by Mary McHugh
“I guess the killer didn’t read our contract,” Tina said. “No more murders.”
“It’s not that funny,” I said, feeling a little queasy all of a sudden.
Ken, the keyboard guy, put his arm around me. “Are you okay, kid?” he said.
“Not really,” I said, grateful for his support. “Why would anyone kill Monsieur Fouchet?”
“I guess our cute little police captain will have to find that out.”
“Watch it with that ‘cute little captain’ stuff,” Gini said, her voice betraying her annoyance. “You have to be twice as good as a man to get a job like that. Don’t underestimate her.”
Ken looked abashed. “Sorry,” he said. “I just meant . . .”
“I know what you meant,” Gini said, softening a little. “It’s a common mistake people make about attractive women—thinking they must not be very smart. I just get tired of hearing it all the time, that’s all.”
“She’s coming back down the stairs,” Tina said. “I wonder how long she’ll keep all these passengers here on the boat. They are definitely not happy. You can hear them grumbling.”
The captain was a middle-sized woman—about five feet, five inches tall, but she seemed much taller. She held herself straight, and her walk was determined. She was followed by Alan Anderson and Madeleine Fouchet. Madeleine was holding on to Alan’s arm tightly, barely able to make it down the staircase. He helped her to a chair and handed her a glass of brandy. She looked as if she would pass out any minute.
The captain turned to face the seated passengers, whose hostility was patent. There was immediate silence.
“I am sorry to detain you,” she said, “But, as you know, there has been a crime committed on this bateau. It is necessary to take your names and where you can be reached before you can leave the ship. We will do that as quickly as possible.”
There were murmurs in the crowd as these people who thought they had paid to eat a great meal, listen to excellent entertainment, and see the fireworks on the most festive of all holidays in Paris found themselves held at midnight on a tour that now seemed a big mistake.
“Excuse me,” a large man with a comb-over and a Midwestern accent said. “My wife and I are leaving Paris tomorrow morning. We have to get back to our hotel. How long are you going to keep us here?” He did not sound happy.
There were sounds of agreement at tables all over the bateau.
“Monsieur, I will release you as soon as I can,” the police captain said. “I’m sure you understand that these are extremely unusual circumstances. I ask for your patience.”
The man didn’t look very patient, but he stopped growling.
“First of all,” Captain Chantal said, “did anyone hear anything suspicious or notice anything that didn’t seem quite right while you were eating your dinner?”
None of the passengers spoke up, but one of the waiters cleared his throat and said with a strong French accent, “While we were setting up the tables, I went up there—on deck—to ask Monsieur Fouchet if he needed any help. I thought maybe with the chairs. He was talking to some man. I tried to ask him if he needed me, but he waved me away, so I didn’t interrupt him and came back downstairs. I kept on setting up the tables when a little while later I heard some kind of loud noise from the deck. It sounded like a champagne cork. I thought he and that man were drinking champagne because it’s a holiday. If I had only gone back up there—” His face crumpled. “I should have gone back there.”
“N’inquietez-vous,” Captain Chantal said, putting her arm around the man’s shoulder, soothing him. “Do you remember what the man looked like?” she asked gently.
“Like he was from India or one of those places over there,” the waiter said.
“His face was dark-skinned?” she asked.
“Yes,” the waiter said. “And he had an Indian accent.”
“Please be on the boat tomorrow,” Captain Chantal said. “I would like to ask you some more questions.” She patted his arm and smiled at him. “And you did nothing wrong.”
She waited to see if anyone else would volunteer some information, but the passengers fidgeted in their seats, anxious to leave the bateau. No one spoke up.
The captain sent her officers to each table to get names and addresses. With her iPad in hand, she turned back to our gang, the musicians, Suzette, and Madame Fouchet. She looked intently at each one of us and then spoke to Madame, who was still in a state of shock.
“You are Madame Fouchet, the wife of the murdered man?” Captain Chantal asked. Her voice was hard. I thought she might have been a little kinder, considering the circumstances. This woman had just seen her husband’s lifeless body.
Madame Fouchet winced at the coldness of the question.
“Yes,” she said, “I am.”
“When was the last time you saw your husband?”
“About six o’clock, he went up on deck to supervise the placing of the chairs for the passengers to watch the fireworks later on.”
“Did he come back down at any time?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you wonder what was taking him so long to—as you say—supervise the placing of the chairs?” Her voice had a sarcastic edge to it. Take it easy, lady, I thought.
“I went up on deck once to ask if I could help, and he said he wanted to do it by himself. He is—was—a very independent man. He didn’t like anyone telling him what to do.” Madame Fouchet took out her handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.
“What time was that?”
“About six-thirty, I think,”
“Was anybody with him at that time?”
“No, he was alone.”
“And during the entertainment, the serving of the meal, during the rest of the trip, you didn’t wonder why he hadn’t come back downstairs?” Again the captain’s tone was one of disbelief. I didn’t like her. I didn’t see why she was being so harsh with this woman whose husband had just been murdered.
“I assumed he had come back down,” Madame said, straightening up, not one to be bullied by anyone, “but I was busy making sure the meals were served properly and checking to see if the musicians or dancers needed anything. That’s my responsibility.”
