That gave Aimée an idea. “Mais non, I’m the health program liaison. I’d like to ask you—”
“Where’s your badge?” Madame Uzes interrupted. “How did you just walk in here?”
Aimée quickly rummaged among her alias cards. Found what she was looking for. “I’m Marie from H?pital Laennec,” she said, handing her the card she’d taken off the office bulletin board.
“Don’t start on this again. I told Doctor Estienne Great-Uncle’s doing well here.”
Doctor Estienne? A coincidence? But Aimée was distracted by the old man thumping his gnarled fist on the table. “Retreat, I tell you. We must reach safety before the mustard gas!” the corporal shouted.
To Aimée’s horror, he tugged his chin, which slipped off, revealing the lower half of what had been his face, now a deep cavity of rippled pink skin with a hole for a mouth. From beside the chair, he pulled a khaki green gas mask, which he then fitted over his disfigured visage.
One of les gueules cassées, the broken faces, maimed in the Great War. They had been a fixture of her childhood growing up—every quartier had them, although there weren’t many left anymore.
“The mustard gas, ma petite, let’s go,” he said, motioning to her.
Sad. Her mind went back to the old Loterie Nationale tickets her grandmother had bought to support the rehabilitation of les gueules cassées in the old chateaux formerly requisitioned as field hospitals. A few were kept to house remaining severely disfigured soldiers, providing the grotesque a refuge from the public. Many of the generation who’d lost their youth, ideals and faces preferred to live among their own kind. Others wore masks to avoid horrifying children.
“Get the supply wagon, the one with wheels,” he said. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“After your dinner, Great-Uncle,” Madame Uzes said, matter-of-factly. “You know how you like the way the nurse cuts up your steak-frites.”
Dinner served this late in a hospital? Or was it part of his special treatment?
“I don’t want my soupe à l’oignon cold again,” he said petulantly. “They always forget.”
“We’ll warm it up, Great-Uncle,” she said.
A nurse appeared at the door, clucked. “Having one of those evenings, Corporal? Let’s go to the garden before we try dinner again.”
And as quickly as he’d appeared, the gnome scuttled out wearing his gas mask.
“Madame, this doesn’t concern your great-uncle,” said Aimée.
“Good. I’m not moving him.” Madame Uzes, tall like her aunt, wore Chanel pumps and a beige cashmere sweater set. She sat down and glanced at her diary, seeming preoccupied. “If that’s all, Mademoiselle?”
Great—the woman she’d lied to in order to see wanted to dismiss her. Well, that wasn’t going to work. Aimée sat down in the adjoining chair.
“The priest at Saint-Fran?ois-Xavier told me you’re in charge of Christian Helping Hands and you employ les manouches.”
“Et alors?”
“I need Drina Constantin’s address, contacts, any information you have that will help me reach her family members.”
Madame Uzes looked up from her agenda. “Talk to her son, Nicu.”
Aimée hesitated. “You don’t know? He’s dead.”
Madame Uzes blinked. “What do you mean?” She snapped her diary shut. “But I saw them both a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”
“Knew?” Shock showed on her face. “When? What happened?”
Aimée’s knees trembled. “Murdered this morning, the police have the details.”
Madame Uzes dropped her diary. “That’s terrible.”
Aimée swooped it up and handed it to her. “But you can help, non? There’s no time to waste.”
“Help? But how?” Madame Uzes shook her head. “A Gypsy killing? Some vendetta, you mean. I can’t believe I let that young man into our home.”
Great.
“You misunderstand, Madame,” said Aimée. “Drina was in her last days; she had been put on hemodialysis at H?pital Laennec. Last night, someone unplugged her from the machines and abducted her. Nicu was trying to find her.”
“Drina disappeared?” Madame Uzes gasped. “But I don’t understand.”
“Every hour she’s missing brings her closer to death. Any information you have will help. Can you tell me how you used to contact her?”
Madame Uzes thumbed open her diary. “That’s the only address I have, a workshop near the La Motte-Picquet–Grenelle Métro stop.”
The atelier on Passage Sécurité.
Back to zero. She’d thought she might find something more here. But she had to give it another shot.
“Tell me about the last time you saw Drina and Nicu,” she said.
Madame Uzes thought. “Nicu delivered the kneelers, furniture Drina had repaired.”
“Did they have a helper, anyone else with them?”
“How would I know?” she said, bristling. “Désolée, I don’t mean to be unkind. I just spoke with Drina for a minute. My older daughter showed Nicu where to put the furniture.”
The one who had the hots for him. Rose. The one who argued with her mother.
“To tell you the truth, I didn’t notice much, I’m sorry,” said Madame Uzes.
Only the hired help, Aimée thought. Gypsies.
Madame Uzes had the grace to look ashamed. “We try to bridge the differences,” she said. “Spread Christian fellowship and encourage those like Drina to join a cooperative.”
“I need to know every detail. What’s your daughter’s number?”
“Why? This has got nothing to do with her.”
Au contraire, according to her little sister Lisette.
“Better I talk to her than the flics, don’t you think, Madame? This is a murder investigation now.”
She wrote it down with a quick nod. A different number from the one Lisette had given her. “Rose attends l’Institut d’études Politiques de Paris.”
The prestigious grande école nicknamed Sciences Po, in the 7th. Aimée stuck the info in her pocket.
“Please try to think back to when you last saw Drina. It’s important, Madame.”