The Honest Folk of Guadeloupe Read online

  “Because I wanted to talk to my sister-in-law before she scurries back to the palais de justice.”

  “Not your sister-in-law, Lucette. I’m your sister’s sister-in-law—remember? You still have your beach apartment in Le Moule?”

  “I just don’t get time to go there. My weekends are taken up with administrative work. Perhaps when I retire …”

  “I don’t think you’ll ever retire, Lucette.”

  The large woman sighed. “It was Dugain’s second marriage, you know.”

  “They weren’t happy?”

  “Liliane married someone who was seventeen years older than her. That kind of age difference’s common here in our islands, but Liliane’s an educated woman and she wanted a companion, a friend. In the end she married somebody who could’ve been her father. She wanted equality and found a man who never treated her as an equal. Someone who gave her two lovely daughters but who went elsewhere for his pleasure.”

  “Other women?”

  “You sound surprised, Anne Marie.”

  “Not the sort of thing you expect.”

  “What would you expect?”

  “When there’s a big age difference, aren’t men supposed to lose interest in philandering?”

  “Are they?”

  “Or so I am told.”

  “Perhaps French men—but not here,” Lucette Salondy said, folding her arms. “Dugain appeared on television—he was a public figure, the kind of person to appeal to women, to our groupie psychology. We’re all attracted by the dominant male.” She clicked her tongue, as if reproaching herself for something. “Dugain didn’t go out of his way looking for women—but they were there.”

  “Who?”

  “There are always women.”

  “Who?”

  “Even a headmistress and a spinster locked away in her office gets to hear things.” She got up and went to a small filing cabinet. She turned the key. “Care for a drink?”

  “No thanks.”

  “I often wonder how you manage to stay so slim, Anne Marie. So slim and so young.” Lucette Salondy poured a thimbleful of white rum into a small glass. From a small refrigerator, she took a slice of green lime. “Worry about my figure at my age?” She sipped and winced. “The great thing about being old is you don’t have to try to please any more, and it’s only when you’ve stopped trying to please men they actually start to notice you. Not for your body, for your figure, for what you can do in bed—they actually notice you for what you are.” She smiled wistfully. “I was thinking about your husband only the other day, Anne Marie.”

  “My ex-husband.”

  Another sip. “How’s your son?”

  “Who were Dugain’s women?”

  “Tell me about Fabrice, Anne Marie. We were all sad when he moved on to the lycée.”

  Anne Marie flushed. She was about to say something bitter, but instead she chose to relax. She allowed herself to sit back in the tubular chair. “Wind surfing, most of the time. And probably about to repeat his première scientifique at the lycée. Fabrice’s pretty hopeless at school.”

  “He can’t be too hopeless if he’s in première scientifique. Always top of the class here. A lovely boy.”

  “English is the only thing he’s willing to put his mind to. He’s stubborn and never wants to be helped.”

  “Stubborn like his father.”

  Anne Marie looked at her hands. “If Fabrice’s not interested in something, then he just can’t be bothered.”

  “Like his father.”

  “He spends his time watching the American channels on the satellite dish. Understands everything in English—but refuses to work at school. I mustn’t complain too much—he’s very affectionate and dotes on his little sister.”

  Lucette Salondy’s face broke into a broad smile. “And Létitia?”

  “The apple of her mother’s eye.”

  The headmistress took the plastic cube and pointed to a photograph on one of its faces, a photograph taken outside the church in Pointe-à-Pitre. Children in white dresses, holding flowers and squinting into the sun. Létitia stood in the center of the group. Her dark hair hung in short, beribboned plaits. The soft brown skin of mixed parentage. She looked at the camera with her head to one side. Inquisitive, self-assured eyes. She was holding a bouquet of flowers.

  “The apple of her aunt’s eye, too. An aunt who doesn’t get to see her enough.”

