The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery (17 page)

Hiking her bag farther up on her shoulder, Marie-Pierre nodded to the two men. “I’ll leave you two to enjoy your soccer game.
Bonne soirée
.” She stalked across the parking lot in the opposite direction of everybody else.

Louis turned back to Mouad. “So where are our seats?”

“
Virage Est
,” his friend replied, a familiar fanatic gleam in his eyes. “Right with the hardcore fans.”

“Of course,” Louis laughed. “Where else?”

Twenty

Louis held out two baguettes in one hand and a bag full of croissants and
chocolatines
in the other. The man pointed to the baguette. Despite the heat, the SDF wore a knit cap, what looked like two or three sweaters beneath a jacket that had probably been bought for skiing in the eighties, a pair of holey, dirty jeans, and army boots. His skin was weathered from living outdoors for years and his eyes were bloodshot.

Louis handed him one of the baguettes. “Would you let me take your picture, please? And also one of your dog?” He pointed to the German Shepherd lying at the man’s feet. The dog was a little on the skinny side. It had a nick in its ear, as well as some scars here and there showing he’d been in his fair share of fights. But generally speaking, he looked in better shape than his master.

Biting into the bread, the man glared at Louis. “What do you want our picture for?” He chewed carefully and only with the right side of his mouth. It didn’t look like he was too big on dental hygiene. “There’s nothing to see here.”

Louis brought out his phone and directed it at the man to take a picture. “No worries, man. I’m just looking for someone and need to show your picture to a friend.”

The man held out the baguette with one piece missing to Louis and shielded himself from the camera with the other. “Take your bread back. I don’t want to be in your picture. Now get lost.”

Realizing what the man would have understood from what Louis said, he held his hands up, both to refuse to take the food back and to calm the man down. “Don’t worry, I won’t be showing it to the police or anything. I have a friend who saw a man and a dog close to the place where…something happened.” Now that he was on the subject anyway, he might as well try the more direct path. “I’m trying to find a man who was on place du Capitole in the middle of the night Tuesday, almost three weeks ago. I don’t suppose that was you?”

The man gave Louis a blank stare. “You expect me to remember where I was on a Tuesday night three weeks ago? I don’t even know what day today is. Do
you
remember where you were that night?”

Good point
. Of course, Louis knew exactly where he had been. When he’d learned the time of his father’s death, he immediately thought back to what he was doing when his father drew his last breath. He’d been out having dinner with a group of friends, making merry. He suspected the guilt accompanying that thought would never go away.

Louis waved the baguette away. He wasn’t going anywhere near food that had been in that mouth. He put his phone in his pocket to show he wouldn’t be taking any pictures. “I get your point,” he said. “However, this person was seen dragging around a large box under the arcades. I don’t suppose that rings any bells?”

The poor man eyed Louis as if judging his mental capacity and finding him lacking while he took another bite of the bread. “Why would I be dragging around a box? Do you see any boxes?” He extended a hand to show off his possessions: an old bike with dirty bags strapped on the front and back, presumably filled with all his earthly possessions.

“Right,” Louis sighed in defeat. “Sorry to have bothered you.” He turned away from the man.

“If you want information on what’s going on around the Capitole, you should try Laurent and Benoît,” the SDF said to Louis’s back. As Louis turned back, he added, “Well, you should try Laurent. Apparently Benoît turned up dead in the canal this morning.”

Louis shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He couldn’t read the man at all. Was he upset by his colleague’s demise?

“It happens.” The man pulled a bottle of wine from an inside pocket of his jacket and took a swig. Louis was glad he didn’t offer to share.

A thought was nagging at the back of Louis’s mind. “Did this man have a dog?”

The man huffed. “Of course he did.”

Of course. All these guys had dogs. Still, Louis had a bad feeling about this. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, heat notwithstanding.

“Do you know what happened?” Louis was showing too much interest in Benoît and the SDF squinted at him in suspicion. Of what, Louis couldn’t imagine.

His informer shook his head. “But you can ask his buddy, Laurent. They both lived under the pedestrian bridge down by the Conseil Général. Laurent should still be there.”

