Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery Read Free Page A

The youth’s face reddened, and he banged his fist against the damp stone wall,scraping his hand. “Thanks a lot, Dad!” he yelled, and ran back up the stairs, slamming the cellar door behind him.
    â€œBravo,
chéri,
” Élise said to her husband, rolling her eyes; she too walked up the stairs and outside, into the late-afternoon sunshine.
    â€œ
Bon,
” Olivier Bonnard said to himself, sighing. He’d go and apologize to Victor; then he would drive into Aix and see his insurance friend. It had been weeks since Olivier had been to town: he had been too busy fretting over an unusually wet late August. He and Hélène had moved their year-old wine, in barrels, to the second-year cellar to make room for the new wines. When that was done, Olivier and Cyril had been moving equipment and clearing space for the crushing and pressing of the new harvest—that is, until the tractor broke down. There was work to do in the cellars, and Bonnard had been topping up the casks, explaining to a bored Sandrine that 5 percent of the wine evaporates through the wooden sides of the barrel. It was normally a job Victor loved, but Olivier had asked Sandrine to help him, hoping that she might gain some insight into the winemaking process. He wanted Victor to concentrate on his schoolwork: they had made a pact that he would, this last year of high school, hit the books so that he could at least achieve a somewhat honorable grade on the Bac—the grueling national exams at the end of the school year. When Victor was a small boy, Olivier had taught him the term for this loss—“the angels’ share”—just as Olivier’s father, Albert, had taught him. He smiled as he remembered a six-year-old Victor peering at the barrel and walking around it, trying to catch, in his tiny cupped hands, the red wine that he imagined was leaking out.
    After Bonnard finished his business in Aix, he would walk over to Jean-Jacques Clergue’s house and invite him over—Jean-Jacques would have good advice, and Olivier wanted to drink witha friend, in the cellar, surrounded by what was left of the prized vintages. As winemakers, Bonnard and his fellow
vignerons
were always careful not to overindulge. But tonight he thought he might tie one on. Jean-Jacques was a bon vivant and might even bring along a couple of Cuban cigars—Olivier had smoked one with the judge from Aix the last time he had visited, and he was developing a taste for them. He’d get the silent treatment from Élise, but he didn’t care. Olivier Bonnard walked up the stairs, turned off the lights, and closed and locked the door; this time he put the key in his pocket.

Chapter Two

A Final Market Day
    I t was a typical Tuesday when Mme Pauline d’Arras set out to do her market shopping, the last one she would ever do. The September weather was warm, but she wore a light cotton sweater over her silk blouse. The morning sun was high, and bright; the sky blue; and the closer she got to the Palais de Justice and its square with a thrice-weekly market, the noisier it became. Her dog, Coco, tried to run ahead, excited, sensing that it was market day. Madame tugged on the leash and smiled down at Coco—the little dog loved the market, in particular the traffic policemen on motorcycles.
    Mme d’Arras zigzagged her way past the large-scale vegetable sellers and gave them an intentional scowl. Any sellers who had bananas, pineapples, and limes definitely did not grow their own food in Provence: they bought their produce wholesale in warehouses in Marseille. Her favorite seller, Martin, had a small stall at the far end of the market, and he sold organic vegetables that hegrew on a farm north of Aix. She squeezed past a group of tourists taking pictures of spices and gave them a good nudge with her basket:
Don’t they realize that some people actually have to shop and cook?
Mme d’Arras smiled as she approached