A Well-Timed Murder Page 3

  Agnes glanced toward the nearby showrooms. The large group had moved on and she could see the window displays highlighting new products. What was revolutionary in the industry? Would someone kill for a design idea?

  The waitress cleared their cups, chatting with Vallotton, and drawing Christine into their conversation about the extraordinary crowds at Baselworld this year. Agnes’s phone vibrated and she checked the screen.

  Vallotton noticed. “Do you need to go?”

  “No, this is a message from André.”

  “How is Officer Petit?” Vallotton asked. “Happy to have left our local gendarmerie for the big city? He’ll be missed in Ville-sur-Lac.”

  “Probably more tired than happy right now. He’s still on leave. The baby is three weeks old and not sleeping. Petit comes back to work Monday, but judging by the texts he sends me at all hours, I think he wants to return now.”

  Vallotton laughed, but Agnes sympathized with Petit. She tilted the screen sideways to show Christine the latest image of her new partner’s baby. While the young woman oohed and aahed, Agnes caught Vallotton’s eye and nodded. She would investigate Guy Chavanon’s death. She remembered an early lesson in police work. Preconceived notions should be avoided. The local police should have found the dead man’s note. They had made a critical mistake and assumed that a severe allergic reaction had to be an accident. A week after the man died and she would have to start over. Maybe the widow knew what had frightened her husband. And maybe she knew what constituted a revolutionary design.

  Three

  “What do you expect to find on the surveillance footage?” Agnes asked Aubry. They were crammed shoulder to shoulder with other officers in the Messe Basel security control room. Aubry’s men compared notes, while security personnel pulled the appropriate feeds for review. Too many of them were clustered in one space, and despite the air-conditioning, the room was hot. Aubry edged toward a small meeting room and Agnes followed him.

  “My expectations here?” he said. “Between us, nothing. Officially, one of the witnesses swears she saw the Roach react to something or someone.” Aubry demonstrated with an exaggerated movement of his head. “Near as we can tell, this was in the minutes before he ran.”

  Agnes suppressed a shiver at the memory of the Roach’s fractured leg and head. Over Aubry’s shoulder multiple camera views flashed onto the monitors. This was the kind of mind-numbing exercise that police officers dreaded. Dozens of cameras, thousands of faces, no one sure what they were looking for: Was there another person and a signal, or was the nod simply an everyday human gesture?

  “You want to help?” Aubry asked, noting her gaze. “You can come back and work with us. You, me, Carnet. We did good work. You should be the one to wrap up this case. It’s really your victory.”

  “I’m sure Carnet has found an excellent replacement for me. Besides, I’ve got a new case. The death of a watchmaker. I wouldn’t have the time.” For the first time that day, she laughed. “Time? A watchmaker? Get it?”

  Aubry gave her a sardonic smile.

  “You speak of Monsieur Chavanon?” A man in his late sixties, tall and immaculately dressed in a dark blue pin-striped suit, stood in the doorway. He had silver hair and an easy air of imperturbability. Agnes recognized Antoine Mercier, the president of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry. He was a vigorous defender of the laws regarding the sale or import of fake watches, but she’d never worked those cases and had never met him.

  After introductions, Mercier repeated his question to Agnes.

  “You knew Monsieur Chavanon?” she responded.

  “Bien sûre.” He studied her. “When the police speak of death, it suggests that it was not an accident.”

  Anxious to continue his investigation, Aubry motioned for Mercier to accompany him to the other room. For a moment, it appeared the man would insist they answer his questions about Chavanon, but he didn’t. Instead, Mercier asked for her business card and told Agnes he would call her mobile the moment he was available.

