Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

been a soldier, Cresseil deserved military honors. Between his paperwork and phone calls, Bruno had spent the morning making the arrangements. Now as the
mairie
clock chimed the last quarter before three, he went down to the basement and brought out the flags and the
ROUTE BARRÉE
signs for the small procession from the church to the war memorial, then to Cresseil’s final resting place beside his wife in the town cemetery.
    The church was almost full when Bruno slipped in through the side door. Raoul, who worked part-time as a pallbearer when he wasn’t selling his wines in the market, was taking a final smoke with the other men in black ties from the funeral parlor. The coffin stood on trestles before the altar, on a stool beside it a cushion that bore the campaign and Resistance medals Bruno had found in Cresseil’s house. The mayor and Xavier with their wives were in the front row with the baron, and behind them was a group of strangers who were the cousins. Bruno nodded at Alphonse.
    The organ was playing some doleful music that Bruno learned from the program was a choral prelude by Bach. He scanned the crowd for Pamela. After the previous evening’sembrace, she had left him with a lingering kiss and a look of promise in her eyes as she left the wake with Fabiola and Jacqueline. He felt a surge of excitement as he spotted her, her face half shrouded by the dark shawl that covered her head. Jacqueline sat beside her, her head uncovered. As he studied them, the distinction was sharp between the mature and lovely woman and the more conventionally pretty girl. Sensing his gaze, Pamela turned and caught his eye. She smiled and raised a discreet eyebrow, as if to ask how their relationship would now unfold. He nodded to her in return.
    Father Sentout, resplendent in full robes, came from the vestry to shake hands with the mayor and Cresseil’s cousins before standing at the head of the coffin and beginning the service. Bruno slipped out again to ensure that Jean-Pierre, Bachelot and Marie-Louise, each almost as old as the man they were burying, were ready with their flags. The small honor guard from the gendarmes was lined up with the school band for the short march to the war memorial.
    As he went back to the main doors of the church, they opened and J-J emerged. “Saw you leave,” he said, handing Bruno a computer printout. “Here’s that reply you wanted from Quebec.” Bruno had sent him a text message the previous evening, asking him to send a routine “Anything Known?” query on Jacqueline to the Quebec police. “It looks like she’s clean,” J-J added, “which means she’s in better shape than I am. The prefect is furious with me, and we’ve got a fancy lawyer threatening to sue me personally for the wrongful arrest of Bondino.”
    “Still no
attestation
of wrongful death from the pathologist?” Bruno asked. He resisted the temptation to remind J-J that he’d warned him of this.
    “No, so they can’t appoint a
juge d’instruction
, and I can’t hold Bondino any longer. I’ve got his fingerprints, and I thinkthe DNA will show it was his hair under the dead man’s fingernails. But until the pathologist’s report there’s no crime as yet, so he’s free, and I’m in the
merde
. I’m so deep in it that I’ve had to come down here to apologize to your Captain Duroc for misusing his gendarmerie. The prefect insisted. But I’m still not sure I’m wrong.”
    “This reply from Quebec came back very fast. I wasn’t expecting an answer for a couple of days.”
    “I rang our friend the brigadier, thinking he could get it faster. I got it overnight.”
    The music swelled, and the doors opened. Led by Father Sentout and a boy in a white robe bearing a tall cross, Raoul and the other pallbearers emerged with the coffin. The flags all rose in salute and led the procession to the war memorial across the bridge. The mayor came out with Cresseil’s medals on the cushion and the gendarmes lined up behind him. The baron followed with Cresseil’s cousins. He caught Bruno’s eye, discreetly giving him a thumbs-up. He must have made a deal to buy their claim. The school band struck up “Le Chant des Partisans,” the Resistance anthem, and led the rest of the congregation behind the bobbing flags of France, of Saint-Denis and of the Cross of Lorraine, the wartime symbol of Free France.
    Rollo, the headmaster, ensured that every resident of the retirement home in the procession was accompanied by