Killer Critique Read Free Page B

you.”
    Cécile put her other hand on top of Capucine’s and squeezed her reply with an earnest smile. Then she broke the moment by tapping the back of Capucine’s hand impatiently with her index finger.
    â€œSo. Tell me, whatever happened yesterday? What did that poor man die of? Food poisoning? And who was it? Anyone we know of?”
    Capucine’s answer was delayed by the return of the waiter, who announced that the restaurant had just received a good quantity of beluga caviar that was of a far better quality than he had seen in months. Capucine was impressed. Beluga, the largest grained of the three caviars, was now on the endangered species list and illegal to serve. The fact that the waiter, who knew full well that Capucine was a commissaire in the Police Judiciaire , felt not the slightest qualm in touting it spoke volumes about the insouciance of an establishment that catered to the upper echelons of politics and commerce.
    â€œVoilà,” said Cécile. “We’ll each have fifty grams of your beluga with a mountain of toast and worry about the rest later.” She was transparently eager for the waiter to leave.
    â€œCome on, ma belle, you’re tormenting me by not telling what happened last night.”
    â€œIt was Gautier du Fesnay. You know, the restaurant reviewer for Le Figaro .”
    â€œYou mean the one with the blog that has all those prissy videos of him eating with his face fuzzed out? Who on earth would want to kill that bumptious little man?”
    â€œThat’s the sort of thing they pay me to find out. Someone seems to have injected him with some form of nerve drug, and he fell over and drowned in his dish of lobster ravioles floating in a nice thick tandoori sauce.”
    â€œI had that myself. It was outstanding. Good Lord, the poor man actually drowned in his dinner?” As Cécile thought about it, her face became rigid and she began to tremble. Finally, she could contain herself no longer and erupted in giggles.
    â€œI know it’s terrible, and he must have died horribly, but what a perfectly appropriate death for that catty little snob.”
    Capucine was caught by the mood and knew she was fighting a losing battle with suppressing her own giggling fit. In desperation she took a deep swig of vodka, choked, coughed, and finally broke free from her attack of fou rire .
    Both women patted the tears out of the corners of their eyes with napkins, careful not to spoil their makeup.
    â€œWhat was he injected with that killed him so quickly?” Cécile asked.
    â€œThe forensics people think it might have been some sort of nerve poison, curare or one of the military versions. The thinking is that it was probably an air-gun pellet tipped with curare. One of my detectives is hoping it was done with a jungle blowgun.” Capucine laughed, expecting Cécile to join in.
    Cécile looked at her expressionlessly.
    â€œBlowguns don’t shoot metallic projectiles,” Cécile said with the heavy gravitas of a Beisdean consultant. “They shoot darts made from the stems of the inayuga palm, which grows in certain parts of the Amazon rain forest. The stems soak up the curare mixture, which is then dried. The darts remain effective for years.”
    â€œAnd you know this from your Beisdean Little Consultant’s Handbook, of which you read a few pages every night before bed even if you’re a bit tipsy?”
    Cécile smiled tolerantly. “No. Oddly enough, I was at a reception last week at the Maison de l’Amérique Latine—you know, that old hôtel particulier in the Faubourg Saint-Germain—for some fund or other that protects Amerindians. There was an exhibit of Brazilian Indian hunting weapons with lots of blowguns and darts and bows and arrows and stuff like that. A man from the embassy gave a little lecture about the exhibit.”
    â€œInteresting?”
    â€œ Au contraire. In fact, it was so