French Twist Read online

  “Moi aussi. Me too, but, I am sad to report that the only other thing the postmortem examination showed in her blood was a high amount of sugar and a certain amount of a medication named…”

  Here I pause and refer to my iPad for the name. “Dulcolax. It is a stool softener.”

  “I know what Dulcolax is,” she says.

  “Ah, so the hardened stool is a problem that you suffer from, K. Burke?”

  “I’m not going to say it again, Moncrief. Don’t start!”

  Chapter 8

  I am, of course, laughing at my little joke. And I believe that she, too, is suppressing a smile.

  “Okay,” I say, almost ready to rub my hands together with enthusiasm, “Now for the big insight. Turn on your computer. I have something more to show you. Something important.”

  Burke quickly boots up the desktop and enters a code. She turns away from the beeping computer sounds as if they are making her head hurt.

  “Okay, the computer’s ready. I’m ready. What’s up?” she says.

  “Here’s what’s up!” I say, and in my enthusiasm begin very quickly calling up some pages on the screen.

  “Alors,” I shout. “Look at this.”

  She studies the screen for a few moments and then eyes me suspiciously.

  “It’s photographs of the three dead women,” Burke says. She gives a short shrug. “So what? We have photos of…lemme see if I remember right…this is the redhead from Bergdorf, Tessa Fulbright. This one is the blonde who died in the restaurant. The 21 Club.”

  I interrupt. “No, not 21 Club, but there is a number in the restaurant name—Eleven Madison Park.”

  “Her name is Jenna Lee Austin. She’s the actress. The understudy. Married to the hedge funder.”

  “C’est magnifique. Now. The final Jeopardy! answer is…?”

  Katherine Burke does not hesitate. She taps the screen photo of the third victim.

  “Mara Monahan. Shoe department, Saks Fifth Avenue.”

  “You go home with a million dollars!” I yell.

  “Great,” she says. “I’ll just add it to the four thousand bucks from yesterday.”

  “And now I will show you something else,” I say.

  I quickly tap a few keys on Burke’s computer. “See?”

  Under the photo of each dead woman appears a photo of a different man. Beneath Tessa’s photo is a strapping young blond lifeguard type. Under Mara’s is one of those nerdy-handsome guys, the black eyeglass frames, the slightly startled smile. Under Jenna’s photo is the “older gentleman,” who looks amazingly like the former French Minister of Agriculture (but is not).

  “Who are these guys? Their husbands?” K. Burke asks.

  “A good guess,” I say. “Mais non.”

  “Do I get a second chance?” she asks.

  And then she knows.

  “They’re the boyfriends, aren’t they?”

  “Precisely,” I say.

  “How’d you figure it out, Moncrief? Instinct?”

  “No, no, K. Burke. Not at all.”

  “Then how’d you find them?”

  “On Facebook, of course.”

  Chapter 9

  When Katherine Burke and I go to work we really go to work.

  On the sixth floor of Saks Fifth Avenue, where a simple pair of Louboutin heels can cost more than the monthly rent on a Sutton Place one-bedroom, we ignore the exquisite merchandise (and I ignore the smooth, sexy curves of the customers’ legs).

  “If you could just take us through the movements that Mrs. Monahan made as you remember them,” Burke says to Cory Lawrence, the department manager. Young Cory looks as if he’d be right at home on a prep school tennis team or a Southampton polo club.

  “Well, as I understand it from the store representative helping her…”

  Burke interrupts, “That store representative is the same thing as a salesman?”

  “That’s right,” Cory Lawrence says. He is not unpleasant, but his voice does have a touch of you’re obviously unfamiliar with the ways of fancy stores.

  “Okay, if you could walk us through it,” I say.

  Cory Lawrence speaks softly. He says that he would like to do this as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, so as not to annoy the “clients.” “Clients” is apparently the new word for “customers.”

  “Okay, Mrs. Monahan tried on some shoes, made her choices, and then she slipped back into her Tory Burch sandals. I escorted her to the sales counter. Because she’s a frequent, valued customer she has access to our exclusive app, available only to customers who spend a hundred thousand a year with us, where she can just pay with a tap of her phone. And that was it.”

