve got any more questions, you’ll find us at the restaurant tonight. Ça va?”
Luc fished a business card out of his wallet. “This is my accountant. He knows a lot more about Lisette than I do.”
Jacques was practically sputtering as he saw me reach for the door handle. “But you can’t go yet.”
“You can’t possibly be holding him?” I asked, warming up to the incredulity that often preceded my outrage.
“I’m not holding anyone. I have no idea what happened to this girl. It’s your brain I want to pick, Alexandra. I thought you’d help me with this-this situation.”
“Such a strange way you have of asking for assistance, Jacques. The experts are on their way. What is it you need from me?”
“So drowning like this. Is that always murder? Must it be a homicide?”
I didn’t take my hand off the door handle. I saw no reason for Luc and me to involve ourselves in this mystery. “Not necessarily. Most drownings are accidental. People fall out of boats or into deep water and can’t swim. They panic and struggle to reach the surface, and sometimes doing that they exhaust their energy reserves. Or they swallow large quantities of water at the same time that air is escaping from their lungs. Alcoholics fall facedown in three inches of water, and because they’re barely conscious they’re unable to roll over.”
“And the doctors know it’s an accident because…?”
“The totality of the circumstances, Jacques. Sometimes from witnesses, in other cases because the evidence points to only one conclusion. Do you know facts you haven’t told us? Any idea how Lisette got to the pond? I didn’t see a car there. And it’s a long walk in from the road.” I was talking at high speed. “Do people really swim in that water? It hardly seems the site for an accident.”
“Well, no, I wouldn’t think-”
“A few instances of drowning are suicidal. Think Virginia Woolf, Captain.”
“Who?”
“You don’t read enough, Jacques. An Englishwoman,” I said. “She walked into a river after loading her pockets with heavy rocks, which took her to the bottom and made it impossible for her to survive. Manic depression.”
“So she was sad, too, this Woolf person?”
“Not sad like Lisette,” Luc said. “Mentally ill.”
“And you know this girl wasn’t a psych case? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I haven’t a clue, do you understand? I don’t know anything about her except that she was quite comfortable stealing from me.”