The Paramour's Daughter

by Wendy Hornsby

  “Easiest way would be to take the bag to a store that sells the brand,” he said. “They would recognize a fake.”

  “The thing is, the bag in my possession has a serial number engraved on a little brass tag sewn inside, like a Rolex does. If it’s genuine, my questions could get back to the person who gave it to me.”

  “Who was that?”

  “The French consul general in LA.”

  “Bernard?” His laugh was derisive. “You don’t expect a class act like Jean-Paul Bernard to be involved with a bottom-rung hood like this Ludanov kid, do you?”

  “Not directly, no. But I can come up with several scenarios that might put knock-offs of expensive French-label items in his hands to distribute as, say, gifts, without making him dirty.”

  “I get you,” he said. “I know a guy in Customs who specializes in counterfeits. He gave me a Web site that lists the information you’re looking for. Hold on a sec. I’ll get it for you.”

  I heard a drawer open and a folder snap open—Rich is extremely meticulous about filing information—and then he was back. During the pause I dug out a pen.

  “Thanks,” I said as I wrote down the URL he gave me on the back of Jean-Paul’s card. “Rich, is Sergei a bottom-rung hood?”

  “Looks like he’s trying to make his bones. Interpol has a watch on him.”

  “Watching him for what?”

  “Nothing major, so far. Look, you okay there at the hospital with Dauvin and that guy—what is he, your cousin?”

  “Yes. And I’m okay. I don’t have wheels or I’d go home and finish dinner.”

  “Would you do me a favor and stay put there for a little while longer?”

  “Why?”

  “To humor me.”

  “You going to throw me another bone or two of information, Rich? Might make it easier to sit on these rock-hard chairs for a while. Almost as bad as the chairs at the DMV.”

  “When you put it that way.” He laughed. Antoine and Dauvin had gone to speak with the policewoman. Dauvin glanced at me, and the woman officer’s gaze followed his, so I knew they were talking about me.

  “So?” I said.

  “Phone company sent over the incoming and outgoing calls recorded on the cell towers in the area where the car was stolen, the one that hit your mother. Lots of calls to track down. From the single eye-witness account, we were able to narrow our timeframe significantly, and from his description of the thief, we were able to narrow down the pool of callers to a hundred or so.”

  “Some are more likely culprits than others?” I asked.

  “Oh yeah. We tracked one number to a gangbanger from Reseda, kid with a juvenile record that includes car theft and joy-riding. Name’s Chuy Cepeda,” Rich said. “He placed a call from that neighborhood during our time window to a guy who runs a so-called auto repair shop in Pacoima. A Russian guy, Something-something-ovich—no vowels, so don’t ask me to pronounce it.”

  “Is it a chop shop?” I asked.

  “Looks like it, yeah. Something-ovich gets an online order for a particular model car—color, accessories, year, wheels, whatever the buyer wants—and then he contracts with gangbangers like this Cepeda kid to go shop the streets until the exact car is found. The kid gets a finder’s fee when he brings it in. ’Ovich switches out the VIN plates and jiggers up new registration papers and delivers the cars to the buyer. All the money is handled through an offshore account. The arrangement’s what you call half-smart: Worked fine until we caught him. Whole thing unraveled in a hurry.”

  “Very enterprising,” I said. “But what can any of that possibly have to do with Isabelle Martin?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “But your Inspector Dauvin just gave me another piece to worry about. We got ’Ovich’s phone records—personal, home, shop, all we could find. He made and received a lot of calls, but one number stood out because of the frequency of the calls clustered around the time of the Martin event, and because the number went to a blind, an unregistered phone. Probably a disposable with a counterfeit or stolen SIM card.”

  Rich paused, maybe to let all that sink in. He is a gifted storyteller when he puts his mind to it, likes to draw out the suspense. So far, his was the tale of a group of small-time crooks who figured out how to profit by pilfering off a buffet of other people’s property.

  “And the missing piece Inspector Dauvin gave you?” I said, prodding him to continue.

