by Harper Lin
“Bonjour,” Clémence greeted him. “Are you Monsieur Ralph Lemoine?”
“Oui. Clémence Damour?”
“C’est moi.”
He let her in. The place was set up more like an apartment. The kitchen was at the front, with a living room that was really scattered with plenty of surveillance equipment, including TV screens and computers. There was a staircase that led to a floor upstairs.
Ralph was wearing scruffy jeans, sneakers, a ripped grey T-shirt and a white hoodie. His brown eyes were rich in color, but his dark under eye circles suggested that he hadn’t slept much.
“Do you live here as well?” Clémence asked out of curiosity.
“Oh, no,” said Ralph, “It’s not an apartment, although I live in the neighbourhood. There are a few other guys working upstairs surveilling your stores and some other companies. I’m only dressed this way because we don’t need to dress up for this job since we look at screens all day, excuse me.”
Ralph rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. In Paris, appearances were everything, but she knew how liberating it was to dress like a slob and not have to worry about what people thought. She had dressed in sweats during a good portion of her travels abroad.
Clémence smiled. “Don’t apologize. You can dress however you want. I’m the one taking up your time.”
“Do you want a café?” Ralph asked, moving near the expresso machine on the kitchen counter. He looked like he needed one.
“Non, merci.”
He made one for himself and sat down at the counter.
“So you’re looking for someone in the surveillance tapes?” Ralph asked.
“Yes. This guy named Alexandre Dupont. I just want to look through the footage of Thursday morning to early afternoon. This is in the patisserie section of our store in the 16th.”
“Sure,” said Ralph. “Let me find it.”
He went to his workspace, switched on a screen and began typing on a keyboard. After a few minutes of fiddling, he was able to find the footage.
Clémence sat beside him as he started playing the footage at the beginning of the work day. The camera had a view of the profile of the customers in line, as well as the cashiers. She looked carefully at every man’s face in the sped up footage. After a couple of hours of reviewing each customer carefully, rewinding and freezing the footage at times, she shook her head.
“He wasn’t there,” she said. “Are you sure this footage is from yesterday?”
Ralph pointed to the date on the bottom right of the screen. “I’m 100% sure.”
“So this Dupont guy wasn’t in the shop,” Clémence said.
“If you don’t recognize him, then he didn’t.”
“Apparently he had bought two pistachio éclairs,” Clémence said.
If Dupont didn’t buy the éclairs himself, someone else must have bought it for him that morning.
Cyril had mentioned that he ate two pistachio éclairs. He could tell because of the glazing smeared inside the bag. There was no receipt to go with the purchase, but they had to have been bought in the morning. Clémence knew this because the nub of the éclair that she had inspected on the ground had been fresh indeed. She could tell by the texture, by the shine on the glazing. Besides, Damour never sold day-old pastries. Everything had to be fresh.
She had a idea. She would just have to find out who had purchased two pistachio éclairs from their cash register.
After thanking Ralph for his time, she grabbed her coat and immediately headed back to the patisserie.
CHAPTER 7
The employees at Damour had done a good job of getting the patisserie back in shape. When Clémence walked in through the door, the counters were filled halfway up with fresh macarons, éclairs, tarts, croissants and their other signature desserts and pastries. The staff for the evening shift had already arrived, and Caroline said that they could reopen soon.
Clémence asked Caroline and Marie to help her dig up all the purchases and transaction information on their cash register before the store opened.
“I want to know who bought two pistachio éclairs that morning,” Clémence said. “If you can recall their names or faces that would be great, but either way, I’ll take the time of the transaction and go back to our surveillance guy to match the time the purchase was made to the video, so we can put a face to the purchase.”
Caroline punched in her manager code on the touch screen of the cash register. With a few more punches of the keys, she was able to print out a long receipt of all the transactions made on Thursday. While it printed, Clémence turned to Marie.
“Do you always choose the right flavors when you’re ringing up, say a pistachio éclair versus a chocolate éclair?”
“Yes,” she replied. “We all do. It’s how we determine which flavors are more popular.”
“Which éclair flavors are more popular anyway?” Clémence asked.