  “Did she say anything? Did you have any sense that she wasn’t feeling well?” Burke asks.

  “No, not at all. She said something when the phones tapped, like ‘Oh, this is like a little kiss.’ Then I noticed that she stopped smiling. I was about to ask whether she wanted the shoes sent to her home, and…bam…she just sort of collapsed to the ground.”

  “What did you do then?” Burke asks.

  “What did I do? I thought she had fainted. I touched her face gently. Her eyes were adrift. And then a young man—in a black Ferragamo suit, I couldn’t help but notice—rushed over and began calling her name. Then there was store security, and we called 911. But then the EMT said…that she was…she was dead.”

  “Anything else?” I ask.

  “Well, the police came with the ambulance, and then some important police boss arrived. His name was Elliott something, I think. And then they took Mrs. Monahan away.”

  “What about the young man in the black suit?” Burke asks.

  “I guess that he left with them. I assumed he was Mrs. Monahan’s assistant or her driver,” says Cory Lawrence.

  “Did you really assume that?” I ask with a tiny smirk.

  “I always assume that,” says Cory Lawrence.

  “You are a wise young man, Mr. Lawrence. In a decade or so you will be running this store.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “But for the time being…Don’t look now, but I would discreetly direct your eyes to the woman seated approximately ten yards to your left. She is wearing white slacks and a black silk shirt. You will notice that she has slipped on a brand new pair of Isabel Marant ankle boots, replacing them in the box with her scuffed and worn-out Blahnik pumps. Merci et au revoir, Monsieur Lawrence.”

  Chapter 10

  An hour later Detective Burke and I walk into the art deco splendor of Eleven Madison Park.

  “My God,” says Burke. “I feel like I’m in an old black-and-white musical.”

  Suddenly, Marcella, the tall, thin, copper-haired beauty from the front desk, walks quickly toward me with her arms extended. Her smile is huge.

  “Oh, here we go,” says Burke.

  She and I embrace.

  “Luc, you’re back. It’s been at least a month,” she says, shaking her hair. “Let me check on your table,” she adds. “Have a flute of champagne while you’re waiting. It’s on the house, of course.”

  “Merci,” I say.

  As the lovely Marcella walks away, Burke says, “Merci, my foot! What’s going on, Moncrief? She’s checking a table? We’re on the job.”

  “But if the job takes place in one of New York’s finest restaurants, it would actually be foolish not to partake of lunch.”

  “No. It would actually be foolish if we were to partake of lunch. About as unprofessional as you can get.”

  “Oh, K. Burke. You know I can always be much more unprofessional than this.”

  Needless to say, Burke does not laugh. She also refuses to join me in a glass of champagne. So we stand and wait in angry silence.

  A few minutes later we are seated at a corner table.

  “I’m not going to eat,” says Burke.

  “Didn’t we have this identical conversation just last week?” I ask. As soon as I finish asking that question, a handsome fifty-ish man with close-c
ropped gray hair approaches the table.

  “Mr. Moncrief, a pleasure, as always.”

  “This is my colleague, Detective Burke,” I say. “This is the restaurant’s manager, Paul deBarros.”

  As K. Burke gives a quick cold nod, deBarros pulls out a chair from the table and sits down.

  Burke looks surprised, until I explain that deBarros witnessed the death of Jenna Lee Austin.

  “Mrs. Austin was here at least once a week for lunch, and often for dinner,” says the manager.

  Burke and I follow the training rule: when the witness starts talking, do not interrupt. Let him get going. Sit back and listen.

  “Sometimes Mrs. Austin dined with her husband. Sometimes she was with her mother. But the unfortunate day she died, she was dining alone. She told the front desk—Marcella was on that day—that perhaps she would be joined for coffee. She was not sure.”

  DeBarros takes a deep breath and shrugs his shoulders.

