Requiem in Yquem Read online

  Elisabeth laughed. “Don’t worry, Virgile. There are many things in this world that offend me. But never a baby’s bottom.”

  “Actually, it was an apt description,” Benjamin said as he refilled Virgile’s glass. “And the kind I’d expect from you.”

  Virgile ignored his boss’s sarcasm. Benjamin took another sip of his wine and changed the subject, bringing up the sordid news story he had read that morning.

  “Really, Virgile, you haven’t heard about it?” Elisabeth asked. “That double homicide has been all over the television too.”

  “No, Mrs. Cooker. I haven’t had a chance to follow the news today. When I got up this morning, I went straight to a vineyard in Saint-de-Ciers-de-Canesse to gather samples. That’s what I was doing when Mr. Cooker called, and I came here right away.”

  He polished off his meat silently as Benjamin filled him in. The whole countryside was in turmoil. The homicides had taken place in Bommes, just meters away from the École de La Tour Blanche, where he had studied viticulture.

  “What did you say their names are?” Virgile asked. “Lacombe? René and Éléonore Lacombe?”

  Benjamin got up from the table and went to look for the Sud-Ouest. He came back and handed Virgile the paper. The expression on his face asked the question, “So, do you know these people or not?”

  Virgile took a moment to read the entire article. “Inspector Barbaroux is the lead investigator. Have you seen him lately?”

  “No, although he does call me on occasion to discuss a wine purchase he’s considering.”

  Before Virgile could finish the article, a dozen cannelés, a Bordeaux specialty, materialized on a silver platter. Virgile took his eyes off the paper to marvel at the little fluted cakes with soft custard centers and dark caramelized crusts.

  “Oh, Mrs. Cooker! You know that cannelés are a weakness of mine.”

  “I’m sure they’re not your only weakness, but taste one before you flatter me,” she joked.

  Cannelés reminded Virgile of his vacations with his parents in Le Moulleau, a popular seaside resort. Those vacations were among the few times in his life that his parents didn’t bicker, but with no friends to hang out with, he was bored to death. His only break during the dreary afternoons was the occasional trip with his mother to the bakery on the street leading to the parish church. He had forgotten the name of the bakery, but he remembered the cannelés. They were, without a doubt, the best in the world. That was until he tasted Mrs. Cooker’s.

  “And what should we drink with these delectables?” Benjamin asked no one in particular. Virgile knew it was a test. He casually returned to the newspaper and answered without looking up. “I think they call for a Sauternes.”

  Benjamin wiped his mouth with his thick napkin. He carefully folded it and laid it down on his right. It was an obsessive ritual Virgile knew well.

  “Sauternes. Right you are, Virgile.”

  Benjamin stood up and left the room. He returned with a dusty amber-colored relic. He was carrying the bottle with devotion, as if it were holy chrism.

  Virgile recognized the label’s elaborate script lettering, though he couldn’t read the vintage. But there was no doubt—it was Yquem!

  “This is too great an honor, boss! What grand event are we celebrating?”

  “No special occasion,” Benjamin said tersely. “Just the pleasure of each other’s company.” His face had brightened, and the fine lines at the corners of his mouth gave him a mischievous air.

  Virgile took a closer look at the bottle and read the line under Château Yquem: “Lur-Saluces,” the name of the family that presided over the château from 1785 until 2004. Below the name was the date.

  “Yes, but it’s a… 1947!”

  A magical vintage for Bordeaux wines—Saint-Émilion, Pomerol, Braves, Médoc. And for the sweet white wines of the southwest, this was the wedding at Cana! Here was his boss, with feigned innocence, bringing him face-to-face with a masterpiece. What occasion could be significant enough to warrant such a sacrifice?

  Virgile thanked the Cookers with joyous hugs. “I’m speechless!” he stammered.

  Seeing his emotion, Elisabeth came to his rescue, because Benjamin himself seemed overwhelmed by Virgile’s gratitude. “All wine is made to be drunk, Virgile,” she said.

