Chapter Sixteen

Magda called Benoît from Rachel and Alan’s bedroom. Rachel longed to sit beside her on the bed, telling her exactly what to say, but recognizing the impossibility of this, she instead lingered in the hall outside her closed bedroom door, listening to a good deal of giggling and a certain amount of murmured conversation. She didn’t know precisely what passed between them, but it resulted in an invitation to the offices of Edgar’s law firm, where Benoît would do what he could about the will.

So it was that on the Monday of the following week she found herself seated in the gleaming reception area of Cabinet Martin Frères, on the third floor of a Belle Époque building in the second arrondissement. Magda sat next to her, nervously crossing and uncrossing her legs. She looked like a teenager about to introduce her mother to her friends.

Rachel and Alan had an avocat of their own, but, as with Edgar’s appartement, Cabinet Martin Frères was in an entirely different bracket. The reception area had the upholstered hush that indicates the presence of significant money and the air of discretion that indicates the presence of significant power. All the furniture was in dark wood polished to a high sheen, and the coffee table held glossy magazines like Art et Décoration and Challenges. The receptionist sat behind a huge desk, a phone so large it was practically a switchboard placed front and center, and a vase of gloriosa on the far corner. She was a cross between Catherine Deneuve in Belle du Jour and Evita Perón: blonde hair pulled into a severe chignon, beige wool dress perfectly plain, haughty mouth painted matte persimmon. Under the desk, Rachel knew, she wore those crippling stiletto heels mysteriously loved by fashionable young French women. After she finished work, she would go out to Le Bar Long or Hôtel Costes and allow some very rich man to buy her drinks. Later she would marry another very rich man, possibly even a client of this firm, and when they divorced, she would receive a settlement that left her comfortable for life. This was the kind of place that had such a receptionist.

Had she missed out, not staying with Edgar? Rachel wondered. All the deference and discreet money of this cabinet could have been hers. That appartement could have been hers. Then she remembered that the question was immaterial, since Edgar, and not she, had ended the relationship. And he had been right. She felt more comfortable with Alan—delightful Alan who had learned to like the ballet, who taught her to appreciate modern jazz, who could make her laugh and shiver simultaneously by bending back his double-jointed thumbs. But still she felt a little bit mournful: thankful for what she had, but sorry not to have had the opportunity to experience what she hadn’t.

She had just begun to reflect on this paradox when the man from the funeral reception came through an inner door and walked toward them. Now that she wasn’t intent on dragging Magda away, she could pay attention to what he looked like, and what she saw made her happy. His smooth dark hair, brushed back in two wings from a center part, was silvering at the temples; rimless glasses slightly magnified his lively dark eyes. His navy suit was impeccably cut, and he had paired it with a vivid violet tie. As he caught sight of Magda, his professional smile widened and deepened into something more genuine. He held out both hands to her; she rose and took them. Two kisses on each cheek, Rachel noticed, then an extra kiss on one. So much for seeing him a bit! Things were far advanced indeed. Smiling, she rose to greet him.

“Madame Levis.” The man pronounced her name correctly as he took her hand. “Benoît Gèroux. What a pleasure. I’ve heard a very great deal about you. Magda is always telling me what you have said or done, and always with great pride. Now at last we meet!” He smiled. “I’m honored.”

He clasped her hand between his palms, kissing her once on each cheek and leaving behind the deep scent of some delicious aftershave. Rachel could feel herself blushing. She felt an overwhelming urge to giggle like a schoolgirl. If the French have a reputation for exaggerated charm, it’s because only they are suave enough to carry off that charm without looking farcical.

“Alors,” Benoît said as they settled in his office. “I understand from Magda that you wish to see Monsieur Bowen’s will.” He lifted a manila folder from a pile and put it on the desk in front of him. “Since we spoke, I have located that will.” He fiddled with the folder, putting his index finger between the covers and then removing it. “Unfortunately,” he said and paused, smoothed the cover with his thumbs, “this will is not out of probate. If you were asking six months from now, I could easily show it to you. But at this time I cannot.” He shook his head sadly, an acknowledgment of the ironies of life. “I can only read it and tell you what it says—paraphrase it.”

“But I’ve already heard it paraphrased.” Rachel tried to keep her voice calm. Magda shot her a look.

Benoît shrugged sorrowfully again. “Nonetheless, that’s all I can do.”

She drew a breath. She shouldn’t argue. This was Magda’s maybe-boyfriend and a lawyer who had to abide by a code of ethics. She tried to concede gracefully. “Thank you.”

“It is a pleasure.” He flattened the folder open on the desk and picked up the thick document inside, turning over pages as he read them. At last he put it down, folding his hands on top of it. “Monsieur Bowen appoints no secondary heirs and makes no arrangement for consolidation of bequests.”

Magda let out her breath explosively. “Dammit.” She dropped back in her chair.

