Murder in the Latin Quarter (15 page)

A
war hero
!

Why the hell didn't Delphine tell her that? Did she not like her brother-in-law? This was
major
. Did Laurent know? If so, why hadn't he told her?

Maggie quickly called Laurent.

“
Allo
,
chérie
,” he answered, his voice warm and velvety in her ear.

“Did you know your grandfather was a war hero?”

He sighed and didn't answer for a moment. “That was a long time ago,” he said finally.

“So was the Civil War, Laurent, but people still think it's a big deal. What was he like?”

“A drunk.”

“God, Laurent. Do I have to go to Wikipedia? Because I'm pretty sure he has his own page.”

“Whatever my grandfather did in the war doesn't matter. Not to his family or his children or his grandchildren and certainly not to his wife. Whatever he did, and whoever he was in 1944, he was a bitter drunkard in 1992 when he died alone and loved by no one.”

“Whoa.”

“
Chérie
, I am getting another call. It is the co-op and I must take it. I will call you back.”

“Be sure you do. We're not finished with this.”

Maggie hung up. It was only a little after eleven. Too early to go to bed and now she was too keyed up to even think about sleeping.

Laurent's grandfather was a national hero!

Why didn't Delphine mention it? What was going on? Had Marc Dernier really been an alcoholic? Maggie looked over the rim of her laptop. The door to the storage room seemed to glow in the dim shadow of the foyer, beckoning her.

Answers. She needed answers. And that door hid one big room full of them. She walked to the foyer and paused in the hall to listen. Both bedrooms were quiet. She slipped the key out of her pocket and unlocked the padlock. It sprang free and she carefully laid it on the floor and pulled open the door.

The smell was musty but not unpleasantly so. It smelled of paint and old books with a faint whiff of Chanel 5 perfume.

The room was small, roughly four feet by six. It had no windows but Maggie found a light switch, and walked in. The space was lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves on all three walls she faced. On the shelves were a crowd of baskets, books, boxes, file folders, paintings, African tribal masks—everything that would make a beautiful Paris apartment look like a junk shop if even a portion of it had been on display.

Delphine had said most of this stuff had belonged to her late husband. Two large oil paintings framed in gilt wooden frames leaned against the bookshelves. She didn't recognize the artists but the work didn't look amateur. She assumed the paintings were here because there was no available wall space in the apartment.

Her fingers tingled with anticipation. Where to start? Several of the shelves were dusty, indicating that no one had touched them for a long time—months, maybe even years. If anything, Delphine could probably use help in organizing this mess, Maggie thought. There seemed to be no logical order to how things were arranged on the shelves.

She pulled a box down and lifted the lid. Inside were hundreds of seashells, some still with sand clinging to them.

The junk and the valuable
, Maggie thought. And the only way to tell the difference was by sifting through all of it piece by piece. She put the box back and pulled down a photo album. She settled on the floor and opened it up on her lap, excitement thrumming through her.

Most of the photos in the album had been removed. Maggie flipped through the whole book to the end wondering who had taken the photos and why. The few photos that remained were landscapes or seascapes with no people in them. They were also out of focus. When she put the album back on the shelf, a loose photo fell to the floor.

She picked it up and stared. Long moments passed and it wasn't until a tear rolled down her face and splashed on the wrist holding the photo that she realized she was crying. It was a photo of a woman, seated on a chaise, her dark hair wavy and to her shoulders, sunglasses on her head, her smile sweet and open. Beside her stood two small boys, one taller than the other. Maggie touched the face of the tall boy. It was Laurent. His face was hidden under a thick thatch of hair and a serious expression, his eyes almost challenging the photographer.

It was Laurent with his mother and brother. Suzanne was lovely—fragile looking but beautiful. She had a hand on each boy's shoulder. She looked like she cherished her boys. And both of them looked like they didn't trust whomever was taking their picture.

Oh, Laurent….

