Harper Lin - Patisserie 07 - Madeleine Murder

by Harper Lin

  “Could you tell that she didn’t get along with certain cast or crew members?” Clémence asked.

  “I don’t know if she didn’t get along with them, or just didn’t have much of an interest in their lives, but Nicole didn’t seem too…favorable towards Sarah Briar. They often went after the same roles. And Zach Brant. The ladies may love him, but Nicole wouldn’t give him the time of day. He prides himself in charming every woman on set, but Nicole wouldn’t have anything to do with him offscreen. But like I said, I don’t care about personal matters as long as they have chemistry on screen. When the camera was on, Nicole really made you believe that she was deeply in love with Zach’s character. She was a real actress.” Chris grimaced and shook his head. “I’m sorry to lose her. Not only because the whole production is now upside down and needs to be rewritten, but we’ve lost a true artist.”

  Clémence nodded in sympathy “Was this your first time working with her?”

  “Yes,” said Chris.

  He was about to continue when the front doors opened and a woman entered. Dressed in a pink Chanel skirt suit, she was a brunette in her early forties who resembled Jackie O. She was holding the hand of a little blond girl who looked to be about four while a boy around seven ran into the living room.

  “Daddyyy!” he cried and jumped up into Chris’s arms.

  “Danny boy,” Chris said, lifting him up into the air. Danny giggled.

  The woman sashayed into the living room. The little girl looked shy, sucking on a thumb and peeking out at Clémence and Sophie from behind her mom.

  “This is my wife Cynthia.” Chris looked a bit uneasy. “Cynthia? You’ve met Sophie Seydoux before, right? And this is Clémence Damour. Her family owns the Damour patisserie.”

  Cynthia’s dark eyes burned with annoyance at each girl as she sneered at them before turning her head back to her children. Clémence wanted to shiver as a result of her icy gaze.

  “Oh, Damour,” Cynthia said in a bored tone. “I tried to eat macarons with my tea there once, but honestly, darling, I prefer Pierre Hermé.”

  “Pierre Hermé is a friend of the family,” Clémence said modestly. “I don’t hold it against you for preferring his macarons. He’s a genius, really.”

  Cynthia didn’t seem interested in what she was saying.

  “It looks like you’re busy,” Cynthia said coldly to her husband.

  Chris stood up to kiss his wife. Even he seemed to be intimidated by her. “I’m just in the middle of a meeting, but it won’t be long. How was the park?”

  “Crowded. Cold. I don’t know who’s more dreadful, the Parisians or the tourists.”

  After giving Clémence and Sophie one last dirty look, Cynthia headed towards the double doors that presumably led into their bedrooms. “Come on, Danny.”

  The enthusiastic little boy followed after Cynthia and the little girl. The doors shut with a bang.

  Chris gave them an awkward smile. “Sorry about the interruption.”

  “Your wife is—charming,” Clémence said.

  “Cynthia? Oh, yes. Sometimes she’s a little intense, but she’s still adjusting to Paris.”

  “Has she not been here for long?”

  “She’s been here with me throughout the shoot. Since school’s out for Danny, my family’s been able to stay here with me. I’m glad to have them here. They keep me grounded in this crazy showbiz.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Clémence said. “So back to Nicole Blake. Do you have any idea what could’ve happened to her?”

  “Well I certainly don’t think anybody on my production could’ve killed her. I work with them every day. I can’t imagine someone I work with being a murderer.”

  “You’d be surprised how many seemingly innocent people turn out to be the perps of heinous crimes,” Clémence said.

  “You sound like someone who’s seen a lot,” Chris said, examining her again. “You’re certainly a very interesting young woman. Are you sure there’s no chance of you doing a cameo in my movie?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Clémence cracked a smile. “I’m just better behind the scenes.”

  “You know, I did talk to Nicole a lot about her character before we started shooting. We discussed the background of her character and how she was going to approach playing her. Her character is a recovering drug addict, and Nicole revealed to me that she was an alcoholic. What if she started drinking again?”

