Murder in Passy (9 page)

His heart sank.

The cell phone vibrated on the paint-stained table. Damn thing. He never answered it. But maybe he should … maybe.…

“Oui?”

“Finally you answered, Agustino.” A snort of disgust. “I know you’ve ignored my messages.” He recognized Cybèle’s voice quavering with emotion. “You can’t even come to mourn, ignoring our tradition. What kind of friend do you call yourself, eh? Xavierre’s dead and Irati’s beside herself.… ”

Stunned, he gripped the phone.

“Dead?”

“Like you didn’t know?” A sob. “Murdered.”

Tuesday Afternoon

C
YBÉLE’S SHARP DENIAL
of Xavierre’s involvement in ETA played in Aimée’s head, along with doubts raised by Irati’s reactions: anger, fear, and evasiveness. Aimée needed to discover the Basque angle and to talk to Agustino. If he’d been at the party last night, he’d provide answers.

A few streets away, Aimée reached the white sugar cube—like Le Corbusier Foundation buildings glowing in the afternoon light. The villas la Roche and Jeanneret, according to a sign, contained Le Corbusier’s apartment and an exhibition space emblematic of the architect’s modern style. Sleek, linear, and sparse: not her taste. More a revolt against Guimard’s Art Nouveau swirls and curlicued noodles. Not her taste either. She felt glad she didn’t live in this chic, sterile, residential
quartier
devoid of street life and cafés.

“The Foundation’s closed this week.” The silver-haired concierge, glasses perched on his forehead, stood at the door eying Aimée’s legs. “Opens next Monday.”

“Of course, Monsieur,” she said. “But the Foundation’s artist in residence—”

“Can’t you read?” He pointed to the wall plaque listing Le Corbusier’s archives, library hours, and permanent exhibitions open to the public. “Not here.”

The Foundation appeared to be devoted to architecture and Le Corbusier. Not to paintings like those she’d seen on Xavierre’s walls, notable for bold lines and vibrant colors. But she wouldn’t give up yet.

“But I’ve got an appointment with Monsieur Agustino, the Basque painter.” She handed him a card from the collection in her bag. “Concerning a painting for my pied-à-terre.”

He bent lower, adjusting his reading glasses under the loge light. Shook his head.

“Try the annex.” He turned away.

“Where’s that?”

“Rue Mallet-Stevens. Middle alley.” The door shut in her face.

* * *

A
NOTHER LANE OF
white buildings, these attributed to the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. Bright yellow, red, and chartreuse metal awnings gave a varied look to more luminous sugar cubes.

Not her taste either. And not promising in a deserted, shadowed street. Her hopes sank.

Ahead she made out a small sign reading
FLC
almost hidden behind a laurel tree. The Fondation Le Corbusier annex.

She turned into a lane, kept going, and found herself in a narrow parkway. Midway lay an eighteenth-century
hôtel particulier—
abandoned, from the look of the boarded-up doors. Beyond the trees were low buildings and ateliers backing the warren of apartment buildings. Gardens and greenery were set back in courtyards. Traces of the village it had been, she thought, like another world sheltered from the street. Hidden, discreet, exuding an old-fashioned charm.

Her boots crunched on the gravel and packed dirt. Also secluded, dark, and a perfect place to hide. A shiver went up her spine.

She felt a spreading dampness in her leather boots from the wet grass. Thick ribbons of light slanted over the dark green bushes. The source was a glass and metal—paned hothouse, an atrium resembling an old
jardin d’hiver
adjoining a building. Illuminated like a lighthouse, it shone with a blurred luminosity against the dark shadowy enclave.

On closer inspection, she saw canvases with orange-yellow splashes stacked against the glass. Frames around the larger canvases blocked her view of most of the interior. But by an easel she could make out a figure with his back to her. Heavy maroon draperies shielded the interior of the atelier against door drafts.

Her knuckles knocking on the glass made a brittle
ting.

The curtains semi-parted. A man appeared, only his dark hair threaded with gray and a paint-spattered hand visible.

“Monsieur Agustino?” she said.

“What do you want?”

“Five minutes,” she said. Her breath frosted in the cold air. All of a sudden, the interior light went out. “May I come inside?”

“I’m working.” His head pulled back.

She couldn’t lose this opportunity.

“It’s important. Please,” she said.

“Not the
facture
again?” He sighed. “Just a moment.”

Facture?
A bill? Before she could think of an answer, the glass door creaked open. A gnome-like man emerged. Looking closer, she noticed his physiognomy, a Basque prototype: solid, compact, olive-complected weathered skin, strong arms, muscular legs, long earlobes, prominent nose. The lines from his twinkling dark eyes radiated upward, giving the impression of perpetual wonder. She’d had a teacher once with the same visage; he’d never looked unhappy, even during lunch duty at her table when he’d been informed that his mother had died and tears had streamed down his face into the cassoulet.

“
Et alors,
tell the framing company we’ll settle out of court,” he said.

Thick brows furrowed his wide forehead. Black pinprick eyes darted over her outfit. The man pulsated with energy. Nervous energy.

He wanted to get rid of her.

Aimée smiled and handed him her card.

“A detective, eh?” A furtive look accompanied his shrug. “Insurance? One of my clients’ paintings stolen? Not my problem.”

No time for niceties or indirect questioning. Time to get to the point while she had his attention.

“I’m not from an insurance company,” she said. “We’re questioning the guests at the party last night—”

“You think I have time for parties?” he interrupted, rubbing his hands on his paint-spattered shirt. “I’m working on a commission for the Bilbao museum. On deadline.”

She believed him.

“But whatever you can tell me about Xavierre d’Eslay, her past, a connection with ETA, could bear on the case.”

That was stretching it.

