The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery (2 page)

The dress she wore—her favorite—hadn’t been out of the closet since her first day in Toulouse. She’d been dressing in drab, matching clothing like everybody else in this place. Her choice of outfit was fueled by the idea that people would see the outfit and not the woman underneath. But how well would that work if her picture was in the paper tomorrow?

Her stomach growled with appreciation. She might have eaten too much of the buffet, but after going almost twenty-four hours without a real meal, hadn’t been able to resist. It was her reason for being here today—the invitation sent out to all citizens of Toulouse advertised free food.

She felt the man next to her tense when a police officer approached and asked if he could step aside to discuss something.

“Can’t we do this at another time?” His strong jaw was set and thick black eyebrows drew together above deep-set dark eyes. He had what Catherine liked to call a French nose: a little above average in size and slightly hooked. She had always felt a strong nose reflected a strong personality. His hair was short, dark brown, and fashionably ruffled. On top, it was long enough to show the beginnings of a curl or two.

What was his name again? He was less talked about than his sister since he had lived abroad for the last decade. However, he had ended up in the newspapers regularly while he was a student in Toulouse, and the mayor mentioned him from time to time. It was the name of a French king, but which one? Henry? François? No, Louis. Louis Saint-Blancat.

The police officer shook his head with a sad mien. “I’m quite sorry to impose on you now, Monsieur Saint-Blancat. We have not been able to reach you since you arrived in Toulouse yesterday, and we have some important subjects to discuss.” The man was working way too hard at looking understanding and apologetic. He probably learned it in a class. Catherine pitied the people who drew this clown to give them bad news. Which might be what was happening here—though the old mayor was already dead, so how much worse could it get?—if the man ever got to the point.

Louis squared off against the police officer, clearly ignoring the fact that the other man was about a head taller. “I’m here to pay my respects to my father, Monsieur. If you wish, we can talk after the funeral.” He took a step to the right to resume a place in the queue, and Catherine moved to follow.

The police officer placed his hand on Louis’s shoulder, holding him back. “I really am sorry, Monsieur Saint-Blancat.” Annoyance didn’t mix well with humility; he looked like he was constipated and blamed it all on the man in front of him. “We do not wish to be seen by the journalists at your house for fear it would cast suspicion on
your father, Monsieur le Maire.”

Catherine leaned a fraction closer to Louis. They wanted to keep something from the journalists? Well. If they wanted to keep information from her, she was all the more keen to hear it. She let her eyes wander to the open windows and the glorious place du Capitole outside, hoping her feigned indifference was credible.

Neither of the men paid her any heed. Louis shrugged off the hand on his shoulder and said in hard tones, “Suspicion? What exactly are you suspecting him of? He was the victim here, surely? He is the one lying dead in that casket over there, isn’t he?” He pointed toward the covered casket at the center of the room.

Catherine felt a slight tremble in the arm she was still holding on to. All the faces in the room were turned in their direction instead of looking at the casket. The reporters had taken notice as well, and she stepped slightly back to hide behind Louis’s profile.

“Please do not excite yourself, Monsieur Saint-Blancat.” The tall officer grasped Louis’s shoulder again, which didn’t do a thing to calm him down. “Of course your father was the victim. But there were some”—he wobbled his free hand in the air—“let’s say, strange circumstances around the position in which he was found.”

A middle-aged lady across the room pointed at Louis as she whispered something to her husband.

Catherine wished she could take notes. Were the police really hoping to keep this kind of information from the press? She was already composing the article in her head.

The police officer nodded toward her. “Perhaps you would like to let your friend move along?” He gave what was surely meant to be a meaningful look to Louis.

“My friend,” Louis replied in a tone that clearly said he was nearing the end of his tether, “would like to pay her respects to Monsieur le Maire, as would I.” He grabbed hold of her hand on his arm, probably to make sure she didn’t take off in fright.

As if that tall idiot could scare her away from this story.