  “That blind phone?” Another infuriating pause. “Dauvin found it in the pocket of Sergei Ludanov, Junior, at the scene of his accident.”

  “Merde,” I said, French for holy shit, among other things. I had handed the jacket with the phone to Dauvin.

  Dauvin and Antoine heard me swear, were watching me, their expressions full of expectation: how would I react to this discovery? Now they knew. Antoine came over and took a chair beside my window perch, solicitous, looking worried as he sat down. Overly worried, I thought.

  “Have you spoken with Chuy?” I asked Rich.

  “We went by his house yesterday afternoon—he was living with his mother. But we missed him.”

  “So, you’re still looking for him.”

  “Oh no, we found him all right,” Rich said. “Last night we caught a drive-by shooting call over in El Sereno. Chuy Cepeda took one in the chest and one to the noggin.”

  “And because Homicide Bureau caught the call,” I said, “I’m guessing Chuy was already singing with the angels, instead of singing to you.”

  “I doubt there are angels in the choir where Chuy went, but yeah.”

  “Damn.” Dauvin was still watching me. “Do you think Chuy did it? Killed Isabelle, I mean.”

  “Starting to look that way,” Rich said. “But he was only the trigger man, so to speak.”

  “For Sergei, via Whosit’ovich?”

  “That’s my guess. But the big question still is, what did Sergei hope to gain?”

  Given a little time to think through various implications of what he had just learned, Antoine was about to come unglued. His breath came in ragged shudders, there was no color in his face. I reached over and took his hand, gave it a squeeze. He then gripped mine in both of his; his hands trembled.

  “Maggie,” Rich said after a pause. “You told Guido that a paparazzo snapped pictures of your encounter with Isabelle that night. You asked him if the shots made the news or the tabs.”

  “Did they?”

  “No, and that puzzled me, because you’ve been all over the news for the last couple of days, first because of your relationship to a murdered woman, and next because the network hitch-hiked on the buzz that story generated to announce your new contract and the film you’re making about the case. I won’t tell you the adjectives they’re using because it would only piss you off. Except I heard ‘emotional personal journey,’ ‘straight from the heart,’ and ‘terrifying.’ ”

  “I can only imagine,” I said. “Maybe those photos were unusable.”

  “No, they’re pretty good. Your face and her face, looking right at the camera. A paparazzo could have gotten fair coin for them.” That damn pause again before he said, “We found them on Chuy Cepeda’s mobile phone.”

  “How did he get them?” I asked.

  “The Russian mechanic snapped them and sent them directly to Chuy’s phone.”

  “The Russian took them?” I felt horrified. The photographer had been no more than eight feet away from me when he snapped the pictures. “Then I saw him.”

  “Would you recognize him again?”

  “Probably not. It happened really fast. And he was behind the flash.”

  “The thing is, Maggie,” Rich said. “There are two women in the picture. You were moving around when the pics were taken, and the car was moving. So, the thing is, in one picture you’re on the left and in the other you’re on the right.”

  “Makes sense, changing perspective on a moving subject.”

  “Wrong picture sent, language barrier, stupidity, who knows what happened
? But we think the hitman made a mistake. After that guy in the van went after you this morning, we don’t think Isabelle Martin was the intended target. We think it was you.”

  18

  “You’re cousins?” I asked.

  “No, she is my niece.” Jacques Breton beamed proudly at the young policewoman standing watch, Jacqueline Cartier, his sister’s daughter, his namesake and goddaughter. Why was I not surprised?

  Jacques was sent to the hospital in his little green four-wheel-drive truck to bring Antoine and me a basket of food and drink. Hardship of all hardships, we had not gotten past the soup course at dinner before we left the house with Dauvin, and therefore must be in need. He brought a meal for his niece, as well, because her mother was worried that she hadn’t eaten, and for Dauvin, because that’s how things were done. Jacques didn’t add, because it would have been redundant, that his sister—the entire family—expected him to come back with a full report about what was going on. Clearly, this mission of mercy was also a fact-finding junket.

