Night Watch

THREE

Half an hour later we were standing at the edge of Fontmerle Pond, twelve acres of water that bordered the enormous forest, almost completely obscured by the green pods of lotus flowers that would bloom later in the summer.

Claude Chenier had passed us off to his boss, Captain Belgarde, who greeted Luc with a handshake as he tossed his cigarette into the murky water.

“Alex, this is Jean-Jacques Belgarde. Jacques, I’d like you to meet Alex Cooper.”

Luc was going through the motions, but his attention was focused on a yellow blanket spread on the ground on the far side of the pond. “He’s married to an American and lived in Baltimore for fifteen years, so his English is better than yours. What’s happened here, Jacques? Who is she?”

Two men were navigating a pontoon back to our position. The morning stillness was ruptured by shrieking birdcalls-dozens of different sounds and cadences-probably occasioned by our unexpected presence in this natural sanctuary.

“Not my forte, Luc. I haven’t seen a body since I left military service.”

“And the slow-motion ferry?”

“Nothing works in the pond but a flat-bottom boat. These pods put down roots that tangle oars or anything else that tries to move through. The boat’ll reach us in a few minutes.”

“That old guy steering the platform looks familiar.”

Belgarde called out to Claude and asked who was poling the pontoon, carrying the other officer back to this side.

“Sorry, I don’t know his name. He’s how you say? The veilleur de nuit. He’s the one who found the lady.”

“The night watchman,” Luc said. “Of course I know him. Emil. He used to be the caretaker for Pablo Picasso’s home, just across from the pond. When I was a teenager, I used to make runs on my motorcycle with food my father sent to Picasso when he didn’t feel like coming to town for dinner.”

The great artist had spent the last twelve years of his life in Mougins and was one of Andre Rouget’s regular customers.

“Pretty swell takeout,” Jacques said. “There you go. Three years in town and I’ve never met this Emil, didn’t even know his name. I’ve heard about him though-that he’s a real loner. Works the midnight shift for the park service just so he doesn’t have to deal with people.”

“How would anyone see a body in this pond, especially before daylight?” I asked. Some of the leaves were three feet in diameter, overlapping one another and appearing so thick that it looked as if I could walk across on them to the other side.

“That brings us back to you, Luc,” the captain said. “The deceased is dressed entirely in white. It’s the clothes that stood out so obviously against the dark water and leaves, even in the dead of night. Sweater, lace camisole, long cotton skirt-and it’s not even summer yet. My officers tell me you hosted a party last evening. A dinner in white.”

“Guilty, Jacques, but all my guests were accounted for,” Luc said, shading his eyes with his hand. “Why didn’t they load the body on the boat and bring her to the dock?”

We were watching the pontoon’s slow progress through the lotus leaves.

“I’ve been instructed not to move the woman. We’ll go across to her.”

“Fine. Perhaps Alex should wait here.”

“I’m more useful with the dead than you are, Luc. Does this mean, Captain, that there’s a medecin legiste on the way?”

“A medical examiner? I wouldn’t know where to find the closest one. I’ve never had the need. But there’s a local coroner. We’re trying to get our hands on him now.”

“Surely you’re not going to leave this woman outside for hours, exposed to the elements?” It wasn’t just the insects and eels above and below the water, but foxes and wild boar that gave the forest its unique character.

“We’ll move her as soon as we’re ready.” Belgarde spoke sharply to me. “Tell me about the event, Luc. Your idea, this Diner en Blanc?”

“No, not mine. It’s been going on in Paris for a quarter of a century, and more recently in New York, Montreal. Who knows where else? I thought I’d bring the concept to Mougins. A touch of civility before tourist season overwhelms us.”

“You and I have shirts on our backs because of the tourists,” Jacques said, cupping his hand over a match as he lighted his next Gitanes. Judging by the pile of butts, he had smoked enough cigarettes in the last couple of hours to blacken the lungs of the purple herons observing us from the middle of the pond. “You feed them, and I’m the uniformed lost and found for their cameras and car keys and iPads. What are these dinners, mon ami?”

The pontoon snagged on a stand of lotus fronds, and the old man used his pole with great deliberation to free the slow-moving vessel. I watched while Luc talked.

