The Complete Mystery Collection

by Michaela Thompson

  I emerged into an anteroom to find Jack sitting there, reading a story about Princess Stephanie in a back issue of Paris Match. “Got time for coffee?” he said. “There’s an all-night cafe on the Place St. Michel.”

  I was so touched to see him I had trouble speaking. “You didn’t have to wait. You must have filed your story hours ago.”

  “I did, but I thought I’d hang around to see if you made any surprise revelations.” He stood. “Ready?” I felt too weak to move. The bliss of having the right person show up at the right time had taken away the remains of my energy. He put his arm around my shoulders, I got my legs moving, and we walked to the elevator.

  In the cafe, hunched over my cup, I tried not to break down. “It’s all my fault. All my fault,” I said. Steam from my coffee drifted around my head. “He’d be alive if it weren’t for me.” I had never, ever, felt so wretched.

  Jack wasn’t having it. He said, “Bullshit, Georgia Lee. He’d be alive if it weren’t for the person who shot him.”

  “But I made him—”

  “You didn’t make him. He insisted on being involved. Isn’t that right?”

  “He wanted out, and I offered to pay him.”

  “And he accepted.”

  “He didn’t know he was going to be killed!”

  “Well, neither did you.”

  I subsided, and with both hands managed to bring my cup to my mouth so I could take a swallow. “Poor Lucien Claude,” I said mournfully.

  “The innocent victim.”

  “Yes.”

  “The extremely handsome man caught in a web not of his own making.”

  I quavered, “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m just thinking. Maybe Claude was the innocent victim. Or maybe he gave the person who killed him a reason to do it.”

  “That’s like saying the victim of a rape was asking for it.”

  “You know, I must be psychic, because I knew you were going to say that.” Jack lit a fresh cigarette with the butt that had been smouldering in the ashtray. “Nobody raped Lucien Claude. He was murdered. Now, did the man Claude was dealing with go to the trouble of setting all this up just to have a chance to shoot him? Or did the guy genuinely want the ransom money? Take a guess.”

  “I…I don’t know…”

  “A wild stab.”

  “O.K. Say he really wanted the money.”

  “In that case, by murdering Claude he has completely defeated his purpose, hasn’t he? Couldn’t it be that Claude gave him a reason for going so obviously against his own interests?”

  I thought about it. “But if it’s the same people, they killed senselessly once before— Pierre Legrand. Maybe they’re maniacs who like to commit murder.”

  “Could be. I’m just raising the question.”

  I took another swallow of coffee, this time without as much difficulty. “They didn’t tell me anything about tonight. What have you heard?” I asked.

  He leaned back and laced his hands behind his head. “Not much. The ballistics people are working on whether the bullets came from the same gun that killed Pierre Legrand. Lucien Claude lived alone, separated from his wife. I understand they’re checking to see if he’s ever been involved in anything illegal or shady.”

  I finished my coffee. When I put the cup down, Jack reached over and took my hand. “Feel a little better?”

  I nodded. He looked craggy, rumpled, kind, and very tired. He was smiling, and I liked his smile. I was so grateful to him for waiting and not letting me leave the Quai des Orfèvres alone and in despair. I gave his hand a squeeze, and felt an unexpected tingly shock that I recognized all too well as that old devil, sexual attraction.

  I reined myself in. The man was not only married, but a smoker. I told myself I happened to be feeling vulnerable right now. I extricated my hand with all deliberate speed and said, “Maybe I should go on home.”

  “I’ll drive you.”

  The night was cold when we emerged, the Seine, under orange floodlights, pitch-black and moiling. “I shouldn’t let you do this,” I said without conviction as I pulled my coat around me. Jack lived in Neuilly, and my place was hardly on his way.

  “What sort of cad would do less?”

  As we rattled through the quiet Left Bank streets in Jack’s ancient Renault, I said, “Let’s go back by where it happened. Can we?”