With an exasperated look at Catherine, the police officer turned back to Louis and whispered, “Your father may have been taking bribes, Monsieur. His body was set up in a scene making it very easy to interpret in this manner. Out of respect for our boss, we would like to keep that fact quiet while we investigate his murder.”

Louis squeezed Catherine’s hand so hard it hurt, but she didn’t say anything or so much as move a muscle to make sure she wouldn’t be sent away. There had always been rumors of the extravagant and charismatic mayor taking bribes, but nothing was ever proven. Everybody liked the man. Catherine suspected no one particularly wanted to look into these accusations. What would Toulouse be like without Pierre Saint-Blancat? They were about to find out.

“What exactly do you want from me?” Louis said through clenched teeth.

“We only want to talk to you about your father,” the police officer said. “To see if you have any information that could help in the investigation. So far, we only have the statement of the highly unreliable witness who discovered the bodies.”

Bodies? Plural? There really was a story here, and the police had managed to keep it from leaking to the press for two whole days.

Louis’s eyebrows shot up toward his hairline. “And you want to do that here? Now?”

“No, of course not here,” the tall man replied with a fake, placating smile. “We only wish to ensure your cooperation.”

Boy, were they going about that the wrong way.

Louis’s lips hardly moved as he spoke. “So I can go pay my respect to my father, your boss, now?”

The clown finally caught on that he was only making matters worse and signaled that yes, they could move along.

Louis mumbled “idiot” under his breath as they moved toward the casket.

Three

To live with a truly magnificent view of Toulouse, one had to be dead. Severe gray tombs vied for space and attention among tall dark cypress and cedar trees in the Terre Cabade Cemetery where Pierre Saint-Blancat was about to be buried. The late morning sun blazed down on the living and the dead alike.

Louis glanced toward the Toulouse city center spread out below him. Except for a short period in the 1960s, buildings had been limited to a maximum of six floors. A few sixteen-floor buildings were scattered throughout the city center, but mostly the city was flat, mirroring the gently rolling hills stretching in all directions. It allowed old buildings like the Jacobins Bell Tower and the Dôme de la Grâve, the old hospital, to show off the city’s rich history. Sunlight reflected off windows and made the red bricks glow, letting the city shine red and golden.

A thin white blanket covered the blue sky, giving some respite from the blasting heat of the last few days, but the heavy and humid air still stifled. Sweat soaked through Louis’s shirt hours ago; it was currently working its way through the suit jacket. His shirt chafed around the neck. He smelled and felt as if he’d played a complete soccer match in his suit. He wouldn’t remove the jacket. He needed to dress properly when his father’s ashes were deposited into the top left spot in the family tomb. There was room for his mother’s urn in the same slot—someday far in the future, hopefully—and the top right-hand one was for the rest of the family. Louis felt uncomfortable standing in front of what would one day be his final resting place.

His mother stood strong at the head of the group of twenty close friends and family. Sunglasses covered dark smudges under her eyes. So far she was holding up well, but Louis saw the façade starting to crack. He had no idea what he was supposed to do if the dam broke. She was the one he could always go to when he had problems and he wasn’t ready for the roles to be reversed yet. He didn’t know how to be strong for this.

Thankfully, the journalists were absent. The Saint-Blancats could pretend to be just another family putting a loved one to rest.

After the priest and cemetery workers slid the urn into its slot, the mourners broke into small groups, some meandering back to their cars, some staying back to chat. Louis’s mother stood alone at the crypt with a hand resting on the stone wall.

Louis’s sister seized the opportunity to pull him a few meters away from the group. Audrey was five years his senior, married with two children, and following the family tradition of dedicating her life to the city of Toulouse and the Republican Party their family had belonged to for several generations.

“I can’t believe Papa opted for cremation,” she said in low tones. “He never even talked to us about it.” She was almost a head shorter than Louis and had the same slim build. Two pregnancies had left some marks, but she was still a very pretty, dark-haired Toulousaine with an accent even more pronounced than Louis’s.

“Why would he?” Louis said. “It’s his funeral.”

