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

  Rosa sat still, a bit out of her element, but to give the madam her due, she knew when to hold her tongue.

  Reluctantly he continued. “The woman had been shot, one bullet to the left temple. Burns and gunpowder surrounded the wound. We found papers in her reticule identifying her as Elena Loffredo, Countess of Oltramari. An autopsy was performed a few hours later. It determined that the victim was murdered in the early morning hours of April 16. We made sure the woman was identified by the oldest and closest family member of the deceased, and following the family’s wishes, we released the body to them so that it could be prepared for burial in accordance with Judaic custom. Soon after the woman was discovered, we made inquiries and have detained a person of interest. With a few more hours of persuasive interrogation, I have no doubt he will confess to the countess Elena Loffredo’s murder.”

  As Valois spoke, Serafina willed herself to concentrate on the sense of his words, as if they had nothing to do with her. Her body ached from lack of sleep and her heart beat wildly. So Loffredo was in prison, about to be charged with the murder of Elena. Why hadn’t she realized it before this? The pounding in her head grew, making understanding even more difficult. Her breath came in ragged gulps. Pressing fingernails into the palm of her hand, she forced herself to stay calm. She glanced at Rosa who was looking at her feet.

  Groping for the right thing to say, Serafina thought she might start out with flattery, then rejected that idea. “I’m not convinced that the body you found in the Rue Cassette is that of Elena Loffredo.” She stopped, letting her words sink in.

  Valois’ face was rigid, almost impassive. “I’m not sure I understand you, Madame.”

  Rosa said nothing, but nodded her agreement.

  Serafina continued. “I believe that hasty conclusions were drawn due to the actions of others, not the least of which was the disregard that Madame Sophie de Masson gave to the body. She identified the dead woman as her niece without the help of other members of her family, when she knew her eyesight was failing. Her sons, for instance, who are in Paris, should have been by her side.”

  Color flooded his face. “You mock me. I am always thorough and methodical in my investigation.”

  “Nevertheless, I stand by my statement. Deliberate obfuscation on the part of at least one person has caused you to make inaccurate conclusions.”

  He shook his head. “The papers the dead woman had on her person were those of Elena Loffredo.”

  “The reticule could have been stolen.”

  “Possible, but improbable, Madame.” He rose and walked around his office, but he seemed to be considering what she had to say.

  “I have photographs of the crime scene if you’d like to see them, but I warn you, they’re offensive in the extreme.”

  Rosa shrugged. “You’re speaking to Sicilians. Both our countries have suffered recent atrocities. I’m afraid we’re used to them.”

  Valois narrowed his eyes, staring at her, the urgency of his other meeting forgotten. “Her body was twisted, half her face was missing, her clothes torn and muddy.”

  “Let’s see the photos.”

  He sat and blew air out of his cheeks like a balloon deflating. Staring not at them but at something only he could see, Valois slowly shook his head. “At first I too was puzzled by the anomaly. Papers identified the dead woman as a countess, and yet she was clothed in the garb of a streetwalker. I came to the same conclusion as you—she was not a countess but a courtesan.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “We searched the neighborhood and found a café owner who identified her as a familiar customer, a frequenter of his restaurant. He said she was often seated at a table in the back with a tall, angular gentleman. The owner didn’t know their names. He called her by her first name, Elena—not done in Paris, at least among polite society, I assure you. He didn’t know the name of the gentleman, but later identified her husband as the tall, angular man in his café. So now I have a witness, a café owner who calls her by the name listed on the documents in the dead woman’s reticule.”

  “Where is this café?”

  “Café Odile on the Rue de Vaugirard.”

  Serafina made a note of it.

  “I admit it, I’m unfamiliar with Sicilian countesses. But I’ve heard of the penury of the aristocracy on your island.”

  Serafina was silent for a moment. “Elena’s family is not part of the penurious aristocracy, as you put it. Her title is acquired by marriage, not inherited. And her family’s wealth comes from trade.”

  “At the time of her death, I knew nothing about her or her family.”

