“Why not? I’m just going downstairs to sleep at my cousin’s.” Lisette made a face.
As she followed the girl down the hallway, Aimée asked, “Do you remember your mother mentioning someone named Drina?”
“My mother, oui. But it’s my big sister Rose who thinks Nicu is hot,” she added with a wide smile. “Rose is weird,” Lisette said. “Nicu would never be into her. He’s from a different world.”
Aimée stopped in her tracks near the bathroom. Nicu’s face, his blood on her hands, came back to her. “Did … does Nicu come here often?”
Lisette shrugged. “Nicu delivered some church kneelers a few days ago,” she said. “When he left, my mother and sister had a big argument. I didn’t hear it all.”
Aimée’s high heels creaked on the worn parquet floorboards. “Is Rose … does your sister have a relationship with Nicu?” Aimée’s heart ached. Was someone going to have to break the news to a teenage girl that her forbidden boyfriend had been killed?
“It’s never going to go anywhere between her and Nicu,” Lisette confided. “The Gypsies keep to themselves, my mother says. She says Rose should just give up on it already.” Lisette opened the creaking door to another hallway. Chill and unheated. “I hate living here.” Lisette’s voice rose, petulant. “We have to, Maman says. It’s the economy.”
No doubt the Uzes family, like others in this tony quartier, held on with a desperate grip to the big family apartment, worn around the edges; most of its value would be eaten up in inheritance taxes if they tried to sell.
“I think the economy’s stupid.” Lisette’s small eyes challenged her. “Do you?”
Aimée needed to steer this opinionated trainee grown-up in ankle socks back to her mother and sister’s argument. “Can you tell me anything else about Rose and Nicu? Or what your mother and sister argued about? I bet you heard a lot.”
Lisette’s eyes gleamed. “And if I did? What’s it to you if Nicu wanted to go out with Rose after church?” Lisette paused at the bathroom door.
“You’re smart, I can tell. Mature for your age. You understand a lot,” she said, hoping to make the girl feel important. “Even your mother’s relationship with Nicu and Drina.” Aimée paused. “Did you know that Drina’s in trouble?”
Lisette’s eyes widened. “Trouble? Like arrested?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Maman thinks Gypsies steal, even if she pretends she trusts them,” Lisette said. “Is that why you’re here?”
“Lisette. Drina’s been a victim of a crime. I can’t say any more. I’m sworn to secrecy.”
Lisette’s mouth gaped open.
“Can you tell me anything about what your mother and Drina talk about?”
“But they only talk about boring things, church stuff. Maman keeps the records of the manouches who work with the church.”
Alert, Aimée nodded. “Bet your mother has the information on her computer.”
“Computer?” Lisette scoffed. “Maman’s old-fashioned; she writes everything down.”
Even better. Aimée smiled. “Does she have an office? Maybe Drina’s information is in there. Why don’t you show me? Then I wouldn’t have to bother her or your great-aunt.”
“Lisette!” Madame Uzes called out. “We’re leaving, you’ll have to go downstairs now.”
Even with an old-fashioned name and outfit, there was nothing old-fashioned about the way Lisette winked at her. “If I help you, will I get a ride on your scooter?”
Aimée nodded. “And we’ll keep this between ourselves, oui?”
“Tantine, the lady’s still in the toilettes,” shouted Lisette, pointing Aimée toward the next high-ceilinged room and mouthing, “Desk drawer.” “I need to use it, too. Don’t wait, I’ll go to my cousin’s in a minute.”
The front door shut.
In the office sat an eight-legged Mazarin desk with two tiers of drawers, an antique in need of varnishing. Lisette, who had followed Aimée in, opened the drawers and showed Aimée bank records, rubber bands, insurance statements—a wealth of information, everything but a Christian Helping Hands file.
On top of the desk lay the stub from a medical-bill, next to it, a vase of daffodils.
No personal planner. No address book. No diary.
“Can you remember where your mother might have put it?”
“Guess she took it with her,” said Lisette.
Aimée’s eye caught on the name on the medical bill; stub: Clinique Saint-Jean de Dieu. A small private Catholic hospital and clinic in the area. At one time the 7th arrondissement had more churches than hospitals; now she figured it went the other way. “Was she going to a doctor’s appointment?”
“No, why?” Lisette said, peering at the bill. “Oh, that’s for my great-uncle. He’s at that hospital. He’s on a special diet, so she has to pay extra.”
On the stub, today’s date was circled, and someone had written a check number in the corner. Aimée leaned forward and touched an ink blot on the blotter; a black smudge came back on her thumb. Not quite dry. “Does your mother go to drop checks off at the clinique in person? Like, could she be there now?”
Lisette shrugged.
“Don’t you want to wear my new scooter helmet tonight on our ride?” said Aimée.
“Bien s?r.” Lisette grinned.
AFTER FIVE MINUTES of driving up and down the tiny dead-end street on Aimée’s scooter, Lisette went up to her cousin’s. Time was running out, and she had to act fast and get all the details right. She’d wangled a phone number for Rose out of Lisette, but was disheartened when it turned out to be the number for a phone at a student café; the young woman who answered said, “Not here,” and hung up. She called René again. Only voice mail. Frustrated, she left a message.