French Pastry Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery) (6 page)

Chapter Four

A
fter a second bad night spent beside Bill, who slumbered peacefully, Lucy had to admit she wasn’t really all that interested in the cooking classes. If she had her way, she’d skip the class and sleep in, but that was impossible since her bed was in the middle of the apartment’s living room. The others tried to be quiet and tiptoed through on their way to the kitchen area, but Lucy found it difficult to ignore them. She’d hear a rustle or a footfall, and she’d have to lift her eyeshade and see who was there. After doing this several times, she gave up and got out of bed, reaching the kitchen just in time to get the last cup of coffee.

She was still a bit groggy and out of sorts, however, as the group of friends made their way to Le Cooking School. The others were walking ahead of Lucy and Bill. Lucy was eating her croissant breakfast as she walked, and it slowed her down. Rain was forecast, so she’d brought her travel umbrella, which was also a hindrance as it dangled on a cord from her wrist. The others had disappeared inside when they reached the school, and Bill couldn’t remember the entry code.

“Is it one-oh-four-oh-A or four-oh-one-oh-A?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Lucy, who was watching the early morning parade of pedestrians making their way to the Chemin Vert Métro station. “Try them both.”

Bill punched in one number, and nothing happened. “I guess it’s the other one,” he said. “Which one did I use?”

“I didn’t see,” said Lucy, who was staring across the street at a man standing in the doorway of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle shop, dragging on a cigarette. “Don’t look now, but isn’t that the guy from the market?” she asked, whispering. “Unibrow?”

Bill immediately turned his head in the guy’s direction. “I’m not sure,” he said.

“He’s dark and has a three-day beard, just like that guy. And he’s smoking.”

“There are lots of dark guys with three-day beards in Paris,” said Bill, poking at the keypad. “And they all smoke. I can’t tell one from another.”

“You have a point,” admitted Lucy as the keypad buzzed and Bill pushed the door open. “But I’m pretty sure I saw him yesterday in the same spot, when we were leaving class.”

Upstairs, in the classroom, Chef Larry was togged out in chef’s whites, with a high toque on his head. The class was already under way. He was breaking eggs into a pot and whisking them furiously. “We’re making profiteroles,” he told Lucy and Bill, “beginning with
pâte à choux
.”

“Sounds fabulous,” said Lucy, tying on her apron.

“It’s just a fancy name for cream puffs,” said Sue scornfully. “I bet you’ve made them a million times.”

“
Pâte à choux
is not complicated,” admitted Chef Larry. “That is its beauty. But I am going to teach you my fabulous chocolate sauce—with a secret ingredient.”

“Can’t wait,” muttered Sue, who was justifiably proud of her own chocolate sauce recipe, which had just a hint of coffee.

“And today we will have a coffee break—very American, right?—and eat our profiteroles and tarte tatin,” said Chef Larry, spooning the
pâte à choux
into a pastry bag. “The bag is not necessary,” he said. “You can just spoon the
pâte à choux
into little balls for baking, but I like to make swans,” he said, demonstrating with a flourish.

“Swans!” muttered Sue, rolling her eyes. “What a cliché!”

“I think they’re cute,” said Pam.

“And I can’t wait to have another piece of that tart,” added Bill.

“All that pastry will spoil your lunch,” advised Lucy, who was a firm believer in three square meals a day and no snacks.

“I’ll have salad,” promised Bill.

But after eating generous helpings of tarte tatin, plus the profiteroles, which were absolutely delicious, containing a luscious brandy-flavored cream filling and topped with the amazing chocolate sauce Chef Larry had sprinkled with his secret ingredient, a special sea salt called
fleur de sel,
nobody was eager to face a large lunch.

The friends were debating the issue, standing in the tiny vestibule and watching the heavy rain that was pouring down outside, when two young men approached, engaged in a lively conversation. They were both wearing baseball caps pulled low on their heads, and like most men in France, they had scarves wrapped around their necks and had turned up their coat collars against the rain. They were carrying briefcases and packages, as well as umbrellas, so there wasn’t a free hand between them with which to operate the security keypad. Realizing they were locked out and were getting pelted with rain while they fumbled with their stuff, Pam opened the door for them. The two ducked inside and passed the group without making eye contact and went straight for the stairs.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” hissed Bob, watching the two bound up the stairs. “What’s the sense of a security system if you just let people in?”

