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

  Loffredo reddened into the menu. “I’ve eaten here. The food is excellent, and whatever you have will be a treat. You can’t make a mistake.”

  Serafina looked at the madam while she ordered the wild cod served in a tomato sauce with a side of beans, delighted at Rosa’s response, an expressive roll of her eyes. Loffredo chose the calves liver in onions with steamed potatoes, Valois a beef fillet with pommes frites and a side of a creamy mustard, and Rosa, the lamb stew with vegetables served over mashed potatoes. She asked the waiter to bring them a side order of sausage.

  They were the only people in the small room, the hour late for dining.

  In a few minutes, the waiter returned with four plates, the sizzling sausage, and a side of sauerkraut.

  Rosa cut into the meat and dipping her fork into the sauerkraut and mustard. She took a large bite, the sides of her face bulging, washing it down with a gulp of her beer. Loffredo cut a piece and passed the plate to Serafina who took a bite, savoring the rich, spicy meat, listening to the crack and spit coming from the plate.

  Rosa reached into her pocket. “Enough of this silence. We’re the only customers and Sophie won’t leave my head. I found these in Elena’s kitchen.” She plunked the promissory notes into the middle of the table.

  The paper sat, accusatory, another confirmation of what Serafina knew. She said nothing, but when her good hand wasn’t resting on Loffredo’s leg, she sipped her beer. It making her head spin a little and she felt giddy, waiting for Valois’ reaction to the notes.

  “Who is Ricci de Masson?” he asked after he read one of the notes.

  “Sophie’s youngest son,” Rosa said.

  “Engaging, I might add,” Serafina said. “We met him the day after we arrived in Paris while we waited for Sophie, remember?”

  Rosa nodded.

  “Do you know him?” Valois asked, directing his question to Loffredo.

  Before he could answer, two waiters in starched aprons cleared their table and brought their entrées, taking orders for refills. Serafina declined more beer, but Valois, Rosa, and Loffredo ordered a second round.

  “To answer your question, yes, I’ve met him and I like him. A lost soul who thinks he can win vast sums of money by betting on the horses,” Rosa said.

  “He speaks in poetic terms about Longchamp,” Serafina said. “He’s an endearing young man.”

  Loffredo shrugged. “Most members of the Busacca family become angry when they hide something, I’ve noticed. What do you think Sophie’s hiding?”

  “Not just that family. Many people become irate when caught,” Valois said. “But you’re right, she was an angry, broken woman.”

  “Did you notice the warn spots in the carpet, the split in the wallpaper?” Serafina asked.

  Valois nodded.

  “Why did I miss that?” The madam’s eyes narrowed. “Lucre rears its ugly head.”

  There was silence while Serafina scooped cod and tomatoes onto her spoon, breathing in the mélange of spices.

  “I think Sophie is angry she’s been caught out. And she’s angry her sight is failing,” Rosa said, eating a forkful of stew and sipping her beer. “She’s an old woman who tries to preserve the past, and her children are not interested in business.”

  Serafina told Valois about Carmela and Tessa visiting the Busacca millinery shops and what they’d found. “Except for their flagship store on the Rue de la Paix, they are mismanaged.”

  “Ricci spends when he shouldn’t,” Rosa said. “The middle son saves when he shouldn’t. Sophie fears the future and counts her money twice.”

  Serafina ran a napkin around her mouth and pushed away her plate. “So you think perhaps Sophie made an honest mistake? Because of her failing eyesight she couldn’t see the distinguishing features of the body, and since she was in the Paris morgue, a frightful place, she wanted to get the ordeal over with quickly?”

  “I do,” Rosa said. “But somewhere, somehow money changed hands. I hear the ca-chink of conspiracy.”

  Valois looked at Rosa and smiled.

  Under the table, Loffredo reached for Serafina’s hand. A powerful shock passed between them, too strong for Serafina to resist. This time she wasn’t about to let go. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stand the celibate life much longer. She looked at Valois whose face was unreadable only because there wasn’t much there. The inspector took a large gulp of beer and set the glass down rather noisily, sat back and smiled at Serafina. He was feeling the beer, too. She prayed that she and Loffredo would not make a slip, but it was a small prayer. Meager.