  The winemaker walked over to the buffet and returned with three tapered Sauternes glasses. “Well, son, if you must have a special occasion—other than a fine lunch together—let’s raise a glass to Marc Sautet, the philosopher and Nietzche translator, born the same year this wine was produced. He was the founder of the Café Philosophique, places where people could come together and discuss philosophical questions. ‘I am there to nourish their doubts and pose the right questions, not to supply the answers,’ he said.” The winemaker winked at Virgile. “Does that remind you of anyone you happen to know?”

  Virgile grinned. “That could be you, boss. But you’ve got plenty of answers too.”

  Benjamin nodded. “I’ll let that pass. So let’s also raise a glass to the providential Marshall Plan, born in 1947, and note that Al Capone, Tristan Bernard, and Pierre Bonnard died that year.”

  Elisabeth sighed. “Benjamin, for heaven’s sake, quit showing off and open the bottle!”

  But Benjamin took his time. This wine deserved to be approached with reverence. With supreme ceremony, he filled Elisabeth’s glass and then Virgile’s and his own.

  A monastic silence prevailed over the preliminaries of the tasting. They noted the amber color and the golden reflections that lit up their glasses. And then came the moment to bring the Yquem to the nose. Virgile detected hints of green walnut jam and smoked ham, and Elisabeth commented on the scents of dried orange peel and candied fruit.

  “Note the multidimensional fragrances. That’s an aristocratic noble rot,” Benjamin said.

  Another silence followed, a long one this time, and then they dipped their lips into the nectar.

  No one said a word.

  Finally, Elisabeth spoke. “God, that’s good!”

  She passed the plate of cannelés to Virgile, who, after a few moments of reverie, remembered another tasting.

  “I’ve experienced something similar, boss. It was a 1949 Château de Rayne Vigneau. Have you tasted it?”

  “Not recently,” Benjamin answered.

  “It’s an estate I highly recommend,” Virgile said. “It dates from the seventeenth century, and its Sauternes has been ranked second only to Yquem. I have a bottle at home. We’ll drink it together.”

  “Hold onto your treasure, Virgile. It’s true I have preconceived notions about Sauternes, but I know you’re an expert when it comes to that appellation. I still have your excellent paper on the future of liqueur wines. I think I’ll take another look at it—after I get the final version of the Cooker Guide back to Claude.”

  “I’m surprised you still have it, boss. I gave it to you when I applied for my job.”

  Elisabeth laughed. “You know Benjamin. He hangs onto everything.”

  The winemaker grunted and changed the subject. “Tell me, Virgile, isn’t your Château de Rayne Vigneau in the commune of Bommes?”

  “Absolutely, boss. The castle lies in the middle of some eighty-five hetares of vines—planted on Garonne gravels—”

  “Yes, of course,” Benjamin interrupted, running his fingers over the bottle that was giving him so much pleasure. “Could the estate be near the Lacombes’ home?”

  “Maybe…”

  “Surely,” Benjamin said seriously.

  “If you’d like, I can find out. I know just the person to call.”

  “Yes, go ahead, and we’ll plan a little tour of Bommes. The death of those two people intrigues me. We’ll take advantage of the visit to assess the harvest and bring back a few bottles of your Château de Rayne Vigneau.”

  “What a great idea! I’ll make that call.”

  “In due time, Virgile. Not before we clear the table. Elisabeth prepared that wonder
ful lunch for us. Cleaning up is the least we can do.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” Elisabeth said, giving her husband a peck on the cheek. “I’ll just pour us some coffee in the sitting room.”

  With Elisabeth gone, Benjamin gave Virgile a sly smile and picked up another cannelé. “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” he whispered.

  7

  One phone call was all it took to rekindle Virgile’s friendship with Jeremy Dubord. They were both eager to get together and catch up. They had been classmates at La Tour Blanche, where they studied for their vocational training certificates in enology with the earnestness of the early apostles. Virgile was a boarder and returned to Montravel on weekends. Jeremy was a day student, as his parents owned ten hectares on which they grew a Sauternes premier cru classé. Jeremy dreamed of running the family vineyard, while Virgile aspired to making his own wine apart from the family property. Their friendship developed over enthusiastic discussions under starry skies, an idyllic desire to taste every wine with a promising color, and a shared joy in physical exertion. They often canoed together on the smooth waters of the Ciron River.