  She thought for a moment. “I’d like to see the photos and the documents and the gun.” She knew she shouldn’t have snapped at him. The man was justifying his conclusion, laying out his thinking process, more for himself, she realized, than for her benefit. She felt his confusion. She must be patient.

  He walked to the window and spoke, his back to them. “And there is something else I’d hoped not to touch on. It is of a delicate nature.”

  “Go on.”

  “Yes, Inspector, spare us your delicacy,” Rosa said.

  “The Parisian demimonde is vast and has varied tastes.” He faced them. “There are certain women, upper class women, who for whatever reason like to ...”

  “We know all about slumming,” Rosa said, waving a dismissive hand. “Not that we condone it. What Elena calls being a free spirit we call unacceptable behavior. But we’ve known her for a long time. We went to primary school together, to celebrations with her, attended her wedding. We’ve been watching her flaunt convention all our lives. We’ll be able to clear up this anomaly of yours if you show us the photos.”

  “And we’d like to see the gun,” Serafina said.

  “The gun?” he asked. There was derision in his manner.

  “I know little about them, it is true. I mean the pistol found in the dead woman’s hand.”

  He clamped his jaw, opened the middle drawer of his desk and reached in, searching with his hand. “I warn you, the photos are not pretty, and what you call a gun is an ordinary double-barreled pocket pistol made by an American company, Derringer. It’s kept in the evidence drawer for this case along with the contents found in the reticule. They are locked in a special room.”

  “Then I’d like to see all of the evidence later, but the photos now,” Serafina said.

  Chapter 10: The Exhibit

  Carmela smelled varnish and oil as she entered the studio at 35 Boulevard des Capucines. She felt a hush in the space she couldn’t quite explain. Her skin prickled as she walked slowly around the room, surveying the paintings. There were so many. They made her smile and forget everything else. She thought of the courageous endurance of these artists. Rejected time and again by the Salon, Tessa told her, yet they continued with their work despite their poverty, often spending their money on paints and brushes rather than on nourishing food.

  For Tessa, the experience was monumental, Carmela thought. She could feel the girl’s excitement. Even Gesuzza was interested, although she didn’t say much and stayed by Tessa’s side.

  “The room explodes with color and line and movement,” Tessa said, not knowing where to look first. Her face was flushed. She ran to a painting on the far wall, then back to Carmela, grabbing her hand, the maid walking behind and trying to keep up, gesturing from one painting to another. The girl was swept up into their world, their impression of a moment, their intensity of color.

  “Should we sit and catch our breath?”

  Tessa nodded and they walked over to a bench in the middle of the room, the girl’s eyes moving slowly from one canvas to another.

  “Look at that painting. All the people by the sea, dressed in formal clothes, the men in top hats and frock coats, the women in silk dresses,” Tessa said. “I like the stripes on the tent, the colors in the sky, the clouds. I am here, but I am there with them.”

  Carmela smiled, letting Tessa have her moment.
/>   “See that woman over there? She’s not a queen or a countess or a saint. She’s ordinary, like me and she breathes. Oh, I want a dress just that color, like a thousand cornflowers crushed into the paint and worked on the canvas until it becomes her dress. I can feel the silk, touch the organdy. She’s what, eighteen or nineteen?”

  “I like her hat and parasol,” Carmela said. “And her gloves.”

  “And the glow on her face. And she stares out at me with sudden recognition as if we were dear friends and she’s just noticed me coming toward her and is about to hold out her arms in greeting, I can see it in the gesture of her body,” Tessa said. “Oh, and on the other side of the room—did you see her?—the ballerina in blue, turning her head in our direction, half wondering what we’re doing in her dance studio.”

  “A moment in time,” Carmela said. “That’s what these paintings show me. And such color. Their gestures are so natural, different from the stiffly posed works in museums.”

  They were quiet for a time, taking in the paintings.

  “Do you have a favorite?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Nor I. But I love the mother gazing down at her child in the cradle. Look at how the artist has made the netting.” There was another painting by its side, a mother and child reading by the sea, and another one, perhaps the same mother and child, walking in a field of poppies. Carmela thought she’d never seen red before she saw this painting. “By the same artist—see how they’re signed?”

