“Yes, thank you, if you don’t mind.”
I stood up to go back into the kitchen to pour another cup. Beyond the grounds of Luc’s property, over the deep green of the dense growth of trees in the Valmasque, I could see the water of the Bay of Cannes that had given its colorful name to this stretch of the Mediterranean coast.
“I hope we didn’t create too much extra work for you last evening.” Luc was speaking English for my sake. He was bilingual, born in France and educated in England, before returning to take over the empire started by his father, the legendary restaurateur Andre Rouget. Although my affair with him had done less for my language skills than for my spirit, my comprehension was far better than my ability to converse about anything serious.
“Pas de tout. No trouble at all, Monsieur Rouget.”
I stirred the sugar until it dissolved and then I carried the cup outside, setting it down on the table. “I have to apologize for creating such a commotion in the middle of the night, Claude. Won’t you sit down?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure what you mean, madame? Commotion?”
“Agitation, Claude. But I think Alex is mistaken. Nothing you need to be concerned with.”
“Aren’t we talking about the bones I found last night? The human skulls?”
“No, darling,” Luc said, reaching across the table for my hand. “I’m sure Claude doesn’t even know about them yet. Give me a minute with him, will you?”
“I thought you went directly to the gendarmerie after you brought me home?”
I had raced up the hill to find Luc as the last of the revelers at our party were finishing their champagne. Together we walked back to his restaurant-Le Relais a Mougins-and went inside, careful not to disturb the skulls, to retrieve the key to his property that he kept in the office above the dining room. Luc assured me that he hadn’t locked the door and that I was probably just skittish alone in the dark alleyway, fooled by the work of village pranksters.
When we got to the house, he was as startled as I that he couldn’t even insert the key. The lock had been jammed, and as he patiently whittled away at it with his pocketknife, a piece of bone-the size of a small finger-splintered and spilled out of the opening.
Luc settled me inside and inspected the grounds to be sure that no intruders had made it over the garden wall. I finally fell asleep an hour later, certain that Luc was going to the police station to report the incident and to ask the officer on duty to photograph and collect the bones.
“At three in the morning? Is that what you really thought?” Luc asked, winking at me as he got up from the table. “Like this is CSI: Mougins?”
Claude Chenier was still stone-faced. I was sitting with my back against the stucco bench of the sunny terrace, looking up at him. He was about my height-five-ten-and almost as slim as Luc.
“What bones are you speaking of, madame?”
“My wallet’s just inside the door, Claude.” Luc pointed to the kitchen counter not fifteen feet away and headed to it.
“I didn’t actually come just now for the money.”
“Nonsense. Your guys did a great job for us. No party crashers, no media, no out-of-control guests,” Luc said, taking a handful of bills from his alligator wallet. “Don’t look so startled, Alex. It’s not a bribe. Claude was off duty last evening and he supplied the private security team for our party.”
Claude did a quick count of the money. “Merci, Monsieur Rouget. It’s very generous of you. My men will appreciate it.”
Luc put an arm around the young man’s shoulder, as though to steer him past the swimming pool to the heavy old door that had offered me so much resistance earlier this morning. “They earned it. We had a wonderful time.”
I could tell Luc was embarrassed that he’d misled me into thinking he had made a police report already. Of course there was no need to awaken everyone in the village for what he’d almost convinced me by daybreak was a practical joke. And though the joke had been a distasteful one, I tried to switch off the “on-duty” part of my brain that was always thinking like a prosecutor.
“You must come by some evening with your girlfriend for dinner, Claude, eh? To Le Relais, for the new spring menu.”
I smiled as the officer nodded in agreement. I knew that my favorite NYPD detectives, Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, would envy a police department in which there were no rules against taking meals at pricey restaurants “on the arm.”
Mike, who worked Homicide, and Mercer, in the Special Victims Unit-one of the few African American detectives to make first grade-had become my most trusted friends in the twelve years I had served as a prosecutor.
“Very well, then. We’ll set a date.” Luc’s chiseled features weren’t classically handsome, but his smile was warm and slightly crooked, in a sexy way, and always drew a grin in return from me.
Claude held his ground despite the fact that Luc was trying to usher him out. We hadn’t gotten much sleep and were planning a lazy day alone together. Claude pocketed the wad of cash and turned back to question me.
“May I ask again, madame, what bones are you talking about?”
Luc rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders, but I answered anyway. “Let me show you, Claude,” I said, putting down my coffee cup as I stood to walk out to the alley.
“Alex, they’re not there any longer.”
“What do you mean? If you didn’t alert the police, then what did you do?”
“I removed them,” Luc said. The sun reflected off the metal of his wire-rimmed glasses, so that I couldn’t see his expression, see whether or not he was joking.
“You what?”
“I picked them up and carried them back to the restaurant for safekeeping.”
“With your bare hands?” I sounded as exasperated as I was exhausted. “Did you even think it might be worthwhile having the police examine them for fingerprints?”
Claude was tugging on his narrow black uniform tie as he listened to us bicker, never taking his eyes off my face.
“C’est fou. Don’t be ridiculous, Alex.”
“How about the skulls? You moved those, too?”
Claude looked at Luc. “Crânes?”
“Oui. Trois crânes. Very old ones, Claude. I have them in my office.” Luc turned his back to me. “You must understand something about Alex, Claude. Elle est une procureur de la ville de New York.”
“C’est vrai, madame?”
“Yes, it’s true. I’m a prosecutor.”
“Alex is in charge of sex crimes in Manhattan. Touts les crimes sexuels,” Luc said, trying to impress the stolid young cop, which didn’t seem likely to happen. Then he patted Claude’s shoulder. “It explains why she always sees something sinister when there really isn’t cause for concern.”
I playfully put my hands against Luc’s back and pushed him toward the edge of the pool. “If I riffed about the secret sauce for your escargots half as dismissively as you just nailed my career, you’d probably carve me up and serve me for dinner.”
“With that very sauce, mon amour. Not only would it be tasty but also all the evidence would be devoured.”
“How Hitchcockian,” I said, turning my back.
“Are you ready for a swim to cool off that temper a bit?” He spun me around and lifted me from the ground, dangling me over the water, while he addressed Claude Chenier. “And you, my friend, the bones she’s talking about are older than this village, but I’ll cart them over to headquarters as soon as you like. Or do you want to come with me now?”
Luc put me down as Claude answered him.