by A W Hartoin
Mrs. Roche smiled reflexively when Chuck spoke and I decided to let him go. She was a woman, after all, and not many were immune to his charms. None come to think of it.
“I’m sorry. I have not. Are they German?” she asked.
“It looks like it. Your father never mentioned them? Your mother, perhaps?”
“Non. They rarely spoke of Uncle Werner. It made my father sad. He was papa’s twin. I think he always thought part of him was missing after his brother died.” Mrs. Roche did begin to relax, to trust. “It is hard for me to say. I was four when Uncle Werner died.”
“Do you remember him at all?” asked Chuck.
Her face lit up and her eyes sparkled. “Oui. He would be my horse. We would gallop around the room, knocking over Maman’s lamps and causing her to shriek. He was such fun for a little girl to play with. My papa was much more stern.”
“He sounds wonderful,” I said.
Mrs. Roche turned to me and asked, “Do you have an uncle like him?”
I thought of Uncle Morty and he was nothing like Werner Richter. I couldn’t imagine Morty letting me ride around on his back, but he did spend hours playing games and sneaking me food Mom said I couldn’t have. “In a way. My uncle is a game player, though.”
She sat up straight. “Oh, yes. The games. My father kept uncle’s games. Would you like to see?”
“We’d love to,” said Chuck.
She led us back into a spare bedroom filled with packing boxes and piles of clothes. The light went out of Mrs. Roche’s eyes. She apologized for the mess. They were going through the things her mother left behind when she left Paris to live with her brother in Brittany.
“I’m sorry about your father,” I said. “This must be a difficult time and we’re intruding.”
“Non, non. We knew papa would be going. He was sick for a long time with the…I don’t know the word in English.”
“Leukemia,” I said. Spidermonkey had told me the diagnosis after Paul Richter died.
Mrs. Roche jerked a little at the word and looked suspicious.
Chuck said quickly, “When we were trying to find your father, his diagnosis came up.”
I shot Chuck a grateful look.
“The word is the same then,” said Mrs. Roche.
“Yes,” I said. “But I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
“Non, it is fine. It is what happened.” She rooted through the boxes and had Chuck help her carry a couple out into the living room. Uncle Werner had liked games, vintage ones from the ’20s in particular. Most were European, but there were a few in English. We went through each box and found nothing. I didn’t think a cop would hide case evidence in a zoo game from Austria, but you never know.
Mrs. Roche found some paper work in her father’s files—her uncle’s death certificate, a police report in German, unfortunately.
“There is nothing else. My uncle was not married. I don’t believe there was much for my father to inherit,” she said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Roche,” said Chuck. “It was a long shot.”
“Long shot?”
“Not likely that you’d have anything after all this time.”
She sat back down in her chair and drummed her fingers on her knee.
“Is there something else?” I asked.
“I don’t know if it is something,” she said. “You know that my uncle was run down in Berlin two weeks after he visited us here?”
Chuck and I looked at each other. A little zing went through me and, if I went by the look on Chuck’s face, he felt it, too.
“We knew he was hit by a car in Berlin,” I said.
“Your father thought that was significant?” asked Chuck. He said it like he knew the answer. I did, too.
“Maman didn’t like for him to speak about the accident. She said it would bring us bad luck.”
“Like the bad luck your uncle had?” I asked.
“She was…frightened.”
“Of what?” asked Chuck.
“My father always said Uncle Werner was murdered because he was a policeman. He said it wasn’t an accident.”
Chuck picked the accident report up off the table, his eyes searching for a familiar word. “What do you think?”
“It wasn’t an accident,” she said. “The report said so.”
He held out the report. “Can you read it?”
She took the paper and scanned it. “I speak a little German, but I cannot read it so well. An accident late at night. No one saw. The rest…” She threw up her hand.
“What else did your father say about it?” I asked.
“Nothing…but I think he was nervous about something. To me it was a great mystery. I always wanted to know what happened and why someone would do that to my uncle. To Maman, it was frightening. She told me not to speak of it to anyone, but then you came asking and I think perhaps it is time to talk.”
“I’m glad you did,” I said. “It’s a big help.”
“Do you think this Klinefeld Group that you are investigating might have something to do with Uncle Werner’s death?”
Chuck reached over and took her hand. “I don’t know, but we’ll do everything we can to find out.”
She patted his hand and stood up. She went into the other room and we could hear her talking to someone on the phone in French.
She came back in and said, “I think I may have something to help you.”
“Really?” I asked. “Who did you ask?”
“Maman. I persuaded her that now that papa is gone, it will be safe to find out what happened,” said Mrs. Roche.
“What did she say?” asked Chuck.
She offered us coffee and said, “It may be nothing, but she said that when my uncle came to visit, the two of them would go out to see someone. They wouldn’t tell her who it was. After Uncle Werner died, Papa told her it was to do with a case in Berlin. He told her never to go there.”
“How would she go?” I asked. “Did he tell her the address?”
Mrs. Roche dropped another sugar cube into her cup and gave us a sly smile. “Non. She followed them a couple of times. Papa caught her and was very angry.”
