“C’mon, Fanuzzi.”
They hit the rows of chairs, taking the loungers one by one, Fanuzzi doing the intros since she knew the language. A guy in a denim shirt and tie scowled at them and shook his head after a glance at the photos. Must have thought they were trying to sell him something.
A woman trying to keep two young girls from fighting over a balloon studied the photo of Dave and then apologized. A guy with glasses focused on an e-pad looked promising. Maybe Dave had struck up a conversation with him about the latest whatever app.
But after he had studied the pictures long enough to make Miranda tap her foot on the gravel, he shook his head.
Struck out again, Miranda thought as they rounded the turn in front of the castle. Fanuzzi hadn’t said a word for several minutes and she knew the reality was starting to sink in.
She looked up and saw Parker under the trees coming toward them. His face was deadly grim.
God, no.
Bracing herself she reached for Fanuzzi’s arm. “What is it?” she said to Parker.
When he reached them, he extended a hand and laid it gently on their friend’s shoulder. “Joan?”
“What is it, Wade?” Her voice quivered.
“There’s a man matching Dave’s description at Lodge du Ciel.”
“Where?” Miranda said. It sounded like a resort.
“It’s a hospital near the Notre Dame,” Parker said.
Hospital. She knew it.
Fanuzzi went to pieces. “No. Dear, God. No!”
A woman passing by gave them a curious stare but kept on going.
Parker’s arm went around Fanuzzi in a strong, reassuring hug. “We don’t know if it’s him yet, Joan. But if it is, this means he’s alive.”
She pounded his chest with a fist. “I should have known he wouldn’t go off on his own. He wouldn’t get lost. I should have known something terrible happened to him. I should have called the police.”
“You called us. We’ll take care of it.”
Chapter Eight
Parker sprang for a cab.
The driver moved pretty fast through the heavy, late afternoon traffic, Miranda thought, staring out the window at a big tour bus they were passing. He must have figured something was wrong with their distressed faces and their destination. Still, it felt like they were crawling.
The cab headed north and after several kilometers or whatever they were, crossed an old bridge over the Seine. The scenery was gorgeous. Wrought iron lamplights lining the bridge, tourist boats passing below in the churning green water, stately ancient buildings along the shoreline.
Old and serene and beautiful. A wonderful vacation spot.
Which only underlined how awful this had to be for Fanuzzi.
At last they reached the hospital, a huge imposing building with a tad less of the architectural flourish of its neighbors. It looked downright scary.
Parker paid the cabbie and they hurried through the tall arched entrance and past a section labeled Urgence. No one had to translate for her what that meant.
The lights overhead were old and cast eerie beams on a dull floor. The air was musty, mingling with the scent of body fluids with an overlay of antiseptic. On the left a waiting room was crowded with people.
Parker marched over to a nurse at a receiving desk and engaged in a tense conversation in French, which sounded like a lot of polite cussing to Miranda. They were foreigners. They couldn’t prove they were family of the man they had come to see. And French hospital policy would be tight under those circumstances. But she knew Parker could talk his way around it. He always did.
She kept an arm around Fanuzzi as her friend looked on and struggled to breathe. Miranda wanted to tell her it was all right, that everything would be okay. But Fanuzzi was never one for false hope.
After an agonizing ten or fifteen minutes Parker returned and nodded down a hall.
They were in.
They headed off in the direction he’d indicated, turned a corner and found themselves in a narrow corridor. Or maybe it just seemed narrow because of the stretchers lined up along one wall. Stretchers with groaning patients in them. Dear Lord.
An elderly woman lay babbling at the ceiling. A middle aged man with an IV whined like a lost dog. A little boy with a patch over his eye whimpered.
Miranda longed to go to him, comfort him. All of them. But there was nothing she could do for them.
The lights here cast a yellow tinge on everything. The smells were stronger and not doing Miranda’s empty stomach any good at all. Under her arm she felt Fanuzzi tremble as they moved past the sea of patients.
