The Bones of Paris

by Laurie R. King

  Her mouth interrupted his. As he turned back to the room, his arms were abruptly filled with warm and muscular femininity, face raised to his in a kiss, and the stifled words exploded into fireworks of internal dispute: How tall she is and oh, my, not a speck of hesitation about her and—Sarah, what about Sarah, I ought to—but Sarah was surely beyond the hand-holding stage with that cop of hers and—no, Nancy isn’t about to—at least she may not intend to—not quite yet, anyway—

  Delicious. And worthy of focus.

  The burst of conflict faded, the envelopes faded, as the taste of her demanded his attention, his full attention. The taste of her, and the languid demands of her mouth, and the full awareness that the body pressing against his knew exactly what it was doing, and precisely what it wanted. His arms gathered her to him, and the days of frustration and revulsion and fear and uncertainty came together in a push, and he bent towards her and in a minute, it was going—

  She pulled away; his arms tightened. Her hands came up to push against his chest, and although he felt as though his body was being pulled inside-out, he let her draw back.

  There was mischief on her face, but arousal in her eyes.

  After a minute, he cleared his throat. “Well, that was certainly … unexpected.”

  “I wanted to get it out of the way. Otherwise we’d both be dwelling on it all afternoon: will we, won’t we, when? Now we’ve kissed, we can relax and move on.”

  He thought it was too bad that moving on did not mean into the bedroom, but he had to agree, it made for a considerable shift in how he looked at the next few hours: less stress, greater anticipation.

  Nancy Berger was really something.

  They began on the river, a view of the city Stuyvesant had only before glimpsed. Nancy led him to the rail of the steamer, callously elbowing aside a family of awe-struck Midwesterners, and taking care to speak only French around them lest they attach themselves to their fellow countrymen.

  “Any news?”

  It was a question Stuyvesant had spent the weekend dreading, the question that turned disappointment into accusation: Why haven’t you found her? What have you been doing?

  What could he say? I think you’re right: Pip Crosby is dead?

  Because once he started telling her what he’d been doing, where did he stop? He might tell her about Le Comte’s party, but how could he not then talk about Sarah? He could confide his problems, but how to explain Lulu? He could talk about Man Ray and Didi Moreau, but what could he begin to say about Doucet’s frankly terrifying list of the disappeared?

  “I have three—” he started, then realized even that route was impossible: I have three men who might have murdered her? He cleared his throat.

  “I have three men who might know where she’s gone, but I hope you understand, honey, I can’t go into the details until I’m sure.”

  She stared across the river, looking as if he had not spoken. Looking as if she was listening to the hesitation and not the words. She sighed, then changed the subject.

  “I’ll bet you’ve never played the tourist.”

  “I’m sorry, Nancy. I will tell you, just not yet.”

  “I understand. So have you? Played the tourist in Paris?”

  He propped his elbows next to hers on the railing. “Not since the War.”

  “You were here? With the American forces?”

  “For a few months.”

  “Where?”

  Her brother, it turned out, had volunteered about the same time Stuyvesant had, and had spent time in the same part of the Front. But when she showed him a photograph, fading and worn, he did not know the face—at least, no more than he knew the faces of any stranger in a familiar uniform.

  “He died?”

  “It took a while, but yes, the War killed him eventually.”

  “In France? Or did they ship him home?” He settled one arm back across her shoulders.

  “Oh, he sailed home. And he stayed there for five years, before he came back to Paris and put a gun to his head.”

  “Sounds like you were close.”

  “Ned was my twin.”

  His arm gave an involuntary contraction. They stood, watching the city scroll past, and the four envelopes under his floorboards crept back into Stuyvesant’s mind.

  “The police came on Thursday,” she said. “To look at Phil’s room.”

  Thursday was the day the gendarme had tossed his own room.

  “Good. Was it Doucet?”

  “A skinny little guy with a turned-in mouth?”

  “Sergeant Fortier. Did he find anything?”

