Cezanne's Quarry Read Online Free Page A

answer.
    Martin’s hand trembled slightly as he reached for the bowl of coffee and milk, but as soon as he got it to his lips, he drank greedily. Once he had consumed half the bowl, he set it down and began to tear at the bread, stuffing it in his mouth to settle his stomach. Today he must try to answer Solange Vernet’s pleas. Today he might confront her killer. He needed all his wits about him.
    Martin dressed, not even bothering to wash up, and dashed out. He deliberately avoided the cathedral district and the images it might evoke. While moving at a fast pace, he forced himself to clear his mind and remember: what were the main points of the lectures that he had attended on the art of interrogation? Put the suspect at ease. Make him think you are on his side. Listen. Take the measure of his character. If you know his character, you will understand the motive. If you understand the motive, then you will understand the crime. And when he makes a false step, pounce! Yes, and, most importantly, trust in your instincts. Martin was not certain how he was going to fulfill this last dictum. Reason and patience were what had always gotten him through. He often wondered if he had any instincts. Or imagination.
    Martin’s route took him past the open market in front of the Hôtel de Ville, where farmers and their wives proclaimed the virtues of their fruits and vegetables to anyone who would listen. Women carrying baskets bumped into Martin as they hurried to their favorite stands to inspect the produce and haggle over prices. After the quiet days following the Virgin’s feast, it was good to see the town come alive again.
    Unfortunately, the aura of renewed vitality did not follow Martin to the more sedate square that stretched from the great Madeleine Church to the Palais de Justice. The sight of the massive courthouse always made Martin’s heart sink a little. His friend Merckx surely would have pointed out how much the broad pretentious façade, with its eight oversized columns, resembled the entrance to the Bourse, the Parisian stock exchange where the nouveau riche made their fortunes by exploiting the labors of the poor. Of course, the builders of Aix’s Palais de Justice had intended to convey a much loftier purpose, a courthouse dispensing the greatest legal system known to man. Yet social distinctions were impressed upon those who entered the Palais every step of the way. The wealthy arrived directly at the main entrance in their carriages via a narrow cobblestone driveway that arced around the back of a set of low stairs. Aix’s lesser citizens reached the courts by climbing those stairs and crossing the narrow driveway designed for the privileged. As they made their way, the middling and poor were forced to pass between two large statues of famous jurists, forever seated in stony judgment of them and their woes.
    Today, neither rich nor poor had been summoned to the Palais. The public entrance was closed for the holidays, so Martin headed for the back door, where a gendarme let him in onto the ground floor. A staircase led him up to the grandiose main floor, and to more reminders of how the pretensions of the powerful overrode the egalitarian ideals of the Third Republic.
    The majestic central atrium was a great open space surrounded by a two-story marble peristyle. The courtrooms rimmed the peristyle on the main floor. The second floor held the cloakrooms and meeting rooms for the judges and defense attorneys, as well as the magistrates’ offices. Martin’s footsteps made a hollow sound on the marble floor as he crossed over to the grand staircase. If trials had been in session, he would have been threading his way through a crowd of self-important black-robed jurists, flying up and down the stairs and crisscrossing the atrium like a flock of cawing, rapacious crows. Martin hated the way they ostentatiously noticed and greeted only each other, while their prey—their poorer compatriots—sat anxiously on the