The Christmas Mystery Read online

  Chapter 37

  Christmas Day in Paris is for family. Grand-père carving the goose. Grand-mère snoring from too much Rémy Martin. It is a day for children and chocolate.

  I will not violate the spirit of the feast. Indeed, Reynaud, my late father’s exceptional chef, will roast the tenderloin of venison. I have invited Babette and Julien and Julien’s girlfriend, Anne. (Who knew Julien had a girlfriend? Who knew Julien had a life apart from Valex?)

  So that will be Christmas Day. For Christmas Eve, however, I have made a special plan. Burke and I will have a night of fine dining.

  “It will be a night perfect for wearing ‘The Emerald Turtle,’” I say.

  “I’m so nervous wearing it,” says Burke. “If I lose it…if…”

  “If you lose it, there are plenty more emeralds in the world,” I say. “And if I sound like a spoiled rich kid, so be it. I am. At least for Christmas.”

  “I’m still nervous.”

  But, of course, she wears it.

  The evening begins with—what else?—chilled Dom Pérignon in the warm and cozy backseat of the limo.

  “Our first stop will be Les Ambassadeurs inside the Hôtel de Crillon,” I tell K. Burke.

  “Our first stop?” says Burke.

  “Oui. The first course of seven courses,” I say. “A different course at a different restaurant. I can imagine no finer way to welcome Christmas. This took much planning on my part.”

  We arrive at the Place de la Concorde. Five minutes later we are tasting artichoke soup with black truffle shavings. Exceptional.

  Fifteen minutes later we are back in the car and headed for le poisson, the fish course. At L’Arpège my friend, Alain Passard, has prepared his three-hour turbot with green apples.

  Just when we think nothing can surpass the turbot we move on to Lasserre. Here the magical dish is a delicate pigeon with a warm fig and hazelnut compote.

  The maître d’ at George V’s Le Cinq describes a dish that both Burke and I think is ridiculous—a seaweed consommé with bits of turnip, parsnip, and golden beets floating on top. It is, of course, magnificent.

  When we return to the car Burke announces, “I don’t know how to say this properly. But I am full without really being full.”

  “You are satisfied,” I say. “Small portions of exquisite food. The French never fill themselves. They eat. They think. They enjoy.”

  “Sure. That’s it exactly,” says K. Burke. Then, with a giggle in her voice, she says, “A bit more champagne, please.”

  The first four restaurants we have visited are classic Parisian restaurants. They have been filling famous bellies for many years—royalty and food writers and a few pretentious snobs. But always the food has remained magnificent.

  “Now we are going to have something completely modern,” I tell my dining companion. “We are going to one of the famous new places that I call ‘mish-mash-mosh’ restaurants. You don’t know whether you are eating Indian or French or Hungarian or Cambodian food. The classical chefs turn in their graves, but it is the future, and we must try one of them.”

  So Burke and I, a little tipsy from champagne and wine, sit at Le Chateaubriand, a fancy French name for a restaurant that looks like a 1950s American diner. The duck breast we are served is covered with fennel seeds and bits of…“What is this?” I ask the captain. He replies, “Tiny pieces of orange candy.” This fabulous concoction sits next to a purée of strawberries that tastes a little bit of maple syrup, a little bit of tangerine.

  K. Burke describes it perfectly: “It tastes like something wonderful, like something you’d get at a carnival in heaven.”

  “You have the vocabulary of a restaurant critic, K. Burke,” I say.

  We leave the heavenly carnival, and a short time later we are at Le Jules Verne, the foolishly named restaurant on top of the beloved tour Eiffel.

  The alcohol is making me too happy, too giddy, and surely too talkative. “This is a restaurant that has maintained its integrity, even though it is in the very tourist heart of Paris,” I say.

  “I’m not ashamed to be a tourist,” says Burke.

  “Nor am I,” I say. Then we sit down and look out at the marvel of Paris at night while we eat an impeccable piece of filet mignon—big beefy flavor in every meltingly tender bite.

  “And now. On to dessert,” I say.

  “I should say ‘I couldn’t.’ But the truth is…I could,” Burke says.

  “We will finish at my favorite place in all of Paris,” I say. Soon our car is making its way through the narrow streets of the Marais.