  After they left, Agnes chose a seat on the far side of the round table. She located the telephone number for the gendarmerie responsible for sending officers to the scene the day Guy Chavanon died. Waiting to be connected, she pictured the roads leading to Rossemaison. She had an excellent memory for patterns, and that extended to maps. Rossemaison was a small town off the main highway southwest of Basel. She had been there once, years before, with her husband on one of their few hiking adventures. George had missed the turn to a famous gorge and they had ended up at a smaller well-known ravine. She remembered that they’d parked in a glade and walked the final distance. Not much of a hike, more of a nature trail to an overlook. Her father had supplied a picnic basket from his restaurant, and they had hauled it near the edge of the rock face and eaten while listening to water fall to the stream below.

  A man’s voice over the telephone interrupted her reverie. Officer Jacques Boschung sounded a decade or so older than her thirty-eight years. His voice was deep and firm, and she could imagine him commanding the local officers with a deft hand. It was a no-nonsense voice and she quickly outlined her interest in Guy Chavanon’s death, asking if he would share with her what he remembered.

  “Work for Bardy, you say?” he asked.

  Agnes paused a beat, unsure where this train of thought would lead. She hadn’t called her boss yet. She was on leave through the weekend and didn’t want him to reassign the case to another officer. Once she was immersed in the details, he was less likely to take it away. She also knew how Bardy felt about the Vallottons. If Julien Vallotton had called and asked for her help, Bardy wouldn’t object to her offering it.

  “We’re a quiet community,” Boschung continued. “Don’t want trouble and don’t have any. Your chef de brigade thinks you have to draw a net across the country. I heard Bardy speak once about this new division. Violent Crimes, he’s calling it? Combating the modern criminal? Criminals stick to the city. We keep the peace, help people in trouble.”

  Agnes let him ramble for a minute. If Boschung was the original responding officer, he had a right to be defensive about her questions. She had also decided to not mention the note immediately, wanting to hear Boschung’s version of events before clouding the issue.

  “You were first on the scene when Guy Chavanon died?” she eventually broke in.

  “Yes.” Boschung’s voice faded for a moment as he spoke to someone in the background. “The Institute called for an ambulance,” he said, returning to their conversation. “I was nearby. I drive by when they have receptions or any gathering. There’s never enough parking, and visitors pull over on the main road. Barely two lanes, and the ditches are close, so there’s not much shoulder. Foreigners don’t understand. If I catch them, I suggest double-parking on the property. I’d been by earlier and hustled a car along. I came back to see if there were more.”

  “The Moutier Institut de Jeunes Gens isn’t a good neighbor?” This was a serious accusation in Switzerland, where courtesy was paramount to local harmony.

  “That’s not what I meant. But they have their opinion and needs, and we have ours in the village. It’s up to me to help balance the two. We’ve got farmers driving through with trucks or on tractors. The roads have to stay clear and clean.” Boschung seemed to realize he’d diverted from the topic. “Anyway, the receptionist, Madame Jomini, telephoned for an ambulance and I was near when the call came over the radio. The situation with Chavanon was clear from the moment I walked in. A half dozen people knew about the man’s allergy, and the paramedics said the symptoms were a classic response. I know your team’s trained to look for violence, but what I saw was an accident. Chavanon’s friend … I’ve forgotten the name, Indian guy.”

  Agnes remembered the well-dressed man from earlier. “Monsieur Patel?”

  “Oui, c’est ça. He said he’d witnessed an identical reaction when they were at university together. And the headmaster knew about the allergy. The chef knew, too, and was nearly
hysterical that his food might be blamed. Bunch of people were upset, but we got the children away and calmed everyone. Later, the coroner confirmed the anaphylaxis. I did follow-through on that. You’ll see it all in the report I just emailed you.”

  The outer door to the security booth slammed shut, as if pulled by wind, and Agnes flinched. “Did you find any peanut products at the school reception?”

  “None, and we did look. We weren’t looking to blame anyone, but there was the matter of an explanation.” Boschung stopped abruptly, and Agnes could feel him wanting to retract the phrase. Looking into the other room, she watched the scrolling footage of the exhibit floor, tiny people moving at quadruple speed. She wouldn’t say it to anyone, but she knew that her early insights into the Roach’s methods were what set her career on an upward trajectory. Likely it was what recommended her to Bardy when he was assembling his team. A strange debt was owed to the dead man that she couldn’t forget.

