Murder Below Montparnasse

by Cara Black

  Natasha sounded rational. As if she’d heard this story many times.

  “Worth a fortune now, I’d imagine,” Aimée said.

  “A franc a dozen then. You call that instrumental in the avant-garde?” Natasha’s tone turned petulant. “Piotr’s supposed to help me. Awful man, late again.” She pushed her wheelchair back. “But you young know the price of everything, not the value. See art as merchandise to trade and sell.”

  Surprised, Aimée shook her head. “I don’t understand. Didn’t Piotr pass his painting collection to Yuri?”

  “You sound just like Yuri’s stepson.”

  Aimée’s mind went back to Yuri’s neighbor’s words—how Oleg the stepson had been buzzing around him like a fly lately.

  “Oleg’s no friend of mine,” Aimée said. How could she make sense of the strands running through the old woman’s words? To do that, she’d need to gain her trust. “As you know, Piotr’s on a mission. I came to assist.”

  “But the code.…” Natasha’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I thought you knew.”

  The old woman went from rational to irrational in seconds. Would Aimée have that to look forward to if she lived as long?

  “There are more letters, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Like everything else, I had to keep them for him. They’re somewhere, of course.”

  Letters that should have been given to Yuri. Letters that could authenticate the painting, she imagined.

  “All his talk about drinking la fée vert,” Natasha said.

  La fée vert, the green fairy, the old name for absinthe. Where did that come from?

  “Absinthe’s been outlawed a long time,” Aimée said.

  “All those drinks at la Rotonde with the artists, poets, revolutionaries, anarchists,” Natasha said. “Montparnasse in the old days. The good old days. As if Piotr knew.”

  Aimée started to put things together.

  “Tall tales, eh? Or you believed him?”

  “Piotr loved recounting how Lenin bounced him on his knee. The way Modigliani wore a red scarf and danced on the table.”

  Aimée remembered that lesson in history class about the Russian Revolution. 1917. She calculated mentally that Piotr, if one hundred years old, would have.…

  “I’m tired,” Natasha said. She clicked the remote and the télé went dark.

  Instead of leaving, she could go along with the old biddy and search for more letters.

  “Let me take you to your room,” Aimée said.

  NATASHA’S ROOM GAVE off that same cloying rose scent she’d noticed before, coupled with disinfectant. A hospital bed with a stained duvet, old Russian newspapers piled on a secrétaire desk with an old-fashioned inkwell—all bathed in light streaming in from the tall window. A small armoire and chest of drawers were topped by china figurines, giving off a sense of genteel disorder. Framed sepia-tinted ballet posters covered the walls, which were fringed by a ceiling of carved wood boiserie. So many places to hide letters.

  “They’re listening,” Natasha whispered, gesturing to the ceiling. “They put special devices in the wallboards.”

  Aimée gave a knowing nod, determined to get some sense out of her. Appeal to her somehow. “Between you and me, Natasha, I’m shocked Yuri and his father didn’t get along,” she said, trying again. “Any idea why?”

  “Piotr always said he wanted Yuri to understand.” She leaned toward Aimée conspiratorially.

  “To understand what?”

  Natasha shrugged her thin shoulders. “So sad. He trusted me with everything.”

  “The letters, that’s what you mean?”

  “It’s all in the code.” Natasha’s blue eyes sparkled. “We celebrated Piotr’s one hundredth birthday last month. Big celebration. Even the priest from the Alexander Nevsky church came.”

  Aimée knew the Russian Orthodox church on rue Daru—a gold cupolaed confection near the Parc Monceau. Nestled in an enclave called Little Russia in the chic 8th arrondissement, the church was well known for its Orthodox ceremonies. René had found a terrific freelancer, a dissident émigré hacker who went by the name Rasputin, on the job board at the side vestry. It was a Russian community hub.

  Was Natasha dropping a clue here?

  “Any bad blood between Yuri and Piotr?”

  Natasha fiddled with the control on her oxygen tank. “Piotr abandoned his son and his mother.” A sigh. “I think Piotr wanted to make it up to Yuri. But never had the chance.”

  Or maybe he did. In butter, the neighbor had said. And Aimée had Yuri’s cash in her bag.