“C’mon,” she whispered to her. “Keep it together.”
Stiffly Fanuzzi nodded. “You’re right, Murray. You’re right.” But she still shivered.
“He’s in a room. One forty-eight.” Parker reached for the handle of the door.
“Steady now,” Miranda said to Fanuzzi as Parker opened the door and she ushered her into the room.
It was just what you’d expect.
Tubes pumping, screens flashing, monitors quietly beeping. In the middle of the sparse room, a bed with its rails up. On the bed lay a man wrapped in bandages. Miranda couldn’t see his face but she spotted the nose sticking out from the gauze. Was about the size of Becker’s.
Her throat went dry as Fanuzzi squeezed her hand tight as a rubber band.
Like the others in the hall the man began to moan, then to mutter, head rolling back and forth on the thin pillow. “Giselle. Pardon, pardon. S’il te plait.” He went on mumbling in French.
Miranda shot Parker a frown. “What’s he saying?”
Parker stepped nearer the bed for a closer look at the patient. “He seems to be begging someone named Giselle to forgive him for cheating on her.”
“Giselle?” Fanuzzi let go of Miranda’s hand and tip-toed slowly over to the bed.
Miranda followed, holding her breath as her friend dared to touch the bedrail.
“Dave?” Fanuzzi whispered.
The man began to cry out loud. “Je suis désolé!” He turned his head as his thick lips rolled up in a snarl.
His two front teeth were gold.
Fanuzzi’s face went pale.
She turned to Miranda. “That’s not Dave.”
Chapter Nine
“What do we do now?” Fanuzzi’s sad voice rang in Miranda’s ears.
They stood outside the hospital entrance staring at the traffic and the Seine across the street, with its ancient bridges and modern boats glistening in the sunset. She didn’t know how to answer.
She wanted to find Becker. She wanted to turn this whole city upside down and shake it like a piggy bank until he tumbled out of it. Her heart was breaking over this fiasco. But her head was spinning. She felt like going back inside the hospital and checking herself in.
“I don’t know,” Miranda admitted. “But if I don’t get some food pretty quick, I think I might pass out right here on the sidewalk.”
Fanuzzi slapped herself on the forehead. “Oh my gawd, Murray. Wade. You both came from your overnight flight you must be exhausted. Not to mention starving.”
“That’s my fault,” Parker’s low voice billowed comfortingly over Miranda’s shoulder. “I should have made sure you were both fed.”
“No, it’s my fault. I’ve just been so worried about Dave.” The tears started to fill Fanuzzi’s eyes again.
Miranda help up her hands. “It’s nobody’s fault. Or it’s everybody’s fault. I don’t care. I just need a restaurant.”
Parker gestured to the left. “I believe there’s a good one that way.”
“Let’s go.”
And without further discussion, he escorted them down the length of the building and across the street to a nice little bistro.
###
The place was fancier inside than it looked outside. White tablecloths, dainty chandeliers, flowery curtains on the tall windows.
They sat in a quiet corner near an unl
it fireplace while a flurry of waiters scurried about at their every whim.
Right now, a can of Vienna sausages and a pack of soda crackers would have seemed like a gourmet meal. So the real gourmet meal Parker ordered up for them was—well, if it wasn’t the best food Miranda had ever eaten, it had to be close.
Plate after plate of fare she would have questioned had she been in her right mind was brought to the table. Instead she wolfed everything down like a hungry hawk devouring its prey.
Escargot and roasted quail and some sort of meat—she didn't ask what—wrapped in a cheesy deliciously seasoned sauce which she sopped up with the scrumptious bread. And wine. Delicious, rich, old French wine. The kind you read about in fancy magazines, if you read such things.
Fanuzzi protested the expense, offered to pay her share but Parker insisted.
Miranda knew it was more than his high-bred manners prompting that gesture. It was guilt. The same guilt that was eating at her insides, losing a battle just now to her ravenous appetite. But once she was sated it would return for another round and win.