I laughed. “I like your maman.”
“She was always a nosy woman.”
Chuck glanced at me and smirked. What was that supposed to mean?
“Does your maman still remember the address?” Chuck sipped his coffee. He appeared cool and calm for the most part, but his right foot was jiggling with excitement.
Mrs. Roche saw it, too and smiled. “Oui. She wrote it in her diary. Papa never knew. He was not nosy.” She wrote down the address, a nice one in the Marais, and gave the slip of paper to me.
“Did your father ever go to this address after your uncle died?” I asked.
“He told Maman that he didn’t, but she didn’t believe him. Will you go there and tell me what you find?” she asked, standing up.
I wrote down both our phone numbers for her and she accompanied us to the door. We shook hands and assured her that we would tell her everything we found out.
I walked into the hall, but Chuck didn’t follow. Mrs. Roche held him back to ask, “Do you think like my papa that my uncle was murdered?”
Chuck patted her hand. “I think it’s a possibility, but I’d like you to keep that to yourself for now.”
She nodded. “Oui, of course.”
We walked down the stairs and ran right into the fromagerie line. It was even longer than before and wrapped around the building.
“That must be some cheese,” said Chuck. “Do you think we should get some?”
I waved the slip of paper at him. “I thought we were going straight to the Marais.”
“We are, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some snacks for the trip.”
“How can you be hungry again?”
“I ran twelve miles.”
I grabbed his hand and dragged him away from the line. “I can’t believe I’m the one who wants to check out this apartment.”
“You’re not. I’m saying we could make a pit stop.”
Chuck and I bickered all the way back to the metro, on the metro, and right into the lovely Marais. It was going to be a long day.
Chapter Eleven
Lucky for Chuck, the Marais stopped me from clobbering him. Once we’d gotten a few blocks in, the music started. Quartets played everything from jazz to Beethoven. Chuck couldn’t stop smiling. We stopped in front of the Carnavalet museum and watched a string quartet play “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” A little old lady danced beside the bass player, a little soft shoe. She wore a flapper-type outfit in emerald green satin with a cloche hat pulled down tight over her silver curls.
Chuck leaned over to me. “Is she crazy? They seem like they know her.”
“She’s part of the performance.” I put my arm around his waist and folded myself into him. He was so entranced by the performers that he didn’t pull away or make an excuse. I breathed in his scent and wished it could last forever. It didn’t, of course. Nothing perfect ever does. The quartet finished their set and the violinist introduced each member of the group, including the lady, who opened a velvet-tasseled bag for donations.
“How much should we give?” Chuck whispered in my ear, his warm coffee-scented breath tickling my cheek under the brim of my hat. I smiled up at him, afraid to break the spell.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said, finally. “You just looked so happy.”
“I’m always happy when I’m with you.”
I didn’t contradict him although I was aching to find out why that wasn’t true. Instead, I gave him five euros and he dropped them in her bag, receiving a cheerful “Merci” in response.
“When do you think they’ll play again?” asked Chuck.
“He said a half-hour, but there’s no shortage of musicians in the Marais,” I said.
“Is it always like this?”
I scanned the crowded street. It was summer, but the crowds did seem bigger than I remembered. “Kind of. We usually come in the shoulder season, so I’m not sure.”
“I want to see them again,” said Chuck. “Let’s get to that apartment.”
He yanked on my hand as I dug in my heels. “There’s a tea shop. Maybe a cup before we go to the apartment.”
“Are you crazy? Let’s go.”
“I was thinking maybe an ice cream. I think Amorino might be open,” I said.
“What the…are you trying to piss me off?” Chuck asked, frowning.
I couldn’t suppress a grin. “What? You don’t want a snack to carry you through the next ten minutes?”
He dragged me down the street, laughing. “You are a pain in my ass.”
“You love it.”
He swung me around the corner and I ended up in his arms on a cobblestoned street, surrounded by flowers with music in the air. Paris at its most romantic.
“I do love it,” he said.
I gazed up at him, so handsome yet flawed in just the right way. I pursed my lips, waiting for the kiss that had to happen. Every romance novel ever written demanded it.
“Let’s go find that apartment.” Chuck spun me back out again and dragged me down the street, taking his long strides so that I had to jog to keep up.
“Slow down!” I panted.
“We’re almost there.”
“I’m almost passing out.”
Chuck waited for a car to pass before charging across the street to a building that tourists dreamed of living in. It sat on the corner with a turret rising to a black-tiled dome high above the street. The creamy stone set off the black iron balconies, dripping with red blossoms. The entrance was in the turret, a pair of over-sized golden oak doors with vintage, wavy glass and a keyhole the size of my thumb.
“Did you expect this?” asked Chuck.
“I didn’t think about it.” I stared at the numbers on the small brass panel. No names. It wasn’t that kind of building. These people didn’t want to be known.
Chuck held out a finger. “Here goes nothing?” He pushed 3A and we waited.
Nothing.
Another push and then another. Chuck’s finger went to hover over another button.
I pulled down his arm. “Wait. What’s your plan?” I asked.
“Plan? I thought you didn’t believe in plans,” he said with a smirk.