  “Have you seen her drunk before?” Clémence asked.

  “No. Never around me. But it’s not as if we would go drinking together. I’m working around the clock, and I don’t know what my cast and crew gets up to when they’re not working.”

  “So that’s what you think happened? She got drunk and had some sort of accident?”

  “I hate to say it, but it’s likely she fell off the wagon and went a bit overboard with alcohol. My uncle was an alcoholic. I’ve seen firsthand how difficult it is to quit drinking.”

  “I heard she’d been sober for years.”

  Chris sighed. He lowered his head, and the girls automatically leaned in. “This is not public knowledge, but Nicole was rejected last week for a role she really wanted. It was an Amelia Earhart biopic, and Nicole had been campaigning the director, who’s a friend of mine, for months to get it. I put in a good word for her, but he took a pass. I’m afraid it was a blow to her ego I know that Nicole was set on winning an Oscar before she was thirty. The script would’ve given her a really good chance.”

  “So you think she took to drinking to take the edge off the rejection?” Clémence asked.

  “It’s never easy. In my career, I have seen quite a number of actors taken by addiction. It’s a competitive industry, and actors are sensitive people to begin with. They need to be vulnerable to open themselves to the public like that. They have to, to make a living.”

  Chapter 7

  “So what do you think?” Sophie asked when they sat down in the Blue Bar of the Athena Hotel.

  Clémence asked Caroline and Marie to help her dig up all the purchases and transaction information on their cash register before the store opened.

  Clémence was craving a cocktail for some reason. Maybe it was all the talk about Nicole Blake’s drinking problem. She and Sophie both ordered a Blue Haze, the Blue Bar’s signature drink.

  “I don’t know,” Clémence said. “Rachel thinks Nicole hadn’t been drinking, but it would be plausible that Nicole would turn to the bottle if she was that upset about losing a plum role. But we still don’t know who she had been meeting. And did this person kill her?”

  “Contrary to what Chris said, I agree with you that there is potential that someone on our set would kill Nicole,” Sophie said. “It’s a competitive industry. Do you know how many other French actresses and models wanted my little cameo in this film? When I got it, some of these girls wouldn’t talk to me at parties. Imagine that on a bigger scale, when you’re one of the biggest stars in the world.”

  “That’s true,” Clémence agreed. “What’s going on with Chris’s wife? Is she always that rude?”

  “I don’t know what her problem is. I met her on set once when I was shooting a scene with Sarah Briar. Between takes, she came on set, and Chris introduced her to everyone. She seemed pleasant enough with most people, but when Chris introduced her to Sarah, Cynthia looked like she wanted to kill her. Same with me.”

  “So, what, she hates actresses?”

  “I suppose she’s not too happy about her husband working with attractive women all day long. She used to be a beauty back in the day, and she did some modeling, although she was never tall enough to gain supermodel status.”

  The bartender gave them their cocktails, and they both took a sip.

  “I’ll add Cynthia to the suspect list,” Clémence said. “What does she do for a living now?”

  “Not much,” Sophie said. “She’s a housewife, but she came from money. Her family owns Harper Studios. She met Chris because he was working for the studi
o.”

  “Wow, her family owns Harper Studios? Rich would be an understatement then.”

  “She was given a few opportunities to act when she was younger,” Sophie said, “but she was a horrible actress. Had no charisma on screen. I’ve seen clips of one of the films on YouTube, and she was a laughingstock for a while. She even quit modeling because she was an embarrassment to the Harper name.”

  “Hmm. So she failed as a movie star, and now she’s resentful of other young starlets. There’s definitely some motive here. But it does sound like quite a few people had hated Nicole.”

  “Did Rachel ever respond to you?”

  “I’ve been so distracted that I forgot I was supposed to meet her.” Clémence took out her phone from her purse and turned on the screen. “No. She didn’t reply at all.”

  She tried calling her again, but it only went to voicemail.

  “You know what?” Sophie said. “I can call Sarah. I’m friends with her. They’re not shooting scenes with the actors right now anyway.”

