The Crowded Grave

alive, but it’s still murder.”
    Bruno thumbed the speed-dial number for his friend J-J, Jean-Jacques Jalipeau, chief of detectives for the Police Nationale in the region. While waiting for a response, Bruno wondered how he could explain to Horst and Clothilde that their precious dig was about to become a crime scene. Whatever the demands of scholarship, much of the area would soon be closed off to them as the forensic specialists began the search. Perhaps J-J could be persuaded to limit the restrictions on the dig, since the killing was hardly recent.
    J-J’s phone told him to leave a message after the beep. He did so, then hit 0 to reach the police switchboard. He reported the find and Fabiola’s certification of death and was asked to secure the site and to detain all possible witnesses until a murder team could reach the spot. Bruno asked how long it would take and was told it could be a couple of hours or more. He hung up and then called Sergeant Jules at the gendarmerie and asked him to send someone in uniform to hold the fort, since Bruno had appointments elsewhere.
    “I’ll need a list of names of all the students on this dig, along with their identity card numbers or passport numbers,” Bruno said, not sure whether he should address Horst or Clothilde. It was Horst’s dig, but Clothilde would be officially in charge of the site, since it was on French soil.
    “If you can come back with me to the museum, I have a list there,” said Horst. “And I found nothing like a wallet, but I didn’t want to disturb things too much.”
    Bruno shook his head. “I’m sorry but nobody can leave until the detectives get here from Périgueux and take over custody of the site. That’s the law. Even I can’t leave until a gendarme gets here to replace me.”
    “What’s your e-mail?” Clothilde asked, tapping at her phone. Bruno gave it. She tapped again and looked up at him with that cheeky grin. “I just e-mailed the list to your office, names, ages, passports and universities for all eighteen of them. Can I go now?”
    “Sorry, not quite yet. Can you tell me if any of the students are involved in the animal rights movement. We had another crime here last night. Someone ripped down a stretch of farm fences and let out a lot of ducks and geese. They left leaflets behind, and since your students are all strangers, I’ll have to ask about their movements last night.”
    “If they’re anything like students in my day, they’ll all be able to give each other alibis for the night,” said Clothilde, nodding toward Teddy and Kajte.

3
    Sergeant Jules was as good as his word and arrived quickly to stand watch at the dig, so Bruno could leave in time to make his appointment at the Château de Campagne. The brigadier was not a man to be kept waiting. Even though he held no formal authority over St. Denis and its chief of police, Bruno and the mayor knew that the orders of this senior but shadowy figure in French intelligence were best obeyed. He had summoned Bruno to a meeting at the decayed gem of a castle whose pointed turrets and battlements the state had been promising to restore for as long as Bruno could remember. But as Bruno turned in through the tall iron gates, now gleaming with black paint, he was surprised to see its courtyard bustling with life. He could barely find a place to park. There were furniture trucks, vehicles of plumbers and electricians, a catering van and a large truck loaded down with fresh-cut turf for a lawn gardeners were laying below the broad balcony. There was a smell of fresh paint, the sound of electric drills, cheerful voices of decorators and the blare of tinny radios from the open windows. But there was no sign of the black limousine Bruno had expected; the brigadier had not yet arrived. As Bruno lookedaround at a building project that seemed almost complete, his phone rang, and J-J’s name appeared on the screen.
    “I’m on my way, be another thirty minutes.”
    “I won’t be at the site—I’m tied up with the brigadier,” Bruno replied. “But we’ve got no missing person on file that could fit the body, let alone explain the way he was executed.”
    “I know, it’s a forensics job. What does the brigadier want?”
    “Apart from a welcoming glass of Monbazillac and some foie gras he hasn’t told me.”
    “He can’t get that in Paris?”
    “Isabelle told him he had to try my pâté, so I have a cooler in the van with a bottle of Tirecul la Gravière, and a