Murder On The Rue Cassette (A Serafina Florio Mystery) Read online

  She ran a hand through her hair. Not yet six o’clock, fifteen long hours until their meeting with the inspector and three hours until dinner. Time enough for acting.

  She stopped. How did she expect to solve the mystery when she hadn’t seen the spot where they’d found the body?

  Pulling out her map, she studied it. It took her a while to locate the Rue Cassette. It was on the left bank, her favorite side of the river. She’d go to the scene of the crime. No need to tell Rosa or Carmela—she’d be back before they realized she was gone. Grabbing a light cape and reticule, and throwing a comb through her snarls, she was about to go out when she remembered the dratted hat. But a head covering had a point, especially in the chill of an April evening in Paris. She plunked it on her head and flew down the stairs, asking for a cab to the Luxembourg Gardens. A man in livery driving a small opera bus pulled by a roan horse drew up, and the doorman helped her in.

  The streets were noisy. Parisians who crossed in front of carriages and carters seemed happy to be going home. Plane trees lined the boulevards, and the sky was a wash of cerulean as the driver took the Pont Royal to the Rue du Bac. Serafina listened to the clop of hooves. They turned onto the Rue Jacob filled with memories of a delicious slip she’d had in a small hotel over twenty years ago. It struck her that there was a sense of life here, an unforgettable style of color, sound, and line that merged to create an energy she no longer felt at home. Oh, to be young again and in Paris. As she watched university students gather, she warmed to the thought of adventure. But unfortunately, she had mystery on the mind.

  They clopped down the Rue Bonaparte past St. Sulpice and she heard the unmistakable sounds of an organ, perhaps Charles-Marie Widor practicing for a concert. She stared at the scene fronting the church and imagined a crowd gathered around Elena witnessing one of her mad moments.

  The driver stopped across from the entrance to the Luxembourg Gardens and said he’d wait for her.

  With the map in her hand, she walked slowly up the Rue de Vaugirard. It was a long street and she hoped she wasn’t too far from her destination. When she found herself facing the round backside of St. Sulpice again, she realized she’d walked in the wrong direction. So she headed back, her eyes glued to her map, and bumped into a policeman who hung onto her shoulders to prevent her from falling.

  He tipped his cap and smiled. “Pardon, Madame, let me help you. You’re lost.”

  “Too kind.” A Parisian policeman, how handsome. What do they call them? A sergent de ville, he told her. She loved his tall kepis and said so. “I search for the Rue Cassette. I’m sure it’s nearby.”

  “Visiting someone?” he asked as he led the way.

  “Not exactly. I investigate the death of a woman whose body was found on that street last week.”

  “Lucky for you, I’m the one who found the body.” He shook his head. “Terrible, one side of her face blown apart.”

  “Then I’m doubly fortunate to have found you.”

  “Some claim she was a countess from Sicily.” The policeman shook his head. “That’s what the inspector said. Valois. I called him myself, woke him up from his sleep, poor man. He was none too happy either, I can tell you. Can’t blame the fellow. But the woman, her clothes, mon dieu, she wore the garb of a streetwalker, not draped like a lady, I don’t mind saying it.”

  “In this neighborhood?”

  He gave her a Gallic shrug. “Those kind are all over, especially at that time of night. Sometimes you see them here in the early evening, too. There are some cafés on the Rue de Vaugirard that attract these people.”

  “Like the Café Odile?”

  He nodded.

  Serafina wondered how to ask her next question. “They claim she may have been from the upper classes but enjoying herself by doing—what’s the word in French? In Italian it’s not used in mixed company.”

  “No need to say it, Madame, I know what you mean. But this woman had dirt ground into her. It was underneath her fingernails and in her hair. Her hands were callused. No, this woman was not from the nobility. She was working the streets.”

  “Curious the press didn’t cover it.”

  He shrugged. “Why would they? Oh, they sniffed around, all right. Those journalists can smell a story before it happens. But they knew this death was not newsworthy, so they disappeared. It was the death of a woman already bitten by life, not a fresh saucy thing or someone known by the people. A pickpocket or a lady of the night, probably both. A jailbird, perhaps. But no matter, she’d fallen on hard times. They work the system, you know. They violate the health laws and must be pulled in. They’re out for a while until they’re hauled in again. In and out.”

  “Would you show me where you found the body?”

  They turned into a much smaller street. The Rue Cassette seemed ghostly, little more than a country lane, although it was cobbled and in excellent condition, smooth and clean. No garbage, so different from home. It was bounded on both sides by a limestone wall. The street had no gas lamps, however, and the light from the evening sky was beginning to fade. She hugged her cape feeling cold and empty in the gloaming as she followed the sergent de ville.

  Presently the policeman stopped and pointed to a spot on the ground a few meters ahead, steps away from a large alcove and door. There was a dry cleaning establishment on the opposite side of the street several meters away, but no other shops, just a few gates punched into the wall on either side, leading to what looked like the courtyards of private apartments. Serafina stood still and staring at the spot. She saw the twisted body of the woman. The vision was so intense, it was as if she were here before them, her head resting to one side on the stones, a battered, broken body.

