Murder Below Montparnasse (11 page)

Had he misunderstood with all the noise? Or his bad English? But the thumping in his chest didn’t go away.

Courtesy of the Pepsi crate, he cleaned up at the sink. He mulled over what he’d just heard while scrubbing out the stain. Wished he understood English better, and that his other Charvet handmade shirt wasn’t in the motel on the street of fleas.

He cleaned his cuff as well as he could and returned the crate. Waiting for him in his office stood a Nordic-looking blonde. He did a double take. She held a steaming
café au lait
in a Styrofoam cup.

“We knew you’d prefer this, René.” She grinned. Handed it to him and squeezed his arm. Wide hazel eyes, legs to forever. “We’re here for you. I’m Susie, head programmer. My personal mission is to make sure you’re happy.”

He fell in love right there. His dream of California in the flesh. A
coup de foudre
standing in that car dealership garage-
cum
-office still emanating oil fumes. “I’ll drop by your office later, okay?”

Back at his desk his mind spun in love. Or lust. He didn’t know. He sipped the
café au lait
. It tasted perfect, like he imagined she would. Her hair would smell of sunshine.

Why couldn’t his English be better? His mind went back to the storeroom. Of course he’d misunderstood.

He finished writing the algorithm. Tested it. But he couldn’t get the phrase he’d overheard out of his mind—
The dwarf’s got no idea
.

H
EAD DOWN
, A
IMÉE
hurried down rue d’Alésia, merging with the chanting protesters. Her midnight-blue phone rang. Maxence.

The security reports, the systems monitoring … good God, she’d entrusted it all to a kid. Worried, she pressed
TALK
. “Anything wrong, Maxence?”

“No, but the funeral mass for Piotr Volodya—”

“Who’s that?” she interrupted.

“Yuri Volodya’s father, who died at one hundred last week,” Maxence said. “Big to-do out at the Russian nursing home.
Le Figaro
’s obituary makes him out to be some kind of art connoisseur. Instrumental in the art movement in the twenties, apparently. That’s the most recent hit I found.”

Not bad, this kid.

“What did the old Russian say?” Maxence asked.

Her heart clenched. “Tell you later. If anyone calls, you don’t know where I am. Take a message.” She took a breath. “Keep researching. Find out how active Yuri was in political groups in the seventies.” Her mother’s time. “How’s it going with the reports?”

She spied her scooter where she’d left it. A police car turned into the street ahead of her. She kept her head low as it passed.

“Printed out, filed, and backed up on René’s computer.”

Already? The kid took initiative. “Mind running the next batch? And give me a status update midway,
d’accord?
”

En route to her scooter she had an idea. “Maxence, where’s that Russian nursing home?”

M
ORE THAN AN
hour and two wrong turns later, Aimée located the Château de la Cossonnerie, outside Paris, now the nursing home adjoining the Russian cemetery. She downshifted past the grilled gate into a circular gravel-lined driveway and parked her scooter to the side of the tall limestone building. Her pulse raced. She was determined to discover how Yuri got “in butter” and then murdered. And how it involved her mother, if it did.

The deserted reception area—dark maroon chairs and matching wallpaper under a high ceiling bordered by faded gilt woodwork—exuded dim gloom. The back office lay dark. Paprika aromas drifted from the hallway, a low hum of clinking cutlery. Lunchtime. Didn’t old people eat early? Not a bad idea. Her stomach growled. But she saw no computer to search for patients’ names and rooms. Under a vase holding heavily scented freesias, she found the visitor log.

She wished the reception area offered more light as she searched the dates. But going back a few days she found a
Piotr Volodya, Room 34
, and Yuri’s scrawled signature. Better to question a fellow patient who’d known him. She’d get more info that way than from a staff member bound by confidentiality and privacy laws.

An orderly in white appeared in the hallway pushing a lunch cart. Behind him a woman, wiping the sides of her mouth with a napkin, bustled in from the dining room.

“You wish to tour, make an appointment?” Red, flowing curls framed her round, highly blushed face. Buxom and sealed into a green dress with shoulder pads, she could have stepped out of the eighties. “I’m Madame Gobulansky,
la directrice
.”

“Aimée Leduc. It’s regarding the late Piotr Volodya’s estate.”

Madame Gobulansky played with her drop earrings. Wary.

“Estate? The man lived on charity here the last twenty years. Who do you represent?”

From her tone it sounded like Piotr had overstayed his welcome. Aimée flashed her
détective privé
card.

