“What about the name of your dentist?”
“Oh, that was very long ago. I doubt he’s still alive. His
name was Corps. Maurice Corps. His office was on rue Caba-nis, I believe.”
“Corps as in corpse?” I comment to Berger. “And is Caba-nis a play on cannabis, or marijuana?” I am shaking my head in disgust and amazement.
“So you and Susan had sex in her bedroom.” Berger gets back to that on the tape. “Please continue. How long were the two of you in bed?”
“I would say until three o’clock in the morning. Then she told me I had to leave because she needed to get ready for work. So I got dressed and we made arrangements to see each other that night again. We said we would meet at seven at L’Absinthe, a nice French bistro in the neighborhood.”
“You say you got dressed. What about her? Was she dressed when you left her?”
“She had a pair of black satin pajamas. She put those on and kissed me at the door.”
“So you went downstairs? Did you see anyone?”
“Juan, the doorman. I went out and walked for a while. I found a cafe and had breakfast. I was very hungry.” He pauses. “Neil’s. That’s the name. It is right across the street from Lumi.”
“Do you remember what you ate?”
“Espresso.”
“You were very hungry but all you had was espresso?” Berger lets him know she picks up on the word “hunger” and realizes he is mocking her, jerking her around, fucking with her. Chandonne’s hunger wasn’t for breakfast. He was enjoying the afterglow of violence, of destroying flesh and blood because he had just left behind a woman he had beaten to death and bitten. No matter what he says, that is what he did. The bastard. The goddamn lying bastard.
“Sir, when did you first learn that Susan was murdered?” Berger asks him.
“She didn’t show up for dinner that night.”
“Well, I guess not.”
“Then the next day…”
“Would this be December fifth or the sixth?” Berger asks, and she is stepping up the tempo, indicating to him that she’s had it with his games.
“The sixth,” he says. “I read about her in the paper the morning after she was supposed to meet me at L’Absinthe.” He now puts on the act of feeling sad about it. “I was shocked.” He sniffs.
“Obviously, she didn’t show up at L’Absinthe the night before. But you’re saying you did?”
“I had a glass of wine in the bar and waited. Finally, I left.”
“Did you mention to anyone in the restaurant that you were waiting for her?”
“Yes. I asked the maftre d’ if she had been by and perhaps left a message for me. They knew who she was because of her being on TV.”
Berger questions him closely about the maitre d’, asking his name, what Chandonne was wearing that night, how much he had paid for the wine and was it in cash, and when he inquired after Susan, did he give his name. Of course not. She spends five minutes on all this. She mentions to me that the police had been contacted by the bistro and were told that a man had come in and said he was waiting for Susan Pless. All of it was painstakingly checked out back then. It is true. The description of the way the man was dressed is identical to Chandonne’s description of how he was dressed that night. This man did order a glass of red wine at the bar and ask if Susan had been by or had left a message, and he did not give his name. This man also fit the description of the man who had been in Lumi with Susan the night before.
“And did you tell anyone you had been with her the night of her murder?” Berger says on tape.
“No. Once I knew what happened, I could say nothing.”
“And what was it that you knew had happened?”
“They did it. They did that to her. To set me up again.”
“Again?”
“I had women in Paris before all this. They did it to them, too.”