Murder in the Latin Quarter (16 page)

T
he early evening
light did beautiful things to almost any street in Paris, Maggie thought. Was it possible Paris was specifically designed to look good in any light? The day had been an invigorating one for both Delphine and Maggie. Delphine insisted on buying Mila several new wardrobes—most of which the baby would outgrow before the month was over—and Maggie enjoyed every second of the older woman's happiness.

Maybe the apartment was toxic? Was there another explanation for how much stronger and more vibrant Delphine seemed to be once she was away from it? Even their walks to the nearby park put a special shade of pink in her cheeks. But once back inside the building, she seemed to sag into the woodwork and the two hundred year old wallpaper as if the effort to live was just too much.

Maggie took the Metro for her evening appointment. If it had been earlier in the day, she would have walked but they hadn't gotten back from their day of shopping until just before five o'clock and her appointment was for half past six. The Metro was full of commuters and exhausted shoppers and there was no place to sit. Maggie didn't mind. Le Marais was a straight shot with no transfers from the St-Michel Metro station where she'd gotten on. She hadn't had time to charge up her phone when she got back from shopping but figured she had just enough juice to use its GPS to find the café. From the map, it looked like it was in a relatively populated section of the arrondissement.

Was it strange that Dieter responded to her so quickly? Or even at all? Had he really been in Paris on business or had he make a special trip to see her? Maggie shook her head at how nonsensical that sounded. No wonder Grace thought she was losing her grip.

It's just a coincidence that he's in town and a really lucky one for me because if I thought proposing the Heidelberg trip to Grace was dicey, explaining it to Laurent would have been seriously problematic.

She got off at her stop and ran up the stone stairs to emerge in the midst of the Le Marais. She remembered reading somewhere that this section of Paris had been a largely Jewish neighborhood before WWII. A
wealthy
Jewish area and so had been taken over almost immediately by the Nazis as their preferred private residences. As she strode down the rue de Rivoli, glancing around her, she thought it didn't look very wealthy any more so much as it looked trendy. Which meant tourists.

Good. The more tourists there are
, Maggie thought,
the fewer rusty fire escapes I'll find myself clinging to before the night is over
. Her phone indicated that the café where Dieter wanted to meet was just a few blocks away on the main drag. Maggie picked up her pace.

She waited at the rue de Moussy for the pedestrian green light before she could cross and it suddenly struck her that the name of the street was familiar. She glanced down the street and saw that it was shabby and dark, unlike so many of the other streets branching off from the rue de Rivoli. The street sign read
rue de l'Arbre Sec
. It was an odd name and Maggie suddenly remembered where she knew it from: it was where Gerard's apartment was located. She'd looked up the name of the Balfourt Corporation where Delphine had written the rent checks to and sure enough it was a real estate rental company.

So this is where Gerard lives? Well, that's convenient.

If Gerard
had
had something to do with Isla's death, the police would never know. Why would they even think to question him? Or ask where he was during the time of the burglary? Delphine probably didn't even mention Gerard to them.

But one thing Maggie knew without a doubt was that there was usually an unbroken line between Gerard and anybody else's misery.
Isla died on Delphine's doorstep
. Gerard—low life and general opportunist—regularly visited Delphine to shake her down for money.
This
, Maggie thought grimly,
is a slam dunk in anybody's book.

The thought came to her like a slap across the face: She needed to confront him.

As volatile as Gerard was, he wasn't a skilled liar. Maggie knew that from past personal experience with him. And especially if she were to take him by surprise—
and ask the right questions
—there was no doubt in her mind she'd be able to tell straightaway if he was telling the truth. After all, she'd
seen
the murderer that day! The man who'd run down the stairs, leaping over poor Isla's body in his escape—could Gerard have done that?

Absolutely. With the adrenalin boost of having just slit someone's throat?
Even drugged out and broken, Gerard could have mustered the energy. He definitely could have been the man she saw in the hall that day.

An image developed in her mind of her confrontation with him.

I demand you tell me the truth, Gerard. Did you kill Isla?
She could just see his panicked look as he tried to deny it.
Me? No! I swear it! I wasn't there that day.
But Maggie would be ready for him:
How did you know it happened in the daytime?
And then, realizing lying was no use, Gerard would collapse into a puddle of confession.

