The Christmas Mystery Read online

  K. Burke takes a long gulp of her wine. She nods, but she says nothing. I have something else to add.

  “Now, another thing, something perhaps a bit subtler, but not to be overlooked: Julien Carpentier mentioned innumerable times that my father died of a heart attack, that my father had heart disease, that my father passed painlessly because of the speed of his heart attack. How many times was it necessary to tell us that? Likewise, from Babette’s very first phone call to me in the States, she too kept insisting that it was a heart attack, a heart attack, a heart attack. Dupain the attorney mentioned it.…Why so much attention to this? Yes, surely he may very well have died from a heart attack, but is it necessary to mention it so many times?”

  I pour us more wine. Then Detective Burke lifts her purse from the floor. It is her big black leather satchel of a purse. She unzips the bag and puts her hand inside. She retrieves a business-sized envelope. It is cream-colored. It looks like fine heavyweight paper.

  Burke hands the envelope to me. On the reverse side, just below my father’s engraved initials, the envelope is held closed by a bit of red sealing wax.

  “I found this envelope where I am staying, in your bedroom. It was leaning against the bronze inkstand on your desk. The envelope was meant to be discovered,” she says.

  I flip the envelope over. There, in my father’s precise handwriting, are these words: à mon fils. To my son.

  I grab a dinner knife from one of the bins. Then I slit the envelope open. I read the letter aloud.

  My Dear Luc,

  This letter assumes that you are now in Paris for my funeral, that you are in our house, in your former bedroom.

  Here is what I wish you to know.

  In April I received word from Julien Carpentier that our most important new product—Prezinol, a breakthrough treatment for childhood diabetes—was facing serious problems. Prezinol was to be my last great achievement. Valex had worked on it for decades.

  Then this awful news arrived. Thirty percent of three hundred juvenile test volunteers in Warsaw suffered a dreadful reaction to the drug—kidney failure or stage one cancer of the liver.

  Julien immediately (and without consulting me) dispatched a team of doctors to Poland. By the time Julien involved me in the matter, the doctors reported back that the kidney and liver damage were irreversible. They advised that we stop all testing immediately, and that we cancel our plans for a similar test in São Paulo.

  I disagreed with this strategy. I could not allow Prezinol to fail. I posited that we might receive different results in São Paulo. I also knew from experience that it would take the Polish bureau of health a few months to take action against Valex.

  I instructed Julien to proceed with everything as planned. He refused. In fact, he accused me of being—and I quote—“a senile old devil.” He said that my entire life was driven by greed and ego.

  The fact is this: Julien was correct. I realized the truth of his observation. It is one that you yourself had sometimes made.

  That evening I instructed Julien to stop all testing in Warsaw, to cancel plans for the testing in São Paulo, and to arrange significant compensation for the Polish children who suffered such unspeakable damage.

  I then considered what else I might do to compensate for my history of abhorrent behavior. Sadly I realized that there was no suitable punishment.

  I realized I was just another old man with arthritis and heart disease. My financial success was everything and nothing.

  I decided to address my situation as follows.

  First, to name Julien as my successor at Valex. Julien has the skills and moral fiber to act in a way that will allow Valex to create pharmaceuticals that will advance worldwide health.

  Second, to leave to you the vast portion of my wealth. Out of guilt certainly for my years of paternal neglect, but also because you will use my fortune not merely to live well, but to live wisely.

  Finally, to have delivered to me a shipment of fifty capsules of Prezinol.

  My dear Luc, more than anything, I wish you the love I kept locked in my heart.

  Votre père

  Chapter 34

  The songwriter was wrong when he wrote the lyrics that said he even loved “Paris in the winter, when it drizzles.” I tell this to K. Burke as she and I walk the Boulevard Haussmann toward the enormous shopping cathedral known as Galeries Lafayette, after my father’s funeral.

  “The drizzle, it even gets through the finest wool coat,” I complain.

  “You should wear a good puffy ski jacket like mine,” says Burke.

