The Wife of Riley

by A W Hartoin

  “You’re a bad guest,” I said, stifling a laugh.

  Spidermonkey snorted. “Nobody noticed. Did you get the man’s name?”

  “Monsieur Huppert. He’s in acquisitions at the Orsay,” I said. “Do you want me to call Novak?”

  “No, that’s easy enough. We’ll use Novak for the tough stuff.”

  My purse started to ring as we walked up the stairs to the platform. It was probably Chuck. I gave my regular phone to Aaron and said, “Tell him I’m busy.”

  Aaron answered with, “Mercy’s peeing.”

  “For the love of god, Aaron.” I punched him in the shoulder, jogged up the rest of the stairs, and went back to Spidermonkey.

  “What was that about?” asked Spidermonkey.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Same stuff, different day. How long to do a background on this guy?”

  “How much do you want?”

  “Not the whole kit and caboodle. Monsieur Huppert isn’t the target. If you can get his frequent contacts from email and his phone that will work. I assume he called this woman.”

  “Certainly. I’ll have it for you later tonight. Hopefully, he doesn’t have many female friends.”

  “I didn’t show you his picture, did I?”

  “No hope, huh?”

  “None,” I said. “I’m guessing he’s Monsieur Popular with the ladies.”

  “Well, we can’t win ‘em all.”

  I said goodbye, looked at the metro map on the platform, and groaned. The little weirdo came up and gave me my phone back. I grabbed his arm and tried to take him back to the stairs. “We’re on the wrong platform.”

  “No.”

  “I can read a map,” I said.

  Sort of.

  “We’re going the wrong direction.”

  “Right direction for our school,” said Aaron.

  I stopped tugging on his arm. “There’s a cooking school for real? I mean, one that we’re actually going to?”

  He stared off to the left.

  “Okay. So where are we going?”

  “Atelier Guy Marin.”

  “Never heard of him. Who is he?”

  “Chef.”

  “I assumed that. What did you tell Chuck? Isn’t he waiting for us?”

  “He’s going for a run and we have to check in at Marin’s.”

  The train rolled in and we got on, headed to the eighth arrondissement, home to the Champs-Élysées. This cooking school was going to be pricey. Doing a favor for Calpurnia was going to cost me what little I’d managed to save up from working at the Columbia Clinic, including the bonus Shawna gave me for getting Twinkie stuffed up my nose.

  Aaron knew exactly where he was going and we arrived at a large open door that gave me hope. Maybe it was a little workshop, a startup that was using low prices to lure in cooks. Then we walked in. Atelier Guy Marin wasn’t a startup and Marin wasn’t a nobody. It was a mansion that confirmed my fears of exorbitant cost. It was surprisingly modern with big plate glass windows at the back overlooking a pretty courtyard.

  “How much is this going to cost me?” I hissed in Aaron’s ear.

  A man wearing a black apron and sporting a shaved head and a neck tattoo of what appeared to be a cornucopia of vegetables came out of the back. “Chef!”

  “Chef!” exclaimed Aaron. He almost seemed excited or, at least, what passed for excitement in Aaron. The two embraced and began speaking in French about some restaurant, Guy Marin, and beef, unless my French was worse than I thought.

  The chef turned to me, holding out his hands. “Mademoiselle Mercy, I’ve heard so much about you.”

  I took his hands and he clasped mine in his big, warm ones. “Really? I mean, thank you.”

  “I am Mathieu Torres. I will be assisting Aaron with his class,” said Mathieu.

  “Wait. You’ll be assisting him?” I glanced at Aaron, who was staring at the wall. “Somebody’s confused and I don’t see how it can be me. I know him.”

  Mathieu reached behind the island and pulled out a chef’s coat, shaking it out. “Then you know what an honor it is to work with a chef of his esteem.”

  “Esteem? Aaron? I know he’s good, but…”

  Aaron slipped on the chef’s coat and buttoned it. I’d like to say he looked like a chef, but, to me, he looked like he’d stolen his dad’s chef coat and was playing a game of pretend. He rooted around the drawers, not finding what he wanted, until I took off his glasses and gave them a good clean. Then he pulled out a duck press and various tools that I think I saw in the torture museum in Rothenburg.

  “I’ll teach duck,” said Aaron. “Mercy will take the pâté à choux course.”

  “No, I’m good. I can do pâté à choux. Millicent taught me,” I said quickly.

  “Advanced pâté à choux,” said Aaron.

  Dammit.

  “Can’t I take chopping for dummies?”

  Mathieu laughed. “Aaron assures me that you are an accomplished baker.”

  I was, sort of. The Girls loved baking and they insisted I learn. They thought cookery and baking was part of a well-rounded education. That’s how I ended up taking French, instead of Spanish, and the reason I could ride side saddle and English, but not Western. My godmothers weren’t always the most practical of women.

  Aaron said he needed to get the feel of the kitchen, whatever that meant, and started pulling out ingredients without asking permission. Mathieu looked like he expected it.

  “So how do you know Aaron?” I asked.

  “I trained under him at Guy Savoy.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  I glanced at Aaron, who was doing something with asparagus and scallops. “No. He doesn’t talk much.”