  “Didn’t Piotr leave Yuri something special, Natasha?”

  Natasha yawned. “Where’s Piotr’s key?”

  “Key?”

  “In his drawer. There was a key.” A bell sounded from downstairs. “His son took it. But he didn’t take everything.”

  “A key to what?”

  “How do I know?”

  “What did it look like?”

  Natasha yawned again. Her lids drooped.

  “Small, like for a bank safety deposit box? Or a bigger key, like to an apartment or storage? Try to remember, Natasha.”

  “Old-fashioned.” Natasha rang a bell for the nurse. “I need my pills.”

  Aimée scanned the room. Handed Natasha the pink pills in the oval plastic cup. “These?”

  Natasha shook her head. “I want the purple ones.”

  Now or never. She’d appeal to the paranoia. “I’ve got to find the cameras, Natasha.”

  “The cameras? Mais, oui. I want to dance,” she said, her breathing labored. “Get my tights.”

  Aimée opened the drawers: mothball-tinged lace camisoles, graying leotards crumbling to her touch. In the armoire she found folded linens, hanging vintage wool coats, a pleated Fortuny pale lemon chemise. Timeless.

  The secrétaire drawers yielded worn leather boxes of costume and paste jewelry. A gray, gummed tarnish came off on Aimée’s fingers.

  Perspiration dampened the back of Aimée’s neck, the thin skin at the crook of her elbow. The old woman had become quiet during her search. Aimée shot her a glance.

  Natasha’s lids drooped. Short, shallow breaths issued from her. The oxygen tank meter level had dropped to the red range. What should she do?

  Aimée twisted the oxygen meter knob, but the needle stayed steady on red. Her stomach clenched. The poor old woman wasn’t getting oxygen. Thank God the red call light lit up on the wall. A bell rang from the corridor. She figured she had a minute at most.

  She shook the Russian newspapers. No hidden letters. Desperate, she reached under the hospital mattress, looked under the bed and found dust balls. Footsteps pounded in the hallway. She ran her hands under the crisp cotton pillow. Inside the pillowcase she felt something hard and cylindrical, recognized an old-fashioned pneumatic tube. She stuffed the tube in her waistband.

  Of course it made sense now.

  “Madame Natasha?”

  A nurse stared at Aimée. She stiffened. “What are you doing?”

  “Quick. Her oxygen’s.…”

  “Low because she fiddled with the knobs again.” A sigh came from the nurse who turned on the reserve. “It happens every day. Why are you in here?”

  “I can’t find her tutu.”

  Natasha sat up, wide awake, with a glint of fire in her crow’s-feet eyes. “Stop her, she’s the Okhrana agent. She’s spying on me!”

  Aimée fluffed the pillow, then shot the nurse a knowing look. “Bien sûr, Madame Natasha. Next time we’ll decipher the code.”

  Aimée winked at the nurse on her way out the door. She took the stairs two at a time. Too bad the writing she’d glimpsed inside was in Russian.

  But she knew where to start. She climbed on her Vespa, double-knotted her scarf, and headed back to Paris.

  “PIOTR VOLODYA? I don’t know him,” said the plump, black-cassocked priest with matching black beard. He sported a thick gold cross on his chest. “Can’t help you, Mademoiselle.”

  He r
eminded her of a black bear standing on the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral steps.

  “You’re sure he’s not one of your flock, Father?” She smiled. “The nursing home at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois mentioned that one of your priests visited for Piotr Volodya’s one hundredth birthday party.”

  “The rector might know, but he’s in Nantes until tomorrow, Mademoiselle. Check back then.”

  The priest stepped down the last step of the cathedral’s wide staircase. He waved to several women setting out food on a table under an umbrella by budding plane trees. Young boys played nearby. A quiet islet of peace next to the church. Plates of smoked fish, thick black bread. Quite a spread. Reminded her she hadn’t eaten since a yogurt this morning.

  “If you’ll excuse me, Mademoiselle?”

  A dead end already?

  “Sadly, Piotr passed away,” she said, thinking hard. “Alone. But I want to inform his relatives in Russia. Or here. Speak with someone who knew him.”

