Murder in the Bastille (19 page)

“Like he’d been on vacation, but only his arm got sunburned. Bizarre, eh?” she said. “Time for rounds, excuse me.”

Bizarre.

From the window, Aimée felt the Seine-scented breeze waft inside. If only she could take Miles Davis for a walk right now along the quai.

If only.

But food and rent weren’t paid with
if onlys
. She had to move on.

And then she thought about what René had recounted to her after his conversation with Mathieu, the
ébéniste
, in the passage. She had some questions; it was time for her to visit him.

“ I APPRECIATE your taking me, Chantal,” Aimée said.

“No problem,” said Chantal, “It’s on my way to the Braille library on Avenue Parmentier. I work there this afternoon.”

“Work?”

“What people do to earn money, yes,” she said. “I supervise the reading room.”

Aimée felt Chantal’s dry hand on her elbow, guiding her. And the uneven cobbles beneath her feet. She didn’t want to admit how afraid she felt. How vulnerable to attack.

But talking with Cavour could give her information about Josiane.

Or not.

But she had no one else to ask.

“You know, there’s a Braille beginning class starting next week. Two nights a week, an accelerated class.”

Aimée thought about all the CDs she wanted to hear. And how if she put off learning Braille, it would just get harder.

“Sign me up, Chantal,” she said, anxious to arrive.

“Fine. We’re almost there,” said Chantal. “Feel the wall, how it curves; it’s the way medieval entrances were built.”

Aimée’s hands, guided by Chantal’s, felt the pocked, cold stones, the crumbling pebblelike mortar in between. Grayish film swam in front of her eyes, coarse and grainy. Like ground pepper. Her heart skidded. Was she seeing what she was feeling?

“Dr. Lambert’s referred me to a retinologist,” she said. “Why couldn’t the geek have done it in the first place?”

“Geek . . . are you kidding?” she said. “Everyone says he’s . . .”

“
Pardon,
madame et mademoiselle,” said a quavering voice near them.

Aimée slid the sunglasses up on her head. And for a moment, a glint of silver hair flashed in front of her, superimposed on the pepperlike film. But there was no depth. No distinction between close or far.

The world tilted. Dizziness overwhelmed her. She grabbed at the wall, pressed her forehead against the cold stone, gray and furred with lichen. Ecstatic to see, and yet so dizzy.

“
Alors,
Aimée, I must hurry,” said Chantal. “I have to open the reading room.”

“But Chantal . . .”

“Mathieu, Mathieu!” said Chantal, interrupting her, pulling Aimée along.

She felt as though she’d stepped into a Dalí painting. No depth of field, everything pasted together. Colors colliding. Weaving and wonderful and surreal and sickening.

She picked a point and tried to focus, but every stone, each bar of woven grille work, disoriented her. Her nose brushed the wall, yet she’d had no idea how close she was.

Her head ached. She wanted so much to see and so much to close her eyes.

And then it began fading. Fading. Images of a hammer, and a man in a wavy, blue workcoat, coming in and fading out . . . a gauze-like haze hovered, never quite lifting.

The man’s mouth was moving in the haze, he was saying “Chantal . . .” The granular film descended, succeeded by gray mist.

“No, no,” she said, rubbing her eyes, trying to rub the film away.

But Chantal didn’t answer. Nor did the man. Silence, except for the birds singing in the distance. She realized they’d entered Mathieu’s atelier. And there had been large chairs hooked on the walls and gilt frames stacked against tables. She’d seen it. Work-worn, real. Good God, she’d seen it!

She felt a tentative hand on her shoulder.

“Mademoiselle,
ça va?”

And she realized her face was wet. Tears streamed down her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she said, rubbing them away. The vision had been so brief. So beautiful. Her body quivered. “Forgive me. Your atelier’s wonderful.”

“But it’s a mess!” he said, his voice edged with amusement. “The only other person it’s brought to tears was myself when I was twelve and forbidden to go to the cinema until I cleaned all the solvents my dog spilled. A long, tearful process.”

A cloth was pressed in her hand.

“Please, take the handkerchief.”

She wiped her face, rubbed her nose. “I forgot about . . . rocks, tools, the hue of fabrics, how things glint and catch the light.”

