start up your little investigation.”
“Have you been assigned an active role in the investigation? I received no communication to that effect,” Capitaine Dallemagne said crisply over the telephone.
“Good heavens, no, Capitaine. It’s nothing more than occupational curiosity. Since I’ve been down here, three people have been shot. All three worked for the business of one of my uncle’s close friends. Any flic’s ears would prick up, don’t you think?”
“It seems an odd way to spend one’s holiday, madame, but you’re welcome to stop by the gendarmerie if it pleases you. Come at eleven tomorrow. We’ll have a cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you the very little there is to be told.”
Capucine thought that he didn’t seem to be anywhere near as bad as the village made him out to be. But that was before things started to go downhill.
The coffee turned out to be more drinkable than what the Police Judiciaire usually offered, and the gendarmerie, as clean and efficient as an army facility, was poles apart from the seediness of any Paris PJ installation.
“So what precisely is it you want to know, Commissaire ?” the capitaine asked as prissily as a cormorant, his lips tightly pursed and his neck muscles stretched.
“I just wanted to learn what the official view was on these deaths. Purely informally, of course.”
“By these deaths, Commissaire, I assume you mean the one at the demonstration in the town square and the one at the hunt yesterday. The view of the gendarmerie is that they were both the result of accidental discharges of firearms, nothing more.”
“And was that confirmed by the autopsies?”
“Madame, the gendarmerie only performs autopsies in the event of a criminal death. Obviously, for accidental deaths we do not. It intensifies the grief of the family, serves no useful purpose, and increases the burden on the taxpayer.”
“So no autopsies were performed?” Capucine was astonished.
“Madame, we are not in Paris here. The gendarmerie surgeon examined the body of the victim who died at the demonstration and extracted a Brenneke solid from the wound. As I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, these Brenneke solids are used commonly by paysans when they hunt big game. The fact that he was killed by one is an obvious indication that the shot was fired by one of the villagers during the commotion. This is exactly the sort of tragedy that will continue to occur until more stringent arms controls are put into effect.”
“I see. And what about the death at the lake?”
“The body is still downstairs. The gendarmerie medical officer will examine it when he arrives at some point this week. But I can tell you, I have had a great deal of experience with gunshot wounds and this one is fully consistent with a thirty-thirty fired from the piqueux’s Winchester.”
“But the trajectory is all wrong. Since the piqueux had been aiming at the deer, the elevation would not have been sufficient for the bullet to have reached the other side of the lake.”
“Ah, you see, that’s exactly why it’s so obviously an accident. The piqueux missed the deer. The bullet ricocheted off the ice and into the crowd. It seems impossible for it to have been otherwise.”
“I see,” said Capucine. “And what about the man who died three weeks ago at Maulévrier? Was an autopsy done on that one?”
The capitaine looked sincerely puzzled and shuffled through the papers in the right-hand drawer of his desk. He finally extracted a thin file and said, “Of course, the shooting accident. I’d forgotten about it. That sort of thing happens all the time. We certainly don’t have the time to investigate those. Good Lord, if we did, I’d have to ask for another platoon of gendarmes.”
“So what happened to the body?”
“I have no idea. I’m sure it was buried.”
“Capitaine, you have a very different way of treating these incidents than we do in Paris.”
“Of course we do, madame. What
“Have you been assigned an active role in the investigation? I received no communication to that effect,” Capitaine Dallemagne said crisply over the telephone.
“Good heavens, no, Capitaine. It’s nothing more than occupational curiosity. Since I’ve been down here, three people have been shot. All three worked for the business of one of my uncle’s close friends. Any flic’s ears would prick up, don’t you think?”
“It seems an odd way to spend one’s holiday, madame, but you’re welcome to stop by the gendarmerie if it pleases you. Come at eleven tomorrow. We’ll have a cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you the very little there is to be told.”
Capucine thought that he didn’t seem to be anywhere near as bad as the village made him out to be. But that was before things started to go downhill.
The coffee turned out to be more drinkable than what the Police Judiciaire usually offered, and the gendarmerie, as clean and efficient as an army facility, was poles apart from the seediness of any Paris PJ installation.
“So what precisely is it you want to know, Commissaire ?” the capitaine asked as prissily as a cormorant, his lips tightly pursed and his neck muscles stretched.
“I just wanted to learn what the official view was on these deaths. Purely informally, of course.”
“By these deaths, Commissaire, I assume you mean the one at the demonstration in the town square and the one at the hunt yesterday. The view of the gendarmerie is that they were both the result of accidental discharges of firearms, nothing more.”
“And was that confirmed by the autopsies?”
“Madame, the gendarmerie only performs autopsies in the event of a criminal death. Obviously, for accidental deaths we do not. It intensifies the grief of the family, serves no useful purpose, and increases the burden on the taxpayer.”
“So no autopsies were performed?” Capucine was astonished.
“Madame, we are not in Paris here. The gendarmerie surgeon examined the body of the victim who died at the demonstration and extracted a Brenneke solid from the wound. As I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, these Brenneke solids are used commonly by paysans when they hunt big game. The fact that he was killed by one is an obvious indication that the shot was fired by one of the villagers during the commotion. This is exactly the sort of tragedy that will continue to occur until more stringent arms controls are put into effect.”
“I see. And what about the death at the lake?”
“The body is still downstairs. The gendarmerie medical officer will examine it when he arrives at some point this week. But I can tell you, I have had a great deal of experience with gunshot wounds and this one is fully consistent with a thirty-thirty fired from the piqueux’s Winchester.”
“But the trajectory is all wrong. Since the piqueux had been aiming at the deer, the elevation would not have been sufficient for the bullet to have reached the other side of the lake.”
“Ah, you see, that’s exactly why it’s so obviously an accident. The piqueux missed the deer. The bullet ricocheted off the ice and into the crowd. It seems impossible for it to have been otherwise.”
“I see,” said Capucine. “And what about the man who died three weeks ago at Maulévrier? Was an autopsy done on that one?”
The capitaine looked sincerely puzzled and shuffled through the papers in the right-hand drawer of his desk. He finally extracted a thin file and said, “Of course, the shooting accident. I’d forgotten about it. That sort of thing happens all the time. We certainly don’t have the time to investigate those. Good Lord, if we did, I’d have to ask for another platoon of gendarmes.”
“So what happened to the body?”
“I have no idea. I’m sure it was buried.”
“Capitaine, you have a very different way of treating these incidents than we do in Paris.”
“Of course we do, madame. What
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