Mazarelle was determined not to let this guy get away. If he’d nothing to hide, why was he behaving as if he did?
Siren wailing, the inspector’s car raced down the hill after him, sped around the church in the main square, flew past the town hall, and went barreling out of town in hot pursuit. His quarry was heading north toward Bergerac on D14. Mazarelle turned up the volume of his siren, but the stranger was riding a rocket. He’d no intention of stopping. Switching on his radio, the inspector put in a call to the commissariat and Bandu answered, a dependable rock when Mazarelle most needed one. He quickly described the situation and instructed him to set up a roadblock at the intersection with N21. That done, he stomped on his accelerator and began to pass cruising
cars as if they were telephone poles. Mazarelle was almost on top of the Yamaha when the motorcycle began to slow down. Pulling up behind it, he got out, troubled that he didn’t have a gun with him.
“Why didn’t you stop?”
“I thought you were after somebody else.”
“Let’s see your license.”
The biker unzipped his jacket and went through his inside pockets as if he expected to find what he was looking for. “I must have left it at home.”
Bristling, Mazarelle ordered him to take off his helmet. It was impossible to see his face through the tinted visor.
“Why?”
“You want me to take it off for you?”
The biker removed his helmet, astonishing the inspector. The guy he’d been chasing had done a Houdini. Here was a beard, a face he’d never seen before, not to mention a thick chain around his neck with an Iron Cross. He remembered Thérèse’s description of one of the bikers who’d demolished Ali’s car. Perhaps it was the furious chase that made him lose his cool, perhaps simply frustration at having lost his man.
“Who are you?” Mazarelle grabbed the big guy, dragged him off his chopper.
“Let me go.”
“You’re one of the three assholes who smashed up Sedak’s VW, aren’t you?”
The biker wasn’t expecting to be fingered for that old prank. Lunging at his accuser, he pushed him away. Surprised by his sudden move, the off-balance inspector crumpled to the ground. He felt a shooting pain and grabbed for his twisted ankle. The roar of the fleeing motorcycle soon dopplered into the distance. Mazarelle sat there in silence on the shoulder of the road rubbing his aching ankle in a Job-like trance, but he’d no doubt he was to blame for being such a jerk. The police car’s radio crackled alive. Pulling himself to his feet, Mazarelle answered. It was Bandu.
“I’ve got him.”
“
Formidable!”
he shouted. “Well done, Bandu! I want you to book him for destroying evidence, obstructing justice, harassment,
and resisting arrest. You can also throw in twisting my ankle with intent.”
“Are you coming into the commissariat?”
“Later. I’ve got something important to do first.”
The Café Valon was almost deserted and there were only a handful of customers inside when Mazarelle entered. As he went over to where he’d been sitting, he was noticeably favoring his good leg. How lucky can you get? he thought. He still had a good one left.
The inspector bent down and searched in the dim light underneath the table and chairs, running his hand over the scuffed and grimy floor. Nothing. His fingers came up damp, smelling of stale wine. Then he remembered that Thérèse had swept up the mess and asked her where she’d dumped it.
“In the bin with the other trash. Where do you think?”
The bin was under the bar. It took Mazarelle a while to go through it without shredding his hands on broken glass. Eventually he found what he was looking for and, trying not to smudge any prints on the napkin, carefully pocketed it. His pen, though, was gone. Probably swiped. Not the worst thing that might have happened to him when dealing with a killer.
Mickey V was busy at the rear, folding the extra chairs and stacking them up. In the warm café, his shirt collar was open wide at the neck, sweat stains under his arms. It wasn’t every day he worked this hard for his money. Mazarelle asked if he’d ever before seen the guy he’d been sitting with.
“You mean the long-haired guy? Yeah, he’s been in here.”
“Know who he is?”
He’d no idea. “Some hippie. Ask Thérèse. He was playing pool with her husband. Maybe she knows.”
But she didn’t. Ali had mentioned the stranger’s name, but Thérèse had forgotten it. “Maybe Borman or Baumgartner. Something foreign like that. All I know is he was looking for a job.”
“What kind of job?”
“Who remembers? Maybe construction. Stonemason. I’ve got to go.” She called to Valon. “I’ll be back in an hour, Mick.”
“Wait a minute,” Mazarelle yelled after her. “Could it have been Barmeyer?”
