Murder in the Bastille

by Cara Black

  Then he heard hammering from the nichelike entrance on his left.

  René didn’t feel much like a detective even though the sign where he worked read LEDUC DETECTIVE. They shared the computer security jobs, but only Aimée had a criminal investigation background.

  Now he had to take up the slack. Help figure this out. Aimée, his best friend, had suffered a brutal attack outside this atelier; maybe someone inside had seen or heard something.

  He walked into a small, damp courtyard. A sign, styled like a coat of arms, read CAVOUR MASTER WOODWORKERS, EST. 1794. Low strains of a Vivaldi concerto floated through the doorway.

  “Pardon,” René said, raising his voice. He walked through a narrow entrance opening into a large atelier illumined by skylights. The sharp tang of turpentine reached him. “Anyone here?”

  A middle-aged man, wearing a blue workcoat, glasses pushed up on his bald head, stood at a work table. With delicate strokes he rubbed the gilded legs of an antique lacquered chair. Small and exquisite, it looked to René as if anyone sitting on it would snap it in pieces. In the middle of the large room stood a heater, its flue leading to the roof, a water cooler, and more worktables filled with furniture in various stages of repair. From the walls hung every type of antique wooden chair René had ever seen—and many he hadn’t.

  “Forgive me, monsieur,” René said, “for disturbing your work.”

  The man looked up, took in René’s stature, but showed no surprise. He had dark pouches under his eyes and a sallow complexion. His pursed mouth gave him a harried look.

  “Tiens! I’ve done all I can with this,” the man said, setting down a mustard-colored chamois cloth. “I’m Mathieu Cavour. How may I help you?” he asked René, picking up several cracked Sèvres porcelain drawer knobs, and slipping them into his pocket. “My showroom’s in the front, off the other courtyard, if you’d like to see our finished work.”

  Should he show him the detective badge, the one Aimée left in the drawer, that he’d slipped in his pocket?

  “Monsieur Cavour,” he said, flashing the badge. “A woman, my friend, was attacked outside your shop last night. Were you here?”

  René thought Cavour cringed. But maybe it was just his silhouette shifting under the skylight as René looked up.

  “Attacked . . . here?”

  “I found her outside in the passage,” René said. “Did you see or hear anything unusual?”

  “I live above the shop. I have trouble sleeping,” Cavour said. “Music helps me. I wouldn’t have heard anything outside.”

  “So your light was on?”

  Cavour’s brow creased. “Is this woman, your friend, all right?”

  Why didn’t Cavour answer his questions?

  “The attack was so vicious it blinded her,” said René.

  “Je regrette . . .” he said.

  René saw sadness in Cavour’s eyes.

  “Do you remember if you had your light on?” he asked again.

  Cavour rubbed his brow with the back of his hand, “Sorry, I drift in and out of sleep, I can’t remember.”

  Did he have some medical condition?

  “Lived here long, Monsieur Cavour?”

  “Long? I was born upstairs. But the quartier has changed. The conniving developers want to take over.”

  “More and more,” said René, nodding in sympathy.

  The telephone rang. No one answered and Cavour looked flustered, as he ignored it.

  “Here’s my card. In case you think of something that might help,” René said. On his way out, he saw a broom and rusted dust pan by a full garbage bin. Might Cavour have found something of Aimée’s?

  “Did you sweep this morning?”

  “As always. The shop, the courtyard. Some of these people don’t care if the quartier’s run down, no pride.”

  He stood, René thought, like a stubborn island in sea of slick renovation.

  In Cavour’s waste bin, topped off by sawdust and Malabar candy wrappers, René saw a crumpled sheet of music, the black notes faded on the yellowed page.

  “Look at what they leave in the passage, even in my courtyard,” he said, following René’s gaze. “That’s not the half of it. Condoms. Once a broken guitar.”

  And René heard voices, a chorus. Then a lone soprano. Their timbre softened by the stone. Timeless.

  “Where’s that coming from?” René asked.

  “Opera rehearsal,” said Cavour. “We’re behind the Opera, you know. A chorus from Le Barbier de Seville, would be my guess.”