Maggie turned the photo over but there was nothing written on the back—not even a date. If what Delphine said was true, Suzanne probably died not long after this photo was taken. Laurent looked to be six or seven years old. Just a little fellow. Maggie glanced at Gerard and was shocked to see that he was actually very cute at four. In fact, he reminded her a little of Jemmy. He too was watching the photographer warily, and he had one hand on his older brother's arm as if for comfort.

Sometimes life just sucks
, Maggie thought as she laid the photo aside. She wasn't sure if she would show Laurent the picture right away but some day he'd want it. And Maggie wanted Jemmy and Mila to see a picture of their beautiful French grandmother when they were older.

Her shoulders began to ache and she realized even with all the excitement of finally getting into the storage closet that she was tired. It had been a busy day—not to mention emotionally draining for its moments of sheer terror. She got to her feet and noticed a box with a label that said
cheques
. One last box before calling it a night she told herself. After all, she had all day tomorrow to go through the room.

As the label said, the box contained stacks of cancelled checks rubber-banded together. Maggie pulled a few of them free. The dates ranged from three years ago to last year. They were all signed by Delphine Normand. Maggie flipped through the stack until her eye caught a familiar name. In the memo section of the check, Gerard's name was written but the checks were made out to a company. The Balfourt Corporation.

Frowning, Maggie pulled other checks made out to the same company. In some cases, Gerard's name had been added to the memo line and in others the word
rent
was added.

Was Delphine paying Gerard's rent?
Maggie placed one of the checks next to the photo. She'd look the company up on the Internet.

Digging further in the box, she found an envelope with more cancelled checks inside. Maggie flipped the envelope over. There was a return address on the envelope with Gerard's name.
Maybe
, Maggie thought,
this is the location of the apartment Delphine is paying rent on
. Maggie emptied the envelope and added it to her pile.

Well, Delphine did say she'd been giving him money. Maggie forced herself not to look at the photo of the little innocent boy standing next to his big brother.

It was sickening to look at this picture and to know how Gerard's story turned out.

As she stood, she massaged the small of her back. She was too out of shape to be climbing over fire escapes, running from would-be muggers and then shifting boxes around a dusty storage room. As she bent to pick up the photo with the checks and envelope, she noticed the label on a file folder on the shelf.

The label read—
Delphine
Normand Last Will and Testament
. Maggie hesitated and then slowly put her hand out to touch the file.

This is probably not what Delphine had in mind when she said I could snoop around in here
, she told herself as she stared at the file.
Anything I want to know about Laurent or Delphine's friend Camille is probably not in that file.

But her hands were already pulling it off the shelf.

This is wrong. You know it is.

With mounting excitement, Maggie took the document out of the folder. Blocking out the voice that shrieked at her to put the file back, she shakily turned to the first page.

I Delphine Fouquet Normand, being of sound mind and…

Maggie flipped to the next page and stopped. Even though she was staring at the words—with no chance of misinterpretation—she couldn't believe what she was reading.

Delphine was naming
four
beneficiaries. Each to share equally in the estate of Delphine Normand,
estimated at 4.5 million euros
. Maggie swallowed.

Laurent Dernier.

Gerard Dernier.

Noel Lorraine.

Amelie Taver.

T
he next day
was cloudless and warm. Maggie pushed Mila's stroller down Place de la Madeleine toward the big department store Le Printemps. Delphine walked beside her. She'd been so excited all morning about the outing that Maggie swore she'd heard her giggle twice.

They'd taken a taxi to Fauchon—mostly as a point of reference but also because it had been years since Delphine had walked around the famous food shop. Maggie wasn't sure Delphine didn't enjoy filling her shopping bag with chocolate truffles and caviar more than the anticipation of visiting the grand department store.

Maggie slowed her pace to accommodate Delphine as they made their way from the Place de la Madeleine toward Boulevard Haussmann. Along the way, they passed all the major designer boutiques that Maggie had never had the interest or the money to shop at but where she was pretty sure Grace was known on a first-name basis.

“Not getting too tired, are you?” Maggie asked Delphine as they waited for the light to change so they could cross the street.

“It has been so long since I have been shopping!” Delphine exclaimed, her cheeks pink with excitement, her eyes trying to take everything in at once. Maggie wanted to ask if Isla never took her out beyond doctor's appointments but decided not to risk dampening the mood of the day.