She shook her head, put her fist over her streaming eyes. “Forgive me. I saw an old woman’s silvery hair, your mouth moving, your face . . .” She turned away, trying to get hold of herself.

“You shame me,” he said, his voice saddened.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“
Non
. How I think nothing of my sight and my hands, mademoiselle,” he said. “Hearing you humbles me. You’re too young. It’s not right.”

The finches sang in his courtyard. Water gurgled from what sounded like a fountain, and the scent of honeysuckle wafted inside.

She could never forget seeing sunrise over the Seine, how the first peach violet light stained the roofs, skylights, and the pepperpot chimneys, or the Seine’s green mossy quai, the brass doorknockers shaped like hands that invaded her dreams. Just one more time she wanted to trace the dewed veins of a glossy camellia leaf, see the tip of Miles Davis’s wet black nose and his button eyes. The memories passed before her; her father’s smile, the signature carmine red lipstick her mother had used, her grandmother’s worn accordion strap.

Get a grip, she told herself. She turned to where she thought Cavour stood. Again, she wished her emotions hadn’t gotten the upper hand. She had to salvage this visit, find out if the
ébéniste
knew anything. Better to deal with her emotions in private.

She ran her fingers along the rough wood counter permeated with smells of turpentine, wood stain, and sawdust. Her hands touched a handle. Then what felt like a rectangular plane with wood shavings curling on it.

“Attention!
” said Mathieu.

Too late. She’d knocked it to the floor. Things clanged and clattered by her feet.

“I’m so sorry. What did I spill?” she said stooping down and feeling with her hands to locate whatever she’d knocked down. She had visions of having ruined a priceless piece. “I’m so clumsy!”

She felt a cold slick sheet of . . . alumininum? No. Too dense and stiff for that.

“Forgive me.” Guiltily she tried to pick up whatever her hands touched. They slid beside what felt like a long, round-edged salt shaker. But something was attached to it, like a panel.

“Let me help,” he said, taking things from her hands.

“You work in metal, too?”

She heard him grunt, then his hands taking things from hers. “Once in a while.”

She marshaled what grace she could and climbed her hands up the worktable leg. Helpless and awkward again.

“If I broke something, let me replace . . .”

“No harm done,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

She felt even more awkward, but had to find out if he knew anything.

“My partner René spoke with you about the attack on me.”

“So it’s you,” he said. “The one hurt in the Passage,
non?”

“Oui.”

“I didn’t help you,” he said. “I am sorry . . .”

But could he have helped? Suspicion crossed her mind. The police had questioned him. But would he have attacked her in front of his own workshop?

It was Josiane who had been the target . . . everything pointed that way. And the police had let him go.

What if he had witnessed something he was unaware of?

“Tell me what you remember, Mathieu,” she said.

“The old lady you passed, the one whose hair you saw,” he said, his tone wistful. “I caused her to be hurt, too.”

Why did he sound so guilty?

She sensed he’d gone down another track. Again, in her mind she saw his blue work coat, the way his mouth moved, and his hands caressing the wood chair.

That’s what she’d forgotten. The more she thought, the more briefly glimpsed images came back to her. The way he’d touched the wood, the atmosphere in the atelier, his obvious love of his craft.

How did it come together? The attack on her in the passage, Josiane’s murder, the Romanian thugs, Vincent, and Mathieu’s atelier? How could it? Yet somehow, in her gut, she knew it did.

Her brief moment of vision illumined her sense of Mathieu, and she was thankful. Intuitively, she knew he was a good man. But good men make mistakes, like bad men, like everyone.

“Look Mathieu, try to remember where you were when you heard. . . . Had you seen Josiane?”

“Josiane loved the Bastille,” he said. “She spearheaded our association to save this historic
quartier
.”

That piece fit in the puzzle.

“So could you say Mirador was alarmed by her investigative reporting?”

“I don’t know.”

“Would Mirador encourage her to reconsider her article on the evictions? Or hire thugs to threaten her?”

Only the finches chirped in response.

“We can keep it between us, Mathieu,” she said. “Mathieu?”

“Since when do you have such pretty visitors, Mathieu?” said a man’s voice behind her.

Aimée stiffened. She knew that voice.

“Monsieur Malraux,” said Mathieu.