  “Not that we needed an explanation about why he died,” Boschung continued. “We knew what had happened, but we wanted to tidy up the report. It was all done correctly.”

  Agnes explained the note Christine Chavanon found. There was a moment of silence. She gave Boschung time to think through his reaction.

  “Mince. Why didn’t she—”

  Agnes interrupted, explaining that the note was only discovered that morning.

  “Still, makes us look like fools. We didn’t even question … mince alors.”

  “You didn’t find the source of the peanuts?”

  Boschung’s tone changed. He seemed to appreciate her matter-of-factness. “Yes and no. We tested Chavanon’s plate and glass, really as a favor to the chef, who was out of his mind with worry. I’ve never heard such language, and in a school with children around. He insisted that he hadn’t served anything forbidden. He was right. Nothing turned up.”

  “But you said no and yes. Meaning you did find evidence of the source?”

  “There were over sixty people in the room. At least a half dozen confessed that they’d been around peanuts or believed they might have eaten something earlier in the day with nuts in it. People were staring at their hands like they’d brought the plague in with them. One man had visited his candy factory, where they were testing a new peanut nougat. Admitted he’d worn his suit jacket into the production room without pulling on a sterile overcoat. Of course, he was wearing that same jacket at the reception. I’d never thought about food that way, like a walking contagion. It was a miracle Chavanon hadn’t died years ago walking through town.”

  Agnes knew that when you smelled food it was because of contact with airborne microscopic particles. Wasn’t this the same? “Did anyone mention smelling peanuts?”

  “No. Talk to the coroner. He’ll agree with me. It looked like an accident. That’s what he wrote on the death certificate.” Boschung lowered his voice. “You saw Chavanon’s note yourself?” When Agnes confirmed that she had, his tone changed. “Do you think we—”

  She cut him off, not wanting to speculate. “I’ll be in touch.”

  After ending the call, Agnes scrolled through email on her phone. Boschung had done as promised, and both the police and coroner’s reports were in her in-box. She skimmed the documents, then tapped a new number on her phone screen. It took several transfers before she was connected to a man who answered with a curt “Aerni.”

  He sounded exactly as she pictured a coroner: hurried but precise. She quickly outlined the basics of the case.

  “You can stop there,” Aerni interrupted. “It was only a few days ago, I remember it well. Give me a moment to pull up my notes. I like to verify.”

  Agnes put her phone on speaker mode and laid it on the table so she could listen and simultaneously read the report, picturing the coroner doing the same. When she reached the identification photographs, she paused. Guy Chavanon had been a classically handsome man in the prime of life. She detected a little of Christine around the eyes and perhaps the mouth, but in the end the daughter was a pale reflection of the father.

  “I stand by my original findings,” Aerni finally said.

  The connection had a slight echo, and Agnes wondered if he was in the morgue. She didn’t ask, not wanting to fix that image more clearly in her mind.

  Aerni clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Appropriate treatment was administered—that doesn’t always happen—but wasn’t effective.”

  “Treatment before the ambulance arrived?”

  “Yes, it’s in the notes. Chavanon had an EpiPen with him and a friend knew about it and administered the dose. It’s a shot to the thigh. All done quite correctly, it simply wasn’t enough to counter his reaction. Not unusual in the severest cases.”

  Agnes skimmed through the notes she’d been sent. This was why Monsieur Patel was particularly upset. He had tried to save his friend to no avail.

  “Anyway,” continued Aerni, “the presenting symptoms were consistent with anaphylactic reaction producing shock. The deceased had a known allergy to peanut, therefore it was reasonable to assume this was a probable association with a known antigen.”

  “Officer Boschung mentioned people wandering around with peanut dust on their hands and coats. Was that a factor?”

