Sensational

by Jodie Lynn Zdrok

  They meandered for a few minutes among the architectural dwellings designed to tell the story of how humans lived, from the earliest times until the Renaissance, all over the world. They walked through the Japan, Persia, Africa, and Greco-Roman exhibits before she saw someone reading a newspaper.

  She did have a morgue report to submit. And, given that she was so inspired, she wanted to write a short piece about the horological exhibit. Maybe M. Patenaude would consider running it.

  Reluctantly, Nathalie suggested they part ways, and soon after, they did. Christophe apologized for having taken up so much of her time, a sentiment she quickly refuted.

  “It’s I who have taken up too much of yours,” she said. “That’s what you get for strolling the grounds with someone ever-so-curious about ever-so-everything.”

  Later that night, as she wrote about the day’s events in her journal, she wondered if it had been a coincidence. Or had he merely portrayed it that way? Perhaps he wanted to make sure she was well, or perhaps he felt sorry about her memory loss.

  Or maybe he just wanted to see some of the Exposition on a splendid June day.

  It didn’t matter, she decided. And she didn’t really want to know. She was just happy the afternoon was what it was, and for once, chose not to think too, too much about why.

  * * *

  The policemen rushing past Nathalie and Jules in the sewer were indeed investigating a report of another headless body. It was a false lead; the next morning as she entered the morgue, she learned from an unusually solemn M. Soucy that the body of the female victim had been found in a trunk outside a hotel in the 7th arrondissement.

  The woman’s body was not on display. Yet Nathalie was astounded to see the body of the first victim, and several centimeters above it, his severed head. She had no recollection of having seen his face before, but it was consistent with the notes she’d taken and she recognized the clothes from Autopsy—except for the bloody white scarf that had been wrapped around the base of his neck. Now it hung, along with the rest of his garb, behind him.

  Two years of writing the morgue report and assisting with murder cases, and still she couldn’t take her eyes off this corpse, body and head reunited.

  I touched that head. That poor man’s bloody head fell off a pedestal in the Palais des Beaux-Arts and I caught it. Lost two days of my life because of it.

  Nathalie looked down at her hands, no longer cold and feeling normal once again; the chill had left her, at last. She couldn’t reconcile those hands and that head, the one over there on the other side of the glass, held by them. These same hands that gave her visions and wrote morgue reports and helped Papa knead bread at times.

  Visions. Would she have one now? No, certainly not, and a swift touch of the viewing pane confirmed as much.

  She observed the other visitors. They, too, were riveted, unable or unwilling to move along until prompted by M. Soucy. Many of them were tourists, from what she could overhear.

  Welcome to Paris. Never mind the Exposition. The real show was here, among the dead.

  Christophe had maintained that they weren’t going to display either of these victims, though, so as not to prolong fixation on the deaths. What had changed?

  “The mind of Prefect of Police Lozé,” Christophe explained several minutes later when she was in his office. “Thanks in part to Monsieur Patenaude’s dear friend, Monsieur Bennett.”

  “Oh,” said Nathalie with a frown. Christophe’s use of “friend” was facetious, for the American M. Bennett was no friend to M. Patenaude. He wasn’t an enemy—M. Patenaude was too savvy to get in public feuds—but the relationship was distant at best. Joseph Gordon Bennett, eccentric editor of the Paris edition of the New York Herald, lived an extravagant life and, as Papa might say, “was very pleased with his mother’s son.” As an American, Bennett was, M. Patenaude had said, “utterly indifferent to the perception of France by the rest of the world.”

  “Lozé was recently seen at one of Bennett’s aristocratic soirées on his Versailles estate, conversing with the editor at length.” Christophe held up his hands, a gesture that so often reflected his status as a liaison. Although he was by nature very diplomatic, Nathalie could tell when being an intermediary exasperated him. “Several privy to that conversation say it’s not unrelated to the fact that the Prefect of Police now believes ‘the morgue should enhance what’s been reported.’ And that ‘Paris would look weak’ if it tried to hide this for the sake of the Exposition.”

