One of the tall, dark-green double doors yielded to her touch. She found herself in a covered porte cochère with a directory listing the names of priests and one monsignor. No listing of Constantin.
She strode over the moss-veined cobbled courtyard to look for the concierge. There was only an office of the nearby Lycée Victor Duruy Christian youth association with a FERMé sign in the window. Frustrated, she turned to leave. Just then, she heard a scraping noise from behind what she had assumed was a wall covered in thick wisteria. Looking more closely, she realized it was a fence, and from behind it was coming the scratching of dirt accompanied by a grunt.
“Il y a quelqu’un?” She entered a gate and followed the gravel path into a garden the likes of which were not often seen in Paris. Stone walls splotched with white and yellow lichen enclosed a profusion of budding plants, red-button flowers, a weeping willow, trellised vines.
“Dump that in the compost pile.” A man’s voice.
A man with a white-collared black shirt that looked like a priest’s, tucked into Levi’s, poked his head up from a bed of large, yellow-petalled daisies. Perspiration beaded his flushed face.
“Excusez-moi, Monsieur le curé, but a woman named Drina Constantin listed this as her address.”
He shook his head. “Just us black frocks here at the rectory.”
Rectory? Drina had given a false address. A dead end.
An enticing minty floral scent filled her nose. She’d love to have a garden like this for Chloé to play in. Dream on. But there still might be a clue here, something to point her toward the next place. “Perhaps she worked for you. Does that name ring a bell?”
“Constantin? No one here by that name.”
No need to complicate the story she told to the priest. “It’s vital that I find someone who might know her—and she did give this address, after all. Can I talk to your concierge, the staff?”
“Madame Olivera’s in Portugal. She does everything; we’re a bit lost without her.”
Bees buzzed in the hedge; a butterfly alighted on a budding jasmine vine.
She racked her brains for anything that could link Drina to a rectory. With so few leads, she couldn’t afford to miss a single thing. Then Nicu’s uncle’s words came to her: “ ‘Another one of your Christian do-gooders, eh Nicu?’ ”
“Does Saint-Fran?ois-Xavier do charity work?” she asked, clutching at a straw. “Sponsor programs for the needy? Maybe that’s the connection.”
“Hmm, our Christian society volunteers with upkeep of the church,” he said. “They started this garden—quite something, all plants with the theme of our Lord.” He put down the hoe and pointed with pride. “Those silver seedpods under the flowering purple look like coins, which is why the plant is called ‘the pope’s money,’ monnaie du pape.” He grinned. “Those red cascade spindle trees over there we call bonnets de prêtre, ‘priest’s caps’—the branches provide charcoal for drawing. And of course there are the bonnet daisies, these paquerettes, for our Easter altar.”
Fascinating, but she didn’t have time for the religious meanings of flowers. This Père had tried to be helpful, but he hadn’t given her anything yet, and she could tell he wanted to get back to the garden.
“How about any outreach to Gypsies, les manouches?”
He picked up his hoe. “Mais oui, we work with the Christian Helping Hands program. Through them, we hire les manouches to re-cane our prie-Dieu prayer kneelers, repair the rattan chairs. We’ve got a church full of old things, you know. Even a mural of the Tintoretto school.”
Finally. Her persistence had paid off.
“How can I contact these manouches, Father?”
He grinned, wiped his perspiring face. “I’m just the gardener today.” He lifted a pile of weeds into the wheelbarrow. “Madame Uzes runs that Christian Helping Hands program. She’ll know.” The priest fished a card from his wallet. “Here’s her number. She handles manouche programs. Talk to her.”
Walking back toward her scooter, she dialed the number for Madame Uzes, only to hear it ring and ring. Didn’t the woman have voice mail? As she was about to hang up, a recording came on and she left a message.
On top of everything else she found a traffic citation stuck to her speedometer dial. Merde! She hadn’t noticed the stenciled white letters CCDM, designating a ministry parking spot. Fuming, she stuck the ticket in the seat compartment with all the others.
Two nuns crossed the street in front of her, their blue habits flying as they hunched against the wind. Aimée released her scooter brake and took off, veering right. The sun fought through the clouds, scattering patches of light over the gold dome of Napoléon’s tomb at les Invalides.
Sun and clouds, bright and dark, like the feelings warring inside her. Every few minutes she checked her rearview mirror for a van, worried that it was following her now. That she’d been seen. Nothing. Think, she needed to think this through. Told herself anyone doing a hit on Nicu would be long gone.
At the stoplight she reached for the Moleskine in her bag and came back with a tiny white onesie. She thought of Chloé’s mushroom nose, how it crinkled when she laughed. A twinge of guilt hit her, so sharp it twisted her stomach. She didn’t want the dark side of life anymore; she was done, really done, with criminal investigation. Yet her father’s promise bound her—and now, so did Nicu’s murder.
One thing at a time. Prioritize.
Her phone rang. Babette’s number. Panic flooded her—an accident in the high chair, or had Chloé’s sneeze turned into pneumonia because that window had been left open last night?
Calm down. “Oui, Babette?”
“Morning nap time, just turning off my phone and letting you know,” said Babette. “New mothers get anxious. If you can’t get through, it’s because the girls are napping, d’accord?”
Aimée felt sheepish. “Thank you for calling, Babette.” Aimée could hear the tension in her own voice.
“First-day-back jitters, eh?” said Babette.
Little did Babette know.