by Cara Black
Where were the other guests?
It was only 7:30, but the cake had been cut. Smudged Champagne flutes stood on the sideboard. Only an old couple remained: a man wearing a formal black dinner jacket, a woman in a black dress more suited to a funeral. They’d seen sixty a long time ago.
René tiptoed to reach for the last of the Champagne. His fingers couldn’t quite reach it. Aimée, with a deft swipe, took a flute of fizzing rose Champagne and handed it to him.
“Vintage Taittinger. Not bad.” He shot Aimée a look. “But not what I’d call Morbier’s crowd.”
She agreed.
The old man, cadaver-thin and shrunken in his black jacket, winked at her. Already well into the Champagne, he had a happy glassy look in his eyes. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’re another cousin, eh?”
“We come in four-packs, like yogurt,” Aimée said as she scanned the room. “You don’t just marry the daughter, you get the family.”
A petite young woman, dark hair knotted in a clip, wearing a slim red skirt and a silk blouse, stepped into the room. Her large dark eyes were hesitant. The man took a look at her, grabbed his wife’s hand, and left.
Odd.
“Excusez-moi, are you Irati?” Aimée asked. “I’m Aimée Leduc.”
A blank stare greeted her. Had she made a mistake? Aimée noticed clenched white knuckles clasping the silk blouse. Then the girl gave a little nod.
“Sorry to bother you,” Aimée said. “I know you’re busy. But Morbier asked me to speak with Madame Xavierre.”
Irati smiled. “Not at all. This gives me a good excuse to extricate Maman from the temperamental caterers. Now I can escape upstairs and sleep. My fiancé, Robbé, escaped already.” Her voice quavered; she paused. “But I know you, don’t I?”
“I’m Commissaire Morbier’s goddaughter.”
“Of course.” A look Aimée couldn’t decipher crossed her face. The tinkle and crash of plates sounded from the kitchen. Irati clenched her fists together.
“Pardonnez-moi, Aimée,” Irati said and left the room.
René downed his Champagne. “A real love feast, eh? Temperamental caterers, a wedding party of geriatrics, a sweet girl. And we rushed out into the cold for this?”
She wondered herself. A cigarillo moldered in a crystal ashtray. Beside it was a half-eaten slice of gâteau Basque oozing with cherries and almond filling.
Aimée caught a whiff of gardenia, felt her shoulders grasped, and then Xavierre’s warm cheek pressed on hers in a flying kiss. “Aimée, delightful to see you.”
Xavierre’s peach silk scarf framed her shoulders. Matching lipstick, a hint of blush, and arched brows in an unlined face. Not one dark hair out of place. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it except perhaps by a little jump in the pulse at her neck, barely discernible in the dim light.
Aimée introduced René. Xavierre shook René’s hand, holding his in her own peach nail-lacquered fingers, her gaze level, not averting her eyes as do most people confronted by a dwarf. “Morbier late as usual? As you see, the guests have left.”
“Désolé, Xavierre, I’m his messenger.” She hesitated, sensing a tautness in Xavierre, an undercurrent. “Can we talk in private?”
She took Xavierre aside near the tall salon door and lowered her voice. “A last-minute investigation came up. He asked me to tell you in person.”
“But why? He went to too much trouble. I’m fine.”
“You didn’t answer your phone.” Aimée hesitated. “He worried.… ”
“My phone?” Xavierre blinked. Then laughed. “Zut! I guess I forgot to charge it.”
Aimée nodded. “I forget all the time too. But is anything wrong? I mean.… ”
A line tightened at the corner of Xavierre’s perfectly applied peach lipstick. “Have you ever planned a wedding on two weeks’ notice?”
Aimée shook her head, feeling awkward. Did that explain it? She couldn’t ask Xavierre if she was having an affair. Not her business. But she could put in a good word for Morbier. “I’ve never seen Morbier so happy, Xavierre.”
Xavierre smiled, squeezing Aimée’s hand. Her look was wistful. “But we met more than twenty years ago. He hasn’t told you? A coup de foudre, love at first sight.” She gave a little sigh. “My marriage, his, children, divorce got in the way. But when I ran into him last month, we reignited. It was as if we’d never said good-bye.”
