French Pastry Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “Nicely done,” said Chris approvingly, pulling the old guy to his feet. He remained defiant even as the handcuffs were applied, glaring evilly at Elizabeth.

  “I know you,” said Elizabeth. “You’re Adil’s grandfather. I worked with you at the hotel, setting up your meeting.”

  Lucy had a sudden flashback, recalling a worn pin-striped suit in that exact shade of gray and a head of thick silver hair. Sylvie had been bent over, moving the table in the restaurant the day they all went to the flea market. He’d brushed against her, making his way to the door. Her eyes had met his, and there’d been a moment of recognition, a flicker of fear. “You’re the one. You killed her,” said Lucy.

  There was a cry, and Madame Seydoux threw herself on him, grabbing him by the neck. It took two commandos to pull her off him, but still she struggled as they held her by the arms, spitting at him.

  “She deserved what she got. It was a pleasure to punish her,” he snarled, glaring at Madame. “Pas respectable, pas gentille¸ pas chaste. Exactly what you’d expect from a mother like you.”

  Madame Seydoux collapsed in her husband’s arms, wailing.

  Sadek wasn’t through, however, even though the commandos were hustling him away. He turned toward Elizabeth, stretching his neck out like a wrinkled old snapping turtle. “You are filth, just like her,” he hissed before he was finally dragged away and loaded into a police van.

  Elizabeth watched, waiting until the doors of the van were closed on Khalid Sadek and he was out of sight. “What a horrible, nasty old man,” she said.

  A shout, a yelp of pain, caught their attention, and their heads turned in time to see a flic twisting Adil’s arm behind his back as he cuffed him and pushed him into the back of a police car, where Malik was already confined.

  This time Lucy was the one who turned away. She no longer felt the least shred of sympathy for either young man.

  “You had a close call,” said Serge, with a nod at the coffin containing Sylvie’s body. He slipped his arm around Elizabeth’s waist, supporting her.

  “Not that close,” said Chris, bristling. “I was here, and I wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to Elizabeth.”

  “You could’ve acted a little sooner,” complained Elizabeth. “I was really scared.”

  “We had to wait long enough to get evidence,” said Chris.

  “So I was like a pawn? How far were you going to let them go?” demanded Elizabeth.

  “Let’s talk about it over dinner,” suggested Chris.

  Elizabeth did not seem inclined to accept his invitation, so Lucy intervened. “Good idea. We’re all going to Le Grand Colbert tonight. Why don’t you both join us? I bet you’ve got a lot to tell us, Chris.”

  “Only if Serge can come, too,” said Elizabeth.

  “Of course,” said Lucy, who knew when it was time to cut her losses. “We’d be delighted if Serge would join us.”

  “I would be honored,” said Serge, taking her hand and kissing it.

  Looking over Serge’s shoulder, Lucy got the clear impression that Chris was not delighted.

  A woo-wah siren broke the silence, and the diminished group of mourners watched as the police cars left the cemetery, lights flashing. Then they gathered once again around the open grave and prepared to commit Sylvie’s body to the earth, to eternity.

  That evening the group gathered at a long table against the back wall of the bistro, where Sue informed them they had to have the chicken, because that was what Diane Keaton had in the movie Something’s Gotta Give, when she jilted Keanu Reeves and admitted she really loved Jack Nicholson.

  “I would’ve stuck with Keanu Reeves,” said Sue, grinning wickedly at Elizabeth, who was seated with Serge on one side and Chris on the other. Serge looked very continental, wearing a silky black T-shirt beneath his suit jacket, while Chris was the all-American boy in a button-down oxford shirt and boxy blue blazer.

  “Not me,” said Lucy. “Keanu was a little too . . .”

  “Young?” offered Rachel.

  Lucy searched for the right word. “He was too nice. Jack was a bit of a diamond in the rough.”

  While the conversation was aimed at Elizabeth, she seemed oblivious and was thoroughly enjoying the attention of her two rival swains. Bill noticed, too, and decided to put an end to it.

  “Okay, guys,” he said. “I think we deserve an explanation.” He gave Serge a nod. “Let’s start with Chef Larry and the black market ring.”

  “D’accord,” began Serge, scratching his chin. “It’s pretty simple, really. Chef Laurence worked at the Cavendish. That’s where he got his start as a sous-chef. He was eventually promoted and put in charge of the ordering process. That was part of his job, and he started padding the orders, keeping some for himself. That’s how he made enough money to open his school and his shop. At some point Richard Mason found out about it. He was an investigative reporter, non?”

  “I still can’t believe Richard was involved,” said Ted, shaking his head ruefully.