  Cavour was an interesting mix, René thought. A blue collar craftsman with a knowledge of opera who worked on antique furniture. He liked Cavour, and yet, without knowing why, he felt uneasy about him.

  As he walked down the passage, he realized this detective business was harder than he’d imagined. He’d gotten no real information from Cavour. Cavour hadn’t answered his questions. Would Cavour have told him if he had seen anything? He wished he had Aimée’s knack for getting information out of people.

  And then René realized he’d forgotten to pack all of Aimée’s things. The cell phone.

  Wednesday Afternoon

  MATHIEU CAVOUR LATCHED THE door behind the dwarf. His hands shook. Shook so much he dropped the old-fashioned key and had to get on his knees to find it between the stones. The pressure, the hiding, running a business . . . he couldn’t take it.

  And now this.

  His anxiety of last night came back.

  He’d awakened in his chair in the atelier, startled by a noise, and shot bolt upright. Sweat had dripped down his shoulder blades. Slanted moonlight had made patterned rectangles on the courtyard’s uneven cobbles.

  Then he had heard the scrape of the gate, like before. Fine, he’d get the furniture piece ready. Ignore the guilt he felt. The less he knew or thought about it, the better.

  Then the sounds of a struggle had come from the passage, like in his nightmares. The last time he’d heard that sound the serial killer, the Beast of Bastille, had claimed another victim. What should he do? He couldn’t very well call the flics and risk exposure.

  His restoration work paid the bills and kept the timbered roof over the shop. Barely. Never mind where the pieces of furniture came from or who they’d once belonged to.

  When would his contact come? He’d left the metal gate open . . . but one never knew. He paused near the half-open window, his undershirt damp. The struggle had come from the small, paved inner courtyard.

  He had held his breath. His hand had quivered as he tugged the limp lace curtain. He had taken a deep breath and parted the lace.

  In the courtyard, a man stood in his bathrobe rocking a crying infant. Mathieu had heard cooing as the man soothed the bundle in his arms under the honeysuckle. So the screams had wakened the baby, too.

  It must have been teenagers fighting, he told himself. Those sulky ones who hung around the pizza place, an upholsterer’s before the old boss died and Mirador Development had snapped up the building.

  He had wanted to go down and check the cave. Make sure the piece was safe. But the old stairs creaked and the doors were rusty and stiff. The years had taken their toll. His knees had protested. And the shadowy cobwebbed basement corners, damp stone and crumbling brickwork, were things he avoided even on sunny, warm days.

  He had found a Lizst piano concerto on the transistor radio on his work table. Had kept the volume low, hoping he’d fall asleep. But his eyes had stayed glued to the window until long after the baby’s cries quieted and a rosy dawn had painted the jagged Bastille rooftops.

  How would telling the dwarf about it help the woman now?

  Mathieu should have known, he realized later, that it was a warning. A foretaste of the next day. When the past opened like a fresh wound.

  Wednesday

  “BONJOUR, ” SAID A VOICE from the shop interior.

  In the workshop, Mathieu paused, stretching the band of ash to fit in the grooved notch. He lifted his foot from the foot pedal, h
alting the rotor blade saw. Sawdust and the smell of freshly sawed wood filled the dusty space.

  “Suzanne . . . Suzanne, someone’s in front,” he said, as the metal saw teeth ground to a stop.

  But no answering footsteps came from his assistant’s desk.

  Where was that girl? She’d gone on an errand more than an hour ago.

  “A moment please, and someone will help you,” he called out. He dabbed glue mixed with wood resin in the crack, stretched the wood taut, and slid it gently in place. After wiping off the excess, he sanded the rough edge until no distinction could be felt, as though it were one piece with the wood.

  “Delivery!” Another voice shouted. “I need a signature.”

  Where was Suzanne? He had an art nouveau rosewood desk drawer to repair and the façade of a console to finish filing. . . . He couldn’t do that and run the shop too. He’d gotten behind since his apprentice Yvon had gone on vacation.