  Nathalie folded her arms. Meddling American and his fancy parties (although truthfully she would quite like to attend one, just to see what the nobility did at parties). “What about the woman, this monster’s ‘queen’?”

  “We may have an identification,” Christophe said, holding up a finger. “Someone is coming by today. Somehow we’ve managed to keep this one out of the papers; so as far as people know, there’s only one victim.”

  Nathalie wanted to ask, but also didn’t, her next question. “Has Gabrielle returned?”

  “Only to tell me that she needs more time to think about getting involved.” Christophe shifted in his seat. “She suffered significant numbness in her feet after the first vision—it worsened as the day went on—and she declined to help with the second.”

  “I dislike her.”

  “Yes, I know. You’ve mentioned that.”

  Didn’t he realize that Gabrielle was perhaps not all that necessary? Maybe even more trouble than she was worth?

  Nathalie had a small memory gap of yesterday, owing to the wasted vision of the man killed in a fight. She lost some time in the early evening when she’d reclined to read the French translation of The Woman in White. At some point while reading, she didn’t recall opening the book, much less being on page sixteen. She would much rather have forgotten her rendezvous with Gabrielle.

  Christophe stood and took a volume of photographs from the shelf.

  “I want to show you something,” he said, opening the book to the most recent page. “Look here.”

  He pointed to the naked torsos of the victims, above the stomachs to the left. Both had a small hole in nearly the same place.

  “We saw that yesterday on the man,” she said, shaking her head. “Dr. Nicot said it was postmortem but didn’t know what caused it.”

  “Now we do: a nail. We found one in the trunk with the woman’s body, and it fits. Undoubtedly it fell out. It’s possible that the man’s also did and that it’s sitting at the bottom of the Paris sewer.”

  Nathalie stared at the photos. “Nails. Why?”

  “That’s the mystery,” said Christophe. “Or rather, one of them.”

  16

  The female victim, Camille Bertrand, was identified that day, as Christophe had supposed. She was thirty-nine years old and from a well-to-do Paris family, a widowed socialite known to dwell in the opium dens for days at a time, a secret her wealthy family spent a good deal of time hiding. When she didn’t turn up after a few days, they began to worry and checked with the police, who directed them to the morgue. The family made a donation to the Daughters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul in the name of discretion, and it was agreed upon that no connection to the other guillotine victim would be made.

  The male victim was, as suspected, a tourist from Italy. Enzo Farini was forty-three and here visiting the Exposition with a group, and he’d been displeased with the hotel and moved to another. He was to rejoin the group on the return trip by train, and when he didn’t report to the station, inquiries were made that eventually led to the police. Farini’s wife had been sent a telegram and came to Paris the next day.

  Newspaper coverage varied in salaciousness. Le Petit Journal adopted a tone of grave concern but reiterated the wonders of the Exposition, as before. Le Figaro de la Tour took advantage of its vantage point and relative proximity to the murder and focused on profiling the Palais des Beaux-Arts overall, complete with a map indicating which pedestal Farini’s head was on. Bennett’s Paris edition
of the New York Herald, in a somewhat superior tone, postulated as to the who, how, and why of both the murder and the rumored use of a guillotine. (“A leak from the police, apparently,” Christophe conjectured.)

  “The Exposition will survive,” said Simone, several days later. “People came to see the Tour Eiffel, among other wonders. They aren’t going to scatter because of a murder.”

  “And they don’t know there’s been two,” Louis added. “If they’re frightened away, there’s that much more room for us.”

  Nathalie and Jules had arrived at Simone’s apartment a few minutes before, Louis handing them a glass of wine almost as soon as they came in. The four of them settled into the modest and not-all-that-tidy parlor, discussing their Exposition plans for the evening. The Galerie des Machines, some food, the fireworks, and finally, a trip up the illuminated Tour Eiffel after dark.

  “How lost do you think we can get?” asked Louis.

  Jules tapped the stem of his glass. “Is that a rhetorical question or an invitation to go where we shouldn’t be?”

  “Both.” Louis winked.

  “Nous verrons cela,” said Jules.