The light changed and Maggie hurried ahead.

Yep
. She'd talk with him this very night.

The café was directly in front of her and for reasons she couldn't explain, she was able to spot Dieter immediately. He was tall, his face creased into an unattractive frown, his hair blond and cut short. His cold blue eyes were scanning the crowd for her.

She lifted a hand and he nodded to her. No smile.

Maggie joined him at the table and he stood long enough to shake hands with her. He was drinking a beer.

“Thank you so much for meeting me,” Maggie said. “What luck you happened to be in Paris.”

If she was hoping to catch him in a bald-faced lie, she was disappointed. He reseated himself and the waiter appeared.

“
Bonsoir
. A glass of Pinot Grigio, please,” Maggie said. The waiter turned and disappeared.

“I do not know what you want to know,” Dieter said. He studiously did not look at Maggie. There was something odd about his face. Something familiar too but also something…wrong. She tried not to stare.

“I am looking for someone your grandfather may have known. She would have been a six-year old girl in 1944,” Maggie said.

Dieter snorted but still didn't look at her. “You are looking for a seventy-five year old woman,” he said.

Okay, so we know you have decent math skills,
Maggie thought, forcing herself not to get annoyed. This was her only chance and she needed to remember that and be grateful for it. He might have no information that could help her but he might have the one thing that was the key to finding Camille's daughter.

Getting pissy would not be helpful.

“My sources tell me your grandfather had a liaison in 1944 with a woman named Camille Victoire.”

“His French whore.”

Maggie sucked in a breath
.
She wasn't sure what she'd expected from Dieter but this wasn't it. Before she could react, the waiter appeared and set Maggie's glass of wine down in front of her with the bill. Dieter picked up the little slip of paper and then peeled off a ten-euro note and tossed it on the table.

Is the meeting over?
Maggie thought dumbfounded.
Am I being dismissed?

“I was hoping you might remember hearing your grandfather talk about—”

“My grandfather died decades before I was born,” Dieter said abruptly.

“Oh. Well, okay, maybe your
father
remembered hearing—”

“My father was not close to my grandfather. I'm sure you can understand why.” He gave Maggie a meaningful look.

That must mean the family is embarrassed about Helmut Bauer's role during the war—which makes total sense.
Maggie tried to imagine how awkward this must be for Dieter. But she could only tiptoe around the facts so much before she got exactly nowhere in her search for the truth.

“Do you think your father would be willing to talk to me?”

“I doubt it. He died twenty years ago. And my mother is gone too so there is no sense in your attempting to contact any more of my family.”

“I see.” Maggie's skin began to vibrate. Dieter wasn't here to give her answers. He was here to make sure she didn't bother him again. A shiver of disappointment descended on her.

“I'm sorry I cannot be of more help to you,” Dieter said as he stood up.

Maggie didn't answer since his words were clearly false. She looked at him and realized when their eyes met that he was very uncomfortable. It wasn't the first time that she'd noted how the American habit of staring or coming right to the point seemed to unsettle—even disarm—most Europeans.

“Look, I didn't know my grandfather but I do have a…diary of his,” he blurted.

Maggie blinked.
A diary?
She held her tongue and hoped her impassive stare would do the job she needed it to.

“I don't know where it is exactly. Perhaps I have thrown it away.”

Maggie reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. “May I send you my mailing address in case you find it?” she asked bluntly.

He hesitated. “I will probably not find it.”

She forced herself not to speak.

“If I find it, I'll send it to you. But please to not contact me again.” He turned to leave when an idea came to Maggie.

“Herr Bauer?
Dieter
?” she called out. He cringed as he turned around, a look of dread on his face mixed with the horror of having his name shouted out in a public café.

“I was wondering if you come to Paris often on business,” Maggie asked.

“
Ja
,” he said with bewilderment.

“Would you remember if you were in town on the tenth of this month?”

“
Ja
,” he said. “I was.” Then he turned and plunged into the swarm of tourists and commuters in the street.

Maggie drank down half her wine as she watched Dieter disappear.