A phone trilled from the hallway. Xavierre’s eyes clouded. There was a flutter of fear in them. Her shoulders tensed, and then she seemed to relax. Aimée heard the click of heels in the hallway and then Irati answering the phone.
Xavierre sighed. “I’ve got so much to do for the wedding on Sunday. I’ll reach Morbier later. I think it’s better if you go now.” Xavierre took a deep breath. “You understand, non?”
Aimée could understand. But not the flicker behind Xavierre’s eyes and the tight smile. Family problems? Or something else?
“Maman?”
“You’ll need to excuse me.” And without another word, Xavierre left. Aimée heard footsteps coming from the kitchen. A moment later, Irati stood at their side.
“Maman’s upset; let me apologize for her,” Irati said. “The wedding plans, stress of relatives, endless. Me, I’m calm. Supposed to be the other way round, non?” She gave a short laugh.
Short and forced, Aimée thought. What undercurrents are flowing here? she wondered.
“Maybe it would have been easier if Morbier had been here,” Aimée said.
“Nothing would help.” Irati blinked, then looked away, distracted.
What did that mean? Time to disregard tact and force the issue. “Morbier was worried she was having an affair,” Aimée said.
René shot her a look.
“You’re saying my mother would—” Irati said.
“Me and my mouth,” Aimée interrupted. “Please forget you ever heard that, Irati.” Aimée paused. “Your mother’s upset. Can I help?”
“Right now I wish this were all over,” Irati said.
Not exactly the excited bride-to-be, Aimée thought. “What’s wrong?”
Pause. “Robbé and I wanted to keep it simple. But you didn’t hear that either.” Irati took Aimée’s arm. “In Basque, when things go badly, we say it’s like cobwebs: just brush them away and get on with it. I’ll see you both out.”
Outside, the crisp biting wind met them. The air cleared Aimée’s head, but did not dispel her unease. Xavierre was hiding something.
“What do you make of that, René?”
“A tempest in a teapot,” he said with disgust. “Morbier’s overreacting.”
She wished she thought so too.
“But, considering the Taittinger,” René said, smiling, “not a totally wasted trip.”
Fir branches scraped the wall, their scent released into the crisp air. Beyond, at the side of the house, was the service entrance. A dim glow shone from windows, pooling yellow on the gravel.
“Give me a moment,” she said, unable to get rid of her sense of unease. “I’ll be right back.”
She walked over the gravel toward the kitchen’s back windows. For a moment she sensed a presence. A feeling that someone was watching them. As she was about to look up from the crunching gravel under her feet, she heard a squishing sound. Her shoe’s pointed toe was mired in softness. Leaves, and something else, clung to her red-soled Louboutin heels. Then the smell hit her. Dog poo!
Great.
She heard the gate click open.
“Un moment, René.”
She leaned against the stone wall, took the penlight from her bag to see to clean off her shoe, and shook her head. “My brand-new heels, too!”
In the penlight’s beam, she saw by the tan smeared dog poo several reddish-brown congealing clumps on her shoe sole. She grabbed a twig to scrape it all off. There was a coppery metallic smell. She looked closer.
Blood.
Her hand froze. “René,” she whispered.
; “What now? I’m cold.” He let the gate shut. His gaze traveled the penlight’s beam, which traced a reddish-brown trail of droplets over the gravel path along the ivy-covered wall.
“I don’t get it.” René shook his head. “It’s late. Let’s go, Aimée.”
From behind the house, Aimée heard a car start. The rumble of a diesel engine, the spit of gravel as it took off. She tiptoed ahead, rounded the corner, crouched under the windows. Shadows flickered. She saw movement inside the house.
“It’s not our business.” René stood behind her next to green garbage bins by the short flight of back steps.
“Shhh.” She leaned toward him, tugged his elbow. “He thinks we left.”
“Who?”
“The figure watching from the window,” Aimée said, pointing at the house. “He heard the gate close.”
