Paris, Before You Die

by Mary Bowers

“Do about what? Are you suggesting you’ll help me get away from Jeanne?”

  “Jeanne’s here for a reason, too. All the things you mentioned . . . love, hate, money, revenge . . . they’re the classic motives for murder. Pardon me, but you don’t need to be psychic to see that something bad is in the air. Maybe we can do something about it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Lauren is the reason that Twyla and I came on this trip in the first place. I’m very worried about her, and I want to help, if I can. Divorces bring out the evil in people, and I think that’s what’s in the air. I sensed it . . . I observed it, at dinner tonight. Lauren was very kind to Twyla at an awkward time in her life.”

  “Do you think Lauren’s actually in danger?”

  “Oh, maybe not physical danger. And from what I understand, Lauren wants to save her marriage. As a first step, can we figure out if Hannah really is Grayson’s mistress and get her to back off?”

  “If Grayson is moving on to his next mistress right under the nose of the last one, and he brought his wife along to watch, I’d say Lauren should go ahead and dump him.”

  “Ah, but she loves him. At least, from what Twyla said, they took this trip so they could work on their marriage.”

  “Best thing all around for Mrs. Grayson Pimm would be to cut her losses now and move on. Once a cheater, always a cheater.”

  Nettie’s lips slowly drew into a smile and she narrowed her eyes. “My feelings exactly. She needs to throw the bum down a hole somewhere, and it may as well be a hole in Paris. It’s going to hurt like hell at first, but he’ll be breaking her heart for the last time, don’t you agree?”

  “By golly, I think I do. So we work as a team. You teach me a few of your gumshoe tricks, and I try to figure out what Jeanne is trying to tell me. And between us, we keep an eye on Grayson until we catch him dropping his pants.”

  “How colorfully you put it, but that’s the general idea.”

  “And it seems like his zipper is always on the move, so we shouldn’t have to wait long.” She stopped abruptly because there was a knock at the door.

  “Aunt Nettie?” Twyla’s voice said. “Are you in there? I thought I heard your voice.”

  Audrey got up and let her in. Looking past her into the short hall, she said, “Where’s Kat?”

  “Kat? I didn’t see her after Jack and I left the hotel. Why, isn’t she here?”

  “She went after you and Jack. I guess she didn’t find you.”

  Nettie stood up. “I think Kat was very careful to steer Charley away from where Jack was taking my niece.”

  “Oh, that was nice of her,” Twyla said innocently. “Anybody could see that Jack and I wanted to be alone.”

  “Yeah, that was nice of her,” Audrey drawled.

  Nettie, keeping her chin up, turned around and delicately picked up her hairpiece and reading glasses from the desk. Twyla looked at them, startled, but didn’t say anything.

  Nettie began to hum very softly. She was feeling rather virtuous. Obviously Audrey was in conflict; the way she lashed out was just a way of trying to relieve the pressure. Now she’d given her a harmless, people-watching assignment to keep her occupied, and if she stepped on any toes, those toes would soon be going off home, never to be seen again. For herself, Nettie had no intention of meddling in Lauren’s problems, other than murmuring sympathetic platitudes. Nettie felt as if she’d done her good deed for the day. What a nice little old lady she was.

  To Audrey, she said, “I was right about you. I am going to like you. How very interesting you are, once one gets past the rhinoceros skin. I enjoyed our little chat. It was . . . yes. Interesting. We’ll talk again, about this and that. May your dreams be quiet tonight,” she added softly, like a prayer.

  “Good night, ladies,” Audrey said.

  It was another ninety minutes before Kat came bouncing in, talking about how nice that Charley was, not like his friend Jack at all, a real gentleman, in fact.

  Rolling over in her sleep, Audrey muttered, “He’s married.”

  “Oh, Audrey, don’t be bourgeois,” Kat said damningly, but Audrey was already back in her dreams.

  Chapter 5

  The next day the group was going to Ile de la Cité to see an ancient church, followed by another, more spectacular one: Notre-Dame.

  Kat looked Audrey up and down critically when she came out of the bathroom. Audrey wasn’t worried; she was perfect for the weather and the discriminating eyes of Parisians, both.