  “Not that he told me.”

  “So, where are we going?” he asked, after they had traveled a while downstream.

  “Several places I like,” she replied. “I hope you’re wearing comfortable shoes.”

  Stuyvesant later figured they covered ten miles that day. The steamer let them off at Suresnes. They walked to the American cemetery to leave flowers on her brother’s grave, before setting off in a lazy circle through the Parc de Saint-Cloud and across the bridge into the Bois du Boulogne. There they wandered aimlessly, talking all the while, holding hands from time to time, pausing three times in quiet corners to neck.

  She’d decided to find another apartment, she told him. She didn’t have to say, Because Phil is still there.

  Late in the afternoon, they allowed themselves to be pulled along by a drift of crowds heading towards Luna Park. At the entrance, Nancy turned to him.

  “Do you skate?”

  “What?” he said absently. Looking up at the cheerful sign, he’d had a vision of Pip Crosby, going for a last outing with Charmentier, her … what? Friend? Mentor? Employer?

  Murderer?

  “Harris?”

  Why the hell had he imagined that she might be off in the sun—“Are you all right?”

  —or that he’d be able to step in and be the hero, sending her back to her mother and Uncle Crosby, to laugh with them about That time in Paris when we thought—

  “Harris!”

  He made an enormous effort, and was back with Nancy. “It’s not exactly the time of year for skating.”

  “What is the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re thinking about Phil, aren’t you?”

  He blew out a breath, and admitted, “I was thinking about her mother and her uncle, yeah.”

  She watched a man, a woman, and a little girl with ringlets go into the rink. “We lost two soldiers in my parents’ building, during the War. The son of a family upstairs was killed outright. The son of another family downstairs was declared missing in action. You’d think they would have an easier time of it, since they at least could hope, but in fact, it was far worse for them, not knowing.”

  “Like a wound that doesn’t heal.”

  “Not finding Phil would devastate her mother,” she agreed.

  “And the uncle. He seems close to her.”

  “Maybe a little too close.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just, something Phil said once, that her uncle would control what kind of tooth-paste she used if he could.”

  “That’s what you meant when you told me she came here to get away from Boston?”

  “Did I say that? It’s probably true. She missed her mother. It made her sad when her mother couldn’t travel.” She straightened her back and turned to him. “Look, if Phil’s going to join us, I’d rather go home. Being here with her is just too jarring.”

  She was right: it wasn’t fair—to Nancy. With an apology to Pip, he reached for Nancy’s hand and gave her a smile as bright as the sky.

  “Nope, I’m okay. Let’s enjoy the sunshine while we can. Speaking of sunshine, isn’t it awfully warm for skating? How do they keep the ice going?”

  “It’s roller skating!”

  “Really? Oh, it’s been a long time since—”

  He allowed her to lead him into the cacophonous rink, strapping on a pair of too
-small skates and teetering around the edges before his body remembered. And then Nancy was famished, and they handed back the skates and walked on quivering legs to a sort of biergarten that had fewer howling infants than most of the surrounding cafés. Once restored, they gravitated to the rides: a roller-coaster where Nancy shrieked along with the Paris shop girls, a spinning tea-cup where Nancy laughed as freely as the children, and a carousel where Nancy claimed a golden lion and Stuyvesant stood at her side. He bought her a pair of red balloons, he won her a doll at the shooting gallery, he let her crash into him all along the undulating floor of the dodgem cars. When night fell and the smaller children were taken away, they moved to the dance hall, which Nancy pronounced “magnificently bourgeois,” donning an air of Edwardian dignity entirely at odds with her clothing.

  And all the while, he was mourning Pip Crosby. The previous day, he’d been in a rage, maddened by failure and wanting to hold his gun to someone’s head—anyone’s head. He’d spent the day walking, and by the end, he was no longer angry, he was simply sad, and grimly determined.