“No wonder the piece isn’t ready, eh. A nice distraction to occupy you.”

Was there an edge in the man’s tone?

But she heard a warm, slow laugh.

“I like to tease him, mademoiselle,” he said. “He hardly ever gets out, shuts himself up with his work.”

“Let me check for you,” said Mathieu. His voice receded along with the clop of wooden clogs—
sabots
her grandmother had called them—over the floor.

“What brings you here, Mademoiselle Leduc?” asked Malraux.

Now she remembered. She thought fast. “Trying to solicit a donation for the Résidence, Monsieur Malraux, just as we are from you trustees.”

Again that nice laugh.

“
Bon
, but you could have asked me to intercede with Mathieu. I’d be more than happy to help you. Don’t tell Chantal, let’s keep it between ourselves for now, eh, but I’ve got her a van.”

“That’s wonderful!” Aimée turned to his voice. But he was moving. She tried tracking him and then gave up. Too much work. She pulled her dark glasses on. “Chantal will be thrilled.”

“I really feel I should be doing more,” he said. “Especially after Chantal explained how vital these programs are. She’s a wonder, that woman: working, volunteering. Never stops.”

Aimée felt a pang of guilt. What a caring man. . . . So what if he was an Opéra patron, well-connected and wealthy? Unlike most of those social climbers, he shared, helping those less fortunate. A rarity.

“Chantal’s wonderful,” said Aimée. “She teaches me a lot.”

“Matter of fact, just between us, I’m getting two vans donated,” he said. “My cousin’s father-in-law’s a Renault dealer in Porte de Champerret.”

That’s how it worked. Through connections. Her friend Martine would no more consult the Yellow Pages in the phone book than eat food off the floor. It wasn’t done. One went through a friend or a work colleague or a great-aunt’s cousin, in the time-honored tradition. Probably unchanged since feudal times.

Malraux rose higher in her estimation. Favors begat favors. Now he’d owe the donor.

Where was Mathieu?

A gust of damp, subterranean air encompassed her. Accompanied by a strong scent of paint.

“Have you commissioned a work from Mathieu?” she asked, turning her head and hoping she faced him. Sun from an overhead skylight warmed her. Was it her imagination or did pale haze creep from the corners of her vision?

“Indirectly. My client needs a special
vernissage
on a piece.”

She liked the smooth cadence of Malraux’s voice. Imagined what he might look like. Tall, well-built. She figured he paid attention to detail.

And then her mind went back to Vincent. He obsessed over detail. But Vincent was short and bursting with nervous energy. While Malraux projected an aura of effortless charm in dealing with people and projects . . . like an
aristo,
someone to the manor born. Or maybe that mode of operating was
de rigueur
in the art world.

Vincent . . . could he have . . . ?

“So, of course, I come here,” Malraux was saying. “Mathieu’s one of the few left who know this
vernissage
technique.”

Malraux seemed very sure of his status, something she sensed Vincent craved. A hunger coloring all his efforts.

She heard the clop of wooden sabots up the stairs.

I’m sorry, but the last layer of lacquer won’t be dry until
“
tomorrow,” said Mathieu. “Not today.”

“But they must pack . . . well, the backstage prop manager told me he’s loading the container this evening.”

So Malraux was having a piece fixed for the Opéra? But he’d said for a client. If the client was the Opéra, she wondered, did Malraux know Vincent?

Mathieu’s voice cut in on her thoughts.

“Linseed oil takes time,” said Mathieu. “You know it’s not always possible to predict the drying rates in changeable weather. Especially these past few days.”

“But this needs . . .”

“The work will be ruined,” Mathieu asserted. “It’s still wet.”

Something in Mathieu’s voice was strained. Was it because he had to refuse Malraux’s demand? But it wasn’t only that. She heard an underlying tension. Was Mathieu stressed about Josiane?

“Excuse me,” said Malraux. “I’m late for the Opéra board meeting. Mademoiselle Leduc, I’ve enjoyed talking to you. Hope to see you again.”

She heard footsteps, then the door shut. Aimée was wondering at Mathieu’s silence when the phone in her pocket rang. Josiane’s phone. The one she’d been attacked for.

“
Allô?
”

“Where are you?” said René, his voice raised. In the background she heard klaxons blaring.