I shot Tina a questioning glance. She shrugged. Neither one of us could remember her checking anything with us.
Captain Chantal saw Tina’s shrug. She didn’t miss a thing, this one. She walked over to our group.
“Your name?” she asked Tina.
“Tina Powell.”
“You are the American dancers?” she asked.
“Yes, we are, captain,” Tina said. She pointed to each of us in turn and told her our names.
“Ah, yes,” the captain said. “You are known as the Happy Hoofers, I believe?” We nodded. She addressed Tina again. “You seem to have some question about Madame Fouchet’s statement that she checked with you to see if you needed anything.”
“Oh, well, I . . . ,” Tina stuttered. “She certainly may have asked us if we needed anything. We were a little nervous, and I don’t remember everything that happened. This was our first appearance on the boat.”
“I see,” the captain said. “How did you end up dancing on a Bateau Mouche?” she asked.
“Monsieur Fouchet heard about us and hired us.” Tina said. “Naturally we jumped at the chance. We love Paris and couldn’t wait to get back here.”
The captain managed a grudging smile at Tina.
“Will you please leave your name and a cell phone number so I can talk to all of you more tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Tina said, handing her our card. “We’re staying in an apartment on Boulevard du Montparnasse.”
The captain turned her attention to the band. She frowned when she looked at Yves, the drummer, who was struggling to stay awake.
“I hope we’re not boring you, monsieur,” she said to him.
“Oh, that’s all right,” Yves said, a silly grin on his face. “I’m not bored.”
; Captain Chantal turned away from him in disgust. It was obvious he wouldn’t have the energy to kill anyone.
The captain’s attention fastened on Jean, who couldn’t seem to meet her eyes.
“You are?”
“Je suis Jean Giraudoux,” he said.
“Do you speak English?” she asked.
“Oui, Capitain,” he said.
“Please do so,” she said, “for the benefit of those who do not speak French.”
“I will,” he said, mopping his face with a napkin.
“Do you know anyone who might want to kill Monsieur Fouchet?” she asked.
Jean wiped the perspiration from his face again and said in a low voice. “No, ma’am. Everybody loved Henri. He was a good man.”
The captain turned to Claude, whose arm was around Suzette. She was clutching her shih tzu, her face buried in Claude’s chest.
“Did Monsieur Fouchet have any enemies that you know of?” she asked Claude.
“No,” he said. “As Jean said, everyone loved Henri.”
She looked at Suzette. “Do you speak English, mademoiselle?”
“Yes,” Suzette said. “I’m better in French, but I’ll do my best.”
“If I’m not clear, let me know and I’ll translate,” Captain Chantal said.
“Merci, madame,” Suzette said.
“How well did you know Monsieur Fouchet?”
“He was my boss,” Suzette said, patting her dog.
“Did you see him—socially?”
Suzette glanced at Madame Fouchet, who looked away.
“Sometimes,” Suzette said.
“Was he more than just a friend?”
“Of course not,” Suzette said. “I am engaged to Claude.” She snuggled closer to the cellist.
The captain looked skeptical and turned to my friend, Ken.
“You are American?” she asked him.
Ken smiled. “Is it that obvious?”
“We are not playing games here, my friend,” she said. Ken was immediately serious.
“Sorry,” he said. “I meant no disrespect.”
The captain relented a little. “I heard you talking before. That’s how I knew. There’s no mistaking the American accent. Do you have any information that might help us?”
I remembered my conversation with Ken at the Place du Tertre when he told me about Jean having an affair with Madame Fouchet and Suzette fooling around with Monsieur Fouchet. I wondered if he would share this fascinating information with the captain. It did seem relevant.
“I’m afraid not,” he said, his face reddening slightly. “Henri was a good man. I don’t know why anyone would want to kill him. “
“So it seems,” Captain Chantal said, her expression making it plain she was not fooled by any of us. “I will talk to you again tomorrow. Please be available.”
With that, she rejoined her officers, who had obtained the names and addresses of the passengers and were escorting them off the bateau.
The police captain waited until all the guests had left and then said to us. “Till tomorrow, mesdames and messieurs. Please be back here at eleven o’clock.”
She left, and we all relaxed.
“She’s a pistol, that one,” Gini said. “And there goes our morning in Paris. I wanted to go over to Notre-Dame and walk around the Île de la Cité and then go to the Île Saint-Louis.”
“We’ll work it out, Gini,” Tina said. “Don’t worry. Let’s go home and get some sleep. It’s one o’clock, and I’m bushed.”
The car was waiting for us, and we piled in and crashed as soon as we got to the apartment.
Janice’s Fashion Tip: Work that silk scarf—it’s your best accessory.
Chapter 4
Morning in the Garden of Eden
The next morning I woke up before the others. Gini was in a deep sleep in the other bed. When I crept out of our room to take a shower, there wasn’t a whisper of sound from the other three Hoofers. I was slept out and wanted to explore early-morning Paris by myself. It was only seven o’clock, and we didn’t have to be back at the bateau until eleven. I had plenty of time to walk and dream.