  “Létitia loves church—goodness knows why. Perhaps it’s the dressing up she likes.” Anne Marie touched the cube with her finger. “I thought I was too old to have a second child, and when I found out about Létitia … It wasn’t the happiest of times. I thought about an abortion. When I now think I could’ve spent the rest of my life without Létitia …” Anne Marie looked up at the older woman. “You could’ve had children, Lucette.”

  “Instead I’ve got an entire school. Before long, you’ll be sending Létitia to us—only by then, I’ll be retired.”

  “You love this job too much to retire.”

  Somewhere a bell rang.

  “Why are you interested in Liliane Dugain, Anne Marie?”

  “It’s her husband’s death I’m interested in.”

  The headmistress folded her arms. “He killed himself—jumped from the top of a building.”

  Anne Marie remarked, “There are a lot of nasty rumors.”

  “Rumors concerning the police judiciaire?”

  Anne Marie gave Lucette Salondy an unblinking stare.

  “Dugain had a lot of enemies, Anne Marie.”

  “Arnaud doesn’t believe it was a suicide.”

  “Who’s Arnaud?”

  “You don’t know the procureur of Pointe-à-Pitre?”

  “Not his given name … It’s Arnaud?”

  The room seemed to chill suddenly. Lucette Salondy held her glass motionless in mid-air. With the other hand, she pulled the cardigan tight against her large shoulders.

  “Dugain had a mistress?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “It’s my job.”

  “Perhaps you ought to change jobs.”

  Anne Marie pointed to the poster on the wall. “There’s no republic without justice.”

  “I thought it was me who was supposed to teach philosophy.”

  “And there’s no justice without truth.”

  A laugh lubricated with white rum.

  “Never underestimate the lycée in Sarlat.” Anne Marie grinned with pleasure. “I won the prix d’excellence.”

  “You must’ve been teacher’s pet.” The headmistress put down the glass and took a pen from the mahogany inkstand in front of her. “Everybody knew it was a mistake. Liliane should never have married Dugain. Few people will miss him. Not even his groupies.” She jotted something onto a scrap of paper. “In your position, I’d forget about justice and I’d certainly forget about Monsieur Environnement.” She folded the piece of paper twice, firmly, as if she wanted to have nothing to do with its written contents. “A womanizer and a fraud.”

  “You’re not in my position.” Anne Marie took the slip of paper, without glancing at it.

  “But like you, I’m a woman.”

  5

  Trousseau

  Trousseau had been putting on weight.

  “They told me downstairs you were here, madame le juge.”

  Lucette Salondy smiled brightly. “Please enter.”

  Trousseau took a hesitant step into the office. He held a briefcase under his arm, and beneath the white shirt, the narrow shoulders ran down to a bulging belly that pushed at the cracked crocodile belt of his trousers. His eyes darted from one woman to the other. He smiled nervously and straightened his tie. “I wouldn’t have …”

  “Come in and sit down, Monsieur Trousseau.” Anne Marie gestured him to the chair beside her. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. Just two old ladies chatting.”

  “Bit of a hurry, madame le juge.” He stood with his dark hand on the handle of the open door. “I’ve just
come from the palais de justice.”

  “Monsieur Trousseau, you know Mademoiselle Salondy?”

  He moved reluctantly toward the desk and shook the outstretched hand, while his eyes remained on Anne Marie. “There’s a plane waiting for you, madame le juge. At the airport.”

  She laughed. “My children are waiting for me.”

  “You’re wanted in Saint-François.”

  “On Wednesdays I have lunch with my children. You know that, Monsieur Trousseau. This afternoon I’m taking them to the beach.”

  “It’s urgent.”

  The laughter left her eyes. “Why a plane, Monsieur Trousseau?”

  He smiled nervously and edged back toward the door.

  “And to think that I chose this job.” Anne Marie looked at Lucette Salondy. “A functionary of the state,” she sighed before getting wearily to her feet. “Come and see the children soon.”

  Lucette held Anne Marie’s hand. “I’m retiring at the end of the year. An old woman, thirty-seven years a teacher. I’ll have plenty of time to visit you then.”

  Trousseau pulled at the dark tie again. “The procureur insisted on an escort.”