“It was the polite thing to do,” said Pam defensively.

“Well, in case you haven’t noticed, the French aren’t really big on politeness,” huffed Bob. “They didn’t even say thank you.”

“What’s your problem?” demanded Pam. “They were getting soaked.”

“I’m sure Bob only wants to keep us safe,” said Rachel, attempting to smooth things over.

“That’s right. They could be up to no good,” said Bob. “They had scarves covering their faces.”

“I don’t know how you’ve missed it, Bob, but all the men in Paris wear scarves,” said Sue, who had pulled a small folding umbrella from her purse. “I think I’d like to do some shopping and work up an appetite,” she said. “What do you think, Sid?”

“Sooner or later you’ll hit your credit limit and this madness will stop,” teased Sid.

“What do you say, Lucy? Want to come with us?” asked Sue.

“Sure,” said Lucy, checking with Bill and getting a nod. “We can buy some presents for the kids at home.”

Sid opened the door, and Lucy reached for her umbrella, discovering she didn’t have it. “Oh, darn. I left my umbrella upstairs,” she said.

“We’ll wait,” said Rachel in a philosophical tone. “Maybe the rain will let up a bit.”

“That’s Rachel,” observed Pam. “Always the optimist.”

“I’ll get it for you,” offered Bill.

“Don’t bother. I could use the exercise,” said Lucy, guiltily aware of the profiteroles and tarte tatin she’d eaten.

She heard their voices as she hurried up the three long flights of stairs, growing fainter as she climbed. When she reached the second floor—really, the third, because the French counted floors differently—she paused to rest and catch her breath, reading the sign on the landing that listed the various businesses on that floor: a lawyer, a dentist, a masseuse, and a podiatrist. One more floor to go. As she climbed, she wondered how many calories she was burning.
Probably not all that many,
she decided, recalling an article in a women’s magazine that claimed you would have to run a marathon to burn off one Big Mac.

She hoped Chef Larry was still in the classroom. She’d be out of luck if he’d already locked up and left, though she didn’t think he had, because they were all standing in the doorway and would have seen him. Of course, she speculated, there were probably other doors to the building, surely a back door for deliveries and garbage removal, and probably even a second flight of stairs. If only they’d thought to put in an elevator, she thought, hurrying down the hall.

She had passed the doors for Compu-Tech and Marie-Ange, Modiste, whatever that was, when she noticed the door to the cooking school was ajar.
Good,
she thought.
Chef Larry must still be here.
She called out his name and pushed the door open, but when she stepped inside, she found the classroom empty. It was a bit odd, she thought, but maybe Chef Larry was somewhere else in the building. Perhaps he was chatting up Marie-Ange, or shooting the breeze with the geeks at Compu-Tech, and hadn’t bothered to lock up. Lucky for her. She grabbed her umbrella, which was hanging on the coatrack, where she’d left it, and turned to go, catching a glimpse of a tray of spilled profiteroles on the floor in front of the counter Chef Larry used for his cooking demonstrations.

Taking a closer look, she noticed a trail of red splotches leading behind the counter. A trail, she realized, horrified, that must be blood.
Okay, blood.
The morning class was a pastry course, but maybe the afternoon class involved some sort of meat recipe, something like
bœuf bourguignon.
But even a very juicy package of beef wouldn’t produce this much blood, would it? She was already crossing the classroom, thinking she’d better investigate, just in case Chef Larry had accidentally cut himself while chopping up some meat or something. If he’d severed an artery, for instance, he would need immediate medical care.

But when she rounded the corner of the counter, she found Chef Larry was indeed bleeding, lying flat on his back in a growing pool of blood and smashed profiteroles, but he hadn’t accidentally cut himself. Not unless he’d plunged a knife into his own chest.

