“Nice.” Sam looked around the quaint bistro. The interior resembled a grotto with cobblestone floors, archways and a stone fountain in the corner of the room. Some guests were coping with the crisp sunny air by huddling around cups of hot coffee outside on the patio. Vines with tiny pink flowers crawled the walls on two sides of the room. White enamel tables had floral designs etched on the glass tops, their matching chairs more fitting of an upscale ice cream shop. She changed her opinion to an ice cream shop in Monte Carlo.
“I take it Café Fleurs Grotte has something to do with flowers.” Sam took a seat, thankful she decided against jeans and instead had chosen wine-colored gaucho pants, matching leather boots, and a wine and cream cable-stitched tunic top with crocheted roses. How fitting.
Evan Collier nodded in agreement. “Fleurs Grotte is flower grotto in French. You need to take a second language. It opens you up to a whole new life.”
“Thanks, but I have a second language. It’s English. The first language I learned to speak was Lakota.” Her eyes drifted to the ceiling where a maiden in a strapless orange gown sat holding a huge book while surrounded by a pool of flowers.
“It’s a replica of Michelangelo’s Libyan Sibyl named Phemonoe, believed to be a prophetic priestess.” The man who had sidled up to the table spoke in an accent that sounded like French. He wore a tight shirt that fit him like a second skin. With the beret he was wearing Sam expected to see him paddling a tourist canoe in Venice. Thinking the word canoe made her re-examine his sun-streaked hair and the rippling muscles. He was the man in the picture in Doctor Collier’s office.
“Sorry. I bet you own this place.”
Evan introduced Sam to Christian Didier. “Christian learned to cook in Paris and Rome. Went to school in England and the United States. We met when I spent one college summer backpacking across Europe. He’s never quite lost his French accent even though he was born in Kansas.”
“Kansas? Like the U.S. Kansas?”
Christian pulled out a chair and sat down, taking time to hand each of them a menu. “Same. My father was in the military and was stationed in Europe for years. He met my mother in Paris during leave. He brought her to Kansas to meet his parents. After I was born, we were off to Europe again.”
Sam motioned toward the walls and ceiling. “And the fascination with grottoes?”
“I fell in love with Bernard Palissy’s grotto he designed for Catherine de’ Medici’s chateau in Paris. The gardens were beautiful. Soon I found myself seeking the grottoes at Twickenham in England, then Painshill Park, Clandor Park, and at Wilton House. Evan and I even visited the grotto at Lourdes.” He pointed to several items on the menu. “I like to include flowers in some of my recipes.”
“Flowers?” Sam had visions of grazing on dandelions.
“I grow my own in the greenhouse in our backyard.” Christian reverted easily into his lecture mode. “Carnation petals have been used since the seventeenth century to make Chartreuse, which is a French liqueur. And they work wonderfully in desserts. I use the leaves and stems of the Crown Daisy in my Oriental stir fries. The shoots of day lilies are a great substitute for asparagus.”
Sam flipped open her menu. “Please tell me this isn’t a vegan restaurant, not that I have any problem with people grazing on whatever they want to eat. I just like a little meat and fish every now and then.”
“Most of the flowers are used in salads or to flavor fruit dishes or sauces, although lavender does make it into my breads and cookies.”
“You do have that fabulous lavender beef,” Evan reminded him.
“Oh, I did get your tea, Evan. I have Li Zhi Hong and Prana Chai.”
“The Li Zhi Hong would be great.”
“Make it two,” Sam said. “Is it hot or iced tea?”
“Whichever you prefer. The iced tea will have impatiens flowers floating on top.”
“Make it two iced teas,” Evan said.
“Now, may I recommend the crespeou.” Christian pointed at the menu.
“What is it?” Sam wasn’t one to eagerly try a dish she couldn’t pronounce.
“Think of it as omelets with different fillings layered on top of each other like a layer cake. Then it is sliced. Makes a colorful presentation. We also have the Croque-Monsieur, more like a toasted ham and Swiss sandwich.”
“Why don’t you just call it a ham and cheese sandwich.” Sam looked up to see them staring at her.
“You have to understand that Sam is very direct,” Evan explained. “I was warned that she has a tendency to speak first and analyze later.”
“I already had breakfast. Do you have something light but fattening as hell?” Sam asked.
“Sure. How about cinnamon orange popovers, miniature brioche rolls, mini crab quiche, choux a la crème.”
“Crème puffs,” Evan interjected.
“Tartes aux fruits.”
“Fruit tart. I got that one,” Sam said.
“Religieuse,” Christian continued.
“Chocolate éclair.”
“It’s shaped to resemble a nun,” Christian added with a smile.
Sam wondered where someone would get a cookie cutter shaped like a nun.
“Profiteroles.” Christian wiggled his eyebrows as though that were the most enticing item on the menu.
