An Official Killing

Chapter 4

4Mayor Coulon tapped his fingertips on the table at Café de la Place, stuck in the uncomfortable ambivalence of wishing his ex-wife would hurry up and get there while at the same time dreading her arrival. He signaled to the Pascal, the server with movie-star good looks, who strolled right over.

“What can I do for you, Mayor?” said Pascal.

“I’m waiting for Odile,” Coulon said, not hiding his irritation.

“Would you like a drink in the meantime?”

“Just bring me…do you have a plate of something, crudités?” Coulon made intermittent efforts to control his waistline, and silently congratulated himself on choosing vegetables in such a stressful circumstance.

Just then Coulon caught a glimpse of Odile making her way down the sidewalk. It was Monday and the streets weren’t packed, but there were enough pedestrians that she ran into people she knew, stopping to exchange kisses and small talk before continuing toward the café. Coulon saw very well that she was not trying to be on time, was in fact purposely going to be late just to annoy him, and he tapped his fingertips faster and faster until an old woman at the next table shot him a look that made him stop.

“Bonjour, Maxime,” Odile said when she finally dropped into the seat across from him.

“Bonjour, Odile,” he said, forcing himself to sound more pleasant than he felt.

“Did you order?”

“Of course not. I waited for you. Something that feels quite familiar, I might add.”

Odile laughed. She was a put-together woman dressed in a smart suit, her auburn hair in a neat chignon. As the owner of a number of successful beauty product shops, Odile was confident and independent. Her working habits—and failure to defer to Maxime—had been a great source of marital discord.

Pascal appeared with a plate of crudités, a basket of bread, and a pot of pâté. “Maman made her special recipe, don’t miss it!” he said with a wink as he passed them each a menu. He took their drink orders and then went on to the next table, where a harried mother and three young children were waving their hands for his attention as though on the point of mass starvation.

“I’m going to cut to the chase,” said Odile. “I know you enjoy the fruits of your position, Maxime, including hiring only the prettiest assistants you can possibly find—”

Maxime opened his mouth to argue but Odile held up one finger. “I’m not here to argue about that. I am merely pointing out—”

“Odile, how I run the mairie is none of your business beyond the interest of any citizen of Castillac. And I’ll have you know that every single person working in that office is highly qualified. Overly so, actually. And for you to—”

“—what I want is for you to allow the building permits to go through on my store on rue Picasso. All the paperwork has been filed, the staff should have finished its review last month. You know perfectly well you are blocking the project out of spite.”

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about,” Maxime said airily, though he knew quite well. She wanted to open a third store right here in the village, and Maxime took it as a personal affront. The whole reason for the Castillac shop, from his point of view, was for Odile to flaunt her financial success, as though to proclaim to the village how much better she was than he, even though he was mayor and had been elected, which certainly should count as more—

He was snapped out of his internal rant by his ex-wife, who tapped him on the arm. “Maxime. Look, you’re a perfectly good mayor when you stick to your strengths. Go around the village and chat with people. Keep the mairie working efficiently so that we don’t all drown in red tape. But these manipulations and underhanded machinations, for revenge or profit or some other motive? Leave that alone, Maxime. I’m telling you. Leave it alone.

“Now tell me,” she continued, with a stiff smile, “where I can find a few more girls like your house-maid? I hear she’s quite the stunner. I could use help like that in my shops.”

“Josette? She’s quite diligent. I couldn’t be more pleased.” He was especially pleased that Josette obviously irritated his wife, a side benefit that only occurred to him now that he saw Odile’s dour expression as she continued to talk about her.

“She’s probably stealing you blind while you stand there drooling,” said Odile, with an angry smile.

“I’m afraid your jealousy is showing,” said Maxime. “Indeed, it is sad when the bloom is off the rose, and there is nothing anyone can do to bring it back, no matter what creams or lotions you use. At least you have your work,” he said.

Odile had never despised him more than she did at that moment, which was saying something.

Odile did not stay but took off looking as though she had eaten something that disagreed with her. Coulon lingered at the table, savoring his victory as well as Pascal’s mother’s exquisite pâté, and then deciding to take a stroll around the village before going to his afternoon appointment at the bank.

“Bonjour, Mayor Coulon,” said villager after villager, as he made his way along. He was relieved that people seemed happy, as they often do on a beautiful June day, and did not approach him with an endless stream of complaints and problems the way they sometimes did on drizzly gray days with a chill in the air. He stopped to talk to Dr. Vernay, just as he was going back in to see his afternoon patients. He waved at Ada Bellard, who worked at the cantine at the primaire around the corner. He petted various dogs if their owners were around to appreciate it. All in all, he felt he had bolstered his chances at the next election by ingratiating himself with at least twenty people in a short hour, and went into the bank feeling pleasantly complacent.

The receptionist showed Coulon into a back office, where he sat with Monsieur Lachance, the bank vice-president, for about an hour. The conversation might have seemed rather dry to many, since some of it concerned the hated VAT and matters of taxation—but the local gendarmes would have been very interested to hear what the two men spoke about in low voices with the door closed.

Very interested indeed.