French Pastry Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery) (8 page)

“Right,” said Bob, extending his hand.

Carrington shook hands all around, his grasp firm and energetic. “And have a nice day,” he said.

“I really hate that fake ‘Have a nice day’ thing,” muttered Lucy as they left the embassy. “It’s so phony. At least the French don’t pretend to care whether you have a nice day or not.”

“That Carrington was next to useless,” said Bill as they gathered in a small knot on the sidewalk.

“I didn’t really expect them to give us emergency passports, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask,” admitted Bob. “At least now they’ll start a file. They’ll know about us, in case, well, things go south.”

“What do you mean?” asked Bill. “Go south?”

“Well, in case Chef Larry dies and they decide to charge one of us.”

“He means me,” said Lucy, swallowing hard. “I’m the one who found Chef Larry. I’m the obvious suspect.”

“Let’s hope he recovers and identifies his assailant,” said Bill.

“That would be the best-case scenario,” agreed Bob. “So what do you want to do now? Reconnoiter with the others?”

“It’s not even four,” said Bill, checking his watch and opening his map. “This is a pretty central location. I bet there’s something nearby.”

“You could say that,” offered Lucy, pointing at the horizon. “The Eiffel Tower is just over there.”

“How about Les Invalides?” suggested Bill, pointing to a spot on the map. “Napoleon’s tomb.”

“And the Army Museum,” said Bob. “I think they have Napoleon’s hat there and a lot of other cool stuff.”

Bill was definitely interested. “Sounds great.”

“Ick,” said Lucy. “I don’t like Napoleon.”

“We could do the Eiffel Tower,” offered Bob.

But Lucy was already developing plans of her own. “No, you guys go and see the guns and stuff. I think I’ll pay a visit to Elizabeth.”

Bill furrowed his brow. “Are you still worried about her?” he asked.

“A bit,” admitted Lucy. “I just want to touch bases with her, make sure she’s okay. And it’s not far from here.” She was already on her way, giving them a little wave and heading off in the direction of the Palais Garnier, but she wasn’t really thinking about Elizabeth’s problems. She was thinking about the hotel, the Cavendish chain, which was an economic powerhouse with branches all over the world. Perhaps someone in management, if Elizabeth asked politely, might be able to give her a lead to someone who could intervene on their behalf. Or even drop a word to someone influential. That was how things worked in Maine. Lucy had seen it plenty of times as a reporter for the Tinker’s Cove weekly newspaper, the
Pennysaver.
And if networking was the key to getting things done in Maine, she suspected it was even more important in France.

The walk to the boulevard Haussmann was longer than she had thought, but Lucy didn’t mind. She was enjoying walking along the streets of Paris, pausing here and there to examine a shop window or to witness a charming incident, like the bride in an enormous full-skirted wedding dress she saw stuffing herself into a tiny Renault.

Elizabeth was on duty at the concierge’s desk when Lucy finally reached the hotel, but she was due for a break. She took her mother into the staff room, where there were coffee and snack machines, and bought two bottles of water.

“Are you having a good time in Paris?” asked Elizabeth, seating herself in an armchair with a cracked leatherette seat and unscrewing the cap on her bottle of Vichy water.

“We were until today,” said Lucy, taking the adjacent seat, a similar chair covered in ugly tweed. “Our teacher at Le Cooking School, Chef Larry, was attacked. Stabbed. And now the police have taken our passports.”

Elizabeth’s mouth was full of water, and she swallowed hard. “What?”

“I found him and called for help. They took him to the hospital. I don’t know if he’s alive.”

“So you might actually be involved in a murder?” asked Elizabeth. “That’s bad.”

“I know. That’s why I came. There was a cop. He took our passports.”

“Are you suspects? That’s really bad, Mom. The French have this thing,
garde à vue.
It means they can lock you up for pretty much as long as they want, if they suspect you of committing a crime.”

This was news to Lucy, but it confirmed her worst fears about the French system, so she forged ahead with her plan. “I thought . . . I’m actually hoping that maybe you could ask one of your supervisors for some advice. Maybe your boss, Monsieur Fontneau, could help us? Concierges have all sorts of connections, right?”

Elizabeth was quiet. Her index finger was running in circles, stroking the lip of the bottle. “He’s my immediate supervisor, Mom, and I’m trying to impress him. I don’t want him to know my family is involved in a crime.”

“Well, what about the hotel manager?”

“Are you crazy? That would be worse. Monsieur Bertrand is terribly proper. Besides, I’m pretty low on the totem pole. I don’t really get to talk to top management.”