  Jack didn’t reply but took a left at the next corner, and soon we were pulling into a loading zone on the Rue de Fleurus not far from the Rue Guynemer. We got out and walked the few steps to the corner. At the place Lucien had fallen, a portion of the sidewalk had been blocked off with barriers, and a couple of gendarmes wearing capes were loitering beneath the street lamps. As we approached, Jack called out that we were from the press, and the gendarmes seemed willing enough to let us stand at the barrier and look at the black iron fence, bushes crowding it from the other side. I saw a dark patch or two that might have been blood or a trick of the light. I stared at the place, seeing Lucien crouched there, his hand outstretched.

  “He was bending down to get something, but nothing was there,” I said to Jack. I was almost whispering, as if we were in church.

  “Unless it was hidden.” Jack’s tone was as hushed as mine, his words blowing away on the cold wind.

  I clasped my hands tight, looked at the dark patches, and tried once more to tell Lucien I was sorry. Then Jack and I turned away and went back to the car.

  When we reached my place, I felt it was almost inhospitable not to invite Jack in for a drink or coffee, but I also felt it was a move to be avoided at all costs. “What on earth will your wife think? Will she be worried?” I said as I prepared to get out.

  “Claire? She’s used to it,” he said shortly.

  “Thank you, Jack. A lot.”

  I gave him a hug. There couldn’t be any harm in that. I got out and climbed wearily up the stairs. By the time I reached my window he had already driven away.

  A Photograph

  “Please don’t apologize,” Madeleine Bellefroide said. She tossed restlessly on her sofa, where she was propped against a pile of pillows. A crocheted throw of ivory-colored wool was wrapped around her legs. She looked drawn and pallid, as if some harsh substance had leached the color out of her. When I’d seen her before, it had been difficult to believe she was seriously ill. Now, it was easy. Our failure to regain the mirror had literally knocked her off her feet.

  It was the afternoon after the murder of Lucien Claude. I had slept fitfully, gotten up late, and spent the morning at home. I felt achy, frayed, and depressed. I knew Madeleine Bellefroide and I should talk. I called, made an appointment, and took the bus to her apartment. When it was obvious that she wasn’t angry with me, my explanations came easier.

  “When he threatened to pull out, I offered to pay,” I said. “But even after I offered and he accepted, he was afraid. There was more to it than the money.”

  Madeleine closed her eyes. “And now we’re as far from getting the mirror as ever— or farther, perhaps.”

  I saw that in her way, she was as obsessed with the mirror as Bruno Blanc was. The fact that two men were now dead was secondary. The degree of her self-absorption was astounding, but I couldn’t be sure that in her situation I would act or feel differently. “I wish we’d gotten it,” I said, thinking how futile wishes were.

  “Yes.” The word was barely audible. Then, her voice a bit stronger, she said, “Madame Maxwell, the offer still stands. If there is any possible way—”

  I shook my head. “I don’t see how there can be. The police will have to know everything. I don’t see how it can happen.”

  “I suppose not. But as I say, the offer stands.”

  I left her lying on the sofa, her eyes closed.

  I thought I should check in at the office, although my energy level was low and my enthusiasm nonexistent. When I got there Kitty was out, although she’d taken a couple of messages from newspapers wanting statements from me. I was beginning to c
omprehend what a nuisance press attention could be, but I was dutifully about to return one of the calls when the phone rang.

  “Madame Maxwell?” It was a woman’s voice, husky and somehow familiar.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Chantal Legrand. I was wondering— you’re in your office now?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I’m in the neighborhood. May I stop in and speak with you?”

  “Well… sure. Of course.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  As I waited the five minutes for Chantal to show up, I wondered what on earth she wanted and hoped she didn’t plan to berate me for trying to ransom the mirror from her husband’s killers.

  She arrived, dressed in a severe black suit that only made it obvious that she was bursting with vitality. As she spoke, she fiddled with the clasp of her purse. “I read in the newspaper today about the death of Monsieur Claude. About you, and the mirror, and the ransom,” she said.

