by Sandi Scott
“His name is Oscar Metais. He works for M. Babin as his morning assistant. He’s here in the mornings to sell crêpes. I think he sets up the cart in the morning, but I’m not sure.”
“I see,” M. Marais said. “You met him? Where?”
“He was in the little alleyway next to M. Babin’s garage, smoking cigarettes.” She related the conversation, leaving out the parts where she had assured him that Patty had been trying to buy the cart.
“I think he got the impression that she was trying to steal his job after he saw the fight earlier that afternoon,” Ashley said.
“Did you see him there, that afternoon, during the fight?”
“No, I didn’t. I’m only thinking out loud.”
“Ah,” M. Marais said shortly, as if he were not impressed and wanted her to leave the heavy thinking to the professionals, “so then you finally went home?”
Ashley sighed, she was going to have to tell the whole story after all. “I intended to go straight home,” she admitted ruefully, “but when I walked back past the restaurant I noticed the Gergovie & Co truck outside and thought it was an odd time for making deliveries.”
Chef Lemaire listened impassively as she told M. Marais, all about seeing the truck on a side street and getting curious, then about going to the restaurant front and back entrances, and even about her discussion with Chef Lemaire and the other owners. Chef Lemaire winced a few times though Ashley tried to present the situation in the best possible light – unfortunately, it did sound bad.
“Then you went home,” M. Marais said again.
“I rushed home to eat the risotto before it got cold,” Ashley confirmed. “And here’s the dish.” She had remembered to bring the cleaned dish and cover along in her string bag.
M. Marais said, “You are certain that earlier that day M. Babin was making crêpes on both griddles?”
Ashley gaped at him. “I believe so. I mean, I definitely would have noticed if he hadn’t been. He was busy, but the line moved quickly while Patty waited to talk to him. So, he must have been using both griddles.”
M. Marais shook his head. “No one really sees what is going on around them.”
“Was one of them missing?” Ashley asked.
“That is not your concern,” M. Marais said. Next, he turned to Chef Lemaire. “As far as I can see, there’s no reason not to open the restaurant today. You may do so if Mademoiselle LaFontaine’s absence will not be missed too badly.”
“Thank you,” Chef Lemaire said sourly. “When will I have my sous chef back with me?”
M. Marais shrugged as if he were being asked to guess about the weather. “As for you, Monsieur Lemaire, we would also like to know your whereabouts during the previous evening. I would like to speak to you now.”
“If you like,” Chef Lemaire said with a stiff neck. “I was with a half-dozen other restaurateurs here, in the restaurant, last night.”
“I thought it was closed for a family matter.”
“It was closed so that we could discuss the matter of any other bicycle carts that might come to the area,” Chef Lemaire said. “And we café owners, we are like family.”
M. Marais shrugged. “So, you say, but I have more questions for you.”
“Let’s go inside where we can have a coffee and a seat,” Chef Lemaire suggested, and M. Marais accepted. Before he followed the chef inside, he gave Ashley a questioning look.
“I almost recognize you, I think. And it bears saying that although you are an American, we request that you do not leave Paris for the time being. We will have more questions for you, at the very least.”
“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” Ashley said. “I’m already supposed to stay here so I can help track down my ex-boyfriend for computer hacking. Why would I go anywhere now?”
“Ah, you are that Mademoiselle Adams,” M. Marais said. “I’ve heard your story.” He shook his head, tsking to himself, and went inside the restaurant.
Ashley sighed again and raised an eyebrow at Malik, who had arrived during the discussion. He spread his hands then jerked his head toward the back door after stamping out his cigarette. Time to open the restaurant.
SOON THEY WERE BUSY, very busy, both because they hadn’t been able to do all their prep work and because Patty wasn’t there to handle the crêpe making. After M. Marais was done questioning him, Chef Lemaire made a few phone calls, and a few extra hands showed up to help but it wasn’t the same. They were constantly behind.
