by Lin, Harper
“Oh gosh, sure. Actually, let’s call him right now.”
Clémence had the plumper’s number on the home phone’s directory. Luckily, the plumper was able to come in that morning, but was very vague about the time. She gave the Ben’s cell phone number as well as her own.
“Will you be at home all morning?” Clémence asked Ben when she hung up.
“Yes, I’ll be writing.”
“Great. Because I have to walk the dog, buy groceries, so I’ll be in and out all morning. He’ll call you when he’s around.”
“Thanks Clémence,” said Ben. “I’ll see you soon. Oh, there’s a poetry slam tomorrow night and I’ll be performing. Do you want to come? Bring some friends if you want.”
“That sounds like fun,” said Clémence. “Why not?”
“Great, I’ll text you the details.”
When Ben left, Clémence took Miffy out. She wanted to go all the way across the Seine to Champs de Mars, the park beneath the Eiffel Tower.
On her way out, she planned to tell la gardienne that a plumber was coming so that she wouldn’t give him any trouble. She had a reputation for treating any intruders with rudeness and suspicion.
Her door was slightly ajar and the TV was off so Clémence knocked. When her phone rang, Clémence reached into her purse, loosening her grasp on Miffy’s leash. Before she could get her phone, Miffy was off. She ran straight into la gardienne’s apartment, pushing the door wide open.
“Miffy, no!”
Clémence went in after her.
“I’m sorry, madame—”
Then Clémence saw her: la gardienne on the ground with a pool of blood pouring from underneath her head.
Clémence screamed.
Miffy was barking and running around.
“No, Miffy, let’s get out of here!”
Across the apartment was a doctor’s office. After Clémence banged on the door, the receptionist and some of the people in the waiting room came out.
“What’s wrong?” asked the receptionist.
“Call the police!” Clémence exclaimed. “La gardienne is dead!”
CHAPTER 5
“Miffy, no!”
Miffy kept wanting to go back inside to look at the dead body, and Clémence had to block the door.
“Please contain your dog, Mademoiselle.”
Cyril St. Clair, the Inspector, managed to grab Miffy by the leash. He handed the leash back to Clémence. He was a man in his late thirties with smile lines like parentheses on the sides of his mouth. Not that he smiled much. It was when he grimaced that the lines appeared. He had a strong, hawk-like nose and intense green eyes that turned cold when they met Clémence’s.
“Now, what is your name?” he asked.
“Clémence Damour.”
“Damour?” He squinted at her. “You mean, of the Damour bakery chain?”
“Yes.”
Cyril looked back down on his notepad and scribbled quickly.
“I see. Now tell me what happened.”
Clémence explained that she was just trying to tell la gardienne that a plumber was coming by later that morning, but she found her body on the floor after Miffy ran in.
“It’s rather a coincidence, then, that the victim had a box of macarons from your store, and she was in the middle of eating the macarons before she died?”
Clémence was taken aback by the blunt accusation.
“It is.” Clémence told him that she had given her the macarons as a gift the day before.
“So it’s also a coincidence that you happened to have found her dead this morning?”
“Yes,” Clémence said with impatience. “I didn’t find her exactly. As I told you, my dog ran in and I ran in after her.”
“You’ve messed up our investigation,” Cyril said indignantly. “You dog might have destroyed possible evidence.”
As if on cue, Miffy spat out a button. A big wooden button.
Cyril made a disgusted face and picked up the button with only a thumb and an index finger.
“Any idea where this is from?” He looked at Clémence’s outfit. She was wearing a black blazer and skinny jeans.
“It’s not from any of my clothes,” Clémence said.
Cyril sighed. “See, this is what I mean. It could’ve helped to have known whether the button was taken from la gardienne’s apartment. And we could’ve checked for fingerprints.”
Clémence couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Oh please, if it wasn’t for Miffy, you wouldn’t even have an investigation so soon. She was the one who went in.”
“Did anyone see her go in?” Cyril raised an eyebrow.
“No, but I swear, the door was open.”
“And where were you last night?”
“I was home, sleeping. I just came back from Australia actually and I was jet-lagged—”
“Who else lives with you?”
“With me? No one. It’s my parents’ apartment and they’re away.”