They hadn’t found Becker. They hadn’t even made a dent in the case, if you could call the disappearance of a friend in a foreign land a case. They had no leads, no clues, nowhere to go from here. Except the next usual spot on the list—the morgue.
“Man, that was good.” Fanuzzi took her last bite and sat back in her chair with her eyes closed.
Her head clearing Miranda smiled at her friend, glad they could at least give her a comforting meal if they couldn’t give her any other comfort.
Suddenly Fanuzzi jolted upright. “The Cuisinart!”
“Say what?” Miranda glanced over at Parker who was eyeing Fanuzzi with concern.
“The food processor?” he asked.
Fanuzzi waved her hands as if it were a difficult concept to explain. “They make more than that. Tuesday we went to a big department store on the Champs Elysees. Jacques du Coeur. Dave was looking for e-gadgets but I spotted a Cuisinart Griddler that I’ve had my eye on forever. It’s got removable plates and everything. You can do all kinds of dishes with it. But I wanted it for my special paninis.”
Miranda looked at Parker again. “Okay.”
“Dave wanted to get it but I said we could get it cheaper back in the states.” She turned to Miranda as if that explained everything.
Miranda made a circle with her hand. “So?”
Fanuzzi lifted both hands in the air. “So I think that was my surprise.”
“You think Becker went to this department store sometime on Wednesday to get it for you?” Miranda asked.
“Yeah. Now you’re getting the picture.”
Well, he couldn’t still be there but maybe somebody had seen him. It was something. “How late are they open?” Outside the sun had set some time ago. It was getting pretty late.
Parker was already googling the place on his phone. “Until nine. Let’s get going.”
Chapter Ten
Another cab ride and a stroll through an underground crosswalk brought them to a tall building on one of those strange corners.
A small stretch along the main road with two other lanes forking off from it, so that the store formed a triangle with its top cut off. A big triangle that took up a whole block.
The facade of Jacques du Coeur was lit up with an elaborate pattern of dazzling lights. But then the whole street was ablaze with light, including the elm trees lining both sides of it, and the gorgeous arc in the distance. Miranda remembered seeing the famous spot in movies and on TV but it was truly impressive in person.
“La plus belle avenue du monde,” Parker said gazing down the lane. “The most beautiful avenue in the world.”
Miranda smirked glancing at the high-end stores just beyond the trees. “And the most expensive.”
“Indeed.”
Fanuzzi let out a wifely grunt. “That’s why Dave and I swore not to spend any money here. I don’t know what he was thinking with that Griddler.”
She sounded like she’d already decided this was where they’d find Becker. Not good to get your hopes up too high. But Miranda couldn’t bring herself to say that out loud.
Inside they were greeted by clean hardwood floors and shiny counters with tons of displays. Shoes and clothes and wallets. Purses and perfumes. Ties and toenail clippers. Similar to some American department stores except for the outrageous price tags—and the language barrier.
“Cookware’s on the second floor.” Fanuzzi pointed to the escalator and they followed her there.
Parker put his mouth near Miranda’s ear to whisper. “Take care of her if this doesn’t work out.”
She nodded and relished the brief moment of closeness. Since the hospital Parker seemed to have dropped the wall between them and she felt more connected now. They hadn’t had a second alone since they’d landed and she wanted to touch him, talk to him, make love to him. They’d make up for it when they found Becker.
Ha, now she was getting her hopes up, too.
At the top of the revolving steps they followed Fanuzzi as she scooted through displays of pots and pans, griddles and gravy boats, fine china on display atop fancy table settings.
“Here we are.” She pointed to a glass case. “That’s the Griddler.”
It was a big rectangular stainless steel thing that looked a lot like a waffle iron.
Parker gestured for a clerk. A thin, long faced woman came over. She had on a tight multicolored dress that was cut low enough to show off a lot of boob, if she’d had any. Her artificially red hair was plastered with gel and her face was plastered with makeup—probably all samples from the cosmetics counter. She looked down a narrow nose at Fanuzzi, then at Miranda. Then her eyes did the usual is-he-for-real? stare when she got to Parker.