Chef Lemaire even cut the palm of his hand and had to wrap a large bandage around it to hold the pads in place. On top of that, Jan Hamelin showed up in the middle of the afternoon to restock their wine, beer, and liquor supply. This was good because they were almost out of champagne for the crêpes champagne, but also bad because he took up valuable floor space as he rolled his large cases through the back door of the restaurant.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ashley spotted Chef Lemaire having a quiet word with Jan. At first, she thought the chef was just catching Jan up with the latest events – gossip being the great French pastime it was, but then, Jan reacted angrily. “Non, non”, he repeated over and over, shaking his head, setting his shaggy blond haircut flying.
Ashley took a handkerchief to wipe her head, turned to Malik, and said, “I feel ill, one moment.” He nodded and flipped a pair of steaks with his fork. She sidled around the cases of liquor to the back of the restaurant where the bathroom was, which meant that necessarily she had to edge around the chef and the supplier. They scooted to the side of the narrow back hallway to give her room but didn’t stop arguing in their low, hissed French.
“Then, what were you doing at that hour? You were spying on the meeting. You were sent here by Babin!”
“From what I hear,” Jan snarled, “Babin was dead by then! I would hardly be spying for a dead man!”
Ouch! Ashley went into the bathroom, closed the door behind her, and then pressed her ear against the wood. She caught a few more words, but nothing clearly. By the time she washed her hands and came out again, the two of them were gone.
It hadn’t even crossed her mind that Jan Hamelin might be on M. Babin’s side of the matter rather than Chef Lemaire’s. Jan supplied the entire neighborhood with alcoholic beverages, so Ashley had just assumed he would feel the same way as the café owners did. But then again, he surely supplied several other neighborhoods and probably had more complex loyalties than just to cafés on Rue Daguerre. She resolved to start keeping an eye out for his truck whenever she was out walking with Belle.
CHAPTER 9
The day seemed to stretch on forever, but finally Ashley’s long double shift was over. She had slipped out twice in order to check on Belle and take her out for a short walk, and she had eaten both lunch and dinner leaning up against the back wall of the kitchen. It had been an exhausting day to say the least. She had spent more time tripping over the extra helpers and explaining to them exactly how Chef Lemaire and Patty liked things done, than actually cooking. Her feet ached.
To his credit, Chef Lemaire had patted her on the shoulder and sent her home after the first part of the evening rush, this being Paris, that meant that it was just after nine p.m. He begged her not to say anything about having to work so long, even though she was only here on a visa, the French authorities were very strict about that sort of thing.
He also promised her a big bonus and sent her home with instructions not to show up until noon the next day. Arrangements had been made to have a couple of other people show up in the morning. Tomorrow would go more smoothly, of that he was sure.
Ashley got home, rescued Belle, and played with her for almost an hour before realizing she wasn’t going to be able to sleep. She had reached that horrible stage where she could hardly keep her eyes open and, yet, couldn’t stand to sit still for five minutes.
Fortunately, Belle was always up for another walk. Ashley decided that she didn’t care what the stylish French women thought of her just then, so she put on a hat an
d a jacket to cover up the fact that she was still wearing her clothes from work and went out.
She and Belle wandered up and down the street, waving at the people they knew, moving in kind of a daze. The owner of the market on the corner gestured at her to come over. Rubbing her eyes, Ashley went into the store after tying Belle up on the street. Belle happily wagged her tail and tried to mooch head-pats from passers-by.
With a proud look on his face, the market owner said, “I think that we may have found the owner of your dog!” Ashley felt like something had just kicked her in the stomach. She sank down onto a stool that he kept on the other side of his counter.
“Oh, that’s good,” she said, but instead of being happy, she felt devastated. There were two things that were keeping her Paris trip from becoming a complete flop. One of them was working at L’Oiseau Bleu with Patty and the other was Belle. With Patty in jail, she didn’t know if she could deal with losing Belle. But she had always known, hadn’t she, that she couldn’t keep Belle forever? For one thing, how would she get Belle back to the States when she finally went home?