  Mathieu nodded. “He teaches by example and gives his students great confidence. I learned a great deal under his tutelage.”

  “So Aaron lived here, in Paris?”

  “Yes. For five years, I believe.”

  “That explains the French,” I said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing.” My regular phone rang and I excused myself to answer it.

  Chuck breathed hard into the phone. “Where are you?”

  “At the cooking school. Are you having an asthma attack?”

  “I’m running. I thought I’d go to where you are.”

  “It’s too far. We’re in the eighth.”

  “That’s where I am, I think. Champs-Élysées?”

  “They’ll never let you in. You’re all sweaty,” I said.

  “You don’t want me to come?” He sounded hurt through the heavy breathing, and it was a good opportunity to prove that I was going to a cooking school.

  “Just don’t come in. Text me when you get here,” I said.

  I sent him the address and hung up.

  “All is well?” asked Mathieu.

  “Yes. My boyfriend wants to come by.”

  “Of course.”

  “He’s out running.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  I smiled and watched Aaron work. I’d never really watched him cook before. I just ate the results. In the kitchen, he was focused and fast-fingered, prepping three plates of asparagus three ways. By the time Chuck showed up, we’d already eaten his appetizer and it was excellent. Somehow, he’d pickled asparagus in ten minutes. He also roasted it and did some weird thing with pancetta. Mathieu was very happy, telling me he’d see me tomorrow afternoon for my advanced class.

  When I got downstairs, Chuck was jogging at the door. His tank was sticking to him like he’d been in a wet t-shirt contest. It would’ve been sexy, but I could smell him at five feet.

  “How far did you run?” I asked.

  “He checked his phone. “I’m at ten miles.”

  “That’s a lot for a vacation.”

  “I’m shaking off the jet lag. How’s the school look?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Terrible. Aaron put me in an advanced pastry class.”

  “You�
�ll have fun.”

  “If you say so.” I sounded super reluctant so he wouldn’t get suspicious.

  “I’ll meet you at home. When will you be back? I need lunch,” said Chuck.

  “Maybe an hour.”

  Chuck kissed my cheek and ran off, dodging traffic and getting plenty of second looks from the ladies strolling down the street. Aaron came out and said we were done. I took his arm and we headed off down the street after Chuck.

  “So you worked at Guy Savoy?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Any other secrets I should know?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. What do you want to do after lunch?”

  Predictably, Aaron wanted to go to E. Dehillerin, the cooking store, and some store that only sold antique linens for some reason. I agreed, because there was nothing I could do on the Angela issue until Spidermonkey got back to me and I wanted to see what Chuck would say about spending an hour in Paris looking at whisks. And an hour was conservative. The Girls once bought twenty whisks at E. Dehillerin and they were all different. It took so long I fell asleep on a stool in flatware.

  When we got back to the apartment, Chuck was showered and smelling great. “That took forever.”

  “We stopped for supplies.” I held up a bottle of wine and a bag of sandwiches. Aaron unpacked a basket of tiny strawberries and several varieties of cheese.

  “I’m starving,” said Chuck.

  We ate at the sofa table, spreading Brie de Meaux on the baguette we bought and having the sandwiches with butter, speck, and Comté cheese. Chuck swirled his wine and took a sip. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I still like beer better.”

  “I thought as much, but we’re in France. Hello.”

  He laughed and grabbed my laptop off the side table. A thrill of fear went through me before I remembered that I’d been careful not to use it to look up anything on Angela or the Fibonaccis. I fixed a smile on my face and took a bite of brie.

  Chuck gave me a suspicious look before saying, “I hope you don’t mind that I used your laptop.”

  “Of course not.”

  He opened it and showed me the screen. It was a street view fromGoogle Maps of a typical Parisian apartment building with a fromagerie on the first floor. “That’s where Paul Richter’s daughter lives. She and her husband moved into her mother’s apartment. We can interview her tomorrow,” he said. “I think she’ll be home or at the shop. Her husband runs it now.”

  “I doubt she kept her uncle’s stuff.”

  “You don’t want to try?”

  I stretched and stared up at the blackened beams decorating the ceiling. “I totally want to try. But sometimes, it feels like the past is getting further and further away and we’ll never know what The Klinefeld Group wants or what it has to do with my parents.”

  He put his arm around me and drew me to him. I thought he would kiss me, but, of course, he didn’t. “I know, but I have a feeling that we’re close to something.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Ever since we got here, I don’t know…something about this city. I was running and I saw bullet holes from the war. You’re right. The past isn’t that far away and it all started here. Your family, the Bleds, The Klinefeld Group. It’s all here.”

  “That’s Paris. It makes you feel things you didn’t know you could.”

  He shook his head and kissed my forehead. “I wish I could feel less.”

  I looked up into his eyes and he looked away.

  Then Aaron stood up. “I’m ready.”

  “For what?” asked Chuck.

  “Shopping.”

  “You want to go shopping?” He looked over Aaron’s Spiderman tee and jean shorts.

  I elbowed Chuck. “Are you nuts? Not that kind of shopping. We’re going to the cooking store.”

  “Do we have to?”