“Baked puff pastries filled with cream,” Evan clarified. He turned to Christian and said, “I’ll take the mini crab quiche and a couple of the nuns.”
“Just give me two of the mini crab quiche and one of the cinnamon orange popovers.”
Christian gathered up the menus. “I’ll get that tea right out. If you need anything else, mademoiselle, just let me know.”
“Merci beaucoup,” Sam said. “See. I know three languages.” She could see Christian smile as he turned away.
“So, Sam. Why did you need a second session so quickly? Did you have a chance to go through those newspapers as I had suggested?”
“Oops. Not yet, but I will. Actually, I wanted to pick your brain on a case I’m working.”
“You want to pick my brain at one hundred twenty-five dollars for a fifty-minute session?”
“Guess we have to eat fast.”
Christian set two glasses of iced tea on the table. He was true to his word. Violet-colored impatiens flowers were floating on the surface of the teas. “Looks colorful.” Sam waited for him to leave before continuing. “Can you give me some insight as to why someone would want to commit suicide?”
Evan stopped stirring his tea and looked at her sharply. “I thought the dreams didn’t…”
“Whoa, not me, Doc. As I said, I’m working a case. A young woman left her baby in a high chair, a jar of baby food on the counter, walked out of her house, down the street and jumped off the overpass.”
“That’s tragic. My god, Sam. You work these kinds of cases, no wonder you have nightmares.”
Christian returned with a tray and set their plates on the table. “Smells good,” Sam said. And it did. She suddenly wished she had asked for a half dozen of the mini quiche.
“Can I get you anything else?”
Sam watched a waitress breeze by with a loaf of heavenly smelling bread on a wooden cutting board. “What’s that?”
“That’s my lavender hazel nut bread. Would you like some?”
“Please.” Sam was feeling the waistband of her Gaucho pants nipping in protest.
Once he left, Evan continued. “What exactly do you need to know, Sam?”
“The why would be good. Other than the most common—depression. But I have to tell you, my client’s wife was not depressed.”
“Some people are very good at hiding their depression. Was she on any kind of drugs?”
“No. Tox report came out clean.”
“So she wasn’t schizophrenic.” Evan paused while a waitress set a cutting board on the table.
She set a small cup next to the cutting board. “This is hazelnut butter for the bread. Can I get you anything else?”
“Everything looks wonderful, Leesa. Thanks.” Evan cut into the crab quiche and took a bite. He mulled over Sam’s question, then pointed the fork at her. “People sometimes do something completely out of character and then suffer from such extreme remorse they commit suicide on an impulse.”
“She wasn’t haven’t an affair, if that’s what you are thinking.” Sam savored the flaky pastry surrounding the quiche.
“Gambling problems? Maybe she lost their savings and was afraid to tell her husband.”
“No again.”
“And she wasn’t recently diagnosed with some fatal disease that she didn’t want to share with anyone.”
“It’s a puzzle, Doc. That’s why I came to an expert.” She slathered butter on a slice of bread and bit into it. “Ummm, is that marvelous or what.”
“Christian is a fabulous cook. I thought he should have opened a restaurant in Chicago but he said the rental prices were exorbitant.”
Sam shoved one empty plate away, then grabbed the orange popover. “What about a brain tumor? Wouldn’t that alter someone’s behavior?” Sam waved the idea off with her fork. “Scratch that. It didn’t come up in the autopsy. She didn’t have drugs in her system or tumors, and the family doctor they use said she was in perfect health.”
“Postpartum depression,” Evan said with a shrug. “That’s the only thing it could be. How old was her baby?”
“Nine months.”
“It’s a possibility. And it isn’t anything you would find in an autopsy.”
“I don’t know.” Sam licked crumbs from her fingers and pushed her plate away with a sigh. Everything had tasted heavenly. She had gained forty pounds with Dillon and wasn’t eager to see how much she was going to gain with twins. “Everything I have read about PPD says there are warning signs. You just don’t wake up after nine months and decide you have zero feelings for your baby. She was pregnant again but was thrilled at the prospect.”
“Some women become overwhelmed. What about that mother years ago who drowned each of her children in the bathtub. I believe the oldest was seven.”
“I think that one was more getting back at her husband who wanted a divorce.”
Evan set his empty plates on top of each other and shoved them to the side. Immediately a busboy appeared and swept up the stack. “What about family history? Do you know anything about her parents or grandparents?”
“Actually, no. Her husband did say they were each raised in foster homes so I assumed there weren’t any extended family members. Now I have a similar case. This one a young woman drives to the beach, strips, takes time to fold her clothes neatly, then walks into the lake and drowns. A woman just one week from her wedding. Again, no drugs or abuse involved, and no explanation as to why.”
“I think we may need more than fifty minutes.”