  She was filled with the presence of death and foreboding. She tried to imagine what life must have been like for the dead woman; she tried to fathom what it must have been like for this young policeman to come upon a body, cold, grotesque, the street narrow and dark. Perhaps early morning mist had been rising from the ground. Even now she could feel the dankness of the place. The stone walls closed in on her. She struggled for air and realized she’d been holding her breath. Her head throbbed and her toes hurt from the cold. She wished she had worn a heavier cape, a long one like the policeman wore.

  “Where does this door lead?”

  “It’s the back end of an abbey.”

  Serafina read the numbers—22, Rue Cassette. She looked more closely, intent on finding something on the ground left by the body or forgotten by the killer, a scrap of paper, a handkerchief, anything, but the stones had been picked clean.

  She was beginning to get a feel for this murdered woman, someone having to scratch to make a living. No, if she were true to her intuition, Serafina could now affirm that the dead woman was a stranger, not Elena. Now her task was to convince others.

  “How was she clothed?”

  “As I said, in the garment of a streetwalker. There was dirt under her fingernails, caked behind her ear on one side of the face, a ring of dirt in back of her neck.”

  “But she had a reticule.”

  He nodded. “Made of expensive cloth with a gold clasp and chain. Not the bag of a woman of the night.”

  “Perhaps she stole the purse?”

  “Looked like it to me.”

  “Was there money inside?”

  “Six-hundred francs in notes and a few coins, a fortune by my reckoning.”

  “Who do you think she was and why did she have that purse?”

  “I’ve told you. But no one asks my opinion, Madame. You don’t want to know what I think. I’m a young policeman, on the force less than a year.”

  “But I do. I care. And not because you’re helping me tremendously. No, I want to hear what you have to say because you were the first to see the body.”

  “I think I might have seen her in this neighborhood before, begging, laughing, drunk, flirting with men or lurking in the side streets hoping for a ...”

  “A customer?”

&nbs
p; “Yes. I might have arrested her once, along with a few others, up to no good, cuffed them all for theft, for leaving the Café Odile with purses and capes and fancy hats that weren’t theirs. Boastful and laughing. Slurring and swaying. Beasts really, at least for that moment. When you see men and women like that, less than human, you close your eyes and try to imagine them as sweet suckling babes. Then you take a little more care with them instead of shoving them into a wagon and dumping them into a holding cell. Next morning, it’ll be a different story for them. They’ll be sober and quiet, stinking of cheap wine and bodily waste. Life must be a hell for them.” He stopped and considered something inside himself. “No, I think she took that purse and for whatever reason, maybe even because she took it, she was killed.”

  “But she wasn’t killed for the money. Six-hundred francs remained in the purse.”

  “There are many reasons to kill, Madame. Her type have more reasons to kill than you and I can dream up together in a lifetime, and kill they do. Perhaps with little thought beforehand, or perhaps the killing was a long time brewing—a fantasy of their sodden brains.”

  “Would her companions kill her with a derringer and feign suicide?”

  “Might. Don’t forget, we try to fathom, but not with their besotted minds. They’ve become jackals.”

  Serafina was silent, taking in the policeman’s words. She wished Carmela was here. She’d introduce them.

  “Are you married?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Never mind. You seem so wise for your years. I have unmarried daughters and I’d like you for a son-in-law.”

  He blushed and Serafina knew she’d overstepped the mark. “Forgive me. I meant that as a compliment.”

  He touched his cap and smiled.

  “The body was identified as a contessa, the one whose passport was in the reticule. Identified by none other than the woman’s aunt. What do you think of that?”

  “The aunt must be infirm of mind or going blind.”

  She paused for a moment before asking, “No one’s reported a missing purse?”

  “I wouldn’t know that, Madame.”

  Serafina asked herself what she would have done if her reticule had been snatched. “Where’s the nearest gendarmerie?”

  “This way, turn onto the Rue de Tournon. On your left. Can’t miss it.”

  “And one more question if I might.”

  “Of course, Madame.”

  “Could you point me to the Café Odile?”

  He led her to a corner café with a red awning and the word, Odile, written in white script. “But you don’t want to go inside, Madame.” He touched his cap and walked off into the early evening.

  Before she ventured into the café, she located her driver, gave him a few coins, and he agreed to wait for her.

  * * *

  Serafina stomped into the Café Odile. Clouds of yellow smoke hung in the air and she looked around the crowded room, dimly lit by a few gas lamps. There were several people seated at small tables drinking an opaque liquid, a small throng of noisy customers in the back, and a crowd around the zinc bar. She stood at the door for some time until her eyes adjusted to the dimness. Then she asked the bartender if she could speak with the owner.

  He stepped out from behind the counter. “Help you?” He was a tall man with a deflated balloon for a stomach that rolled over his apron. His complexion was a pasty pink.

  She showed him her identification card and told him she was investigating the murder of a woman in Rue Cassette.

  “Not the same one as last week? Old news.” He coughed.

  She nodded. Pulling out a photo of Loffredo, she asked him if he recognized the man.

  He took it and walked to the window. He squinted at the picture. After a moment he said, “Never seen him before.”

