Murder in the Latin Quarter (22 page)

One of the white-haired old ladies was dressed in severe black. She pointed a finger at Maggie. Her face was serious, her eyes slightly crossed. “Everyone knew who they were,” she intoned in guttural French.

Before Maggie could respond, another old woman with badly dyed auburn hair reached over and tapped Maggie on the knee.

“It's because of the hanging. Do you not know the story?”

Maggie nodded, stunned. “I do. I guess it makes sense that it would be famous.”

How often are young girls strung up in the marketplace?

Maggie turned to the old woman with the dyed hair. “Did you know Camille Victoire?”

The woman grimaced. “I saw her die.”

Maggie felt the excitement well up in her. She was finally going to get some of the missing details on what happened that day.

“Stop telling lies, Aideen!” Madame Remey said. “Everyone knows your family fled Paris when the
boche
came! You saw nothing.”

Aideen flushed and crossed her arms in front of her. She frowned fiercely at Madame Remey but didn't respond.

Madame Remey turned to Maggie. “It was terrible, of course. But it was the war. Young people today wouldn't understand. They do every manner of thing without consequence.”

“I was friends with Jacqueline Fouquet,” Madame Belgert said softly. “After the war, her family moved out of the building. I never saw her again.”

Maggie tried to gauge the mood of the little group. Nobody seemed upset about discussing the war or even recounting the grisly details of Camille's death. It had simply been too long ago. In some ways, it probably felt more like an old TV program they'd seen a hundred times rather than something they'd all lived through.

Aideen reached out to the woman who was holding Mila. “My turn!” she said gleefully. The two old women gingerly swapped the baby and Mila clapped her hands, prompting immediate squeals of delight from the women.

Maggie turned to Madame Remey. There had been certain parts of Camille's story that she hadn't felt comfortable asking Delphine about. In fact, after that first afternoon when Delphine told her the story, she'd not brought it up again.

“I wondered how it was that the Resistance knew where to find Camille,” Maggie said. “Do you know?”

Madame Remey shrugged. “They asked the
gardienne
, of course.” 

 Maggie knew that in the old days, especially in the larger more well to do apartment buildings,
gardiennes
were employed as professional gatekeepers. They typically lived in a bottom floor apartment of the building. Not unlike the one in Gerard's apartment, now that she thought of it.

“And the
gardienne
told the men where to find her?”

The old woman's eyes looked meaningfully at Maggie. "The
gardienne
was often in the pocket of the German bastards. But she was ready for when the tide shifted. She directed them to the German whore.” 

Madame Belgert chimed in: “Her name was Lizette. A mean old thing I can tell you. She saw everything.”

Aideen piped up: “I heard that when Mademoiselle Fouquet answered the door—”

“Wait.” Maggie put a hand to her head in confusion. “The
gardienne
directed the Resistance to the
Fouquet's
apartment?”

“Of course,” Madame Remey said.

“Well, I thought you said she knew everything that was going on,” Maggie said. “Was she confused?”

The old woman leaned back in her chair and regarded Maggie with a cocked eyebrow.

“That is precisely what Delphine Fouquet said to the men when they came to her door—‘Are you confused?' she said to them. And then she explained that her sister Jacqueline was engaged to Marc Dernier, the Resistance hero. You know about that, yes?”

Maggie nodded but she felt an uncomfortable lurch in her stomach.

“What happened when she told them they were at the wrong apartment?” she asked.

Madame Belgert glanced over Maggie's shoulder at the sight of a tea cart being pushed into the room. She beckoned to the aide pushing it to come closer.

“As you might guess,” Madame Remey said as she also waved to the woman with the cart.

Maggie clutched the arm of her chair and listened as the old woman's words tumbled relentlessly out.

"Delphine told them Camille Victoire's apartment was up one more floor,” she said.

T
he aide poured
tea and handed out cookies to all of the women in the group. Maggie watched in stunned silence as they laughed and fed Mila cookies and tweaked her cheeks.

She couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

“So you're saying
Delphine
told them where Camille was?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. Her heart was pounding and she felt a light sheen of perspiration pop up on her forehead.

“Who else?” Madame Remey said, examining one of the cookies closely.

Maggie's stomach churned with nausea.

Delphine gave Camille up? Can this be true?

Aideen said with her mouth full of cookies, “That Camille was a sly one. No one had ever seen her with any Germans. But who better than her best friend would know the truth?”

“They took her out by her hair, screaming her innocence,” Madame Remey said. “
Putain
! German whore.”

“Okay, let's bring it down a notch, shall we?” Maggie said with irritation. “The war's been over for a good while now.”

One of the women squawked out, “That slutty Fouquet girl was seen with a German or two.”

A terrible question slithered into Maggie's head.

Why would Delphine send the Resistance to Camille's door?

Madame Remey said, “Camille Victoire betrayed her country by whoring around with the
boche
. She knew what she was doing. And then, of course, there was the child…”

Maggie snapped out of her daze. “Do you know what became of her?” she asked.

“I heard she was taken to Normandy to be raised by relatives,” Madame Remey said.

“Her family didn't come from Normandy,” Maggie said.

Madame Belgert pointed at Maggie with a cookie in her hand. “The child was the vile product of the Nazi and the whore.”

“Well, the numbers don't add up for that to be true,” Maggie said wearily. “If Camille and the German met in 1940—which would be the earliest they could possibly have hooked up—how could the child be six years old by the time of Camille's death in 1944?”

“It
is
true,” the woman said stubbornly. “Everyone knows it to be true.”

The women munched their cookies and grinned their toothless smiles at the baby.

“Well, if that was the rumor going around, I'll bet it made that kid's life a living hell,” Maggie said. She couldn't help but think of Amelie, although she knew there was no way she was old enough to be Camille's missing daughter.