“Maybe. But like I said: Who remembers?”
The inspector on his way out left instructions with Valon to call him immediately if the stranger came back. “Don’t forget! It’s important.” He squeezed the owner’s arm to be sure he had his full attention. “Okay?”
Mickey struggled to loosen his grip. “Okay, okay!”
From the road, Mazarelle called the commissariat and asked to speak to Tricot. He told him he’d be there in about twenty minutes. He wanted him to leave right away for Toulouse with a piece of evidence to be scanned for prints and returned afterward. See if any of the prints matched those on the shotgun Lambert was bringing Didier. Tricot said he was ready to go. Mazarelle had been pleasantly surprised by André Tricot. He’d proven to be a valuable addition to their squad. Perhaps the inspector had become a little
too
suspicious lately even of his own men.
Then there was the matter of finding whoever the long-haired stranger was. He had to be tracked down. Though Mazarelle had his doubts about him being a laborer or stonemason, that possibility had to be explored. He’d get Bandu and Thibaud to question the Taziac supervisors handling the historic restoration of the village—see if anyone who’d recently been hired matched his description.
While clutching the steering wheel with one hand, Mazarelle leaned down and massaged his aching shank, which felt as if something might be broken. Probably nothing more than a sprain. And last but not least before going home to wrap his ankle in a cold compress, he wanted to pay a visit to the commissariat. Make sure their Nazi prisoner was resting comfortably before throwing the book at him.
40
THE BOX TO BAIT THE TRAP
R
einer couldn’t believe his eyes when he returned to his hideout and found the gun case in the living room empty. He’d thought that his biggest loss that day was a football game. The two rifles were nowhere in the house. If he’d any luck, they might have been stolen. A larky visit from their carousing French neighbors perhaps, or the local teenage scum scrounging for knickknacks to pawn. But given how cleanly the guns had been taken—no signs of break-in—both were highly improbable. More likely, and much more dangerous, was that Mazarelle and his flics had been there.
When Reiner returned to Taziac, he thought his one problem was the Reece woman. He’d believed that his handyman scenario had worked perfectly—that Mazarelle was content with Ali Sedak as lone perpetrator of the L’Ermitage murders. Yet, along with attending to the Reece woman, almost out of a mix of habit and caution, he’d also been watching the inspector, tracking his movements. A useless time filler, Reiner thought, while he waited to finish the other job. But he now realized that he’d been too easily swayed by the newspaper accounts of Mazarelle’s great success. Then to learn—from the inspector himself—that Mazarelle was apparently not satisfied! Reiner supposed that, like the stubborn American woman, Mazarelle would probably never quit his hunt for the killer.
Well then, he’d simply have to take care of both of them. Reiner welcomed the opportunity. Felt energized by the risk he was taking in staying on in this house. And by the pressure of time. He guessed it’d take no more than a day or two before analysis of the guns would
help the flics discover that their murder case had spread next door. Soon they’d be back in force and swarming. He knew he could meet the challenge, but he couldn’t afford to waste a minute.
Tonight it would be Mazarelle’s turn. Tomorrow the orphan. He’d do both in his own way, with care—after all, he was an artist, not a butcher. So what if everything he did wasn’t a masterpiece? How many Sistine Chapel ceilings did Michelangelo paint or how many
Guernica
s Picasso? He already had some exciting ideas percolating. In no time he’d have a custom-made plan set up for each of them. But both plans would have to be foolproof this time. No fuckups like the failed cave fiasco or the Phillips job—he still couldn’t believe what happened there and how he’d lost control. In the current circumstances, he’d have no second chances.
It wasn’t often that he had such a worthy adversary as the inspector. Though there was no money in his removal, which of course was an ugly blemish in any plan, Reiner was already anticipating the thrill of the challenge. He’d begin with what he’d been given. Late that night Mazarelle would be going for dinner at the Café Valon. Stuffing himself with duck confit, that well-known favorite of his. Plus a bottle of wine, to add to the several cognacs he’d had earlier in the day. Which would mean a full stomach, a slow step, and a pickled brain on his way home. So far so good!