“Thank you,” Louis said. He gave the man a croissant as thanks, then speed-walked along the path by the canal.

Ten minutes later, Louis knocked on the dirty canvas of a tent under the pedestrian bridge. “Hello?” he called. Cars sped past on both sides of the canal—two lanes on this side and three on the other. This was hardly a calm spot, though the canal with its towering trees was picturesque. An old couple was busy picking figs from a tree at the foot of the bridge. Guess the city of Toulouse wouldn’t mind.

He heard movement inside the tent, then the whole thing shifted as its occupant approached the opening. The zipper opened enough for a dirty blond head to stick out. “What do you want?” the man rasped.

“Are you Laurent?” Louis asked. “Benoît’s friend? I have food.” He held up his last baguette and the bag of pastries.

The man’s eyes fixed on the bread, but he said nothing.

“Here,” Louis said and held out the baguette. “Consider it a gift.”

The man, who was presumably named Laurent, thought about it for five more seconds before opening the tent’s zipper all the way and extending a long arm to take the bread. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Am I correct in assuming you’re Laurent?” Louis asked again.

Laurent nodded.

“Friend of Benoît?”

Another nod.

Louis lowered his voice. “And Benoît died this morning?”

Mouth full of bread, Laurent squinted at Louis. He apparently had no qualms about talking with his mouth full. “What’s it to you? What do you want?”

“I’m looking for someone—”

“It wasn’t me.” Crumbs flew as the blond man spoke.

Crossing his arms, Louis pursed his lips at the man. “I haven’t even told you anything yet.”

“No matter what it is, it wasn’t me.”

“What about your friend Benoît?”

Laurent took another bite of the baguette as he gave Louis a dark look. The already pronounced lines on his face became dark grooves of dirt. “What about him? It wasn’t him either.”

“Look.” Louis sighed. “I don’t wish you any harm. I’m looking for a guy who could have seen something when my father was killed.” The man watched Louis closely from beneath bushy eyebrows. “A man was seen dragging a big box through place du Capitole on a Tuesday night three weeks ago. He apparently had a dog. I’m looking for that man, to check if he may have seen something important.”

There was no movement from Laurent except for the chewing. Louis must have passed muster, for the man asked, “Why us?”

Louis drew a hand through his hair. “I was told that you guys sometimes hang out around the Capitole. But I’m basically walking around speaking to all the SDFs I can find.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“
C’est un régal
.” It’s a blast.

The man gave a quick nod, but apparently wanted to make sure he kept all his payment before speaking to Louis. So Louis stood there patiently while Laurent finished his breakfast. Once the last crumb was gone, the frown returned to the man’s face. “It’s not me you want, anyway. Benoît was the one who liked to hang out close to the rich people around the Capitole.”

Figured. “And he died this morning?”

Laurent nodded with a sad cast to his chapped lips.

“Can you tell me about it?”

The man was far from smiling, but at least he started talking. “When I woke up this morning, Benoît was already out. I took my time getting out of the house.” He waved at the tilted tent behind him. “When I was taking a piss, I saw Benoît’s sleeping bag floating in the canal over there.” He pointed to a spot before the bridge. “So I yelled for Benoît to come fish it out, but got no answer. Figured I’d better get it myself so he wouldn’t try to steal mine.”

Louis thought of how his clothes had smelled after a few minutes in the canal and several washes. He shuddered at the thought that these guys would sleep in a bag after it spent hours in the canal and simply dried out.

Laurent took no notice. He was staring into space, lost in the telling of his story. “But when I got the bag out of the water, there was Benoît. He’d been floating inside the thing.” Laurent looked up at Louis with the scared eyes of a five-year-old finding monsters under his bed. “His eyes were wide open.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Louis said as he squatted down in front of Laurent. “Did you call the police?”

Laurent nodded. “A lady walking her dog did it for me. I don’t have a phone.” Resentment was clear in his eyes as he looked in the direction of the police station less than a kilometer down the canal. “They came, dragged him out of the water, and took off with both him and the sleeping bag.” It might be warm now, but an extra sleeping bag probably wouldn’t have hurt come winter. Louis would ask his mother if she had some old blankets he could bring back here, even though it was poor compensation for his losses.

