Deadly Tasting Read Free Page B

the feeling of déjà vu.
    He recognized the police officer who had let him in that morning and gave him a nod to indicate he was not alone. Virgile flashed the officer one of his charming smiles, and Benjamin and he went through the barricade without needing to identify themselves. They passed under a carriage entrance and crossed the mossy cobblestones of an interior courtyard to the double entry doors, which stood open.
    Inside, the forensics team had not finished taking fingerprints, and Inspector Barbaroux greeted them in a hushed voice. He asked them not to touch anything. An old man was lying in a pool of blood on an oriental rug. His cheek was crushed, and his bathrobe had been slashed open at the shoulders and abdomen. Swelling flesh and blood were oozing from the wounds and already congealing on the woolen fibers of the robe. The victim was barefoot, and his toenails were curled upward, like inverted talons of a bird of prey. His sheepskin slippers had ended up near the polished Henry II table, which gleamed under the yellowish light of a hanging porcelain lamp. Twelve wineglasses had been carefully arranged in a semicircle. Two of them, on the right side, were filled with what Benjamin supposed was red wine.
    “We’ve already sent the samples to the lab, and they’re clean. I will ask you to repeat what you did this morning,” the inspector murmured.
    “Who is it?” Benjamin asked.
    “Émile Chaussagne, eighty-eight years old. That’s all I know.”
    Benjamin and Virgile looked away while the morgue attendants picked up the corpse and slid it onto the gurney. A photographer took some final shots of the room. Inspector Barbaroux asked Benjamin to approach the table.
    “You know what you need to do, don’t you?”
    Benjamin was quick and tasted the two glasses without excessive ritual. He swirled the glasses three times each to gauge the body. He captured the aromas with his nose and took two small chewing sips with his eyes closed. He trusted his memory and remembered exactly all the nuances he had identified in his previous tasting.
    “I covered the essentials this morning, and I don’t have much to add,” he said, turning to his assistant. “Virgile, would you like to give us your impressions?”
    “No thanks, sir.”
    “I thought you were more adventurous,” Benjamin said with a touch of sarcasm. “Does it have anything to do with the effect our lunch is having on your stomach?”
    “You’ve got that right, boss.”
    “You’re feeling the cabbage?”
    “There’s a war going on in my belly. How about yours?”
    Barbaroux cleared his throat. Benjamin guessed he wanted to cut the conversation short. The inspector seemed a bit nervous, too. The coins he was jingling in his trouser pockets were the giveaway.
    “Is it Pétrus again?” he asked brusquely.
    “I think so.”
    “The same one as before?”
    “I would guess it is. At any rate, it’s the same vintage.”
    “What about the bottle?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Is this Pétrus from the same bottle?”
    “It’s impossible to answer that question. I’m not a psychic.”
    “With you, one never knows.”
    “I know an African witch doctor in the Saint Michel neighborhood. You should try him!”
    “Don’t mess with me, Mr. Cooker. This is serious, and for the moment we’re not leaving the Saint Pierre neighborhood.”
    “I wasn’t suggesting that we all pay him a visit. I just thought you might be interested. At any rate, if I’m not mistaken, you’re thinking that the choice of wine wasn’t coincidental.”
    “Yes, there may be a link between where the murders occurred—the Saint Pierre neighborhood—and these glasses of wine—Saint Pétrus.”
    “That may be. But it seems to be a very expensive calling card. There has to be more to this. Why announce each murder with wine and such an exceptional vintage at that?”
    “That’s the real question,” Barbaroux conceded. “We also need to know why the murderer lined