Assault and Beret

by Jenn McKinlay

  “Do you know anyone who would have wanted to harm Monsieur Reyer?” I asked. “You know, over a painting, perhaps?”

  My accusation was not subtle and she reared back like I’d slapped her.

  “I am shocked,” she said. Her pretty eyes went wide and then a little watery. “I am so sorry to hear about Mr. Reyer.”

  This surprised me since it hadn’t sounded like she and Mr. Reyer were on the best of terms. My face must have shown as much as she looked at me and nodded.

  “It is true we disagreed on the painting,” she said. “He felt that it truly was his since he bought it from the bouquiniste, but I paid what he asked for it, so . . .”

  “Did you know it was a Renoir?” Harrison asked.

  “No,” she said. “I only hoped that perhaps it was more valuable than ten euros. I was amazed, just amazed, when Mr. O’Toole at the insurance company told me its history.”

  “Are you hoping that the court decides that the painting belongs to you?” I asked. Since she was being so forthcoming, I figured, what the heck, maybe she would admit that she was furious that the painting had been taken from her and she was looking for revenge. It was a long shot but we had nothing to lose.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I truly hope that the painting is given back to the Musée de l’Or. Everyone should be able to enjoy such a beautiful piece. Besides, I heard it was the final request of the original owner, Madame Brouillard. That should be respected.”

  I admired her generosity of spirit. Although she seemed overly interested in Harrison, Colette Deneau also seemed to be a stand-up gal. She was more interested in everyone getting to appreciate the Renoir than she was the big payout, unlike Jacques Reyer. Perhaps that was why he was dead and she wasn’t.

  Harrison asked her about the Brouillards and she said she hadn’t met them but had heard of them from Mr. O’Toole. She said that they still lived in the family estate and, as far as she knew, hadn’t made a formal claim on the painting.

  Harrison and I took our leave not really having any more questions for her. I was still rattled that she had asked about our marital status. Did we present ourselves like a married couple? Why did that make me feel all breathless and giddy? I mean, Harrison wasn’t even my boyfriend . . . yet . . . how could I entertain thoughts of him as a husband?

  Husband! Oh, bother. Because I was so flustered, I forgot to ask Colette whether she knew Will. I wanted to know if he had been in the office when she brought the painting to O’Toole’s. I don’t know why, but I was holding out some sort of crazy hope that she might have seen something or learned something, maybe from Reyer, or the media, or perhaps even Mr. O’Toole, something that would give us a clue as to who would have grabbed Will and why.

  “Hang on,” I said to Harry. “I forgot to ask her something.”

  I ran back up the stairs to Colette’s place. I rapped quickly on the door, not wanting her to get preoccupied with something else and ignore me.

  The door swung open and she stood there with a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I could smell the alcohol wafting off the glass as she blew out a plume of smoke that shot right by my face, so not quite the ingénue she had appeared to be.

  Chapter 20

  “So sorry,” I said. “I forgot to ask you if you ever met a man named Will Graham?”

  One of her arched eyebrows rose, and she looked at me as if trying to figure out why I would ask her such a question.

  “He works for O’Toole Insurance,” I said. “He is my cousin’s, well, he’s a close family friend.”

  “How close?” she asked. I saw her nostrils flare just a little and I could see that my babbling was not making much sense to her.

  “Very close,” I said. “Listen, he was grabbed the other night, right after he showed us the painting, a big black car pulled up and he was snatched.”

  “He showed you and Mr. Wentworth?” she asked.

  “No, my cousin, Vivian, and I,” I said.

  “Vivian?” she asked. She glanced behind me as if looking for someone. “Is she with you?”

  “No,” I said. “She’s teaching a hat-making class at the Paris School of Art over on the Left Bank.”

  “She is pretty, like you?” she asked.

  I actually felt myself blush. There was something intensely flattering about Colette’s scrutiny, which also made me nervous. It was like being in middle school when one of the cool kids deigns to talk to you and you’re not sure why.

  I wondered if Colette did this to men. I’d have to ask Harry. Scratch that, if she did affect Harry, I didn’t want to know. My self-esteem didn’t need a hit like that.

  “Vivian is much lovelier than I’ll ever be,” I said. “She’s quite beautiful, actually.”

  Her eyes seemed to harden at that like little chips of darkness with no light shining through. The veneer of innocence she’d seemed to have before was gone. Maybe it was the cigarette or the booze, but right now, she looked like a driven woman, the sort who would have no trouble going after what she wanted and knocking down anyone who stood in her way.

  “You do not give yourself enough credit,” she said. “You are quite lovely and I am sure this cousin of yours cannot be much more so.”

  Her tone was dismissive, and I sensed she was going to close the door on me. I stalled.

  “Okay,” I said. I wasn’t going to argue. “Are you quite certain you never met Will Graham?” I asked again. There was a note of desperation in my voice that was not faked. Will had been gone for almost forty-eight hours, we hadn’t heard from him, and I for one was getting very worried.

  She shrugged. She didn’t seem to appreciate my anxiety at all. I wondered if that was a French thing or if it was just her. I suspected it was just her as I couldn’t imagine Suzette just shrugging at me when I was worried about something.