  “The woman who was killed in the Rue Cassette, was she a customer?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Answer the question.”

  He shrugged. “Seen her in here from time to time. A regular, I’d guess you’d say. “

  “And this photo, is it of the man you saw her with?”

  “Like I said, I never seen him before.”

  “Then why did you tell the police you had?”

  He ran a thumb over his mustache, silent, hugging a cork-lined tray to his middle, his face now mottled, his eyes cast down.

  “This is a photograph of the man you told the police was the companion of the woman who was shot. Would you like to see it again?”

  He coughed.

  “Is that a yes or no?”

  He wiped his face with a towel.

  “Are you having second thoughts about your identification of him? You’ll have to testify in court and trust me, the man’s attorney will delight in making you look like a fool unless you’re absolutely sure you saw him.”

  “Didn’t say I’d have to testify. Light’s dim here. Hard to tell one face from another.”

  “When asked shortly after the murder, why were you so sure?”

  He looked at her like she’d been born on the moon.

  Serafina felt heat rise up her neck and flood her cheeks. “You were paid, weren’t you? You were paid by someone to recognize this man as Elena’s companion.”

  Water beaded on his forehead. “Now I never said—”

  “Who paid you?”

  He shook his head and she realized she’d be there forever. She looked at her watch pin.

  “No matter. A man can change his mind,” she said. “Give me pen and paper.” She sat down and wrote an account of her interview with him. Handing it back to him, she said, “Just sign this. It says you’ve thought about it, and you couldn’t swear under oath that the man you identified was in fact with Elena that night. We’ll forget any mention of bribe.”

  Hunched over the zinc and rimmed with light from the streetlamp, he coughed into a handkerchief and looked at the piece of paper, turning it over, swiping at his forehead, and finally signing it.

  “Like I said, I didn’t know they’d make me swear to it. Couldn’t say for sure that he’s Elena’s man. Tall, angular, all right, but not the one in that photo.”

  * * *

  But before she paid a call to the gendarmes, she wanted to spend more time on the Rue Cassette. One or two gates were open and Serafina peeked in at courtyards and gardens, one with a two-wheeled contraption leaning against a tree. She stopped in front of the dry cleaners, intrigued by the gown in the window.

  Peering inside, she saw a light on in the back of the store so she turned the handle, but it was locked. Looking inside, Serafina saw a few garments on hangers toward the front, but what drew her into the shop was the lovely dress on a mannequin in the window, a light green watered silk like the one Carmela described Elena as having worn to the exhibit on its opening night. Odd that it would be in a shop on the street where the murdered woman’s body was found.

  Serafina heard a pounding in her ears as she rapped on the door. No answer. She looked left and right, knocked again as loudly as she could and rubbed her knuckles. In a moment, a rather broad-shouldered woman lumbered into view.

  Clothed in homespun and wearing a long blue apron, her sleeves rolled and a scarf tied around her head, she had a pleasant round face.

  “Coming to pick up clothes, Madame?”

  “Not exactly. I’m interested to learn how that dress came to be hanging in your window. I believe it’s a garment belonging to a friend, and I’ve spent the day trying to find her. I’m new to the city, as you might have guessed.” Serafina felt her eyes stinging and her throat dry from whatever substance they used in the cleaning process, and she wondered how this woman could stand breathing it all day.

  “Italian?”

  Serafina smiled.

  “Thought so. You can tell by the R’s, at least that’s how I tell. We swallow the R’s and you roll them around your tongue,” she said. “First time here?”

  Serafina told her she’d been to Paris once before, stu
dying midwifery several years ago, but she hadn’t been back in over twenty years.

  “In that case, you speak French very well.” All the while the woman spoke, she was peering into her ledger, running a finger down each page. When she found what she was looking for, she told Serafina that the garment was brought in by a M. Gaston last Thursday and that he’d promised to pick it up tomorrow. That’s why we’ve hung it in the window, showcasing it, you might say. Difficult one to clean.”

  “He passes by here often?”

  She nodded. “Good customer. Fastidious man. Stained pretty bad and unfortunately it was on the front of the jacket. We had to work hard on it, especially since the fabric’s so delicate, quilted and all, and a pure gold thread runs through it.”

  Serafina looked at the jacket and shook her head. “I don’t see any discoloration. What made it?”

  “Hard to say.” She shrugged. “Some kind of vegetable, or perhaps just soapy water. That would cause the mark. We worked on it hard, and in the end there was no trace of it, as you say. If it had been wine or blood, well ... Take a good look, we’re proud of our work.” She brought the dress over to the counter and showed Serafina, touching it with fingers that were tender, gentle although they were red and swollen from years of work and from whatever substance was used to dry clean clothes. “Made an awful mess, darker than the cloth, but see, no trace of it anymore, not even on the silk underside.”

  * * *

  Serafina left the store and took great gulps of fresh air. She examined her watch pin, glad that she’d paid her driver to wait because she wanted to pay a surprise visit to Elena’s current lover. Unfolding her map as she walked back to Rue de Vaugirard, she stopped underneath the nearest streetlamp and pinpointed the Rue d’Assas. It took her a only a few minutes to find number 23, a narrow but tall building next door to a monastery.