  “Yes, we will see about that,” said Simone. Then she clapped eagerly and stood. “Now, I have a surprise for you.”

  “Three surprises, in fact,” added Louis, rising as well. “Close your eyes.”

  Jules threw him a suspicious look. “Are we going to like these surprises?”

  “Two for sure,” Simone said with a giggle. “We’ll see about the third.”

  Nathalie and Jules reclined on the (always dusty) sofa, eyes shut. Two pairs of footsteps left the room.

  “The wine relaxed me,” she whispered to Jules. “If they’re gone too long, I might fall asleep.”

  Jules responded by pretending to snore, and they laughed before slipping into patient silence. Then Nathalie heard a squeak, a peep of a sound she couldn’t place. Or was the wine getting to her? The footfall returned once again.

  “Ready?” asked Louis. “Put out your hands.”

  Nathalie obeyed, and something very soft, tiny, and warm was placed in her palms.

  Mew!

  She opened her eyes and grinned. Both she and Jules were holding adorable black-and-white kittens.

  “Say hello to Max,” said Simone, bursting with joy. “Named after our favorite café.”

  Louis patted the kitten trying to crawl out of Jules’s hands. “And that’s Lucy. She’s named after a character in my poem, the one published in Le Chat Noir’s journal last month about a beguiling girl with freckles on her nose. That cute ink spot”—he pointed to the kitten’s nose—“reminded me of that.”

  Jules endured a swat on the cheek and gave the kitten a hug.

  Nathalie kissed Max on the head. “Merci! Stanley could use a playmate. I can keep him, right?”

  “Of course you can’t.” Simone playfully stepped on her shoe. “But you can visit them anytime!”

  All four of them cooed over the kittens, which Simone had gotten from a neighbor, until the baby cats mewed to be put down. Simone collected them with hugs and kisses and returned them to the bedroom.

  “Is that surprise number one or number one and number two?” Jules held up one finger on one hand and two on the other.

  “One and two,” Louis said as Simone came back into the room. “The third is pending.”

  He poured the rest of the wine into their glasses. Nathalie sipped, indulging in the way it subtly slowed down her often-busy mind. A short while later, when all four glasses were empty, Louis got up and took another bottle from the wine rack. (Simone didn’t have much furniture; she did have a wine rack, though.)

  “Thank you, but I don’t need any more,” said Nathalie, sliding her glass away. “I’ve had enough for now.”

  “As have I.” Jules put his glass beside Nathalie’s.

  Louis stood at the table, back to them as he opened the bottle. “Oh, this is different, my friends,” he said, calling over his shoulder.

  Nathalie glanced at Simone. She and Louis were nineteen, and they frequented clubs and were generally more attuned to fashionable food and drink. “What kind is it?”

  “That’s surprise number three,” she purred.

  Mild annoyance brushed over Nathalie. If it was such a surprise, why didn’t they serve it first?

  Louis came over, poured generously into the four glasses, and returned the bottle to the dining table. Simone picked up her glass and drank, then smacked her lips.

  Jules reached for his glass. “Is it very expensive?” He sniffed the wine. “Some extraordinary vintage?”

  “Try it,” said Louis as he took a sip of his own.

  Relenting with a shrug, Jules put the glass to his lips. He took a hesitant taste. “Doesn’t taste much different from the other.”

  Louis and Simone shared a sly smile.

  Now all eyes were on Nathalie. Simone nudged the glass toward her. “Well?”

  Nathalie shook her head. “Well, I don’t want any. Especially if you’re keeping it a secret as to why it’s so special.”

  “I promise I’ll tell you. Please try it. You don’t have to finish it—Louis may have poured too much. Have just a taste. For me?” Simone did the puppy look she’d perfected over the years.

  Where was that stillness Nathalie had been enjoying a few minutes ago?

  Maybe another few sips would bring it back. And she didn’t want to cause a fuss and change the mood of an evening out just because she resisted some wine.

  That pout of Simone’s. It worked on her like a magic trick every time.

  How could it hurt to have another two or three sips?

