The Art of Murder Read online

  “I wonder if you could just write down your impressions of the people on this list. It’s strictly confidential, purely for my own understanding. Just whatever you are comfortable saying, n’est pas? Also, we would like to get the fingerprints of everyone closely connected to Monsieur Duval. As you can imagine, the studio is a mass of unidentified prints. Have you ever been up there?”

  “Why, certainly, Inspector. Yes, lots of people have been in that room, all over the house in fact, when there was a party or something big going on.”

  “Something big?”

  “The launch of a new product, for example. Theo had parties for all the usual reasons, of course.”

  “Ah.” Gilles nodded his understanding.

  A knock came at the door.

  “Oh. What was today’s meeting about?”

  “Pardon, Inspector?”

  “What did you come for today?”

  “Oh, ah, we go over the books once a week or so, Theo and I.”

  Gilles rose.

  “Excuse me for a moment, s’il vous plait?”

  ***

  While Monsieur Babineaux composed his thoughts and worked on his list, Gilles and Rene conferred in quiet tones in the hall.

  “The body’s gone, and the lab boys are pretty much done.” Rene looked very tired. “We have statements from all the people here, none of whom saw or heard a damned thing.”

  Deep inside, Rene was a frightened man, and it saddened Gilles to see him that way.

  “Very well, thank you.” Gilles had no idea of what to say.

  “It’s all right Gilles. We have no evidence of foul play. If you want to hand this off, that’s all academic to me right now.” Rene was offering him an out.

  Just at that moment in time, Gilles saw him as he once was, a much younger Detective Inspector Lavoie, tall and proud, rather than a suddenly-old friend, collapsing into himself like any street-corner derelict. As likely as not, Rene would not come back. He was old enough to retire on half-pay, and his recovery if he survived the next year, would be long and tedious. Belatedly Gilles recalled Rene was only five or six years older than him. He brushed aside the thought, for he always saw that sort of thing as a kind of weakness, pure narcissism.

  The least he could do was to let his old friend go home at the end of a long and tiring day with some dignity.

  “In a murder, we don’t even consider a charge unless we feel we can prove motive.”

  Rene shrugged slightly.

  “Yes, Gilles? And you’re saying the same thing about a suicide. Yes, I see your point.”

  Gilles reached out and squeezed Rene’s bicep.

  “I am not happy.”

  “We both know what will ultimately happen if the wrong person gets assigned this file. It will quickly die.”

  Maintenon nodded, the sounds of traffic in the street down below muffled but close.

  “But you are not happy with it.”

  “You always had the instinct, Gilles. As for myself, I don’t know, maybe not so much. But everyone claims to have loved this man. They say he never had an enemy in the world, and that alone is a bit off. The rich…the rich are rarely beloved.”

  “Where is the motive?”

  Rene smiled fondly upon hearing these words.

  “I agree whole-heartedly. Why would a man like that shoot himself, still relatively young, with a good-looking lady at his side, all that money, and quite frankly, the man had everything he wanted. He went where he wanted, did what he wanted. There is no suggestion of delusional thinking on his part. So what happened?”

  “Thank you, Rene. I wondered if it was just me.” Rene grinned with real affection and shook his head in derision.

  “That’s why I called for you, my friend. You question everything twice, even yourself.” Without a word, screwing his battered charcoal-grey fedora with its bedraggled green featherette securely onto his grizzled brush cut, Rene Lavoie held out his hand and they clasped hands for a moment.

  He stared unblinkingly into Gilles’s eyes.

  “Good luck, Rene.”

  They embraced as old comrades, and Gilles fought back a few tears of his own. Rene turned and walked away. His footsteps rapidly faded on the soft carpet, and then came silence. Rene took the elevator, a sad and disconsolate sound. This brought a lurch of something to Maintenon’s guts, but, just as for Duval and a few hundred million other driven individuals, there was never enough time.

