Murder in Passy

by Cara Black

  So she could tell Aimée little. Back to zero: no one knew anything or would talk to her.

  “Not even Agustino’s here.” Cybèle sighed. “Always an empty stomach, that one.” She gestured to an abstract on the wall, in a similar vein to the paintings in the hallway.

  “This painter?”

  “You know him?”

  Aimée didn’t, but nodded to keep her talking. The painting breathed life. Slashes of color, yet one could almost feel the heat, grit, and dust and hear the silver-green olive leaves rustle in a dry wind.

  “Who’d have thought he’d become a Basque icon?” Cybèle expelled air from her mouth. “The old guard, Xavierre called him,” she said, a tinge of disgust in her voice. “Just an aging enfant terrible who abhors politics now. Those old revolutionaries called themselves freedom fighters once.”

  Drawn to the painting, Aimée wondered at Cybèle’s words. The mingled loss and despair in her voice. A brief hint of the past, something shared. Had there been more to their relationship?

  “What do you mean, Cybèle?” she asked.

  “That was another time, under Franco’s dictatorship,” she said. “We were young. Not that I helped much, stuck on the farm nursing my mother.” A little smile. “Young, like you.”

  “So you’re saying Agustino’s sympathies—”

  “Sympathies?” Cybèle interrupted. “The cause. Everyone wanted change, independence. Down in Bayonne, Xavierre, all the students, demonstrated to release Basque prisoners, protested the arrests in France. The daily arrests. Torture in Spanish police stations across the border. It was the times. We wanted to liberate the French Basque prisoners.”

  Now it made sense. ETA—Euskadi Ta Askatasuna—the Basque nationalist separatist group. Outlawed and regarded as terrorists by both France and Spain.

  “You mean the ETA?”

  “I never said that.” Cybèle’s jaw tightened. Her work-worn hands busied themselves on the table. “I’ve got no more to say.”

  Now she’d lost her.

  “But such power in Agustino’s work,” she said, “such force. It’s beautiful.”

  Cybèle gave a snort of disgust. “Agustino lives off fat commissions,” she said, unable to resist one last dig. “A très important artist in residence at the Le Corbusier Foundation.”

  Aimée felt something warm being put into her hand. Caught the whiff of butter. Inside the blue cloth, tied up parcel-like, she saw the light brown crusted gâteau Basque. “You understand respect; you came to make proper condolences in your own way, Mademoiselle. I know that. And you, you’re too thin.”

  Thin? She’d gained a kilo during her recuperation.

  “Merci.”

  She shouldered her bag, scanning the room, the entry to the kitchen. No telephone. “My phone’s out of battery,” she said. “I’m late for an appointment. May I use yours?”

  Cybèle gave her a piercing look, shrugged, then pulled a bronze metallic cell phone from the pocket of her skirt. “As if I remember how to use this.”

  “My colleague’s got the same model.” Aimée made a show of hitting buttons. “Non, I think to call out you push this.” She kept the phone cupped in her hand while she scrolled down the contacts list until she found Irati’s number.

  “Busy.” She clicked off. “Merci, Madame. I’ll catch a taxi.”

  Outside on the path, she bent down to adjust her stocking. A green hose, coiled like a snake, dripped near the bushes. The damp butterscotch-colored limestone gravel crunched under her boots. The traces of the bloodstains from last night had been washed away.

  Still, she scooped a handful into her pocket and with her black kohl eye pencil jotted Irati’s number on her palm while she still remembered it. She shivered, but not from the cold. Irati stood in the upstairs window, a phone to her ear, watching her.

  Tuesday Afternoon

  AGUSTINO STROKED THE canvas with his horsehair brush, leaving a swirl of dusky orange. He wiped the perspiration beading his neck, stepped back, and surveyed the tall canvas, his commission for the Guggenheim in Bilbao. A quiet sense of exhilaration ran through him. Ten hours of painting today in the studio already, and he could work five more.

  Now in his mid-fifties, his wavy black hair threaded with gray, he carried a slight paunch and survived on cat naps. He felt alive, focused as always, when his work flowed. He’d almost captured the dance of light, evoked the tingling pine-resin scent, the indigo shadow tinting the Pyrénées valley.