  Aaron was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Let’s go, but after that, we’re hitting the Pompidou Center.”

  I grinned. “It’s on the schedule?”

  “It is.”

  We went to E. Dehillerin. Aaron bought one copper egg pan. It took him two hours to decide on it and the stool in flatware was gone. In the end, Chuck said that if he didn’t pick a pan, he’d pick one and beat him with it. A pan was picked in three seconds flat.

  Chuck persuaded us that he’d suffered enough and we skipped the linen store. Instead, we hopped on the metro and went to the Pompidou, spending the rest of the day there. Modern art wasn’t my thing, but Aaron and Chuck had to look at every single piece, usually from several different angles. We left at closing and went to a restaurant that specialized in mussels. Since it wasn’t crab, I survived, but just barely. I ate mussels in white wine cream sauce. Chuck and Aaron were so happy that they barely looked up from their wide cast iron pots. You know dinner’s going to take a while when everyone is served with their own pot.

  Chuck dripped big hunks of bread in the juices and groaned with pleasure. “I love Paris.”

  “I can see that,” I said as my purse vibrated against my rear, where I’d wedged it between me and the chair back. “Excuse me. I’m going to find the bathroom.”

  “Dessert?” he asked.

  “Can you order me the waffle with hot chocolate sauce?”

  Chuck nodded and went back to dipping. I found the bathroom at the bottom of a set of stairs that looked like they’d been built in the middle ages. The ceiling was barely higher than my head and I had to crouch to get through the door into the bathroom stall that was so small I could’ve rested my forehead on the sink if I actually had to go.

  I checked the Fibonacci phone and saw Spidermonkey’s number. I was afraid it was Calpurnia asking for an update, but I guess Spidermonkey was the only early riser.

  “Sorry this took so long,” he said. “Loretta wouldn’t let me escape. We ended up in a hot tub until midnight.”

  “Are you all pruney?” I asked.

  “Very, but I’ve got the information on your Monsieur Huppert.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  Spidermonkey gave me a short list of facts. Emile Huppert was the son of a Burgundy winery owner. They were a very wealthy family and he did work at the Musée d’Orsay in acquisitions. Divorced twice. Three sons. He did have an apartment in Place des Vosges.

  “I can’t believe he lives there and nobody recognized him. What a pain.”

  “You were unlucky there, but you identified him anyway.”

  I grumbled and Spidermonkey laughed. “It can’t always be easy.”

  “I’m waiting for it to be easy one time, just once.”

  “Don’t be greedy.”

  “It’s not greed. It’s laziness.”

  “I wouldn’t call you lazy. Are you ready for the rest?” he asked.

  I was ready and he told me that Monsieur Huppert was, as I suspected, very active socially. Gina’s woman could be one of many he called and texted. Huppert worked with a lot of women. He was a member of a wine club and a dining club with female members that he connected with less often.

  “Are there any Americans or Canadians?” I asked.

  “Four,” he said.

  “Are they the right age?”

  “Three are within six years of Angela’s age. One is sixty-three.”

  I laughed. “Forget her. What have you got on the other three?”

  “Sandy Henderson is in his wine club, married, one daughter.”

  “How old is the daughter?”

  “Ten.”

  “Leave her for now. What about the other ones?”

  “Corrine Sweet, thirty-three, single, works at the Orsay bookshop.”

  “She sounds good. What’s her address?”

  “Not really good. She doesn’t have a French driver’s license, but her passport and Canadian license don’t match Angela. She’s a blue-eyed blonde, according to them.”

  “Give me her address any
way.”

  “I haven’t got it yet. The address in her work file is for a building undergoing renovation. She may be staying with friends or renting short-term. But I’ll get it.”

  “Can you see her work schedule at the Orsay?”

  “Give me a second.”

  I checked the time. Chuck was going to start to wonder what happened to me.

  “Got it. She works Tuesday to Saturday from opening to 1:30. Same for the rest of the week.”

  “So she’s off today and they’re closed on Monday. Who’s the other one?”

  “Jennifer MacDougall aka Sabine Suede.”

  I groaned. “Not a porn star.”

  “Nope. Prostitute, high end. She’s twenty-seven and has been here for about eighteen months.”

  “Any pictures of her?”

  “Passport photo isn’t Angela, but it’s close. She’s got the dark, curly hair and blue eyes. Angela obviously used a fake passport to get to Paris, so this one’s a good candidate. The only other picture is a mug shot. She got into a fight with a client and they beat each other bloody. Her face is so distorted, it could be my own mother and I wouldn’t recognize her.”

  “I’ll start with her. Address?”

  “She goes from hotel to hotel. I’d try the Grand Bleu in the first arrondissement. According to my source, the bar is a hot spot for women like Sabine Suede and the management tolerates it.”

  “I’ll try it tomorrow night if I can figure out how to get Chuck over there. I don’t know what else to do with the rest of the day. Calpurnia wants her answer quickly.”

  “You’ll have to find something else to do. It is Paris. You’re there with Chuck,” he said with a chuckle.

  “I know,” I said. “We’ll go interview Paul Richter’s daughter.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  A knock rattled the bathroom door.