“Excuse me,” said a soft voice, and when I turned I saw Marie Louise.
Wrapped in the beige down coat that was too big for her, her head encased in a yellow wool shawl, the fake Vuitton purse over her shoulder, she stood as if deciding what to do.
“Can I help?”
“I don’t know,” she said so softly I could barely hear.
“I’m not from immigration. I don’t need to know anything about you, but if there’s something you want to tell me, we could talk,” I said. “Something about Mrs. Simonova?”
“Yes, and about Dr. Hutchison.”
“You know?”
“Yes. I went to the building this morning and I saw the policemen.”
It occurred to me that Marie Louise had followed me from the Armstrong somehow. I didn’t ask. She was already nervous enough, talking to a cop.
“Let’s get some coffee,” I said on impulse. “It’s cold. Or lunch? Would you like to eat something?” I gestured to the restaurant across the street. Through the windows you could see people celebrating.
Marie Louise looked at the restaurant with longing, and unable to fight the desire, smiled and said she would like some coffee very much.
“Ten minutes only, before I must go,” she said, and followed me inside Chez Lucienne.
The guy in charge came toward us. I figured him for the owner. He smiled and asked if we wanted a table. Marie Louise answered him in French, and he looked pleased and sat us at a table near the window.
The exchange made her smile. She agreed to a glass of wine and some cheese, and when it arrived, she seemed to sigh slightly as if she had entered a different world, seemed to relax into the woman she might have been when she was a doctor and had status and could speak her own language.
She removed her coat. Underneath it she was wearing jeans and a white turtleneck.
The restaurant was full of people lingering over brunch. People were exchanging gifts, and kissing, the place buzzing with life. Music played. It was as if we’d landed in some safe place, far from the Armstrong, out of the storm.
“Why don’t you eat something else?” I said in French, thinking if I could keep her a while she’d talk. I put my phone on the table, waiting for the bank manager to call back.
She asked where I had learned French. I told her I had learned some back in Moscow, that my mother had loved the language.
“Do you have children?” she asked me.
I shook my head and ate some bread. I was hungry. I ordered a burger, urged Marie Louise to have something. She looked at the menu and asked for an omelette.
“What about you?” I said.
“Two nice boys,” she said in French, and then switched to English. She probably figured my French was rusty. “I was just shopping for their presents.”
“Their father is in your country?”
“I married an American, then he died. I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Your English is very good,” I said to change the subject.
“Not very. I spent only one year at a school in England,” she said. “Can I say something to you?”
“Of course.”
“Madame Simonova? Sometimes I cleaned for her.”
“She was sick for a long time?”
“I am not sure.”
“You don’t think she died just because she was sick, do you?”
“No.” Marie Louise turned suddenly and stared as a customer came into the restaurant carrying a little black dog in her arms. “They should not allow that,” she said.
“What?”
“A dog in a restaurant is not right.”
“It’s a little dog,” I said. “You know? Nobody will care. Maybe it’s too cold out for the dog.” I was making idle conversation, trying to get her to relax.
“I do not like dogs.”
“Do you think somebody hurt Mrs. Simonova?”
She looked at her hands, took a sip of wine, and put her hands together around the stem of the glass.
“I think so, yes.” Her eyes darted toward the woman with the dog.
“What is it?”
“I am afraid of all dogs, but the black dog which belongs to Madame Hutchison is a very dangerous dog. Some times when I clean for her, I lock the dog in the bathroom.”
“I see.”
“You think I am a little bit crazy?”
“No.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. Something worries you?” I said. “Something else?”
She nodded. “Can I mention a name here, do you think?”
“Nobody’s listening. Somebody at the Armstrong?”
“Yes. He is living there.”
“On the fourteenth floor?”
“Yes,” she said, looking around, lowering her voice. “I need the job, but Mr. Lennox is a strange person.”
“Strange in what way?”
“He wants all those big apartments. I hear him talking sometimes on the phone. He doesn’t bother hiding it. He thinks because I do not speak very good English, I have no brain.”
“OK, so this guy wants the apartments, so he squeezes people. But would he kill them for it? Some of them are old anyway. Why doesn’t he wait?”
“This is a very impatient man. And there is something else.”
“What?”
“He has guns.”
“Guns?”
“Yes. I clean drawers, I find guns.”
“How many?”
“Four, five, I do not remember, but there are many guns. I know in this country you often keep guns, but why so many? He is always very polite with me, very correct, he pays me on time, he does not shout at me. Still, I am scared. I feel that I wait for something to happen.”
I watched her, and I drank my wine. Neither death had involved guns, but I was interested in the information that Lennox kept them.
“He has a temper?”
“Never with me,” she said.
“But with others?”
The food came. We ate.
“This is very nice,” said Marie Louise.
My phone rang. I picked up a message from the bank manager saying he’d be another forty minutes.
The burger tasted good, so did the fries. I ordered another glass of wine. The people at the next table finished their coffee and left.
“Do you want to talk to me about Mrs. Simonova,” I said.
“I was inside her apartment last week, two evenings at least. She wasn’t feeling well. She wanted me to help with the Christmas presents. Wrapping the gifts.”
“You liked her?”
She shrugged. “She was ill. She needed help.”
“Go on.”