  “Maybe, maybe not,” she said. “It was very chaotic once it was discovered that the painting looked to be authentic. I truly can’t say if I met him.”

  We stared at each other for a moment. I got the distinct feeling she knew something that she wasn’t telling me. It made me want to pinch her really hard.

  “I like the color of your door,” I said, trying to get back some sort of rapport. “It’s very cheerful.”

  “Porte jaune,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “My French is rusty.”

  “It means yellow door,” she said, looking at me as if I was dull-witted. Then she sent me a small smile through another plume of smoke.

  I could have stayed and asked her more questions; instead I murmured a civil thank-you and left, not even waiting for her to say “you’re welcome” or “good-bye.” I had a feeling she wasn’t going to offer either sentiment anyway.

  Harry was right where I’d left him; he was talking on his phone and frowning. The vee in between his eyes was carved deep and the corners of his mouth were turned down.

  “Thanks, mate,” he said into the phone. “Call me if you find anything, anything at all.”

  “Mate?” I asked. “Was that Alistair?”

  “It was,” he said. “What did you have to dash back up there for?”

  “Why did you call Alistair?” I countered.

  “I asked first,” he said. He took my hand once again and we left the courtyard and wandered back onto the street.

  “First? Are we really playing it this way?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Fine,” I said. Then I gave him my most wicked grin and dropped my voice a few octaves and gazed at him through my lashes. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  Harrison looked as if I’d smacked him up the side of the head with a teapot.

  “You can’t . . . that’s not . . . Ginger,” he said. His voice was a slow growl that sounded absolutely delicious. “You’re not playing fair.”


  “All’s fair in lo—” I cut myself off with a gasp. Had I almost said it, the “L” word? We weren’t ready for that. We hadn’t even rounded the bases and slid into home yet. Not even once.

  I glanced at him and he was grinning. Of course he was!

  “Figure of speech,” I said. “Do not read into that.”

  His grin deepened. For a breathless second I thought he was going to kiss me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide my feelings if he did.

  “What did you call Alistair for?” I begged in an effort to change the subject.

  He was still grinning at me when he answered, “I’m having him run a background check on Colette just to see if she is as she appears.”

  “She’s not,” I said. “I went back to ask if she remembered meeting Will, she said she didn’t, but—”

  “You don’t believe her,” he said.

  “It was hard to get past the glass of booze and cigarette,” I said. “She went from young innocence to hardened adult in less than five minutes.”

  “Interesting,” he said.

  We continued walking back to the lamppost with the red Metro sign on it.

  “Did you let Alistair know that Viv is still in love with her husband?” I asked.

  “No,” he said.

  “Do you think that’s wise?” I asked. “He might get crushed.”

  “I hinted that, with Will missing, Viv’s feelings were a bit of a muddle.”

  “Was he okay with that?”

  I really liked Alistair Turner. He was funny, charming, smart, and with his lithe build and chin-length dark hair, he was not hard on the eyes either. Yes, understatement.

  Then again, I liked Will, too. He was also funny and charming with his down-home good looks and pleasant disposition. I really didn’t envy the situation Viv was in; however, if we didn’t find Will, I guess it wouldn’t be so tricky. The thought depressed me.

  “He’s fine with it,” he said. Something in his voice sounded off. I looked at him with my most dubious gaze and he sighed. “All right, fine. I haven’t exactly mentioned that Viv is waffling on the whole annulment thing.”

  “Harry,” I cried. “Alistair could get his heart broken.”

  “No, he won’t,” he said. “He’s a grown lad and it’s not as if he and Viv have anything going. She’s been shooting him down for months. He’ll be fine.”

  Men. They were positively thick as bricks at times. I began to roll my eyes but then had to abandon it as Harry wasn’t looking at me and we were entering the Metro stop and I didn’t want to crash into anyone.

  “We need to go tell Viv about Jacques Reyer,” I said. “I don’t want her to hear about it on the news. Also, we should probably get in touch with Inspecteur Lavigne, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” he said.

  We hurried to the platform, arriving just as the train did. Harry unlatched the door and we climbed aboard. We’d have to take a couple of trains back to the Left Bank, where our apartment and the school were located.

  Harry checked the time on his watch and I glanced at him. “Have a hot date?”

  “Actually, we both do,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Harrison gave me an enigmatic smile but refused to elaborate, although I badgered him unmercifully all the way home and believe you me, I can badger with the best of them.

  * * *

  “Scarlett, darling, how are you?” a voice called out from the drawing room as Harrison and I entered the vestibule of the apartment building.

  Suzette smiled at us as she closed the door behind us and she and Harrison exchanged a knowing look.

  “Is that—” I dashed into the drawing room, and sure enough, sitting by the fire were my two closest friends, Nick Carroll and Andre Eisel.

  “Oh, wow, you’re here!” I cried. I jumped up and down and held out my arms for a hug. I dropped my arms. “Wait! What are you doing here?”

