Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) (21 page)

Chapter
26: Brasserie Bofinger

“I can smell Bofinger from
here.” Rosa turned to Valois. “Dine with us as our guest.”

Serafina felt Loffredo’s hand on
her back, warming her as he helped her across the street, guiding her to the
small Alsatian brasserie. She smiled up at Loffredo and for a second, wrapped
her good arm around his waist. “We need to talk,” Serafina said. “Will it be
private enough for us?

“I think so, it’s a small
bistro, but the food is excellent and they serve all kinds of sausage and
meats, fish, seafood, sauerkraut,” Valois said, “and they have the best beer in
the city. We need a break from that horrid woman.”

Serafina was beginning to like
Alphonse Valois. “You walk often, Inspector?”

He nodded. “As much as I can.
Especially when I need to think. I found Madame de Masson’s reaction quite ...”

“Remarkable?” Loffredo supplied.

“Has she always shown such
antipathy toward you?” Serafina asked.

Loffredo nodded. “She was
against our marriage, especially Elena’s conversion. She blames me for Elena’s
behavior.”

Valois shook his head.

The madam hung onto her hat.
“You’ll love this brasserie, at least I did the last time I was here. It had
just opened and a friend and I had an intimate table in the back. They had tall
waiters with blond hair, almost as delicious as the food.”

They were seated right away at a
round table in the small bistro. Serafina sat to the left of Loffredo, her good
hand free to roam. Each ordered a beer and watched as the bartender filled four
mugs with a rich yellow liquid from a barrel. The waiter brought them to their
table on a small round cork tray, the foam bubbling over the sides and the
glasses sweating. Taking out a pad wedged between his apron and shirt, he
licked the tip of his pencil and stood poised to take their order.

“Please don’t choose some
delicate fish and gentle wine,” Rosa said to Serafina. “This is Alsatian. Order
hearty food.”

“I’ll have what I want. I always
do.”

“Not always,” Rosa said, with a
meaningful glance at Loffredo.

Loffredo reddened into the menu.
“I’ve eaten here. The food is excellent, and whatever you have will be a treat.
You can’t make a mistake.”

Serafina looked at the madam
while she ordered the wild cod served in a tomato sauce with a side of beans,
delighted at Rosa’s response, an expressive roll of her eyes. Loffredo chose
the calves liver in onions with steamed potatoes, Valois a beef fillet with
pommes frites
and a side of a creamy mustard,
and Rosa, the lamb stew with vegetables served over mashed potatoes. She asked
the waiter to bring them a side order of sausage.

They were the only people in the
small room, the hour late for dining.

In a few minutes, the waiter
returned with four plates, the sizzling sausage, and a side of sauerkraut.

Rosa cut into the meat and
dipping her fork into the sauerkraut and mustard. She took a large bite, the
sides of her face bulging, washing it down with a gulp of her beer. Loffredo
cut a piece and passed the plate to Serafina who took a bite, savoring the
rich, spicy meat, listening to the crack and spit coming from the plate.

Rosa reached into her pocket.
“Enough of this silence. We’re the only customers and Sophie won’t leave my
head. I found these in Elena’s kitchen.” She plunked the promissory notes into
the middle of the table.

The paper sat, accusatory,
another confirmation of what Serafina knew. She said nothing, but when her good
hand wasn’t resting on Loffredo’s leg, she sipped her beer. It making her head
spin a little and she felt giddy, waiting for Valois’ reaction to the notes.

“Who is Ricci de Masson?” he
asked after he read one of the notes.

“Sophie’s youngest son,” Rosa
said.

“Engaging, I might add,”
Serafina said. “We met him the day after we arrived in Paris while we waited
for Sophie, remember?”

Rosa nodded.

“Do you know him?” Valois asked,
directing his question to Loffredo.

Before he could answer, two
waiters in starched aprons cleared their table and brought their entrées,
taking orders for refills. Serafina declined more beer, but Valois, Rosa, and
Loffredo ordered a second round.

“To answer your question, yes,
I’ve met him and I like him. A lost soul who thinks he can win vast sums of
money by betting on the horses,” Rosa said.

“He speaks in poetic terms about
Longchamp,” Serafina said. “He’s an endearing young man.”

Loffredo shrugged. “Most members
of the Busacca family become angry when they hide something, I’ve noticed. What
do you think Sophie’s hiding?”

“Not just that family. Many
people become irate when caught,” Valois said. “But you’re right, she was an
angry, broken woman.”

“Did you notice the warn spots
in the carpet, the split in the wallpaper?” Serafina asked.

Valois nodded.