“I see that you are not so excited,” the owner said. “I haven’t told him that we may have found his dog, would you like me to say nothing?”
Regardless of the terrible dilemma, Ashley shook her head. “No, you have to tell him. He must be frantic, looking for his pet.”
The market owner nodded. “He seemed very concerned. The dog, you see, belongs to his three children, who have been walking the streets at night, searching for her. They have been looking everywhere.”
Ashley’s shoulders sank. “Then, of course, you must tell him.”
“Well,” the owner winked at her. “Him, I don’t know, but you have been very good to the poor dog. So, I thought I would ask you first.”
“Oh, I couldn’t take a dog away from children. That would be terrible. I have to go back to America sooner or later anyway, and ...” talking like this wasn’t making her feel any better at all. She stopped trying to cover up how bad she felt, and just said, “When?”
“Tomorrow if you like?”
“Definitely not tonight,” she said.
“I will call him in the morning. Also, look what I have found!” The market owner proudly presented her with a small jar of smooth, all-natural peanut butter. “For you!”
Ashley smiled at him, but it had been too difficult a day to feel truly ecstatic. Pulling out her money, she promised to buy at least three more jars if he could get them and added a couple of cans of dog food to her order. He gave her a pitying look that she tried to ignore.
“Oh, well,” she said. “I’m not supposed to go in to work until noon. I think I’m going to find out where the police have taken Patty and try to visit her if I can.”
“Oh? You did not know?”
“Know what?” Her skin raised up in goosebumps all over. What terrible thing had happened now?
“She has already been released although she is not to leave the area.”
“She isn’t a suspect?”
“I did not say that, but she does have an alibi for the time that M. Babin would have been killed. She says that she was at a club with a young man, dancing, they have witnesses at the club for most of the time. Unfortunately, the young man, eh, he is not yet found or questioned, so she is not yet ‘off the hook’ as you say in America”
Ashley continued her walk, covering the neighborhood with feet that felt like they were constantly dragging but they couldn’t seem to stand still either.
Night covered the city, and the strange species of people that Ashley had last met when she was out on the town with Marie and Patty came awake. The night life had begun. The street-side markets had retreated back into their storefronts and the tables and chairs had spread out from their cafés, to provide more room for evening diners. Unlike the more popular parts of Paris, there weren’t a lot of clubs along the Rue Daguerre, but it seemed as if everyone threw open their upstairs windows and played music to compensate.
A few street performers had even come out making the most of the fine weather. Ashley threw some Euros in the violin case of a good violinist who nodded and smiled at her as he played.
My last night with Belle, she kept thinking. Belle put on her best poor-puppy act and collected all kinds of treats, both from Ashley and everyone else along the street. Not surprisingly, everyone along the street seemed to know her and Belle’s situation. She walked back along the alleyway where she had seen Chef Lemaire and the other restaurant owners the previous night. They were nowhere to be seen now.
There were a few homeless people noticeable now. Some sat in doorways and Ashley knew that many of them were in tents by the Seine and other places near the canals. The majority of them were refugees with nowhere else to go. They watched her with wary eyes, ready for her to do something crazy, to attack. She felt awkward, as if she and Belle were walking through someone’s back yard.
Ashley gave out the rest of her Euros and stopped to let a few people pet Belle when they waved to her. She thought about M. Babin’s neighborhood, wondering to herself whether it was possible that one of the homeless people in the area there had seen anything. Maybe, she decided, as she finally came to her door and climbed the steps, no more hopeful of sleep than when she had left, but would they tell the police if they had?
THE NEXT MORNING, ASHLEY went to the restaurant to get some baking done—not because she felt like the temporary baker couldn’t get the job done, but because she had barely slept all night, and she wanted some baking therapy to settle her mind.