“So let me get this straight. You live alone, and you don’t have an alibi for last night. The victim had been eating a box of macarons that you gave her before she was murdered, and you just happen to find her dead in her apartment this morning.”
“Yes.” Clémence was exasperated already. She was starting to think this Inspector was as dimwitted as the rest of the useless police in the city. If she was in his shoes, she’d take a closer look at the button. She would’ve found it curious that there were two drinking glasses on the table and one had a lipstick stain on it when la gardienne didn’t wear lipstick. She would’ve taken a closer look at whatever it was that was written on the pad of paper on the table. Everything except accuse an innocent person of murder.
But maybe she wasn’t looking at this objectively. If she wasn’t so offended by being accused for murder, she could see how Cyril would find her suspect.
But Clémence was no inspector. She wanted no part in this murder. And she certainly hadn’t done anything wrong.
“If I was the killer,” Clémence said. “Which I’m not, why would I want to place myself in the position of finding her? Wouldn’t I want to get as far away from the scene as possible?”
“It could be the work of a clever girl who thinks she could outwit a professional.” Cyril looked at her smugly. “Finding her, screaming, acting innocent and clueless—I don’t buy it.”
“Look, I’ve told you all you need to know,” Clémence said. “Why would I want to hurt la gardienne? I didn’t even live here before yesterday. She’s not very well liked by the rest of the residents. Maybe you can start questioning others who have actually interacted with her more than I have.”
Cyril was still looking at her closely. “I’m not letting you off the hook yet, Clémence Damour, even if your patisserie does have the best almond croissant in the neighbourhood.”
“You mean in the world,” Clémence said. “Speaking of which, I’ll have to be at the patisserie now, so if you’d excuse me, I’m off.”
***
“Oh wow,” Berenice exclaimed in the patisserie kitchen. “A murder in your own building. Is it total chaos on your street right now?”
Clémence sighed. “Yes. The street is closed off. Residents are scared. There were a million policemen and pompiers at the building, even though she’s already dead.”
“You would’ve thought that the pope died or something,” Sebastien quipped.
“It’s not exactly exciting,” Clémence said. “And now this inspector thinks I’m involved.”
She explained just what he had accused her of and the apparent evidence against her.
“It doesn’t sound good,” said Sebastien. He was in the middle of making an extravagant type of delicate raspberry tarts that Marie Antoinette would have eaten in the Versailles Palace. “You really don’t have an alibi?”
“Well, I was over on the third floor before I went home, but that had only been around 6pm. I was picking up our dog from a neighbour. Oh, but maybe the neighbors heard me w
alking when I was home. You know how thin the floors are. But I fell asleep at 8pm, and was asleep for like twelve hours because I was so jet-legged. God, I really hope I’m not in trouble.”
“It’s like a policier,” said Berenice.
“You like crime novels?” Clémence asked.
“Love them. I read crime and mystery all the time. There’s a better way of trying to clear your name: find the killer.”
“How would I do that? Besides, the smug inspector is on this case.”
Berenice rolled her eyes. “Oh please, he’s all talk. He was probably acting superior because he has no clue how to proceed. You know how Frenchmen are. They’re like insecure little boys who need to act arrogant to mask their insecurities.”
“Hey!” Sebestien exclaimed. “Or some of us are just talented and know it.”
Clémence and Berenice both looked at him and looked back at each other. They tried not to roll their eyes.
“You’re whip smart,” Berenice said to Clémence. “I bet you can find the killer before the inspector does.”
“I think you’re overestimating me,” said Clémence.
“Come on, you graduated from one of the best universities in France, you’ve traveled, and you always know what ingredients are in our macarons when Sebastien comes up with new recipes.”
“Having good taste buds doesn’t mean I’d be good at finding murderers,” said Clémence.
“That’s exactly what it means,” Berenice said seriously. “It means your senses are heightened. Now, who do you think the suspects are?”
“I have no idea,” said Clémence. “I hardly know who the neighbors are. There’s a dentist on the first floor, that I know. Not sure who’s on the second. The DuBois family lives on the third, but they couldn’t have had anything to do with it. I have a tenant on the roof, and he seems really nice too.”
“Who cares about nice,” said Berenice. “Murderers aren’t going to walk around wearing a sign that says ‘murderer’.”
