Murder in the Latin Quarter (19 page)

T
he light seemed
to extinguish the moment Maggie entered the alley. A rat was startled from its food thirty feet ahead of her and scurried for its bolt hole in the side of Gerard's apartment building.

Maggie's stomach lurched. She forced herself not to run. The whole point was to take the same conduit the killer had. And that meant looking and seeing what the killer had seen.

Smells seemed to pour off both buildings and pool into the space between them, roiling up from the wet stone floor beneath her feet. She held her breath. There were no windows, no fire escapes, no pipes or ledges. No point in looking up. She alternated between focusing on her endpoint—rue du Louvre straight ahead—and the ground.

It was quiet. The two buildings had cut off all sound at the same time they dimmed the lights. Maggie put a hand on Gerard's building. Cold, rock hard. No vibrations. Nothing to indicate there was life inside.

This was a total waste of time.

And it was seriously creepy besides.

Halfway down the alley she stopped and listened. A horn honked in the distance but she couldn't tell if it was ahead of her or behind.

This was stupid.

There were a few puddles on the ground from the rain earlier that morning. Maggie stepped over the piece of trash marking the spot where the rat had been and then turned around to examine it more closely. She bent down and saw it was a crumpled cigarette packet. Her heart began to beat fast.

Had the killer dropped this?

She tried to think if she'd smelled cigarettes on Michelle. Unfortunately she hadn't gotten close enough to tell. She rooted in her jacket pocket for a tissue—less to preserve any fingerprints than to protect herself from whatever disease the rat might be carrying—and picked up the cigarette packet.

The cellophane outer covering was wet. On one side of the packet was a bent matchbook with no matches. On the other side a slip of paper had been slid under the cellophane.

Forgetting her worry about the rat, Maggie withdrew the slip of paper with trembling fingers.

Five words were written in turquoise ink protected from the rain by the cellophane.

She blinked, her tissue falling forgotten to the ground.

Written on the slip of paper were the words,
Dernier, 43 de l'arbre sec.

The killer
had
come this way.

Why else would Gerard's name and address be written down? It
wasn't
someone who knew him. It was someone who was following instructions.

It was a hit.

She stood and walked steadily to the end of the alley. When she emerged, the busy street seemed awash with color and light.

But if the person didn't know Gerard personally, how did he get inside Gerard's apartment? Maggie realized she only assumed Gerard had been attacked on the mattress. He could very well have answered the door and then struggled with his killer—ending up on the mattress where he was slain.

The police would know
, she thought grimly.
But they aren't talking
.

As she walked in the direction of the Metro station—wondering if she dared bring her newfound evidence to the police—something that had been in the back of her mind since she found the cigarette packet came roaring to the foreground. She stopped, forcing a man behind her on his phone to bump into her and growl his annoyance.

She pulled the cigarette pack out of her pocket and turned it over to look at the spent matchbook.

Bistrot Danielle. 235 rue du Four.

Her mind swam as she realized how she knew that address.

It was located next to André's gallery.

M
aggie sat
on the train and stared at the note with Gerard's address on it. She felt overly warm and there was a constant fluttering in her stomach. Is it a coincidence about the bistro being next door to André's gallery
? Isn't it true that everything in the Latin Quarter is close to everything else?

But right next door?

Maggie glanced at the schematic map of train stops over the doorway. Two more stops before her station at Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Did André know Gerard?

Did André smoke?
She fast-tracked back to the kiss André had forced on her the night of Delphine's party.

Yes, she'd tasted tobacco.

She fumbled in her pocket for her phone and texted Grace.

<
Tell André thanks for the info and sorry I was abrupt before. Can I speak to him
?>

<
He's busy right now
>

<
That's cool. What's his #?
>

Maggie waited for an answer but either Grace put the phone down and walked away or she was deliberately not answering.

Was Grace jealous of Maggie? Had André said something to her?

Maggie clenched her jaw. When her stop came she hurried off the subway car and wound her way through the long underground tunnel and up the steps to her street. It had started to rain and she was only wearing a light jacket. Her long hair immediately began to wilt as it soaked up the water. She felt a cold sluice of rain go down her collar.

So do I think Grace's boyfriend had something to do with Gerard's death? And if I do, does that mean he had something to do with Isla's death too?

Motive? She shook her head in frustration.

Opportunity? Well,
that
she could probably find out from Grace.
If
Grace felt like being helpful.

Now that Maggie thought of it, wasn't it terribly coincidental that André knew of Delphine?

Her phone vibrated and thinking it was Grace, Maggie ducked under the first restaurant awning she came to and looked at the screen.