“Why did I miss that?” The
madam’s eyes narrowed. “Lucre rears its ugly head.”

There was silence while Serafina
scooped cod and tomatoes onto her spoon, breathing in the mélange of spices.

“I think Sophie is angry she’s
been caught out. And she’s angry her sight is failing,” Rosa said, eating a
forkful of stew and sipping her beer. “She’s an old woman who tries to preserve
the past, and her children are not interested in business.”

Serafina told Valois about
Carmela and Tessa visiting the Busacca millinery shops and what they’d found.
“Except for their flagship store on the Rue de la Paix, they are mismanaged.”

“Ricci spends when he
shouldn’t,” Rosa said. “The middle son saves when he shouldn’t. Sophie fears
the future and counts her money twice.”

Serafina ran a napkin around her
mouth and pushed away her plate. “So you think perhaps Sophie made an honest
mistake? Because of her failing eyesight she couldn’t see the distinguishing
features of the body, and since she was in the Paris morgue, a frightful place,
she wanted to get the ordeal over with quickly?”

“I do,” Rosa said. “But
somewhere, somehow money changed hands. I hear the ca-chink of conspiracy.”

Valois looked at Rosa and
smiled.

Under the table, Loffredo
reached for Serafina’s hand. A powerful shock passed between them, too strong
for Serafina to resist. This time she wasn’t about to let go. She knew she
wouldn’t be able to stand the celibate life much longer. She looked at Valois
whose face was unreadable only because there wasn’t much there. The inspector
took a large gulp of beer and set the glass down rather noisily, sat back and
smiled at Serafina. He was feeling the beer, too. She prayed that she and
Loffredo would not make a slip, but it was a small prayer. Meager.

“What do you think, Loffredo?”
she asked, running a hand up his thigh.

“I think Sophie’s has a part in
the plan,” he said, wiping his forehead. “She helps to hide Elena. I think ...
Elena lives, but she is not in Paris.” His breath came more rapidly. “I’m not
sure why Elena wanted to disappear. Perhaps her ruse is a dalliance, a way to
shock, and the family, for a price, supports her.”

“That’s an interesting theory,
Valois said. “You talk of conspiracy.”

Loffredo stopped talking and
looked out the window, his eyes bright, his nostrils flared. Then he shot
forward in his chair and loosened his cravat.

“Are you all right?” Valois
asked, noticing the beads of sweat on Loffredo’s forehead.

“Perfectly fine. Perfect. Something
went down the wrong way. Just give ... me ... a ... moment.”

Rosa hiked one corner of her
mouth. “Be careful,” she said, under her breath, narrowing her eyes at Serafina
and taking another bite of lamb.

Chapter
27:
Le Coup de Grâce

After the meal, they said
goodbye to Valois. He said he would get word to them when the order of
exhumation was complete.

“About how long will it take?”
Serafina asked.

Valois gave a Gallic shrug.

Rosa asked to be excused, saying
she’d forgotten she was to meet Tessa and Carmela who wanted to show her an
artist’s studio. The three agreed to meet at five o’clock in the Luxembourg
Gardens.

Serafina and Loffredo found
themselves alone.

“I’m going to explode,” he said.

“But what can we do?”

“Valois is an innocent—he
suspects nothing—and Rue Jacob is filled with students. It won’t take us
long. We have to ... or we won’t be able to think. I’m mad for you.”

They found a cab and were in
front of his hotel within the half hour.

“I was afraid you’d never want
to, never again,” she said, but stopped at the door and turned.

There it was, that feeling at
the nape of her neck. Glancing down the street, she saw one of the men who’d
been following her, the one wearing the leather jerkin. He was peering into a
shop window on the Rue Jacob.

She wondered why Valois had
released them. “I’ll meet you in a moment,” she said over her shoulder, picking
up her skirts in her good hand and flying across the street toward the man. Her
heart pounded and her hair, straining against its pins even in the best of
times, loosened, red curls flying everywhere, into her eyes, down her back.
Panting, she vowed she’d get him, she’d tear the bugger apart, bad arm be
damned. She’d had enough.

The neighborhood was crowded and
a horse cart blocked her way—stupid, idiot man, she’d rip off his
limbs—even one-handed, she would. Waiting for the chance to move, she
jumped up and down so she wouldn’t lose sight of him. She worked her way behind
and around the cart’s rear wheels only to be engulfed by a group of students
also trying to cross. They jostled, laughed, and she began to see the humor of
her situation, but her focus remained on the man in the jerkin He hadn’t
stirred. Her blood was coming to the boil.

