Murder in Bel-Air

by Cara Black

  Aimée’s jaw dropped. “How do you mean, monsieur?”

  The waiter leaned lower, exposing a gold cross on a chain below his collar. “She buys her a café, treats her like an equal. Et alors, those Sisters of the Poor appreciate volunteers like your mother. The nuns are always trying to involve the community in the soup kitchen.”

  Sydney Leduc, a former rogue CIA operative who had been imprisoned for radicalism—now a do-gooder? Aimée’s mother had depths she hadn’t known about.

  Or had Chloé’s entire playgroup attendance been a front?

  “Ah, you didn’t know?” said the waiter, noticing Aimée’s shock.

  “My mother”—it still felt odd to use those words—“keeps things close to her chest.”

  “The good ones do,” he said, and crossed himself. A real Holy Roller, this waiter.

  Time to get Chloé home. She glanced at the clock. Too late for conference apéritif hour.

  As Aimée felt Chloé’s diaper—still dry—she grew aware of a knot of people gathering on the pavement in front of the café. Excited voices were raised: “But it’s her.” “Wore that same dirty blue . . .” “You know her, Jacques.”

  Aimée ignored the hubbub and settled Chloé in her stroller, looped the Armani baby bag over the handle. Forget a taxi. The sun shone; pigeons hopped in the puddles. They’d walk to the Métro.

  The cashier was deep in a conversation with a young woman wearing an apron tied over her skirt. Her face was red, her eyes tear swollen.

  “Knifed,” she said, her voice trembling. “Right in the convent garden.”

  The cashier dropped a roll of franc coins. They pinged and danced on the zinc counter. “You saw her, Louise?”

  “I wish I hadn’t.”

  A nervous tingle went up Aimée’s spine. Mon Dieu. It couldn’t be . . . her mother? She set the brake on Chloé’s stroller. “Who are you talking about?”

  “Calme-toi, Louise.” The waiter, Jacques, had put his arm around the young woman. Looked at Aimée. “C’est la pauvresse, that friend of your mother, the homeless one.”

  Aimée blinked. “But I don’t understand. Is my mother there?”

  Louise wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know who you mean. Served her the other day. Didn’t see her.”

  Sydney Leduc had done her disappearing act, and now her “friend” was dead—could it be a coincidence?

  Out on the street, Aimée dialed her mother yet again. No answer. On Avenue de Saint-Mandé, she pushed the stroller past the police cars and made her way toward the Picpus Métro. Chloé had fallen asleep with her bottle in her hands.

  Nuns in white habits clustered at the double-doored carriage entrance of a Haussmannian building, its balconies spilling with red geraniums. The sisters folded their hands in prayer as a gurney clattered over uneven pavers. Aimée’s throat caught. With a jerk, the gurney wheels stuck in a crack; the mound of a body under the foil blanket shuddered.

  Aimée’s gaze caught something falling from the gurney onto the pavement. A worn, mud-spattered tennis shoe with untied laces. Sticking out from under the blanket was a bare foot, its red-lacquered pedicured toes glinting in the sun. A nun made the sign of the cross, then quickly covered the exposed foot with the foil blanket.

  “Attention. Move along, s’il vous plaît,” said the medic.

  Instead of moving, Aimée caught the nun’s eye. As discreetly as possible, she motioned to the nun. “Sister, I think my mother knew her, that poor woman . . .”

  “Tragic.”

  “Can we talk, please?”

  Aimée read hesitation in the nun’s eyes. Suspicion? Fear?

  “My duties can’t wait. I’m sorry,” the nun said.

  The ambulance doors clanged shut. Church bells sounded.

  Chloé’s stuffed rabbit fell to the pavement. Aimée scooped up the rabbit and dried its tail off. By the time she looked up again, the nuns were heading toward a gate in the wall, beyond which Aimée saw grass and a garden. The convent. She couldn’t let the nun get away.

  Aimée reached out to catch the woman’s sleeve. “Sister, I’m worried. My mother abandoned my daughter at her playgroup,” said Aimée. “Just around the corner. Now she isn’t answering her phone.”