“Don’t they have some sort of service for resolving employees’ problems?” asked Lucy, who was growing rather cranky. She wasn’t at all pleased with her daughter’s attitude.

“I’ll think about it,” said Elizabeth in a rather doubtful tone, which convinced Lucy that no help was to be found in this quarter. She was about to say something she would probably have regretted when two young men in Cavendish blazers entered the break room.

“Mom, these are my colleagues, Adil Sadek and Malik Mehanna. They work on the front desk.”

“
Enchanté,
” said Adil, giving her a little bow. He was extremely good-looking, tall, and slim, with caramel skin, jet-black hair, and amazingly long eyelashes.

“Your mother? I thought you were sisters,” said Malik, who was shorter and heavier, but whose cheeks dimpled when he smiled. Lucy had the feeling she’d seen him before, his name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

“Don’t mind him,” advised Elizabeth. “Malik can’t help being charming. He does it to get tips.”

“No, no,” insisted Malik. “I was telling the truth. You could be sisters.”

Lucy was blushing and shaking her head. “Does this sort of flattery really work?”

“You’d be surprised,” said Adil, extracting a tiny paper cup filled with tarry liquid from the coffee machine. He sat at one of the tables and ripped open a packet of sugar, adding it to his coffee.

Malik joined him at the table, unwrapping a chocolate bar and breaking off a piece. “Would you like some?” he asked, offering it to Lucy and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth shook her head, indicating she didn’t want any chocolate.

“No, thanks,” said Lucy, sipping at her water. “I’m in a bit of trouble, and I wonder if you could help me,” she began, getting a sharp look from Elizabeth.

“
Bien sûr,
” said Malik. “What do you need?”

“Just a bit of information,” said Lucy, glaring at Elizabeth. “As it happened, I witnessed an, um, accident and I called for help. They took the victim away in an ambulance, and I want to know how he’s doing. Do you know where they take people who’ve had accidents?”

“L’Hôtel-Dieu,” said Malik.

“Where’s that?” asked Lucy.

“Near Notre-Dame.”

“The cathedral?”

“That’s right,” replied Malik, rising to his feet. “Back to work.”

“Gee, I’ve got to go,” said Elizabeth, realizing she’d overstayed her break and hopping up.

“I shouldn’t have kept you,” said Lucy, automatically accepting some of the blame.

“Let me know what happens,” said Elizabeth, surprising Lucy with a quick peck on the cheek.

“I will,” promised Lucy, replacing the cap on her water bottle as she followed Elizabeth and the two boys down the hall to the lobby. There she tucked her bottle into her purse and made her way to the exit, where a liveried doorman asked if she’d like a taxi. “I would,” she said. “
Merci.
”

Moments later, rather expensive moments but worth every euro to Lucy, she was debarking in front of the hospital, which, she was puzzled to learn, was also a hotel. Handy, she decided, in case you wanted to be near a sick loved one, but rather weird if you were vacationing. Who would want to spend their vacation near a bunch of sick people? There was so much about France that she didn’t understand. For instance, why did they have an enormous tomb for Napoleon, who had really brought an awful lot of grief to the French people?

Once inside, she followed the arrows on the
accueil
signs that indicated the reception desk and found herself in a hospital lobby that looked a lot like hospital lobbies in the United States, busy, with people coming and going. Some were obviously visitors, carrying flowers and gifts, others were uniformed health-care workers, and there were even a few departing patients being pushed to waiting taxis in wheelchairs. The reception desk was front and center, so Lucy approached, trying to dredge up the appropriate French words, which had long been buried in her mind.

“Bonjour, madame,” she began, aware that failing to offer a greeting was considered rude in France. “Je cherche l’information d’un patient, nom de Laurence Bruneau,” she said, feeling rather proud of her linguistic accomplishment.

The woman behind the counter replied with a string of rapid-fire sounds, which Lucy could not begin to comprehend.

“Parlez lentement, s’il vous plaît,” Lucy said, getting a repetition of the same speech.

“She said that information is not available, because of patient confidentiality,” offered a woman in line behind her. She was obviously wealthy, dressed in a suit that even Lucy recognized as a genuine Chanel, and carrying a large alligator handbag, which contained a ridiculously small dog sporting a pink bow in her topknot.

“
Merci,
” said Lucy, wishing she had enough facility in French to convince the receptionist to change her tune. But as it was, she didn’t want to monopolize the receptionist’s attention when others also wanted information. She stepped aside, yielding her place to the helpful woman, who gave her a smile and a nod at the same time that the little dog leaped out of the bag and onto the reception counter, going straight for a vase of flowers and knocking it over.