April 10 was the day Isla was killed.

Not sure what the information meant, Maggie glanced at the time on her phone and added three euros to what Dieter had left on the table. It was getting late but Gerard's apartment was right on the way home. It wouldn't take two minutes to find his place. As she stood up, her phone rang. It was Delphine.

“Hey, Delphine. Everything okay?”

“Are you coming home now?”

Maggie hesitated. Delphine's voice was trembling. Maggie thought she could hear Mila crying in the background.

Gerard would have to wait until morning.

D
ieter stood hidden
by the large kiosk at the end of the street. His heart was hammering in his chest as he watched the American continue to sit at their café table.

It was worse than he'd expected, almost as bad as he'd imagined. An American? Of all people. He ran a hand over his face and bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself from the nausea roiling in his stomach.

Hadn't he always known this day would come? Hadn't it always been hanging over him from the very beginning?

His stomach lurched with revulsion, his eyes never leaving the image of the attractive young woman sitting at the table—like a jilted lover, vulnerable and bereft.

Would she just leave it alone? Would she try to contact him again?

Something heavy and distasteful settled in his stomach.

Was there something he could do to make sure she didn't?

M
aggie emerged
from the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Metro station and hurried down the busy boulevard toward Delphine's street. It was dark but not late. Even so, she felt eyes on her as she made the turn onto rue du Bac. In fact, for the entire Metro trip she'd been uneasy. First, because there had been something distinctly off about Dieter—and it wasn't just his evasive, hostile nature with her. There was something off about his
face
.

Second, could he possibly be telling the truth about the diary? What kind of Gestapo thug kept a diary? And why, after Dieter had done everything he possibly could to tell her to piss off, had he told her about it?

The discouragement wafted over her like a dense blanket. She was no further along in her investigation into finding Camille's daughter than she had been before she met him. Unless there really was a diary—a big if—and Dieter actually took the time to send it to her—likewise, she wouldn't hold her breath—tonight had to go neatly and without delay into the Total Waste of Time Column.

She glanced down at the phone in her hand but it had gone dead. It hadn't taken her long to get back to the Latin Quarter from Le Marais. Rush hour was over and the Metro had not been crowded for a Monday evening.

She hurried to the front of Delphine's building in time to slip through the double doors. Workmen were just packing up their tools after having installed a security buzzer on the side of the outer wall. Maggie was frankly surprised it had taken Delphine's apartment management so long to do it. Most apartment buildings in Paris had security keypads.

She moved through the small courtyard and then the interior doors to the lobby of Delphine's building. She was tired but not so tired she couldn't manage to walk the five flights up rather that risk another episode on the dodgy elevator.

She arrived at Delphine's front door panting and perspiring.

“Maggie!
Chérie
!” Delphine said as she opened the door. “It took you so long!”

Maggie's eyes went past Delphine toward the sound of her daughter's wails in the kitchen. She closed the door behind her and went to Mila who immediately stretched out her arms to Maggie.

This is my fault,
Maggie thought as she picked Mila up. The baby was wet and if the carnage of baby food all over the high chair tray was any indication, hungry, too.

“I am so sorry, Delphine,” Maggie said over Mila's slowly subsiding whimpers. “I shouldn't have been gone so long.”

“No, it is me,” Delphine said. “I couldn't make la Mademoiselle happy no matter what I did. She wanted her
maman
.”

“Let me change her and I'll be back in a flash.” Maggie gave Delphine an encouraging smile and disappeared into the bedroom to clean and change Mila.

Fifteen minutes later, she sat with Delphine in the kitchen. Mila was calmer but still fussing.

There was no doubt in Maggie's mind that Mila was reacting to Delphine's affect which was jittery and tense.

What had happened? Had Gerard come back? Or Michelle?

“Did anyone come by while I was gone?” she asked carefully.

“
Non, non
,” Delphine said, sipping a glass of wine and watching the baby with fretful eyes.

Maggie so wanted to reassure Delphine.
Babies are just like this. It doesn't mean anything.

“Victor's workmen came to install the new security bell on the front door,” Delphine said.

“I saw them,” Maggie said. “Do you have the new code?”