  As if the day hadn’t been hellish enough to begin with.

  Chapter Four

  The place could use a new furnace

  Their footsteps, hard and resounding in the corridor, echoed back in cold disdain for mere humanities.

  “This place could use a new furnace.” Andre said it with conviction.

  It was an old and tired joke, but the wisp of a smile crossed Maintenon’s calm visage.

  “Sure beats the old days, though.”

  “Hmn.” Maintenon was preoccupied with Rene’s last words, what a loaded expression, but it might be true—he might never see the fellow again, whether he lived or died almost didn’t enter into the question.

  The same could be said for anybody.

  “Imagine all the crowds, pretending to be looking for a lost loved one.” Scholarly papers had been written on the morbidity of the old city morgue. “What were they after? Some kind of sick emotional thrill?”

  Something to spark their jaded, bourgeois sensibilities, raw sentimentalism, canned and boxed and packaged for easy consumption. Gilles sighed at the thought of their obsession with death above all else. It fascinated them. A funeral was as good as a wedding, in some ways. It bought people together.

  It was all about modern communications affecting a kind of mass consciousness exhibited by large numbers of people acting on impulse. It was why perfectly uninvolved strangers flocked to the more sensational trials, jostling in line and trying to get the best seats. It often became emotionally heated, with people hissing and booing the accused, making dire threats and all of that. Oh, yes, and always concerned with choosing sides, and with everyone offering their own unique opinion. There were those calling for quick judgment and a bloody retribution, and those who always sided with the accused, and questioning the validity of the process. It was human nature, at its most elemental, and its most civilized at one and the same time.

  “Huh.” Gilles was un-moved.

  Admittedly he was still a little high from all of the codeine he had ingested. What was it, fifty milligrams per pill? He had never realized what he was missing. A faint noise escaped him.

  “This is a fine building, and yet already showing signs of its age.”

  Levain gaped at him.

  “I’m sorry, Inspector?” His bulky shoulders shook with a repressed hilarity.

  He was sure Maintenon was joking.

  They had been here so many times before, but Gilles must make his own personal acquaintance with their anonymous victim. He wanted another good look at Duval as well. Levain contrived to reach the door ahead of Gilles. Giving it a quick rap, he opened the door with a look and a flourish.

  The harsh lights gleamed from thousands of square feet of brushed stainless-steel fixtures and heavily-enameled accoutrements, all barbaric and mostly useless in their impressive efficiency. The press was regularly admitted on tours of the building, a kind of domestic flag-showing operation.

  “Come in, come in.” A peevish tone, a flushed forehead, and a glare from a man in a smock greeted them upon entrance.

  “You cannot dampen the Inspector’s ardour for inquiry or even just activity.” It was Levain who surprised himself with that one, but the chief nodded in approval.

  “That’s the spirit, Andre, that’s the spirit.” Levain silently observed Gilles as he approached the steel table, and the shallow gutter that ringed it, running red with the thin red fluid, precious and cheap, that was the basis of life.

  A pinkly-stained sheet was pulled back, leaving only the face and neck visible.r />
  Guillaume was just washing up as Gilles stood calmly regarding the man’s face, or what was left of it. The water had puffed him out and distended all of his features. He had a thin, elegant mustache, dark eyebrows and brown eyes. He looked to be about five-foot eight and around early middle age going by the bit of fat on the hips and a receding hairline. Gilles noted several white hairs on the chest, but the bulk were still black. The man gave the impression of good health, as if nothing was wrong with him, if you could ignore the obvious fact that he was dead.

  Buried corpses usually decomposed or dried out. Drowning victims seemed awfully life-like sometimes. It depended how long they’d been in.

  “Well, well, well. Your other friend is missing a face.” The doctor had few doubts, a professional with decades of experience. “On the floater. We have no means of identification, no recent reports, no description matching a recent missing person report.”