“The salted caramel and the chocolate are neck and neck,” said Marie. “But pistachio and passion fruit are popular as well.”
“Are there any customers who buy two pistachio éclairs on a regular basis?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. Sometimes it happens, I suppose, but people buy all sorts of combinations. It’s hard to keep track.”
When the receipts finished printing, Clémence turned her attention to it. Numerous éclairs had been bought that morning, but they weren’t as popular as croissants, pain au chocolats and other pastries and breads for the morning crowd. Single éclairs had been bought, but two?
After she went through all the purchases, she found out that there had only been three transactions that included two pistachios purchased at the same time.
Clémence called Ralph again, saying she was coming back and needed more of his help.
***
Ralph opened the door, but he had changed clothes. Instead of his casual sweats, he was wearing khakis, a striped blue dress shirt and brown dress shoes. Gone was his facial hair, and his hair had been combed.
He smiled and a dimple appeared on his left cheek that Clémence hadn’t noticed before when he had the scruffy facial hair.
“I decided to go home and change,” he said.
“What made you do that?” Clémence asked.
“In case another beautiful woman comes in to see me today,” he said, looking into her blue eyes.
Clémence blushed.
He did look handsome all cleaned up. He stood up straighter too and Clémence could tell that he was in good shape telling from what his well-fitted dress shirt revealed.
She hadn’t paid much attention to him before, but she appreciated his effort in looking good for her. She was in a white oversized cashmere sweater that hung nicely on her thin frame, black python-print leggings and black ankle boots. The outfit was chic enough, but not exactly something to inspire men. She couldn’t take his flirtations seriously however. Many men were incorrigible flirts.
She got down to business and asked him for help in finding the footage for the three transaction times.
As he had before, Ralph found her account on his system, and rewound the footage for the first transaction, at 8:13am. It was a little boy, around ten years old. He wore a helmet with a frog on it. Clémence dismissed it and told Ralph to find the second time, which as at 8:47am. The customer was a tall businessman. He looked to be in his early thirties, but she could be wrong, since the screen quality wasn’t the best.
Clémence asked Ralph to pause when he looked in the direction of the camera. She remembered his face, but took a picture of the screen with her cell phone for good measure. She would show it to her staff and ask whether they recognized this guy.
The third transaction was from a lady who looked like a fashionable bourgeois housewife with too much time on her hands. She ordered a huge box of treats along with the pistachios éclairs. It couldn’t have been her. The éclairs found on Dupont had came in Damour’s lavender paper bag.
The little boy and the woman didn’t seem lik
e possible suspects. Her biggest lead was the businessman. He must’ve worked in the area. Clémence had to find out just how he was connected to Dupont.
CHAPTER 8
“I do know him,” said Celine.
Clémence had shown her the picture on her smartphone back in the employee section of the patisserie. Berenice and Marie were there as well, getting ready to leave at the end of their shifts. They’ve all been working longer than usual, but the store was reopened and things were more or less back to normal.
“I’ve seen him too,” said Marie. “Although he only started coming in recently.”
“He’s pretty good looking,” said Celine.
Berenice craned her neck to look at the fuzzy picture on Clémence’s phone.
“I suppose he does have good bone structure,” Berenice remarked.
“Really, guys?” Clémence said, amused. “We’re talking about a potential murderer here. And I don’t think he’s all that cute.”
“No, he’s really charming,” said Celine. “Green eyes, dirty blond hair and this pouty lower lip like Brad Pitt’s. He looks better in person, trust me.”
“He’s American,” said Marie. “At least, I think I recall him speaking French with an American accent if I’m not mistaken.”
“You’re probably right,” said Celine. “He stumbles on his words a little, which makes him even more adorable. I’m pretty sure he came in for lunch one day with a colleague. They were both in suits, but I noticed him because of his built.”
Celine sighed dreamily.
“I don’t think he’s that good looking,” said Marie. “But I see what you’re saying about the pouty lips, but his eyes were kind of pale and cold.”
“No way,” said Celine. “He was really smiley and friendly. He didn’t look cold at all.”
“I just meant his eyes,” said Marie.
“Are they the eyes of a killer?” Berenice asked in her mischievous way.
