Neither woman spoke until the white metal door to number 21 closed behind them. They shouldn’t have come. This was now so obvious that Rachel wondered why she’d ever thought the visit was a good idea. Had she really believed that this devastated woman would somehow be willing to open up her brother’s life to them? Or that two complete strangers walking into a company for the first time would find its secrets so easily laid bare?
“That poor woman. What was I thinking, trying to squeeze information out of her?” She shook her head. “Alan was right.”
Magda had the good manners not to respond to any of this. Instead, she pointed to a bistro across the street. “Come on. We never did get coffee.”
The restaurant had the scent that seemed common to every Paris café in mid-afternoon: mingled strands of yeasty bread, gently stirred sauces, and the faint earthiness of poured red wine. They sat down at a table near the door, next to the broad front window. Once seated, Rachel slipped out of her coat, leaving it flopping inside out over the chair back; Magda, always tidy, arranged hers cape-style before sitting down.
“Un café, s’il vous plait,” she said to the waiter. “And a hot chocolate for my friend.”
Rachel nodded her thanks and added, “With cream.”
But all the whipped cream in Paris wasn’t going to cheer her up, especially once Magda echoed her own earlier thoughts: “‘Given what he did.’ It sounds like even Guipure’s sister thinks he overdosed.”
“Just because she thinks it, that doesn’t make it true.’ But Rachel’s protest was feeble. If it looked like an overdose, and the most logical explanation was that it was an overdose, and even Guipure’s own twin thought it was an overdose … maybe Magda was right, and the question of the dominant hand was irrelevant.
She looked across the table. “I’m sorry I dragged you into a pointless errand. And a painful one. A pointless and painful errand.”
“It’s okay.” Magda emptied a packet of white sugar into her coffee. “I mean, it was awful, but we needed to go. Otherwise, we never would have known for sure that it wasn’t murder.”
Oh, how grateful Rachel was for that “we”! Magda had every right to be smug, even superior, but to choose solidarity instead was an act of immense support. Rachel took a deep breath to thank her.
She found herself cut off by a sharp double chime from Magda’s phone. After a moment’s digging, she extracted it from her bag. “I set it to alerts for Guipure’s name,” she explained.
“What is it? Some real charity ball organizers announcing a gala in his honor? Harrod’s bought up the whole prêt-à-porter collection?” She smiled as if those ideas didn’t actually sting.
But Magda wasn’t looking at her. Instead, she was staring at her portable’s screen.
“What? What is it? Is something wrong with your mother?” They were at an age when such possibilities loomed closer.
Magda shook her head. She turned the portable so Rachel could see the headline on its screen:
Police treating Roland Guipure’s death as suspicious.
“What?” Rachel restrained herself from grabbing the phone. So she had been right! “Do they say why?”
Magda’s thumb flicked the screen. “It just says ‘in light of further evidence.’” She looked up, catching her bottom lip with her upper teeth. “But you could call and ask.”
“What? No, no.”
“Why not?” Magda eyes widened. “Go on. Call Boussicault. Don’t you want to know how they arrived at their conclusion?”
Dammit, she did. What had made the police agree with her?
“He’ll never tell me.” It was true that twice now Capitaine Boussicault of the Paris police had listened to her when no one else took her seriously, and twice now he’d helped when no one else would. But he’d also gotten into a good deal of trouble the last time, when he allowed her to go undercover to help him with an investigation. Two weeks’ suspension without pay had made it plain what his superiors thought of the use of civilians in police work, and only the fact that they’d solved two murders and the theft of a series of national treasures had prevented a worse punishment. After all that, Rachel wasn’t sure he’d be all that pleased to hear from her, never mind spilling details of another murder.
But Magda was right: she did want to know what the further evidence was, and Boussicault was her only possible source of information. She took her phone out of her bag, tapped through to her contacts, and hit the button next to his name before she could stop herself by thinking it through.
He picked up on the fourth ring. “Ah, Rachel! You’re calling about the Guipure murder.”
For a moment, she was struck dumb. Then she asked, “How did you know?”
Boussicault laughed. “The police alert the media that they are treating Monsieur Guipure’s death as a murder, and half an hour later you call me? It doesn’t take a great detective to make the connection. I know your … interests. And I would imagine Madame Stevens is next to, or at least somewhere near you.”
Was it good or bad to be so well known by someone who was not quite a friend? Rachel decided it was best to just get to the point. “Yes, she is. And we were wondering, would you be willing to tell us anything about the murder?” A passing waiter jerked his head in her direction. She lowered her voice. “About what’s happened to make you think it’s a murder? I mean, nothing that would … cause difficulties, but …”
As her voice trailed off, she heard him rattle some papers on the other end of the line. “I can tell you what I would tell any reporter who happened to call me looking for information on the subject, and for both our sakes, I’m happy to tell you it’s not much. Guipure was killed in the third arrondissement and lives in the eighth, neither of which are in my jurisdiction, so I know only what is in the daily informational report.”