“One of my father’s friends returned to Paris in the eighties, after a long time away. He wanted to see a lot of acquaintances, so he made his contacts and people agreed to meet all together, for dinner, even though they didn’t know one another. By the time François assembled his list, there were too many of his friends to fit in a restaurant or home, so he suggested they meet at the Bois de Boulogne.

“Everyone was to bring not only their own food but also tables and chairs, wine and glasses, silver and table linens. And all were to dress entirely in white, so the two hundred or so guests could spot one another inside the park.”

Jacques inhaled and raised his eyebrows. “That’s legal, in an historic landmark?”

“Je ne sais. François made the rules. The hell with the law. He just wanted everyone to enjoy themselves.”

“It worked?”

“So well that it’s grown to incredibly larger numbers each time. Four thousand people in the plaza at the Cathedral of Notre Dame two years ago. Last August, when I was invited for the first time, six thousand showed up in the courtyard of the Louvre.”

“That’s astonishing. And not mobbed by outsiders?”

Luc smiled. “Only friends, and friends of friends. Each time there is a different organizer, deciding who is in and who is out.”

Jacques blew smoke rings in Luc’s face. “Clearly, I was out when you drew up your list.”

“Alors, my pal, you don’t Tweet, do you?” Luc waved the smoke away with his iPhone.

“I’m too old for that bullshit,” Jacques said. I guessed him to be a decade older than Luc, who was forty-eight. “That’s how you invite?”

“Till the very last minute, the Parisian organizers never revealed the location of the dinner. Part of the fun, I guess. Then on the actual day of, they blast out the landmark-whatever it is-and people descend on their Metro stations with all their gear.”

“So for you, Luc, the place was la Porte Sarrazine?”

“Exactly. The peak of Mougins, with that spectacular vista over the valley. I broke the rules and provided all the food and drink from the restaurant. Guests just had to bring a blanket to sit on. The classic French pique-nique, full of romance and mystery, no? Ladies in white dresses and men in linen shirts. Pâté de foie gras, poached salmon a la Relais, cheeses, and chocolate truffles. The very best wines and a night of great amitie, great friendship.”

“I hope you saved me something,” Jacques said, rubbing his belly, which protruded over the belt of his uniform. “White’s not my best look.”

Luc was reliving the magical evening he had created, while I was fixed on the body across the shore.

“And you, Alexandra, did you enjoy?”

“Very much so. Until this news. Until now.”

“How many guests?”

“Sixty in all,” Luc said.

Jacques snorted. “I didn’t know you had that many friends in town.”

“I don’t, Monsieur le Capitaine, but some of my friends have friends,” Luc said, laughing at Jacques’s candid remark. “The only three-star joint in a resort filled with restaurants, a mecca for gourmands? Yes, there has been some pretty fierce competition for me these last few years.”

“Not to mention that you got your stars the easy way.”

“How so?”

“You inherited them from your father.”

Jacques’s comments were getting to Luc. “When my father hung up his toque for good and retired, everyone thought the glory days of Le Relais were over. He had created the most acclaimed restaurant in the region, only to lose two of his stars in the last five years while he tried to hold on to the place.”

“Too much time chasing tail, eh? Those were still the rumors when I got to town.”

“Give it up, Jacques. That’s rude. I’ll invite you to next year’s dinner, okay?”

“You inherit that, too?”

“What?” Luc was fuming. I could see the muscles in his face tense up.

“That philandering thing. Is that why your wife split?”

“If you’re not going to be respectful to Luc,” I said, “then would you at least try not to make a fool of yourself in my presence, Captain?”

“Je m’excuse, madame,” Jacques said, bowing his head in mock respect. “I didn’t know this was a serious affair.”

“It’s none of your business what kind of relationship it is, Jacques,” Luc said, moving closer to me.

It seemed that the captain had pinned his hopes on a connection between the corpse and my lover, simply because she was clothed in white.

“Even if it’s the reason that you’re leaving for New York?”

Luc wagged his finger back and forth. “Not leaving, Jacques. I’m opening a place there for the winter season, when things are slow here.”

Claude Chenier stepped forward and circled us to get onto the rickety wooden dock that was about to receive the flat-bottomed boat.

“Perhaps it’s time to tell the captain that someone left piles of bones and skulls on your doorsteps during the night,” I added, to bring the point to Jacques’s attention. “Maybe there is a link to what happened here.”

“What do you mean? Tell me, my friend.”

