Mayhem in Margaux Page 10

  But despite the old and new money and the celebrity of many who spent their summers on the peninsula, Cap Ferret was still a place where families could vacation and where bicycles were often the preferred mode of transportation. Mothers didn’t have to worry about their hair and makeup, and the food grilled at backyard barbecues was frequently better than the daily specials at the best restaurants.

  There were only a dozen copies of the Cooker Guide left on the table when Benjamin said good-bye and left the Alice bookstore. The event had been a clear success, and he promised to return for at least one more signing before the end of the season.

  When the winemaker arrived at La Planquette, Virgile was back from his expedition. He was in the living room with Margaux, who was giving him a lesson on painters who had been seduced by the Arcachon light. The walls of the room were filled with reproductions and prints depicting various perspectives of the bay. Virgile seemed taken with a watercolor by Jean-Paul Alaux that evoked the Côte de Piraillan in delicate strokes reflecting a Japanese influence. He lingered before a sunset by Adrien Dauzats, an etching by Léo Drouyn, an oil painting of the forest in La Teste by Louis Augustin Auguin, and a shipwreck by Amédée Baudit. A beautiful interior scene by Édouard Manet seemed to captivate him the most. A figure in dark attire was leaning on a pedestal table, giving an impression of idleness in the delicate light streaming through an open window.

  “Papa, did you know that Virgile had such a sharp eye?” Margaux said, kissing her father hello.

  “No, but I’m not surprised. To be a wine taster, you must have heightened senses.”

  “Thank you for the compliment,” Virgile said, looking embarrassed.

  “You seem surprised, Virgile. Is it that unusual to get a compliment from my father?”

  Benjamin wasn’t about to let Virgile answer the question. Besides, he wanted to hear how his assistant’s trip had gone.

  “So tell me, Virgile, what did your little subterfuge turn up?”

  “Hit a brick wall, sir. I spent the afternoon with Stéphane Sarrazin and Gilles Moncaillou, and I doubt that either of them has a future in auto repair. Quite honestly, if they were as talented as Barbaroux thinks, they would have found the problem in ten minutes. We’ll have to look elsewhere.”

  “At any rate, it wasn’t a waste of time. Two fewer suspects on the list. By the way, your friends Stofa and Salem still haven’t come back from the port. It’s starting to get dark, and I have the feeling the motor is really done for.”

  “I know Stofa, and I’d be surprised if he couldn’t fix it.”

  At that very moment, Ludovic came running into the room, pulling his polo shirt over his head like a victorious soccer player, a big grin on his face.

  “There, what did I tell you?” Virgile said, beaming at Benjamin.

  “Yes, yes, yes! The boat is going full blast! Yes, Virgile, your Bordeaux friends are fantastic!”

  Stofa and Salem followed him in, their tool boxes under their arms. Benjamin, Virgile, Ludovic, and Margaux gave the pair a hero’s welcome. Then Benjamin showed them to the bathroom, where they could clean up, and invited them to join everyone else on the terrace.

  “Gentlemen, I don’t know if it’s cocktail hour yet, but you’ve certainly earned a drink,” Benjamin said as soon as Stofa and Salem appeared on the terrace. “I’m sorry we don’t have a drop of Ricard in the house. But we have a lot of wine. Let me check on our chilled white and rosé.”

  “Uh-oh. I completely forgot to put them in the fridge this morning,” Ludovic said. “I was so preoccupied with getting the boat motor fixed.”

  “In that case, we’ll make do with red. I hope you gentlemen don’t mind.”

  “Red it is,” Stofa said, plunging his hand into a ramequin filled with peanuts.

  “What would you say to a Gayraud-Valrose? Our dear Virgile brought us some today.”

  “What’s that you said?” Stofa asked. “A Gayraud-Valrose?”

  “Yes, a Gayraud-Valrose. Would you prefer something else?”

  “Oh, no! I don’t know much about wine, but that one’s a standout. An old friend of mine has been working at that estate for years.”