As she drew closer, the man saw
her, jerked away from the window, and started to run. Anticipating his flight,
she hiked her skirts higher and ran him down, catching him by the scruff of his
neck and latching onto his ear, pinching it with all her might.

Then the world slowed as if she
were in a ballroom dancing with Loffredo and she, moving with the stately grace
of a ballerina, shook the shadow back and forth, back and forth. He hung in her
vision like a caught bird as he pleaded, his words too slow and unintelligible.
As he wrenched and struggled, she waited for her chance and when it came, she
slammed a knee into his groin, brought it up faster than she thought she could
move.

She’d hit home. The man folded
into himself. Someone yelled, “
le coup de grâce
,” and the crowd roared. It was
the culmination of the dance. She was still holding onto his ear, digging in
with her fingernail, when he screamed and bent in half, pulling her down, both
of them tumbling to the ground. He moaned and held onto himself and rolled
while the crowd cheered. Breathing hard, her hair like a witch’s lair, she
grabbed him by the leg and pulled him across the rough cobbles out of the
street and away from traffic. Then she pulled him up and leaned him against a
building. The crowd clapped.

“Police... were ... too gentle.
I’m ... not,” she rasped. “Tell me ... who ... pays you ...”

“Let me go!”

“Tell me who pays you!” She
grabbed him by the hair, pulling and twisting.

“Tell her!” a bystander cried in
falsetto and the knot of students guffawed.

“The don,” a voice said,
familiar. She spun around and saw Loffredo moving toward her, holding the other
shadow. He gripped the man’s neck and pushed him forward, a
sergent de ville
by their side.

Loffredo brushed his coat and
trousers, ran a hand through his hair and stomped the dust from his boots.
“He’ll take them away,” he said, motioning to the policeman, and he knows to
consult with Valois.”

After she’d calmed and he
smoothed her hair, they walked the streets of the sixth arrondissement watching
the people of Paris and enjoying each other and the weather. They walked on the
quay and gazed at the Seine. They walked through the gardens—first, the
Jardin des Plantes, his favorite, then the Jardin du Luxembourg, hers. There
was no banter. They walked arm in arm, his spirit somewhat weighed down and
tugging at hers, keeping them both close to the ground.

For the first time since their
arrival, she felt herself free from the burden of the two who followed them,
and not just in Paris, either. But it took Paris for her to realize what terror
her family, like most Oltramarians, had endured because of the don.

Chapter
28: A Small Shop Near the Seine

Serafina dispensed with the arm
brace. Had she done so earlier today, she would have had an easier time dealing
with the men who followed her. The scent of lilacs filled the air as she and
Loffredo entered the Luxembourg Gardens, arms around each other, the pretense
of mere friendship set aside. If they had to wait for the order of exhumation,
Paris was the place in which to dally.

They found Rosa sitting on a
bench while she studied the racing section of
Le Figaro
.
The madam was beginning her campaign to visit Longchamp, Serafina figured. The
paper dropped to the ground as Rosa looked up at them.

“At least you could have cleaned
up afterward.”

They told her about catching the
shadows.

“But I don’t understand why he
would he send them all the way here just to spy on me,” Serafina said. “Quite
an expense, and to what end?”

Rosa picked up the paper. “He
knows about your large retainer from Busacca.”

“How would he?”

“He knows everything.”

“As it is, we can’t afford to
pay protection money for the apothecary shop.”

“Have you heard from your
children at home?”

A vision of the fire in Boffo’s
Café intruded itself, unbidden, unwanted, the acrid stench invading her mind as
the image of a menu, its words engulfed in flames, crumpled into ash, another
grim reminder of the don’s destruction. Boffo told her he hadn’t paid his fee
to the capo’s men for the past three months after customers dwindled and he
couldn’t come up with the coins. She stuffed the memory.

“Carmela keeps in touch.
According to Vicenzu, everyone’s fine.”

Despite the weather, Serafina
felt a chill, but she couldn’t worry about the don, not now, she told them. “We
need to assess where we are.”

Rosa began. “We have three
unknowns— who was the dead woman in the Rue Cassette, who killed her, and
where is Elena.”

“In addition, we have two more
unknowns—who shot me, and who stole the photos of the dead woman. I have
a hunch they are the same person, certainly not the don’s men.”

Rosa picked up the racing form.
“Add a sixth unknown—why did Sophie identify the dead woman as that of
her niece?”

“Might have something to do with
the blindness in the center of her vision or her son’s gambling debt,” Serafina
said. “She’s hiding something. Otherwise why would she have lashed out?”

Rosa shook her head. “The
Busacca family’s loaded. Discharging those debts would be like paying the
butcher’s bill.”