  Her weight fluctuated so much that only recently-purchased clothing ever fit well, and her tan cotton ankle pants had only been on her body once before, in the fitting room a week ago. They slid over her hips and buttoned at the waist neatly, as if they were melting onto her. For a woman who was used to a tug and a grunt before buttoning, the ease of the fit was spiritually uplifting. It made her feel pretty.

  Next, for the early-summer weather, a butter-yellow tee with three-quarter length sleeves. Her hair got tousled when she pulled it over her head, and she didn’t pat it down again. Her short cap of hair was a little boyish when it was flat, and this morning she was not feeling like a boy. Next, she slipped into strappy sandals. They were flat but elegant; she could walk in them for hours. When she was fully dressed, she did quarter-turns in front of the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, smiling. “Look out Paris, here I come.”

  So when she emerged and struck a pose, it was only so Kat could pay homage. Instead, her old friend gave her a critical once-over and said, “You were careful, getting dressed, right? Nothing spoils your day like forgetting to put deodorant on.”

  Audrey froze and glared.

  Kat tapped her lips and mused. “Something’s missing . . . something, something, oh, I know! Here, you can borrow my blue scarf. It’s got traces of yellow in it – it’ll be perfect with that top. Now hold still . . . .”

  “I’m wearing a crossbody purse,” Audrey said grimly, not holding still. “It’d just pull the scarf all over the place.”

  “I’m wearing a scarf, and my purse isn’t pulling it all over the place.”

  “That’s because you’re a scarf person. You’re used to them.”

  “I’ve seen eleven different women wearing scarves around their necks since we got to Paris and we’ve only been here two days; it’s the look. It’s chic.”

  “I am not chic,” Audrey said grittily. “Why should I need to be chic? I’m clean and shiny and I show up on time, which should be good enough for anybody. I only wear a scarf when it’s 20 below, which in Florida ain’t often.”

  By then, Kat was wafting a blue-patterned scrap of silk around. After a pointed stare, Audrey opened the door to the hall and stalked out, making a lot of noise pounding her nice, flat sandals along the ancient hardwood floor. Silently following, Kat tucked the pretty blue scarf into her bag for later. She was bound to be complimented on her own expertly-negligently draped peachy cloud of a scarf, and then Audrey would change her mind, of course.

  They went single-file down the narrow wooden staircase and pushed through the door to the lobby.

  Kat greeted Claude like an old flame, absently fingering her neck. In response she received a tidy smile and no compliments, but give the man a break, he was working, and besides, Audrey was already walking up somebody’s heels to get into the breakfast room and wasn’t paying attention anyway. Undaunted, Kat followed what was now a line of people and saw that the person Audrey was close to trampling over was Lauren Pimm. Ahead of Lauren was her husband, Grayson.

  As soon as she was inside the little breakfast room, Audrey looked around for Nettie. Locating her quickly, she pulled a knowing grin, looking into mild brown eyes that gazed at her over useless peepers. The old dear had her hair pulled back into the bun-hairpiece again, doing her sweet-little-me act.

  Nettie, knowing exactly what Audrey was grinning about, gave her a stern look and a tiny, beckoning head toss. She and Twyla were sitting at a table for four, and the other two chairs were empty. />
  Audrey grinned again and Nettie understood again: she wanted them to sit down quickly before Jack came down.

  When Lauren stopped suddenly, Audrey and Kat piled up behind her and politely waited. She had paused by a table for two where Henry Dawson was eating alone.

  A simple, “Good morning,” would have sufficed, but Lauren just stood there, gazing down at the man as if she were trying to find just the right words to say. Meanwhile, her husband had kept on going to the breakfast buffet, just around the corner. Kat and Audrey hovered, waiting and throwing glances at Nettie.

  After murmuring a standard greeting, Henry realized Lauren wasn’t moving on and looked up at her. There was a suspended moment where everybody waited for her to speak.