  She took out her phone and made the call. “Hey, Sarah?” After some small talk, she asked where Rachel was. “Really?…I’m sure that’s not it, Sarah…well let me know if you see her.”

  When Sophie hung up, she had a strange look on her face.

  “So where is Rachel?” Clémence asked.

  “It’s really odd. Rachel was supposed to meet Sarah this morning to go over some lines then help Sarah run some errands, but she never showed up. Sarah checked with the crew, and nobody knows where she is. Now Sarah thinks that Rachel’s unhappy about being her assistant because she was so loyal to Nicole. She’s pretty hurt because she thinks this is Rachel’s way of saying she didn’t want to work for her.”

  “I don’t think that’s the case,” Clémence said, “considering that Rachel stood me up.”

  “I’ve met Rachel a few times, but she doesn’t seem like the type to stand people up. She’s very organized and diligent, definitely not the type to rebel, even if she was secretly unhappy about the Sarah situation.”

  “What if she’s still in her hotel room?” Clémence said slowly. “Where else could she possibly be?”

  “Why would she be there?” Sophie asked.

  “I don’t know, but I just think we should check just in case.”

  “Maybe she’s still asleep. Or do you think she had an accident?”

  “Come on, let’s go talk to the concierge.” Clémence got up from her stool.

  They explained the situation to a young man behind the front desk with a name tag that said “Julien.” At the sight of Sophie, his eyes widened. Since Sophie was more or less famous, he must’ve recognized her or found her to be beautiful, which she was.

  “Sorry,” Julien said bashfully. “I’m not allowed to let anyone in anyone else’s suite.”

  “Please,” Sophie pleaded. Her sweet face made Julien go soft. “It’s a matter of life and death. My friend is missing, and she could be in trouble. Surely you’d want to help if she’s in danger, wouldn’t you? We just want to check her room to see if she’s in there. We don’t even have to go in. You can check for us.”

  “Well…” Julien looked between Sophie and Clémence’s hopeful faces. He loosened up, seeming to make up his mind. “I do have access to the room. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to quickly check.”

  “Thank you,” Sophie breathed. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  With the lovely lady’s encouragement, Julien’s chest puffed out like a cock’s. He went into the back room and then emerged with a swipe card.

  The three of them took the elevator up to the third floor. Before door 305, Julien knocked.

  “Madame?” he called. “Anybody there?” As expected, there was no answer. After knocking some more and receiving silence as a response, Julien swiped the card and pushed the door open.

  He took a few steps inside. Then he let out a huge gasp, staggering back out into the hall.

  “What is it?” Clémence asked.

  Julien pointed. His lips shook, and he was unable to speak.

  Clémence braced herself and walked in. She saw the source of his distress: Rachel’s body was swinging from a chandelier. A brown leather belt was looped around her neck, and the skin of her face and body had turned gray-blue.

  “Mon dieu!” Sophie said behind Clémence. “Call the police!”

  Chapter 8

  “Are you okay, chérie?” Arthur asked when he returned home late from work.

  He put his laptop bag on a side table in the living room and entered the salon, where Clémence was sitting on the couch, clutching a glass of red wine and staring into space. In front of her on the glass coffee table was her notebook full of her scribbled writing. She was so deep in her thoughts that it took a while for her to register Arthur’s presence.

  “What?” she asked after a long delay.

  He glanced at the half-empty bottle of wine next to the notebook on the table and raised his eyebrows in concern.

  “Did something happen today?”

  Clémence blinked back. His warm brown eyes anchored her back to reality. “It was awful. Rachel, the girl I told you about? Nicole Blake’s assistant? She’s dead.”

  His jaw dropped. “What? Didn’t you just meet her yesterday?”

  She slowly nodded. “I was supposed to meet her again today. She hanged herself. We found her body in her hotel room.”

  She relayed the day’s events, how Rachel had been M.I.A. until they convinced a hotel clerk to check her room, and how her body had been swinging from a chandelier.

  “That must’ve been one sturdy chandelier,” Arthur remarked.