The receptionist jumped up to snatch the vase, the dog jumped to the floor and ran for the door, and the helpful woman dashed after her little pet. Everyone was reaching to help, picking up flowers and snatching papers from the expanding pool of water on the reception desk. Lucy also decided to help, picking up a clipboard that, she happened to notice, held a list of patients’ names with their room numbers.
Bruneau, L.
was at the top, assigned to room number 710. She carefully placed the clipboard on the counter, which was high and dry, unlike the desk behind it, and headed for the elevators.

Room 710 was easy to find. When the elevator doors slid open on the seventh floor, Lucy had an unobstructed view of the closed door, with the number clearly visible on a plastic square. She also had a clear view of the uniformed police officer seated on a chair beside the door, guarding it. Unwilling to draw attention to herself, she remained in place, and the doors slid closed and the elevator descended.

It was while she was on the elevator that something clicked and she suddenly remembered where she’d seen Malik. He was the young man she’d seen arguing in the Cavendish lobby with the older, gray-haired man and then angrily stalking off. And his companion Adil’s last name was Sadek, the same as the leader of Les Amis du Roi de l’Égypte, whom Richard had quoted in his news story. Could they be related?

Chapter Six

L
eaving the hospital, Lucy found herself walking by Notre-Dame and, acting on an impulse, decided to go in. Her first impression was of the darkness inside and the scent of old dust and burning candles. The medieval cathedral was a sharp contrast to the Community Church in Tinker’s Cove, with its white walls and large clear-glass windows, which allowed worshippers to see the green leaves and blue sky outside. Notre-Dame was dingy and crowded with sightseers, who followed a U-shaped circuit through the huge stone edifice. There were devout worshippers, too, kneeling in the various side chapels.

It seemed very strange to Lucy, who wondered at the immense effort involved in building the cathedral. How did the builders manage it, working in the thirteenth century, before cranes and power tools? she wondered. She thought of the incredibly strong hold faith must have had on medieval minds, faith that required people to create this tribute to Mary when they had so little and their lives were so miserable.

Of course, she thought, pausing before the crowned statue of Mary floating above a sea of flickering candles, they didn’t know how awful their lives were, having nothing to compare them to. They didn’t know about hot showers and Social Security and antibiotics; they knew filth and poverty and early death. The church, with its promise of eternal life, was their only hope.

Watching as a beautiful young woman lit a candle and knelt before it, crossing herself and murmuring a prayer, she thought of the millions of people who, even today, were believers. Maybe there was something in it, she decided, pulling a five-euro note from her purse and shoving it through the slot in the cash box. Feeling rather ridiculous, she pulled a thin taper from its holder and lit it from one of the burning candles. Then, making a wish, not anything she would dare call a prayer, but merely a simple plea that everything would be all right for herself and those she loved, she lit a candle. She had never done such a thing before and didn’t know what to expect, but she was a bit disappointed when she didn’t feel any sort of spiritual connection or transformation. It was just like taking her first communion at the Presbyterian church she attended as a child, which served cubic centimeters of white bread and tiny shot glasses of grape juice. But it couldn’t hurt, she told herself as she left the church. It was a sort of insurance.

The gang was gathered in the living room when she returned to the apartment, where they were drinking wine and eating baguette slices spread with olive tapenade.

“I ate way too much, waiting for you,” said Sue in an accusing tone. “It’s all your fault.”

“Don’t believe her,” said Rachel, filling a wineglass for Lucy. “She had two pieces, while the rest of us . . .”

“Who’s counting?” said Pam, passing Lucy a slice of bread loaded with the savory mixture. “This stuff is delicious.”

“Did you make it?” asked Lucy, savoring a bite.

“Bought it at the Monoprix,” said Sue. “I wish we had one in Tinker’s Cove. Even the bags of salad are better somehow.”

“Drink up,” urged Bill. “We have a reservation at Chez Loulou.”

“What were you doing that made you so late?” Rachel asked Lucy as they all trooped down the stairs.

“First, I stopped at the hotel to see Elizabeth, and then I went to the hospital to see how Chef Larry is doing,” she said as they crossed the courtyard and exited onto the street. It was only a short walk to the corner and Chez Loulou, but the sidewalk was narrow, which made conversation difficult. It wasn’t until they were all seated at a long table in the restaurant that they were able to talk.

“And how is Chef Larry?” asked Pam.

“I don’t know,” said Lucy. “He’s apparently alive, but there was a cop sitting outside his door.”

“Did you talk to the cop?” asked Sid.