  “I would rather wear a circus clown costume than a ski jacket.”

  “Say what you want, but I’m warm and dry, and you’re cold and wet.”

  The morning had been a blur, but it was a mercifully short, respectful service with no gathering after. Except that I called Julien and Babette to meet with us. We ate homemade breakfast brioche and discussed my father’s suicide.

  Julien and Babette readily admitted that they knew the full story, and, yes, they had been complicit in hiding the method from me. They swore that they were going to tell me the truth and to put that truth “in context.” That my father was suffering from advanced heart disease, that the children’s diabetes drug had caused grave damage to many in the test group, that my father had, in fact, ended his own life by taking more than four dozen Prezinol capsules.

  “We merely wanted to get through the funeral, Luc. With so many business matters and the will, it seemed like the right thing,” Julien said. “I am sorry if we miscalculated.”

  I was inclined to believe him. I still am. You see, the simple truth is: What difference does it make? We move on. My father is gone. Babette is a sad old lady. Julien is set for a lifetime of overwhelming work. We move on. At least we try.

  As for me, I am and will always be without my beloved Dalia. To have a death that meaningful in your life is to always have the tiniest cloud over even the greatest joy. My police work may fascinate me. Good friends like Burke will support me. France may win the World Cup. I may sip a magnificent Romanée-Conti. I may even fall in love again. Even that I cannot rule out. But: no matter. Dalia will not be here with me.

  K. Burke and I continue our walk. Now we are within a block of the Galeries Lafayette. Christmas lights hang from the chestnut trees. Candles sit shining in the shop windows.

  “You know, Moncrief. You’re a real Frenchman,” she says.

  “Did you ever doubt it?” I ask.

  “No. Here’s why: you do what many Frenchmen do. I noticed. You don’t walk. You stroll. Long strides, a little hip swing, head back. You’re like a little cartoon of a French guy.”

  “There’s a compliment hidden somewhere in those words, K. Burke. I just haven’t found it yet.”

  So we stroll. We approach the Haussmann entrance to the store. Burke asks that we pause for a moment. We do, and she says, “So, you were right. Your instincts were true. Your father was murdered.”

  “But, of course not, K. Burke. Not murder. My father committed suicide.”

  “I guess, but…” she says. “He was a murderer who…murdered himself.”

  I tell Burke how I feel. That sometimes I believe his suicide was an old-fashioned noble gesture; that he had committed sins that could never be forgiven. So, poof. He punished himself.

  “But then,” I tell her, “I think he was an old-fashioned coward. The mere thought of earthly punishment—jail, humiliation—told him to escape. He up and left us. He left Babette, a woman who loved him. He left Julien, a young man who idolized him. And he left me, his son, the boy he barely knew, the man he never knew.”

  We walk inside the gilded department store. It looks like a Christmas tree turned upside down. Sparkle and glitter and thirty-feet-high gift boxes suspended from the vaulted ceiling. Burke looks upward, her neck stretching backward, as if she were standing in the Sistine Chapel. Her mouth literally opens in awe. The Christmas shoppers crowd the floor.

  Then she says
, “Let’s start shopping before you start wanting to move on. I want to buy a few things to take back.”

  “I can assure you, K. Burke, there is almost nothing worth purchasing here.”

  “Well, thanks for the advice, Moncrief. But I think I’m about to prove that statement wrong.”

  I limit her, however, to one hour. In that short time she purchases a green Mark Cross Villa Tote bag, a pair of real silk stockings (the sort that also requires her to buy simple but quite intriguing garters), two tiny bronze replicas of the Arc de Triomphe (“Vous touriste!” I tell her), and four silk scarves (blue for her cousin Sandi, red for her cousin Elyce, yellow for her cousin Maddy, white for her cousin Marilyn). The scarves are my treat. I insist.

  I also came out of the store with a purchase of my own. A five-pound tenderloin of venison.

  “I shall give this venison to my father’s cook, Reynaud, and you shall feast in a way you never have before.”