The others were still fast asleep when I closed the heavy front door of the apartment behind me as quietly as I could and took the elevator down to the foyer of the building. It was already very warm outside. I was glad I had on my sleeveless flowery print dress and sandals. I didn’t bother with makeup, just some sunscreen, figuring I could do all that when I got back to the apartment
Where should I go? I pulled out my map of Paris. We were on the Boulevard du Montparnasse near the Rue Vavin. I traced the little street northward and saw that it led to the Jardin du Luxembourg. I remembered Gini’s beautiful photographs of the garden and decided to go there. It didn’t look too far to walk on this summer day, so I set out for the public park. I remembered it vaguely from my honeymoon; Derek and I had stumbled on it after walking all day exploring this incredible city. We collapsed onto a bench near the pond where children were playing with little boats with red and orange and blue and white sails. He put his arm around me, and I lay my head on his shoulder.
We watched the children for a while. I remember he said, “I never know what to say to kids.” I was too much in love with him to take that as a warning that he might have a problem with Sandy, my little girl. We’d married soon after we’d met, and he hadn’t seen her very often. She was either in school or asleep when we dated. It wasn’t until we got back home that it became obvious he didn’t want her around.
I didn’t find out until much later how much Sandy resented me for marrying him. She said to me one time, “I was so lonely when you were married to Derek, Mom. I felt like you didn’t want me anymore.” It took me two years to realize I had to divorce him. I should have done it much sooner.
On this day, I got to the Jardin just as they were opening the tall black gates into the park. When I strolled down the path that led to the pond in front of the Luxembourg Palace, which was the French Senate building now, my whole body relaxed. Somehow this public garden breathed out a tranquillity and peace that you could feel down to your toes.
The garden was beginning to wake up. A little booth selling croissants and coffee. A man walking ponies into the park for children to ride. The workers at the Theatre du Luxembourg setting up chairs in front of the tiny stage where Punch and Judy would beat each other’s heads in later on. I never got that. Why did children laugh at this terribly mismatched couple knocking each other over with bats? Why was that funny? I remembered Leslie Caron in one of my favorite movies, Lili, talking to the battling couple as if they were real people and begging them to be nice to each other.
On some of the chairs placed at different places in the garden, a lot of them facing the pool, there were old men, their feet up on other chairs, their heads down, dozing in the early-morning light.
Everywhere I walked there were flowers at the edge of the green lawns, around the statues, near the fountains. Pale pink tulips surrounded a small Statue of Liberty, a miniature version of our own lady who welcomes people to America. Daffodils spread their light around a beautifully sculpted Queen Anne of Austria. My guidebook told me she was married to Louis XIII at fourteen. She was a lovely queen. So lovely, in fact, the book said, that Dumas used her as a character in The Three Musketeers.
Red, orange, and yellow asters brightened the statue of a man with a mask pushed back on his forehead, his mouth open, his arms reaching out, his whole stance announcing his profession. He had to be an actor. I looked at the small identifying plaque, which told me that indeed he was a Greek actor.
An old man paused as he walked by, looked up at the statue, and said, “Affreux!” He was frowning. It was clear he did not like this statue. He shook his cane at the actor and kept going. I reached in my bag for my pocket French-English dictionary and found that he had called the sculpture “frightful.”
I suppose I would have agreed with him if it hadn’t been a statue of an actor. Instead,
I felt sympathy for this Greek actor, knowing how hard acting is. Still, I love it. I’m most alive when I’m up there on that stage, absorbed in the gestures, words, and emotions of another person. For a little while, I can escape from the real world and become someone else. Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Sally in Cabaret. Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. The wife in Death of a Salesman. The mother in The Glass Menagerie. Sometimes I wish I could just live on the stage all the time and skip actual life.
I sat down on a chair near the pond and watched people on their way to work. Women with serious faces, men smoking cigarettes, people heading for offices. I could never do what they do. I leaned back in my chair and felt the sun on my face. Later on it would be too hot to do that, so I was glad I had come out early.
The smell of coffee drifted over from a small food stand nearby. I wished someone would bring me a cup. I felt too relaxed and content to get up and get one for myself.
“You’re too beautiful to sit here all by yourself,” a man’s voice said. I opened my eyes to see Alan Anderson, the nightclub owner from New York, standing there. He even looked good in the bright morning light. He was wearing a blue sport shirt and jeans. His arms were muscled and tan. His gray eyes were clear and focused on me. I wished I had done something to my face before I went out for this walk.
I sat up. “What are you doing in the Luxembourg Gardens at this hour?” I asked, pushing my hair back behind my ears.
“I always get up early and walk in Paris when I’m here,” he said. “This park is about as different from Central Park as you can get.”
“What is it about this place?” I asked. “Central Park has statues and fountains and ponds too, but it doesn’t feel like this at all.”
“In New York you have to hustle or you’ll never make it there, as they say in the song,” Alan said, sitting down on the bench next to me. He even smelled good—like some expensive soap. “Here, they believe in slowing down, staying in the moment, enjoying what you have in front of you. Whether it’s a woman or a glass of wine. I always say I’m going to take this feeling home with me when I go back to America, but it’s no use. I rev up the minute I get off the plane.”