  So today, while he laughed at Nancy’s antics with a bean-bag toss, he was also feeling the loss of a Clara Bow grin. When Nancy misjudged a kiss on the carousel, the crack of their meeting teeth evoked a memory of a similar mishap with Pip. And when they closed out the park at midnight and claimed two seats on the crowded tram, he was saying good-bye to Philippa Anne Crosby.

  His feet ached pleasantly. Nancy fell asleep on his shoulder, beret tipped over one ear, the surviving red balloon bobbing over her head. He woke her when they changed lines, and woke her again when they disembarked, tucking her arm in his, and walking her to her door, up her stairs, into her front room.

  She blinked at the familiar surroundings, then sat with a thump onto the settee. He lowered his bulk down beside her, physically tired but far from sleep. Unlike Nancy, whose eyes were again drooping.

  It was clear as day that the entertainments were over, even without the ghost of Pip Crosby looking over their shoulders.

  She leaned against him, inviting him to wrap his arms around her.

  “I have an appointment in the morning,” she murmured. “A rental agency.”

  “I’ll go in a minute.”

  “I don’t want you to. I mean, I do, but …”

  “Sweetheart, I’ll see you tomorrow. Dinner, right?”

  She turned her face to his, and although it was touch-and-go for a few minutes as to whether their choice would stand, when she began to sag, he sat back, pulling her into his shoulder. She nestled into him with a sigh, a sweet little noise of contentment that twisted his heart into a complicated knot.

  The building was silent, not a sound of water in the pipes or a shift of settling walls.

  “I had a brother, too,” he said into the stillness. “His name was Tim. Great kid. Bright as can be. Everyone loved him. He used to follow me everywhere, when we were boys. And when I enlisted, so did he, even though he was underage. When I went back to the Bureau, he followed me there, too. Until one day he got caught up in a riot, one I might’ve stopped but didn’t. He fell, and somebody kicked him, hard. Came out with a head injury that took about as long to kill him as your brother’s did.”

  She did not react.

  “I wasn’t there when he died. It didn’t involve a gun, but it’s hard to go home, to look his widow in the eye. I send her money. Hope that’s enough.”

  Nancy slumped against him, completely slack. Just as well. He smiled, kissed the top of her head, then stood and slid his arms underneath her.

  She jerked awake, startled, before throwing her arms around his neck and allowing him to carry her to her room. He set her down. She stood, obedient as a child, while he turned back the covers and pushed her gently onto the edge. He took off her shoes, lifted her legs to the bed, and tucked the covers around her.

  When he kissed her forehead, her eyes were closed, but she smiled.

  He stood in the doorway for a while, listening to her breathing.

  Unresponsive roommate, my ass.

  He closed her door, and opened the next. Fortier had removed some of Pip’s letters, her checkbook, some papers. But he had shown no interest in the art on the walls.

  In five minutes, he let himself out of the apartment. When he came to the river, he turned left, following the quay to the Île St. Louis. He crossed over onto the little island, wandering through its silence until the Pont Saint-Louis took him to the Île de la Cité. Past the magnificence of Notre Dame, around the Palais de Justice, and across the road to the small park at its prow, the Vert-Galant. Voices came from a moored barge; lights from the shore danced along the placidly flowing water.

  He took out his cigarette case, but this time, his fingers sought out the hidden latch. He felt it give, worked his fingernail under the slick paper inside.

  He slid the case away, then took out the Ronson.

  By its light, he saw Sarah’s face. She studied him as the flames crept up from the corner, gazed out from the blackening paper.

  And then she was gone. He dropped the burning ash, letting the light breeze carry it out onto the water.

  One good-bye to Pip; another good-bye to Sarah Grey.

  Time to start anew.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  A CONVERSATION:

  “Lee, where’s my revolver?”

  “You have a revolver?”

  “Sure. Have you seen it?”

  “Why do you have a revolver?”

  “You never know when you might want to shoot someone.”

  “Who is there to shoot? You think the Germans are coming back?”