  “Maybe not. It is for the court to decide. But the police believe that Richard demanded more and more of the profits, and Chef Laurence didn’t like that. They had a fight of some sort, there were knives, and Richard stabbed Chef Laurence. Maybe true, maybe not, but c’est dommage. It looks like your friend will be going to jail for a while. Les flics say they have enough evidence about the stolen goods to get a conviction, even if they can’t pin the stabbing on him. They do have witnesses who saw him at the hospital on the day of the general strike, just before Chef Larry was found dead. The flics believe Richard smothered Chef Laurence so he could not identify him as his attacker.”

  “It’s hard to believe,” said Pam, covering Ted’s hand with her own and squeezing it. “Richard is an old and dear friend.”

  “People change,” said Rachel. “In a different culture, it’s easier to give in to temptation. He may have felt a certain sense of immunity, believing that nobody here knew him, unlike at home.”

  “You mean like Vegas?” asked Sid. “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas?”

  Sid’s comment elicited a few chuckles, and spirits rose as the waiter arrived with a couple of bottles of wine. When everyone’s glass had been filled and orders had been taken, Lucy turned to Chris.

  “So tell us about the coin, the Golden Eagle.”

  “Actually, it’s a Double Eagle. When the U.S. went off the gold standard, everybody had to turn in their gold coins, but a few remained uncollected, mostly belonging to noncitizens. The Secret Service has been tracking them for years, and we knew that King Farouk had at least one, and probably more. When he was deposed, a few faithful followers left Egypt with him, and we think he gave this particular Double Eagle to his advisor, as a token of appreciation for his faithful service. The advisor was Khalid Sadek’s father, and when he died, the coin came into his possession.

  “There’s always been a small faction desiring the reestablishment of the monarchy, but it wasn’t until the recent events in Egypt, the end of the Mubarak regime and the continuing turmoil, that the royalist movement picked up steam. Sadek realized that the Double Eagle could be used to raise money to finance a coup that would put Prince Fouad back in power, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you could take to a pawnshop. It would have to be a top secret deal. He couldn’t risk the U.S. getting wind of it, so he entrusted the coin to his grandson, Adil, who hid it in Elizabeth and Sylvie’s apartment while they sought a buyer. They had already entrusted Sylvie with funds they had raised from contributors, funds they wanted to hide from the tax authorities. Unfortunately for Adil, Elizabeth is a good housekeeper. . . .”

  “That’s news to me,” muttered Lucy, getting a scowl from her daughter.

  “And she found the coin when she was cleaning and kept it for good luck. It wasn’t good luck for Adil, however, when he tried to retrieve the Double Eagle and found it was gone. That’s when he and Malik searched your vacation apartment, desperate to find the coin. When it didn’t turn up,
Sadek seized Sylvie, demanding to know what she’d done with it. When she couldn’t tell him, she was killed.” Chris paused. “I suspect Sadek wanted to go after Elizabeth next. That’s when Adil and Malik bought some time by attempting to search her apartment. When that didn’t work out, he ordered them to nab her at the cemetery. Elizabeth was going to be next.”

  “That’s so scary,” said Elizabeth, struggling to come to grips with her close escape. “I had no idea it was worth anything. I thought it was one of those weird French coins, ecus or francs or something that went out when the euro came in.”

  “You weren’t far wrong,” said Chris, “except it’s American instead of French.”

  “Didn’t you look at it?” asked Bill.

  “Not really. I thought it was sort of pretty, so I kept it. I just threw it in my coin purse. I thought it would be good luck,” admitted Elizabeth. “Is it worth a lot?”

  Chris nodded. “One was auctioned a few years ago. The Secret Service made a deal with the owner and got a percentage of the sale price, which was almost eight million dollars.”

  Stunned, Elizabeth collapsed against the banquette. “I had a coin worth eight million dollars?”

  “Sacré,” breathed Serge.

  “Probably more now,” said Chris.

  “I was carrying it around like a lucky penny,” said Elizabeth.

  “That would be something like eight billion lucky pennies,” said Bob.

  “More like one billion,” said Serge, getting a few puzzled looks. “I went to Sciences Po,” he said with an apologetic shrug.

  “That’s a grande école, n’est-ce pas? A top university. Very impressive,” said Sue.

  Chris wasn’t about to let that pass. “Maybe the coin was good luck, after all,” he said, taking Elizabeth’s hand. “It brought us together again.”

  Elizabeth withdrew her hand and took a sip of wine. Her enigmatic little smile reminded Lucy of the Mona Lisa, which she’d seen in the Louvre, where it always attracted a crowd of admirers. “Maybe,” said Elizabeth, swirling the wine in her glass and taking another sip. “Maybe.”

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2014 by Leslie Meier

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-0-7582-7704-6

  eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-7706-0

  eISBN-10: 0-7582-7706-7