The Grave Gourmet Read Free

female voice. “Sometimes Rivière is just too much. I can see him taking a week off for a real training course, but computers! Give me a fucking break. He has trouble even turning his on. I’ll bet he just saw it was in Nice and signed up without bothering to read what it was about. He’ll be back with one hell of a tan and we’ll have gone stir crazy staring at four walls for a whole fucking week.”
    A delicate but clearly male voice answered, “Isabelle, your own proclivities should be a better conduit to the understanding of our officer’s mind. Those courses are ideal for picking up girls. You should know perfectly well that’s Rivière’s main interest in life.”
    â€œListen, you creepy little faggot…” the reply began, but Capucine had caught sight of a miniscule black plastic tag high up on the door frame—“A-36”—and she peeked cautiously around the doorway. The female voice emanated from a young woman in her middle twenties whose muscular body, straight as the trunk of a small tree, supported a head that would have been handsome had the mousy brown hair not been roughly hacked off, apparently by the owner without benefit of a mirror. Her antagonist was a diametric opposite, lithe and fluid as a ballet dancer, with flowing golden locks of a splendor not equaled in shampoo commercials. There was also a third person in the room, a gargantuan North African who glowered silently at his companions.
    â€œIs this A-36?” Capucine asked. The North African mimed “not a clue” by shrugging, hiking his eyebrows, and puffing out his cheeks. The female looked at him and shook her head in scorn—“It’s the office number, you idiot”—and, turning to Capucine, “Yes, madame, it is. Can we help you?”
    â€œSo, you must be Brenarouch, Martineau, and Lemercier. I’m Lieutenant Le Tellier. You’ve been assigned to me for a week. Well, actually, I’m filling in for Lieutenant Rivière for a week and we’ve all been put on a case and really have to get going right away, but it might be nice to spend a few minutes getting to know each other first,” Capucine said in a rush.
    The North African, eyeing Capucine’s suit, was visibly nonplussed. “Look, uh, Lieutenant, ’scuse me. This is a Crim squad. There must be some sort of mix-up. What is it you do, social work or something like that? You can’t be filling in for our lieutenant.”
    â€œI’m sorry, m’dam, my partners have no manners,” the woman said with exaggerated politeness. “The big one is Brigadier Benarouche, Momo, and the cutie over there is Brigadier Marineau, David, and I’m Brigadier Lemercier, Isabelle.” She stood rigidly at attention. Capucine ignored the cynicism.
    How far away from the compulsive discipline and order of the fiscal branch this all was, Capucine thought as she surveyed the tiny office. Papers and files were heaped on two desks pushed together in front of the window, the pile of detritus crowned with a Sig in a holster, a box of ammunition, and three pairs of handcuffs. One wall was adorned with the traditional French clerical office cliché: posters of enormous brightly colored multihulled racing yachts skimming over brilliant tropical waters at break-neck speeds. Incongruously, in the middle of these halcyon images was a small Polaroid of an unusually violent-looking young man apparently suffering a serious seizure. He was fat, sweating, and clearly straining desperately to get at the camera or its operator. His mouth was wide open, caught in the extreme of a scream. He heaved Herculeanly at unseen restraints holding him to the chair. Even trapped in the small, dun Polaroid he was terrifying.
    â€œI see you’re admiring Omar,” David said chuckling. “He’s by far the worst guy we’ve ever had in here. We hauled him in for some routine background