Marie shrugged. “Maybe. But I guess it’s not a crime to have light-colored eyes.”
“He’s too hot to be a killer,” said Celine. “He’s tall, got nice broad shoulders, and I think he works out.”
Clémence shook her head. Hot men were always the topic of conversation with her employees.
“Let’s get back on track here. What else do you know about him? Where does he work?”
Marie shrugged. “Not sure. We never had time to chat or anything. You know what it’s like during the morning rush.”
“I don’t know either,” said Celine. “His colleague was French, as I recall.”
“Maybe we can trace his credit card or something,” said Clémence. “Although he did pay for his éclairs in cash. Maybe he’d pay for his lunch in cash as well.”
“He might be coming in tomorrow,” said Marie. “Why don’t you wait for him then? He’s been in consistently for the past few days now, probably before he goes to work.”
“Okay,” said Clémence. “I’ll do that then. I’ll be here early in the morning and I’ll wait for him. Now let’s go. Go home and get some rest, I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
***
When Clémence walked back home from work in the early evening, it started to rain. Not just light rain, but a great downpour. In Paris, the weather could change in an instant. The clouds were fast moving, the sky temperamental.
Clémence remembered that she had left her painting of Miffy on the balcony.
“Oh no.” She raced back home. The painting might’ve been ruined.
She entered her building and impatiently waited for the small elevator to come down. When the doors of the elevator opened, Arthur came out with Youki.
“Bonsoir,” he said.
“Oh, hello,” said Clémence. “You’re walking Youki in this weather?”
“Actually I have to run some errands,” he said. “And Youki’s not afraid of a bit of water.”
“Well, see you then.”
Arthur frowned, scrutinizing her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You seem a little haggard and run down.”
Clémence frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Tired,” said Arthur. “Your complexion is muddy and your eyes are blood-shot.”
“What are you saying?” Clémence said angrily.
“That you probably need some rest,” said Arthur. “Why are you getting mad?”
“Are you absolutely clueless? You don’t tell a girl that she looks horrible.”
“I didn’t say horrible, I said run-down.”
“And haggard. It’s been a long day, okay? I’m not just sitting around all day picking lint out of my belly button.”
Arthur smiled, amused by how easily she got riled up.
“What’s going on anyway?” said Arthur. “I noticed Damour was closed this morning.”
Clémence sighed. She was tired and she didn’t feel like talking about the situation with Arthur. Besides, what good could come out of it anyhow? It wasn’t as if he would be able to help.
“Nothing,” she said. “Just some technical problems. We’re back and running now. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go home.”
“Okay, bonne soirée. See you around.”
Clémence pressed the fifth floor button, hoping the door would close sooner. She didn’t want to talk to anyone else, especially Arthur. How clueless he was to tell her that she looked haggard. The boy could be so incredibly insensitive that it was laughable. Every time she started warming up to him, he would say something off-putting.
Clémence wasn’t entirely innocent either. She didn’t know why she made that comment about belly button lint. She supposed she was just grasping at straws to insult Arthur right back. When was he going to move out of the building already? She had run into him two days in a row now.
When she went home and ran out to the balcony to retrieve her painting, it had already been pelted by the rain.
“Oh no.” Clémence shook her head. Miffy was at her feet, barking at the canvas in her hand.
Some of the paint had smudged a bit.
“I’m sorry, Miffy. Looks like I’ll have to take some time to fix this.”
She took a couple of dishrags from the kitchen cabinet and placed the canvas on top of them on the counter.
Under the bright lights of the kitchen, she looked at the painting more closely. The more she looked at it, the more she liked it. The rain had ruined some of her detailing and given it a gauzy effect—really runny in some areas, but still clear in others. She liked this particular style. It gave her a distinctive feeling that this was what life was like in Paris: crystal clear and beautiful, yet dreamy and gauzy, and even messy.
Although she wouldn’t try to pelt her oil paints with any more rain water, she would play with this type of experimental texture in her future work, but on purpose this time. It wouldn’t be a bad idea. Not everything had to be perfect and anatomically correct all the time, the way she had been taught all those years in art school.