  Gilles stared at the man, drinking in the overall length, the unmarked features, bland of personality or expression now, staring sightlessly up at the glaring overhead fixtures.

  It could have been his own brother, considering that he hadn’t seen any of them in so long.

  “Is there anything that would tend to make this person stand out from a crowd?” Gilles had a genuine interest in any unexplained death.

  They were all important, although sordid and squalid enough at times. The corpses were truly humble, though. They all had that much in common. It was a commentary on the human condition every time.

  Levain sighed. This looked like being a long one, and the boss was in an odd mood. He didn’t care either way after his long night, and now this. Three hours of sleep and his eyes felt like sandpaper.

  “Other than the fact that he is already embalmed, and ready for interment, complete with traces of mortuary make-up, including the typical sort of stitches, ones that I did not put there—the organs have been removed. I checked. It’s pretty nice work, incidentally, then, ah, well, not really. No.” Doctor Guillaume beamed at them from the sink as he washed his hands. “As for the time of death—”

  “What?” They spoke at the same time and could not help but to exchange a quick look.

  With a real sense of the dramatic, Guillaume now whipped the sheet aside so they could look for themselves.

  “What the hell are you saying? Oh, no!” Gilles practically slapped himself on the side of the head.

  “You’re mad!” Levain almost spat out his unlit cigarette, which he had just taken out in some subconscious impulse.

  “I can’t come closer than two or three days either way.” There was a kind of glee evident in Guillaume’s voice as he went on. “I mean in the river—anything else is beyond me. Presumably he died from something somewhere, and it takes a few days for the funerary interment process to unfold.”

  They glared at the body in disgust.

  “That’s right, Gilles, Andre. It could almost be a prank.” He doubled up in barely-repressed laughter.

  “But that’s madness! There was money in the pocket! A couple of hundred francs…” Levain was adamant. “You’re saying he was prepared for funeral?”

  “The body was. As for the accessories, who knows? Just window dressing, maybe. It’s a pretty little mystery you’ve gotten your hands on now. Your hands imbrued in. Think of the headlines. I’m just saying.” He grinned happily, for more than anything he lived a boring kind of a life.

  “I suppose cuff links and the like are often interred.” Guilllaume could only report his findings, drawing conclusions as to what it all meant was some other poor sucker’s job. “Generally speaking, any halfway normal man aspires to be buried in a good suit, and almost more importantly, a really good pair of shoes.”

  Gilles considered this truism of bourgeois values. How much walking did people actually do in heaven?

  “I know I do.” The fervent tone in Levain’s voice said it all, matching what he took for sarcasm with more caustic wit.

  Levain was laughing. But Guillaume was serious, as Gilles saw.

  It’s not that he wasn’t trying to help out. He lived alone and had always had a hard time finding any woman willing to go out with him. The job meant everything to him. In a very real sense, these men were his friends, and pretty good ones at that. If a crime had been committed, it was a professional challenge, and he was thoroughly dedicated. He had nothing better to do.

  “Drink, anyone? Before we have a look at your next victim?”

  “Brats!” Levain was not pleased.

  Gilles shook his head at the offer.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Maintenon sighed. “You’re thinking some, ah, filthy-stinking-rich schoolboys? I suppose that’s possible. Nothing is impossible.”

  Gilles shook his head a little. What in the hell did he know? Life was very hard some days.

  “Medical students!” Levain might have something there.

  It was food for thought.

  “Time of death for Monsieur Duval was anywhere from eleven o-clock p.m. last night, to possibly four-thirty a.m. this morning”

  “And that’s as close as you can make it?”

  The staff all said that he hadn’t been out last night, at least not to their knowledge, and that he had been working in his studio from shortly after dinner. It was a big house, with only a few people living in it, most of them off duty at the time. The maid was at home and Alexis was in his room reading, during the evening hours. How could anyone prove otherwise?

  “Merde.”

  “You can say that again, Inspector.” Levain looked at Guillaume. “But he probably won’t.”