She'd been tempted to invite Beatrice and Zouzou along, but had decided against it in the end. Grace would take it as a veiled reprimand, and it was highly possible that Delphine's tolerance of small children only extended to those she was directly related to. Maggie wouldn't blame her for not wanting to spend the day with a high-energy five year old.

As they walked, Maggie couldn't help revisiting her astonishing discovery of the night before. That Gerard was in the will meant he definitely stood to benefit if something happened to Delphine. In Maggie's mind, that simple fact made the so-called home invasion that the police had painted of Isla's death feel like something very different.

What if Isla recognized who it was that had broken into Delphine's apartment? What if she could name Gerard?
Maggie had no doubt Gerard would kill to protect himself.

But Gerard's guilt and all around low worth aside, Maggie had to admit it made sense for him to be included in the will. And of course, Laurent.

Even Noel fit—especially if he was really Delphine's son but even if he was only her nephew.

It was all quite logical except for one thing.

And that one thing could only be made sense of if you accepted a basic unthinkable tenet first
.

Delphine owed Amelie a debt.

Why else would Delphine give Amelie a fourth of her fortune?

A few thousand euros Maggie could understand, but an equal share of her estate? Did Amelie know she was to inherit? It would be over a million euros. If Delphine wanted to make her housekeeper's life easier, why not do it before she died? And why an equal share? It didn't make sense.

Unless
…

“Your phone is ringing,
chérie
,” Delphine said as she put her hands on the stroller. “I will push Mademoiselle Mila while you answer it.”

Maggie was startled to realize they'd already walked to the front of the gigantic department store while her mind had been elsewhere. The sidewalks were busy with lunchtime crowds and the usual scrum of tourists who had the money to shop this close to Place Vendome. She glanced at her phone screen and instantly her mouth became dry.

It was from Dieter Bauer. Quickly Maggie opened the email and scanned its contents.

“It is bad news,
chérie
?” Delphine said as she waited for Maggie. “Should we go home?”

Maggie looked at her and grinned. “No, it's good news. Great news, in fact. And no way we're cutting our shopping day short.” She quickly typed out a response on her phone and then put it away.

Dieter Bauer had written to say he was in Paris for business and would be available to meet Maggie this evening at a café in Le Marais.

Everything was coming together perfectly.

She turned to face the façade of the looming department store and felt flush with her success and the promise of things to come.

“Shall we, ladies?” she said as they promenaded across the street to enter the famous store's gilt-edged double doors.

M
ichelle stood
at the corner and watched the crowds of tourists pour from the Metro tunnel. They all, to a man, looked around upon emerging from the trains with the same startled expression that seemed to say “uh oh, we're not in Paris any more.”

And it wasn't the Paris they wanted. It wasn't the Paris they'd paid for with their travel agents and Internet credit cards.

She'd even seen one or two turn around and go back underground to find the Latin Quarter or Eiffel Tower or
grands magasins
that they'd paid for.

Not this dump of a crossroads
.

The flea market was worth it to the rest of them, she noted. As if they needed any piece of useless garbage they'd find here. No, it was all worth it to be able to go back home and say, “Oh, that? I picked it up at the Paris flea market.”

She wondered if the story would be as good if it came with a bash on the head and a stolen wallet.

A man sidled up to her. “You have my money?” His hands were tucked under his arms. He didn't look directly at her. She'd never seen him before. She didn't need to.

She held out her hand with the forty euros in it. He snorted and turned his back on her.

“Stupid bitch!” he snarled.

Michelle flushed but he turned and grabbed the money from her and shoved something hard into her chest, then disappeared into the crowd of tourists. She watched him go before looking at the small tissue-thin envelope he'd shoved at her.

Michelle felt her excitement build as she fingered the key inside the envelope. It had taken every euro she had to purchase it—a universal key—but it was her first step toward finally getting what was due her. Soon she wouldn't have to count her euros or ever come to this dump herself again.

Time to make things happen.