  “I’ll say that it was interesting being in a butcher store inside a department store. But really…venison? Deer meat?”

  “What is so odd about that?” I ask.

  “I can tell you in one word: Bambi.”

  Chapter 35

  I must admit the truth: I am enjoying my day with K. Burke.

  She is constantly refreshing, authentic. She has a complete honesty to her behavior. On the job she is not always charming, but here she always is. Burke is like a provincial schoolgirl on her first trip to Paris—wide-eyed and enthusiastic, but never irritating or vulgar. Burke has the purity that I have experienced in one other woman.

  “We are going someplace really special now,” I say.

  “Galeries Lafayette was special enough for me,” she says.

  “Cease the humility, K. Burke. Where we are going next is…is almost…”

  “Incroyable?”

  “Oui. Almost unbelievable.”

  “It is only a short walk. It is on the Place Vendôme. But the drizzle is still drizzling. I’ll try to get us a taxi.”

  “No, we’ll walk,” she says.

  “But the rain. It is cold. It is icy.”

  “We’ll walk.”

  So we walk, and I try to remember not to “stroll.” K. Burke can’t get enough of the Parisian excitement. Her head seems as if it’s attached to a well-oiled fulcrum that allows her to snap her eyes from side to side in only a second.

  We pass the furriers and jewelers and even the occasional hat store on our walk. Then, in front of a chocolate shop, of all places, I make a grave error.

  “If there’s anything you want, just say so, and we can get it,” I say.

  She stops walking. The smile leaves her face, and her head remains motionless.

  “I don’t want you to buy me anything…anything. I shouldn’t have let you buy those expensive scarves for my cousins. I don’t want things. Frankly, if you want to give me something, do it by giving yourself a gift…the gift of joy, some peace. What would truly make me happy is for you to be happy.”

  She brushes her cheeks with her hand, and I cannot be sure whether she is brushing away tears or merely brushing away the icy drizzle.

  “You are a true friend, K. Burke,” I say.

  “I try to be,” she says, her voice choking just a bit. “But it’s hard to be a friend to a lucky man who has had some very bad luck.”

  “You are doing just fine,” I say.

  We continue our walk.

  We are about to turn onto the Place Vendôme when she says, “By the way, Moncrief, you can stroll if you want to.”

  “I am walking slow because I am contemplating a problem,” I say.

  Burke looks nervous, serious.

  “What’s the matter?” she says.

  “I have a problem that only you can solve.”

  “And that is?”

  “That is this: we are going to a place where I had planned on purchasing you a combination Christmas–New Years–Friendship–Thank You gift. And now you say…” (I do a comic imitation of an angry woman) “I don’t want you to buy me anything!”

  “That’s the problem?” she says.

  “For me, that is a problem. Can you solve it?”

  “Okay, mon ami. You may buy me one more thing. Just one. And then that’s it.”

  Chapter 36

  The flag that is pinned over the doorway is not too big, not too small. It is surely not an elegant sign, although the small building itself is a beautifully designed nineteenth-century town house. The sign is wet from the rain, so it is wrinkled in many spots. Dark-purple letters—only three letters—are printed against a white background.

  JAR

  Quite logically K. Burke says, “Is it a store that sells jars? Or do the letters stand for something?”

  “The letters stand for something,” I say. “It is a man’s name. Joel Arthur Rosenthal. He is the finest jeweler in the world, and, not surprisingly, he is here in Paris.”

  “Moncrief, when I said one more gift, I did not say jewelry. This is out of the question. I’m not going to allow…”

  I put an index finger gently on her lips.

  “I am going to ring the bell. I have an appointment. Let’s try to keep our voices down.”

  Within seconds we are greeted by a very handsome young man in gray slacks and a blue blazer. We exchange greetings in French, and then I introduce him to Detective Burke.

  “Mademoiselle Katherine Burke, je voudrais vous presenter Richard Ranftle, the assistant to Monsieur Rosenthal.”

