The Paris Librarian (9 page)

“That so?”

“Yes, Hugo. Shocking result, I know.”

“Did he run that tox panel?”

“Like I said before, same one he always does. Still natural causes. And if you're thinking someone poisoned him, not only was the tox panel clear but he had no puncture wounds between his toes, or anything like that.”

“So he checked?”

“Of course he checked. I told you, he's one of the best.” She paused. “Hugo, what aren't you telling me?”

“Another man just collapsed and almost died here this morning. Minutes ago.”

“Are you serious? What happened?”

“Not sure, the paramedics took him away. Maybe a heart attack, but I'm no doctor so I'm just guessing.”

“And you think this is related to Rogers's death.”

“Quite the coincidence, don't you think?”

“That's why the word exists,” Lerens said. “Because they happen.”

“Maybe. I just get this tingling in the back of my neck sometimes. It's a feeling that doesn't explain itself, sometimes makes me ask dumb questions, and usually makes me look stupid.”

“Oh yes?”

“Yes, for a while anyway. Thing is, it's usually right.”

“Maybe something else triggered it this time, something unrelated but you're connecting it to your friend's death.”

A vision of the suave Alain Benoît popped into Hugo's head, a man who may be sharing some kind of secret with Paul's fiancée. “You might be right. I don't suppose you know a guy by the name of Alain Benoît?”

“
Non
, I don't. Why?”

“Long shot.” Hugo smiled to himself. “There are only two million people in Paris, sorry. One of those dumb questions, I guess.”

“What does he have to do with this?”

“Probably nothing. He's a guy I met when I went to Paul's house to tell Sarah, his fiancée, about his death. Benoît was there with her.”

“And? Or are we jumping to unfair and unreasonable conclusions?”

“Well, we are in Paris,” Hugo said, a little sheepishly.

“You want me to run him through the system? If so, I'll need more than his name—must be two hundred Alain Benoîts in Paris.”

“No, no need. I think I'll find a reason to go back there, see if I can find out a little more myself.”

Lerens said nothing for a moment, then, “Hugo, I don't understand why. If they're having an affair, it's none of your business. I know Paul was your friend, but what will you achieve by confronting his grieving wife about an affair?”

“She's his long-term girlfriend, not his wife. And I'm not confronting anyone.”

“No, you're just going to ask really stupid questions about something that's none of your business . . . questions that make it obvious what you're thinking.”

“I can be subtle.”

Lerens sighed heavily down the phone. “Explain it to me; tell me what you think you are looking for, what you think you might find.”

“No idea,” Hugo said. “Right now, I'm just trying get rid of that tingling sensation in the back of my neck.”

Hugo reassured Lerens that he had a valid reason to visit Sarah. Two, in fact: the first was to let her know about the autopsy result; the second was to offer assistance with negotiating the French bureaucracy and complex funeral and burial procedures.

“How thoughtful of you.”

“He was a friend, I'd offer that anyway.”

“Just go easy on her, Hugo. Even if she is having an affair, Monsieur Rogers was still basically her husband; she's going to be devastated. Maybe even more so, with the guilt. Either way, don't go making things worse.”

“It's me going, Camille, not Tom.”

Lerens laughed softly. “Good point. All right, I have work to do.”

They hung up, and Hugo started in the direction of Sarah Gregory's apartment. Ten minutes later, he stood on the steps to the building and rang her bell. He waited a full minute, then rang again. The door buzzed without anyone answering, and he pushed it open, walking quickly across the foyer and up the stairs to her apartment. The door swung open, a pale Sarah Gregory almost leaning on it for support.

“Hugo. Come in. The place is a mess, I'm sorry. I haven't had the energy.”

He followed her into the living room. “It's not a mess,” he said. “And even if it were, I certainly wouldn't care.”

“Sit down.” She didn't wait for him to do so, sinking into the sofa.
Lerens was right
, Hugo thought.
Whatever else is going on, this woman is most definitely a grieving widow
.

“I wanted to let you know, I spoke to the authorities just now.” He knew not to use the word
police
, it always added anxiety to these situations. “They had to conduct an autopsy, but they confirmed that Paul died of natural causes, a heart attack.”

Sarah Gregory nodded, as if the news was expected, obvious.

“I also wanted to offer my help,” Hugo went on. “Things are always harder when you have to deal with foreign regulations and customs. We have people at the embassy who are trained to assist when an American citizen dies here. That includes dual citizens like Paul.”

“Thank you. I may take you up on that. Our . . . my friend, Alain, has offered to help, too.”

“Good, the more support you have, the better.”

“Michelle Juneau, from the library. She called me this morning, too. Said she went through this recently when her father passed away. She said she'd help, that the people at the library wanted to do something.”

“Good.” Hugo took out a small notebook and wrote down some numbers. “Call any of these and explain who you are. I'll let folks at the embassy know what happened, give them a heads-up.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Is there anything else I can do for you, Sarah?”

“Yes, actually.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “Would you check on Paul's mother? She's directly below us. You've met her before, right?”

“Yes, a couple of times. Paul brought her to some of the library events.”

