A middle-aged man had just emerged from the apartments, and the door was swinging shut behind him. “Monsieur, monsieur, s’il vous pla?t,” Miranda called. The man looked our way, and—seeing an attractive young woman struggling with an armful of packages and a faceful of smile—he caught the door and held it. Miranda sashayed inside with a “Merci beaucoup,” trailing feminine mystique and me in her wake.
We tucked our shopping bags behind a potted palm tree in a corner of the lobby and called the elevator. When we got off on Stefan’s floor, Miranda turned right. Walking slowly, she studied the doors on the far side of the hallway—the side facing the palace. She hesitated in front of a door marked 407, then moved on.
“Don’t you remember which one is his?”
“Sshh.”
“Wasn’t his balcony the third from the end?”
“SSHH!” She sounded scarily like the German woman in Turin Cathedral.
Three doors from the end, at 405, she stopped and nodded, pointing at a small, half-peeled decal on the door. With the knuckle of her index finger, she rapped three times, then pressed her ear to the wood and listened. Wordlessly she shook her head. She knocked again, louder this time, and once more she listened. Nothing. She reached for the knob and slowly, slowly tried it. To my surprise, the door opened and we stepped inside.
The apartment was a mess: dirty dishes in the sink and on the kitchen counters, clothes everywhere, mail and stacks of papers strewn on every horizontal surface that wasn’t occupied by dishes. My first thought was that the place had been ransacked, but my second thought—considering that ransackers don’t tend to smear food on plates and silverware—was that Stefan was a terrible slob. “Not exactly a neat freak,” I observed. “Was it like this the night you were here?”
“No, it was neater than this.” Miranda surveyed the carnage in the kitchen. “I think that plate there—the one with the dried hummus and moldy pita bread?—I think that was mine. And I’m pretty sure that’s my wineglass; it has my lipstick on it.”
I refrained—barely—from asking, Since when do you wear lipstick?
It was in the bedroom that my mental pendulum swung back to my first thought. Having lived alone for years now, I knew what bachelor clutter looked like: dirty clothes strewn on the floor; clean clothes piled on the dresser and bed. Mostly I kept a handle on my housekeeping, though occasionally the clutter got out of hand. But Stefan’s bedroom was beyond cluttered; Stefan’s bedroom was a study in chaos. All the drawers of the dresser hung open, empty or nearly so; shoes, sweaters, even spare linens had been pulled from the closet floor and shelf; the overstuffed armchair in one corner of the room lay on its side, the fabric lining on its underside in tatters. “Somebody’s been here looking for something,” I said, feeling a chill run up my spine.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, boss,” Miranda murmured.
“Call Stefan’s phone again.”
“I’ve already called a dozen times. I called just before we went in the shoe store.”
“I know, but we weren’t in here when you did. I’m sure he’s not going to answer. I want to know if his phone’s in here.”
“Ah. Good idea.” She hit the redial button, and through her speaker, I heard his phone beginning to ring. Unless the ringer was off or the battery was dead, his phone wasn’t here.
After five or six rings, I expected to hear a voice mail coming faintly through the speaker. What I heard instead electrified me. There was a click, then silence: The call had been accepted, but whoever took it didn’t speak. Miranda’s eyes, big as saucers, met mine. “Hello?” she said. “Stefan?” No response. “Who is this?” she demanded. “Where is Stefan?” There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and then a click, and the screen flashed the message Call ended.
“TAKE A RIGHT HERE,” I SAID. “I THINK IT’S IN THIS BLOCK.”
“Where are we going, and why?” Miranda was edgy, and I didn’t blame her.
“A few nights ago—it was the night before we went to Turin—I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a walk. It was late, around midnight. I bumped into Stefan. He was coming out of the palace.”
“At midnight?”
“Yeah. We walked around for, I don’t know, half an hour or so.” Just ahead, on the left, I spotted the passageway leading from the Rue Saint-Agricol. “He brought me here.” I led her through the corridor and into the courtyard. “This used to be the chapel of the Knights Templar. Stefan had a key—funny, Stefan seems to have keys to everything—and he took me inside. He was kinda dragging his heels when we left.” Suddenly I remembered. “When I left. I walked away, but he didn’t—he hung around here, and I wondered if maybe he was waiting for somebody else to show up. He acted anxious to get rid of me, you know? And he stayed behind after he shooed me away.”
“Jesus, why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“The truth?”
“Please.”