“Are you kidding?” Lucy’s eyebrows shot up. “I got out of there as fast as I could.”

They laughed, then got down to the business of consulting the menu, trying to decipher the French. “What is
magret de canard?
” asked Pam.

“Duck breast,” said Sue. “But I don’t have a clue about
cervelles en matelote
.”

“It sounds delicious,” said Rachel.

“If you don’t know what it is,” advised Bill, wiser after his encounter with
tête de veau,
“I wouldn’t order it.”

“Point taken,” agreed Sue. “I think I’ll have a
salade niçoise.
”

“Better safe than sorry,” agreed Lucy. “I think I’ll have that, too. I’m not really very hungry.”

“I’ve rather lost my appetite, too,” said Ted. “I guess witnessing the bloody aftermath of a violent stabbing does that to you.”

“It looks like we’re going to have plenty of time to get acquainted with French cuisine,” observed Bob. “From what the guy at the embassy said, the French cops can keep our passports for as long as they like and we have no recourse except to cooperate.”

“I called Richard this afternoon, and that’s pretty much what he said,” offered Ted, reaching for the carafe to top off his glass just as the waiter arrived to take their order. When that business was done, he continued his report. “Richard said we should tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He mentioned this politician quite high up in the government who was tried for corruption and actually cleared, but, get this, the guy’s wife went to jail because she told some lies, attempting to cover up for him.”

“I thought there’s some rule about spouses not having to testify against each other,” said Pam, taking a bite of bread.

“Not unless they want to,” quipped Sue.

“That’s back home,” said Bob with a sigh. “But it seems it’s not the case in France.”

“Our only option is to cooperate,” said Lucy. “Not that we wouldn’t, of course. I asked Elizabeth if anybody at the hotel could help us.”

“Good idea,” said Pam, forever the cheerleader she was in high school.

“Don’t get too excited,” advised Lucy. “She was reluctant to get involved, and I guess I can’t blame her. She was afraid of damaging her professional reputation.”

“Well, I called Sidra,” said Sue. “I figured that if anyone could help us, it would be Norah—and I was right. As soon as Sidra told her about our problems, she called me and promised to make arrangements with some big international lawyer she knows who can assist us. . . .”

“That’s going to be expensive,” cautioned Bob.

“Even better, Norah said she’d cover any additional expenses while we’re detained here in Paris, including the lawyer.”

“That’s terrific,” said Pam.

“I had a nice little chat with our concierge,” offered Rachel. “She speaks quite good English, and I asked if it would be a problem if we wanted to keep the apartment a bit longer.”

“I hope you didn’t tell her we’re involved in a police investigation,” said Lucy.

“I didn’t, but why not?” asked Rachel.

“Because I don’t think she’d be very happy about renting to people who are under suspicion,” said Lucy.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” said Rachel. “We’re not under suspicion, for one thing. And she’s really quite nice. She’s a terrific knitter. She was working on an adorable little sweater for her dog. His name is Gounod, and he’s very cute.”

“And what did she say about the apartment?” asked Bob, intent on getting his wife back on track.

“Oh, she said she’d ask the owner,” said Rachel, smiling at the waiter who was setting a steaming plate of
cervelles en matelote
in front of her.

“Ohmigosh,” said Sue, laughing. “Do you know what that is?”

“Whatever it is, it’s quite good,” said Rachel after she’d swallowed a crusty mouthful.

Sue took a moment to spear a green bean. “They’re brains, sweetie.
Brainsss.
”

“How offal,” said Pam, unable to resist the joke and giggling at her own cleverness.

“No, really, they’re very good. Anyone want a taste?”

Bill was the only one who was game, agreeing with Rachel that the dish was delicious. “Maybe I’ll have them tomorrow,” he said, “if we eat here again.”

“Norah also said we shouldn’t let this get us down,” said Sue. “She said we should enjoy ourselves while we’re here. So I say, if we don’t get a summons tomorrow, let’s head out to Versailles.”

“I’m beginning to think Marie Antoinette was misunderstood,” said Lucy.

“She was a victim of circumstance, caught up in events she couldn’t control,” said Bob, sighing. “Just like us.”

 

But the next morning, as they got off the Métro at the Gare d’Austerlitz stop, Lucy felt quite cheerful. Perhaps it was just the fact that they were doing something and going somewhere. It was hard to get too depressed, she thought, standing in line at the ticket counter, when you were in France and on your way to see Versailles, with its Hall of Mirrors and fabulous gardens.