  “Oui,” he said, wiping his hands on his stained apron and peering over the reading glasses perched on his nose.

  “Shall I deliver at the rear as usual, monsieur?”

  Mathieu went to the front shop, signed the receipt and stuck it on the counter. He dimmed the chandelier, a remnant from his grandfather’s day, and assumed the customer had left.

  But when he looked up he saw a slender older woman, wearing a tailored black suit, her blunt-cut steel grey hair brushing her shoulders. She watched him from behind the marble-topped mahogany commode.

  “Exquisite!” she said.

  Her fingers traveled over the marquetry wood decorated sides.

  Though she spoke French well, he detected a slide in her sibilants. She stood, sleek and stylish, carrying a designer tote bag over her arm.

  The delivery truck’s brake squealed in the rear cobbled passage. Over the open skylight, a flurry of blackbirds fluttered from the flowering honeysuckle. “My assistant’s disappeared, but if you’ll look at our catalogue while I deal . . .”

  “Please, go ahead.”

  By the time Mathieu guided the chestnut planks to the rough pine pallets, Suzanne, breathless and red-faced, appeared.

  Mathieu’s lips turned down in disapproval. “Suzanne, clients, deliveries and how I can work when . . .”

  “Monsieur . . . the police line,” she said, hanging up her jean jacket, scooping up the mail, and hitting the answering machine playback in one swoop.

  Suzanne had a head for figures, unlike Mathieu. And when she appeared, she smoothed the office into routine and organization with an effortless charm. He ignored her bare midriff-tops, pierced navel, and penchant for Bastille club DJs who picked her up after work.

  “Another strike?” Mathieu sighed. “Who is it this time?”

  “Mais . . . they’re setting up police barricades,” she said, her eyes wide. “Didn’t you hear?”

  Mathieu gripped the desk. His mind flew to the furniture.

  “A woman murdered in the next passage; they say it’s the Beast of Bastille.”

  The serial killer? Was that what the dwarf had been asking about?

  “I had to prove I work here before they would let me into the passage,” Suzanne said. “They’ve started questioning everyone.”

  What if they searched . . . found the furniture?

  “Monsieur . . . excuse me,” the woman said.

  Mathieu looked up. He’d forgotten about the elegant woman in the showroom.

  She stared at the commode taking up most of the window space. Her hair fell across her face, and she flicked it away with a graceful movement of her long fingers. Her other hand rested on a black wooden cane.

  “My great-great-grandfather’s work, the last one left,” Mathieu said. “I like to display the family’s tradition. It’s on loan from a client. My great-great grandfather kept the business going after the Revolution. Figured tradesmen needed furniture even if aristos didn’t.”

  “A smart move, yes?” the woman said.

  Or, as he remembered the saying attributed to his great-great grandfather, “They needed to park their rears to count the money.”

  Was she a client?

  “Suzanne, my assistant, can show you samples.”

  “Perhaps this is a bad time . . .” An unsure look crossed her face as she reached for something in her bag.

  Honor your clientele. Hadn’t his father drummed that into their heads? Artisans must respect clients. Mathieu preferred to stay in back and work, but he knew craftsmanship wasn’t the only thing that kept the shop door open.

  He smiled and stuck his ruler in his blue work coat. “Madame, I welcome special orders. Please sit down.”

  She ended many of her sentences in the old style with a questioning yes. She must be in her seventies, but her complexion could be that of a woman half her age. Wherever she came from, they took care of themselves.

  He gestured toward a rosewood chair, brushed a speck of sawdust from the seat.

  “For just a moment, but I’m afraid it’s not what you think. I feel guilty taking you away from your work, monsieur,” she said, sitting, resting the cane against her leg. “People tell me I’m chasing what is long gone, but my lawyer gave this to me.”

  She pulled an envelope from her bag. “This list came to us from the Comte de Breuve’s estate. Evidently he’d gone bankrupt and the state took it over upon his death. On it, Monsieur Cavour, were some pieces owned by my family: paintings, sculpture, and furniture. Some of these had been in my family for generations. But they disappeared years ago, during the war. They’ve never been seen or heard of again. Now this list has come to light.”