  “Give my love to the children, Anne Marie. Kiss the lovely Létitia.”

  “If the procureur ever allows me to see them.”

  The two women embraced and Lucette Salondy squeezed Anne Marie’s hand.

  6

  Gendarme

  The officer helped Anne Marie from the military helicopter and accompanied her to the waiting car—a dark blue Peugeot that glinted in the sunshine. Trousseau followed, muttering to himself and wiping his forehead with a handkerchief.

  “We’ll be there in a few minutes.” The gendarme spoke with an educated accent. He belonged to the generation of West Indians that was now beginning to reach positions of authority. There was about him the faint odor of expensive eau de cologne and self-assurance. Anne Marie got into the car and he closed the door behind her. He went around the back of the vehicle and climbed in from the other side. A smile played at the edge of his lips.

  Trousseau sat beside the uniformed driver. He held the battered attaché case on his knees. He was now wearing his threadbare jacket.

  “To the Pointe des Chateaux.” The gendarme removed his képi. He had a high forehead and short, curly hair that had begun to recede. He was good-looking, but slightly chubby. “Capitaine Parise,” he said.

  “Anne Marie Laveaud.”

  The lips broke into a wide smile. “I’ve heard much about you.” He held out his hand; Anne Marie noticed a gold wedding ring. “A pleasure to meet you, madame le juge.”

  The car took the road from the small airport, went past the Méridien hotel and the bright flags flapping from the high staffs, and out onto the road toward the Pointe des Châteaux.

  Tourists were swinging golf clubs on the green of the nearby course. Caddies lolled in the limited shade of the motorized buggies.

  The sky was cloudless, the sun directly overhead. The car was air-conditioned and the windows tinted. Only the slightest hint of humming as the Peugeot traveled eastwards. Thin dancing mirages played on the surface of the tarmac. “I don’t envy you.”

  “What?”

  “The Dugain business.” His eyes ran over her face. “You’re making a lot of enemies within the SRPJ.”

  “Why the helicopter, commandant?”

  Parise coughed. “The procureur wanted you here as soon as possible. I’m afraid you’re going to be rather busy. Good thing it’s not the high season.”

  “High season?”

  “The high season for tourism.”

  “Does that matter?”

  Parise glanced at Trousseau’s neck. “A nurse, madame le juge, aged twenty-three or twenty-four. She was on holiday here.”

  The unmarked Peugeot went past the new restaurants—low, concrete buildings with grey-green corrugated roofs—specializing in lobster, conch and other seafood. The restaurants were doing brisk business beneath the midday sun. Rented cars with their stenciled plates were parked along the narrow highway.

  Another day in this tropical paradise.

  “A tourist from Paris. Raped and then murdered, madame le juge.”

  In the cool air of the car, Trousseau was humming softly.

  7

  Jacuzzi

  (Jean Michel used to call it their Jacuzzi Beach. “One of those places where families go on weekends. The rest of the time, it is deserted—apart from the occasional fisherman.”)

  When Fabrice was little, Jean Michel would drive the family down here. They would picnic and later Jean Michel would go off swimming with his goggles and snorkel. The surf was not ideal but a few meters into the sea there was an outcrop of rocks where the waves broke, forming a natural tub into which the foaming current swirled, massaging the body. Nine, ten years ago—before the divorce, before Létitia.

  A blue van was pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. On the roof, the light turned slowly. Other vehicles were parked under the trees, between the road and the white beach.

  The sun was overhead, hot and implacable. It was almost one o’clock as Parise helped Anne Marie out of the car and they walked to where the procureur stood talking to a couple of men in green fatigues.

  An intercom rasped unpleasantly and one of the men, dark aureoles of sweat beneath his arms, spoke into a microphone.

  Easterly trades blew in from the sea and rustled at the branches of the sea grapes. There were picnic tables made of unvarnished timber that had been anchored to cement blocks with steel pins to prevent termites eating into the woodwork.

  The procureur kissed Anne Marie on both cheeks. “Sorry about this, Anne Marie.” He shrugged apologetically. “And on a Wednesday.”