  “I’m sorry, mademoiselle; I don’t understand what that has to do with—”

  “Well, normally she’d meet this homeless woman—”

  “We prefer SDF, sans domicile fixe.”

  “Bien sûr. But the waiter next door just told me they usually met for coffee at this exact time. Now my mother is missing, and that poor woman is dead. I hope it’s just a terrible coincidence, but . . .”

  The nun glanced behind her. One of the sisters was closing the gate.

  “Please, Sister,” said Aimée. “I’m worried something’s happened to my mother. Do you know anything about where she might be?”

  The nun glanced at her watch. “Come back later. Help serve.”

  A flyer for soupe populaire, served by bénévoles, an early-evening soup kitchen service, was thrust in Aimée’s hands, and the sister disappeared behind the gate.

  Volunteering at a soup kitchen—had Sydney ever been involved in this kind of charity work? Aimée didn’t know the first thing about her mother, but if Sydney had been helping out, had it really just been out of charitable motivations?

  Forget the Métro. Aimée hailed a taxi.

  Monday, Late Afternoon

  “I thought you were giving a speech,” said Babette, Chloé’s nanny.

  “So did I,” Aimée said, setting Chloé in the kitchen high chair next to Gabrielle, the baby whose family lived across the courtyard—tawny haired like Chloé, but a month younger.

  Aimée kicked off her ankle boots, glancing out the window at the quai, speckled with the light of a fading blood-orange sunset. The bubbling pot of something wonderful-smelling helped drive away thoughts of the approaching autumn darkness.

  “Heard from Sydney?” Aimée asked.

  A shake of Babette’s ponytail.

  “Makes two of us. I’m worried.”

  Aimée filled Babette in while she spooned haricots verts into Gabrielle’s mouth. Aimée split childcare expenses with Gabrielle’s parents, but it was sometimes Gabrielle’s uncle Benoît who came to pick her up. He taught at the Sorbonne and called his infrequent nights with Aimée as much of a relationship he’d ever had. A month had passed since she’d last seen him.

  Benoît was great in the kitchen and under the duvet. And convenient—when he was around. Thinking of him, she felt a stab of guilt. Was she too lazy to move on? Or to be honest with him?

  “Leaving Chloé! That’s not like Sydney,” Babette said. “Or is it?”

  Back to her old tricks? Aimée had fallen for them again. Trusted her. Anger and worry were at war in her mind. Nothing involving Sydney Leduc was ever simple.

  Aimée changed into black denims, red high-tops, an old cashmere Jean Paul Gaultier sweater, and her black leather jacket. Suitable soup-kitchen attire, she hoped. Packed her mini tool set in her makeup kit and an extra scarf.

  “Going out?” Babette asked.

  Aimée nodded. “Feeding the hungry. Can you put Chloé to bed if I’m not home after bath time?”

  “Pas de problème.”

  “And call me if you hear from Sydney.”

  Babette nodded. “If I don’t give her a piece of my mind first.”

  Aimée hugged Chloé, who was absorbed in smearing her haricots verts onto the table, and kissed both girls bonne nuit.

  An unseasonably mild October evening suffused her building’s courtyard. The rain had freshened the air, which held a lingering warmth. Sitting on her scooter under the pear tree branches, Aimée applied Chanel red, double knotted her scarf, pulled on her helmet, and zipped up her leather jacket. Turning the key, she revv
ed up the engine, maneuvered the wheels over the cobbles and out the massive open double doors. She gunned down the tree-lined quai over the fallen leaves toward Pont Marie and sped into the night.

  Monday, Early Evening

  Aimée parked her scooter by the modernistic building of the National Forests Office. According to the soup kitchen flyer, Petites Soeurs des Pauvres ran a soup kitchen, a shelter, and student lodging, as well as maintaining herb and medicinal gardens. She skimmed the rest of the history and the request for donations for their continued work.

  The usual.

  Once through the open convent door, she searched for a directory, only to find a list on the mailboxes: Foyer Picpus, Maison Saint Augustin, Communauté Pierre Coudrin Pères des Sacrés-Coeurs, Soeurs de l’Enfant Jésus, Religieuses du Sacré-Coeur de l’Adoration. They all fit in this space?