  Inspector Dauvin offered to take over guard duty to give young Officer Cartier a break, and suggested that she, Antoine and I go relax in the staff lounge. Antoine was looking very ragged. I asked if we could go home instead. The answer was “Soon.” We left Dauvin chatting with Jacques outside the surgery suite.

  The staff lounge was like staff lounges everywhere, a threadbare affair with a small round dining table and plastic chairs, a sagging sofa, a collection of antique magazines, a microwave, a small refrigerator, and a sink that needed a good scrub. Antoine set the basket on the counter next to the sink and found tumblers and mugs for drinks in a cupboard.

  Julie had packed the basket with a feast: sandwiches made from lengths of thin baguette sliced open, spread with butter and young Camembert, garnished with a few leaves of fresh basil and filled with the charcuterie—cold cuts—we missed at dinner. There were also an insulated carafe of hot chocolate and a bottle of red wine. I poured myself a cup of chocolate because it was hot, but didn’t feel like eating.

  Jacqueline ate with the appetite of the healthy young. She quaffed a tumbler of wine, took a second sandwich from the basket and refilled her glass from the bottle—refreshment for Inspector Dauvin, she said—and excused herself to go back on duty.

  Antoine got up from the table, refilled his tumbler with wine and took a long drink. We stood side by side with our backs resting against the sink counter.

  “Are you all right?” I asked him. He had been very quiet since the conversation with Rich.

  He patted his chest with his free hand to simulate a wildly thumping heart. “I am distraught, in need of stiffer drink than this. But you? You seem so calm. How can you be so sanguine?”

  “Trust me, I’m not.” I cradled the warm mug of chocolate between cold hands. “Today, all at once, I find out that three different people have wanted to get rid of me at various times. I suppose I’m lucky just to have lived as long as I have.”

  He narrowed his eyes and cocked his head as if he couldn’t have heard correctly. “Pardon?”

  I gave him my best imitation of the Gallic shrug, intending to convey, who can figure? “The abbess suggested to me that my father asked Isabelle to abort me. Claude suggested he should have ‘drowned me like a stray puppy’ when he had the opportunity. And now this, a cut-rate assassin misses his target, me. I’m lucky that three times isn’t always the charm. Maybe the next guy will get it right.”

  “Surely this detective in Los Angeles is incorrect.”

  “Rich Longshore is a damned fine detective,” I said. “My husband, Mike, thought the world of his abilities. I listen to what he has to say.”

  “But what he said is still only speculation, Maggie.”

  “Think about it,” I said, turning to face him. “What he said makes sense. Isabelle was sick. She wasn’t going to live much longer. Why take the risk of hiring some idiot to speed things along?”

  “But why would anyone want you dead?” Antoine said. “That certainly does not make sense.”

  “What are the usual motives for murder?” I asked him.

  Palms up, mouth turned down—which could have meant I’m thinking, or, Who knows?—he offered, “Assuming sanity? Greed, lust, rage, jealousy, fear, revenge, expedience—shall I go on?”

  “That’s a fair start.” I said. “Now, just for argument’s sake, assume I was the intended target, and not Isabelle. I think you can take lust off your list of motives—who here knows me well enough to lust after these old bones?—but any of the other motives you listed could apply.”

  “Again, but why?”

  “It doesn’t take a lot of imagination, Antoine,” I said. “After I arrived in Paris yesterday, before I met Grand-mère, I was shuffled off to a conference about my inheritance. Even before I got on the plane to come over I was asked about my ‘expectations.’ Removing me from the pool of heirs would make a big difference.”

  “For whom?”

  “In some ways, for all of you.”

  Arms tightly crossed over his chest, my cousin shook his head, refusing to accept what I said.

  I went on. “Assuming that the motive involves the estate, then logically the person who hired the assassin is a stakeholder.”

  “One of the family?”

  “Or a person dependent on someone in the family coming across financially.”

  He liked that answer better. He gave me a curt nod, arms still folded as a barrier against what I was saying.