“Why me?” He averted his eyes.

So he knew something.

“You’re a family friend, from what I understand,” she said, “from your student days as a Basque activist with Xavierre, according to her sister Cybèle—”

“Cybèle? Consider the source, eh?”

No love lost between him and Cybèle. “Meaning?”

“I
paint,
Mademoiselle. That’s what I do. That’s
all
I do. I’m not political,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Except in the sense that all art’s political. My father fought in the Freedom Brigade against Franco. That was enough for me.”

Au contraire,
she thought: Franco’s oppression spurred the Basques and Catalans to resist. And they hadn’t stopped.

“Me, I have an appetite for life,” he said. “Zest. You young people don’t have it.”

He spread his muscular arms as if invoking the weak sun. Hot-blooded, he didn’t seem to mind the cold in his short-sleeved shirt. She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms, wishing she had worn another layer.

“Blame it on my little
nonna
,” he said, waxing poetic. “My grandmother raised ten children, then grandchildren. Never sick a day in her life. Every year butchered the pig, made blood sausage, salted the pork, took over sheepherding when my father lost his sight to Franco’s fascists.”

He was wound up now, his eyes alive. “Until I grew tall enough to climb over the pasture fences to guide the herd away from the cliffs. That gave me an eye for color, how things fit together, the economy of line in nature, nothing superfluous. The natural design, integrating use and design, utility and nature.”

An articulate showman: he hit all the right notes, she imagined, for his clients. But she wasn’t one.

“A room needs a painting and a view,” he said. “That’s all. Like our farmhouse.”

Well-rehearsed in an earthy, Picasso-esque manner with a weather-beaten face to lend credibility. No wonder it brought him commissions. But he was hiding something.

“I’m French Basque, but you French complicate design with froufrou, rococo. Let the natural lines highlight the inner form, the beauty.”

Forget the art lecture,
she wanted to say. She wasn’t in a classroom or about to write a check. And then it hit her: he was giving this speech to stall for time, or to avoid revealing his past connection with Xavierre.

“Monsieur Agustino, if you could listen for a moment—”

“
Non, you
must listen. Understand. It’s life, how I breathe, my heritage that makes me—”

“Involved with ETA again?” she interrupted.

He shoved the card back into her hand. Glancing down, she noticed the stubbed flesh where his last two fingers would have been. Amazing that he could still paint masterpieces.

“Watch what you’re saying.” His voice lowered. “In the old prisons, I went back and carved memorials in the dripping walls, memorials to the fallen,” he said. “To both sides—the Guardia Civil, ETA. My soul hurt, still does. For years my work has celebrated the Basque spirit, reconciliation, not violence.”

His eyes bore into her. “How do you think I lost these?” He lifted his claw-like hand. “Xavierre knows … knew that.”

Aimée nodded. “I saw your paintings. Breathing life, speaking to me.”

“Then you know art touches more minds and spirits than bombs.” His arm trembled. His showman side evaporated. “My heart mourns Xavierre. On the phone with her last night, all I could talk about was my commission. How I needed to paint. Our last words. Well, she said I was too caught up in my art like usual. I’ll regret it all my life.”

Guilt. But over that?

“But didn’t you sense her fear? Did she tell you something?”

“Apart from how selfish I’ve become?” Agustino gave a small shrug. “The family, this big wedding, the home, it’s a religion with Basques. Coward that I am, I can’t face Irati now, or any of them.”

“Who would murder her, Agustino?”

He made a sign of the cross. “God knows. But I broke our pact,” he said. “You see, I failed her in the most important thing to her.”

“What pact?”

“Made years ago. To be there for each other. I couldn’t even do a simple thing, attend her party. And I’d promised to come.” He looked away.

“Then this pact’s deep,
non
?” she said, trying a guess. “What about the others from your student days in Bayonne? The protestors?”

He turned, his shoulders slumped. But he hadn’t answered her question.

“Haven’t you maintained the bonds you made with them?” she said. “Like with Xavierre.”

“Time takes people away.”

“Not the past,” she said. “What if the past connects to Xavierre’s murder?”

“All those people went to prison.” A sigh frosted the air. “Like my brother.”

“Look, I tried to talk to Xavierre last night,” she said. “To find out if something was wrong. My turn to feel guilt. I couldn’t even do that.”

“You take your job to heart, Mademoiselle. I respect that.”

“Not a job,” she said. “A promise I made. A deep debt I owe to a person close to me.”

If none of her other words got through to him, she sensed these would.

“You see, Agustino,” she said, “I’ve already made one mistake. If I’d known the trouble Xavierre was in.… ”

“Giving one’s word.… ” He spoke as if to himself, shaking his head. “But what if you gave it long ago and now it goes against everything you know is right, that you believe in?”

And she thought she understood. “Ask yourself this. Haven’t hundreds of innocent people been killed in ETA actions? As you asked me yourself, will killing more people help the Basque movement?”

A flicker of his eyelid.

She pursued it. “There’s ways to keep your word and yet help me without saying a thing.”

Agustino stood dead still. A long moment passed. Then a little shake of his head.

He closed the door to his atelier. One light went on, a dim glow in the dark valley of green. Only afternoon sounds, the soft cooing of pigeons, a siren’s distant wail, could be heard. Not only was he a sad man scarred by regrets, but he was also hiding something. She slipped her card back under the door.

* * *

R
UBBING HER COLD
hands together, Aimée shivered in the
allée
overhung with chestnut trees near Xavierre’s high wall. She turned the corner. Xavierre’s neighbor’s window provided a view of the back garden and the driveway. This woman, Madame de Boucher—a busybody, according to the concierge—had been born in the building, had lived here eighty years. Aimée mounted the building staircase hoping for a font of information.