Killer Critique by Alexander Campion Read Free Book Online

Béatrice Renaud I’m dropping by to see her.”

CHAPTER 8
    T he night of the murder the rue de Varenne had been plugged tight with police vans and squad cars, blue lights throbbing. But in the kind early summer light the street was intimate and welcoming. Capucine bounced the nose of the Twingo up on the sidewalk at the corner, her preferred method of parking ever since she had received her license. She had been as indifferent to parking tickets as a university student as she was as a police officer.
    The restaurant had also been transformed by the light of day. The dark brown awning and smoked plate-glass windows promised elegance and sophistication. When Capucine pushed open the glass door, a willowy hostess who had been staring, slack-jawed, out the window came abruptly alive, as if a switch had been toggled on an automaton. “Chef’s already called twice to make sure you weren’t kept waiting,” she said with artificial brightness.
    Béatrice Renaud hurried out to collect Capucine. She, too, was changed from the distraught, disoriented woman in the grips of catastrophe and the machinery of the police.
    Now she was what must be her usual self, lusty, confident, big boned, plump, and hearty. Her round, innocent face, framed by severely brushed mid-length chestnut hair, could have belonged to a farm girl. But the lattice work of scars and burns on her muscular hands and forearms gave testimony to long, ruthless years in professional kitchens.
    Béatrice briskly showed off her still-empty dining room, modish in soothing beige fabric wall coverings, tan deep-pile carpeting, crisp lighting from tiny ceiling spotlights.
    The kitchen was clearly her sanctum. Hanging domed heat lamps bathed long rows of deeply gouged wooden tables in dramatic chiaroscuro. A dozen or so chefs, all male, all young, in loose-fitting white T-shirts and black aprons, fussed with their mises en places, keyed up for the lunch rush.
    Walking through the kitchen, Béatrice scrutinized her cooks’ set-ups with a critical eye that didn’t ignore one or two pairs of her chefs’ fesses . The lasciviousness of the glances were blatant enough to make Capucine wonder if it wasn’t some form of psychological compensation.
    The interview took place in Béatrice’s miniscule office, barely large enough for a chair at either side of the wooden desk, piled high with loose papers and ring-bound notebooks. The office was glass-walled from waist height up, providing an uninterrupted view of the entire kitchen.
    â€œLunch is a lot tougher than dinner,” Béatrice said.
    â€œThey arrive all at once, between twelve thirty and a quarter to one, dead sober, set on having a perfect meal in an hour and fifteen minutes. One mistake in the kitchen and it all falls apart. Dinner is a different story. They’re mellow from a few apéros and arrive anytime from seven thirty to nine. It’s their evening entertainment, so if a dish is a little slow in coming, so much the better. Dinner is definitely the meal to cook.”
    â€œWouldn’t it have been better if I had come between services ?”
    â€œNo, this is fine. I’ve gone over everything with the chefs de partie and double-checked their mises. They’re all set. Now all I have to do is sit here until someone screws up. That won’t happen for at least fifteen minutes. Let me get you something to drink.”
    She waved over a runner who had been lounging in a corner and told him to bring Capucine a Kir Royal .
    â€œI know Kirs have become totally démodé, but this one is special. We make it with rosé champagne, a lightly fermented raspberry syrup that comes from a small farm in the Midi, and a half a tot of alcool de framboise to give it just a bit of punch.
    â€œOf course, getting you here for the luncheon service wasn’t entirely disinterested. I hadn’t realized until your call that you were married to Alexandre de