  “We’re the cavalry,” Nick said. He was wearing a snappy suit and his thinning blond hair was gelled to perfection.

  “No, we’re not, I don’t like horses. They have too many teeth. It freaks me out,” Andre Eisel, Nick’s partner, said. In a body-hugging gray cashmere sweater and jeans, he looked even more stylish than Nick. With his dark complexion and close-cropped hair, he looked more like a fashion model than the renowned photographer that he was.

  “That’s what I like about them,” Nick protested. “Great choppers.” Being a dentist, that is what Nick would like about them.

  They ignored my arms at my sides and scooped me close in a group hug. It was a rib cracker and forced the breath from my lungs before they let me go.

  “Sit, sit,” Suzette said as she came back into the room behind Harrison. “I made tea.”

  The end of my nose was still cold as well as the tips of my ears. I was very grateful for a cup of black tea with a heaping teaspoonful of sugar.

  “I still don’t understand,” I said. I took off my beret and shrugged out of my coat. “What are you doing here?”

  “I sent for them,” Harrison said.

  “In the company jet, no less,” Nick said. “Very posh.”

  “I like having a friend who’s a toff,” Andre said.

  Harrison shook his head. He knew that the boys were incorrigible. He sat next to me on the sofa and Andre sat on the other side. Suzette and Nick took the two remaining seats in front of the fire.

  “Explain,” I said to Harry.

  “We need help,” he answered. “So, I called Nick and Andre to see if they could pop over and help us look for William.”

  I glanced at my two friends. “You’re that curious to get a look at Viv’s husband, are you?”

  “That’s gratitude,” Nick said to Andre, giving me a hurt look.

  I was not buying it.

  “My husband?” Viv asked as she entered the room. “Who saw my husband?”

  Her face was so full of hope that I felt just awful and I cringed as I got to my feet and said, “Oh, Viv, no one. I’m sorry, I misspoke.”

  “Oh.” Viv met my gaze and her shoulders dropped in disappointment, making me feel even worse. “Nick, Andre, what are you doing here?”

  “We’re here to help, love,” Andre said. “Harrison brought us in.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Viv said. She sounded a little cheered by the arrival of our friends. “I know we’ll find him; I just know it.”

  They exchanged hugs and Harrison dragged another chair from the side of the room over so that Viv had a seat, too.

  “Did anything happen at the school today?” I asked. I had been worried that Emile St. James would show up, or that she would hear about Jacques Reyer before we had a chance to tell her.

  “Nothing,” she said. “My class is going well. My students have really taken to millinery. They only have two and a half more days to finish their hats for Saturday’s fashion show.” She turned to Nick and Andre. “You’ll be here for it, won’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” Nick said.

  “Absolutely,” Andre assured her.

  “And hopefully Will is going to be there, too,” Viv said.

  She looked so forlorn, I felt my chest get tight. Suzette handed her a cup of tea and Viv gave her a small smile of thanks but it didn’t light her eyes, and I knew her worry for Will was beginning to grind her down.

  “He will be,” Andre said. He sounded so confident, as only someone who hadn’t been here for the past few days could, that even I almost believed him.

  “Here’s what we know so far,” Harrison said.

  He went on to tell the assembled group about the Renoir and how Will had shown it to Viv and me right before it went missing. He added in Will’s encounter with Emile St. James and then our own meeting with him at the cemetery.

&
nbsp; “Emile St. James, why does that name sound familiar?” Nick asked. He tapped his chin with his right forefinger. “I know I’ve heard it before. I just know it.”

  “He’s a miserable bastard,” I said. “He’s one of those people who is consumed by owning beautiful things, as if it makes him more valuable as a person, which it doesn’t.”

  “I know the type,” Andre said. “A few of them have hired me over the years to take pictures of their treasured possessions. It’s a scary narcissism that dwells inside of a person who buys, or steals, a piece of art, locking it away in a vault so that only he can ever see it.”

  “Scary narcissism, yeah, that sounds like St. James,” I said.

  “Except St. James doesn’t have the painting and his method to get it, intimidating Will, didn’t work,” Harrison said. “And now that Reyer has been murdered—”

  “A murder?” Andre asked. “You might have led with that, mate.”

  “Sorry,” Harrison said. “It’s been a rather full day.”

  “Reyer, the shopkeeper? What?” Viv asked. “When? How? Do you think . . . was there any indication . . . about Will?”

  Chapter 21

  It was painful to watch Viv struggle for words. I knew she had to be terrified and I wished more than anything that I could put her mind at ease.

  “We don’t know for certain when he was killed, but we found him in his shop this morning,” I said. Andre leaned toward me and squeezed my hand with his. Finding a body together was the bond that had cemented our friendship so I knew he understood how distressing this morning had been.

  Harrison told the others about finding Reyer, calling the police, playing the tourist bit, and then how we searched his office to find the address of the woman who had bought the painting.

  We then shared our impressions of Colette Deneau. I noted that Harry didn’t describe her as attractive, although I certainly would have. I found this to be an endearing quality of his. He really did make me feel as if I was the only girl for him. Man, I hoped he still felt the same way two months from now.