  Both Jeremy and Virgile were children of the fields. They had strong bodies, sharp minds, and heads planted firmly on their broad shoulders. With youthful skepticism, they distrusted theories inculcated by overly zealous professors. But La Tour Blanche had a good reputation, and their parents had gone without to pay for their studies. The two classmates knew they had to stifle their dreams of reforming viticulture, but they yearned for the day when they would be masters of their own destinies.

  Virgile assumed that he and Jeremy would always be friends. But, in fact, they had seen each other only occasionally after their time at school. Virgile took some responsibility for this, as his life as assistant to the head of Cooker & Co. kept him quite busy. But he also knew that Jeremy had been dealt some blows and wanted a measure of face-saving distance from his old school friend.

  Jeremy, however, sounded nothing but enthusiastic when he answered Virgile’s telephone call. Jeremy, the child of Sauternes, had ended up in an entirely different region nearly two hundred kilometers to the east, on the banks of the Lot River, at an up-and-coming Cahors vineyard making a very different kind of wine—deep, dark reds with meaty, herb-tinged aromas, a concentrated palate, and succulent tannins.

  “I’m in the Lot Valley for the day, and I couldn’t pass through without trying to see you,” Virgile had told Jeremy. This wasn’t exactly true. Virgile was on a mission. And, of course, he was nowhere near Cahors. He used the long drive as an excuse to leave the dishes to Benjamin, explaining that there was no reason to put off contacting his old friend, who could well have inside information about the murdered couple. Virgile knew his boss would give him the afternoon off and pay the tolls.

  He and Jeremy agreed to meet at the end of the day at a café on the Boulevard Gambetta in Cahors.

  Virgile reminisced about their time at school as he headed east along the A62 highway. He recalled many ping-pong matches in the dorm after afternoon rugby practice. Would his friend still have the tousled hair and hint of a beard?

  As traffic slowed near Agen, Virgile recalled the last time he had seen Jeremy—at his wedding. He had married the daughter of a wealthy wine grower in the Lot Valley. Like Jeremy, Pauline was an only child. She had big expectations for the family winery but little interest in the daily operations of the estate, so her father was pleased when she brought Jeremy home. He had the makings of an ideal son-in-law. He had studied wine. He could put in a good day’s work, and, just as important, he was from Bordeaux. Of course, Jeremy didn’t have a penny to his name, but he had knowledge, which was more valuable than money. For that, there was an ample supply at the Crédit Agricole bank.

  For her part, Pauline had studied business in Paris. Virgile hadn’t caught the name of the school, and he sensed that her capabilities didn’t quite match her ambitions. Actually, Virgile feared that his friend’s marriage was based more on convenience than on love. Pauline had snared a strapping young man who wanted to move far from his home. And Jeremy could finally have the vineyard that his family tragedy had denied him.

  The wedding had validated Virgile’s passionate belief that—for him, at least—there was only one reason to marry: true love. He wouldn’t settle for anything less. But since then, he had begun to question his vow. He wondered if he was being too idealistic. He had engaged in one fling after another, all the while pining for Margaux. But he had no reason to believe she would return to France, and if she did, would she ever agree to marry him? Was it possible to fall in love with someone else?

  Jeremy and Pauline had welcomed a child, Valentin. Virgile wanted children, and he sensed that he might lose his own opportunity.

  So what had happened to Jeremy, the industrious La Tour Blanche student who had dreamed of shaping his own vineyard, uprooting, replanting, and endlessly cultivating new vintages? That Jeremy was dead and had no resemblance to the one who walked into the café with just the trace of a smile on his lips. He still had the same huge green eyes and dimples, but his nails were bitten to the quick, and he had no hug for his friend. Just a solid handshake, and a brief one at that.

  8

  “It’s a shame, what happened to them,” Mrs. Soules said, pouring the inspector a cup of coffee as he sat at her kitchen table. “After their Pierre died, they were never the same. Éléonore was always doing something religious, but René, he just spent all his time in the garden, puttering.”