  “Now I remember,” he said. “That was Father Ninkinov. But he’s down south for a retreat.”

  Didn’t people confide in priests? Especially dying people? She pressed her card in the priest’s big hands.

  “The man died without family here. I’m just trying to help out. Please ask Father Ninkinov to contact me.”

  “A retreat of silence, Mademoiselle.” He turned away.

  Now she didn’t hold out much hope. Her heels scrunched over the gravel, trying to keep up with him. As they passed the message board, paper slips with Cyrillic names and phone numbers fluttering in the breeze, she made one last attempt. “I need a translator. Who do you recommend, Father?”

  He paused long enough to consider the board. “Marevna or Valeria. Try either of these two.” He tore them off. “Don’t forget to mention Father Medveyed recommended you.”

  “You’re a close community, Father,” she said, biting her tongue before adding “closed against outsiders.”

  “Cautious,” he said. “Introductions count within our community, just like in yours.”

  Did they have such different cultures? Not for the first time she felt she was stepping into another world, complete with a language and alphabet she couldn’t decipher.

  “Merci, Father.”

  A few pops of the gravel and he disappeared under the trees.

  THE TRAIL HADN’T iced up yet. The first twelve hours after a murder—crucial in an investigation—yielded the most. Her father had drilled that into her.

  But she could kick herself for not insisting Yuri reveal what made this painting so valuable that it was stolen before the appraisal. Why he’d begged for her help, then changed his mind.

  She reached the first recommended translator, Marevna, who agreed to meet with her. At last, some luck. Aimée circled chic Place de Catalogne in the 14th arrondissement and wound her scooter down rue du Château, run down in places, passing narrow lanes marked by two-story workshops, a bakery, a cobbler shop. The old Paris.

  A rustle of tepid wind enveloped her. This weather forecasted a hot, wet summer. This thought took her back to a long-ago humid August in the countryside. Her grand-mère’s candles had gone limp, leaving a trail of wax tears on the wooden farm table. Hunting in the oak trees for birds’ nests of speckled blue quail eggs, the taste of Grand-mère’s cake perfumed with orange-blossom water. The hazy memory of her mother laughing in the orchard, kissing the fresh raspberry stains on Aimée’s small fingers.

  A barking Westie on the pavement brought her back to the present, to the sun-dappled, rain-freshened street, the passersby. The ache of longing remained, the buried sense of guilt that she’d caused her mother to leave. Her mother had been an artist, a sketcher and painter, who probably saw the world through a delicate artistic temperament. Aimée could only guess that she had been too much to handle. Once, just once, she wanted to see her mother again. This painting led to her mother, she knew it in her bones.

  And then Yuri’s battered face, his swollen tongue, filled her mind. Only a few hours ago she’d stood in bloody water and smelled that lingering floral note of muguet, lily of the valley, her mother’s scent. Her mother … Yuri’s murderer?

  The light turned green. Horns blared behind her. She popped into first gear.

  Le Zakouski, the meeting point, turned out to be part resto, part delicatessen—one red-ceilinged room with a glass refrigerator case crammed next to tables with red-checked plastic tablecloths. Old photos and bright paintings plastered the walls like wallpaper. Kiev kitsch circa 1967.

  “You pay cash?” A woman’s round face framed by long, straight, platinum hair poked up from the deli counter. Early twenties, Aimée thought.

  Nice greeting. Aimée nodded. “Marevna?”

  “Take a seat. We open later for dinner.”

  Aimée sat by the window, moving aside the red napkin holder. She set Piotr’s letter and the funny tube down on the red-checked plastic cloth and studied it for the first time.

  La poste pneumatique, or “pneu,” had been in use until the mid-eighties, a system for delivering letters, télégrammes, or cards. These cylinders were propelled along tubes underground by compressed air or partial vacuum to post offices, which delivered them for a few centimes. At one time the National Assembly linked pneumatically with the Senate—a precursor to the intranet—via tubes under the Jardin du Luxembourg. She had childhood memories of watching her grandfather slip a pneu in the narrow slot at la poste. But she wondered why Natasha had kept this ugly gray metal tube. Aimée unscrewed the end. The musty smell of paper came out with rolled-up creased envelopes bearing forty-centime stamps. Circa 1920, she figured. The fat one was written in Cyrillic. Aimée put the few in French addressed to Natasha, and the one from Natasha’s scrapbook, to the side.