  “I felt terrible when I realized,” she began. She paused, then floundered on, “When I heard your name and you began to talk about your son . . . your son was named Aaron, wasn’t he? And your last name is Dawson. Your son was Aaron Dawson? I suddenly realized . . . he was the young man who worked in my husband’s department; the one who . . . died so unexpectedly. We were so shocked when we heard. So terribly sad. He had a promising future. We sent flowers,” she added when Henry said nothing in return. Then, realizing that people were listening in the dead-quiet, tiny room and things were going badly, she tried to end it quickly. “I simply couldn’t go on acting as if we didn’t know who you were. Naturally, you recognized my husband’s name. I had to let you know we miss Aaron very much; he was a valuable team member, and a very nice young man.”

  Henry nodded silently.

  By then, Lauren’s husband was coming back with a full plate. “Grayson,” she said to him, “Henry is Aaron’s father.”

  “Who?”

  “Aaron Dawson.” When he still didn’t seem to understand, she went on. “The point man on the Helsinki account. The one who died so suddenly.”

  Grayson gave Henry the once-over. “Oh, yes. Yes, that was tragic. It’s hard to understand what these young people are thinking, when they have their whole lives ahead of them.”

  Audrey desperately wanted to get around them now and get some kind of conversation going at Nettie’s table. As soon as she sat down, she was going to just start talking, talking about anything at all. Anything to take the spotlight off Henry. Audrey took a deep breath, gathered Kat in with a look and got ready to say “Excuse me,” before easing around the Pimms when Jack Bartlett’s voice said, “’Scuse me, ‘scuse me, comin’ through,” and he pushed around all of them and claimed an empty seat at Nettie’s table.

  The look on Nettie’s face was interesting, Audrey thought. A combination of, “How dare you?” and, “Good morning, sir,” with just a touch of, “Get your hand off my niece’s arm.” How nimble the muscles of the human face are, she mused.

  “What’s everybody looking so glum about?” Jack nearly shouted.

  Ignoring him, Henry was still looking up at Grayson. Calmly and evenly, he said, “It’s hard to think straight when you’re being worked eighteen hours a day and somebody’s riding your ass all the time.”

  Only slightly lowering his voice, Jack hunkered in on Twyla and said, “What’s going on over there?” Twyla gaped at him silently.

  Grayson solidified, unused to insubordination. “We all start at the bottom and work our way up. I did, and now here I am. In the beginning, you jump into the fire and hope it doesn’t consume you. Some make it; some don’t.”

  “Let’s get our breakfast Grayson,” Lauren said desperately.

  “I already did,” he snapped. “If you hadn’t stopped me, I’d be halfway through it by now.”

  Audrey finally shoved her way in and got in front of the Pimms.

  To Henry, she said, “Mind if I join you?”

  When Henry shrugged and nodded at the empty chair across from him, she sat right down and poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the table. Then she grabbed the little milk pitcher, but her movements were too large and she poured nearly half its contents into her coffee.

  The Pimms moved away separately, Grayson to the empty table in the corner and Lauren to the breakfast buffet.

  Belatedly, Margery Rowe came into the breakfast room alone and looked around, almost sniffing like a dog, scenting the tension. Oh, hell, a gossip hound, Audrey thought, and she was doubly glad now that she’d sat down with Henry. Margery had been hanging around him a lot. By default, she went to an empty table at the end of the room, where nobody could tell her what was going on.

  “You like a little coffee in your milk, do you?” Henry said to Audrey. His face didn’t show that he was struggling for control, but his voice was tight.

  “Sorry about that. I’ll get more from the waitress, wherever she is.” She began to look around.

  “Don’t bother. I take mine black.” He began to ease off. “Good morning. And . . . thank you.”

  She became dashingly blasé. “For what?”

  Henry’s face softened and one of his eyebrows lifted and lowered fractionally. Then his eyes flickered to the door as Ashley and Eric came in and joined the Pimms. Right behind them, Charley came in and pulled an extra chair up to the table between Jack and Kat, making it a tight table for five. Kat made a show of easing over for him without actually moving, then fluttered eyelashes and touched the scarf.