  More ochre, he decided.

  He reached for his fine-point Kolonosky sable-hair brush, visualizing an arc for the curve. But his paint-encrusted fingertips came back with a brush tipped by hard-caked burnt sienna. The earth tones flaked over his palette. Ruined. His best brush, ruined! Jorge hadn’t cleaned it.

  Jorge was late, too. He’d sent him out for pigment hours ago. The nineteen-year-old slept in the atelier in return for doing errands and cleaning up. Frustrated, Agustino pushed aside the dry jars, wanting to capture the line, to keep this rush. He searched behind the pestle where he ground dry pigments. Not there. He tried to remember where he’d stored his stock of brushes.

  Where had he put them?

  Shadows of fallen maple leaves on the glass-paned roof dappled the paint-spattered concrete floor. The odor of turpentine wafted from half-empty cans. Dustballs furred in the corners. He realized Jorge hadn’t cleaned up in days. The atelier looked a mess. Pushing aside his irritation, he kept looking for the fine brush he needed for the crucial line.

  The glass-walled atelier contained no closets, no storage; just southern exposure and light. Radiant light. When the clouds parted in the pearl-gray sky, he uttered inner thanks for the residency program. Not to mention the prestige, the commissions coming his way. Shoving easels aside, he found the trunks with supplies in the corner: charcoal sticks, tubes of Sennelier pigment, old frames he’d picked up at the flea market.

  Somewhere … where had he put those brushes?

  He tied back his paint-spattered shirttails and bent down behind an easel. Pulling open his grandfather’s old leather trunk, he found his brushes strewn inside. His slow burn of anger notched higher. Why couldn’t this boy respect materials? Agustino kept his tail sable-hair brushes, costing several hundred francs each, protected and ordered by size. With care, he gathered up the fine-tipped brushes.

  Below were bulging navy blue canvas bags. Like postal sacks. IMPRIMERIE NATIONALE was stenciled on the blue canvas.

  Startled, Agustino opened a bag. Hundreds of small official printed documents.

  He leaned back on his haunches, stunned. Then looked closer.

  French passports, vehicle-registration forms, identity cards. All freshly minted with official stamps, and without names. Blank.

  Worth a fortune if authentic. And he had no doubt they were.

  How had they gotten here? Besides himself, only Jorge and the half-senile concierge of the Arts Foundation complex had a key. Foreboding weighted his chest.

  Jorge. He’d ignored the telltale signs, wanting to believe him, to give him another chance.

  His heart sank.

  The cell phone vibrated on the paint-stained table. Damn thing. He never answered it. But maybe he should … maybe.…

  “Oui?”

  “Finally you answered, Agustino.” A snort of disgust. “I know you’ve ignored my messages.” He recognized Cybèle’s voice quavering with emotion. “You can’t even come to mourn, ignoring our tradition. What kind of friend do you call yourself, eh? Xavierre’s dead and Irati’s beside herself.… ”

  Stunned, he gripped the phone.

  “Dead?”

  “Like you didn’t know?” A sob. “Murdered.”

  Tuesday Afternoon

  CYBÉLE’S SHARP DENIAL of Xavierre’s involvement in ETA played in Aimée’s head, along with doubts raised by Irati’s reactions: anger, fear, and evasiveness. Aimée needed to discover the Basque angle and to talk to Agustino. If he’d been at the party last night, he’d
provide answers.

  A few streets away, Aimée reached the white sugar cube—like Le Corbusier Foundation buildings glowing in the afternoon light. The villas la Roche and Jeanneret, according to a sign, contained Le Corbusier’s apartment and an exhibition space emblematic of the architect’s modern style. Sleek, linear, and sparse: not her taste. More a revolt against Guimard’s Art Nouveau swirls and curlicued noodles. Not her taste either. She felt glad she didn’t live in this chic, sterile, residential quartier devoid of street life and cafés.

  “The Foundation’s closed this week.” The silver-haired concierge, glasses perched on his forehead, stood at the door eying Aimée’s legs. “Opens next Monday.”

