Murder in the Rue Dumas: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mystery (Verlaque and Bonnet Provencal Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF

large contemporary kitchen and a fireplace flanked with two large armchairs. Bruno Paulik’s parents had walked around in disbelief the first time they visited the house after the renovations had been completed. “Spécial!” the elderly Mme Paulik kept mumbling, running her hands along the stainless steel cabinets and work surface. She preferred oak.
    “In early November it’s a good time to move some extra soil over the bases of the vines. It protects them from frost,” Hélène replied, looking at her daughter. Hélène rubbed her feet and continued, now looking at her husband, “But with this rain…we ended up working in the cellars, racking the wine to be bottled. I think Olivier had just fought with his wife; you could have cut the silence with a knife. And, despite almost twenty years in this business, I’ll never get used to the cold, cold, cold of a damp wine cellar.”
    “Well, with any luck you should be able to do the plowing early next week,” Paulik replied. “The rain will be over by then, and the frost is still far away.”
    “I hope you’re right,” Hélène replied. “Still, Olivier is completely panicked.”
    “Olivier Bonnard likes to be panicked. It means he can avoid his wife. All things considered, you have a great boss. He lets you do what you want out there,
and
put your name on the wines. Most winery owners are too pigheaded for that.”
    “You’re right,” Hélène replied. “But one day, I’d love to own my own vines.”
    Bruno Paulik smiled and put a small wool blanket on his wife’s knees. With his salary as a policeman and the price of real estate in Provence, his wife’s dreams of being her own boss were hopeless.
    “Perhaps not in Provence,” Hélène continued, smiling. “Somewhere cheaper. Chile?” She shuddered and pulled up the blanket. “Could you put another log on the fire, Bruno?” He nodded and was walking toward the back door to get wood when his work cell phone rang.
    “Paulik here.”
    “Sorry to bother you on a Saturday, Commissaire Paulik,” the voice said.
    “It’s okay, Alain. What’s up?”
    “A professor has been murdered at the university,” Alain Flamant, one of the commissioner’s favorite policemen, replied. Paulik walked out of the kitchen and ran up the stairs to his small office. “What do we know?” Paulik asked, closing the door to his study.
    “The professor, Moutte, was found this morning by one of the university cleaning staff. She said it looked like a heart attack, but when she looked closer she saw that the side of his head had been bashed in. When the ambulance arrived and the paramedics saw the body, they called the police station right away. I got there as quickly as I could. The professor was hit on the head.”
    “Thanks. I’ll come in right away. Are you still there?”
    “Yes. It’s one of the humanities buildings, 124 rue Jules Dumas. Fourth floor,” Flamant said. “You’ll see the policemen…we have the whole building roped off.”
    “Wait for me, then. I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
    Downstairs, Léa let out a long sigh, slapping her pencil down on the table.
    “Léa!” Hélène said, sitting down beside her daughter.
    “But Daddy took the phone upstairs! That means he’ll have to go into Aix now!”
    “Probably, dear.”
    “But who will help me with my
solfège
? I’ll fail!” Léa said.
    “I’ll help you,” Hélène said, picking up her daughter’s music theory book.
    Léa looked at her mother quizzically, while Hélène Paulik pretended she didn’t see her daughter’s raised eyebrow.

Chapter Five

One in a Million
    “L isten to this,” Marine said. “‘Napoléon once said that the examining magistrate is the most powerful man in France.’”
    “How nice,” Verlaque mumbled, reaching across her for his reading glasses. “That makes my day.”
    “Stop it. I know you see the error!” she said.
    “That it was Balzac, and not Napoléon, who said