She still had that feeling of being watched every moment that she was at the apartment. She had checked all the doors and windows and gone out on the balcony numerous times, looking for watchers or something out-of-the-ordinary. After running all kinds of diagnostics on her laptop and finding nothing, she finally just powered it down for the night. Normally, if she’d been in such a terrible mood, she would have stayed up and baked cookies, but her stupid Paris apartment didn’t have an oven.
The next morning, Ashley felt like a dog begging for scraps as she took over baking duties from Malik. Feeling driven, she quickly prepped all the desserts that the restaurant needed then started pans and pans of additional treats – real American ones – because she wanted the comfort of making cookies and bars for a while. A few dozen trays later, she felt better. But now the question was, what would she do with all of them? They didn’t sell brownies or chocolate chip cookies at the restaurant, and most Europeans looked on peanuts, especially peanut butter, as some kind of freak American accident to be fed to the pigs and not eaten, and definitely not eaten as with coffee! Sacré bleu!
Astonishingly, Malik liked them, and so did the extra people working with them. Malik said, “Why don’t you take them around to a few of the other restaurants? Anyone who works at a restaurant is far more willing to try new things than one of the customers. They might call it an abomination against la cuisine, but they’ll still eat it. You can say it’s a thank you from Chef Lemaire.”
“It’s a good idea, but I’d probably better check with him first,” she said.
“Check with who first, about what?” the Chef’s voice said from behind her. “Why are you here this morning? Did something else happen? And what is this I smell? Some sort of doggie treat?”
Ashley laughed and explained about having freaked out the previous evening after finding out about Belle, so she needed to do lots of baking. The American treats laid out to cool were the result.
Chef Lemaire held out his hand toward the peanut butter cookies. “I understand about the need to bake when the world comes crashing down upon oneself, but you cannot give out those cookies as a token of appreciation under my name! Someone will think I am making them on a regular basis!” About ten minutes of cajoling was needed to convince Chef Lemaire to try one, Malik even joined in on the negotiations, but finally, Chef Lemaire gave in.
“All right,” he said. “They are not terrible. But you still m
ay not give these to anyone else as a gift from me. I would be laughed out of the neighborhood!”
Ashley laughed. The chocolate chip cookies and the brownies she had made, they were all right to distribute around town, and, in fact, since Ashley had saved him so much time this morning, she was excused from having to come in at noon as she had been there since six a.m. already.
“Go home,” he said. “Go shopping! Go to the Louvre! Find something to do that isn’t overturning the principles of la cuisine for five minutes!”
“But I’ve already been to the Louvre.” Ashley laughed at him.
Shaking his fist in mock-despair, Chef Lemaire chased Ashley out of the restaurant, her string bag packed full of a large box of peanut-butter cookies for her to distribute along with some brownies and some chocolate-chip cookies. As she left, she crossed her fingers then called Patty’s number.
“Allô?”
“Patty, it’s me. Ashley.”
“Whadaya want?” Patty sounded just a little hung over, Ashley thought, concerned for her friend.
“I made cookies—real American ones, peanut butter, chocolate chip, and some brownies.”
“How soon c’n you be over?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“’S ... do that.”
CHAPTER 10
Patty’s apartment was a few blocks down the street and then a few blocks to the south of Rue Daguerre in a grand old building with black wrought-iron rails and marble siding. She lived over a gated pass-through alleyway leading to the courtyard at the center of the block in an apartment that was far better decorated than Ashley’s temporary home with bookshelves tucked over a small desk, a white tablecloth on the little table in front of the ever-present French balcony, a sink that wasn’t built over the toilet, and a bedroom separate from the sitting room. The art on the walls was actual art, not just framed prints. Patty even had a couch.
The room echoed slightly from the odd acoustics below the apartment, but it was still as cozy as a fuzzy blanket and a hot cup of cocoa on a cold night.