Bruno 02 - The Dark Vineyard

postman.
    “Yes, it does. But they all look the same, those motocross bikes. It seems like the one, but nobody could be sure. But that’s the helmet, I’m sure of that. I never saw one like that before, with the built-in chin, but that’s what the guy was wearing who made the phone call. And it’s the same light color.”
    “What about this?” asked Bruno. The key was in the ignition, so he turned it on and kick-started the engine into life, then revved it a few times before turning it off. “Does that sound familiar?”
    “Yes, but they tend to sound the same, too. It’s the helmet that stuck in my mind.”
    “Thank you for that, monsieur,” said J-J. “You’re free to wander around, or perhaps you’d like to wait at the car until we’re finished.”
    Alphonse arrived just then, wiping his hands on a cloth and wearing the kind of brown woolly hat that Bruno recalled seeing on TV news shots of Afghan mujahideen. “What’s all this noise?” he wanted to know. His face broke into a half smile when he saw Bruno and the postman, and he hurried forward to shake hands. “Welcome, Bruno. I was going to call you. We’ll be having a ceremony for Max up here tomorrow evening, light a fire for him and drink to his memory. I’d like you to be there, and I know Max would have wanted that.”
    The postman said, “I’m sorry for your trouble” and headed back to the car. Bruno waited until he was out of earshot before speaking again.
    “Alphonse, this is going to be difficult. The postman is pretty sure that this was the bike and the helmet of the person who made the phone call from Coux about the fire. We knowthat Max bought a full can of gasoline that day. And I’m pretty sure that white paint on the tires of your truck is going to match the stuff that was sprayed on the research station. It was Max who burned down those crops.”
    Alphonse looked at Bruno sternly, as if about to protest, but then his shoulders seemed to slump and he sighed and shrugged. “I think you’re probably right. But since he’s dead, poor Max, it hardly matters now.”
    “Well, it means we can stop wasting police time looking for another arsonist,” said J-J. “It might mean we can put more resources into finding out who killed your boy.”
    “What do you mean, killed?” Alphonse’s hands fell to his sides and the cloth fluttered to the ground. He turned to Bruno, dismay giving way to anger. “Bruno, you told me it was an accident, asphyxiation. What is this about him being killed?”
    “We found a bruise and a gash under the hairline. It looks as if he fell, or he could have been hit, but as yet we don’t know when or how. The doctor still says the cause of death was asphyxiation. But tell me, Alphonse, why do
you
think it was Max who burned those crops?”
    “From his computer. When that brigadier of yours took mine away, I had to use Max’s laptop to get on the Internet and keep up with our orders. Max had left it at Cresseil’s place, so the gendarmes missed it when they searched here. I told you, Bruno, that we sell more and more cheese on the Internet. Max set that up for us.”
    I missed it too
, thought Bruno.
I should have known Max would have a laptop of his own
. “So what was on his computer?”
    “A poem he was writing about the fire, or maybe a song,” said Alphonse, half smiling at the memory. “There’s a lot more that’s encrypted, but the poem was up on the screen as a Word document. I can show you, if you like. It’s not finished, but it’sabout how the fire cleansed the poison, but how hard it was to wash away the smell of the gas. There’s another big file on GMOs. I just put two and two together. I was planning to tell you when you came up tomorrow for his wake.”
    “I’m afraid we’re going to have to take that computer as well,” J-J said. “And we could have saved a lot of time if you’d told us about this second computer when we first called you in.”
    “But I didn’t read any of his stuff until this afternoon,” Alphonse snapped, more fiercely than Bruno had ever heard him. “I just used his laptop to log into our e-mail. Max was entitled to his privacy.”
    “It’s a sad day, so we’ll just leave it at that,” said Bruno, laying a hand on J-J’s arm as the older policeman looked about to launch into an angry retort. “I’m sorry for your loss, Alphonse. You raised a fine boy, and we’ll miss him. If you could let us have that laptop, we’ll be