“
Oui
. It is on the dining room table.”

“Anything else?”

“Noel called when I was trying to feed the
bébé
,” Delphine said, her eyes misting over. “I am afraid he was upset.”

“Why?”

Delphine waved her hand as if to dismiss the subject. “It is an old argument. I do not know why I let it bother me today.”

Maggie knew that Noel was to inherit. Did his phone call today have to do with money?

“Is there anything I can do?” Maggie asked. “I'm sure he hated upsetting you.”

“
Je sais
,” Delphine said with a sigh. “He…is convinced I am his mother.”

Whoa. Way to come right out with it.

“Really? What makes him think that?”

“It doesn't matter. It is what he wants to believe and he is not interested in hearing me.”

If it's true, what possible reason could there be for keeping it secret now?
Maggie wondered.
He'll find out when he sees he's inherited a fourth of her fortune. Why can't Delphine just put his mind at rest—and her own too while she's at it?

But she kept her thoughts to herself. She hated seeing Delphine so unhappy but there were times when even
she
was wise enough to know when to keep her mouth shut.

“I fear I must retire early tonight,” Delphine said.

“Of course. I'm just so sorry that Mila added to your stress this evening…and after such a lovely day of shopping.”

Delphine laid a hand on Mila's head and smiled.

“Nothing could spoil our day,” she said. “And tomorrow, both Mademoiselle Mila and I will both be our old selves again.”

Delphine surprised Maggie by kissing her on the cheek before wishing her goodnight and going to her bedroom. Maggie finished feeding Mila who did not show any signs of being sleepy. Maggie took the baby into her bedroom where her phone was charging and checked for messages.

There was a text from Laurent that instructed her to text him back that she was alive. Maggie grinned ruefully and took a picture of Mila and sent it to him with the text o far so good>
. She noticed she'd also received a phone call from a number she didn't recognize. Because she hadn't answered it, it had gone to voice mail.

She settled on the bed with Mila in her arms and listened to the message.

“
Bonjour Madame Dernier. My name is Michelle Normand. I would be grateful if you would call me back at this number so that we may meet. It is of the utmost importance. Merci.”

Maggie played the message back again to try to pick up on anything in the woman's voice that made her sound unbalanced. Maggie only detected urgency.

How did she get my number? Or my name?

It had been a long day. From walking all over the main shopping district of Paris to tramping up and down Le Marais and racing back to the Latin Quarter with a panicked image in her head of Delphine and Mila—if not dead, then both extremely unhappy. She'd been promising herself all evening that she'd go back into the storage closet but Mila was only now just beginning to settle down, and Maggie realized she herself was pretty fried for tonight.

The closet would be there tomorrow.

As soon as Mila finally dropped off, Maggie put her in her baby bed and padded into the bathroom where she washed off her makeup and brushed her teeth. She returned to the bedroom, stripped off her clothes and climbed into bed with a groan. As she fell asleep she couldn't even remember if she'd heard back from Laurent after she sent her text.

H
ours later
, in the middle of the night, Maggie found herself being pulled out of her dreams. A noise, monotonous and insistent was buzzing in her head until she finally awoke. She sat up in the dark, disoriented and tried to place the noise.

It was the muffled ringing of a landline telephone.

Maggie put a hand on Mila to see that the baby still slept, then swung her feet out of bed and grabbed her robe from the floor. By the time she stepped into the hallway, the phone had stopped ringing. It had clearly come from Delphine's bedroom. Maggie paused in the hall and held her breath.

Who would call at this hour?

Suddenly she heard Delphine cry out.

Maggie dashed to her bedroom door and jerked it open. The bedside lamp illuminated the room. Delphine sat on her bed, the phone cradled to her chest. Her hair hung in a tangled disarray to her shoulders.

“Delphine?” Maggie said breathlessly. “What is it?”

Delphine turned to Maggie, her face a mask of horror and disbelief. She looked every minute her ninety-two years. Her shoulders sagged under her thick flannel nightgown.

“Delphine?” Maggie said coming around to her side of the bed. “What's happened?”

“It's Gerard,” Delphine said with a shaking voice. “He's…he's dead.”