Okay. So he’d be walking back alone, perhaps humming some American ditty to himself. The inspector, he’d read, loved American music. And as usual at that late hour, he’d take the shortcut down the gravel-covered alley to his house on the Place Mestraillat. Reiner had watched him take this route before. There were no streetlights in the narrow alley, no signs of life from the three, empty medieval buildings—one dating back to the fourteenth century—under reconstruction. The only light came from the rear of the few houses that were occupied. Based upon the way the weather had changed that late afternoon—the wind kicking up the dust and storm clouds gathering, filling the sky with enormous dark towers—it promised to be a moonless night. Perfect for what he had in mind.
But first he’d need a large cardboard box. It didn’t take him long to find just the ticket under the kitchen sink. He pulled out a brown corrugated box, the name Le Creuset printed all over it and designed
to hold a large Dutch oven. Reiner emptied out the sponges, oven cleaner, floor wax, paper towels, rubber gloves, and jumbo plastic garbage bags. He lifted the empty box. The size looked right—big enough to hold a small pit bull or a medium-size cocker spaniel. After some minor adjustments, he thought, it should work beautifully.
Then, soon as it got dark, he’d leave to set the stage and wait for his leading actor to step from the wings. And after he’d said his piddling farewell lines, it’d be
“Auf Wiedersehen, cher monsieur l’inspecteur!”
41
HOUSE OF WOODEN HEADS
A
s soon as he’d given Bandu and Thibaud their marching orders with a description of the stranger in the Café Valon, sent Tricot off to Toulouse with the napkin for Didier, and, last but not least, taken care of the garbage in the
garde
à vue
cell, Mazarelle left for home to attend to his ankle. The weather on the way turned gloomy, overcast, humid; and Taziac, when he arrived, felt like it was wearing a heavy, damp woolen overcoat. Though they needed rain, he wasn’t looking forward to it. City people rarely do. He took the boring mail out of his box, unlocked the front door, and lumbered in—tossing the bills and advertisements onto the kitchen table. Pouring himself a glass of whiskey, he dropped into his big, comfortable red chair. The pressure on his ankle was causing him grief.
The whiskey helped. He was about to see what else might help when he realized that this was one of the rare times when he sat down in his chair that Michou didn’t suddenly swagger into the room and leap onto his lap. When he left the house, she’d no desire to go anywhere. He shuffled into the kitchen and saw that her bowl was empty. Taking out one of her special treats from the cabinet, he keyed open a small can of sardines and emptied it into her bowl. She couldn’t resist that. Ordinarily he’d even share one or two of the rich, oily sardines with Michou—a gesture of camaraderie he didn’t always feel—but the pain in his ankle seemed to have affected his appetite. He wondered how she’d gotten out of the house. The one thing he knew for sure was that she’d be back.
Upstairs, taking off his clothes, he sat naked on the edge of the
bathtub and turned on the water. The cold felt good. The injured ankle, on the other hand, felt lousy when he touched it. Though swollen, it was luckily not yet a grapefruit, and the cold would keep the swelling down, the pain manageable. If it didn’t get any worse, he’d survive.
As he sat there cooled by the water rushing into the tub, he went over what it was that troubled him about the unpredictable stranger at the Café Valon. For one thing, why did the fellow tell him he was in Taziac on vacation but tell Ali, according to his wife, that he was here looking for a job? Why would someone lie about a thing like that? And why did he refuse to give his name? Or say he was a stonemason when his hands were as free of calluses as a baby’s backside? Curious, sure, but none of these were exactly capital offenses. Likewise, no crime that he was a German football fan, or his little angry outburst when München began to screw up. Yet the intensity of his gaze as he watched the last agonizing life-or-death minutes of the game was unusual. Oddly enough, it was almost the same way he stared at the halftime Mercedes-Benz commercial and its vaunted safety features. Which reminded the inspector of what happened when Reece took his friend’s Mercedes and nearly lost his life. An accident Phillips himself might otherwise have been the victim of when not only the car’s brakes but also its air bags failed to work—and most astonishing of all, both at the same time.
All of which, he supposed, added up to nothing more than a nexus of possibilities. In short, the inspector didn’t care for the smell of him. And speaking of smells—he turned off the rushing bathwater—what about that leather jacket of his with its stale, musty odor, as if he might have been staying in a house that had been closed up for months, a house similar to the McAllisters’? Now maybe if you had a name to go with it, Mazarelle, you’d really have something. He was getting closer but still no cigar.