No answer.
After five minutes of knocking, when her knuckles were sore, the door opened a crack.
“I spoke with you the other day, remember? You had a miserable cold,” Aimée said. “I hope you’re feeling better. I brought you some Ricola cough drops.”
“That’s very kind.”
Aimée put the cough-drop box into Zoe’s hands, noticed the blond-gray hair pulled into a bun, her slim figure under the wool sweater. The striking aqua blue eyes.
“May I come in?”
“I answered your questions,” Madame Tardou said. “I won’t go to the police station.”
Again, that fear of the outside. Agoraphobia?
Aimée put her boot into the doorway. “I just need to clarify a detail, to remove it from the inquiry. That’s all.”
Hesitantly, Zoe opened the door wider. “You’re persistent, Mademoiselle,” she said, “but I have nothing more to say.”
“Please, this won’t take any time at all. You’ll see.” Aimée edged past her and kept walking toward the large room filled with Deco furniture. The room with black blankets hanging over the windows. She felt in her bag for her hairbrush.
Zoe Tardou, reading glasses perched on her chapped nose, stood with a red pencil in her hand. “I’m copyediting proofs on my treatise, you see. I can spare you only a moment.”
Aimée paused to look at the photos on the grand piano. Studied them.
“You spent summers in Corsica, Madame Tardou, didn’t you?”
“Is that a crime?”
“Corsica, L’Ile de Beauté. Yet you told me you summered in Italy.”
“We went to Italy, too.”
Aimée nodded. “Your stepfather, Max Tardou, established an art colony in Bonifacio where he tried to resurrect Surrealism. You went there for years while you were growing up.”
Aimée ran her palm over the smooth blond wood case of the piano. She pointed to a photo. A black-and-white scene of sunbathers with an awninged café in the background.
“Café Bonifacio. It’s still there.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“You understand Corsican. And you speak it, don’t you?”
Zoe Tardou’s fingers twisted the red pencil back and forth.
“I was only a child.”
“Even as a teenager you must have summered in Corsica,” Aimée said. “You may even have attended a Corsican school.”
“Yes, I did. How does that matter?”
She’d admitted it!
Aimée moved closer to the woman.
The pencil snapped between Zoe’s fingers.
“The voices you heard from the roof spoke Corsican, didn’t they? You understood them, recognized the names of the planets and constellations.”
Fear shone in those compelling blue eyes. She pushed the glasses up on her nose with trembling fingers.
“Maybe . . . yes . . . I’m not sure.”
“Think. They spoke Corsican. Exactly what did they say?”
Zoe covered her glasses with her hands, then looked up and nodded. “Yes. But it had been so long ago since I heard that language. From another lifetime.”
“Why couldn’t you tell me?” Aimée said, controlling her excitement.
“It was so strange to hear Corsican, I thought I was dreaming, I was unsure—”
“You looked out, pretending to be watering your geraniums,” Aimée interrupted. “That’s natural. You understood what they said. It was quiet, as the storm hadn’t erupted yet.”
Aimée paused. Waited. “It’s all right, we’re telling the truth now,” Aimée said, her tone soothing, urging. “Accounting for all the details, clearing this up, eh? Most investigative work depends on the tedious details, checking and rechecking.”
Zoe watched her. Unmoving. An aroma of herbes de Provence and something roasting, Mediterranean style, wafted from the kitchen. Wonderful. Aimée’s stomach growled.
Aimée sighed. “Nothing glamorous in this, believe me.” She tried for a matter-of-fact voice. “Did you hear the glass break in the skylight?”
Zoe shook her head.
“Yet you recognized the men on the roof.”
“But I—” She covered her mouth with her hands, again that little-girl manner, as if she had been caught in a fault.
“—got scared?” Aimée finished for her.
Zoe Tardou nodded.
“Who did you recognize?”
“No trouble, I can’t have trouble,” Zoe said, putting her hands up like a shield and stepping back. “I can’t get involved. Now, I’ve got something cooking on the stove. . . .”
The smell of thyme was stronger now.
“All I need is a name.” Aimée smiled and reached for a notepad in her leather backpack.
“I don’t know his name. The one I recognized—anyway, it doesn’t mean he shot anyone.”
“Of course not, you’re right. But he can help us find the one who did, don’t you see? We need your help.”
Zoe Tardou hesitated.
“Does he live here?”
“I’ve seen him on the stairs, but I don’t know him.”
“What does he look like?”
“He had bleached hair the last I saw him. He changes it. I don’t really know, I don’t think he lives here.”
Aimée wrote in her notepad.
“But he could work in the building? Or for someone who does live here?”
Zoe shrugged. “He’s too coarse.”
Was this the mec Cloclo had referred to? Or just a workman, like Theo, who had offended her delicate sensibility?
“Coarse? You mean he was a construction worker? One of the men doing the remodeling?”
“He was not a workman. He made rude comments. But he was dressed in designer black. Trendy.”
“A young man?”
“I didn’t pay attention.”
“What about the other man?”
“Just his back, that’s all I saw.”
“Did you hear the gunshot or see the flash?”
Madame Tardou shook her head. “When I heard voices talking about constellations . . . what they said was mixed up with words that didn’t fit.”
“What did you hear?”
“I didn’t tell you before because it doesn’t make sense.” Zoe paused, rubbed her cheek.
“Go on, it’s all right,” Aimée said, trying to control her impatience.
“They said ‘turrente,’ a stream; ‘parolle,’ which means ‘words,’ but it didn’t make sense or seem to mean anything. They spoke about planets and streams. No, there was more . . . that’s right . . . cincá, searching for, searching, they said ‘searching.’”
Planets and streams and searching, talking about Corsica, and then murder? “You’re sure?”
“Corsicans don’t articulate, they swallow the consonants at the ends of words.” Zoe’s gaze settled on her piled desk. “They did repeat the old saying, that I recognized.”
“Which is?”
“Corsica audra di male in peglyu.” She shook her head.
“‘Corsica will always go wrong,’ typical of their pessimism tinged with pride.” Zoe shrugged, spent. As if she’d run out of things to say. “My head ached, I felt miserable. I lay down and must have fallen asleep watching the télé. That’s all.”
Aimée believed her, but she had to check.
“What show did you watch?”
“Show? An old Sherlock Holmes film. Too bad I missed the ending. Now I must work,” she said, eager for Aimée to leave. “I don’t know any more.”
“There’s something else,” Aimée said. How could she phrase this? “I admire your mother. It takes a courageous woman to speak of Lamorlaye, and the Lebensborn. Why did she finally . . . ?”
“Talk about her captivity? The way they used the women?” Zoe asked, all in one breath. And for a moment, Aimée saw the same wistful gaze she’d noted in the photo of Elise.