He paused in a way that suggested he was waiting for agreement, so Rachel agreed. “I’m fine with that.”
“D’acc.” More paper rattling, although Rachel suspected it was just for show. How long could the daily report be? “When Monsieur Guipure was found, the immediate assumption was that he’d died of a self-administered overdose into his left arm. Some doubt was thrown on this when one of the scene of the crime officers pointed out that callouses and relative hand size suggested Guipure was left-handed, but given that it’s not impossible for someone to inject the dominant arm with the dominant hand, no conclusion was drawn until we had the autopsy findings.”
“And what did that show?”
Boussicault cleared his throat. “It showed that Guipure had fifty milligrams of heroin in his system, which is twenty grams more than a lethal dose for a man of his size and weight.”
Rachel heard her chair squeak as she sat back. Of course she had thought she was right, and once Magda had shown her the headline, she was certain, but it was still nice to be able to think, I knew it! She gave in to a moment’s enjoyment.
“Rachel? Did you hear me?”
“Yes, yes.” She glanced across the table at Magda as she repeated, “Fifty milligrams.” Then, making eye contact, she added, “almost twice the lethal dose.”
“Twenty milligrams more than a lethal dose. If you want to be a detective, you need to be precise.”
If only you knew, Rachel thought. Never mind wanting to be a detective; it looks like I’m about to be one. Again. But aloud she said only, “Good point. Twenty milligrams.”
But Boussicault must have caught something in her voice, and his tone became grave. “Licensure is a long process, Rachel. Don’t confuse two instances of good luck with practical capability. The police will handle this case.”
Rachel felt the resentment that had mingled with her fondness for Boussicault before. Every time she started to think of him as a mentor, perhaps even as a colleague, he had a way of making it seem that detection was just her hobby, and one she only succeeded in by luck, at that. “Don’t worry,” she said stiffly. She broke the connection. Yet again, she and Magda would have to prove themselves to the police.
They ordered a second round. Rachel asked for double cream.
“Twice the lethal dose!” Magda whistled. “All right, I take it back: it was murder.” She bit her lip. “Now the question is, where do we start?” She nodded toward the building across the street. “It’s pretty clear they’re not going to be much help.”
“Maybe with the rehab place?” It was the first thing that popped into Rachel’s head. “People reveal all sorts of secrets in rehab. And even if he didn’t, I bet they’re a breeding ground for resentments and feuds.”
Magda shook her head. “Doctor–patient privilege. Unless it’s some sort of nonlicensed venture.” She fished her portable out of her bag. “But the background information is as good a place to start as any.” As the waiter put her coffee down, she started typing. After a few seconds, she read out, “‘The Eirini Clinic is a seaside facility in Aspous, Greece. It is a health-driven well-being organization that practices opioid, alcohol, and sex addiction rehabilitation for adults and young adults. Each client lives alone and receives one-on-one treatment through a collection of approaches tailored to fit their specific needs.’ Okay. Apparently its treatment philosophy is twelve step, and holistic with a spiritual emphasis. That explains the ‘striving for serenity.’ And it costs fifty thousand euros a month.”
“Jesus!”
“They stay in individual cottages. So much for contacting fellow patients.” She stabbed her phone screen a few more times. “Apparently that’s not unusual. Here’s The Cottage, in England, one patient at a time and fifteen thousand pounds a week. Some place in South Africa will give you a private executive villa, whatever that is, for seventeen thousand dollars a week. Fifty thousand euros seems cheap compared to that.”
But Rachel had moved on from the residence arrangements at luxury rehabs. “What about the false friends Antoinette mentioned? Resentful ex-leeches might be very eager to tell tales.”
Again Magda shook her head. “I don’t see how we could track any of them down. Antoinette couldn’t even name any real friends, never mind false ones. I know she tried to rationalize it, but—is that really what it’s like to be famous?”
“I thought exactly the same thing. But then I thought, Is it a world where people even have real friends?”
Magda shook her head. “Not judging by what I read.”
Rachel sipped her hot chocolate and thought for a long while.
“They might not have friends,” she began slowly, “but they almost certainly have something even more useful to us than friends.” She sped up as the thought took clearer form. “People who watch you like a hawk and pay attention to every move you make. People who will try to anticipate your moves and second-guess everything you think. People who would store up every little thing they heard about you and pore over it in case it might be useful in the future.” Seeing the confusion on Magda’s face she broke into a grin. “Rivals.”