“A private detective?” Her lipsticked mouth pursed. “No crime’s been committed here. I don’t understand. Unless you’re some vulture hired by his son.”

Aimée kept her impatience down. “Madame, could you talk with me about Piotr Volodya?”

“We’ve got seventy-eight beds,” Madame Gobulansky said. “And a waiting list. Neither I nor my staff discusses former patients.”

La directrice
covered her derrière. Yet, after coming all this way, Aimée wouldn’t give up.

“But I can speak with residents who knew Piotr, his friends. No regulation against that?” Aimée smiled and kept on talking. “Perhaps the resident across from Piotr’s room, number thirty four. Yuri spoke fondly of—”

“The only time we saw his son, Yuri, was before the funeral.” Her lipstick smudged on her teeth.

“I’m acting on Yuri’s behalf. He’s the heir.…” Aimée looked down the hallway. Still deserted for lunch. “
Alors
, I wouldn’t want to cause any unpleasantness or create unnecessary paperwork. Or raise a judicial complaint.”

“We’re a private foundation, Mademoiselle.”

Aimée smiled. “Then you won’t object to me having a casual conversation.”

Madame Gobulansky sighed. “If you mean Madame Natasha …”

Madame Natasha? Aimée nodded.
“Mais oui,”
she said. “Where is she?”

“Where Madame Natasha always sits at lunchtime.”
La directrice
’s features became impassive. “For the last five years
while Piotr was bedridden, she remained his companion. I’ll introduce you.”

Helpful now, Madame Gobulansky guided her across the hallway. Either Aimée had scared Madame
la directrice
or she’d cooked the wrong rabbit, as her father would say, and was getting fobbed off. “Just a moment,
s’il vous plaît
.”

Companion
? Aimée wondered.

The nursing home was a museum. To the right swept a nineteenth-century staircase, brass rods holding dark maroon carpeting in place. Lining the hallway were oil portraits of Empress Catherine II, Emperors Alexander I, II, and III, a marble bust of Nicholas II, and an oil painting of tight-lipped Alexandra Fédorovna. In the corners clung a musty old-world smell. From another age, a vanished tsarist Russia of long ago. The only things missing were the cobwebs and Cossacks.

Her nose crinkled at the old-people smell that the disinfectant didn’t cover.

Madame Gobulansky beckoned her inside before disappearing in a rustle of polyester.

The high-ceilinged salon held a cloying old-lady rose scent and a large
télé
. On the screen played a ballet—vintage black-and-white reels without sound.

“
Bonjour
, Madame, maybe you can help me.”

“Moi?”
Madame Natasha, in a wheelchair with an oxygen tube clipped to her nose, was applying mascara. “God blesses those who help themselves.” A fine dust of wrinkles covered her otherwise taut, translucent face. Her clawlike fingers wavered. Aimée wanted to reach out and guide the mascara comb.

“Not bad for ninety-eight, eh?” She gave a quavering laugh. “Go ahead, tell me I don’t look a day over eighty.”

“You don’t.” Aimée smiled. Must have been a beauty in her day. Clear sapphire eyes, erect posture in the wheelchair. Hopefully her mind was as clear.

“May I take a few minutes of your time?”

“Time? But that’s all I have now.” She pointed to the
télé
screen. “Of course, you came to hear my stories of the Ballets Russes at Monte Carlo. That’s me, the third from the left.”

Aimée stifled a groan. “Fascinating. But I’d like to know about Piotr Volodya. I hear you were his companion.”

“Where’s Piotr gone?” She tugged a crocheted throw over her withered legs. “He’s late.”

Late?

“His son Yuri sent me.” A semi-truth.

“That son who never visits him?” Natasha put down her mascara. “I outlived four husbands.” Natasha gave a theatrical sigh. The corners of her wrinkled red lips turned down. “We’re engaged. See my ring from Piotr.” Natasha flashed a blue-veined hand with a garish red stone like a cherry on her swollen, arthritic middle finger. Not even glass.

“Exquisite.” Aimée stared, her heart sinking.

“Spoils of the tsar.” Madame Natasha leaned over her wheelchair arm. “We must speak in code. They’re listening.”

No wonder Madame Gobulansky had complied, Aimée thought. The old biddy drifted through time with a good dose of paranoia.

“Who’s listening?”

“The Okhrana. The tsar’s secret police.” She put a thin finger to her lips. Nodded. “Piotr knows. Lenin told him.”