Hunched down, she poked with the twig, noticing that the blood had darkened. It had semi-clotted in the cold night air. The blood was not fresh, but not old enough to have dried. She followed the blood spatter trail on the gravel around the corner to the garden.
Her penlight beam illuminated the evening-misted hedgerow, a tangled fragment of peach scarf, and, farther on, a figure slumped among the gooseberry bushes against the stone wall. Fear jolted along her spine.
“Xavierre?” Her throat caught. “You all right?”
But the cocked angle of Xavierre’s head, the scarf twisted tight around her neck, and her unblinking gaze told Aimée that Xavierre wouldn’t answer now. Couldn’t.
“My god, René! Call the SAMU!”
He flipped his phone open.
Horror-stricken, Aimée untied the scarf digging into Xavierre’s flesh. She felt for a pulse. None. Frantically, she made quick thrusts to Xavierre’s chest.
“Maman?” Irati’s voice came from the open French doors. “Telephone for you.”
Too late.
Wind rustled the damp leaves tattooing shadows across Xavierre’s pale face. “What’s going on?” Irati said. “What have you done to my mother?”
“Her heart’s not beating, Irati.”
“I don’t understand.” Then a piercing scream. Irati knelt down by Xavierre’s lifeless body, stroking her mother’s cheek. “You killed Maman!”
“No, we found her like this.” Aimée turned to René, who’d knelt beside her. “Tell the flics to hurry.”
Choking sounds came from Irati. “What do you mean?”
“I heard a car pull away, then saw blood,” Aimée said. “Who was in your house, Irati?”
And then she felt Irati’s fists punching her. “Non, non … this can’t happen!”
Aimée caught her arms and pulled her away. “Let’s go inside.”
Irati shook Aimée’s hands off. “And leave her in the cold?”
Aimée noticed the snapped twigs, bent bushes, the flattened grass feathering the gravel. She saw damp footprints and something that glinted.
“Please. I’m sorry, but it’s better if we don’t touch anything.”
Before she could check the bushes, a thump came from behind her and Irati sprawled, collapsed, sobbing on the dirt.
* * *
AIMÉE PACED IN the closet-sized upstairs sitting room. Twenty minutes, stuck in here, after giving her statement. Her heart ached for Morbier. His phone didn’t answer.
Below, flashing blue and red lights bathed the townhouse in an eerie glow. In the rear, bright white lights set up at the crime scene painted the back in stark detail. Xavierre’s body had been removed; le Proc, the prosecutor, had come and gone; technicians in jumpsuits had finished combing the gravel, the bushes, the stone wall. One by one the lights shut off, and the crew packed their crime-scene kits.
Already? She opened the latticed window, breathed in the frigid damp air. Snatches of conversation rose from the terrace: “… classify a crime scene by what it tells me. This shows low planning, high passion, as opposed to high planning, low emotion.”
Footsteps. The door opened and Lieutenant Hénard, the middle-aged, angular-jawed duty flic, entered. One look at the window and he shut it and pulled the velvet drapes. He sat down at the escritoire on a gilded chair too small for his large frame. Aimée expected it to snap.
“Sit down, Mademoiselle,” he said.
“Did you find the wounded person?”
“Mademoiselle, I need a clarification of your statement.” Hénard didn’t look up from his notes.
“But he or she can’t have gotten far,” she said. “The blood on the gravel—”
“We’re handling this investigation, Mademoiselle,” Hénard interrupted, consulting another page in his notebook.
She’d almost welcome a cocky Brigade Criminelle high-ranking detective to question her instead of this by-the-book plodder. His pen scratched over the paper.
“Mademoiselle Leduc, please explain those bruises on your arm.”
“But I told you,” she said. “You have my credentials.”
Hénard pushed Aimée’s PI license, with its less-than-flattering photo of her, across the polished desk.
“Merci, but of course you realize it’s in your interest to cooperate.”
“Lieutenant Hénard, I already explained,” she said, tapping her heels. “Poor Irati went into shock. Denial, anger I think, but she lashed out as I tried to calm her. I wanted to remove her from her mother and not disturb the scene. Ask her.”
Hénard consulted his notes. “In shock, yes. She had trouble calming down enough to answer all our questions. The police psychologist sedated her.”
