Murder in Clichy

Thursday Afternoon

AIMÉE MADE HER WAY toward the address, near Clichy, she’d found for Sophie. She passed small Indian shops selling suitcases out on the pavement as well as everything from manicure sets to bootleg tapes. Nestled in between them were Vietnamese florists, and discount clothing stores with jackets on racks bearing signs that read EVERYTHING UNDER 100 FRANCS, as they whipped in the rising wind.

Mothers wearing stylish black suits, or Muslim headscarves over dark robes, hurried little children to the école primaire, and a motor scooter putt-putted on the cobblestones waiting before a café doubling as a takeout for Turkish kebab frites sandwiches. She ordered a kebab frites, paid, and ate the steaming spiced lamb sandwich as she walked down the street.

Aimée found Sophie Baret’s stained-glass-paned front door in tree-lined Cité des Fleurs. The cobbled lane of nineteenth-century houses, each with its front garden, felt like another world: ornate pink brick façades with statuary carved over the lintels of two-story houses. A spill of sunlight illuminated the trellis-covered walkway to Sophie’s house.

Aimée knocked on the open door. “Bonjour?”

Something hissed, then crashed.

In the hall, Aimée saw a pink and orange-haired woman, wearing chunky black boots, and a tight, red rhinestone-trimmed dress under a faux fur orange jacket, lugging a snare drum and cymbals.

“Pardon, Sophie lives here, right?”

“Some of the time,” said the woman, bumping into her. “I’m Mado, her sister. I housesit when she’s away.” The woman’s face was quite pretty despite the black kohl-lined eyes and red eyeshadow that matched her outfit.

Sisters? Two bookends that didn’t quite match. Mado looked the type who didn’t trust anyone not wearing eyeliner.

“I’d appreciate if you could give me her number in London, something came up.”

The cymbal crashed, causing the dog next door to bark.

“London . . . again?”

“She rushed there after the attack.”

Mado’s mouth widened. “Attack? My sister, the drama queen, does it again! She overeacts to everything,” Mado said. Then paused. “She’s not hurt or anything?”

“Someone broke into the gallery,” Aimée said. “But I’m worried that she fled to London.”

“Then she’s fine,” Mado said.

“But her ex, Thadée—”

“That scum! Sorry, we’ve got a rehearsal right now! There’s a chance a scout for the label will drop by,” she said. “The bass player’s waiting for me.”

A small Mini-Cooper with METALLOMIX spraypainted on it idled at the curb. The long-haired driver tooted the horn.

“Do you have her number in London?”

Mado shook her head as she edged down the walkway. “Shut the door for me, will you?”

Aimée closed it, leaving the thumb of her glove in the lock. Worried that Mado would notice, she blocked Mado’s view and handed her a card. But Mado gripped the drum case and shook her head.

“Put it in my jacket pocket, eh?”

“It’s important that I speak with her.”

Mado nodded, shoving the drum through the opened car door.

“Sophie’s in danger,” Aimée said, “Danger? According to her, that’s the only way to live.”

“You don’t understand,” Aimée said. But she was speaking to a closed car door.

The Mini roared down the lane.

Aimée knocked on the door of the neighboring house to ask about Sophie. No answer. She tried the small house on the other side. A smiling woman wearing an apron, holding a mop, opened the door.

“Bonjour, I’m. . . .”

“Non fala française . . . Portugais!” the woman said, retreating.

Aimée returned to Sophie’s front door, pulled out her glove, and in ten seconds was inside. A pile of mail sat on a stool in the hallway. Water bills, gas notices, British Vogue, and postcards of upcoming exhibitions.

The angles and colors of the walls reminded her of a child’s drawing of a house. Mauve walls, terracotta tiles, and antique and 1960s retro furniture jumbled together. Marabou feathered scarves smelling of cigarettes, and an electric keyboard littered the couch in the small living area, indicating Mado’s presence. Aimée figured she slept there. A jam jar of wilted roses, whose pink petals were strewn over an old rattan table, gave her the impression little time was spent on housekeeping. Something she could relate to.

She identified Sophie’s room by its faint Arpège scent. A Vuitton suitcase, partially unpacked, sat on her rose silk duvet, with a bulging cosmetic bag inside. Sophie didn’t seem the type to run off without her makeup remover.

Aimée searched for an address book, a daytimer, anything with an address in London. But all she found was a selection of Clarins eye lift and skin serum cosmetics in the modern bathroom that Aimée wished she could afford.

In the pantry-sized kitchen, a glass coffee pression with its tin plunger screwed tight for coffee to drip through was still warm. She found Surgelé croque-monsieur frozen food boxes in the trash.

