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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.
    “I was trying to get you alone, Monsieur Rouget, to explain to you the reason I came here this morning. But since Madame Cooper is a professional, I’ll tell both of you.”
    “A reason you’re here, beside the money?”
    “
Oui
, monsieur, I was sent by my captain,
”
the young officer said, hesitating before he looked Luc in the eye. “There was a body found just a few hours ago.”
    “Whose body?” Luc was all business now, his blue-gray eyes as icy as steel, his hands planted firmly on his hips.
    “A young woman. We don’t know who she is. I was sent here to ask for your help with an identification.”
    “Why
my
help?” Luc’s pale face had reddened.
    “Because we think she was on her way to your celebration last night. The captain believes she might have been one of your guests.”
    “Of course we’ll do whatever you need,” I said, thinking of the hairpin turns on the narrow roads that led from the
autoroute
to this hilltop. “On her way to our dinner party, Claude? Was it an accident, then? A car crash?”
    “Perhaps an accident,
madame
, but it didn’t involve a car. They were taking her body out of the pond when I was dispatched to come here. It’s either an accident, Ms. Cooper, or the young lady was murdered.”

THREE
    Half an hour later we were standing at the edge of Fontmerle Pond, twelve acres of water that bordered the enormous forest, almost completely obscured by the green pods of lotus flowers that would bloom later in the summer.
    Claude Chenier had passed us off to his boss, Captain Belgarde, who greeted Luc with a handshake as he tossed his cigarette into the murky water.
    “Alex, this is Jean-Jacques Belgarde. Jacques, I’d like you to meet Alex Cooper.”
    Luc was going through the motions, but his attention was focused on a yellow blanket spread on the ground on the far side of the pond. “He’s married to an American and lived in Baltimore for fifteen years, so his English is better than yours. What’s happened here, Jacques? Who is she?”
    Two men were navigating a pontoon back to our position. The morning stillness was ruptured by shrieking birdcalls—dozens of different sounds and