  All the chic little shops are closed. A small kosher restaurant is shutting down for the evening. “The best hummus in Europe,” I say.

  A few students are singing Christmas songs. They swig from open bottles of wine. Lights twinkle from many windows.

  The car stops at a tiny corner shop on rue Vieille du Temple, very near the rue de Rivoli.

  Burke reads the sign on the shop aloud, “Amorino.” Then she says, “Whatever it is, it looks closed.”

  “Un moment,” I say, and I hit a few numbers on my phone. “Nous sommes ici.” We are here. A young woman appears at the shop door. She is smiling. She gestures to us. We go inside.

  “It’s an ice cream parlor,” Burke says.

  “Yes and no. It is a gelato shop. When I lived in Paris—before moving to New York—no evening was complete unless we had a two-scoop chocolate and amaretto cone at Amorino. What flavors do you like? The pistachio is magnificent.”

  She looks away from me. When she faces me again she is blinking her eyes.

  “Would you think I’m rude if I skip the gelato?” she says.

  “But you would love it,” I say.

  “It’s been a great evening. I appreciate it. I really do,” she says. “But I’ve had enough.”

  Then it hits my thoughtless French brain. Suddenly, as if a big rock fell on my stupid little head.

  “Oh, K. Burke. I am sorry. I am awful and stupid. I am sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry about,” she says. “It was a wonderful night. It is a beautiful ring. This is the nicest Christmas I’ve ever had.”

  Then I find the courage to say what I should say.

  “Forgive me, Katherine. I gave you a night of glamour without the romance that should accompany it. Forgive me.” She smiles at me.

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Moncrief. You’re terrific. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  EPILOGUE

  NEW YEAR’S EVE

  NEW YORK CITY

  If I really wanted to stretch the truth, I could say that my partner K. Burke and I are spending New Year’s Eve at the Plaza Hotel. But as I say, that would be stretching the truth. A lot.

  The fact is, the two of us are spending New Year’s Eve in the underground loading alley under the kitchens of the Plaza Hotel.

  It seems that our boss, Inspector Nick Elliott, wanted to bring us back to reality after our time in Paris. So Burke and I are on a drug stakeout in the repugnant, disgusting garbage zone beneath the fancy hotel. We are waiting for a potential “chalk drop.” That’s cop-talk for a major delivery of methamphetamine, a fairly wicked drug for some of the New Year’s Eve revelers.

  The smell of garbage, the whip of the winter wind, and the knowledge that most of New York is dancing the night away does nothing to relieve our boredom. And as with most stakeouts, the boredom is excruciating.

  “So this is how it goes, right, Moncrief?” Burke says. “A week ago we were on top of the Eiffel Tower. Tonight we’re in a hole under the Plaza.”

  I laugh and say, “That’s life. Even for a rich kid.” I pause for a moment as I watch a rat scurry past us. Then I say, “You know, K. Burke, the truth is, I am enjoying this surveillance routine almost as much as—but not quite as much as—our Christmas Eve in Paris. Simply put, I love doing detective work. Can you believe that?”

  She does not hesitate. She says, “Yes, Moncrief. I can believe tha
t.”

  Before I can even smile there is a great eruption of firecrackers and noisemakers and the noise of people shouting with joy.

  “Listen closely, Moncrief. You can hear the music,” Burke says.

  She is right. From somewhere inside the hotel the orchestra is playing “Auld Lang Syne.”

  I lean in and kiss her on her cheek.

  “Happy New Year, K. Burke,” I say.

  She leans in and kisses me on my cheek.

  She speaks.

  “Happy New Year, my friend.”

  Read on for a bonus excerpt from

  HIDDEN

  Available now from

  Lightning-fast stories you can read in one sitting

  “Have you seen my cousin…alive?”

  Rejected by the Navy SEALs, Mitchum is content to be his small town’s unofficial private eye, until his beloved fourteen-year-old cousin is abducted. Now he’ll call on every lethal skill to track her down—but nothing is what it seems.…

  Chapter 1

  My moody mongrel, Bart Simpson, kept watch from the warm backseat. He rarely found my job interesting. At least not this job.

  I was next to the loading dock, folding newspapers for delivery. A surly driver named Nick dropped them off for me every morning at 5:50 sharp. What he lacked in personality he made up for in silence. I always said hello and never got an answer. Not even a “Hey, Mitchum.” It was a good working relationship.