  Marevna pulled up a chair. Sniffed. Her pink lipsticked mouth formed a moue of distaste.

  “How much to translate everything?” Aimée pulled out her worn Vuitton wallet.

  “You’re kidding, non?”

  “I need the whole contents. I have to know what’s relevant,” Aimée said.

  “Relevant? Father said you’re some volunteer at the nursing home trying to locate family back in Russia.”

  So she’d checked. Aimée wondered again at the priest’s word, “cautious.” Suspicious, more like it.

  Aimée took out the other slip from her pocket and showed her. “Valeria, the other translator, didn’t ask me questions. But Father said you’re better.”

  Marevna’s long-lashed eyes blinked. “What your meaning?”

  “You do a simple translation. We keep this between us.”

  Aimée glanced around the deserted resto, the faded photos, the none-too-fresh tubs of orange salmon caviar in the cooler. Doubted Marevna earned much in salary or tips. “This now.” She slid a hundred-franc note over the table. “Two more like this when you finish. You interested or not?”

  Marevna’s fingers clenched the hundred francs. “Deal.”

  Smart. She understood.

  Marevna untied her apron. Pulled out a pen and a notebook from her pocket, opened the rolled papers. A few moments passed. Only the ticking of a clock, the thumbing of pages. A slab of sun warmed Aimée’s arm through the window.

  “Maybe I summarize, da? You looking for names and family in Russia?”

  Aimée didn’t know what she was looking for besides a reason for Yuri’s murder. A clue to this painting. Or whether these old letters even led there. Two letters and several pages of writing on old, browned onionskin paper. Papers she’d stolen from an old Russian ballerina.

  Far-fetched, maybe, but she couldn’t help wondering if Natasha had remained lucid long enough to contract the painting’s heist. Or more plausible that Oleg, Yuri’s wife’s son, had heard the stories and put it together. That’s if there was something to put together. She hoped this wouldn’t come back to bite her.

  “Why don’t you just read?” Aimée said, trying to control her impatience. “You can write it up later.”

>   “Da, this from 1988.” She scanned a few pages. “He switches back and forth in time. What you say, not linear events?” Marevna read more.

  Through the window, Aimée caught sight of a teenage boy straddling his parked motorcycle, smoking. Relishing every puff and blowing smoke rings into the air. She wished her fingers didn’t twitch for just one drag. Marevna was leaning forward, jotting down a word every so often. She was interested now. “Lucky for you. I study psychology.”

  Aimée sat up. “Why?”

  “Therapist recommends Piotr explain an old letter to his son, to—how you say—make his guilt be less? Make amends for past, yes, that’s better way to say. Do like an exercise in a journal for what he remembers. Write down as much as he can to flex brain muscles, prevent mental stagnation. For therapy.”

  “Like a chronicle of his life?”

  “Russians tell stories. That generation, like my great-grand-mère, that’s how they teach us about the past.” Marevna sighed. “Wars, siege of Stalingrad, all those things.”

  “Piotr was born in 1898,” Aimée said. “How far back in his childhood does he go?”

  “First he write about coming to Paris. Hungry, his own father looking for work. His father dying. That kind of thing you want to hear?”

  The story was probably fascinating, but she didn’t have time. Aimée thought back to Natasha’s words. “Look for mentions of Lenin. Paintings.” For the first time, she noticed pages had been folded back. “What about here?”

  “Lenin?” Marevna shook her head. “Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin?”

  “That one, oui.”

  Marevna flipped through the journal pages, scanning for the name. Aimée, suddenly irritated, wanted to snap at her to be careful with the thin paper.

  “Piotr says he the second wave of Russes immigrants. I’m the fifth or sixth, depending how you count.”

  “That doesn’t seem important,” Aimée said.

  “Important you understand background.” Marevna’s face flushed. “Must understand Russian psychology to do with French. Make more sense for you to know.”