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it?”
    â€œThere’s nothing on there that screams out botulism unless some of it was canned. But that’s all idle speculation. We’ll know for sure what caused the death in about a week. The bacteriological cultures of the stomach samples take that long to develop. What makes it a bit simpler is that there are no sources of nonbacteriological poisons in anything he apparently ate. You know, mushrooms or oysters or anything like that. Anyway, you won’t hear from us until the cultures are done.”
    With a sinister, deep laugh Duchamps went back to the walk-in. A white painted outline was visible on the floor and the walls were now almost completely covered with fingerprint powder. When the team moved out to start work on the kitchen, Duchamps closed the door with a metallic clang and affixed a large octagonal orange seal across the jamb. It had a distinguished look, almost as if it was the latest honor Diapason had been awarded.

Chapter 5
    T hat night Capucine was unable to sleep. Woken repeatedly by her squirming and noisy plumping up of pillows, Alexandre finally ironically growled an old French proverb, “Sleep is even more perfect when it’s shared with a loved one.” Capucine jumped out of bed and stalked off to the living room sofa dragging a needlepoint coverlet, pillow under her arm.
    The next morning she was still despondent as she arrived at the headquarters building of the fiscal branch; she didn’t have the slightest clue what to do next. The approach to white-collar cases always seemed to flow like water from a spring, but now she was utterly stymied.
    Even the unintentional cynicism of the fiscal division’s address—122, rue Château des Rentiers, the coupon clippers’ castle—failed to cheer her up, as it invariably did even in the worst of her moods.
    For lack of anything better, her plan for the day was rudimentary, a quick run-through of her office at Rentiers to deal with any departmental effluvia that might have emerged during the night and then down to the Quai des Orfèvres to sic the three brigadiers on the restaurant staff. If in doubt, keep everyone busy.
    She was stunned to see a man installed at her desk, a rather attractive man—a very attractive man, actually—his feet on its top carelessly strewing her meticulously ordered stacks of files, poking amateurishly at the keyboard on his lap—her keyboard, actually—lost in childlike concentration. For a brief, wild flash she thought that the room had been reassigned and this was the new tenant waiting impatiently for her to remove her possessions. But that was impossible. This man just couldn’t be in the financial brigade. He didn’t look at all like an accountant. He looked more like a rock star, or at least a wannabe rock star: designer jeans, Western belt with a large silver buckle, pistol in an American-looking basket weave quick-draw holster, artful stubble, brown eyes smoldering with brooding eroticism.
    As Capucine approached the desk, the liquid mahogany pools of those eyes languidly detached themselves from the monitor and lapped over her body. She felt beyond naked; the pools seemed to coalesce in her intimate crevasses.
    â€œNow it makes perfect sense that Tallon put you on my case,” the man leered. “I didn’t get it before, but I sure get it now.” Capucine blushed, simultaneously outraged and seduced.
    Unceremoniously, he dumped the keyboard on the desk. It fell upside down. He uncoiled with serpentine grace. He put out his hand. “Jeanloup Rivière, at your service. I fervently hope.” His ogle transformed the phatic into a leaden double entendre.
    â€œB…But I thought you weren’t due back until Monday.”
    â€œLittle sister, it turned out to be a goddamn computer course. I spent as much of the day on the beach as I could but that got old fast. So I told them I had been called back for a crisis and here I