Opera Cake Murder (A Patisserie Mystery with Recipes Book 8)

by Harper Lin

  “I don’t know. She seemed…not the friendliest girl, but a hard worker.”

  “Why would you say that she wasn’t friendly?” Sebastien probed.

  “I was backstage a few times, and I could tell some of the models didn’t like the way she was talking to them. Just a bit bossy and rude. I suppose Natalie didn’t have the best people skills. She’s quite young. Then she got yelled at by Marcus, and she was so embarrassed that she fled. At that point, I went out to watch the show.”

  “Who in particular seemed pleased about Natalie’s embarrassment?” Clémence asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Veronique thought about it. “A few of the models. I can’t speculate. I’m sure they were all quite content about that, especially after the way Natalie was talking to them.”

  “So Natalie’s not popular with the models,” Clémence mused. “They probably had to work with Natalie quite a bit, huh?”

  “Yes.” Veronique nodded. “I guess it is possible that a model would kill her. Some of them are so skinny. Models have a reputation of having health and drug problems. Who knows what kind of drugs they’re on that would enable them to do such a thing.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “What do you think?” Clémence asked Sebastien when they were outside.

  “I dated a model once,” Sebastien stated.

  “It sounds like everyone has,” Clémence muttered.

  “We broke up because she travelled a lot, always flying off to Japan to work. She didn’t do drugs, but she knew plenty of other models who did. Maybe there’s some truth to that.”

  “So the arrested model, Karmen, maybe she was crazy or was on drugs or hungry or angry, or a big, messy combination of all of those things.”

  “I met some of my ex’s model friends, too. Wouldn’t put it past one of them to do something crazy. They’re pretty competitive and catty. I once heard them talking about my ex behind her back.”

  “But even if Natalie is mean, would she be so annoying as to drive one of them to kill her?” Clémence asked. “I don’t think someone like Karmen would unless there was a deeper issue at hand.”

  Sebastien yawned again.

  Clémence smiled. “Solving crime is not as interesting as you thought, huh?”

  “No, no, I’m just really sleepy. I should go home.”

  “Come on, let’s split a cab. Maybe we should just forget about this. I mean, like I said, the police have this one. They arrested someone out of only three suspects. They can’t get it wrong this time, can they?”

  “Let’s hope not,” Sebastien said, flagging down a taxi. “I’m still really upset about the cake, by the way.”

  “I know you are.”

  “Are you going home, too?” He opened the door for her, and she got in.

  “No. Even though I have to go empty-handed, I’m going to go pay Marcus a visit.”

  * * *

  Marcus Savin’s atelier was in the 2nd arrondissement. The entrance was off a little alley near Rue Saint-Honoré. From ground level, Clémence could see the mannequins and the seamstresses working through the sheer curtains.

  She buzzed, and someone let her in.

  Clémence took the narrow elevator up to the top floor, which was occupied entirely by Marcus Savin’s studio.

  The door was half open when she got out of the elevator, so she let herself in.

  “Hello? Marcus?”

  Usually there were at least a dozen people milling around, but aside from the two seamstresses working on couture dresses near the window, Marcus was alone. He stepped out from the kitchen area with a glass of whiskey on the rocks.

  He greeted her with kisses on the cheeks. “Whiskey?”

  His breath certainly smelled like it. He also hadn’t shaved that morning, and there was not a drop of gel in his hair.

  “No thanks,” Clémence said. “So how are you after last night?”

  “Dreadful.” He was more melodramatic than usual. “Ugh. Being interrogated by the police is not something I wish upon anyone.”

  He waved her into the little kitchen, where they had a bit more privacy. On the way, she passed by the pencil sketches of new dresses on his work table, which was a mess. Everything in the studio was always very neat except for his table.

  “I wasn’t going to go in to work today,” Marcus said, “but my boyfriend’s out of town, and what else am I supposed to do to stay sane? I made everyone stay home—I didn’t want to talk about the incident or have employees whispering, but the seamstresses had to come in to get some dresses done for a movie.”

  “Marcus, I’m sorry. Were you and Natalie close outside of work?”

  “We didn’t exactly go out for drinks after work, but even though she messed up a lot, she was a hard worker. I feel so guilty for yelling at her. That was the last thing I said to her before she died.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up. They’ve arrested the culprit.”

  Marcus blinked. “They did?”

  “Yes. I saw it on the news hours ago. Karmen Meri, one of your models.”

  “What? What do you mean? They think she’s the murderer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are they utterly insane?”

  “So you don’t think she could’ve done it?”

  “No way. I’ve worked with Karmen a couple times. She’s new, very green, and the sweetest girl. When she found out she was going to be in my show, she came by with cookies during one of her fittings. Home-baked cookies. A murderer wouldn’t bake cookies, would she?”

  “I don’t know,” Clémence said. “I suppose not, but you never know. What was her relationship with Natalie like?”

  “Civil, as far as I could tell.”

  “I do hear that some of the models didn’t like Natalie.”

  “Nobody really liked her, but they listened to her. There are plenty of people in the industry who are tough, but they don’t get murdered backstage.”

