AL01 - Murder in the Marais

'Did you know Lili Stein?' she said, watching for his reaction.

He didn't look up and kept on working. 'One who had the shop on rue des Rosiers?'

Aimee nodded.

'People told me about it.' His eyes remained neutral as he attached a new heel to her boot. 'Brutal. What's the world coming to?'

Too neutral, she thought. 'Didn't you know her a long time ago?' she said.

'Are you a flic?' He still didn't look up.

'I'm a private detective,' she said. 'Rachel Blum told me you would know about the concierge bludgeoned in Lili's building.'

He handed the boot back to her. She reached in her bag as he pointed to the sign that said 15 FRANCS NEW HEEL.

He looked stonily at her. 'What's it to you?'

'Lili Stein boarded up her window so she wouldn't have to be reminded of the scene,' she said. 'Did you know her then?'

He snorted. 'Expect me to remember what some Yid schoolgirl did fifty years ago?'

She knew he was hiding something. Only someone who'd known Lili as a schoolgirl would reply like that.

'What do you remember?' she said calmly.

'Cooking up some crazy theory, aren't you?' He shook his head. 'About Arlette and that swastika carving. Then listen up, Arlette wasn't Jewish or with the Nazis. Go bother those skin-heads who kick in my window for fun!'

'Tell me about Arlette,' she said. 'Was she the concierge?'

He slammed down his hammer, spattering nails and metal grommets that pinged off the walls. 'She was my fiancee, Arlette Mazenc. Why the sudden interest? The flics beat me up. Never investigated. . .why now? Just because some old Jew is killed by punks, someone pays attention, eh?'

She felt sorry for this angry little man.

'Monsieur Javel, I feel a connection. Something threading these murders. If I could be more concrete, I would,' she said.

'When you do find something, look me up. Not before.'

'GUESS WHO?' said Aimee, her hands clapped over the eyes of an older woman who stood in front of rows of aluminum spindles, sorting buttons. The scent of rosemary and roasted garlic wafted through the factory air.

Small and wiry, Leah stood in wool socks and clogs, wearing a sweater buttoned over her work smock. She grabbed Aimee's hands with her rough ones. 'Don't be such a stranger, Aimee,' she said, twisting herself around and grinning. 'You think you can surprise me?'

'I try, Leah.' Aimee laughed and gave her a hug. 'Something smells wonderful.'

Leah, an old friend of her mother's, lived with her family above their button factory, Mon Bouton. She cooked the midday meal for her workers in a kitchen by the melting presses and button die forms.

'You don't have to be domestic to cook, Aimee,' Leah said, referring to their ongoing argument about Aimee's lack of culinary skills. 'I only see you when you're hungry. Cooking is a creative expression, let me teach you.'

'Right now, teach me about Chanel buttons. I want to learn from an expert,' she said.

'A case?' Leah's eyes lit up. She read a new spy thriller every week and loved to hear about Aimee's work.

'Leah, you know I can't talk about ongoing cases.' Aimee pulled out a rough sketch of the Chanel button she'd made after seeing it. 'Just give me an idea about this button.'

'Color and material?' Leah said, wiping her hands on the worn smock.

'Hot pink, and the interlocking C's were kind of brassy, shiny metal.'

Leah, shortsighted, pushed her glasses onto her forehead and peered intently. 'I'd say the button came from a suit in the spring collection. A mohair suit. We made a prototype but the head honcho shipped it out to Malaysia for production. Couture used to mean couture made in France—thread, ribbon, zippers, lining, and buttons. Not anymore.'

'Care to generalize about the owner of the suit?'

'Twenties or thirties. Rich and bored. With good legs.'

'Why good legs?'

'All the mohair suits were minis.'

Saturday Noon

'MADAME IS WORKING IN her office. May I say who's calling?' The smiling housekeeper dusted the white flour off her hands. Tall and thin, her liquid eyes contrasted with her starched maid's uniform.

'Aimee Leduc. I'm a private investigator. This should take only a few moments.' Aimee fished a card out of her bag.

Curiosity flickered in the housekeeper's gaze. 'Un moment,' she said. Her scuffed mules clicked down the marble hallway.

Aimee had changed into a pleated dark blue wool skirt and blazer, her generic security-type uniform. Sometimes she stuck badges on the lapel from her extensive collection. For this interview she'd slicked her hair under a blue wedge-type hat, similar to that of a female gendarme, and wore a touch of mascara with no lipstick.

This drafty marble-floored hallway of Albertine Clouzot's apartment on the exclusive Impasse de la Poissonerie could have fit two trucks comfortably. Littered among a child's bicycle and roller blades were Roman bronze statues and busts resting on pillars.

Almost immediately, the housekeeper emerged and beckoned Aimee down the echoing hallway. Aimee entered a drawing room—for that was the only thing to call it—that could have come from the eighteenth century. And it probably did. Aimee thought it hadn't been heated since then either as she saw her own breath turn to frost in the air. She kept her angora-lined gloves on.

Tapestries with pastoral scenes hung on the twenty-foot-high walls. In the corner, framed by a window with a private courtyard behind it, sat a woman in her late thirties, working on a huge dollhouse, a Southern mansion styled with pillars and 'Mint Julep' chiseled above the miniature door. A small portable heater stood by a tray of white wicker doll furniture.

'Thank you for sparing me the time, Madame Clouzot,' Aimee said.

'I'm intrigued. Why would a private investigator wish to talk with me?' said Albertine Clouzot. She put a miniature chest down and stood; she wore fishnet stockings, a black leather miniskirt, and maroon lipstick. Her perfectly cut straight blond hair grazed her shoulders. She tottered on faux leopard platform heels. 'What's this about? Florence, you may go.'

'It might be better if she stayed.' Aimee smiled broadly, turning to the housekeeper. She certainly didn't want Florence to leave. 'I'd like to talk with both of you.'

She reached in her bag and pulled out a note pad that she pretended to consult.

'Madame, do you own a pink Chanel suit?'

'Why, yes.'

'Did you receive it from the dry cleaner's with a button missing?'

'That's right. I had to wear something else.' Florence stood woodenly as Albertine preened in front of a floor- length gilded mirror. 'First time I've ever had trouble at Madame Tallard's.'

'I see. You didn't go to the dry cleaner's, am I correct?' Aimee kept a matter-of-fact tone.

'No.' Albertine Clouzot's face looked incredulous. 'Why would I?'

Albertine belonged to the world that hired other people to do their mundane chores.