Luc ignored both of us and followed Claude onto the dock. “Let’s get this done first, then I’ll show you what Alex is talking about.”

The other officer got off the pontoon to make room for the three of us. Luc boarded and identified himself to Emil. They embraced, speaking rapidly in French, and briefly reminisced about the past, while Jacques and I followed and grabbed onto the railing that sided the boat before it took off again.

“You have a list of all your guests, Luc?”

“Of course. It’s in my office. I’ll have it for you as soon as you get me back to town.”

By the time we were halfway across, the mosquitoes had found every exposed piece of my flesh. I swatted them away from my mouth and nose.

“Are you familiar with this part of the forest?” Jacques asked Luc.

“We all played here as kids. I know it pretty well.”

“Have you been lately?”

Luc clearly didn’t like the tone of the question.

“Just the other day, in fact. Before Alex arrived. You could create an entire meal from this pond.” His sarcasm wasn’t lost on Jacques.

“I’ve never been fond of frogs’ legs.”

Luc squatted and reached into the water, wrenching loose from its roots in the mud a green frond which housed the small bud of a lotus flower. “A real culinary delicacy, Jacques. Every bit of this plant is edible.” Luc peeled open the flower and showed us the seeds before he swallowed a handful, almost daring the police captain to speak what was on his mind. “Tastes just like chestnuts. And the roots themselves cook up like sweet potatoes. We served them last weekend.”

There was no dock on the shoreline of the pond where the body had been retrieved. Emil gently beached the boat, warning us to hold on as it slid in hard against the muddy embankment.

Jacques disembarked first, then Luc, who extended his hand to help me off. The captain walked toward the covered body, squatted at the far corner of the blanket, and drew it aside to reveal to us the back of the young woman.

The white clothes were still sopping wet and clung to her skin. Her head faced away from Luc and me, obscured by the clumped strands of long brown hair that crossed her cheek.

“You know the girl, Luc?” Jacques asked. “You bring her lotus picking with you the other day?”

I spoke before Luc could answer, though I resented the captain’s question. “Don’t show your ignorance, Jacques. She’s been in the water only several hours.”

His silence suggested he didn’t know anything about postmortems.

“See her skin, Captain?” I walked to his side and kneeled in the muck, face-to-face with the deceased, whom I guessed to be younger than I by seven or eight years-maybe she was about thirty. “There are no wrinkles, no ‘washerwoman’ effect, as we call it at home. She hasn’t been dead very long.”

“And that stuff-that pink stuff coming out of her mouth,” he asked, barely able to look at her face again, “what’s that?”

“Do you know whether someone tried to revive her?” I asked.

Jacques pointed at Emil. “He says he attempted to resuscitate the girl, to press on her chest.” Jacques simulated the motion of CPR in midair, keeping his distance from the body. “C’est vrai, Emil?”

The weathered old man nodded in the affirmative.

“It’s foam, then,” I said, looking at the mushroom-shaped froth that oozed from her mouth and nose. “It’s the mixture of oxygen and water with mucus created in her airway when she was fighting to breathe. Come look, Luc. Do you know who she is?”

He moved slowly around the outstretched legs of the body, no more comfortable in this setting than the captain of the local police.

“You’ve taken photographs, Jacques?” I asked, waiting for Luc to get next to me.

“Just with the camera I keep in the car. And Claude’s cell phone. An inspector is coming from Cannes sometime later today to manage the investigation.”

I had no faith that the integrity of the forensics in this case would be preserved, or that Jacques was terribly concerned about that. I took the ends of a few of the tangled strands of hair and lifted them gently so that Luc could see the girl more clearly-despite the distorted features of her gaping mouth and foam-covered nostrils-so that he could tell Jacques he had been mistaken.

“That foam is a pretty good indicator that this poor creature was alive when she was submerged,” I said to the captain. “You really need to get a professional team here quickly to move her before you compromise the chance for a coroner to find marks or bruises under her clothes.”

I looked up at Jacques to be sure he understood the importance of what I was telling him, but he was more interested in the expression on Luc’s face.

“Alex asked whether you know who she is,” Jacques said. “Why don’t you respond?”

Luc rested a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it hard as he kneeled beside me. I let go of the girl’s hair when he answered. “Of course I know who she is, Jacques. Her name is Lisette. Lisette Honfleur. She used to work for me in the restaurant.”