“I'd say
that
was a given as soon as they hung her mother,” Madame Belgert said solemnly.

M
ichelle walked
to one of the empty shop fronts on rue Avaulée and stood with her back to its boarded up window while she dug out her disposable mobile phone. She already had two calls into the number and so just needed to hit
Redial
to make the call.

She felt for the universal key in her jacket pocket. It seemed to burn in her hand, tingling with possibility, as she waited for him to answer.

“
Allo
?” His voice was guarded but eager.

“I am ready to do this, Monsieur. Today.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Just get her out of the apartment for one hour. I will do the rest. It is that easy. And at the end, you will have the answers you seek and I will have my due.”

“What time?”

“The American is gone right now. Can you come immediately?”

He hesitated and then said, “Yes.”

“
Bon
. It will all be over in the time it takes you to finish your first course. Both of our lives will have changed for the better. When can you be there?”

“Thirty minutes?”

“
Bon
. Our lives have begun to change already, Monsieur Lorraine.”

A
ll the attention
at the nursing home combined with an overabundance of sugar had worn even Mila out. Before she left Maggie rearranged the carrier straps so as to carry Mila in front where she immediately fell fast asleep.

Maggie walked slowly away from the nursing home. Stunned. Unseeing. Disbelieving.

It can't be.

The revelations from the women at the facility had blown out of the water just about every fact Delphine had told Maggie. If what they said was true, Delphine had lied about all of it. In fact, the only thing she hadn't lied about was what happened to Camille.

The first thing Maggie did when Madame Remey and the rest of them confirmed the lynching was to go on the Internet via her phone. She should have done it when Delphine told her about it but she'd had no reason to doubt her.

The Internet blurb was just a tiny part of a bigger story on the Resistance. Maggie's skin crawled remembering how the words looked on her phone screen.

Camille Victoire was executed in Paris by members of the Resistance for collaboration activities.

One thing that was true: Camille Victoire had been hung on August 26, 1944.

And just about everything else Maggie thought she knew about the event was a lie.

She should have known Delphine wasn't telling the whole truth as soon as she discovered the Degas in the closet.

Delphine was the one who led the Resistance to Camille.

An urge gripped Maggie, nearly making her gasp. She must talk to Delphine. But immediately she was slammed with an image of Delphine's face—tortured, hopeful, always so sad.

Is that really what I want to do? How would forcing her to admit the truth help anyone
?

Maggie was vaguely aware of passing a large cemetery on her right. She glanced around and realized she had been walking in the opposite direction to the way she had come. She didn't recognize any landmarks but the road she was on was one she knew: Avenue du General Leclerc. At least she wasn't lost this time.

Delphine had betrayed her friend. Her best friend. Maggie took in a long breath and the next thought came at her like a battering ram.

Had Camille been innocent?

Maggie flushed. Why else would Delphine have sent the executioners to Camille? Why else except to save herself? If
Delphine
had been the one consorting with the German—
and let's face it, she's got a stolen Degas
—it would explain why she would direct the men to Camille
rather than just keep quiet
.

She saved herself. By betraying Camille.

No wonder Delphine was tormented. No wonder she didn't act very excited about finding Camille's daughter.

Maggie's stomach roiled at the thought. She swallowed back a sour taste in her mouth as she walked to the front of the cemetery. A plaque outside read
Cimetiere du Montparnasse
.

Jacqueline and Georgette must be buried here, Maggie realized. And their parents, Laurent's great grandparents.

She entered through the massive wrought iron gates until she came to a concrete bench. Like many Paris cemeteries, this one felt more like a park than a place of eternal rest. Mila was still asleep and Maggie sat on the bench with her arms wrapped around the baby. She missed Laurent and Jemmy so much it felt like a physical craving.

Laurent was right. I should have gone home. Maybe I never should have come.

Grace certainly didn't have time for her. And Maggie had done nothing to make Delphine's life better. Delphine was still estranged from Laurent—and Noel too. As hard as Noel was trying to get her to admit their real connection, Delphine continued to resist. If she
was
his mother surely there could be no harm in telling him. What was stopping her?

Maggie moved a curl away from Mila's sleeping face. As she sat, staring out at the obelisks and monuments studded across the landscape, her legs felt heavy and it was only the realization that the sky had darkened that made her finally get to her feet. It was a long walk back to Delphine's and she hadn't seen any taxi stands along the way.

Maybe the old ladies in the nursing home were wrong.

Maggie shifted the heavy sleeping baby in her arms and checked the straps to make sure they were securely buckled before dropping one of her arms, already aching, to her side. She walked out of the cemetery, barely aware of the fact that she hadn't seen a living soul since she'd entered.

What about the painting? Do I just wait until the will is read and let the executor return it to its rightful owner? And not say anything?

Would they check it for fingerprints?

And what about the question of why Amelie was in Delphine's will? Maggie had read the will through several times and there was nothing to reveal why Delphine was including her.

Maggie walked down a side road outside the cemetery toward what her phone GPS indicated was the direction of the Place Denfert-Rochereau. There was a Metro station there. As the light faded and the temperature dropped, she noticed that there were hardly any people on the street with her. She shivered and glanced over her shoulder. A shadow wobbled in the distance. Was it the breeze moving a tree limb? Just the light shifting?

Suddenly, a feeling of being watched came over her like ants crawling through her scalp. She must have reacted physically, because Mila woke with a start.

Maggie wrapped her arms around her but the tension in her grip startled Mila further. The baby began to cry. Maggie patted her on the back. Maggie looked down at the cobblestone road. She didn't dare run with the baby in her arms.

But there was no doubt now.

Someone was behind her.