Free Murder in Passy by Cara Black Page A

Xavierre’s murder?”
    “All those people went to prison.” A sigh frosted the air. “Like my brother.”
    “Look, I tried to talk to Xavierre last night,” she said. “To find out if something was wrong. My turn to feel guilt. I couldn’t even do that.”
    “You take your job to heart, Mademoiselle. I respect that.”
    “Not a job,” she said. “A promise I made. A deep debt I owe to a person close to me.”
    If none of her other words got through to him, she sensed these would.
    “You see, Agustino,” she said, “I’ve already made one mistake. If I’d known the trouble Xavierre was in.… ”
    “Giving one’s word.… ” He spoke as if to himself, shaking his head. “But what if you gave it long ago and now it goes against everything you know is right, that you believe in?”
    And she thought she understood. “Ask yourself this. Haven’t hundreds of innocent people been killed in ETA actions? As you asked me yourself, will killing more people help the Basque movement?”
    A flicker of his eyelid.
    She pursued it. “There’s ways to keep your word and yet help me without saying a thing.”
    Agustino stood dead still. A long moment passed. Then a little shake of his head.
    He closed the door to his atelier. One light went on, a dim glow in the dark valley of green. Only afternoon sounds, the soft cooing of pigeons, a siren’s distant wail, could be heard. Not only was he a sad man scarred by regrets, but he was also hiding something. She slipped her card back under the door.
    * * *
     
    R UBBING HER COLD hands together, Aimée shivered in the allée overhung with chestnut trees near Xavierre’s high wall. She turned the corner. Xavierre’s neighbor’s window provided a view of the back garden and the driveway. This woman, Madame de Boucher—a busybody, according to the concierge—had been born in the building, had lived here eighty years. Aimée mounted the building staircase hoping for a font of information.
    “My neighbor’s comings and goings?” Madame de Boucher leaned on her ebony walking stick and gave a dismissive wave with her other blue-veined hand. “Ask the concierge.”
    “But I did, Madame, and she suggested I speak with you.” Aimée gave a wide smile and flashed her PI license with the less-than-flattering photo. In the background she heard high-pitched singing and recognized “Leaves of Autumn,” based on the Verlaine poem.
    “I spoke to the flics already,” the old woman said. “Told them like I’m telling you, I saw nothing, heard nothing. C’est tout. ”
    Aimée groaned inside. After Agustino, for the past two hours she’d questioned the lane’s inhabitants: a retired professor, a musician, several cleaning women and maids, all of whom had said the same thing. People either hadn’t been home last night or had drawn their shades. She’d hit another wall.
    “A shame, Madame.” Arms weary, she set her bag down. “The family’s devastated that they can’t even hold a service, but I thought—”
    “Is that for me?” interrupted Madame de Boucher, staring at the gâteau Basque on top, which was emanating a fragrance of cherries.
    Aimée saw a way in the door. “Of course, but let me heat it up. Seeing as you’ve got a.… ” She paused. Was it a recital? Singing lessons? “There’s plenty for your guest.”
    “Guest?” Then a look of understanding on the old woman’s face, crinkling in a web of fine lines. “You mean Hector? I’m busy cleaning, Mademoiselle.”
    At her age? And in this quartier resplendent with hired help?
    “Come back tomorrow, Mademoiselle.”
    She had to get inside in the door.
    “But I can help and warm this for you in the kitchen.”
    “ Comme ça? In that outfit?”
    So her standby funeral suit, a flea-market-find black wool Givenchy, would go to the dry cleaners. “No problem, Madame.”
    Madame de Boucher tapped her stick on the newspapers piled on the threadbare hall carpet runner. Another wave of her hand. “Into