  “Yes. It was a terrible thing.”

  “Just like Pierre, you know?”

  “Yes. I know.”

  After an interlude of silence, she recommenced. “You had been dealing with Monsieur Claude, the newspaper said.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m wondering— did he say anything about my husband, Pierre?” When that question was out, she picked up speed. “It haunts me, this mirror, the idea that Pierre might have been involved. I wanted to know if Monsieur Claude said whether the man— the one who wanted to sell back the mirror— whether he had mentioned Pierre?”

  She took out a lace-trimmed handkerchief and carefully blotted her upper lip.

  I shook my head. “As far as I know, your husband’s name never came up in connection with the ransom arrangements. If the person who called Lucien Claude spoke of him, I wasn’t told about it.”

  “I see.” She gave a last blot. I was sure she hadn’t gotten even a trace of her pale pink lipstick on her handkerchief. “I’m relieved to hear that. These implications— they’re hard to forget.”

  “I’m sure they are.”

  I thought she’d be getting up to go, but she continued to perch on the edge of her chair. She said, “I don’t suppose Monsieur Claude had any notion who these people he was dealing with might have been?”

  “If he did, he didn’t tell me.”

  “And you? You were there last night.”

  “I was there, but I couldn’t possibly have identified anybody. It was too dark, and it happened too fast.”

  She twisted her handkerchief. “I can only wait,” she said.

  Frankly, Chantal, with her fragile beauty and her tragic air, was getting on my nerves. I knew she’d had a rough time, but I couldn’t avoid feeling that she was making the most of it. I was therefore relieved when she thanked me for my time and left.

  I didn’t stay around, either. I was so tired and discouraged that even sitting upright took effort. It was time to go home.

  Dead on my feet, I pulled the afternoon mail from my box downstairs. There were the usual invitations to press previews, a bank statement that I didn’t want to look at, a letter from Mama. And there was an envelope with no return address.

  I opened it upstairs, in my apartment. The envelope contained a folded sheet of pliant cardboard. Tucked in the fold was a Polaroid photograph. After one blank moment, I realized I was looking at a picture of Nostradamus’s mirror.

  Enlisted

  The mirror had been photographed from above, lying on a white background that could have been a bed sheet or a piece of paper. It was eerily featureless and looked, I thought, more like a circular black hole than an object. Beside it was a battered-looking round leather case decorated with metal studs.

  As I stared at the mirror, it seemed to expand and contract to the rhythm of the blood beating in my ears. I sat down and stopped looking at it until the pounding subsided.

  Then I turned the picture over. Nothing was written on the back, and there was no message on the cardboard either. I looked at the envelope again. My name and address were printed in black ink, in capital letters. The postmark was four o’clock yesterday afternoon at the large post office on the corner of my street. That was odd. This photograph must have been the proof Lucien Claude had expected to pick up, yet according to the postmark, it had been mailed several hours before he was killed.

  So here I was, still in the game. Or so the senders apparently thought. I went to call the Quai des Orfèvres, and when I got through to the Criminal Brigade I asked specifically for Inspector Perret.

  He said he’d be right over, and he kept his word. When he arrived he was wearing jeans, running shoes, a plaid wool jacket, and a soft cloth cap. A beige canvas book bag was slung over his shoulder. I must have looked surprised at his outfit, because he said, “The arrival of the police should not be obvious, in case the building is being watched.”

  In case the building is being watched. Great. I looked out the window. Across the street at the charcuterie, people waited in line to buy sliced ham, roast chicken, creamed spinach, celery salad. I didn’t see anyone lurking, but who could tell? Inside the laundromat, a dark figure sat slumped in a chair. He could be waiting for his laundry, or for me.