The white-tutu’d ballerinas flickered on the screen. Great. A ninety-eight-year-old ballerina with dementia.

Natasha’s lips parted in a wide smile. For a moment the years fell away. “Men have always given me things.”

Aimée scanned the dull gold icons on the walls, an assemblage of pastel and watercolor paintings. In the corner a bronze samovar bubbled and steamed.

“Can you tell me about Piotr and Yuri’s relationship?”

“After we have tea, Mademoiselle.”

Aimée contained her impatience as Natasha wheeled herself
to the samovar. She passed Aimée a steaming cup of tea with a cube of sugar. “Suck. Like this.”

Aimée followed suit, propping the cube between her tongue and teeth as Natasha did. The Kusmi Russian tea trickled down her throat like a sweet, wet, smoky breath.

Natasha opened a worn scrapbook with yellowed ballet programs, thrust it at Aimée. The last thing she wanted to see.

“Diaghilev worked us hard, let me tell you. Olga, my garret mate, married Picasso, you know. They met while he was designing our ballet,” Natasha said. “He ignored me, thank God, the little toad with a barrel chest. Diaghilev’s buried out in the cemetery. Nureyev too, that upstart. Rudi was charming when he wanted to be, but I heard he was a devil to work with.”

Sad, but Aimée hadn’t come for wistful historical remembrances. The fact that Yuri had been murdered so soon after his father’s death meant something.

“Let’s get back to Piotr’s relationship with Yuri,” Aimée said, setting her cup down. “Wasn’t there a painting?”

“Shhh. Piotr’s on a mission.”

And he wouldn’t be coming back.

“But you must know the code or you wouldn’t be here,” Natasha said.

Best to play along with her. Learn something. “
Bien sûr
, but Yuri said.…”

“Yuri knows only part of the code. I let him think he understood. It’s all in the letter.”

“Letter?” Aimée took a closer look at the scrapbook. Opened the back pages. “One of these?” Stuck in between were yellowed parchment envelopes with old canceled stamps addressed to Mademoiselle Natasha Petrovsky.

“Not my old love letters.” A flicker of the gamine crossed her eyes.
“Les pneus.”

A code? So far she’d gotten nowhere. And then, wedged
in the scrapbook, she saw a letter addressed to Monsieur Piotr Volodya postmarked Paris, March 1920.

Natasha glanced toward the samovar. “More tea?”

“Non, merci,”
said Aimée, slipping the letter in her pocket. “
Les pneus?
I don’t understand.”

“A pity. The two hadn’t spoken in years. But Yuri was in such a rush that day.”

Aimée saw an opening. “That’s why I’m here. Piotr told you his stories,
non?
He left Yuri a painting from his collection.”

Natasha took another sugar cube between her teeth. A good set of dentures, Aimée figured. Natasha’s gaze wandered. Her neck muscles quivered under thin white skin.

Aimée leaned forward. She needed this old woman to open up. “Wasn’t Piotr instrumental in the twenties avant-garde art movement?”

“Instrumental? Piotr was a penniless Russian émigré from the shtetl. Just a classic émigré story.” Natasha waved her thin blue-veined hands. “In those days, after the Revolution, you’d find a prince driving a taxi.” She sighed. “Piotr served … how do you say it, like a waiter in a bistro where destitute artists—all famous now—paid for meals with their paintings.”

Natasha sounded rational. As if she’d heard this story many times.

“Worth a fortune now, I’d imagine,” Aimée said.

“A franc a dozen then. You call that instrumental in the avant-garde?” Natasha’s tone turned petulant. “Piotr’s supposed to help me. Awful man, late again.” She pushed her wheelchair back. “But you young know the price of everything, not the value. See art as merchandise to trade and sell.”

Surprised, Aimée shook her head. “I don’t understand. Didn’t Piotr pass his painting collection to Yuri?”

“You sound just like Yuri’s stepson.”

Aimée’s mind went back to Yuri’s neighbor’s words—how Oleg the stepson had been buzzing around him like a fly lately.

“Oleg’s no friend of mine,” Aimée said. How could she make sense of the strands running through the old woman’s words? To do that, she’d need to gain her trust. “As you know, Piotr’s on a mission. I came to assist.”

“But the code.…” Natasha’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I thought you knew.”

The old woman went from rational to irrational in seconds. Would Aimée have that to look forward to if she lived as long?

“There are more letters,
n’est-ce pas?
”