“I’ll let the police do the job,” said Clémence. “What do I know about solving crimes?”
“You already noticed a bunch of clues. Take for example the lipstick on the glass. Would la gardienne even wear lipstick?”
“No, never. At least I’d never seen her wear any sort of makeup. And it looked like this deep plum color that most women probably wouldn’t even be able to pull off either.”
“There you go. That’s something to start with. And you mentioned a button. What do you think it belonged to?”
“Well it was a big wooden button, the kind that would be on a coat. It was so big that Miffy couldn’t swallow it, which was probably why she spat it out. It could be nothing. Maybe la gardienne just had a coat and the button fell off. I can’t know unless I go in her apartment and look in her closet.”
“And what about this paper?”
“Yes, there was a box of macarons on the table, and I guess she was snacking and writing something. But I saw it very briefly before I noticed her body on the floor, so I didn’t exactly read it or cared to. I suppose all these are clues, but it could go nowhere. She could’ve been writing a letter. The glass could’ve been from a friend of her’s who’d come in earlier to have a drink. For all I know, the murderer could be an outsider, like a robber.”
“But the person specifically went into la gardienne’s apartment.” Sebastien looked up from his work. “They wouldn’t have much to steal. Was there a sign of forced entry?”
Clémence was surprised that Sebastien was taking an interest too. It didn’t even seem as if he had been listening all that much, since he had looked like he was in such deep concentration with his work.
“No. The door was just half open. The doorknob didn’t look tampered with.”
“The killer must’ve just fled in fear after killing la gardienne,” Berenice said.
“It seems more likely that it would be someone who knows her,” said Sebastien. “Maybe you can find out more about la gardienne and who hated her.”
Clémence looked from brother to sister. They were both interested in this case. Pastries and mysteries. What an unusual combination. But she had to admit that she was curious. Who would do this and why? There were plenty of suspects in the building. Too many.
Clémence got a call on her cell phone. The display showed a number she didn’t recognize. She answered it and it was the plumber saying that he was at her front door, but the police weren’t letting him in.
“Oh, crap,” Clémence got up from her stool. “I’ve got to go deal with something. My plumper’s trying to get in and I have to see that lame inspector again.”
CHAPTER 6
When Clémence went back home, there were three policemen blocking the front door.
“J’habite ici,” Clémence told them. “I live here.”
The policemen asked her all sorts of questions, but after verifying that she did live on the fifth floor and she had the keys, they went in first to ask their superiors for permission to let them in.
The plumber had been standing on the sidewalk. Clémence didn’t recognize him, as she’d never met him before, until she saw his bag of tools. Ben came out to meet them.
“Hey,” he said to Clémence, his brows knitted with concern. “Good. You’re here. He was having trouble coming in so I came down to pick him up.”
Clémence explained that there had been a murder in the building and both men’s eyes widened in shock.
“Mon dieu,” said the plumber.
“That’s horrible,” said Ben. “I mean, I know her. Not well, but she was someone I saw on a regular basis. I’ve never met someone who was murdered before. That’s something that happens on TV.”
Clémence suppressed a sigh. She’d only been back a day and so much was going on. Plus she still had a bit of a headache from her jetlag and from sleeping too much.
“Come on guys, let’s go.” Clémence turned to the plumber. “We can take the elevator and go through my apartment so that you don’t have to climb all the stairs to the seventh floor with all your tools.”
“It’s good exercise though,” Ben joked. “I mean, it’s how I keep this body in such top physical condition.”
“If you ever have a lot of stuff to carry, don’t hesitated to ring and pass by if I’m home,” said Clémence.
“Thanks, that’s nice. Your parents allowed me to do the same, but I tried not to bother them unless I had a suitcase or something. The fridge is so small that I never have a lot of groceries to carry anyway.”
It was typical for people to live in tiny studio apartments or “studettes” like Ben’s. His fridge was really a mini fridge and the sink could barely fit two plates. Clémence was lucky to be able to live in such a great apartment, even if it felt too big at times and their gardienne was currently, well, dead as a doorknob.
The inspector with the buggy green eyes and parentheses grimace came out of la gardienne’s apartment just as she stepped in the front door.