  “What do you think, Loffredo?” she asked, running a hand up his thigh.

  “I think Sophie’s has a part in the plan,” he said, wiping his forehead. “She helps to hide Elena. I think ... Elena lives, but she is not in Paris.” His breath came more rapidly. “I’m not sure why Elena wanted to disappear. Perhaps her ruse is a dalliance, a way to shock, and the family, for a price, supports her.”

  “That’s an interesting theory, Valois said. “You talk of conspiracy.”

  Loffredo stopped talking and looked out the window, his eyes bright, his nostrils flared. Then he shot forward in his chair and loosened his cravat.

  “Are you all right?” Valois asked, noticing the beads of sweat on Loffredo’s forehead.

  “Perfectly fine. Perfect. Something went down the wrong way. Just give ... me ... a ... moment.”

  Rosa hiked one corner of her mouth. “Be careful,” she said, under her breath, narrowing her eyes at Serafina and taking another bite of lamb.

  Chapter 27: Le Coup de Grâce

  After the meal, they said goodbye to Valois. He said he would get word to them when the order of exhumation was complete.

  “About how long will it take?” Serafina asked.

  Valois gave a Gallic shrug.

  Rosa asked to be excused, saying she’d forgotten she was to meet Tessa and Carmela who wanted to show her an artist’s studio. The three agreed to meet at five o’clock in the Luxembourg Gardens.

  Serafina and Loffredo found themselves alone.

  “I’m going to explode,” he said.

  “But what can we do?”

  “Valois is an innocent—he suspects nothing—and Rue Jacob is filled with students. It won’t take us long. We have to ... or we won’t be able to think. I’m mad for you.”

  They found a cab and were in front of his hotel within the half hour.

  “I was afraid you’d never want to, never again,” she said, but stopped at the door and turned.

  There it was, that feeling at the nape of her neck. Glancing down the street, she saw one of the men who’d been following her, the one wearing the leather jerkin. He was peering into a shop window on the Rue Jacob.

  She wondered why Valois had released them. “I’ll meet you in a moment,” she said over her shoulder, picking up her skirts in her good hand and flying across the street toward the man. Her heart pounded and her hair, straining against its pins even in the best of times, loosened, red curls flying everywhere, into her eyes, down her back. Panting, she vowed she’d get him, she’d tear the bugger apart, bad arm be damned. She’d had enough.

  The neighborhood was crowded and a horse cart blocked her way—stupid, idiot man, she’d rip off his limbs—even one-handed, she would. Waiting for the chance to move, she jumped up and down so she wouldn’t lose sight of him. She worked her way behind and around the cart’s rear wheels only to be engulfed by a group of students also trying to cross. They jostled, laughed, and she began to see the humor of her situation, but her focus remained on the man in the jerkin He hadn’t stirred. Her blood was coming to the boil.

  As she drew closer, the man saw her, jerked away from the window, and started to run. Anticipating his flight, she hiked her skirts higher and ran him down, catching him by the scruff of his neck and latching onto his ear, pinching it with all her might.

  Then the world slowed as if she were in a ballroom dancing with Loffredo and she, moving with t
he stately grace of a ballerina, shook the shadow back and forth, back and forth. He hung in her vision like a caught bird as he pleaded, his words too slow and unintelligible. As he wrenched and struggled, she waited for her chance and when it came, she slammed a knee into his groin, brought it up faster than she thought she could move.

  She’d hit home. The man folded into himself. Someone yelled, “le coup de grâce,” and the crowd roared. It was the culmination of the dance. She was still holding onto his ear, digging in with her fingernail, when he screamed and bent in half, pulling her down, both of them tumbling to the ground. He moaned and held onto himself and rolled while the crowd cheered. Breathing hard, her hair like a witch’s lair, she grabbed him by the leg and pulled him across the rough cobbles out of the street and away from traffic. Then she pulled him up and leaned him against a building. The crowd clapped.