“Of course my colleague, René Friant, confirmed my account.” She stretched out her arms. “Look, do you see any scratches, marks other than a bruise? Xavierre fought her assailant, her fingernails were broken. But there was no blood on her. What about the half-dried blood spatters on the gravel? The figure I mentioned standing at the window?”
He snapped his notebook shut with a sour look. “We’re quite aware, Mademoiselle. That’s all for now.”
Shutting her out, standard police procedure. “Have you notified Commissaire Morbier yet?”
“Command handles notification.”
“He’s my godfather.” She leaned forward. “If there’s any possible way I could speak with him. You know, coming from me—”
“Noted, Mademoiselle,” he interrupted. “Now join the officer in the other room.”
In other words, go home. Typical. Stonewall a witness after taking his statement.
“But you’re questioning the guests who’d attended the party, the caterers?”
“Let the professionals do their work, Mademoiselle,” Hénard said, an edge to his voice.
She wanted to tear the notebook from his hand, read his notes. Instead, she smiled. “My father was a flic; I’m acquainted with—”
“This way, Mademoiselle.” He cut her off, opened the door, and gestured downstairs.
In the dining room, Irati’s wedding banner still hung from the ceiling. Aimée’s heart caught. Now, instead of a marriage, it would be a funeral. The cherries had congealed on the plate of gâteau Basque.
She excused herself to use the bathroom in the hall. Inside, she paused until she heard retreating footsteps, then climbed on the marble bidet’s rim. She opened the tall bathroom window to the terrace. Still in conversation, the inspector was huddled with a crime-scene technician. The technician was smoking; a plume of gray smoke rose, lazed, then dissipated in the night.
“Called to a case like this last night,” the tech said. “Classic signs.”
“Coming to conclusions already?” the inspector said.
“A beautiful woman strangled with her own scarf?” He paused. “It’s a common scenario. Her man’s jealous, reason clouded by anger. They fight, it gets out of hand. An hour later, drunk, full of remorse, he confesses.” He paused. “Crime of passion. In theory, of course.”
“Says who?” said the inspector.
“The mec left evidence,” he said. “They always do.”
“Circumstantial,” the inspector said. “Unless you convince le Proc otherwise.”
“You call the item we found embedded in fresh footprints circumstantial?” A pause. “I hate to say it, but this one’s not good news.” His voice drifted away.
She tiptoed forward on the bidet, teetering on the edge. The gloved crime-scene technician moistened his thumb and forefinger, then tamped his cigarette out between his fingers, stuck the butt in his pocket, and shot a look at his team. “We found this. It must have been dislodged in the struggle.”
“Got his name on it, then?” a voice said. “Handy, eh? We can go home.”
That quick? Was it what she’d seen glinting in the dirt?
Loud knocking erupted on the bathroom door. “Mademoiselle Leduc?”
She stepped down, flushed the toilet, and looked in the mirror to tame a stray eyebrow. She tried to calm the trembling in her hands.
In the hallway, a blue-uniformed flic guided her to the kitchen, a remodeled state-of-the-art wall-to-wall marble affair. “We’ll contact you for further questioning if needed.”
She bit her lip, wondering about the item discovered by the crime-scene tech. “Do you know if there’s a suspect?”
No expression showed on his face.
“But the footprints outside, that would explain—”
“And I explained to you,” he interrupted, “exit through the kitchen.”
The flics were barking up the wrong tree. She felt it in her bones.
Family photos were pinned on the corkboard by the kitchen pantry. She paused, saddened at the snapshots of Xavierre and Irati in happy times at the beach in what looked like the Basque countryside, with sheep and snow-tipped mountains. She glanced behind her. The flic’s back was turned. She unpinned the best photo, one of Irati smiling and Xavierre taking a picnic basket from the trunk of a car, and slipped it into her pocket.
A bruised night sky hovered above the walled driveway. Cloud wisps obscured the moon. The cold air seared her lungs. Still shaken, she pulled her coat tighter.
“Such a tragedy,” René said outside on the gravel, shaking his head. “Let’s go. My body’s numb. You look cold.”