  We both looked up as the whop-whop-whop racket of a helicopter beat the sky above the clinic. It hovered briefly before it landed on the parking lot.

  I said, “Medevac for Sergei?”

  Antoine shrugged, turned his attention back to me. “Go on with what you were saying.”

  “For just a moment, let’s assume that someone in the family had a hand in hiring the hitman,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be easier for that person to arrange to remove me, a stranger, an abstraction, the mystery daughter on some far shore, than a loved one, as I believe Isabelle was?” I didn’t add what Uncle Max said earlier: it wasn’t me Dad wanted to get rid of, but an it.

  “You are wrong.” Antoine surprised me when he took the mug from my hands, set it aside and folded me into his arms. Holding me against his chest, shaking with emotion, he kissed the top of my head and patted my back. “You are not a stranger to me, Maggie.”

  I pulled back to look up into his face.

  He smiled down at me with such a sweet fondness that I had to catch my breath; my brother Mark used to look at me that way. He said, “I am a few years older than you—the old man of the children. I remember you very well, even if you do not remember me.”

  “You do?” News to me.

  “Yes. You were a funny little thing, a sort of wild creature until Maman took you in hand and taught you the meaning of yes and no. Isabelle was somewhat inconsistent, and she left you with us very frequently,” he said. “You and I would ride together on your pony—Amie you called her—or we’d build castles out of mud. I taught you how to kick a soccer ball. We slept in the same room because you were afraid to sleep alone. And when there was a storm you crawled into my bed. I was very sad when you were gone. I missed you very much.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

  “Of course not. I was six when you were two. I don’t remember very much from then. But I do remember you. Believe me, you were not ever an abstraction to me.” I leaned my head against his shoulder and listened as he continued talking. “Maman, Papa, Grand-mère, Grand-père, Grand-mère Marie—we loved you very much. Even though Freddy and Bébé never met you, you were always very real to them, a part of their family.”

  “Antoine?” I backed out of his embrace so that I could look directly into his face. “Both Freddy and your dad have told me their ideas about the future of the estate. Freddy said that you agreed with him. Do you?”

  “Pshh, Freddy’s plan.” He made a broad gesture of disdain, as if wiping the plan o
ff the table. “Pie in the sky. Is that the expression? Who knows? Maybe he can make it work. Can’t be as wrong-headed as the Canadian oil shale project Lena talked him into backing. That one turned to shit in a hurry.”

  “Lena talked him into backing?”

  “She’s a force of nature, that one; Hélène, the face that launched a thousand ships—that sank. Yes, Lena was so sure about it.”

  Lena, short for Hélène. A common enough name, but where else had I heard it recently? Probably didn’t matter where, I thought. But it bothered me. Where?

  I asked Antoine, “What do you want?”

  “Me?” He poured himself more wine, the last of the bottle, and took a couple of sips as he composed an answer to the question. When he was ready, he turned to look at me directly.

  “Kelly and I want to go back to California,” he said. “I have tenure in the Ag department at the state university in San Luis Obispo. I’ve hung on to my position by teaching and directing their semester-abroad program in Normandy and monitoring several graduate students in residence here working in the area of niche agriculture.”

  His face lit up when he said, “In the summer our humble estate is overrun by California aggies.”

  He cocked his head. “Kelly is a gifted winemaker, and did very well with the Central Coast wineries in California. Here she is adrift in cider country. Besides, she wants to be near her parents. They’re getting older, they miss their grandchildren. We’re all tired of the gray winters here.”

  I nudged him. “All those years you were in San Luis Obispo, you were so close by and you never even called me.”

  Finally he smiled. “Don’t think we weren’t tempted.”

  “So, why did you come back to Normandy?”

  “Several things,” he said. “Our grandfather died and the estate was falling into ruin. The fromagerie and the distillery needed modernization. My father and mother had separated and were in a legal battle over property rights. Maman wanted some help. Isabelle was off on some project. Grand-mère was in over her head. And she missed her grandchildren.”