  Finally she spotted a line of people snaking from another wing of the convent and followed arrows for “la soupe.” Instinctively scanned for her mother. Foolish—why would she be standing in line at a soup kitchen?

  She wasn’t there, of course.

  The nineteenth-century building, one of several on the grounds, was a redbrick hulk at the very center of the convent’s walled-off greenery, like the core of an apple. Scents of wet foliage and damp earth wafted through the garden. Deep bells rang from the nearby chapel Notre-Dame de Paix de Picpus, echoed by the croak of a bullfrog. Beyond, signs said, lay the Picpus Cemetery.

  Inside the soup-kitchen area, bright lights illuminated the cart where nuns and volunteers ladled out soup and distributed chunks of baguette. Steam rose in the night air. Women and men, young and old, shuffled from foot to foot in line. Some were well dressed, people who had clearly fallen on hard times; some smelled not so fragrant. There was little conversation.

  “I’m here to volunteer,” Aimée said to the tall nun who seemed to be in charge. She looked around for the nun she’d spoken to earlier. She needed to get the woman alone to ask her what she knew about Sydney. Aimée described her to the one in charge.

  “Sister Agnès,” the tall nun said.

  “She wanted to explain the duties to me.”

  “Désolée, she’s busy.”

  Great. “But she told me it’s important to understand the mission.”

  “No rocket science here. Talk to her later. We’re full up with volunteers tonight anyway.”

  True. But she’d come all this way. Made Babette stay late.

  Aimée glanced at her Tintin watch. Almost two hours had passed since her mother had disappeared. An hour and a half since she’d seen a woman’s body wheeled into the morgue van. She needed at least a hint as to her mother’s whereabouts.

  “S’il vous plaît, I’m here,” Aimée said. “Please let me help.”

  “Fine. Grab an apron in the kitchen. You can chop vegetables.”

  In the cellar-like stone kitchen, she took an apron from the hook. The warm, vaulted room felt medieval; she imagined hungry peasants storming a castle if not fed. A small nun with thick-lensed glasses stirred a pot at the large warm AGA stove.

  “Sister Agnès said to find her here,” Aimée said.

  “Vraiment?” asked the small nun. “She’s busy with the officials.”

  About the murder? Was she at the crime scene? Aimée had to find her.

  “Let me get that,” Aimée said as the little nun struggled with a bulging burlap sack of potatoes.

  “Merci.” The nun wiped her brow under her wimple. “It goes in the back pantry.”

  Damn heavy, too.

  After dumping the potatoes, Aimée ducked into the corridor and followed it around to an outdoor courtyard. A fuzzed greenish light filtered through the trees. There were a few cars, and a crime-scene tech in white overalls stood by a police van door. He walked as he spoke on a cell phone he held between his neck and shoulder as he wound up a roll of yellow crime-scene tape. “Crime scene in Bel-Air. I’m picking up my kit . . .”

  Keeping to the tree shadows and treading on the grass instead of the gravel path, Aimée followed him at a distance as he continued his conversation. The long expanse of green stretched half a block at least, past fruit trees, a statue of Christ, an old outbuilding that looked like a washhouse. Pinpricks of light flickered like fireflies through the trees on her left. The place felt like a maze in the near darkness. She tried to orient herself, to place where she was in relation to the gate the nuns had disappeared through—the gate the body had come out of.

  Hard to tell.

  The crime-scene tech’s bootie-clad feet crunched on the gravel path. All of a sudden, from behind the trees appeared a nineteenth-century building that reminded her of a small country house. Maybe once it had been.

  The tech tapped his knuckles on a lit ground-floor window. His reflected face was distorted by the bubbled old glass. The window creaked open.

  “We’re finished, sir,” he said.

  A moment later, two people emerged from a wooden door. Aimée recognized the nun, Sister Agnès, who was clutching a pink Tati shopping bag and speaking to a man in a dark suit. Aimée hunched down under the nearest hedgerow and crept closer to hear.

  “Her things,” Sister Agnès said. “I thought she would have had more, as I said, but I don’t recall . . .”