  “Where’s the body?”

  “Monsieur Trousseau said you were busy.” He used the tu form.

  “An investigating magistrate’s always busy.”

  “He also said you were taking lunch with your children …”

  “A mother’s always busy,” Anne Marie said. “The maid knows how to heat something up.”

  The procureur was a tall man, with sandy hair and stooped shoulders. He wore white cotton trousers and black shoes. He held a cigarette in his hand; a box of Peter Stuyvesant was visible through the fabric of the shirt pocket. He was sweating; there were beads of perspiration on the freckled forehead.

  He took Anne Marie by the arm and led her toward the beach. Underfoot the hot dust became fine, white sand.

  “I used to come here with my husband.”

  Stakes had been driven into the sand; red and white police ribbon stretched from one stake to the next, curved and flapping in the breeze.

  “A fisherman leaves his boat here. He got back from fishing just after dawn and he saw something under the bushes.” The procureur put a hand to his eyes and pointed toward a tree on the beach’s edge. “Didn’t give it a second thought—until he returned to the beach at ten o’clock. Dogs were everywhere and when he realized they were mauling a corpse, he alerted the gendarmerie in Saint-François.”

  The glare from the sand was painful. “Where’s the body?” Anne Marie took a pair of sunglasses from her shoulder bag.

  The procureur stepped over the ribbon and then helped Anne Marie. His hand was damp. The wind ruffled his wispy hair.

  “At the morgue.”

  “Then what am I doing here?”

  “I was in Le Moule and so I got here almost immediately with Docteur Malavoy.” He kneeled down in the shade of the tree and touched the sand. “The gendarmerie have done all the scene-of-the-crime stuff. No traces of blood.” A hand to his forehead. “I wanted to pack everything off to the lab as quickly as possible.”

  “Without a corpse there’s not much point in my being here.”

  “In this heat, it was best to get the body to the hospital as soon as possible.”

  “Tell me about the victim.”

  “Evelyne Vaton, resident of the fourteenth arrondissement.” />
  “A tourist from Paris?”

  The procureur nodded. “Twenty-four years old and unmarried. Mademoiselle Evelyne Vaton, a nurse by profession. The only personal belonging we’ve found so far is a bikini.”

  “How do you know who she is?”

  “Through Hertz, the car rental people,” the procureur said. “She hired a car for a week and when she didn’t return the car on Monday night, the rental firm contacted the family she was staying with.”

  “Monday?”

  “She should have handed it in the day before yesterday.”

  “The car’s been found?”

  “A Fiat Uno.” He made a vague gesture toward the Pointe des Châteaux, just visible beyond the low shrub that ran along the beach to the east. “Left it in the Pointe des Châteaux parking site.”

  “The Pointe des Châteaux’s three kilometers down the road from here. It’s a pretty long walk to this beach.” Anne Marie gestured to the police vehicles. “She could’ve parked here.”

  The procureur shrugged. “The sandwich woman says she noticed that a white Fiat was the only car at the Pointe des Châteaux when she went home at seven o’clock last night.”

  “Last night? When was the girl murdered?”

  “We’ve got the signs of decomposition.”

  “When did she die, Arnaud?”

  “According to Docteur Malavoy, Evelyne Vaton was probably still alive at midnight on Sunday.” He glanced at his watch. “More than sixty hours ago.”

  “Just last night the woman noticed the car?” Mockingly, Anne Marie counted off two fingers. “After two days?”

  “Her name is Olga and she takes Mondays off.”

  “The body’s only found now? When it’s started to decompose? More than two days on the beach and nobody saw the body?” Anne Marie could feel sweat trickling down the insides of her arms.

  “The murderer hid the body.” The procureur added inconsequentially, “She was naked.”

  “You said there was a bikini, Arnaud.”

  “The bikini was half buried in the sand.”

  “It may not have been hers. Two days on the beach—you don’t think the dogs would have got to her?” Anne Marie exhaled noisily.