Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery by M. L. Longworth Page A

prepared….”
    â€œPapa,” Marine warned, “they’re used to doing it that way.They’d rather stay as long as they can with Sylvie’s parents and brothers and sisters in the Alps….”
    â€œWithout a father…”
    â€œPapa!” Marine bit her lip to stop herself from getting angry. Her best friend, Sylvie, was a photographer and art historian, and the single mother of nine-year-old Charlotte, Marine’s goddaughter.
    Anatole Bonnet realized that he had been out of line, so he pointed to the Stilton. “And what kind of cheese is this? It doesn’t look like any blue I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œStilton,” Marine replied. Before he could protest, she put up her hand. “Try it.”

Chapter Six

An Alsatian Tries to Understand Provence
    I t took Jules Schoelcher two tries to close the car door. “
Scheiße,
” he whispered, trying to close the door with one hand while holding on to his police hat with the other. Roger, his partner today, looked over and laughed.
    â€œIt’s just a mistral,” Roger said. “It will cool things off.”
    Jules shrugged and tried to smile, but the truth was, he was missing home. How could a twenty-seven-year-old policeman tell a fellow officer that? He knew when he signed up for the police force he could be sent anywhere in France, but he hadn’t counted on this desperately hot place, still over thirty degrees Celsius even in September. At least the wind—this mistral, they called it—cooled things down. But he couldn’t stand Provence: the wind, the dry heat, and his fellow officers with their big hugs and
bise
(real men in Alsace did not give each other the
bise
unless they were family); and their clichéd Provençal nonstop jokes and loud laughter. Everything was “
mon ami
” this and “
mon pote
” that. Was therenever any calm? Alsatians didn’t have to bark when they spoke, or didn’t feel the need to be the loudest in the room, nor did they jump queues, as Jules had already seen countless times at the post office and bank. Perhaps people in the south didn’t respect the queues because there weren’t any, just roughly formed huddles, as if they had no idea how to form a straight line. And if there were two bank machines open, or two windows at the post office, what did the Provençals do? They didn’t form one single line in the middle, as one did in Colmar or Strasbourg; they formed two lines and then switched back and forth until they were at the front.
    Jules ran into the hospital and held the door open for Roger, who was taking his time strolling across the parking lot, smiling like an idiot. “Slow down,” Roger said, taking a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “We’re ten minutes early. Time for a ciggie.”
    â€œYou go ahead and smoke your cancer stick,” Jules said.
    Roger laughed out loud. He hadn’t heard anyone refer to cigarettes as cancer sticks since fifth grade. Come to think of it, he thought that was when he had started smoking: fifth grade. “Hey, Jules, did I ever tell you about the time we played hooky from school and went out to sea with some old fisherman?”
    Jules sighed. “No, but I’d love to hear all about it, another time. I bet you caught a fish this big, eh?” He held out his hands a yard apart.
    â€œYeah! It was about that big!” Roger said. “But we’ve fished the Med clean now; they don’t make fish that big anymore.”
    Jules laughed, not believing his good luck at trapping this Marseillais into the biggest stereotype of all. The French made fun of Provençals, especially those from Marseille, for their habit of exaggerating stories. An eight-inch-long fish became a yard long; the wind blew not thirty-five miles an hour but fifty-five. Jules waved goodbye and walked up the hospital’s cheap linoleum stairs,still chuckling to