“Yes, but he’s not the one who has to visit a heap of ashes. Besides, it’s so final.”

Louis eyed his sister. It wasn’t the place to be witty, but he couldn’t resist. “Yes, death tends to be that.”

Audrey swatted at him. “What if science comes up with a way to bring people back from the dead or something? There isn’t much you can do with a bunch of ashes.”

“There isn’t much you can do with a rotting body.” Louis tried but failed not to think about the dead body or ashes belonging to his father. “You’d want to be brought back from the dead two hundred years from now?”

“No, of course not.” Audrey shook her head and waved a hand like she always did when searching for words. “It feels weird to visit ashes in the cemetery. A body in a coffin would have suited me better. Funerals are for the living, after all. The dead don’t care.”

Yet, apparently, their father had cared while he was alive. Louis was relieved that everything had been taken care of beforehand. He would not have wanted to make the decisions on cremation or burial, flowers, or the wake at the Capitole. At least this way, his father’s wake had been in his image: big and with lots of food for the attendees.

“I’m giving a press conference in two days,” Audrey said. “I want you to come, to show everyone that the Saint-Blancat family is standing together and that we are still working for the Republicans and Toulouse.”

Louis sighed. He’d been back for two days and already they were starting in on him. This was why he had jumped at the occasion to work abroad ten years ago. He got tired of saying no to his family and being put down if he expressed an opinion different from theirs. He didn’t want to fall into that old routine again.

“You’ll have to do the press conference without me,” he replied in a soft voice. “I’m not even sure if I’ll still be in Toulouse in two days.” He glanced at the family tomb. Thin and tall, it had eight slots; four pairs. A few meters behind it, at the entrance to a path leading to smaller graves farther back, sat a decapitated angel with clipped wings. Instead of a head, it had three rusting steel rods sticking out of its neck as if the blood pulsing out of the body had frozen in place. It was about time the municipality finalized the cemetery maintenance budget before it all went to waste.

Audrey poked him in the shoulder. “You can’t leave after only two days. Maman will kill you.” She looked to where her husband sat on the steps of a neighboring tomb with their children on his lap. “And so will I. You hardly know your niece and nephew. You’re not leaving until you’ve spent some time with them.”

Chloé would soon turn five. Benjamin was two and that was about the extent of Louis’s knowledge of the boy. They all talked on Skype from time to time, but little Ben was too shy to talk to his uncle on the computer. Louis had been home during vacations, but spent most of his time catching up with friends. His sister would apparently not let him do that this time around.

“Besides,” Audrey added in a whisper, “you have to wait until they find out who killed him.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I can’t believe it possible that the mayor of Toulouse was killed on place du Capitole—the very navel of the Toulouse city center—and nobody saw anything. I don’t think the police have a clue about who did it.”

“Wasn’t there a witness?” Louis’s throat constricted in frustration when he thought about that annoying police officer from the wake.

Audrey let out an ironic laugh. “The body was found by a prostitute on her way back to work by the Canal du Midi. She was clearly dead drunk or just plain crazy, seeing the story she told the police.”

“And what was that story?” Louis had wondered since talking to the policeman, but there hadn’t been an opportunity to ask anyone yet. Not someone who wouldn’t start a landslide of rumors, anyway.

Audrey turned so her back was to their mother and the group of mourners talking among themselves. She stood face-to-face with Louis. “You know they found his body with the skeleton of a woman, right?”

Louis hadn’t known that, but nodded affirmatively anyway. That would be the plural bodies that the annoying officer mentioned.

“Well,” his sister continued with some color rising high on her cheeks, “the prostitute claims that when she found the bodies, they were just that. Two bodies. Not one body and a skeleton. She was apparently a beautiful woman with a horrible expression on her face, but when the prostitute touched her to check if she was alive, everything but the bones turned to dust.”

Louis studied his sister’s face. She had never been big on making jokes and this would be a strange time and place to start, but the story really was very…out there. No wonder the police said the witness was unreliable. “So they have nothing?”