The Patriarch: A Bruno, Chief of Police Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

card for the Air Force Association. He took the cheap mobile phone from the pouch on Gilbert’s belt and thumbed through the recent calls, surprised at how few there were. He’d made just one call the previous day, to a recipient identified as Victor.
    “He called you yesterday morning?” Bruno asked Victor.
    “I took the call,” said Madeleine. “It was about what time we’d pick him up to drive here to the château.”
    “Did you drive home after the party?”
    “No, we stayed here last night,” Victor replied. His wife broke in, “We live at the vineyard but we keep a suite here.”
    “Was Gilbert going to stay here as well?”
    Victor shrugged and looked at his wife. He seemed to let her answer most of the questions, Bruno thought.
    “No, the château is pretty full with guests, so Marc or somebody would have given him a lift back,” she said. “In fact some of them must be getting up about now, so I’d better go and check on breakfast.”
    “I’m sure the chief of police won’t need to disturb your guests,” the mayor said firmly, and looked at his watch.
    “Just one more thing,” said Bruno. “I’d better take a look at Gilbert’s house. Where is it, exactly?”
    Madeleine explained, already at the door that led to the château. “Sorry, but I have to go.”
    “Excuse me, but I have to be at Mass,” said Father Sentout, quickly shaking hands with Bruno and the mayor and following her out. The mayor stepped forward, took Victor’s hand and shook it solemnly, in silence. Then he turned to put his hand on Bruno’s back and steer him to the door. It was very neatly done.
    “You don’t have any reason for doubt about this, do you?” the mayor asked, when they were outside.
    “No, not really,” Bruno said. He was about to say that he didn’t like being pressured, but his phone began vibrating at his belt. He checked the screen and saw it was Albert, the chief
pompier.
    “There’s been another accident on the Rouffignac road just after the turnoff to the big camping site,” Albert said. “It’s those damn deer again. You’d better bring a gun in case the animal is still alive.”

4
    The accident wasn’t that serious, at least for the humans involved. A small van had hit a deer, which dented its hood and broke its headlights. Bruno knew the driver, Adèle, a woman in her forties whose husband worked for the milk cooperative. She’d been heading for church with her widowed mother. Adèle was shocked and weeping; the mother was made of sterner stuff, leaning against the van and smoking an unfiltered cigarette as she looked critically at the deer. Both its front legs were broken, and it kept trying to rise on its back ones, bleating pitifully as it kept collapsing. It was painfully thin, its ribs sticking out through light brown fur, its chest heaving as it panted in terror.
    “There’s not enough meat to make it worth taking back for the freezer,” the old lady said. “It will be that crazy woman up the hill again.”
    Bruno asked her to take her daughter back into the van while he took care of the deer. He pulled a tarpaulin from the back of his police van, asked Albert to hold it and screen the deer from Adèle’s sight. He dispatched the suffering beast with a shot behind the ear, and Albert helped him roll it onto the waxed canvas and put it into Bruno’s van. Then Bruno drove the women to church in Adèle’s car, reckoning she’d be in good-enough shape to drive after the service. Albert drove him back to his van, and he took the dead deer to the local butcher.
    “Hardly worth it,” said Valentin when Bruno had laid out the deer on the chopping block in the room just behind the shop. Deer killed on the roads of St. Denis were given to the butcher, who’d prepare the meat for the old folks’ home. “There’s no flesh on it, it must be one of Imogène’s. I keep telling you, Bruno, you’re going to have to do something about that stupid woman.”
    “We’re doing