Serafina wasn’t so sure,
especially after hearing Carmela’s assessment of their stores.

The sun was in her eyes, but she
stared at the fountain, listening to the sound of the water splashing against
stone. She was in love with the Luxembourg garden. It was less formal than the
Tuileries and more sheltered from the noise of traffic, and tended to so
beautifully. The French had taste, she must admit. But more important, at least
for her spirit—in Paris she found great swaths of peace, and the people
seemed relaxed. So different than they were in Oltramari.

“What else do we know for sure?”
She stared at the rows of trees in the middle distance, their leaves dappled
with sun, and smiled at Loffredo who gave her a gentle hug and tucked a wayward
strand of hair behind her ear and felt the rejuvenating spring and wondered how
many of these moments they’d have at home.

“Be careful, both of you,” Rosa
cautioned.

Not like the madam, Serafina
thought. “We know the woman buried in Elena’s grave is not Elena. We know we
were followed by two of Don Tigro’s men, and we know why.”

“Go on,” Rosa said.

Serafina rolled her eyes. “And
we know that whoever stole the photos from Valois’ desk did not want us to see
them because we’d know the dead woman wasn’t Elena.”

“That’s a leap,” the madam said.
“But we know that Elena paid Ricci de Masson’s gambling debts, a considerable
sum.”

“One of the nicest thing I’ve
heard about Elena,” Serafina said. “And we also know that the bullet taken from
my shoulder was almost identical to the bullet retrieved from the dead woman’s
mouth.”

“We know that the dead woman was
not with child, but riddled with syphilis and would have died in a matter of
months, this from the mouth of the medical examiner,” Rosa said.

This was new information for
Loffredo, and he seemed visibly shaken. For a moment he stared out, unseeing,
absorbed in his thoughts.

Two couples walked past their
bench, the women in day dresses of beautiful silk, talking conspiratorially,
the men walking some distance behind. Serafina stared at two boys playing
jacks.

“So we have six knowns and six
unknowns,” she said. “And the most important?”

“We don’t know where Elena is,”
Rosa said.

Serafina nodded. She told them
about the advertisement she’d placed in the daily papers a few days ago. “It
runs each day for the next ten days.” She passed a copy to Rosa.

They were silent while Rosa and
Loffredo read the classified.

“I don’t think it will do much
good, but I tried it, just in case.” Serafina felt her temples begin to throb.
“All might be cleared up if we could find Elena, so that’s what we must do.”

“We agree,” Rosa said and
Loffredo nodded. “As soon as we exhume the body and prove it beyond doubt.”

Serafina worried her lower lip.
“There were three paintings by Paul Cézanne, do you remember them?”

Rosa shook her head. “I liked
them all. Different. But what does that have to do with anything?”

“A lot. The three I’m thinking
about weren’t painted in Paris or in a place with the same light.”

“Listen to those painters talk
and they’ll have you believing that each moment the light is different,” Rosa
said.

“Not quite the point I’m trying
to make. The light and the feeling are so different in Cézanne’s paintings.
They have nothing to do with Paris except perhaps for that reclining nude.”

Rosa pointed her finger in the
air. “Now I remember them. But what does that have to do with anything?”

Serafina looked at Loffredo.
“Didn’t you tell me she had an apartment in Aix?”

“Yes, but that was several years
ago, during the Franco Prussian War. She fled the city along with her friends.
I don’t think she’s kept it. Why would she? All her friends are in Paris.” He
wiped his face with his palm.

“We don’t know that for sure.”

“And don’t forget, I found an
envelope addressed to Elena, an address in Arles,” Serafina reminded them.

“Quite a distance between Arles
and Aix, at least seventy-five kilometers, I think,” Loffredo said.

“In the south of France, a
perfect place to hide. Why do her friends think Elena is not dead? Someone must
be hiding her.”

“Or perhaps they are in their
own world,” Rosa said. “They don’t seem to like her very much.”

“How do you know? You’ve talked
to Carmela who spoke with only two of them.”

There was a silence. Rosa looked
at her watch and said she must meet Tessa in Père La Chaise.

Loffredo looked at Serafina who
told him about Rosa’s infatuation with Murat.

After the madam left, Serafina
gazed at Loffredo. Not given to ebullience, he was even more taciturn than
usual. Indeed, he wasn’t talking unless a question was directed his way. It was
as if a weight lay upon his spirit, and Serafina realized he was grieving. She
could tell by the way he looked into her eyes. Still hungry for her, yes, but
not with their usual mirth.

“Still, I think we must
concentrate on Elena. She’s disturbed; she’s pregnant.” Serafina looked at
Loffredo. “And she has an illness, or at least there’s a reason why she’s
behaving erratically.”

