AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

PUNGENT AROMAS WAFTED from the white-walled cheese shop on rue Saint Louis en l’Isle. Runny cheeses perched on the marble counter leaked onto their straw beds. The old orange cash register sat by the wall, as always. Bernard, le maitre de fromage, was also le maitre de gossip. Most people on the island passed through his shop. And if anyone knew anything about them, he did.

“Haven’t see you in a while, Aimee. Try a piece.” Bernard, compact in his white coat and apron, pared the rind off a Reblochon and offered her a taste. “Perfect for after dinner tonight.” His eyes widened when he noticed the baby. “I had no idea . . . you’ve been busy, eh?” He grinned. “Quelle mignonne! I can hear it now—all the old biddies on the island discussing you and your baby. Why, just the other day—”

“I’m babysitting, Bernard.” She slipped some francs over the counter to him along with the photo.

“Do you know her?”

He pulled on his glasses. “Who?”

“Either of these girls. They’re MondeFocus activists.”

Bernard shook his head.

A dead end. If Bernard didn’t recognize her, well . . . Disappointed, she picked up the ripe slice of Reblochon in its white waxed-paper wrapper, slipped it inside the baby bag, and turned to go.

“Attends,” he said, scanning the photo more closely. “She seems familiar.” He pointed to Nelie, sitting next to Orla.

“Did you see her yesterday?”

“Those students sneak cigarettes at the cafe. Try there.”

AIMEE NODDED TO the older woman, wearing a green sweater set and wool scarf knotted around her neck despite the heat, behind the zinc counter of her corner cafe. One of the handful on the island sure to stay open late in winter. A few empty tables and booths stood in the rear room, which normally catered to the lunch crowd. Now only a single couple sat there, deep in conversation over a carafe of wine. The decor, redone in the seventies when smoked-glass dividers were introduced, didn’t hide the Art Nouveau banister of the staircase leading down a flight to the phone and bathrooms.

“Bonjour, Sabine, un cafe, s’il vous plait.”

“Right away,” Sabine said, rubbing the milk-steamer wand with a wet dishcloth. She was a typical Auvergnat—brusque, born into the business, accustomed to watching every franc.

“Nico still on vacation?” Aimee asked. Nico, the co-owner, took February off.

Sabine nodded, setting down a demitasse of steaming espresso with a respectable tan foam head and pushing the aluminum ball holding sugar cubes toward her. Stella was asleep, her soft breaths just audible to Aimee.

“Merci,” Aimee said, unwrapping two sugar cubes and letting them plop into her cup. She moved the baby sling to the side, leaning toward her, as if to speak in confidence. As in Bernard’s cheese shop, not much went on in the cafe without Sabine’s knowledge.

“Not your usual style,” Sabine said, glancing at Stella.

“I’m helping my friend. You know how that goes!”

“Thought so,” Sabine said.

“Et alors, but I’ve got to work, Sabine.”

“Bit off more than you could chew this time?”

Little did she know.

“You could say that, Sabine.” She slid the photo onto the zinc countertop. “I need to find these girls to babysit for me. Bernard said he’s seen them here. You wouldn’t happen to have seen her this morning, would you?”

She pointed to Nelie.

Sabine shook her head. “Not this morning.”

“I hope they’re not out of town.” Aimee paused as if in thought. “What about last night, did you see either one last night?”

“Janou closed up as usual,” Sabine said, rinsing dirty cups in the sink and stacking them in the small dishwasher under the counter.

Janou, her brother, wearing a blue workman’s coat and his habitual frown, wheeled a handcart of stacked Orangina cartons past the staircase leading down to the bathrooms and phone.

“Ca va, Janou,” Aimee called to him. “Remember seeing either of these girls last night?” She held out the photo.

“A lot of students come here.” He straightened up, paused, pulled his chin. “A blonde, a young fille, with a baby thing like yours. Could have been her last night.”

“Was she wearing a jean jacket with blue beads embroidered on the pocket?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t pay much attention. The mecs were watching the motocross rally replays on the tele. You know how loud they get.”

That meant a bunch of beer-swilling motorcycle enthusiasts and a crowded, steamy cafe if Janou hadn’t noticed much. But she wouldn’t give up. A sharp-eyed Auvergnat, Janou reminded her of a crow, a nice crow with his close-set black eyes, who’d spot the shine of a franc lying in the gutter a street away.

Sabine, now with her glasses on, stared at the photo. “That blonde one. I remember now. She wiped her denim jacket sleeve on the fogged-up window. Her jacket was trimmed with funny blue beads in the pattern of a whale.” Sabine’s finger stabbed Orla’s face in the photo. “That I noticed before I left.”

At last!

“She left streak marks all over.” Sabine pointed to the window. “Like those.” Outside, a group of students stood in line at Bertillon’s to choose from more than forty flavors of ice cream, blocking the cafe door. This was a sore point for Sabine. “Gave me the job of cleaning the whole window this morning, inside and out.”

She’d washed away any fingerprint evidence then.

“Sabine, do you think she was looking for someone?”

Sabine shrugged. “Hard to say. Tell her to leave the window alone next time, eh?”

Aimee stroked the fuzz on Stella’s head.

“Did she meet anyone?”

Janou leaned down and hefted a crate. “I served the mecs, and when I had finished, she’d gone. When I stacked the cafe chairs outside, she was just leaving the ATM across the way.”

“Alone?”

“Some girls were running. She could have been one.” Janou pointed to the dark-haired girl in the photo, then opened the cabinet door, which concealed a dumbwaiter to the cellar, and slid a carton of Orangina onto it. “But I’m not sure.”

“Running?”

Janou scratched his cheek. “One of them kept looking back over her shoulder.”

“In what way?”

“Like everyone does after they take cash from the machine, alors!”

Or had she been scared and running for her life?

“She limped. Stopped every so often.”

“The blonde?”

“The dark-haired one.”

Nelie.

“Does she live around here?”

“You’re curious this morning.” Janou paused, his head cocked, watching her.

She had to think fast. “Count on me to lose her number and I have a meeting. I wish I hadn’t told my friend I’d watch her baby.”

Janou shook his head. “Try the women’s hostel! You’d think they might order a sandwich to eat, just once, eh, since they make this place their living room.”

“The woman’s hostel on rue Poulletier?”