  ***

  “As you can imagine, this one presents us with certain special challenges.” Doctor Guillaume engaged them with a significant look. “I can safely confirm that he died from a large-calibre gunshot wound to the head. Death was instantaneous and he suffered little. Even so, I think his body took quite some time to die.”

  Gilles nodded at the distinction. There was nothing unforeseen or particularly enlightening in all of this. It had merely been made official. Gilles studied the man for a while, as if trying to get to know him.

  “Gilles, we don’t have a lot to hang our hats on here.” It was a characteristic expression.

  “Yes.” Gilles foresaw worse challenges, not the least of which was being sure. “I believe Alain Duval, a brother, has been contacted. He was in Brittany. He is on the way. What strikes me, is why do it this way at all? Perhaps if unsure, maybe in the case of a very small pistol, say a twenty-five or so. Maybe the placing of the gun in the mouth makes sense then, but the big gun…he could just as easily put it up to his temple—surely this is the more common method.”

  Psychologically, it didn’t make sense. A shot in the temple would be regarded as cleaner, and perhaps leaving less of a mess. People often committed suicide with firearms in a bathtub, or in a basement, or a garden shed for just that reason. They didn’t want to leave a mess.

  “Hmn. It takes all kinds to make a world, Gilles, but I see the point.” Levain studied the rest of the cadaver. “I don’t see a lot of moles, birthmarks, anything like that?”

  Doctor Guillaume shook his head in discontent.

  “No. I’ve taken a good set of prints. With luck, he has done some official service, hopefully in the military, or maybe at some time he’s been booked for a crime. Other than that, we have the teeth, some of which are fragmented, some of which have had expensive dental work. Gold fillings, but that’s the usual anyway. The fact that he even had them speaks volumes.”

  Guillaume believed in official documents. Eyewitnesses were unreliable. The fact that Duval had been found dead in his own home, with plenty of testimonial evidence that it was indeed him, meant little to a real professional.

  Behind its dome of glass, the minute hand of the wall clock clicked ever forward in its inexorable fashion, reminding Maintenon that no one really ever knows just exactly how much time they have left. Death came so unexpectedly to people
. You could never really count on reaching your natural age—too many accidents, too much disease, and not much love in the world when you got right down to it.

  Gilles understood that one well enough. If it wasn’t for that, there would be little need for police at all. The pain in his jaw was just a dull background ache at this moment in time, but it would come back with a vengeance all too soon. There was a world of pain out there.

  “So far no one has mentioned any military service, but they have all known him for varying lengths of time…perhaps the brother, n’est pas?”

  This was greeted by non-committal looks from Levain and Guillaume.

  “I think the company made military equipment during the war.” This was from Gilles. “He would have been exempt from service. But that’s not to say that he didn’t join up anyway, back in the heady days of the summer of 1914.”

  “Did you notice anything else? What about his overall physical condition?” Levain kept him on topic, as Gilles seemed preoccupied.

  The doctor outlined how his subject was about thirty-eight years old, not overweight, how he had fairly firm muscle tone, and while there were no major ‘sporting injuries’ to report, he had led an active life, which resulted in a bony lump on his left shin that had been there for many years. He was tolerably well-built, but otherwise unremarkable. The man had smoked, lightly thought Guillaume, but definitely a yes. As for drink, again, not enough to scar the liver, but probably, yes. There was a broken vein up in the soft flesh near one eye, very small. His blood work, alcohol levels, nothing appeared out of the norms, and most importantly, he had found no signs of terminal illness, nor anything else to cause any real suffering. There were no recent bumps, bruises, abrasions, or anything like that. Interestingly, he had eaten a good dinner the night before his death. Men like that never went hungry. But a suicide with an appetite? It made for suspicion. Both men appreciated the doctor’s use of plain language, as at this point medical terms just complicated the process. His official write-up would be a paradigm of clarity and use all the proper scientific terms.