  “Honestly, there’s not much more to say. I welcomed her. I asked after her health. I asked after Mr. Austin. She was, as always, very bubbly and happy. I asked if she’d like something to drink before she ordered. She said she’d like a glass of San Pellegrino. A minute later, when I delivered it, she looked up at me. Then her head crashed onto the table.”

  “Who else saw this happen?” Burke asks.

  “I’m not sure anyone else saw Mrs. Austin pass out. But when her head hit the table I shouted for help. So, of course, other diners looked, but it was early in the luncheon service, only a bit before noon. So there were not that many people here.”

  DeBarros describes how Jenna Austin was unresponsive to anything, although he admits that he did not follow the 911 operator’s explicit instructions not to move her.

  “I did not want to cause a disturbance for the other diners. So we carried Mrs. Austin to the passageway between the kitchen and the dining room. I’m certain she did not want people to see her in that condition.”

  “In that condition?” I ask. “Did you think she was drunk?”

  “Oh, but of course not,” he says. “I did not think she would want to be seen unconscious.”

  “Anything else, Detective?” I ask Burke. “The police? The ambulance?”

  “Yes, all that. They gave her oxygen, I think, but the EMT said she was dead. I think they took her to Beth Israel hospital.”

  “Actually, it was NYU,” Burke says.

  “Thank you, Paul,” I say. Burke thanks him also.

  The captain rises from his seat. He gently pushes the chair back into place.

  “Now, to travel from something tragic to something peaceful…if indeed you have no further questions…”

  I have no further questions. The pattern is emerging, and that pattern is simple: no clue from any eyewitnesses. We will have to make sense of the boyfriend angle.

  I ask K. Burke if she wants to ask anything. She shakes her head.

  “In that case, Miss Burke, Mr. Moncrief, I have ordered a simple but interesting luncheon. To start with, a refreshing lobster ceviche with watermelon and lime ice. Then, if you agree, a Muscovy duck breast with lavender honey.”

  “Sounds wonderful,” I say.

  “Just coffee for me,” says Burke.

  “Bring Detective Burke the lobster ceviche. She may change her mind.”

  As soon as deBarros leaves, Burke hisses at me, “No. I told you I’m not doing this. I’m not eating. This is outrageous.”

  A few minutes later, after I’ve selected a Hugel Riesling as our wine, the lobster ceviche appears.

  It is my pleasure to inform you that K. Burke ate every bit of it.

  Chapter 11

  About five seconds after Dalia died, I was certain of only one thing—that life was truly not worth living.

  Yet everything else around me remained the same. People clogged the subways at rush hour. The Mona Lisa still smiled at the Louvre. Washington still crossed the Delaware at the Met. I was rich enough and skinny enough to wear the idiotic Milan fashion show suits, but I could bring myself to wear only Levi’s and black T-shirts. People made love. People made war. I did neither.

  Although I did not eat much, I made dinner reservations. I scheduled sessions with my personal trainer. And when my impeccably restored ’65 Mustang needed work, I drove it to the mechanic in Yonkers who loved the car like a man loves his child.

  I did go back to work, and that—along with my friendship with K. Burke—kept me from leaping from the rooftops.

  I did make one big change, however. I never returned to the apartment I had shared with Dalia. I could not go back.

  I lived briefly at the St. Regis Hotel. It was pleasant, and midtown Manhattan was certainly convenient. Hotel services made life easy—clean, crisp sheets every day, 4 a.m. room service deliveries of Caesar salads and Opus One wine. But after K. Burke persisted in jokingly calling me a “rich vagabond,” I did as she suggested. I purchased a new apartment. A temple of simple luxury—cement flooring, spacious uncluttered walls, an occasional piece of iron or copper or steel furniture.

  I return here this evening. After a day of investigation at Saks and Eleven Madison Park, I should be invigorated. Case work is my joy in life. Instead, the inevitable gloom of loneliness passes over me. I knew if I returned to our old apartment, I would never stop expecting to hear Dalia’s voice from another room, to see her coat and scarf and pocketbook on the hallway chair, to hear her sound system blasting Selena Gomez. I wish. I wish I could hear her playing that obnoxious music again. I wish I could yell, “Turn off that crap!” I wish.