It was a text message from Michelle.

<
Well
?>

All other questions aside, one thing Maggie knew for sure was that Michelle had seen Gerard the day he died.

That's opportunity.

And she could take a wild and probably very accurate guess as to motive.

Maggie texted,

M
aggie arrived
at Delphine's apartment just as Amelie was leaving. The housekeeper stood in the foyer, her coat on, her purse on her arm, and scowling as Maggie entered.

“You are late,” Amelie snapped.

Maggie peered past the housekeeper to see Mila sitting in her high chair next to Delphine. Both seemed cheerful enough. Mila cried out, “
Maman
!”

Amelie pushed past Maggie to leave through the still open door which she slammed behind her. Maggie moved into the kitchen where Delphine was feeding Mila.

“Everything okay here?” Maggie asked. “Sorry I'm late.”

“Ignore Amelie,” Delphine said with a smile, but Maggie could see she was tired. “I asked her to watch the baby for one minute when I went to the bathroom. You would think I do not pay her enough.”

Maggie thought of the will and the fact that Amelie would be a rich woman upon Delphine's death. She peeled off her wet jacket and hung it on a peg in the kitchen.

“There is a towel in the ante room,” Delphine said, nodding to a small room off the kitchen. Maggie remembered that was where they'd stacked the cartons of champagne on the night of her birthday dinner.

The spot where André had kissed her.

“It's really coming down,” Maggie said, giving Mila a quick kiss before reaching for a towel.

“The police called.”

Maggie stopped drying her hair. “Yes?”

“They said they would dispose of Gerard's remains for us. The case is closed.”

Maggie sat down at the kitchen table and watched Mila spread her dinner in thick globs of orange across her face.

“I see.”

Maggie tried to imagine that a phone call to the police might reopen the case. But she'd been down this road before. The cops would take the cigarette pack and she'd never hear another thing about it.

“It is sad, of course,” Delphine said. “And I have had too much sadness of late.”

Maggie noticed the older woman's hand was shaking again. Maggie took the spoon from her.

“Was your visit with Noel okay?” She could see how Noel—as sweet as he generally seemed to be—might be a bit much on a day that was already emotionally draining.

“Of course I was glad he came. But I believe I will go to bed now.”

“Have you eaten?”

“What I need now is rest.” She stood and put a hand on Maggie's shoulder. “I am glad you are here,
chérie
. You are far more than I deserve.”

“Well, that's not true at all. You deserve all your loving family around you during a time like this.”

As soon as the words were out of Maggie's mouth, she realized that Delphine would think she meant Laurent.

Had
she meant Laurent?

Shouldn't Laurent have come up? If not for Gerard, then for his aunt?

“I will settle for you and our little Mila,” Delphine said as if reading Maggie's mind. Her smile was unwavering but wistful. “But I am changing my mind about my nephew. I can see his care for you in your face. He must not be the man I once knew.”

“I can't wait for y'all to meet again.”

“I too look forward to that,” Delphine said, smiling sadly. “
Bonne nuit, chérie
.” She turned and shuffled slowly to her bedroom.

Maggie watched her go.

Why didn't I insist that Laurent come up? What was I thinking? Delphine needs him, regardless of what he thinks
. Maggie resolved to call him as soon as she got the baby down.

After she finished feeding Mila, she held the child in her arms in her bedroom and hummed to her as Mila futilely resisted sleep. Maggie felt the weariness reach out to her too. The minute she knew Mila was asleep, she put her in her bed and then saw that her phone was vibrating.

It was Laurent.

“Hey, I was just going to call you,” she said.

“To tell me when your train will get in to Aix?”

She let out a sigh of frustration.

“Laurent, no. Actually, I was going to try to talk you into coming to Paris.”

“Not possible.”

“You know this is a major family crisis up here, right? Your brother's dead and your only living relative is—”

“You are making this too dramatic,” he said. “There is no church service. There is no one to mourn Gerard's passing.”

“That's not the point, Laurent,” Maggie said as she moved into the living room so as not to wake Mila. “Your
aunt
is the point.”

“My aunt does not grieve for my brother.”

Well, that was true enough and Maggie knew it. Trying to make this sound like a real family tragedy wasn't going to wash. Not with Laurent anyway.

“Whatever,” she said with resignation, “I can't come back just yet. Delphine needs me.”

“You are not a nurse!”

“She doesn't need a nurse! She needs family!”

A moment of silence blossomed between the two and Maggie felt a kernel of insecurity erupt in her stomach. She hated fighting with Laurent. Hated when they weren't on the same page. The fact that he couldn't see a reason for her to stay with his elderly aunt was upsetting on so many levels. Maggie knew for sure he wouldn't feel this way if it was Danielle or any of their other elderly neighbors.

