Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (11 page)

Chapter
13: A Visit to the Sixth Arrondissement

Serafina was surprised Elena’s
friends had not heard of her demise, but perhaps they knew something Serafina
didn’t. Not yet, at any rate. Since her meeting with Sophie de Masson, she
began to doubt the death of Elena. Did she have enough evidence to request
exhumation of the body? It would depend on the photographs of the dead woman.
If the images bore no resemblance to the contessa, Valois would have to reopen
the case.

She ran a hand through her hair.
Not yet six o’clock, fifteen long hours until their meeting with the inspector
and three hours until dinner. Time enough for acting.

She stopped. How did she expect
to solve the mystery when she hadn’t seen the spot where they’d found the body?

Pulling out her map, she studied
it. It took her a while to locate the Rue Cassette. It was on the left bank,
her favorite side of the river. She’d go to the scene of the crime. No need to
tell Rosa or Carmela—she’d be back before they realized she was gone.
Grabbing a light cape and reticule, and throwing a comb through her snarls, she
was about to go out when she remembered the dratted hat. But a head covering
had a point, especially in the chill of an April evening in Paris. She plunked
it on her head and flew down the stairs, asking for a cab to the Luxembourg
Gardens. A man in livery driving a small opera bus pulled by a roan horse drew
up, and the doorman helped her in.

The streets were noisy.
Parisians who crossed in front of carriages and carters seemed happy to be
going home. Plane trees lined the boulevards, and the sky was a wash of
cerulean as the driver took the Pont Royal to the Rue du Bac. Serafina listened
to the clop of hooves. They turned onto the Rue Jacob filled with memories of a
delicious slip she’d had in a small hotel over twenty years ago. It struck her
that there was a sense of life here, an unforgettable style of color, sound,
and line that merged to create an energy she no longer felt at home. Oh, to be
young again and in Paris. As she watched university students gather, she warmed
to the thought of adventure. But unfortunately, she had mystery on the mind.

They clopped down the Rue
Bonaparte past St. Sulpice and she heard the unmistakable sounds of an organ,
perhaps Charles-Marie Widor practicing for a concert. She stared at the scene
fronting the church and imagined a crowd gathered around Elena witnessing one
of her mad moments.

The driver stopped across from
the entrance to the Luxembourg Gardens and said he’d wait for her.

With the map in her hand, she
walked slowly up the Rue de Vaugirard. It was a long street and she hoped she
wasn’t too far from her destination. When she found herself facing the round
backside of St. Sulpice again, she realized she’d walked in the wrong
direction. So she headed back, her eyes glued to her map, and bumped into a
policeman who hung onto her shoulders to prevent her from falling.

He tipped his cap and smiled.
“Pardon, Madame, let me help you. You’re lost.”

“Too kind.” A Parisian
policeman, how handsome. What do they call them? A
sergent de ville
, he told her. She loved his tall kepis and said so. “I
search for the Rue Cassette. I’m sure it’s nearby.”

“Visiting someone?” he asked as
he led the way.

“Not exactly. I investigate the
death of a woman whose body was found on that street last week.”

“Lucky for you, I’m the one who
found the body.” He shook his head. “Terrible, one side of her face blown
apart.”

“Then I’m doubly fortunate to
have found you.”

“Some claim she was a countess
from Sicily.” The policeman shook his head. “That’s what the inspector said.
Valois. I called him myself, woke him up from his sleep, poor man. He was none
too happy either, I can tell you. Can’t blame the fellow. But the woman, her
clothes,
mon dieu
,
she wore the garb of a streetwalker, not draped like a lady, I don’t mind
saying it.”

“In this neighborhood?”

He gave her a Gallic shrug.
“Those kind are all over, especially at that time of night. Sometimes you see
them here in the early evening, too. There are some cafés on the Rue de
Vaugirard that attract these people.”

“Like the Café Odile?”

He nodded.

Serafina wondered how to ask her
next question. “They claim she may have been from the upper classes but
enjoying herself by doing—what’s the word in French? In Italian it’s not
used in mixed company.”

“No need to say it, Madame, I
know what you mean. But this woman had dirt ground into her. It was underneath
her fingernails and in her hair. Her hands were callused. No, this woman was
not from the nobility. She was working the streets.”

“Curious the press didn’t cover
it.”

He shrugged. “Why would they?
Oh, they sniffed around, all right. Those journalists can smell a story before
it happens. But they knew this death was not newsworthy, so they disappeared.
It was the death of a woman already bitten by life, not a fresh saucy thing or
someone known by the people. A pickpocket or a lady of the night, probably
both. A jailbird, perhaps. But no matter, she’d fallen on hard times. They work
the system, you know. They violate the health laws and must be pulled in.
They’re out for a while until they’re hauled in again. In and out.”

“Would you show me where you
found the body?”

They turned into a much smaller
street. The Rue Cassette seemed ghostly, little more than a country lane,
although it was cobbled and in excellent condition, smooth and clean. No
garbage, so different from home. It was bounded on both sides by a limestone
wall. The street had no gas lamps, however, and the light from the evening sky
was beginning to fade. She hugged her cape feeling cold and empty in the
gloaming as she followed the
sergent
de ville
.

Presently the policeman stopped
and pointed to a spot on the ground a few meters ahead, steps away from a large
alcove and door. There was a dry cleaning establishment on the opposite side of
the street several meters away, but no other shops, just a few gates punched
into the wall on either side, leading to what looked like the courtyards of
private apartments. Serafina stood still and staring at the spot. She saw the
twisted body of the woman. The vision was so intense, it was as if she were
here before them, her head resting to one side on the stones, a battered,
broken body.