  “Oh, really?” Benjamin said, stopping short. “And do you still see this friend?”

  “I haven’t seen him for a while, but we worked together more than twenty years ago. An amazing mechanic, believe me.”

  19

  Behind the wheel of his Mercedes, Benjamin followed the police cruisers up the drive to the château. Ordinarily, Inspector Barbaroux would have balked at letting the winemaker accompany him on an arrest. But Benjamin insisted—almost politely. After all, his daughter had nearly been killed, and he had helped out on this investigation. Barbaroux had even admitted that his hint about giving the château a more careful reading broke the case: they found out who was next on Rinetti’s firing spree. Still, Benjamin had to add to his arguments a promise to share a few bottles from his own cellar with the inspector.

  “Okay, okay. I suppose it’s only right that you witness the arrest,” Barbaroux had finally conceded over the phone. “It’s personal, right? Just remember, Mr. Cooker, keep your distance, and no funny business!”

  “You have my word, Inspector,” Benjamin answered.

  He parked the convertible by the rosebushes and watched as Barbaroux led Stéphane Sarrazin out of the wine cellar in handcuffs. Sarrazin looked up just before the inspector pushed him into the backseat of the cruiser. Meeting Benjamin’s eyes, he smirked. For a few seconds, Benjamin was glad he wasn’t alone with the man. He didn’t want to think of what he was capable of doing.

  “I figure he’ll get at least fifteen years behind bars,” Barbaroux had said during their phone conversation. “And he might just spend the rest of his life there.”

  “I have no problem with that, Inspector.”

  Benjamin had been suspicious of the cellar master from the start. There was something disturbing, or rather disturbed, in Sarrazin’s eyes. Too much cynicism and egotism. The cellar master was smart, but he had made a fatal mistake when he gave Virgile the case of wine.

  “He never imagined his own bottles would betray him,” Benjamin told the inspector. “When Stofa recognized the label, that was it. Dumb luck, but case closed.”

  Stofa and Sarrazin had worked together twenty-three years earlier in a garage on the Allées de Brienne. Sarrazin was talented, and everyone was surprised when he quit. Most of all Stofa. As it turned out, Sarrazin had been taking night classes to become an oenologist.

  “He wasn’t about to spend the rest of his life with grease under his nails,” Barbaroux said. “He studied, worked hard, and took a bottom-rung job in a vineyard. After a few years with his nose to the grindstone, he landed the job of cellar master. You gotta give the guy credit for that.”

  “Too bad for him, he was about to lose his job too. That was the straw. The firings, the way the Moroccans were treated, Georges Moncaillou’s suicide, and he was going to get shoved out the door like everyone else. He couldn’t take it.”

  “Yes, it was as simple as that,” Benjamin said. “And when he finally made the decision to get rid of Rinetti, his skills as a mechanic came in handy.”

  “For a while there he fooled your assistant,” Barbaroux said. “Sarrazin didn’t seem to have any mechanical know-how when they tried to repair the Peugeot.”

  “Indeed. He was a shrewd man. At our first meeting, he convinced us that he was one of the lucky few who hadn’t been fired, and then when Virgile showed up, he wouldn’t have dreamed of fixing the car. He didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize his cover. The French writer Paul Léautaud wrote something fitting on this very subject: ‘It seems to me that being intelligent is, above all, being mistrustful, even of oneself.’”

  “Is that so, Mr. Cooker? In my line of work you’re always suspicious. But I make one exception: I trust my gut. Instincts, Mr. Cooker.”

  Benjamin watched as the cruiser with Sarrazin in the back pu
lled away, followed by another cruiser. Barbaroux walked over to him.

  “Thank you for keeping your word. By the way, we got to the bottom of that note. It wasn’t Sarrazin. It was Moncaillou’s son. Like everyone else, he didn’t like what was going on at the château, and he wanted to alert someone who might have some clout. It ended up being you. He had seen you on the property, and he knew who you were.”