  “That’s pretty,” Charley said obligingly. “You look great today.” Kat murmured, ladylike, and lifted her eyelashes just enough to glance across the aisle, but again, Audrey wasn’t paying attention, darn her.

  “Let me know if you see one like that while we’re here,” Charley added. “I’d like to get one for my wife.”

  Everybody started to talk about the schedule for the day ahead.

  “Just your luck, huh?” Audrey said after things had settled down. “You sign up for nice little trip and you end up in the ship of fools.”

  Henry laughed, the first time anybody had heard him do so.

  * * * * *

  Later, as they assembled outside the hotel, Nettie went up to Audrey and said, “When you made Henry laugh, I could have flown across the room and kissed you. How in the world did you do it?”

  “With my usual tact and charm.” She moved in and whispered. “Admit it; you really wanted to fly across the room to get the heck away from Jack.”

  “And leave him alone with my niece?” was the calm reply.

  They both turned as Danny called for a buddy check, and when Nettie located Henry, he was smiling at her.

  * * * * *

  They were taking the Métro for the first time that morning. As tour groups went, this one was attentive and obedient, but their guide seemed to think that if he turned his back they were all going to scatter and run. Danny called for so many buddy checks that the buddy pairs finally began to just stay near one another.

  The ordeal of getting them through the ticket gates in the Métro had Danny so overwrought that Kat took his arm and told him, “It’s all right, darlin’. If we lose a few, they’ll just find a nice little bar and have a drink. I might just join them, if you show us too many flying buttresses.”

  She left Danny looking white-faced. When the first few who had made it through the gates began to wander ahead, Hannah discovered that her ticket didn’t work and she was stuck behind the barrier. Danny started swiveling his head frantically, trying to keep track of all of them.

  Nettie passed by him and said, “I’ll go round up the strays while you go talk to the ticket agent. We’ll be right over there by the Sherlock Holmes poster.” She patted his shoulder kindly, and he finally moved.

  “That young fella needs to find a nice, quiet job with the artillery division,” she said to the group that had gathered by the Sherlock Holmes poster without having to be told.

  “We’d better keep an eye on him so he doesn’t get lost,” Eric added, and they all laughed merrily at one Danny joke after another until he finally rejoined them with Hannah.

  Relieved to find them cheerful, he directed them to the right track
and they were off.

  * * * * *

  “I thought French people were supposed to be so rude to foreigners,” Twyla said as they debarked at the St. Michel station. “It was really nice of that young lady in the subway to let Hannah know that her purse was open. She was definitely a French girl, and she knew we were all Americans; we were standing right in front of her talking to one another. But she helped Hannah anyway.”

  “I never felt a thing,” Hannah said. “I know I had my purse all zipped up when I left the hotel. Luckily nothing was taken. All the French people I’ve seen so far have been very nice to me.”

  Staring down at her, Grayson said, “Odds are the pickpocket was French, too.”

  He stalked on. Lauren was left hurrying after him, and after a momentary waver, Twyla decisively sped up and walked by Lauren’s side all the way over the bridge that crossed the Seine.

  It was a bright, sunny day with mild temperatures, and everyone enjoyed the walk to the little chapel where they would get a short talk from Danny before being allowed to look around. Their earplugs were firmly in their ears and their little blue boxes were banging on their chests, and along the way Danny chattered at them about this and that. They looked around appreciatively and gave him encouraging looks.

  Catching up with Nettie, Audrey said, “I want to talk to you.” She pulled her earplugs out, and after a doubtful look, Nettie did the same.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “Henry. He said something odd to me, after things settled down at breakfast. You wanted to know what I said to make him laugh. Well, I said something about him taking a nice tour and ending up in the ship of fools. He said, yes, it had to be fate that he ended up on the same tour as Grayson Pimm. He actually said the word fate, and I didn’t like the look on his face when he said it. He’d booked a tour earlier in the year and had to cancel and reschedule when his back went out. He rolled the dice, hoping he’d be better by the time this tour started, and went ahead and booked it. He did get better and was able to come, only to find that the Pimms were on the tour. If he’d made the earlier one, it would have been just a bunch of strangers instead of the man who drove his son to suicide.”