  “Of course, Monsieur,” she said. “But the Foundation’s artist in residence—”

  “Can’t you read?” He pointed to the wall plaque listing Le Corbusier’s archives, library hours, and permanent exhibitions open to the public. “Not here.”

  The Foundation appeared to be devoted to architecture and Le Corbusier. Not to paintings like those she’d seen on Xavierre’s walls, notable for bold lines and vibrant colors. But she wouldn’t give up yet.

  “But I’ve got an appointment with Monsieur Agustino, the Basque painter.” She handed him a card from the collection in her bag. “Concerning a painting for my pied-à-terre.”

  He bent lower, adjusting his reading glasses under the loge light. Shook his head.

  “Try the annex.” He turned away.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Rue Mallet-Stevens. Middle alley.” The door shut in her face.

  * * *

  ANOTHER LANE OF white buildings, these attributed to the architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. Bright yellow, red, and chartreuse metal awnings gave a varied look to more luminous sugar cubes.

  Not her taste either. And not promising in a deserted, shadowed street. Her hopes sank.

  Ahead she made out a small sign reading FLC almost hidden behind a laurel tree. The Fondation Le Corbusier annex.

  She turned into a lane, kept going, and found herself in a narrow parkway. Midway lay an eighteenth-century hôtel particulier—abandoned, from the look of the boarded-up doors. Beyond the trees were low buildings and ateliers backing the warren of apartment buildings. Gardens and greenery were set back in courtyards. Traces of the village it had been, she thought, like another world sheltered from the street. Hidden, discreet, exuding an old-fashioned charm.

  Her boots crunched on the gravel and packed dirt. Also secluded, dark, and a perfect place to hide. A shiver went up her spine.

  She felt a spreading dampness in her leather boots from the wet grass. Thick ribbons of light slanted over the dark green bushes. The source was a glass and metal—paned hothouse, an atrium resembling an old jardin d’hiver adjoining a building. Illuminated like a lighthouse, it shone with a blurred luminosity against the dark shadowy enclave.

  On closer inspection, she saw canvases with orange-yellow splashes stacked against the glass. Frames around the larger canvases blocked her view of most of the interior. But by an easel she could make out a figure with his back to her. Heavy maroon draperies shielded the interior of the atelier against door drafts.

  Her knuckles knocking on the glass made a brittle ting.

  The curtains semi-parted. A man appeared, only his dark hair threaded with gray and a paint-spattered hand visible.

  “Monsieur Agustino?” she said.

  “What do you want?”

  “Five minutes,” she said. Her breath frosted in the cold air. All of a sudden, the interior light went out. “May I come inside?”

  “I’m working.” His head pulled back.

  She couldn’t lose this opportunity.

  “It’s important. Please,” she said.

  “Not the facture again?” He sighed. “Just a moment.”

  Facture? A bill? Before she could think of an answer, the glass door creaked open. A gnome-like man emerged. Looking closer, she noticed his physiognomy, a Basque prototype: solid, compact, olive-complected weathered skin, strong arms, muscular legs, long earlobes, prominent nose. The lines from his twinkling dark eyes radiated upward, giving the impression of perpetual wonder. She’d had a teacher once with the same visage; he’d never looked unhappy, even during lunch duty at her table when he’d been informed that his mother had died and tears had streamed down his face into the cassoulet.

  “Et alors, tell the framing company we’ll settle out of court,” he said.

  Thick brows furrowed his wide forehead. Black pinprick eyes darted over her outfit. The man pulsated with energy. Nervous energy.

  He wanted to get rid of her.

  Aimée smiled and handed him her card.

  “A detective, eh?” A furtive look accompanied his shrug. “Insurance? One of my clients’ paintings stolen? Not my problem.”

  No time for niceties or indirect questioning. Time to get to the point while she had his attention.

  “I’m not from an insurance company,” she said. “We’re questioning the guests at the party last night—”

  “You think I have time for parties?” he interrupted, rubbing his hands on his paint-spattered shirt. “I’m working on a commission for the Bilbao museum. On deadline.”

  She believed him.