  Tessa nodded. “Morisot.”

  “The T is silent. And Berthe is a woman’s name.”

  “I’ll never be able to paint like that.” Tessa heard steps approaching, a voice, and she spun around. Carmela did as well, facing the figure, a woman. She spoke in rapid French and Carmela asked her please to slow down.

  “Of course. I was saying that this work took only a few hours to create. I took long walks and made sketches. I sat in my atelier for days staring at the wall when all of a sudden, the painting came to me. But it wasn’t me creating, it was the oil and brushes that knew how to touch the canvas, that remembered the exact light of a certain day.”

  “You must be Berthe Morisot,” Carmela said.

  The woman nodded, wiping her hands on an apron splattered with paint and pinning back a wisp of hair.

  Tessa couldn’t tear her eyes from the paintings.

  “Would you like a tour?”

  “We’d love it!” Carmela said.

  “You’re not from France, I can tell.”

  Carmela nodded and told her they were from Sicily.

  “How lovely. I have an acquaintance from Oltramari, Elena Loffredo. Do you know her?”

  “She’s one of the reasons we’ve come to Paris,” Carmela said, feeling her way. It didn’t sound like Berthe Morisot knew of Elena’s death. She was tempted to say more, but remembered her mother’s advice to speak as little as possible.

  “Ah, to visit your friend, I see.”

  Carmela hesitated, searching for the right tone and hesitation and words. “To bring ... news and a request, should we run into her. She’s not my friend exactly, more of an acquaintance. And of course we came to see the exhibit. The young woman who travels with me—” she indicated Tessa who by now was standing in front of an intriguing painting of a man and woman at the opera— “has a real talent for drawing and hopes to join an atelier one day soon, either here or in Rome. And since we travel on business, she and her mother accompany us.”

  Berthe nodded, gazing at Tessa. “I see myself in her. She has the enthusiasm and a natural gift, I believe. Very few ateliers accept women, but I know of one. I can help her. Talent is in the fingers, yes, but in the will to pick up the brush, in the sustained longing to paint every day for hours, to paint rather than to be with friends. There’s the mystery—why do we do it?” She spoke to Tessa. “But, yes, I’d be happy to look at your drawings.”

  “You’re so kind. I hope we can arrange it.”

  “I’m surprised you heard of our exhibit in Sicily. But then, I don’t see why you wouldn’t. All people seem to have rallied round us.”

  Carmela nodded. “It’s been a while since I’ve conversed in French, so forgive my difficulty. My ... late lover spoke the language and taught me. But getting back to the exhibit, it didn’t get much coverage in the Sicilian papers. We struggle to survive and too many see the arts as non essential, but we have many aristocratic friends because of my mother’s work. They visit Paris all the time and are quite excited about the exhibit. They all plan a visit here this month.”

  Berthe Morisot smiled but said nothing, and Carmela feared the conversation was at an end. She groped for something to add that would engender a response; she wasn’t good with meeting strangers, especially speaking in a foreign tongue, and thought she’d run out of words. She wished her mother or Rosa were here. They were so much better at this and were able to converse with such ease, talking on and on.

  Finally she said, “Elena must be thrilled with your work.” Now why did she have to add that? It sounded so dull, so patronizing. Well, what did the world expect from her when she was surrounded by children the whole day? Carmela could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks and having such transparent skin, she thought a painter such as Berthe Morisot with her ability to capture flesh tones and facial expressions must grasp her discomfort and lack of social grace. She determined that from now on, she’d close her mouth and listen to the woman’s words.

  “Of course, she is. She may not be my favorite person. She is flighty in the extreme, almost two different people, but her enthusiasm for our work is undiminished. I saw her here the other night, when was it—of course, at the vernissage and again the next night at the opening—and her ardor was overflowing. But she’s been an admirer for years, ever since her arrival in Paris. I think she’s jealous of us. She told me she would begin to take up the brush seriously this year and would have canvases to submit for next year’s exhibit. As if thinking would make it so.”