Pouring on the charm Parker began to schmooze her in French, but after a few sentences, thankfully, switched to English.
“He’s about this height.” Parker indicated about an inch over his shoulder. “And here’s a recent photo of him.”
With an I-cannot-believe-he-eez-asking-me-to-do-zis smirk, Her Cuisinart Majesty deigned to look down at the cell phone.
Like everyone who had looked at the photo she turned her chin this way and that, squinted, blinked. Then shook her head. “I am sorry, monsieur. I do not remember the man.”
“He would have been very interested in your Griddler.” Parker gestured to the appliance in the case. “He may have purchased one. Had it delivered to a hotel in Montparnasse?”
She merely stared at him and breathed.
Parker gave her that irresistible smile of his. “Could you check your records, si’l vous plait?”
Her lips went back and forth. “Moment,” she said and headed away from them, down an aisle and through a back door.
If Parker wasn’t so good-looking no doubt she would have told them the French equivalent of, “Take a hike.” But after a few minutes, Miranda was beginning to wonder if the charm had worn off and she’d decided to take a coffee break instead.
This wasn’t turning out to be as promising as Fanuzzi had hoped.
“We could trace Becker’s credit card,” Miranda offered.
Parker considered that a moment. “It would take some time.”
Fanuzzi shook her head. “He probably used cash. He likes counting out bills in euros.”
Well that was just peachy. Miranda drummed her fingers on the shiny glass counter. They were getting nowhere. Just when she was about to suggest they give up and try something else, a young man came around a column behind the counter and approached.
He was short and frail looking. Round, childlike face with almost white, peach-fuzz hair and thin gold wire rimmed glasses. He had on olive green slacks, a starched white dress shirt and a bow tie that perfectly matched his pants.
“Excuse me,” he said. His accent was British.
“Yes?” Parker replied.
“Am I to understand you’ve been asking about a customer?”
Pa
rker’s frame went stiff. “That is correct.”
That was all they needed. To get kicked out for stalking or something.
Timidly the store clerk held out a hand. “May I see the photo?”
Parker handed the cell to him.
The man in green took one look and nodded. “Yes. I waited on that gentleman yesterday.”
Fanuzzi sucked in a breath. “I knew it. Did he buy this?” She jabbed a finger at the Griddler on display.
“He was going to. For his missus. Thought about it a long time. Then he decided not to. I believe he wandered off to the jewelry counter next. I thought his wife must be the fickle type.”
Fanuzzi grinned with relief. “So that’s where we should go. The jewelry counter.”
“Wait.” The man paused a moment and looked over his shoulder. “Shortly after that, oh maybe twenty or so minutes I was on break downstairs and I saw him again.” His thin brows drew together as if pondering a deep secret.
“And?” Miranda said. She’d had enough of Twenty Questions for tonight.
“And, well…” He glanced back over his shoulder again. “It would be easier to show you.” He turned to the red-haired clerk who was just returning from wherever she’d gone. “Anna, can you mind the counter for me a moment?”
###
They followed the little blond man in green back down the escalator to the first floor, barely keeping up as his small body bobbed and weaved through the crowd of customers.
At last they reached a side entrance to the store and he stopped.
“I was out here,” the clerk said, holding the door open for them.
Miranda stepped through, followed by Fanuzzi, Parker, and the little man.
It was just a side street, one of the lanes branching out from the Champs Elysees that bordered the store. Busy, crowded with pedestrians, a cluster of parked motorcycles in a designated spot, cars along the curb.
She turned to the clerk. “What exactly did you see?”
Nodding eagerly he pointed down the street, away from the main avenue. “I saw that man, the customer who’d been asking about the Cuisinart, right over there. See where that red Saab is parked?”
Zero Dark Chocolate (A Miranda and Parker Mystery Book 5) Page 4