But Rachel was not quite done. As Benoît started to close the folder, she said, “I’m sorry.” She smiled. “Can I ask you to look at one more thing?”

“Comme tu veux.” He gave a little nod. “I am at your service.”

She turned to Magda. “I was thinking last night. When Elisabeth was talking to Mathilde, she said Edgar had left instructions that only she was allowed to see his papers, in order to organize them. She said it was in his will.”

Magda nodded.

“But I was there when the will was read. And I don’t remember the notaire saying anything about only her having access.” Rachel leaned toward her “What if what matters is not that Mathilde wanted access to the back rooms, but that Elisabeth didn’t want her to have that access? What if Elisabeth is lying, so she can have time to find something that incriminates her?” She clarified, “Incriminates Elisabeth herself, I mean.”

Magda thought for a second, then nodded and turned to Benoit. “Please could you check to see if Edgar says anything about limiting access?”

He dipped his head once more. Again he studied the document, again he slowly turned the pages over, again he put it down. “Monsieur Bowen leaves no such instructions.”

It was Rachel’s turn to fall back. Elisabeth had lied! She wanted to keep others from finding something in Edgar’s appartement, something that was damaging enough to lie for. The ingénue was not so ingenuous after all.

“Thank you so much,” she said. She and Magda gathered their things. In the anteroom, under the gaze of the supercilious receptionist, she took Benoît’s hand and kissed him on each cheek. He had gone out of his way for them, committing what was at least a semi-illegal act, and for all she knew a completely illegal one. Whatever they had or hadn’t discovered, she was grateful.

They stopped outside the building’s porte d’entrée, hunching themselves against the cold.

“So,” Rachel began.

“Dammit about Catherine!” Magda cut her off. “I was sure one of them killed her to get her money.”

Rachel had never believed that scenario; now she tried to find a gentle way to put forward her own. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that.” She licked her lips, then wished she hadn’t when cold air hit the wet skin. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and went on. “Just because she wasn’t killed for the money, that doesn’t mean she wasn’t killed.”

“What?”

“No, listen. You made a good point: obviously the money from Edgar put her back in the black. From the way she acted at the store and with me, she didn’t have any current money worries.” Magda opened her mouth, but Rachel plunged on. “But I do think someone killed her. I think they did it because she was blackmailing them. I think she was blackmailing the murderer.”

Magda made a face. “What makes you think that?”

“A couple of things.” Rachel took a breath. “First, like you said, when we saw her, she said she had a good plan for the future. But Kiki said she could never hold onto money. And people who aren’t good with money don’t think in those terms about the money they have. They might say, ‘This will solve all my problems!’, or even, ‘I have a plan,’ but they’d never think carefully or concretely enough to say, ‘I’ve got a good plan for the future.’ Even the phrase is too rational, too long-sighted, for them.”

Magda opened her mouth, then closed it. Then she opened it again. “That’s really smart. I’d never have thought of that.”

But Rachel didn’t rest on her laurels. “Then, when we were having our drink, all those strange questions about how the people in the household were taking the death, whether they seemed upset or had said anything to me. I thought she might be trying to find out if someone had suggested her as a suspect, but now I think I misread. I think she was fishing to see if someone was feeling nervous—or if they’d outed her as a blackmailer. And I think that someone killed her.”

Silence. Then Magda nodded. “Yes. Yes. That makes sense. But now the question is, what can we do with it?”

That always seemed to be the question. Rachel cast her mind back over all the methods of further investigation that she’d seen on television, in the movies, in relevant books. She had already consulted her snitch—they knew nobody on the job—neither of them had a confidential informant. “We’ll do a house-to-house search! We’ll go talk to her neighbors about what they saw.” Then she subsided. “Except we don’t have her address.”

But Magda grinned, at once both joyous and sly. “We don’t, but we can get it.” She reached into her bag for her phone. “Thanks to the internet.”

Rachel held out a delaying hand. “Okay, but please could it be the internet indoors? We’ve been out here ten minutes, and I think my toes already have frostbite.”

Five minutes later they were in a nearby furniture store, sitting next to each other on an overstuffed tweed sofa.

“What is this called again?” Rachel took off her gloves.

“Infogreffe.” Magda stared at the screen. “It lists the names and addresses of all companies and company directors in the country. I used it all the time when I was just starting up, to network and find wholesalers. Right—there it is.” She tapped letters into the website that had appeared. “Catherine will have made Le Cindy a company. It’s required for tax purposes. And as director of that company, she’d have to list her address.”

“And this is accessible online?” Rachel thought of animal rights activists, of domestic terrorists, of good old-fashioned burglars.

“Well, you have to pay a fee.” Magda was distracted, focusing on what she was doing. Finally, “There you go.” She tapped the monitor.

And indeed, there they went. Le Cindy, SARL, the monitor said, Catherine Nadeau, director. Below it, plain as day, was a residential address.