  Clémence looked up at their own crystal chandelier dangling over their heads in the salon. Everything was more fragile in Haussmanian buildings, and she was sure it wouldn’t have been able to withstand the weight if anyone tried to hang themselves on her chandelier.

  “But it’s the Athena Hotel,” Clémence said. “They completely renovated five years ago, gutted the place and put in modern appliances, new piping, and walls that were thick enough that you wouldn’t hear the other guests. That chandelier was probably screwed in with industrial strength.”

  “True. So do you think Rachel committed suicide?”

  “Well, the police are ruling it as a suicide. Her smartphone was on the coffee table, and she’d opened a notepad app and typed in, ‘I can’t go on anymore.’”

  “So suicide is likely, then?” he asked.

  Clémence sighed. “The wallpaper on her phone was set to a photo of Nicole Blake. When Rachel and I exchanged numbers yesterday, her wallpaper was definitely different. It was of cartoon frogs. I remember because I had thought it was weird and cute that she’d use that wallpaper. I think someone killed Rachel and tried to pass off her death as a suicide. The killer might’ve changed her phone’s wallpaper to make it look as if Rachel was obsessed with Nicole, and wrote the message in Rachel’s phone to make it sound like a suicide note. I don’t know if this death was premeditated or not, but it’s connected to Nicole’s death.”

  “Hmm.” Arthur took the glass from Clémence’s firm clutch. She was gripping it so hard that it looked like the glass might break. He took a sip then asked, “Were there any witnesses at the time of her death? Perhaps hotel maids or other guests who might’ve heard something?”

  “No. There was a Do Not Disturb sign on her door, so a maid probably hadn’t been in since yesterday. I haven’t heard from Rachel all morning. She was probably dead since last night. They’re doing an autopsy right now, so we’ll find out soon.”

  Arthur put his arm around Clémence’s shoulders. “I’m sorry you had to see another dead body. Are you all right?”

  “It’s just revolting. My instincts tell me that Nicole was killed. Rachel was probably sniffing around, getting too close to the truth. Somebody staying in that hotel killed her, somebody on that film set, I’m sure of it.”

  Clémence rubbed her temples. A headache was forming. All
these suspects and clues were clogging her head, and chaos reigned in her brain. Arthur knew her well enough to reach for her notebook and pen and pass them to her.

  “Let’s start from the beginning,” he said. “Who’s a suspect? Who’s benefiting from Nicole’s death?”

  Clémence flipped to a fresh page. It reassured her to know that she’d solved cases before. She could do it again.

  “Sarah Briar,” she said. “I haven’t met her yet, but she was losing her star power and sliding into supporting roles in the past couple of years. Sarah’s supposedly nice, well, nicer than Nicole, but is it a coincidence that she’s getting a meatier role in the film now that Nicole’s gone? Plus, she’ll get all the magazine covers to promote the film, and it might just lift her status back up to A-list.”

  “Where was she during Nicole and Rachel’s deaths?” Arthur asked.

  “I’m not sure yet. I’ve asked Sophie to help me get the film’s shooting schedule. Sophie’s sort of friends with Sarah, so she can also help me get a meeting with her. Sophie doesn’t think it’s Sarah, but she might be biased because of their new friendship.”

  “Do you really think that Sarah Briar, a petite blonde, can kill another human being so easily?”

  “I did some research on her,” Clémence said. “She did an action film five years ago, so she had training. She learned all sorts of martial arts, so I wouldn’t underestimate her. It’s possible, especially if she surprised Rachel or Nicole. Nicole was probably killed during the night, so what if she surprised her under some bridge along the Seine? And with Rachel, what if she had an extra key somehow and snuck into her room? The only thing that doesn’t make sense is that she probably wasn’t the person Nicole was secretly meeting.”

  “It is possible that Nicole just had a secret boyfriend or something,” Arthur said.

  “Yeah. And Sarah could’ve followed her one night. Who knows?”

  “Okay. So who else do you suspect?”

  Clémence was starting to get in the zone now that Arthur was here to keep her in line.