  “Hmm, right. Especially by models who are happy to be working. But what do you know about Karmen’s background?”

  “I know she moved to Paris just to model. She just graduated from high school—I always check because I like to hire models who are of legal age. She lives in an apartment with other models, but last I heard, she was going to move into her own apartment, since she was starting to get more high-profile jobs.”

  “Does she like to party at all?”

  Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know much about her personal life, but I doubt it. Especially recently, during Fashion Week, models work nonstop. They don’t have time to party. Karmen doesn’t seem like the party-girl type. She’s too sweet. Like I said, she’s very new. I wonder what the police could possibly have against her.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out soon. So you think you’re going to be okay?”

  Marcus held up his glass of whiskey. “Sure. It was just a huge shock. The show went so well, and then that happened. If Karmen did it, then I must be really bad at reading people. I just don’t think she could do something like this. There’s no reason for her to kill Natalie.”

  “Unless it was an accident,” Clémence said.

  “Driving a knife into someone’s back takes force. It doesn’t seem like an accident.”

  “True. I’ve heard that models often take drugs. That could drive one of them to do something crazy.”

  Marcus gasped. “Never my models. I hire ethically. If I ever get the sense that a model has some kind of problem—whether it’s bulimia or drugs—we don’t work with them. Once I even forced a model to go to rehab, and I paid for it. Having been in this industry for fifteen years now, I can spot these things a mile away.”

  “I believe you. I don’t think that Karmen did it either.”

  “Then who did?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  C lémence walked Miffy in Champ de Mars early in the morning. It was grey and overcast, but the weather forecast predicted that things mi
ght turn around later in the day. The clouds, however, were threatening rain.

  Miffy didn’t seem to notice or care about the weather. She barked happily and took off at a run. Clémence had her on a leash and ran after her in her ballet flats.

  Despite the dreary weather, she was glad to be getting a bit of fresh air and to surround herself with greenery, even if it was in the middle of a big, bustling city like Paris. She hoped the rain would stay up there in the clouds while she enjoyed the open air before she had to go in for work.

  Soon, however, it did rain, and she and Miffy tried to run home before the downpour got to them. Unfortunately, by the time they went home, Clémence got soaked enough that she had to change her clothes and shoes.

  After throwing on a white cashmere sweater, socks, and water-resistant black ankle boots, she grabbed a few things to put in her purse. As she passed the hallway on her way out of her bedroom, she surveyed her paintings lining the tables and the floor to dry. They sat on newspapers, and they were nearly dry. She needed to paint a couple more during the weekend to complete her dessert series.

  When all the paintings were completed, she planned on hanging them in the salon de thé. Her friend and neighbor, Ben, who lived in a room on the top floor of the building, had suggested that she hold an art show at Damour to show them off. She could even sell them.

  Clémence had always wanted to be an artist, having graduated from art school, but it was not something she’d seriously considered again until recently. She didn’t think she was original or talented enough. Her subject matter was, for the time being, desserts. She wasn’t exactly making grand statements with her art or doing anything provocative.

  But it did take courage to do what she’d always finally wanted to do and to open herself to the public. While she hoped that people would like what she did, she would also have to deal with criticism—as she had to face sometimes in her role with the public as a patisserie heiress and sometimes socialite.

  Sometimes she’d read a frivolous gossip piece on a website, then scroll through the comments. Most of them would be negative, calling her talentless or questioning why the media was even paying attention to her.

  Why were they paying attention to her? She didn’t really get it, either. All she knew was that she had to separate herself from the person people seemed to think she was and be the person her friends and family knew and loved.

  Having had the experience of being in the spotlight, she’d developed thicker skin. It gave her the confidence to show off her art. She’d always been sensitive to critiques. Deep down, she was simply a fragile artist. There would be those who would call her talentless, resenting her for her family name and wealth, but she would deal with them as they came.

  She was excited. This weekend, she was going to send out the invitations, as soon as she signed them all by hand.

  “See you at lunch, mon chou,” Clémence said to Miffy before she went out.

  At Damour, she greeted the hostess of the salon de thé with kisses on the cheeks. Celine was one of her best friends. She’d been working at Damour for years, and Clémence had gotten to know her quite well. Celine was one of the most fun and friendly girls she knew. Her only downfall was her terrible choices in men, which included a guy she had dated recently who turned out to be a murderer. Nevertheless, Celine had been changing her dating strategy in recent days. After going on a dating detox for a month, she had gone back out on the scene to start dating again.

  “How was drinks with the engineer?” Clémence asked.

  “He was nice.” Celine shrugged. “He’s not terribly talkative, though, so I had to do most of the talking.”

  “Oh. Maybe he was just nervous.”

  “Maybe. I found the silences really awkward. I had to keep talking to keep the conversation going. Otherwise, we’d both be staring down at our glasses.”

  “So will you see him again?”

  Celine made a face. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “At least you’re dating nice guys. Not bad boys who would break your heart at a moment’s notice.”