  “But whatever you can tell me about Xavierre d’Eslay, her past, a connection with ETA, could bear on the case.”

  That was stretching it.

  “Why me?” He averted his eyes.

  So he knew something.

  “You’re a family friend, from what I understand,” she said, “from your student days as a Basque activist with Xavierre, according to her sister Cybèle—”

  “Cybèle? Consider the source, eh?”

  No love lost between him and Cybèle. “Meaning?”

  “I paint, Mademoiselle. That’s what I do. That’s all I do. I’m not political,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Except in the sense that all art’s political. My father fought in the Freedom Brigade against Franco. That was enough for me.”

  Au contraire, she thought: Franco’s oppression spurred the Basques and Catalans to resist. And they hadn’t stopped.

  “Me, I have an appetite for life,” he said. “Zest. You young people don’t have it.”

  He spread his muscular arms as if invoking the weak sun. Hot-blooded, he didn’t seem to mind the cold in his short-sleeved shirt. She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms, wishing she had worn another layer.

  “Blame it on my little nonna,” he said, waxing poetic. “My grandmother raised ten children, then grandchildren. Never sick a day in her life. Every year butchered the pig, made blood sausage, salted the pork, took over sheepherding when my father lost his sight to Franco’s fascists.”

  He was wound up now, his eyes alive. “Until I grew tall enough to climb over the pasture fences to guide the herd away from the cliffs. That gave me an eye for color, how things fit together, the economy of line in nature, nothing superfluous. The natural design, integrating use and design, utility and nature.”

  An articulate showman: he hit all the right notes, she imagined, for his clients. But she wasn’t one.

  “A room needs a painting and a view,” he said. “That’s all. Like our farmhouse.”

  Well-rehearsed in an earthy, Picasso-esque manner with a weather-beaten face to lend credibility. No wonder it brought him commissions. But he was hiding something.

  “I’m French Basque, but you French complicate design with froufrou, rococo. Let the natural lines highlight the inner form, the beauty.”

  Forget the art lecture, she wanted to say. She wasn’t in a classroom or about to write a check. And then it hit her: he was giving this speech to stall for time, or to avoid revealing his past connection with Xavierre.

  “Monsieur Agustino, if you could listen for a moment—”

  “Non, you must listen. Understand. It’s life, how I breathe, my heritage that makes me—”

  “Involved with ETA again?” she interrupted.


  He shoved the card back into her hand. Glancing down, she noticed the stubbed flesh where his last two fingers would have been. Amazing that he could still paint masterpieces.

  “Watch what you’re saying.” His voice lowered. “In the old prisons, I went back and carved memorials in the dripping walls, memorials to the fallen,” he said. “To both sides—the Guardia Civil, ETA. My soul hurt, still does. For years my work has celebrated the Basque spirit, reconciliation, not violence.”

  His eyes bore into her. “How do you think I lost these?” He lifted his claw-like hand. “Xavierre knows … knew that.”

  Aimée nodded. “I saw your paintings. Breathing life, speaking to me.”

  “Then you know art touches more minds and spirits than bombs.” His arm trembled. His showman side evaporated. “My heart mourns Xavierre. On the phone with her last night, all I could talk about was my commission. How I needed to paint. Our last words. Well, she said I was too caught up in my art like usual. I’ll regret it all my life.”

  Guilt. But over that?

  “But didn’t you sense her fear? Did she tell you something?”

  “Apart from how selfish I’ve become?” Agustino gave a small shrug. “The family, this big wedding, the home, it’s a religion with Basques. Coward that I am, I can’t face Irati now, or any of them.”

  “Who would murder her, Agustino?”

  He made a sign of the cross. “God knows. But I broke our pact,” he said. “You see, I failed her in the most important thing to her.”

  “What pact?”

  “Made years ago. To be there for each other. I couldn’t even do a simple thing, attend her party. And I’d promised to come.” He looked away.

  “Then this pact’s deep, non?” she said, trying a guess. “What about the others from your student days in Bayonne? The protestors?”

  He turned, his shoulders slumped. But he hadn’t answered her question.

  “Haven’t you maintained the bonds you made with them?” she said. “Like with Xavierre.”