  “Ah, so the last piece of the puzzle falls into place.”

  “Yes, so now I’ve got to get back to the station.” Barbaroux pulled a wadded handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. “Hope this heat wave breaks soon.” He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket and extended his hand to the winemaker. “See you around, Mr. Cooker.” He walked back to his unmarked car and drove off.

  Left alone, Virgile gave the château a long look. It was perfectly quiet. No one seemed to be there. And he decided to do what he hadn’t been allowed to do before. He walked toward the building and pushed open the heavy door leading to the Gayraud-Valrose wine cellar. Inside he found a scene that looked like many others. Dim lights. Crates of bottles lined up along the walls. Barrels stacked almost to the ceiling.

  “An ordinary wine cellar,” he said to himself. “Very ordinary.”

  But he thought again. Could any wine cellar be ordinary? After all, this was the place where celestials hovered above, biding their time. This was the place where miracles sometimes happened, and transformation was an everyday occurrence.

  The winemaker looked up, where the angels were waiting to take their share.

  “Please give your compatriots—the ones who were watching over my daughter that night—a message for me. Tell them I’m forever in their debt.”

  20

  Margaux rose from her armchair, refusing her father’s help. Leaning on her crutches, she stared into his eyes.

  “Take me there!”

  They settled into the convertible and took the road all the way to the tip of the Médoc. Margaux quickly glanced at the side-view mirror, where the reassuring image of Grangebelle was disappearing. Benjamin was silent. She would leave for New York in a few days, and he probably wouldn’t see her again until the following summer, unless she decided to come for Christmas or there was an unexpected business trip. The telephone would be the only way they would talk. Once a week, according to the ritual from which they never deviated but which was becoming increasingly difficult to bear. The distance was beginning to weigh on him. Even if he acquiesced to her wishes and started using Skype, it wasn’t enough.

  They climbed aboard the ferry at Verdon-sur-Mer and followed the silty waters of the Gironde, finally reaching the stormy waves of the ocean. The heat wave had finally broken. Margaux held out her face to the sea spray, eyes closed. Benjamin knew she was waiting for the fleeting and intense moment when she would open her eyes again and see it: the silhouette emerging from the waves, colossal and stately. The Cordouan lighthouse, a surreal stone apparition, was always her reward, the promise always kept. Not a year would go by that Benjamin did not make this pilgrimage with his daughter. They would not miss this outing, which was theirs alone, for anything in the world.

  The ferry left them on the sandbar, which, at low tide, allowed one to walk the rest of the way to this Versailles of the seas, a column of light erected to the glory of a king and all the sea gods. Some considered this the most beautiful lighthouse in the world.

  Benjamin was desperate to help Margaux as she slowly navigated the ground with her crutches, but she waved him off with a flick of her hand. Cordouan had to be earned. Finally, at the foot of the circular base, she caught her breath and then climbed the first steps that took them to the elaborate main entrance, flanked by columns and topped with a triangular pediment. Benjamin could see Margaux casting a worried look toward the staircase leading to the other floors. Then, with a determined look, she embarked on the ascent. Benjamin trudged behind, ready to catch her if she fell backward. Margaux made few stops, reserving the pleasure of visiting the staterooms on the way back down. The climb was long, tiresome, slow, and painful for his daughter, but when they reached the top, Benjamin could see the thrill on her face as she gazed at the rumbling ocean, both threatening and mysterious.

  “I’ll never get tired of this, Papa. I hate the thought of leaving the world one day and never seeing this wonder again.”

  “I don’t like it when you talk that way,” Benjamin mumbled. “We must live each moment as if we were eternal.”

  “I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to come here this year. It’s probably what I would have missed the most.”

  “A summer without Cordouan? I can’t even imagine it,” Benjamin said. “And yet it almost didn’t happen. You gave us quite a scare.”

