“You’re saying this lover Pascal, a non-Gypsy, is the father?”
She shifted in her seat. Rubbed the instep of her bare foot. “I’m saying nothing.”
“Bien s?r, but it’s possible …”
“Possible. But I didn’t say that.”
“So in your culture it’s better for a child to be illegitimate than a gadjo?” René’s thoughts sped, jumped ahead. “A way to protect family honor while the husband’s in prison. That it? Then the family take it into their hands to kill her—an honor killing?”
She growled. “There haven’t been honor killings for centuries, mon petit. We’re not primitive. Time’s up.”
“I’m paid up for one more minute, Madame Rana.”
She sighed. “What does all this matter now?”
Aimée thought it mattered.
“Let’s just say this twenty-year-old crime might be linked to Drina’s disappearance last night. Tell me more.”
Madame Rana checked her watch. “My cousin’s wife wants a rice cooker, one of those Japanese ones—you flip a switch et voilà, perfect rice.”
“So you’re saying that’s extra?”
“You’re a mind reader, mon petit.”
René pulled out his checkbook, hoping it was worth it. They settled on a price. He took out his pen.
“What happened later?”
“The lover’s long dead,” she said.
Easy to say. “I need more than that. You mean Pascal?”
“My second cousin’s mother-in-law, passed on now, told my cousin that after Djanka’s murder the sister and the boy hit the road. Went out of reach.”
“Djanka’s murder sent them into hiding? Why?”
Madame Rana shrugged. “Facing a bad wind makes a wise one turn back, mon petit.”
More Gypsy sayings.
“You’re sure the child’s father—the lover, Pascal—is dead?”
“Long departed. That’s all I know.” All of a sudden her eyes fluttered then rolled up into her head so he could see the whites. A feather fell off the wall and floated in the air. Like a sign, René thought, not that he bought the woman’s act.
“Mon petit, your business looks bright tomorrow. Good fortune. And I see a baby in danger.”
“Chloé?” René tensed, then remembered that this was all fake. He seethed at this woman trying to take advantage of him.
“The gadjo tries to tie up a loose end.”
He leaned forward in spite of himself. “What loose end?” When she didn’t reply, he said, “Drina Constantin? Is she the loose end?”
“Drina’s impatient for her journey. To join her boy.”
Tingles ran up René’s neck.
A knock sounded on the door.
“Time’s up.”
Monday Evening
ROSE UZES’S VOICE mail recording instructed Aimée to leave a callback number. Frustrated, she did. As she checked her own phone for messages afterward, she heard the receptionist call the doctor by name. There he was. Dr. Estienne. She reached for the clipboard to go back in and try to catch him.
“Has that hemodialysis adapter arrived?” she heard Dr. Estienne ask as he passed through reception.
Her antenna up, she paused in the doorway.
“Check on why the delay … the patient needs …”
Aimée couldn’t hear the rest.
Doctor Estienne was hurrying toward the next corridor. “I’m late.”
The receptionist called out, “You’ve got an eight forty-five P.M. walk-in after your meeting, Doctor.”
But Dr. Estienne had disappeared through the swing doors.
If it itches, scratch it, her father used to say. Madame Uzes’s phrase “it doesn’t make sense” rang in her head. If he was doing hemodialysis work here, why wouldn’t Dr. Estienne treat Drina at this private clinic, especially since the foundation would pay the supplemental fees? Drina hated hospitals, she’d said.
In the darkness she headed over the gravel path bordering the lawn that faced Dr. Estienne’s clinic. She paused before she reached the flower beds and peered through the lit windows. Four of the patient rooms she surveyed contained older men in wheelchairs eating their dinners from trays.
Halfway down the garden stood an old stone pigeonnier fashioned into a shrine with a statue of Saint Jean. Beside the last window she found the loosely replanted peonies where the corporal had dug his trench. Her eye caught on a glint in the clumps of dirt. A coin?
She took out her penlight, shone it. Something that looked like a small disk with a metal band around it caught the light. Did the corporal keep treasures, like a child, in his trenches?
Her curiosity piqued, she picked it up: a tiny wheel carved in wood. She felt her heart contract. She dug through the fresh clumps, getting dirt under her fingernails. And then she felt it, pulled it out with a slow, careful motion.
A small wooden wagon, one wheel broken off. One of the wooden Gypsy wagons Nicu had carved for Drina.
Drina had been here. Maybe she still was. That meant Doctor Estienne had been lying. Who else? Doctor Estienne’s colleagues from H?pital Laennec? Madame Uzes?
Her phone rang—Morbier. He could wait. She silenced the call. Time to scratch that itch. Aimée had to follow her gut. And not get caught by the staff.
From the jasmine-trellised gravel walkway, a ramp led to the rear of the white-walled wing. The corridor was narrow, with small rooms for patients off both sides. Antiseptic-smelling and basic—unlike the great-uncle’s room. The ventilation system thrummed. She padded past open doors on both sides—most of the beds were empty; one contained an old man on a respirator—then a larger common room on the right occupied by old people nodding off in wheelchairs, where a muted télé was playing the news.