  I do what I always do when I first arrive home from work, whether it is early in the evening or five in the morning. I take a shower—piercingly hot, Kiehl’s coriander body wash, rinse with icy cold water. I step into sweat shorts and walk into the kitchen.

  Lunch at Eleven Madison Park with K. Burke was delicious (and yes, I admit that we shared the orange chocolate bonbon for dessert), but it was a long time ago, so now I crack three eggs into a bowl. I whisk with a fork. Then I move to the eight-burner Wolf oven. (No, I did not forget the salt; Dalia was trying to make me cut down.) I melt a big knob of (unsalted) butter until it bubbles from the heat. I am about to pour the mixture into a pan when an echo-like disembodied voice fills the air. I know it well. The phone message machine is programmed to speak to me twenty minutes after I turn off the entrance door security alarm.

  “You have two new messages,” announces the small silver box on the kitchen island. Two? I seldom share my landline phone number, so there are usually no messages. Tonight there are two.

  The first message promises to be a long, boring, and complicated piece of information from one of my late father’s accountants. Something to do with German bonds and electronic stock certificates. I know that the accountant will call back. I move to the silver box and click Next.

  The second message is a potentially important one.

  “Mon cher enfant.” My dear boy…with those three words I recognize the voice of Nicolas Savatier. He continues in French: “We have just arrived in Baltimore…preparing for the Preakness Stakes.…It would be most helpful if you could get in touch with us soon, very soon. We are heading to the Four Seasons on the harbor, where we are staying, but we always have our cell phones at hand. Please, if you would call soon.”

  In the background I hear Marguerite Savatier speaking loudly, “Immédiatement.”

  Then, from Nicolas, another “immédiatement” followed by a soft and courteous “Merci.”

  I return the call immédiatement.

  Chapter 12

  “Mon cher Luc, we did not want to alarm you,” says Nicolas, ever the perfect French gentleman.

  “Give me the phone, Nicolas,” I hear Marguerite say, in French. Then I hear her voice clearly on the phone.

  “Luc. It is you?”

  “Mais oui,” I say. “What is the problem?”

  We both switch to French.

  “We are not quite certain that i
t is an actual problem. And, of course, we do not want to alarm you…”

  “Or trouble you,” comes the voice of Nicolas, now relegated to the background.

  “Please,” I almost shout. “You are not alarming me. You are not troubling me. What is the matter? Speak, please, speak.”

  Marguerite continues.

  “Perhaps it is not worth getting excited about,” she says.

  I am thinking that if they were with me in person I would wring their aristocratic necks, or at least toss a glass of Veuve Clicquot in their faces. Finally, Marguerite speaks. Her voice is trembling:

  “I have received two dozen red roses,” Marguerite says. “A deliveryman was waiting with them when we landed in Baltimore.”

  I, of course, instinctively know that there is more to this phone call, that not everything has been revealed. Even a slightly dotty elderly couple would not become frightened by a box of flowers. However, I proceed as if all will turn out normally.

  “How delightful. Who sent the roses?” I ask.

  “We do not know,” Marguerite says. “It is anonymous. And c’est ça le problème.”

  Suddenly, Nicolas’s voice is on the phone.

  “You see, the greater problem is that, yes, it is unsigned, but there is a note with the roses. Let me read it to you.”

  Nicolas’s frail voice becomes strong: “‘Win the Preakness. Or you will suffer the consequences.’”

  I keep my own voice calm, but this is surely not the sort of note anyone wishes to receive.

  “Did you try contacting the florist?” I ask. (Yes, I know, a foolish and obvious question.)

  “Encore une fois, mon cher Luc. We may be old but we are not stupid,” says Nicolas. “There was no name on the card or on the box. We signed for them without thinking, figuring it was just more congratulatory flowers. It wasn’t until we were in the cab that we even thought to look at the card. It is so mysterious.”

  I am thinking that it is not just mysterious, but it is so creepy, really creepy. Is it a threat? A joke? A mistake?