  “Not for a while. But there’s always me. Or you.”

  “Yes, sweetheart, I saw your Suicide picture. It wasn’t very funny.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be funny.”

  “Well, it wasn’t beautiful, either. Please, Man, get rid of the gun.”

  “Why? Revolvers are beautiful things.”

  “With all the drunks who come here, I’d think a loaded weapon was the last thing you’d want lying around.”

  “Clearly it isn’t lying around, or you’d have seen it.”

  “If I find it, I’m not going to give it to you.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  “I’ll throw it in the river.”

  “You do and I’ll beat you.”

  “Please, Man.”

  “What, are you afraid I’ll shoot you with it?”

  “More likely yourself.”

  “Don’t worry, honey. If I shoot you, I’ll take a fantastic picture of your dead body. You’ll be famous forever.”

  “What if you shoot yourself?”

  “Then I’ll make sure you get blamed for it. You’ll still be famous.”

  “Only if there’s a camera around.”

  “There is that. Okay, I’ll make sure there is.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  LATE MONDAY MORNING, at a table stacked with half a dozen coffee saucers, Stuyvesant crumpled up yet another sheet of paper. His notebook was up to date, the week’s letter to Uncle Crosby written, but this last writing job was a killer.

  He’d spent an hour that morning, cursing his clumsy fingers and Mme. Benoit’s glue pot, piecing together the four photographs—all but one, unfortunately, missing a segment. The results were a little distorted, and the youngest girl had a gap where her eye should have been, but they would be recognizable.

  Their emotion was all too recognizable.

  How could he possibly inflict these photographs on Bennett Grey? Sarah seemed to think her brother as shaky as ever. It astounded Stuyvesant that the poor bastard hadn’t walked into the ocean long before this. And if he did send them, what could he say? A friend of mine may be dead, but I have no proof? Or, I think a brave little fool named Pip is dead, which is easier than thinking of her alive? Oh and by the way, I have these awful pictures I want you to look at—which may not even have anything to do with my case?

  Stuyvesant had to know if th
e pictures were real. If they were fakes, Grey would simply look at them and laugh. If they weren’t, well, it would be a lousy thing to do to a man like him.

  But Stuyvesant had to know. And Bennett was the only one who could tell him.

  In the end, he decided not to give Grey any details. There was no need to write him about missing blondes, or suspicions about the men surrounding Sarah, or the complexities that had cropped up in Stuyvesant’s relationship with her. Just ask the man if the photos were fakes, and let it go at that.

  Bennett,

  Sorry to disturb you, but I need to know if these can be real, and I don’t know who else to ask. I’m hoping you tell me they were staged.

  I saw Sarah the other night, she’s looking well.

  Harris

  But all those unsaid facts didn’t make the morning any easier. As soon as he had a page he could live with, he put it with the photographs into the envelope he’d bought, all the time trying to decide if he was being irresponsible, if he should in fact tell Grey what was going on …

  The shoddy post office pen stubbed twice into the rough manila, but at last he had the thing addressed, securely sealed, and in the post.

  The instant he handed it over, he wanted to snatch it back.

  “I want to start by asking you a favor,” Stuyvesant began. “Let me have my say before you jump in. Okay?”

  It’s not like you have any proof, he told himself for the tenth time. If he did, he’d have handed it over, even if that meant revealing the Moreau break-in.

  But the pictures weren’t proof, of anything. He’d have to point the cop at Moreau without them.

  Doucet tipped back in his chair, hands folded over his vest.

  “First off, I’ve decided to look at Pip Crosby not as a missing person, but as a murder victim. You don’t—”

  Doucet’s chair legs thumped to the floor. “Why? What have you learned?”

  “Nothing. Not in the sense of evidence. There’s just an accumulation of facts that … Well, okay, it’s a feeling. That if she was out there, I’d have heard. But like I was saying, you don’t have to look at it that way. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t, since if you pass the case on to your homicide team, I’ll be out in the cold.