Aimée turned the garbage can over, its contents spilling onto the turn of the century mosaic tiled floor. Among the receipts, she found an airplane boarding pass and a crumpled piece of paper. She spread it open on the counter. A postcard, with a picture of Big Ben, written but never sent. Sprawling black script, crossed out words, and blotched letters. Tears?

She read the fragment:

‘You bastard! Promises broken again and again. How can I believe you, Thadée? I sold the paintings, all of them and the exhibition here’s a success. Don’t deal with that scum Blondel. The last shipment passed customs. Yours, Sophie.

The rest was torn off. Shipment . . . art . . . that made sense, but who was Blondel?

Now she had a name, something to check.

And then a footstep sounded behind her. Before she could dive behind the kitchen cabinet something hard was stuck into her ribs.

“Hands up!” Mado said. “You salope! Trashing our place.”

“Wait, let me explain . . .”

“Explain to the flics,” she said. “Turn around slowly, eh!” Mado was another one who had watched too many movies.

Aimée spun and knocked the gun to the floor. Mado slipped on the frozen food box and fell, as Aimée grabbed for it. “What’s this? A cheap party favor?” She pulled the trigger and a small plastic sheet with the word BANG! on it, dropped from the snout of the gun. Aimée pointed it at her, stuffing the postcard into her pocket.

“The flics are on the way,” said Mado, her lip quivering.

“Nice try,” Aimée said. “Listen, as I tried to tell you before, Thadée was murdered. Your sister’s in danger. Real trouble. Start talking to me about this Blondel.”

“Who?”

“The one who strung your sister up to a Turkish toilet because he figures she knows where some stolen jade is. If she knows, she’s in trouble. And she’s in deeper trouble if she doesn’t, because they think she does.”

“What’s that to you?” Mado scowled.

“They’re after me, too! And it’s my job.”

“Who hired you?”

Sirens blared from in front of the house.

Merde . . . Mado had called the flics!

No time to explain to them. She doubted they’d listen to her. For the second time one of the Baret sisters was blaming her. That’s all Commissaire Ronsard needed to put her in garde à vue.

“You’re as stubborn as your sister, Mado,” Aimée said. “I have to find out about Thadée. They won’t give up, and she’s next.”

Mado said, biting her lip, “An old man was asking questions. A pain in the derrière. I told him to get lost. Like I want you to.”

Old man . . . Gassot?

“What did he look like?”

“Gray hair,” Mado said. “With a wooden leg.”

Gassot!

“You’re in cahoots with him, aren’t you?”

“When you realize I want to help Sophie, let me know.”

Aimée kicked the back door open and ran. The small yard, enclosed by a rusted wire fence, was filled with wet leaves and tufts of crabgrass. The Portuguese cleaning lady next door was shaking out a carpet and beating it with a stick. A vacuum cleaner roared behind her.

Aimée waved. “I’m locked out,” she said and mimicked trying to turn a key.

But the cleaning lady bent over and whacked harder. She wore headphones and was beating in a rhythm. Aimée pulled an old wheelbarrow over to the fence, gathered her leather coat, and climbed over, ripping her stockings. The spindle-branched thorn bushes offered little protection from observation as she ran behind them. Sirens wailed from the small lane.

Beyond lay the schoolyard containing a climbing structure and a sand box. Perspiration beaded her lip despite the cold air. The flics would talk to Mado and, any second, they would come after her. At the next fence, she shoved old clay flower pots together, stepped on them, and heaved herself over. She landed on a tricycle, the handlebars bruising the arm that had needed stitches, but cushioning her fall. And then she stumbled into the sandbox.

“That’s mine,” said a serious-faced child wearing ladybug rainboots. “It’s not your turn.”

“Sorry, of course,” she stood, brushing the sand off her coat and scanning the playground. “Go ahead, take your turn.”

“Big people aren’t supposed to ride tricycles,” the child said. “I’m telling the teacher.”

Aimée didn’t like the flash of blue uniforms she glimpsed through the fence. She thought fast.

“I made a mistake, I’m here to pick up my daughter,” she said.

“You’re in the wrong place. Parents wait over there,” the little girl said.

“Of course, you’re right.”

Aimée edged toward the throng of teachers and laughing students lining up at the school gate.

“What are you doing here?” said a teacher with a clipboard. “You must wait outside, it’s the law. Who let you in?”

“Forgive me, but I had to run to le cabinet, Madame,” she said, patting her stomach. Aimée wiped the perspiration from her brow. “It’s morning sickness, but with this second one it happens all day long.”

The teacher’s eyes softened as Aimée joined the waiting parents on the curb. Aimée melted into the crowd, careful to avoid the police cars.