  I turned back to find Inspector Perret taking a waxed-paper envelope out of his canvas carryall. He slid the photograph into it while Twinkie stood on the table watching him. “Fingerprints,” he said over his shoulder as he did the same with the envelope. When he had tucked them away he said, “Now,” and looked at me expectantly.

  I ran through the circumstances of receiving the photo, and for good measure repeated my version of last night’s tragedy. I hoped that when I finished he wasn’t going to say he’d warned me, or he’d told me so, but I suppose only a saint could have resisted the temptation.

  “I warned you, didn’t I?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said snippily. I was tired of wallowing in blame.

  “This is what happens when—”

  “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thank you. Nothing.” After a moment he said, “The person who sent the picture will contact you. What will you say?”

  I’d been wondering about that. I evaded the question. “He may not call. He will have seen the newspapers.”

  “That’s true. But the newspapers have made you look extremely suspicious. He may believe you want to proceed. For all he knows, you could have a great deal to gain.”

  And for all you know, too, I thought. I couldn’t read his face. His blue eyes had an absent expression, as if he were looking forward to his next meal, but I thought there was more on his mind than that. “Surely he’ll figure the police are watching me.”

  “Yes, he will. He will be cautious, and you must be also.”

  I was getting the drift. I sat down across from him. “I must be cautious how?”

  His eyes finally focused on mine. “You must be cautious if you decide to help us.”

  He’d finally said it. As soon as the words were out I was hit by a sneezing fit. After it ended ten sneezes later, and I’d blown my nose, I said, “Help you? You want me to pretend I’m still interested, something like that?”

  His demeanor indicated that it was little enough to ask of someone who had caused as much trouble as I had. “That’s right. Pretend you’re interested. Set up a meeting to exchange the mirror for the money.”

  I rasped, “Would I have to go to this meeting?”

  He shrugged. “We would be backing you up, of course. The risk would not be great.”

  I had heard that one before. Not said to me but said in a zillion movies and TV shows right before everything broke open and went completely to hell. And the scene after that was the body-littered aftermath, with at least a few of the bodies being good guys. I was shy about asking my next question, but I forced myself. “What happens if I don’t help?”

  If he felt rejected, he didn’t show it. “It may lessen your peril, but not a great deal. At
this point you are involved, whether you want to be or not. Frankly, your best interests lie in helping to catch the criminals.”

  He stopped and thought. “And of course we would consider your cooperation an indication of good faith.” Which meant, I took it, that they’d drop the garde á vue idea.

  Naturally, I was going to consent. I’d only asked about other alternatives because I thought Mama would want me to. Now, when I told her about it afterward, I’d be able to say honestly that I’d been offered almost no choice.

  And it would be great for the story.

  “All right. I’ll do it. Now what?” I said.

  I couldn’t tell if he was grateful or not. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll attach a listening device to your telephone,” he said.

  He had it right there with him in his canvas bag, a tiny black thing with a few wires attached. It was about the size of the palmetto bugs that used to get into my kitchen in Bay City. He had it hooked up in no time. “What will you do? Record my conversations?” I asked.

  “That’s right.” He was reattaching the cover of the receiver. Twinkie was helping, standing by and giving his hand an occasional nudge with her nose. She adored men. She hadn’t had this much fun in a long time. I couldn’t tell from Inspector Perret’s manner whether he liked cats or not. He hadn’t made a fuss over how cute she was, but he hadn’t shoved her out of his way either.

  He hung up the receiver. “So there we are.”

  I had a bug on my phone. I remembered a few fairly specific phone conversations Kitty and I had had about our personal lives. We’d have to talk girl talk face to face until this was over. “What do I do?”

  “You can only wait until he calls— if he calls,” he said. “When he does, don’t act too eager. That will make him suspicious. Let him see the money slipping away, and he will want it even more.”

  “But finally I consent?”

  “Yes.”

  I glanced at the phone. I didn’t know if I had the acting talent to bring this off. “I hope nothing goes wrong.”