  Even with the wind off the Hudson, I could crack a sweat moving the heavy bundles of papers. I used the knife I had gotten in the Navy to cut the straps holding them. My station wagon sagged under the weight of a full load. My two-day-a-week afternoon gig in Milton didn’t strain the shocks nearly as bad. I usually dropped Bart off at my mom’s then. My dog was as close to a grandchild as she had, and they could both complain about me.

  In the early morning gloom, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and reacted quickly, turning with the knife still in my right hand. It was an instinct I couldn’t explain. I was raised in upstate New York, not Bosnia. But I relaxed as soon as I saw Albany Al, one of the few homeless people in Marlboro, standing near the loading dock, a dozen feet away.

  The older man’s whiskers spread as he grinned and rubbed his hand across his white beard. “Hello, Mitchum. They say you can never sneak up on a Navy SEAL. I guess that’s true.”

  I was past the point of explaining to people that I was never an actual SEAL.

  When I took a closer look at the old man, I realized he wasn’t ready for the burst of arctic air that had descended on us. “Al, grab my extra coat from the car. It’s too cold to be wandering around dressed like that.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Go ahead. My cousin usually wears it, but she didn’t show today. She’s a wuss for avoiding the cold.”

  “I wondered where Bailey Mae was. I was hoping she had some of her coffee cake.”

  Then I realized the older man hadn’t come to keep me company. He’d wandered over to snag some of Bailey Mae’s famous coffee cake, which she handed out like business cards.

  I said, “I miss her cake, too.”

  The old man said, “I can tell.” He cackled as he rubbed his belly, but he was looking at me.

  I patted my own belly and said, “It’s my portable insulation.” Maybe I hadn’t been working out as hard as usual. A few warm days and some running would solve that.

  The old man continued to cackle as he walked away with my coat.

  Chapter 2

  When I’d finished my route, I headed over to my office off Route 9. At least, my unofficial office. I always hit Tina’s Plentiful at about 8:15, right between the early breakfast crowd and late risers. The old diner sat in an empty strip mall that hadn’t been updated since 1988. A couple of framed posters of the California coast hung on the walls. No one had ever explained their significance, and none of the customers seemed to care. The place had the best Reubens and tuna melts in upstate New York, and they treated me like family. Maybe it was because one of my cousins worked in the kitchen.

  The lone waitress, Mabel, named by a mean-spirited mother, lit up when I walked in. Usually I sat in the rear booth to eat and see if I had any pressing business. There was never much pressing in Marlboro. Today I headed toward the counter since there wasn’t much going on and it would make it easier on Mabel.

  Mabel was a town favorite for her easy smile and the way she took time to chat with everyone who came into the diner. As soon as I sat down she said, “Finally, a friendly face.”

  I gave her a wink and said, “Is the world not treating Miss Teenage New York well today?”

  “Funny. You should cheer me up by taking me to the movies in Newburgh one night.”

  “Only if my cousin Bailey Mae comes with us.”

  “Why?”

  “So you understand it’s as friends and not a date.”

  “Am I so terrible? You’ve had some tough breaks and I’m a lot of fun.”

  I couldn’t help a smile. “Of course you’re not so terrible. You’re also so young. And I’m not going to be the guy who holds you back from all the suitable young men in the area.” That was as much as I wanted to say today.

  Before she could answer, I glanced out the wide front window and saw my cousin Alice, Bailey Mae’s mom, hustling across the street toward the diner. She is a year older than me and was only twenty when Bailey Mae was born. She is a good mom, and the rest of us help. Her usual smile was nowhere to be seen as her long brown hair flapped in the wind behind her. She yanked open the door and rushed right to me.

  “Mitchum, Bailey Mae is missing.”

  Suddenly, the day got colder.

  About the Authors

  James Patterson has written more bestsellers and created more enduring fictional characters than any other novelist writing today. He lives in Florida with his family.

  Richard DILallo is a former advertising creative director. He has had numerous articles published in major magazines. He lives in Manhattan with his wife.

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2016 by James Patterson

  Cover design by Kapo Ng; photograph by Songquan Deng / Shutterstock

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  ISBN 978-0-316-31999-7

  E3-20161013-NF-DA