  “Police... were ... too gentle. I’m ... not,” she rasped. “Tell me ... who ... pays you ...”

  “Let me go!”

  “Tell me who pays you!” She grabbed him by the hair, pulling and twisting.

  “Tell her!” a bystander cried in falsetto and the knot of students guffawed.

  “The don,” a voice said, familiar. She spun around and saw Loffredo moving toward her, holding the other shadow. He gripped the man’s neck and pushed him forward, a sergent de ville by their side.

  Loffredo brushed his coat and trousers, ran a hand through his hair and stomped the dust from his boots. “He’ll take them away,” he said, motioning to the policeman, and he knows to consult with Valois.”

  After she’d calmed and he smoothed her hair, they walked the streets of the sixth arrondissement watching the people of Paris and enjoying each other and the weather. They walked on the quay and gazed at the Seine. They walked through the gardens—first, the Jardin des Plantes, his favorite, then the Jardin du Luxembourg, hers. There was no banter. They walked arm in arm, his spirit somewhat weighed down and tugging at hers, keeping them both close to the ground.

  For the first time since their arrival, she felt herself free from the burden of the two who followed them, and not just in Paris, either. But it took Paris for her to realize what terror her family, like most Oltramarians, had endured because of the don.

  Chapter 28: A Small Shop Near the Seine

  Serafina dispensed with the arm brace. Had she done so earlier today, she would have had an easier time dealing with the men who followed her. The scent of lilacs filled the air as she and Loffredo entered the Luxembourg Gardens, arms around each other, the pretense of mere friendship set aside. If they had to wait for the order of exhumation, Paris was the place in which to dally.

  They found Rosa sitting on a bench while she studied the racing section of Le Figaro. The madam was beginning her campaign to visit Longchamp, Serafina figured. The paper dropped to the ground as Rosa looked up at them.

  “At least you could have cleaned up afterward.”

  They told her about catching the shadows.

  “But I don’t understand why he would he send them all the way here just to spy on me,” Serafina said. “Quite an expense, and to what end?”

  Rosa picked up the paper. “He knows about your large retainer from Busacca.”

  “How would he?”

  “He knows everything.”

  “As it is, we can’t afford to pay protection money for the apothecary shop.”

  “Have you heard from your children at home?”

  A vision of the fire in Boffo’s Café intruded itself, unbidden, unwanted, the acrid stench invading her mind as the image of a menu, its words engulfed in flames, crumpled into ash, another grim reminder of the don’s destruction. Boffo told her he hadn’t paid his fee to the capo’s men for the past three months after customers dwindled and he couldn’t come up with the coins. She stuffed the memory.

  “Carmela keeps in touch. According to Vicenzu, everyone’s fine.”

  Despite the weather, Serafina felt a chill, but she couldn’t worry about the don, not now, she told them. “We need to assess where we are.”

  Rosa began. “We have three unknowns— who was the dead woman in the Rue Cassette, who killed her, and where is Elena.”

  “In addition, we have two more unknowns—who shot me, and who stole the photos of the dead woman. I have a hunch they are the same person, certainly not the don’s men.”

  Rosa picked up the racing form. “Add a sixth unknown—why did Sophie identify the dead woman as that of her niece?”

  “Might have something to do with the blindness in the center of her vision or her son’s gambling debt,” Serafina said. “She’s hiding something. Otherwise why would she have lashed out?”

  Rosa shook her head. “The Busacca family’s loaded. Discharging those debts would be like paying the butcher’s bill.”

  Serafina wasn’t so sure, especially after hearing Carmela’s assessment of their stores.

  The sun was in her eyes, but she stared at the fountain, listening to the sound of the water splashing against stone. She was in love with the Luxembourg garden. It was less formal than the Tuileries and more sheltered from the noise of traffic, and tended to so beautifully. The French had taste, she must admit. But more important, at least for her spirit—in Paris she found great swaths of peace, and the people seemed relaxed. So different than they were in Oltramari.

  “What else do we know for sure?” She stared at the rows of trees in the middle distance, their leaves dappled with sun, and smiled at Loffredo who gave her a gentle hug and tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and felt the rejuvenating spring and wondered how many of these moments they’d have at home.