  “Understand that allergies are only predictable to a certain extent.” The coroner launched into a lengthy explanation of the variables, including absorption, age, and other preexisting conditions.

  “His stomach was empty?”

  There was a pause. “Correct. With his history and the timeline of his reactions in the past, coupled with the severity of the episode, I expect the first symptom presented almost immediately following ingestion.”

  “Meaning a short time before he died?”

  Aerni hesitated again, as if reading. “Yes, a very short time.” He described the symptoms in exhaustive detail: tightness of the throat, dizziness, chest pain, shock. Agnes listened carefully. Aerni’s words were clinical and precise, yet based on a mixture of probability and fact. Coroners were human; they had to interpret. Aerni didn’t know how Chavanon came into contact with peanut, only that it had killed him.

  “If he didn’t have anything in his stomach, is it realistic that one of the other guests had enough peanut product on them that Chavanon died from it?” She thought of the man who had toured the nougat factory before coming to the reception. “Was it possible he shook hands with someone who had peanut oil on their hands, then rubbed his eyes or touched his nose and had a reaction?”

  “No, with an extreme concentration he might have irritated his eyes this way. But most of us would have discomfort with a foreign product in our eyes. That’s not how his anaphylaxis was triggered.” Aerni paused. “You are correct that this was not a stray particle or casual contact.”

  Agnes told him about the note. She felt Aerni weighing his next words.

  “Inspector, the man had a history of severe allergic reaction, these reactions are unpredictable, and he died in a room full of people and food in close quarters. Officer Boschung had no alternative findings and I knew the cause of death. I was comfortable calling it an accident.”

  She saw the opening. “The note is new evidence. Perhaps someone used knowledge of the allergy to deliberately introduce peanuts.”

  “The cause of death is unquestionable.” Aerni clicked his teeth again. “I can guarantee the cause of death was anaphylaxis-induced heart failure. However, what caused the cause … that’s for you to determine.”

  “The difference between falling on a knife and having someone stab you? Both thrust, both sever an artery, but only one is murder?”

  Aerni took his phone off speaker. “You think this was foul play?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m not done yet.” It would be a perfect crime. Killing someone with a poison only deadly to them.

  After thanking the coroner, she hung up and texted Christine Chavanon. Who knew about your father’s allergy?

  The reply came almost immediately.

>   Everyone.

  Four

  Agnes crossed the threshold into the room.

  Antoine Mercier didn’t rise; instead he slid Agnes’s business card onto a nearby tabletop. “When we were introduced earlier, you didn’t mention that you are with Violent Crimes.”

  She nearly sighed, disappointed that Mercier’s earlier charm had so quickly vanished. However, she wasn’t surprised. In her experience, charm was a patina that when rubbed the wrong way revealed a band of unpolished steel.

  The president of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry had telephoned to meet her. Now she recognized it was a summons. It was in Mercier’s body language and in the place he’d chosen. The room resembled an intimate living space with three pairs of low leather chairs grouped around sleek steel-and-wood tables. The atmosphere was calm and expensive and clearly intended as the backdrop to finalize the sale of luxury watches.

  To rebalance the equilibrium in her favor Agnes extended her hand, forcing Mercier to stand or risk being rude. Once that ritual was complete, she walked to the chair opposite his and sat, placing her handbag on the floor and removing her notebook. The chair looked more comfortable than it was. Designed for a taller occupant, she had to sit forward awkwardly to avoid sliding down against the sloped back. Clearly luxury watch companies imagined all their clients were heroically proportioned tall men.

  As if on cue, a tall employee entered the room carrying a tray laden with crystal glasses, small bottles of San Pellegrino, and a split of chilled champagne. He set it on the coffee table, and Agnes poured herself a glass of water. After taking a sip she looked around, her eyes landing on the watchmaker’s logo inlaid in the wall: BAUME & MERCIER GENÈVE.