She was filled with the presence
of death and foreboding. She tried to imagine what life must have been like for
the dead woman; she tried to fathom what it must have been like for this young
policeman to come upon a body, cold, grotesque, the street narrow and dark.
Perhaps early morning mist had been rising from the ground. Even now she could
feel the dankness of the place. The stone walls closed in on her. She struggled
for air and realized she’d been holding her breath. Her head throbbed and her
toes hurt from the cold. She wished she had worn a heavier cape, a long one
like the policeman wore.

“Where does this door lead?”

“It’s the back end of an abbey.”

Serafina read the
numbers—22, Rue Cassette. She looked more closely, intent on finding
something on the ground left by the body or forgotten by the killer, a scrap of
paper, a handkerchief, anything, but the stones had been picked clean.

She was beginning to get a feel
for this murdered woman, someone having to scratch to make a living. No, if she
were true to her intuition, Serafina could now affirm that the dead woman was a
stranger, not Elena. Now her task was to convince others.

“How was she clothed?”

“As I said, in the garment of a
streetwalker. There was dirt under her fingernails, caked behind her ear on one
side of the face, a ring of dirt in back of her neck.”

“But she had a reticule.”

He nodded. “Made of expensive
cloth with a gold clasp and chain. Not the bag of a woman of the night.”

“Perhaps she stole the purse?”

“Looked like it to me.”

“Was there money inside?”

“Six-hundred francs in notes and
a few coins, a fortune by my reckoning.”

“Who do you think she was and
why did she have that purse?”

“I’ve told you. But no one asks
my opinion, Madame. You don’t want to know what I think. I’m a young policeman,
on the force less than a year.”

“But I do. I care. And not
because you’re helping me tremendously. No, I want to hear what you have to say
because you were the first to see the body.”

“I think I might have seen her
in this neighborhood before, begging, laughing, drunk, flirting with men or
lurking in the side streets hoping for a ...”

“A customer?”

“Yes. I might have arrested her
once, along with a few others, up to no good, cuffed them all for theft, for
leaving the Café Odile with purses and capes and fancy hats that weren’t
theirs. Boastful and laughing. Slurring and swaying. Beasts really, at least
for that moment. When you see men and women like that, less than human, you
close your eyes and try to imagine them as sweet suckling babes. Then you take
a little more care with them instead of shoving them into a wagon and dumping
them into a holding cell. Next morning, it’ll be a different story for them.
They’ll be sober and quiet, stinking of cheap wine and bodily waste. Life must
be a hell for them.” He stopped and considered something inside himself. “No, I
think she took that purse and for whatever reason, maybe even because she took
it, she was killed.”

“But she wasn’t killed for the
money. Six-hundred francs remained in the purse.”

“There are many reasons to kill,
Madame. Her type have more reasons to kill than you and I can dream up together
in a lifetime, and kill they do. Perhaps with little thought beforehand, or
perhaps the killing was a long time brewing—a fantasy of their sodden
brains.”

“Would her companions kill her
with a derringer and feign suicide?”

“Might. Don’t forget, we try to
fathom, but not with their besotted minds. They’ve become jackals.”

Serafina was silent, taking in
the policeman’s words. She wished Carmela was here. She’d introduce them.

“Are you married?”

“Pardon?”

“Never mind. You seem so wise
for your years. I have unmarried daughters and I’d like you for a son-in-law.”

He blushed and Serafina knew
she’d overstepped the mark. “Forgive me. I meant that as a compliment.”

He touched his cap and smiled.

“The body was identified as a
contessa, the one whose passport was in the reticule. Identified by none other
than the woman’s aunt. What do you think of that?”

“The aunt must be infirm of mind
or going blind.”

She paused for a moment before
asking, “No one’s reported a missing purse?”

“I wouldn’t know that, Madame.”

Serafina asked herself what she would
have done if her reticule had been snatched. “Where’s the nearest gendarmerie?”

“This way, turn onto the Rue de
Tournon. On your left. Can’t miss it.”

“And one more question if I
might.”

“Of course, Madame.”

“Could you point me to the Café
Odile?”

He led her to a corner café with
a red awning and the word, Odile, written in white script. “But you don’t want
to go inside, Madame.” He touched his cap and walked off into the early
evening.

Before she ventured into the
café, she located her driver, gave him a few coins, and he agreed to wait for
her.

* * *

Serafina stomped into the Café
Odile. Clouds of yellow smoke hung in the air and she looked around the crowded
room, dimly lit by a few gas lamps. There were several people seated at small
tables drinking an opaque liquid, a small throng of noisy customers in the
back, and a crowd around the zinc bar. She stood at the door for some time
until her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Then she asked the bartender if she
could speak with the owner.

He stepped out from behind the
counter. “Help you?” He was a tall man with a deflated balloon for a stomach
that rolled over his apron. His complexion was a pasty pink.

She showed him her
identification card and told him she was investigating the murder of a woman in
Rue Cassette.

“Not the same one as last week?
Old news.” He coughed.

She nodded. Pulling out a photo
of Loffredo, she asked him if he recognized the man.

He took it and walked to the
window. He squinted at the picture. After a moment he said, “Never seen him
before.”

“The woman who was killed in the
Rue Cassette, was she a customer?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Answer the question.”

He shrugged. “Seen her in here
from time to time. A regular, I’d guess you’d say. “