  Cold fear rooted Mathieu to the spot. His mouth felt as dry as the sawdust beneath him.

  “Rumor had it, Goering liked my father’s collection. So much so, that he appropriated it for the Reich. Between the Reich and Goering’s coffers there was little distinction. According to other rumors, there is some question as to whether the collection ever made it to Germany, on a specially built freight train. Many think the pieces never left France, yes?”

  “Madame, why do you come to me?” Mathieu asked, gripping the edge of the work table.

  “Yes, of course, I’m bothering you with this old story. Please hear me out. In the account books we saw the Cavour shop name, and know you are respected ébénistes. The Comte’s files went back to when your grandfather, then your father, and perhaps even you, worked on his pieces.”

  Bile stuck in Mathieu’s throat. If he told her the truth, or what he knew of the truth, he’d lose everything; the atelier, the building where he’d been born, and his business: the business he struggled to keep open and out of the tax man and developers’ reach.

  “I’m so sorry to hear of the Comte’s passing,” said Mathieu, trying to keep his expression neutral. “He was a patron and good client for us. What about the other craftsmen required by his large collection?”

  “I’m an old woman,” she said. “And foolish to have hope. So many have told me. But one piece was special. The pieta dura commode.”

  Mathieu stiffened.

  “This was my father’s favorite. He’d recognized it in some pawn shop. Furniture from Versailles, lost in the Revolution. Papa had an eye. He said what caught him was the marble ‘the color of his little girl’s eyes.’ My eyes. And he had to have it. They say it’s worth a lot now, but it’s not the money, you see. It’s that papa thought of me when he bought it. And that’s all that’s left. They took my father and family and everything else.”

  The old woman’s large eyes brightened. Still beautiful, and a curious topaz amber color. Remarkable.

  “The lawyer says I’m foolish but if I found it again, I wouldn’t keep it. Those things aren’t meant to be kept by one person, one family . . . something this beautiful belongs to all. I just want to see it again. Feel the marble, oil it, like papa taught me. That’s all.”

  She leaned forward, emitting a delicate floral scent. “I had to come to your atelier, yes? See for myself the pieces you work
on. Smell again that furniture oil odor I remember from childhood; yes, it’s the same. Our house was filled with it, too. Funny, the things that stick in your memory. I remember it as a time when the sun seemed like a big lemon and it shone every day.”

  Mathieu was torn. “I wish I could help you.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m taking your time and rambling,” she said, with a small shrug. She handed him her card. Dr. Roswitha Schell, University of Strasbourg, Professor of Art History. “I’m semi-retired and teach part-time. But I’m boring you, yes?”

  “Non,” Mathieu said, averting his gaze. He knew the pieta dura commode, better than she could imagine.

  He couldn’t remember when he’d last had a conversation with a cultured woman. These days he rarely left the quartier. Too much to do. His niece berated him for working so hard and he’d reply “That’s how we were raised. I was born over the shop, measured chair rungs from when I could count.”

  But the Cavour name, the skill and secrets handed down from father to son since 1794, would end with him if he didn’t continue with his plan. He wouldn’t let it happen.

  And Mathieu realized those eyes had shifted . . . perplexed. She’d thrust something at him, her cool fingers brushing his arm. Soft like a butterfly’s wing.

  “Forgive me,” he said, trying to look away. But he couldn’t.

  “But these photos . . . perhaps they could jog your memory. Maybe you’d seen the piece before at the Comte’s, yes?”

  But Mathieu turned away.

  “Monsieur?”

  Elegant and cultured and kind. Like the Comte.

  “Art’s not cerebral, there’s more than that,” she was saying. Her voice rose, lyrical. “The indefinable something from the soul that most of us strive for. Few achieve it, much less describe it.”

  Why wouldn’t she stop talking? And then, quiet. He looked around, afraid of her accusing glances. But admiration and something like awe shone in her face.

  “You must think me a blathering fool!” she said. “But I see, you’re an artist. You, of all people, must realize how much it means to me.”