  “If it’s that important to you for me to have a sip of mysterious wine, then so be it.” With an exaggerated sigh, she picked up her glass. “Never let it be said that Simone Marchand is not persuasive.”

  “Santé!” Simone raised her glass and they all repeated the toast.

  It was good enough wine, Nathalie thought after her first sip, nothing exceptional. Not wanting to offend, she complimented the taste. Jules followed suit, remarking on the finish.

  “So, what’s the surprise?” asked Nathalie.

  Louis retrieved the bottle from the table and came back displaying the label for them. Nathalie inspected it. Vin de coca. She’d never had it, but she knew the combination of wine and coca leaves made for a powerful concoction. “Like Vin Tonique Mariani?”

  “Stronger, apparently. Someone brought it into the club last week, made at home or something along those lines,” said Simone, swirling the wine in her glass. “We tried this side by side with Mariani, and the claim was valid.”

  Nathalie peeked inside her glass, as if the wine would have visual indicators of its effects. “What makes it different from other wine?”

  “Don’t you want to find out?” Louis arched a brow.

  She didn’t. And she did.

  It might have been the temptation of friends, or it might have been the groundwork laid by the preceding glass of wine. But Nathalie was intrigued and decided she would take three sips, no more.

  17

  They continued drinking and talked about the Exposition, with Louis sharing what he’d seen the previous day at the Forestry Pavilion. After she reached three sips, Nathalie opted to make it five. Relaxation had overtaken her once again. So had something else.

  At the start, it was imperceptible. Nathalie thought everyone was speaking more loudly. Jules sneezed twice in a row, and she was suddenly enamored with his left ear. It really was perfectly formed, like the golden mean applied to an ear.

  Simone was chuckling and weeping at the same time; she’d nearly finished her glass. Nathalie took a few more sips (she’d stopped counting) and listened as Louis spoke very quickly (was he even speaking French?) about some count named Montesquiou-Something who had a jewel-encrusted pet turtle. But she was still thinking about Jules’s ear and how after Louis was done talking and Simone was done laugh-crying, she was going to
mention something about his ear. And then maybe after that, she’d suggest they conduct a séance, because why not?

  Nathalie took the final gulp of her wine and put down the glass. Or tried to, because someone had moved the table since she last picked up the wine glass and her aim was off. She caught it, barely, and shook her head. When she did, the room spun, and the fleur-de-lis pattern on Simone’s chair danced in circles. She steadied herself on Jules’s arm, even though she was sitting. Probably a séance wasn’t a good idea after all.

  “Is something the matter?” Jules turned to her, then squinted. “I think I can hear you breathing. Is that you breathing?” He looked at Louis. “Or is that you?”

  “I certainly am breathing, Jules. We all are. Otherwise we would be in the morgue and not Simone’s apartment.” Nathalie laughed as she finished the sentence.

  “Wait,” said Louis, standing, “only if we didn’t know who you were. We do, and we’re right here, so there’s nothing to worry about. And before too long we’re going to be at the Exposition and not in Simone’s apartment.”

  Simone guffawed. “Louis! You are so cheeky!” Then she pinched his behind.

  They all doubled over in laughter.

  Just then, the two kittens tumbled over one another into the room.

  Two kittens or four?

  Two. Indisputably two.

  Jules finished his wine and called to the cats. “Maximus and Lucille!”

  “It’s Max and Lucy,” said Simone, purposely loud (Nathalie assumed).

  Louis walked over to the wine bottle and brought it over, adding a splash to each glass until the bottle was empty. “Au revoir, vin de coca.”

  “Did you like it?” Simone’s eyes were glassy.

  Nathalie was not interested in shaking her head again, the last instance not having gone very well. “No and yes. I don’t know. Ask me tomorrow.”

  “We thought it might make for an interesting trip to the Exposition,” added Louis.

  And it did.

  Nathalie couldn’t remember how they got there. Not because of a memory loss, but because things were … hazy. There was a crowd, then there was an omnibus and some more laugh-crying by Simone, and then somehow they were at the Exposition Universelle.