What is it with him and Delphine?

“I know you will do as you wish regardless of my desires,” he said coldly. “But trying to make me think that Gerard's death is a surprise to anyone is not believable.”

“Laurent, the police aren't even investigating his death,” Maggie said, “They've written it off the same way they wrote off the home health nurse's death and if you'd stop to think for
one minute
, you'd see that your frail ninety-two year old aunt stands right in the middle of all this! Do you really want me to leave her?”

“Are you finished? Because there is
no
connection between the two deaths as anyone can plainly see. Is it possible you are making everything worse instead of better?”

“I suppose anything is possible,” Maggie said, shaking with indignation. “Perhaps you should come up here to make sure I'm not.”

“I cannot leave the vineyard.”

“Well, then I guess it sucks to be Delphine. You're too busy to be with her and I'm just making things worse.”

“Maggie…”

“No, no, you're probably right but we'll never know so if you don't mind, kiss my son for me, and kindly go bugger off to your stupid grapes.”

She hung up on him and immediately hated the fact that she did. She wasn't sure why she'd become so upset except she'd been expecting a little support from his direction—especially since she was getting precisely none these days from Grace—and what she got instead was a slap in the face.

Is Laurent right? Am I just upsetting her with talk about the war? Would it make things worse for her to know the truth about who killed Gerard and Isla?

She shook her head.

No way. There was no way the truth wouldn't help give Delphine closure.

And Camille. Finding out what had happened to Camille's daughter was the single best thing Maggie could do for Delphine.

Of that she had absolutely no doubt.

She shook off the fight with Laurent but checked her phone to see if he'd called her back. She knew he wouldn't though. She went into the bedroom to check on Mila and then tiptoed to Delphine's bedroom door. The sound of deep snores reached her where she stood.

Just thirty minutes ago Maggie had been so tired she could barely heft Mila into her crib, but now she felt agitated, wound up and alert.

She walked into the living room and her eye went straight to the storage closet. While she wasn't sure how she was going to use the clues she'd found surrounding Gerard's death, she knew there was more to discover about Laurent and Camille in that room. It might not put anyone in prison for the rest of their lives, she thought grimly, but it might still do
somebody
good.

She unlocked the padlock with the key she kept in her jeans pocket, pushed into the room, and turned on the light. She ran a finger over the spines of the dusty books on the shelf that was eye level to her. Most of them appeared to be philosophy or history books—probably belonging to Delphine's late husband—and all in French.

She pulled a box of files from a shelf and flipped through them quickly. Feeling like HIPAA was about to descend on her any moment, she opened up the box labeled “Children's Health Records.” Maggie pulled out a file with Jacqueline's name on it. She scanned its contents. There was nothing exceptional about it. Her weight at birth was listed and the fact that she'd broken her arm at fourteen. Each of her annual health exams was listed until 1940. Maggie found Delphine's file next and flipped through it. It was similar to Jacqueline's. She'd had mumps at twelve and nothing much else.

Georgette's file was even thinner with just a few lines noting her weight at birth and the fact that she had been born with a benign condition called Turner Syndrome. Maggie knew most parents tended to start out with boundless energy and good intentions on everything having to do with their firstborns but intensity inevitably flagged with the children who followed. Maggie noted ruefully that she had a scrapbook two inches thick on Jemmy but had yet to start work on Mila's.

Putting the medical file aside, Maggie went through the rest of the folders in the box until her head began to ache and her back twinged from how she was sitting on the floor. She pulled her legs out in front of her and stretched out her back by leaning forward over her knees.

From this position she saw a small wooden toy under the bookcase. She reached in and drew it out. It was a wooden car with moving wheels. She turned it over in her hands. On the bottom was written in a childish scrawl,
Laurent Dernier
.

So he
had
existed as a child, she thought bemusedly as she turned the car in her hands. And somehow a loving aunt or grandmother had kept this toy instead of bunging it into the French equivalent of a Goodwill bin. Or it was just forgotten—like everything else about Laurent's childhood. It had gotten swept under a bookcase and lost as the boy became a man.

She hated fighting with Laurent. It usually never got this far. He was impossible to get a rise out of. Half the time he'd shrug off whatever disagreement they were having and Maggie was left having the fight with herself.

It was harder to do that on the telephone. The nuances of his responses to her—usually so subtle in person that they were hard to register—seemed to jump out of the phone. Had she overreacted? He wanted her back home; she wanted to stay. She wasn't willing to hear his argument and he wasn't buying hers.