  “Tell me about Pierre’s death.”

  “He didn’t die alone, Inspector. He was with his wife, Françoise. He met her in Cherbourg, when he was doing his military service. It was love at first sight, according to Éléonore. She didn’t say as much, but I suspect she had her doubts about the girl. She thought they were rushing into marriage. But Pierre claimed to love her, and Éléonore cared about her boy too much to stand in his way.”

  Barbaroux shifted his weight on the worn wooden chair. He took one last gulp of his coffee, holding his breath to stave off the bitter burned-tire flavor of the cheap robusta beans.

  “Pierre and Françoise got married and settled in a little home in Barsac,” Mrs. Soules continued. “Pierre found work in a masonry company in Langon. Françoise was hired by Lillet—you know, the aperitif manufacturer in Podensac. Before you know it, Françoise was pregnant. You wouldn’t believe how happy that made Éléonore. She knitted and sewed enough for the baby—Cecile was her name—to keep her dressed for years. And she was such a pretty little thing, with bright brown eyes and rosy cheeks.”

  Inspector Barbaroux was wondering where all this was going, but he let Mrs. Soules continue. Any piece of information could further the investigation.

  “Well, Pierre was always good with his hands. And he was ambitious. He started his own construction business. It was a longtime dream, but a bad move. He worked like the devil and built a charming pavilion on the outskirts of Barsac, near the National 113 highway. But the winds shifted, and the jobs stopped coming in. He fell behind on his loans, and the business went belly-up. Françoise had quit her job at Lillet to work with her husband, so they found themselves with no business, and shortly after that, no home.”

  Barbaroux stifled a grimace as he watched Mrs. Soules refill his cup.

  “They were forced to move in with René and Éléonore. They took Pierre’s childhood room and repurposed the storage room for Cecile. There was just enough space for her bed and a toy chest.”

  Barbaroux hoped she would get to the point soon.

  “I think things took a turn for the worse for Françoise when she got pregnant again. Not that Éléonore would have said anything about her daughter-in-law being depressed. And I’m sure she didn’t feel the same way. Éléonore would have found room in her home for a dozen grandchildren. But I knew something was wrong with that girl. I’d see her walking around outside, looking downcast.”

  Barbaroux couldn’t contain his impatience any
longer. “Thank you, Mrs. Soules, but could you tell me how Pierre and Françoise died?”

  “I’m sorry, Inspector, but I thought you’d want to know what led up to it. At any rate, it was a beautiful day in August—you know, one of those days when the sky’s all blue and not a cloud in sight. Pierre asked his father if he could borrow his old Panhard and drive Françoise to the ocean. He wanted to take her mind off things, and he figured seeing the ocean would do her some good.”

  “Did René have a thing for vintage cars?”

  “I wouldn’t know, but he did take care of that old car. That day, he lent it to his son, and Éléonore agreed to take care of Cecile. Éléonore told me later that she watched until the car disappeared. She just had a feeling, you know? But she and René went about their Sunday routine. René puttered outside, and Éléonore made a pork sausage cassoulet and played with Cecile.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Éléonore began to fret when night fell and Pierre and Françoise weren’t home. But she didn’t say anything. She tucked Cecile into bed and kissed her goodnight. Then she joined René in their room. She could see that he was worried too. The knock on the door confirmed their fears. The local gendarmerie had just received word from Mimizan. Pierre and Françoise were gone. They didn’t know about the baïne.”

  Barbaroux shook his head. Baïnes were a hazard all along the Aquitaine coast. The tranquil pools appeared to be protected by sandbars from the big ocean waves. They would fill at high tide. But when the tide went out, the water in the pools was higher than the ocean waters. The sand bars would break down, and the water would rush out, causing a strong undercurrent. Every year, swimmers drowned in the rip current.

  “What a shame,” Barbaroux said. “I can understand that the Lacombes were heartbroken. But tell me about the girl, Cecile.”

  “Not much to tell. She’s an actress now. She lives in Paris. I think René and Éléonore were hurt that she didn’t come to the anniversary celebration, but Éléonore made excuses for her. Said she had an important acting job.”