  “I don’t like the word ‘nice,’” Celine said. “Why can’t I just find someone who’s a gentleman, but who’s also interesting? Am I asking too much?”

  “No. Not at all. If anything, you need to have higher standards. There will be fewer people to choose from, but you’ll waste less time and energy on the wrong people.”

  “Well, I’ll keep you posted.” Celine shrugged. Her tone didn’t sound so hopeful.

  Clémence walked back to the store’s kitchen. She could understand Celine’s pessimism when it came to the dating scene. When she had been single, dating was awkward and horrible, not to mention she had still been hung up on her ex at the time. Come to think of it, she had also had terrible taste in men before she met Arthur. It was funny how someone who could seem so right for you could be so wrong and vice versa.

  She hoped Arthur was the one. They had been getting to know each other slowly, but now that they were living together, it was definitely more serious. Would they really get married one day? The thought was frightening and exciting. She loved Arthur, yet she was still approaching their relationship cautiously. Sometimes she wondered if Arthur would suddenly stop loving her and leave her. It was a secret fear that she would never tell him out loud.

  Trust was something that was hard for her to build, simply based on her past experiences and the love entanglements that were at the core of many of the murder cases she had helped solve.

  All that was behind her now. The police were on this murder case. She had her family chain to busy herself with, and her art. Murder would not be on her mind anymore.

  That was, until she made her way into the kitchen.

  Carolyn, the manager of Damour, spotted her going in and went into the kitchen to get her.

  “Morning, Clémence. There’s someone looking for you.”

  “Hi, Carolyn. Who is it?”

  “She’s sitting in the corner.”

  Clémence turned to follow Carolyn’s gaze.

  Lowering a magazine was Lucie Harman, the fashion blogger. She had been at the Savin fashion show and had been one of the three main suspects—because she had been wearing a pair of Styra shoes.

  CHAPTER NINE

  L ucie put down her Marie Claire France magazine. She stood up and introduced herself.

  “Clémence, I’ve heard so much about you,” she said. “I’m Lucie. I run a fashion website called Le Fashion.”

  “Right.” Clémence nodded and smiled politely. “I’ve heard of your site.”

  “I saw you at the Savin show, but I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself then, since it turned into such chaos near the end.”

  Lucie had wavy ginger hair down to her rib cage and green-grey eyes. Her black, winged liner made her eyes look more catlike. She wore a sheer white dress and patent black boots that went up to her knees. Clémence quite liked her style, and she did peruse her blog from time to time, because Lucie had her finger on the pulse of the latest trends, and she went to most of the fashion weeks.

  There were fashion bloggers who were more popular, but Lucie was quickly starting to do well, and she was making her mark as an international fashion blogger from France. Her posts were in both English and French.

  “Oui—” Clémence wondered what she was doing here, what she wanted, exactly, but she struggled to find the words to ask in a polite way.

  Lucie gestured at the free seat across from her. “Can I please speak to you for a few minutes?”

  “Sure.” Clémence slid into the seat. She looked at her guest curiously.

  “You’re probably wondering what this is all about,” Lucie said. “Me, ambushing you here at your work.”

  “Is it about Natalie’s murder?” Clémence asked.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Lucie said. “I know the police have arrested someone, but I don’t think it’s the right person.”

  “Karmen? What do you know about
this?”

  “Karmen is innocent. It’s as plain as day, but the police don’t think to get that. As you might have heard, I was one of the suspects taken in for questioning because I wore Styra shoes. They have a footprint of someone’s Styra in the blood on the floor.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Clémence said.

  “Luckily, the other model, Julia, and I had alibis. During the whole time that somebody killed Natalia, Julia was speaking to the people backstage, so there were plenty of witnesses to testify her innocence, and I was with my boyfriend outside, and the cameras filmed us. We didn’t have backstage passes.”

  “I see. You’re lucky.”

  “Yes. But Karmen is not. The police found drugs in her purse. Ecstasy. They also looked into her past, and she has relations in the Estonian mob. I don’t know if it’s a family member or an ex-boyfriend.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” Clémence said.

  “Tell me about it. Karmen lives with models who have drug habits. The Ecstasy could easily be one of theirs.”

  “How do you know?” Clémence asked.

  “I’m a fashion blogger,” Lucie said, as if that was obvious. “I talk to everyone and find out things.”

  “Are you sure the drugs are not Karmen’s?”

  “I doubt it. Karmen is so sweet. I’m sorry to see her reputation ruined. She’s young and impressionable. I don’t think they considered another suspect.”

  Lucie paused for dramatic effect. Clémence took the bait.

  “Who?”

  “Gabrielle.”

  Clémence frowned. She had suspected that Gabrielle had something to do with the murder, and she felt validated that someone else would think the same.

  “Why would you say that?”

  “She left the fashion show before the police got there. I was outside, hanging out with my boyfriend, and we saw her. I took a picture of her for my blog. At the time, I didn’t know what the commotion was, and I just wanted to take a picture of her, but she noticed I took a picture and scowled at me. When I realized what had happened to Natalie, I wondered whether she was mad because I had evidence.”