  Carmela said nothing, nodding. She waited.

  “Do you know her well?” Berthe Morisot asked.

  “By reputation only. She is quite the personality in our little town. We are in the same class, but I could never afford to keep up with her socially. Nor would I want that kind of life. And you see, I have a child and no husband.”

  “No need to apologize, not to us.” Berthe Morisot touched Carmela’s hand. “And Elena depends on her husband for her title.”

  She felt warmed by Berthe Morisot’s acceptance. Although she was surprised at the woman’s frank appraisal of Elena, she liked her all the more for it.

  Just then, Carmela was distracted by the sound of footsteps, the arrival of someone who almost looked familiar, as if she’d seen her somewhere before, perhaps in Oltramari’s piazza or in Boffo’s Café.

  “Hah, you speak of that little strumpet, Elena,” the woman said, approaching them.

  “Not so little any more. She’s putting on the double chins. Didn’t you see her last Thursday?” Berthe Morisot double kissed the newcomer and made introductions. “Carmela, this is a dear friend of mine, Victorine Meurent, a fellow painter who exhibits at the Paris Salon, the same one that rejected most of the artists who exhibit here. At times she’s quite the actress.”

  “I model from time to time, that’s what Berthe means to say,” Victorine said. “Unlike some women whose names I won’t mention, I pose for money and work for many painters. One in particular has his nose in the air but has a healthy purse.”

  Berthe smiled at Carmela. “She means Édouard Manet. You are familiar with his work?”

  “Of course,” Carmela lied. She was mortified for being so out of touch, and felt her latest untruth as a hot blush. She must concentrate and focus and contribute something to this conversation. She would not be written off, not yet.

  Berthe continued. “Victorine poses for him all the time. As for me, Édouard’s a friend, and I posed for him a few times—not nude of course—I am
too much of a bourgeoisie for that. I modeled for him a few times only because he asked me to.”

  “How can you defend him?” Victorine asked. “He refused to submit a painting for your exhibit. He’s saying his works are too good for you. And as for posing for him, you didn’t have to, you know. You could have said no when he asked. After all, Elena refused.” Victorine paused. “I am not at all like Berthe. I’ll take my clothes off if the price is right.”

  Berthe spoke up. “Elena is an aristocrat who doesn’t need money and doesn’t care what other people think of her. More to the point, she doesn’t know what she wants. Here today, gone tomorrow. She runs hot and cold and truth to tell, she’s no one’s muse.”

  Victorine adjusted her choker. “I beg to differ. She knows exactly what she wants, accolades from an adoring multitude. She’d model at the drop of a hat, preferably in the nude and in the most undignified pose she could imagine if she thought it would garner attention.”

  Berthe shook her head. “Lately, she’s becoming more and more ... outré. Drops her lovers in a flash. The other day I saw her in the Place St. Sulpice, a crowd gathered round. She was sitting on the stones having a tantrum. I hugged my cape and looked the other way, I tell you. She’s an embarrassment.”

  Carmela said nothing, willing the muscles in her face to remain still.

  “But in the end, who am I to judge? She’s not so bad, really. Harmless, a cipher,” Victorine said. “Except that her latest whim is painting. She wants to be a part of your movement and fancies herself as talented, although sometimes I think talent is beside the point.”

  “I suppose you condone the way she treats her husband?” Berthe asked.

  “What does it matter?”

  Berthe wiped her hands on her apron. “He’s a wonderful man. I’d go for him in a heartbeat.”

  “That’s because you’re looking for a husband.”

  “That’s preposterous. Marriage would be the death of my career.” Berthe paused for a moment. “Elena uses her husband. He’s the one with the title. But that has nothing to do with me. I think he’s a gentleman, kind and gracious, a bit shy and although he dresses well, he recedes into oblivion in the face of her outrageous behavior. Her most recent escapade? She flaunts her condition, boasting that she is with child and is not at all sure who the father is. Believe it, she made that remark in front of her latest beau, a scholar twice her age and renowned for his conventional thinking.”