Sarah nodded. “She may not remember you, in the last few months her memory has gotten awful. I don't know if it's Alzheimer's or just dementia, but . . . well, I'm not sure she's even properly accepted Paul's death.” She sighed. “I'm not sure I have, to be honest.”

“I know, me neither,” Hugo said. “I'll go see her now.”

“Thanks, I just can't deal with her right now. We've never been close, I don't know if you know that. That's made this so much harder.”

“She doesn't blame you, surely?”

“She can't, can she? But yes, I think she does anyway.” She stood and gave him a weak smile. “And thank you, really.”

“Of course, anything I can do, just let me know.”

Hugo stood to leave, and Sarah followed him out to the front door. She lingered in the doorway as he went down the front steps.

“Hugo.”

He turned. “Yes?”

She looked at him for a while, her expression unreadable. “Just, thanks. I wanted to say thanks.”

He nodded. “You're welcome.” He waited, just for a second, in case she had more to say, but with a soft smile she moved back into the entryway and closed the door.

He took the stairs to the ground-floor apartment and knocked on the door. As he waited for an answer, he pictured the robust woman he knew as Paul's mother. Claire Rogers was her name. Striking even in her seventies, she wore her hair as red as it was when she was younger, and lipstick to match. A smoker until her forties, she had a deep, infectious laugh that she broke out whenever possible. Hugo wondered if her brashness covered the sorrow of losing her first son. She'd clung to her adopted son, Paul, at public functions like he was her lover, not a child. But despite her outgoing personality, she was known to spend hours in her small back garden, a perfectionist who wouldn't brook any help and wouldn't let anyone out there unless she accompanied them.

The woman who opened the door shocked Hugo with her appearance. The coiffed red hair had disintegrated into a mess of dirty gray, and, devoid of makeup, she looked every day of seventy. Even her posture seemed to have crumbled.

“
Oui, monsieur?
” Watery eyes looked up at him, unrecognizing.

“
Bonjour, madame. Je m'appelle Hugo Marston
. I am a friend of Paul and Sarah. I wanted to come by and express my condolences, see if there's anything I can do for you.”

Her eyes narrowed as she fought to remember Hugo, but a quick shake of the head denoted failure. She waved a wrinkled hand for him to follow her into the apartment.

“Have we met before?” she asked, lowering herself into an overstuffed armchair.

“We have, but a while ago.” Hugo looked around and picked a chair that would be easy to get up from.

“No one has told me how he died,” she said.

“It was a heart attack, I just found out for certain myself.”

“A heart attack? But he was young.”

“I know, it's a terrible thing,” Hugo said. “I'm so very sorry for your loss.”

“I don't have anyone left.”

“You have Sarah, upstairs. I'm sure she'll take care of you.”

“I didn't mean that.” There was a hard edge to her voice, as if the Claire Rogers of old was striking back. “I don't mean her.”

“Your other son,” Hugo ventured. “You mean your first and his girlfriend.”

“Yes.” She was wistful now, and her change in tone took Hugo by surprise. “His girlfriend. We didn't approve of that girl.”

Just like you don't approve of Sarah Gregory
, Hugo thought.

She sighed and sat back. “I'm next. My doctor said it, or something like it.”

“Surely not, you look fine,” Hugo said. “Do you still work in your garden?”

Her eyes flashed and she started to rise. “You stay out of there, that's my place. Mine!”

Hugo raised his hands in a calming gesture. “I wasn't planning to go out there, Madame Rogers, I was just . . . Would you prefer me to leave?”

She sank back into her chair, anger replaced by look of confusion on her face. “Didn't you just get here?”

Hugo was surprised by how far she was gone, mentally. He knew it was hard for those close to someone with dementia to recognize the sharp slides in coherence when they happened, but he felt sure she wouldn't be able to look after herself here much longer. And with her poor relationship with Sarah, it seemed unlikely they'd team up now that Paul was gone.

Hugo stayed for another ten minutes, bringing Madame Rogers a glass of water and listening to her ramble about her family, her sons. She lamented the lack of grandchildren, but at one point raised hopeful eyes to Hugo. “Perhaps it's not too late, people are having kids later these days. Especially the boys,
n'est-ce pas
?”

“They are,” Hugo told her. “They certainly are.”

When she walked him to the door, he bent to kiss her cheeks, but she grabbed his hand. “You are a policeman,
non
?”

“I used to be, in America,” he said.

“I remember that. What day is today?”

“Tuesday.”

“Will you come back tomorrow? Tomorrow evening, because I sleep in the afternoons. At night I don't sleep so well.”

“Yes, of course.” He groaned inwardly, wondering if she'd even remember the invitation. But he could hardly refuse the old woman. “I'll be back around six o'clock, when I finish work.”

Hugo set off toward the nearest metro station, École Militaire, trying to turn his mind back to work. But it was the slow season in Paris, and therefore at the embassy, and he had no pressing matters to occupy his thoughts. He looked into the shop windows as he walked, staying in the shade even though the day was cooler than the past week had been. He paused at a small boutique selling old books and realized he'd not collected his copy of
In Cold Blood
yet. Somehow he didn't much want it anymore.