  “Je suis enchanté, Mademoiselle. I am also very much admiring of your coat. The North Face ski jacket has become everyone’s favorite.”

  “Merci, Richard,” Burke says. Then she smiles at me.

  “Monsieur Rosenthal regrets that he is not here to assist the both of you, but your phone call came only this morning, Monsieur Moncrief, and Monsieur Rosenthal had already left for his home in Morocco. He likes to escape Paris during the Christmas season.”

  A maid enters. She is dressed in full maid regalia—starched white cap, black dress, starched white apron with ruffle.

  She asks if we would like tea or coffee or wine.

  We decline.

  “Perhaps some champagne,” says Richard.

  We decline again.

  We follow Richard a few steps into what looks like the parlor of a small elegant apartment on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. A two-seat sofa in gray. A few mid-century wooden chairs with darker gray seats. A very bright crystal chandelier in the center of the ceiling. The only thing that distinguishes the room from a private residence are the four glass jewelry showcases.

  Katherine Burke runs her hands along the glass enclosures. I watch her closely. We both seem to be nearly overwhelmed by the beauty of the jewels. Not merely the size of the diamonds but the unusual designs of the bracelets and earrings and necklaces and rings.

  “I know very little about jewelry, and it has been a few years since I have visited here, but these stones all seem to be enormous,” I say.

  “Joel…er, Monsieur Rosenthal, likes to work on a large canvas. You see, even when he uses small stones, as in a pavé setting, he sets them so close to one another that they look like a wall of diamonds.”

  He points, as an example, to a ring with something called an “apricot” diamond at its center. The tiny diamonds around it look like a starry night.

  Richard Ranftle shows us something called a “thread ring.” If there were a piece of sewing thread composed of tiny diamonds, then flung into the air, then eventually landing in a messy heap, it would be this enormous ring. For good luck, Rosenthal seems to have decided that a very large amethyst should sit on top of this pile of extraordinary thread.

  “Mademoiselle seems most interested in the rings, eh?” says Richard.

  I note with amusement that Richard has perfected an amazing style. He is helpful without being condescending. He is courteous without being obnoxious. We are three people having fun. Million-dollar fun, but fun nonetheless
.

  Burke is slightly stoned, I think, on the jewelry on display.

  “Look at that,” she says, and she points to an enormous round green stone.

  Richard immediately goes to work.

  “It is a twelve-carat emerald. Monsieur Rosenthal was inspired to set the stone upside down. Then he surrounded it with a platinum and garnet rope. It is beyond nontraditional. He says it looks like ‘a turtle from paradise.’”

  Richard removes the ring from the glass case. He places it on a dark-purple velvet tray.

  “Let me slip it onto your middle finger,” says Richard. Then he pauses and says, “Unless you would care to do so, Monsieur Moncrief.”

  “No, no. Go right ahead,” I say.

  “My God,” says Burke. “This is about the same size as my Toyota Camry.”

  “If you like, then, you can drive it out of the showroom,” says Richard. We all smile.

  She looks at the ring. She holds up her hand.

  “I wish you’d told me we were coming here, Moncrief. I would have given myself a manicure.”

  The ring looks spectacular, huge and spectacular, beautiful and spectacular. I tell Burke to take it. She says, “Oh, no.” I insist. She insists no. I say that it’s a Christmas gift. She says this is ridiculous. I tell her that she promised I would be allowed to give her “just one gift.” Then as an extra argument I say something that is probably not even true: “Look, Detective, how expensive can it be? It’s only an emerald, not even a diamond.”

  For about three minutes the room remains completely silent. I do not know what is going through her head, of course. But when she finally speaks, she says, “Okay.”

  I smile. She smiles. Richard smiles. Richard hands me a small blue paper on which is written: “540,000 EU.” I slip the paper into the wet pocket of my coat, and I continue to smile.

  And that is how Detective Katherine Burke came to own the ring that came to be called “The Emerald Turtle.”