Lucy immediately began yelling for help, unsure what to do, but nobody seemed to be coming. She started one way and then another, shocked and panicked. At home she would call 9-1-1, but this wasn’t Maine. It was France. This was an emergency, she was yelling her head off, but where were all the other people in the building? She feared he was already dead, but then he groaned, and she realized she had to get help, fast. Looking frantically around the classroom, she noticed a phone on the wall. Beside it was a neat list of numbers:
sapeurs-pompiers, médecin. . . .
What to dial? The number twenty-five was large and printed in red, so she punched it in the keypad.

A bored voice answered, saying something she didn’t quite catch. “Un homme b-blessé,” she stammered, her voice quavering as she struggled to remember her high school French. “Vite! Vite! Beaucoup de sang!”

“Calmez-vous, madame,” replied the voice. “L’adresse?”

Lucy couldn’t remember the French words for numbers, so she gave the address in English, which didn’t seem to faze the dispatcher at all. “Please hurry!
Dépêchez-vous!
” she pleaded. “I’m afraid he’ll die. He was stabbed with a knife.”

“Help is on the way, madame,” said the voice. “Stabbed, you say? Is this a matter
criminelle?
”

“I don’t think he stabbed himself in the chest,” said Lucy.

“Do not leave,” advised the voice. “That would be a matter
sérieuse.
”

“I’m staying,” replied Lucy, hearing the varying
woo-wah
tones, which indicated an ambulance was on the way.

Hands shaking, she replaced the phone handset on its hook, noticing that Bill was in the doorway, wondering what was keeping her. “Don’t come in,” she warned as he was pushed aside by the arriving medics. Then the rest of the group of friends arrived, curious to see what all the fuss was about, and they were herded in a tight little bunch into one of the student cooking areas.

The medics seemed to take a long time doing whatever they were doing, and there seemed to be a good deal of discussion. Lucy felt her heart fluttering in her chest. It was time to get moving and get poor Chef Larry to the hospital.

“What’s taking so long?” she asked, but got no reply from the medics.

It was Sue who replied. “It’s the French way. They try to stabilize the patient before they transport him. Remember Princess Diana? They say she might have lived if they’d gotten her to the hospital sooner.”

“Socialized medicine,” snorted Sid, who was a member of the volunteer fire department in Tinker’s Cove and had answered many an emergency call. “Back home, we’d have him at the hospital by now.”

“And he’d get a huge bill,” snapped Rachel. “Probably end up bankrupt.”

“But he’d be alive,” said Sid.

“There’s really nothing for us to do here,” said Bill. “You’ve done your duty, Lucy. Let’s go. We’re just in the way.”

“The dispatcher said to stay,” said Lucy.

“Well, I need a drink,” said Sue, turning to leave and bumping into a short, dark man with the usual fashionable stubble of beard, wearing a scarf over his Burberry trench coat. “I think we should regroup at the café.”

“
Un peu de patience,
” advised the man, shepherding the group away from the door as the medics wheeled the wounded man away on a gurney. “I am Commissaire Lapointe, with the police, and I have a few questions.”

“We’re happy to cooperate,” said Bob, stepping forward. “I’m Bob Goodman. I’m a lawyer in the U.S., and I can assure you that none of us had anything to do with this unfortunate incident.”

“I see,” said the
commissaire,
blinking slowly. His eyes protruded a bit, and he reminded Lucy of a lizard, testing the atmosphere and waiting to pounce on whatever unwitting prey might come by. He almost seemed bored as he pulled a notebook from his pocket. “Can you give me your names and your addresses in Paris?”

When that bit of business was completed, he asked about Chef Larry. “What is your relationship to the victim?”

“His name is Larry Bruneau, and he is the owner of this cooking school,” said Bob, representing the group. “We are all students. We had a class this morning.”

The
commissaire
was no longer bored. “What was the subject of the class?” he asked.

“Profiteroles,” said Sue.

“Ahhh,” replied the policeman. “
Délicieuses, sans doute.
But hardly the sort of thing that leads to a stabbing.
”

“
That’s what I don’t understand,” said Rachel. “Why would anyone want to hurt Chef Larry?”

“There are many reasons for crime, madame,” said Lapointe. “It is unfortunate, but people do many terrible things to each other for many different reasons. Perhaps he owed money. And then there are drugs, the black market. There is much that goes on in Paris that a visitor does not see.” He paused, then shrugged. “Most likely, it is to do with a woman.”