“Château de Versailles,” she told the man at the ticket window, feeling a bit more comfortable with her mastery of French. “Deux billets pour aller et retour,” she added, specifying two round-trip tickets. When he responded with the rapid-fire speech that she still found incomprehensible, she simply handed over her credit card.

Then, carefully tucking the tickets in her purse, she zipped it tight, checking the area for possible pickpockets. Not that she knew what a pickpocket looked like, she thought, noticing the usual mix of tourists and natives going their various ways in the station. One man, who was leaning against a pillar, turned his head quickly away, and she wondered if he’d been watching her. Was he a pickpocket? He was good-looking in the usual way, with very short hair and that stubbly, unshaven look they all had, and was wearing the required scarf over his black leather jacket, which was trimmed with metal studs. Or maybe he’d found her attractive? She’d heard that Frenchmen were more appreciative of older women, unlike the youth-obsessed Americans. It wasn’t impossible that she might attract an admiring male glance, she thought, feeling her cheeks warm as she joined the others and headed for the platform.

The ten-mile ride to Versailles wasn’t nearly long enough for Lucy, who could have sat on the train all day, gazing out the windows at the little towns and quaint houses, their stuccoed walls and clay-tiled roofs so different looking from the houses in Maine. When they arrived in Versailles, they discovered it was actually a small city, with buses and a busy open market.

“Oh, let’s have a picnic,” said Sue, and they were soon darting from stall to stall, stocking up on provisions for lunch. Then, carrying their bags of bread and wine and cheese and fruit, they followed the brown signs to the château, the gate of which was right on the tree-lined street.

“Somehow I thought it would be more isolated,” said Ted. “This doesn’t seem very secure at all.”

“It wasn’t,” said Sue, who was consulting a guidebook. “There were guards, but anybody could go in if they had a sword and a jacket, and if they didn’t happen to own them, they could rent them.”

“If they’d had TSA screening procedures, France might still be a monarchy,” said Pam. They were climbing the cobbled drive, gazing at the enormous château, which was golden in the morning sunlight.

“It’s big, but it doesn’t seem big enough,” said Sue, referring once again to her guidebook. “This says that twenty thousand people lived here, from the royal family and their courtiers on down to the scullery maids.”

“That’s bigger than Tinker’s Cove,” said Ted, who had a journalist’s fondness for statistics and was always comparing population and circulation figures.

“It must have been grand,” said Pam in a dreamy voice. “Imagine having your hair powdered and wearing a long silk dress and meeting your handsome lover, in his stockings and silk breeches. . . .”

“Great, until they chopped your head off,” said Bob.

But even Bob had to admit it was quite a place when they’d finished the tour, which took them through the various royal apartments, the impressive chapel, and the enormous Hall of Mirrors. After seeing so much brocade and gilt and marble, Lucy found it was a relief to step outside into the well-ordered formal gardens. There didn’t seem to be any place for a picnic among the neat gravel paths and geometric flower beds, but they followed a young couple toting a basket and found a grassy area beside the Grand Canal. There were lots of people picnicking on the grass. Others were rowing themselves around the Grand Canal in rented boats.

It was warm in the sun, and their lunch of bread and cheese and fruit and wine made them all sleepy. Lucy was lying down, and Bill was resting his head on her thigh. She was thinking that there was much more to see and that they really ought to get up.

“I’d like to see the Hameau,” she said, lifting her head and shading her eyes from the sun. Squinting for just a moment, she thought she saw the guy from the Gare d’Austerlitz, the one she thought might have been admiring her. Or was it? Whoever he was, he didn’t seem to be interested in her anymore; he was watching a couple of blond German girls in tight jeans toss a Frisbee back and forth.

“Come on,” said Lucy, urging her companions on. “There’s a little train we can take to the Trianons and Marie Antoinette’s little farm. Maybe there are lambs and chicks!”

“And a gift shop,” said Sue. “We can’t miss the gift shop.”

Lucy loved the waterwheel and the thatched roofs of the houses in the Hameau, but she had to admit there was something ridiculous about a queen who dressed in a milkmaid’s costume and herded perfumed sheep with a crook made of Sevres porcelain. And outside the Petit Trianon, the queen’s private retreat, they stood in the stone grotto where she was informed that an angry mob of Parisian market women was marching on the château. The mob forced the royal family to go to Paris, where they were imprisoned, never to see Versailles again. The king and queen were eventually tried and beheaded, and their young son, the dauphin, died in prison of tuberculosis. Only their daughter Marie Thérèse Charlotte survived; after six long years of imprisonment she was finally released as part of an exchange of prisoners with Austria, then France’s enemy.