“This is different,” I said.
“Oh, yeah, Why?”
I let go of his hand and crossed my arms. “Because they’re not home. If you get in there, what are you going to do? Pick the lock?”
Chuck went all bright-eyed. “Did you bring your picks?”
I did bring them in case I found Angela Riley and had to get in her apartment. “Yes,” I said, slowly. “You aren’t really going to break in, are you? You’re a cop. Don’t they frown on that kind of thing?”
He nodded. “You’re right. You break in.”
“Are you kidding?”
“You brought it up.”
“It was a question, not a suggestion,” I said.
Chuck jiggled the door handle. “Too late. Do you think we can push buttons until someone lets us in?”
“And say what? This isn’t New York. They don’t have pizza delivery.”
He cupped his hands and looked through the etched glass. “You know Paris. Think of something.”
“I know Paris, but I’ve never committed a crime here.”
A man wearing heavy black glasses and a grandpa sweater that accentuated his paunch strolled by. The hipster movement was alive and well in Paris, much to my dismay. The man smoothed his scraggly beard and gave me a scathing look as if he knew what we were up to. Maybe he did. We obviously couldn’t get in and I had to admit that we didn’t exactly fit the building.
I gave a winning smile when the man glanced back at me as he crossed the street. Then I poked Chuck. “Stop looking like you’re casing the joint.”
“There’s no doorman. If we get through this door, we’re all good,” he said. “How do you get into a fancy apartment in Paris that you have no business being in?”
I got out my regular phone, careful to keep my Fibonacci phone under a bunch of crumpled tissue. “I have an idea.”
“Oh yeah?”
I held up my phone. “Apartment 2C is a vacation rental and it’s unoccupied.”
“This place is pretty sweet. I wonder why.”
“It costs 6,500 euros a week.”
“Holy shit. They’re proud of their apartment.”
I called the agent handling the rental and spun a yarn about how we hated the apartment we’d rented and we wanted to get a look at 2C before we committed. Monsieur Rey would be right over.
He showed up ten minutes later, typed in a code on the brass keypad, and the door made a tiny delicate click. We were in. That was the upside. The downside was that we had to take a tour of 2C and seem like we could possibly rent an apartment for 6,500 euros a week.
I could lie with the best of them, but acting was another skill and Chuck had it. He praised the building, the street and Monsieur Rey’s suit, saying that we were on our honeymoon and our parents wanted us to have the time of our lives. By the time we arrived at the door of 2C, Monsieur Rey believed I was the daughter of a soap opera actress and he was the son of a retired baseball player, who’d invented a special kind of athletic cup. I winced at the cup reference, but Monsieur Rey didn’t blink. Maybe it was so weird that it seemed real. Who would say their father invented a something special for protecting testicles, if it wasn’t true? Oh, that’s right. My boyfriend.
Monsieur Rey opened the rosewood door carved with lilies and we were wowed. If I had 6,500 to spend on a rental, I would’ve totally spent it there. The apartment was a Belle Époque gem with its original flooring, woodwork, and ceilings. The furniture was modern but fit perfectly. There were four bedrooms and five baths and Monsieur Rey claimed there were three water heaters so we would never have a cold shower. Oh, to dream.
We s
pent a half-hour in the perfect Parisian apartment with Chuck taking pictures every five seconds to show our parents and then he gave Monsieur Rey his number and we left to skulk around the corner until the realtor left. I don’t think I said more than three words the entire time. I’d tried to slip away several times to go up to the third floor, but Monsieur Rey was too attentive. If I could get away, I could let Chuck in later and we, or shall I say I, could break into 3A, but he didn’t even try to distract the realtor, so the whole thing was pointless.
I poked Chuck in the side after Monsieur Rey crossed the street and was out of range. “That’s fabulous.”
“I know. Genius,” said Chuck with a wicked grin.
“Genius? Are you cracked? That was a huge waste of time. We’re no closer to getting into that apartment than we were an hour ago.”
Chuck peeked around the corner and then dragged me back to the building’s front door. “Aren’t we?”
“We aren’t,” I said.
“I can’t believe how little faith you have in me or…maybe you’re just short.”
“Huh?”
Chuck punched in a code and the door made a little click. “How do the French say it? Voila?”
“How’d you do that? Rey stood in front of the pad when he did the code,” I said.
“Monsieur Rey is about five foot seven,” said Chuck, opening the door. “I could see it over his shoulder.”
I elbowed him as I went through. “I heard you were good at this.”
“Did you ever doubt it?”
“Maybe a little.”
We rode up the tiny elevator, nose-to-chest, and found that 3A had an identical door to 2C with one glaring exception. It was padlocked and had large screws driven into the lovely wood to attach the ugly steel latch.
“This is weird, even for France, right?” asked Chuck.
“Definitely. We can’t pick that.”
“We could take a bolt cutter to it.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Yeah, that won’t be obvious at all.” I jiggled the ornate brass knob. “It’s locked, too.”
“Someone wants to be very sure,” said Chuck.
I swiped my finger across the top of the padlock and came up with a light layer of dust. “No one’s been in for a while.”