“Not erratic behavior on Elena’s
part, not for her,” he said, shaking his head. “She is flighty, whimsical,
dramatic, outré.”

“I haven’t spent enough time
thinking like Elena, other than going to the exhibit and seeking out her
friends there. What would she do during the day? Go to the Tuileries, the
Luxembourg?” Serafina ran a hand through her curls. “How about The Parc
Monceau? La Muette?”

Loffredo shook his head.

“What are her favorite
restaurants? Where did she shop? Did she collect old books and prints, silver?
Pretend I’m Elena,” Serafina said, and knew by his look that she’d made a
mistake.

Loffredo snapped his head back
as if she’d hit him, but then the smile she knew so well lit up his face, and
he began to laugh, and some of the day’s heaviness lifted. Some, but not all.
She felt the flatness of his spirit return, covering him like a blanket, and
remembered her mother’s counsel, her mother who lived a life learning to shore
up her father’s low spirits one day at a time. “In the end, you must let them
have their moods,” she’d say, and shake her head. And she’d let her father stay
in his study for days. But she, Serafina, did not have that luxury. She needed
to find Elena, and she needed Loffredo’s help. “Pick a place, any place. What
did you do the last day you were with Elena?”

He was silent, but she could
tell he was thinking.

She gave him more time to
collect himself. “The exhibit was so important to Elena and to her friends. It
was a turning point in their lives, a watershed. Finally after working so long
and so hard, they banded together, or most of them did, and hung their most
important works. Consider the visual impact of this exhibit, especially on
Elena. For the first time, hundreds of paintings by a new school of artists
could be seen for the first time. It must have been a clamoring. It must have
had shattering effect on Elena, flighty and impressionable as she is, like the
firing of a battle’s first cannon shot. She may have felt left out, passed
over.”

“You mean, no one was paying
attention to her,” he said.

It was Serafina’s turn to laugh.
“That, too. It might have caused her to change tack, to try and alter her life,
to act in an extreme fashion.”

“Extreme? That’s the way she
always was. But I know what you mean.” He nodded slowly.

She felt his mind begin to work
on the problem.

“And don’t forget, she’s
pregnant, and I know what that’s like. Poor lost Elena,” Serafina murmured.

“The last time we were
here—that was a few years ago. She called me to Paris for a ball, I
forget which one. At that time she was trying to make a general jealous. It was
right after the Commune, and Paris had been devastated—over
twenty-thousand needlessly slain—but afterward, the city put on its
summer finery. The days were long and despite the coppery smell in the
air—the blood had not yet sunk deep enough into the soil—the
people, well, the people were happy to be alive. It was enough to be out of the
house, greeting neighbors, walking in the warmth and sure-footedness of peace.
Elena sent me a note to meet her here, and I did, over by the Medici pool. At
that time Elena had an apartment near the Luxembourg and used to walk here
often.”

He paused and Serafina swept her
eyes around, at the sandstone gravel paths straight and lined with trees, at
the Palais du Luxembourg where men with shovels were planting and weeding the beds
of exuberant flowers, at the Parisians dressed in the latest style. They were
everywhere, strolling arm in arm, sitting on benches, the children laughing,
running, shouting.

“But Elena being Elena, grew
restless, asked me to walk with her. We took the Rue Bonaparte all the way to
the Seine. On the little streets surrounding the École des Beaux Arts, we went
into all the little shops and she bought what she loved, prints, old books,
candelabra, large swaths of fabric, small paintings. I realized that she wanted
me with her so I could carry her parcels.”

He looked at Serafina with such
warm, sad eyes.

“Did she know the shopkeepers?”

He thought a moment. “Many of
them, I believe she did. Arranged to have her living room painted or the walls
treated.”

Serafina stood and smoothed her
skirt. “Then we must go. We must talk to all of them.”

Rosa looked at her watch. “We
have a few hours until most of them close their shops for the evening.”

Loffredo, Rosa, and Serafina
walked into the late afternoon sun, the shadows growing, the streets and
sidewalks thick with people, most smartly attired and purposeful, probably
heading home. They passed the Place St. Sulpice and the bells sounded the hour.
They kept walking through the student quarter to Saint Germain des Prés where
Serafina stopped in front of the façade and said a prayer to the Virgin to help
her see the truth. They walked to the Quai Voltaire and whispered to the Seine,
Loffredo planting a chaste kiss on her forehead. Happy to be in each other’s
company, she and Loffredo walked the many side streets, looking into shop
windows, occasionally pointing to something that piqued their curiosity or
pleased them.