  The man in the suit snapped on his latex gloves and rifled through the bag. Pulled out a hairbrush, washcloth, pack of Gauloises. Sniffed. “Not much.”

  He returned the contents to the pink Tati bag and handed it to the tech. “Have the lab prioritize this. I want the analysis tonight.” He spoke as one accustomed to giving orders. The tech returned the way he’d come.

  “More . . . did you mean other belongings, Sister?” the man in the suit asked. “Maybe I can help you look for them.”

  “Trop tard. The police detective, I told him and la Procureure the same thing. He already helped me look. We searched the dormitory, everywhere. Didn’t find anything else.”

  Aimée’s pulse jumped. This suit was not the brigade criminelle investigator—who was he? And la Proc, the magistrate, who assigned the investigative force, had been here earlier. That could mean several things. None good.

  “But now that we know the victim’s true identity . . .” he was saying as they walked.

  Aimée followed, crawling behind the hedge, racing to keep up and listen.

  “What do you mean, her true identity?” Sister Agnès asked. “She’s Genelle Tournon; her papers said so. I gave them to . . .”

  Perspiration snaked down Aimée’s spine as she tried to catch the whole conversation. The apron dragged in the damp soil.

  “Brigade criminelle wasn’t aware, Sister . . . We’ve identified the victim’s fingerprints. A foreign national, a Germaine Tillion.”

  The suit was foreign intelligence—DGSE or whatever the latest spy-world acronym was.

  The people who’d been interested in her mother.

  Who the hell was this dead woman? This Genelle, or Germaine, who had taken coffee with Aimée’s mother and Chloé?

  Part of the conversation drifted away. “If you can tell us more about her behavior . . .”

  Merde. They’d turned a corner.

  For a crazy moment, Aimée wondered if her mother had killed this woman. Set up a hit. That memory surfacing from childhood, a heated argument between her father and grandfather: She’s poison, une terroriste. The lapse into an uncomfortable silence when Aimée had walked into the kitchen for warm milk.

  Aimée hurried, keeping her head down, until she saw light streaming over worn stone. The open door revealed a dormitory-style room with three-tiered bunk beds, piles of blankets, and a basket with hotel-sized soaps and shampoos. An old oak wood storage cupboard with coat hooks. Spartan, clean.

  She listened at the door.

  The suit was riffling through the cupboard.

 
“We don’t believe in locks here,” said the nun.

  He proceeded to check under the bunk beds, in the trash bins. “What else can you tell me?”

  Sister Agnès tented her fingers. “She came several weeks ago, a month maybe. I’ll need to consult the intake log.”

  “Already done, Sister,” he said. “Can you clarify why the Little Sisters of the Poor are registered at a different address on rue de Picpus?”

  “Confusing, I know,” she said. “Our mother house suffered extensive water damage this spring. It’s falling apart, monsieur. By the grace of God and this convent’s generosity, we’re able to continue our work, the program for those like Genelle, here in temporary quarters.”

  “We need your full cooperation in finding any trace she might have left behind. It’s time sensitive due to the victim’s identity . . .”

  “Monsieur, this convent is private and belongs to the Saint Augustin order. I don’t know who you’re with—”

  “My branch isn’t important, Sister.” His voice rose in officiousness. “I answer to the republic.”

  “Well, we answer to God.”

  Aimée almost cheered.

  Footsteps approached. She ducked into one of the several recessed archways in an arcade. A rumbling vibrated the stone pavers below her high-tops. From the fresh-linen smells, she figured she was standing above the laundry.

  When would this suit leave?

  She heard a cell phone ring, then his terse “oui.” A moment later, he hung up. “Merci for your help, Sister. We’ll keep you informed. And we expect the same from you.”

  His footsteps exited the dorm room and trailed off down the hallway. Aimée held her breath, waiting until she heard Sister Agnès come out, then hurried after the nun.

  Monday, Early Evening

  When Aimée caught up with the nun, she had questions ready. But Sister Agnès looked Aimée over, noticed the dirty apron, put her finger to her lips, and jerked her thumb toward a small side chapel lit only by votive candles.