Free Murder in Passy by Cara Black

And they hadn’t stopped.
    “Me, I have an appetite for life,” he said. “Zest. You young people don’t have it.”
    He spread his muscular arms as if invoking the weak sun. Hot-blooded, he didn’t seem to mind the cold in his short-sleeved shirt. She rubbed the goose bumps on her arms, wishing she had worn another layer.
    “Blame it on my little nonna ,” he said, waxing poetic. “My grandmother raised ten children, then grandchildren. Never sick a day in her life. Every year butchered the pig, made blood sausage, salted the pork, took over sheepherding when my father lost his sight to Franco’s fascists.”
    He was wound up now, his eyes alive. “Until I grew tall enough to climb over the pasture fences to guide the herd away from the cliffs. That gave me an eye for color, how things fit together, the economy of line in nature, nothing superfluous. The natural design, integrating use and design, utility and nature.”
    An articulate showman: he hit all the right notes, she imagined, for his clients. But she wasn’t one.
    “A room needs a painting and a view,” he said. “That’s all. Like our farmhouse.”
    Well-rehearsed in an earthy, Picasso-esque manner with a weather-beaten face to lend credibility. No wonder it brought him commissions. But he was hiding something.
    “I’m French Basque, but you French complicate design with froufrou, rococo. Let the natural lines highlight the inner form, the beauty.”
    Forget the art lecture, she wanted to say. She wasn’t in a classroom or about to write a check. And then it hit her: he was giving this speech to stall for time, or to avoid revealing his past connection with Xavierre.
    “Monsieur Agustino, if you could listen for a moment—”
    “ Non, you must listen. Understand. It’s life, how I breathe, my heritage that makes me—”
    “Involved with ETA again?” she interrupted.
    He shoved the card back into her hand. Glancing down, she noticed the stubbed flesh where his last two fingers would have been. Amazing that he could still paint masterpieces.
    “Watch what you’re saying.” His voice lowered. “In the old prisons, I went back and carved memorials in the dripping walls, memorials to the fallen,” he said. “To both sides—the Guardia Civil, ETA. My soul hurt, still does. For years my work has celebrated the Basque spirit, reconciliation, not violence.”
    His eyes bore into her. “How do you think I lost these?” He lifted his claw-like hand. “Xavierre knows … knew that.”
    Aimée nodded. “I saw your paintings. Breathing life, speaking to me.”
    “Then you know art touches more minds and spirits than bombs.” His arm trembled. His showman side evaporated. “My heart mourns Xavierre. On the phone with her last night, all I could talk about was my commission. How I needed to paint. Our last words. Well, she said I was too caught up in my art like usual. I’ll regret it all my life.”
    Guilt. But over that?
    “But didn’t you sense her fear? Did she tell you something?”
    “Apart from how selfish I’ve become?” Agustino gave a small shrug. “The family, this big wedding, the home, it’s a religion with Basques. Coward that I am, I can’t face Irati now, or any of them.”
    “Who would murder her, Agustino?”
    He made a sign of the cross. “God knows. But I broke our pact,” he said. “You see, I failed her in the most important thing to her.”
    “What pact?”
    “Made years ago. To be there for each other. I couldn’t even do a simple thing, attend her party. And I’d promised to come.” He looked away.
    “Then this pact’s deep, non ?” she said, trying a guess. “What about the others from your student days in Bayonne? The protestors?”
    He turned, his shoulders slumped. But he hadn’t answered her question.
    “Haven’t you maintained the bonds you made with them?” she said. “Like with Xavierre.”
    “Time takes people away.”
    “Not the past,” she said. “What if the past connects to