  “Be careful, both of you,” Rosa cautioned.

  Not like the madam, Serafina thought. “We know the woman buried in Elena’s grave is not Elena. We know we were followed by two of Don Tigro’s men, and we know why.”

  “Go on,” Rosa said.

  Serafina rolled her eyes. “And we know that whoever stole the photos from Valois’ desk did not want us to see them because we’d know the dead woman wasn’t Elena.”

  “That’s a leap,” the madam said. “But we know that Elena paid Ricci de Masson’s gambling debts, a considerable sum.”

  “One of the nicest thing I’ve heard about Elena,” Serafina said. “And we also know that the bullet taken from my shoulder was almost identical to the bullet retrieved from the dead woman’s mouth.”

  “We know that the dead woman was not with child, but riddled with syphilis and would have died in a matter of months, this from the mouth of the medical examiner,” Rosa said.

  This was new information for Loffredo, and he seemed visibly shaken. For a moment he stared out, unseeing, absorbed in his thoughts.

  Two couples walked past their bench, the women in day dresses of beautiful silk, talking conspiratorially, the men walking some distance behind. Serafina stared at two boys playing jacks.

  “So we have six knowns and six unknowns,” she said. “And the most important?”

  “We don’t know where Elena is,” Rosa said.

  Serafina nodded. She told them about the advertisement she’d placed in the daily papers a few days ago. “It runs each day for the next ten days.” She passed a copy to Rosa.

  They were silent while Rosa and Loffredo read the classified.

  “I don’t think it will do much good, but I tried it, just in case.” Serafina felt her temples begin to throb. “All might be cleared up if we could find Elena, so that’s what we must do.”

  “We agree,” Rosa said and Loffredo nodded. “As soon as we exhume the body and prove it beyond doubt.”

  Serafina worried her lower lip. “There were three paintings by Paul Cézanne, do you remember them?”

  Rosa shook her head. “I liked them all. Different. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  “A lot. The three I’m thinking about weren’t painted in Paris or in a place with the same light.”

  “Listen to those pain
ters talk and they’ll have you believing that each moment the light is different,” Rosa said.

  “Not quite the point I’m trying to make. The light and the feeling are so different in Cézanne’s paintings. They have nothing to do with Paris except perhaps for that reclining nude.”

  Rosa pointed her finger in the air. “Now I remember them. But what does that have to do with anything?”

  Serafina looked at Loffredo. “Didn’t you tell me she had an apartment in Aix?”

  “Yes, but that was several years ago, during the Franco Prussian War. She fled the city along with her friends. I don’t think she’s kept it. Why would she? All her friends are in Paris.” He wiped his face with his palm.

  “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “And don’t forget, I found an envelope addressed to Elena, an address in Arles,” Serafina reminded them.

  “Quite a distance between Arles and Aix, at least seventy-five kilometers, I think,” Loffredo said.

  “In the south of France, a perfect place to hide. Why do her friends think Elena is not dead? Someone must be hiding her.”

  “Or perhaps they are in their own world,” Rosa said. “They don’t seem to like her very much.”

  “How do you know? You’ve talked to Carmela who spoke with only two of them.”

  There was a silence. Rosa looked at her watch and said she must meet Tessa in Père La Chaise.

  Loffredo looked at Serafina who told him about Rosa’s infatuation with Murat.

  After the madam left, Serafina gazed at Loffredo. Not given to ebullience, he was even more taciturn than usual. Indeed, he wasn’t talking unless a question was directed his way. It was as if a weight lay upon his spirit, and Serafina realized he was grieving. She could tell by the way he looked into her eyes. Still hungry for her, yes, but not with their usual mirth.

  “Still, I think we must concentrate on Elena. She’s disturbed; she’s pregnant.” Serafina looked at Loffredo. “And she has an illness, or at least there’s a reason why she’s behaving erratically.”

  “Not erratic behavior on Elena’s part, not for her,” he said, shaking his head. “She is flighty, whimsical, dramatic, outré.”