Louis noticed the two dogs lying on the concrete wall next to the water, both with their noses over the murky depths. He turned to Laurent. “Is one of those dogs Benoît’s?”

Laurent sat up straight and yelled, “You’re not taking his dog! He’s mine now. It’s all I have left of him. What are you going to do with him, anyway?”

Afraid he might be in for another swim in the canal, Louis stood up and backed away in the direction opposite the dogs. “I’m not going to take the dog, Laurent. I don’t want or need a dog. I was wondering if I could perhaps take its picture? I think Benoît might have been the man I’ve been looking for, and a friend of mine could confirm it if I show her a picture of the dog. Actually,” he added when he saw Laurent calming down, “I could really use a picture of Benoît himself. I don’t suppose you have one?”

“Of course,” Laurent deadpanned. “Just a second and I’ll go inside to get our family album.”

“No pictures, huh?” That would have been too easy.

“Nope.” Laurent pointed at the two dogs. “All we have to remember each other by are the dogs. It’s not like we get marked graves or anything.”

There would be no wake and funeral for Benoît. He wouldn’t have any money of his own, and Louis assumed he had no contact with his family. His body would end up in a pauper’s grave. Louis suddenly felt grateful for their roomy family plot.

“Can I please take a picture of your dogs?” Louis pleaded with Laurent. “It would allow me to know if I can abort my search for the witness. Though I warn you, if it was Benoît, the police might come back to ask some questions.” Way to make sure the man would cooperate.

“Right,” Laurent huffed. “Like they looked into the drowning.”

“That’s the official cause of death?” Louis asked. He stepped closer to the dogs to take their picture.

Laurent nodded.

“But you don’t believe that? Couldn’t he have drank a little too much last night and just fallen in?”

A sardonic brow raised, Laurent replied, “With his head at the bottom of his sleeping bag? I’ve seen him drunk. He always managed to get into the bag feet-first. And with or without it, he never fell in the canal.”

The hairs on Louis’s neck stood up again. “He was head-first in the sleeping bag?”

“Like I told you before, I dragged up the bag by grabbing the closed end and there was his head. His feet were under water somewhere.”

Twenty-One

Catherine finished spreading her cheese-filled tortellini over fresh spinach just as someone knocked on her door. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and who dropped by unannounced just before lunch, anyway? Keeping silent not to give herself away and signaling to her dog Fluffy not to start barking, she set her small casserole on the stove and turned the knob. She poured some milk into it followed by the pieces of blue cheese she cut up earlier.

The knock sounded again, this time accompanied by Louis’s voice yelling, “Catherine! Are you home?”

Growling, Catherine went to open the door.

Louis stood facing away from her in a white t-shirt, black and white checkered scarf, and close-fitting jeans. Luckily, he wasn’t the type to attach his trousers
under
the waistline, but Catherine’s eyes were still drawn to the way the fashionably worn light-blue fabric hugged his firm buttocks and muscular thighs. The left-hand back pocket had a rectangular white outline where he kept his wallet. The other one sported a frayed patch, done on purpose by the manufacturer to give a relaxed and timeworn look. The bottom of both legs was worn away on the heel as the result of a man’s incapacity to pick up a thread and needle when he bought jeans ten centimeters too long.

Louis turned around. “Hello, Catherine,” he said as they did
la bise
. “I was in the neighborhood and have some news, so I thought I’d stop by.” He squinted into the darkness behind her. “Can I come in?”

Catherine hesitated. The tiny apartment she lived in until the house was sold was nothing to be proud of. It was small and dark, had no personality, and only had one window. Besides, she was
cooking
.

Louis looked her up and down. “Is there a problem?”

He must be there because he’d found something relating to their lead on the SDF. She couldn’t turn him away because she didn’t want him to see where she lived. She should have thought of that two nights ago when she allowed him to walk her home. “Of course not. Come on in.” She opened the door to let him step inside. “You can leave your shoes on.”