  “But don’t forget I’m a little bit American now. And over there, everything has a happy ending.”

  “Once your leg has healed completely, our little family can have that happy ending. We were supposed to have a quiet, uneventful visit, but we were pushed into a drama that others had written without knowing that we would be key characters. There’s never any telling where God’s will leads us.”

  “That’s an interesting way to look at it, Papa.”

  “I sincerely believe that the author, Mr. Sarrazin, didn’t count on having us in his play, and he was the first to be surprised. Now he has all the time in the world to think about it.”

  Margaux snuggled against her father for warmth.

  “Where do you get this obsession to snoop around and find answers?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know. It’s not so much an obsession. I’m just curious by nature.”

  “Have you always been like that?”

  “I think so, yes. In fact, it’s because of you that I developed this trait.”

  “Because of me? How’s that?”

  “Thanks to you, rather. One day, when you were about five or six, you asked me a question. I couldn’t give you an answer, and I couldn’t bear the look of disappointment on your face.”

  “Do you remember what that question was?”

  “You asked me how pebbles got into your shoes when you had no holes in them.”

  Margaux smiled. “I don’t have any memory of that. I can understand how you’d have a hard time explaining such a thing. And do you have the answer now?”

  “Frankly, I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. A pebble can make its way into a shoe in any number of ways. To get a definitive answer, you have to replicate what happened before the pebble invaded the shoe; the way you put the shoe on, whether the lace was tied correctly, the kind of terrain you were walking on, whether the leather was soft and yawned a bit, whether the shoe was the right size, whether you were just walking, or running and walking, or jumping and walking… There’s a whole range of factors.”

  They made their way back down with heavy steps. It wrenched Benjamin’s heart each time they left the lighthouse and the majestic panorama of the rolling sea. It meant that his daughter’s visit would soon end. They stopped at the chapel whose twin windows let a golden light filter in. Columns crowned with Corinthian capitals reached up to the entablature. They bowed before Notre-Dame de Cordouan, and Margaux lit a candle. Benjamin watched as she gazed at the lavish bays and the royal coats of arms framed by clusters of grapes.

  “Do you know if people get married in the lighthouse chapel?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve only heard of two or three celebrations, but just for the lighthouse keepers.”

  “Too bad,” said Margaux, a wistful look on her face.

  Benjamin felt his muscles stiffen. Please, he prayed, don’t let it happen until she’s found the one who deserves her.

  “Why? Do you have plans along those lines?”

  “Who knows? I will have to think about it someday.”

  “You still have lots of time.”

  “I don’t think I’ll get married in the United States. I know I’ve talked about staying there, but I’d rather make my l
ife with someone who shares my culture, my beliefs, and my way of life.”

  “Someone from Bordeaux?”

  “Why not?”

  “Or perhaps someone from Bergerac?” Benjamin teased without expecting a response. “Friendship between a man and a woman ‘is either virgin love or new love.’ I’ve always liked that quote.”

  “Would you stop with your quotations? It’s annoying. Who said that anyway? I don’t know how you remember all those things or how you manage to conjure them up at any given time or place.”

  “You should go back and read Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly instead of that gloomy crime fiction of yours.”

  “I’ll read what I want, when I want, and where I want.”

  Benjamin smiled thinking how true to her namesake she was, and like a wine, he must allow her to be herself. They continued walking down the stairs, making sure his daughter had each step. At the foot of the lighthouse, he wrapped his raincoat around Margaux to protect her against the west wind. He held onto her as they walked the length of the sandbar to the ferry that would take them back to land.

  “That was brave of you to climb to the top and back down on your crutches. I confess that I wondered if you would make it, but I should have known better. Once you’ve made your mind up, there’s no changing it.”

  “That’s true. I counted the steps, if only so I could tell the story after I’ve ditched these crutches. There are exactly three hundred and one of them.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Benjamin said.

  “Three hundred and one, I’m telling you. You can go check if that makes you happy.”