Aimée wanted to kick herself. Tactless again. “Desolée, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Of course you did.” She shrugged. “You’re not the first. Blame my Bolshie upbringing, but Pascal did me proud. He wanted everyone to benefit, not just a sliver of the top crust.”
Mademoiselle Samoukashian took Aimée’s demitasse, studied the dregs coating the sides. Nodded.
“I see a road. A long road. A wall, rounded like a tower. You are going to see a person. A place.”
Foreseeing such a vague future in coffee grinds, Aimée thought, was less than helpful.
“Weren’t you the one in the paper?” Mademoiselle Samoukashian said suddenly. “A kidnapping, murder case before Christmas?”
Aimée cringed at the memory—her godfather, Morbier, had been a suspect in his girlfriend’s murder; then there were the high-profile repercussions of recovering a Spanish princess who had been kidnapped by Basque terrorists. Aimée had hated the reporters besieging the office, the new flood of calls for help from distraught families of murder victims. She had promised herself all that was over. She’d never do criminal work again. And she’d kept that promise for all of a month.
“My firm does computer security,” she said.
“But you’re also a licensed private detective,” Mademoiselle said, looking at Aimée’s card. “According to this.”
Aimée could learn nothing else here. She stood, slid her arms in her coat sleeves, and took a step toward the old woman. “Wonderful café, Mademoiselle.”
“But this woman, this Meizi, you said there’s a connection to Pascal?”
Aimée nodded, hoping this had jogged her memory. “Maybe you remember something Pascal said?”
Mademoiselle Samoukashian clamped Aimée’s hand in an iron grip. “But you’re looking for her. You think she saw who murdered my Pascal.”
“I don’t know,” Aimée said.
“God shouldn’t let a child die before his parents,” Mademoiselle Samoukashian said, her voice small. “But I don’t qualify; I just raised him.”
Aimée leaned down and hugged her where she sat in her thatched chair, felt the thin shoulders, the heaving chest of this tough little old woman. Like her own grandfather, who’d stepped in to help raise her when her mother left. He’d pitched in when Aimée’s father was on a stakeout, taken her to piano lessons, the auction gallery, supervised her homework.
When Aimée looked up, she saw tears pooled in those dark brown eyes. A look of despair.
“I don’t trust the flics,” Mademoiselle Samoukashian said. “Won’t you help me?”
“I’d like to, but …”
“How much?” She reached under the piled napkins, pulled out a rubber-banded wad of francs. “Never mind, take it,” she said, and thrust it into Aimée’s hand.
“Mademoiselle, I can’t take your money.”
“My rainy-day money? What good’s it to me now? You’re already on the case.” She squeezed Aimée’s hand. “Find who murdered him.”
Aimée looked away, torn. How could she investigate the murder for this old woman when her best friend’s girlfriend might be the culprit? A bad feeling seeped in her bones. She was fraught with worry that she’d find Meizi involved.
“I can’t guarantee you satisfaction. Or that we’ll find his murderer. These cases … you don’t want to know.”
“Pascal was murdered behind a building, and I don’t want to know?” The old woman leaned toward her, her eyes sharp. “I want justice.”
“I’m truly sorry, but …” She paused. Pascal could have had a double life. Better to save his great-aunt from knowing. “Unless there’s something pointing to—”
“But he was afraid.”
Aimée blinked. “Afraid? You must tell the flics.”
“You think I didn’t? Did they want to listen to an old woman, clouded by grief, ranting about his project?”
“What project?”
“I don’t know, but he kept a safety deposit box. In the Crédit Mutuel on rue Réaumur.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A month ago, he told me if anything happened to him—his words—to open the safety deposit box.” Mademoiselle Samoukashian rose. “Of course, this Meizi’s hiding and scared. You find her, discover what she knows. I’ve got an appointment with the bank manager to open the safety deposit box today. Then I’ll show you.”
Aimée’s heart tugged. She felt for this old woman.
“Don’t do this for me, please. Do it for my Pascal.”
Aimée’s mind went back to the plastic-wrapped body dotted with snowflakes. That mouth opened in a silent scream. Those eyes frozen in terror.
She nodded. “No promises, Mademoiselle, but …” She hesitated. “Call me and we’ll meet.”
In the hallway, Aimée paused, loath to leave this grieving woman, her warm and inviting apartment.
Mademoiselle Samoukashian took her black purse from the coat rack by the door. She opened her wallet, a Fendi knockoff, and rifled through photos. “Here’s Pascal in the school play. Oh, here’s a science project based on a Knights Templar gadget. This one was taken at graduation.”
Saddened, Aimée glanced at the thumbed and faded schoolboy photos, the progression as Pascal grew up.
“The Arts et Métiers campus at Cluny,” Mademoiselle Samoukashian said, flashing a photo of a group of young men on the ramparts of a castle. “Horrible place, in a medieval abbey. He hated it there,” she said. “Let me give you one. So much better to remember him by than …” Her voice trailed off and she handed Aimée a photo of Pascal, wearing glasses, standing in what appeared to be his office. The Pascal Aimée preferred to visualize: big eyes, wild red hair, smiling.
“Oui, merci.”
A green carry-all bag hung under a jacket from the coat rack. Faux reptile, just like one she’d seen in the luggage shop. Her heart skipped. Here was a connection to Meizi.
“Pascal’s bag?” Aimée asked.
Mademoiselle Samoukashian gave a tired shake of her head. “Force of habit.” Her gaze looked faraway.
What did that mean? But if this belonged to Pascal, she wanted to examine it.
“May I look?” she said, not waiting for a reply.
Aimée’s hand came back with a carnet of Métro tickets, a Eurostar ticket to London, a wad of francs. This put a new spin on Pascal’s murder, only she didn’t know how.
“Pascal planned a trip?” Maybe escape with Meizi?
Mademoiselle Samoukashian shrugged. “That’s my middle-of-the-night bag,” she said. “Pascal bought it for me. The ticket’s got my name on it, if you notice. Also shoes, a change of clothes. We always kept a bag ready. You never knew when they would come. If we’d be warned in time.”
Aimée stared at this little woman. “You prepared for roundups? But the Occupation’s over, Mademoiselle.”
“Not for some of us.”
Aimée’s heart churned. And it made sense.
Aimée kissed the woman’s paper-thin cheeks, a smell of Papier d’Arménie clinging to her. “No wonder Pascal loved you so much.”
Saturday, 8 A.M.
“YOU’RE POPULAR, CLODO,” said the volunteer at the Salvation Army shelter desk. “A flic left you a message. Someone else, too.”
Clodo stiffened. Already? January bit with cold teeth if the flics wanted to talk to him. He needed to get the hell out of here.
Clodo waved his blistered hand. “I’ll let my agent handle them.” His lungs burned, his eyes teared. He needed something warmer to wear.
He rooted in the clothes donations pile, grabbing a scarf. Pink and thick cashmere. He wrapped it around his neck.
“Hot enough water in the showers today, Clodo?”