Murder Below Montparnasse - By Cara Black Page 0,28

his welcome. Aimée flashed her détective privé card.

“A private detective?” Her lipsticked mouth pursed. “No crime’s been committed here. I don’t understand. Unless you’re some vulture hired by his son.”

Aimée kept her impatience down. “Madame, could you talk with me about Piotr Volodya?”

“We’ve got seventy-eight beds,” Madame Gobulansky said. “And a waiting list. Neither I nor my staff discusses former patients.”

La directrice covered her derrière. Yet, after coming all this way, Aimée wouldn’t give up.

“But I can speak with residents who knew Piotr, his friends. No regulation against that?” Aimée smiled and kept on talking. “Perhaps the resident across from Piotr’s room, number thirty four. Yuri spoke fondly of—”

“The only time we saw his son, Yuri, was before the funeral.” Her lipstick smudged on her teeth.

“I’m acting on Yuri’s behalf. He’s the heir.…” Aimée looked down the hallway. Still deserted for lunch. “Alors, I wouldn’t want to cause any unpleasantness or create unnecessary paperwork. Or raise a judicial complaint.”

“We’re a private foundation, Mademoiselle.”

Aimée smiled. “Then you won’t object to me having a casual conversation.”

Madame Gobulansky sighed. “If you mean Madame Natasha …”

Madame Natasha? Aimée nodded. “Mais oui,” she said. “Where is she?”

“Where Madame Natasha always sits at lunchtime.” La directrice’s features became impassive. “For the last five years while Piotr was bedridden, she remained his companion. I’ll introduce you.”

Helpful now, Madame Gobulansky guided her across the hallway. Either Aimée had scared Madame la directrice or she’d cooked the wrong rabbit, as her father would say, and was getting fobbed off. “Just a moment, s’il vous plaît.”

Companion? Aimée wondered.

The nursing home was a museum. To the right swept a nineteenth-century staircase, brass rods holding dark maroon carpeting in place. Lining the hallway were oil portraits of Empress Catherine II, Emperors Alexander I, II, and III, a marble bust of Nicholas II, and an oil painting of tight-lipped Alexandra Fédorovna. In the corners clung a musty old-world smell. From another age, a vanished tsarist Russia of long ago. The only things missing were the cobwebs and Cossacks.

Her nose crinkled at the old-people smell that the disinfectant didn’t cover.

Madame Gobulansky beckoned her inside before disappearing in a rustle of polyester.

The high-ceilinged salon held a cloying old-lady rose scent and a large télé. On the screen played a ballet—vintage black-and-white reels without sound.

“Bonjour, Madame, maybe you can help me.”

“Moi?” Madame Natasha, in a wheelchair with an oxygen tube clipped to her nose, was applying mascara. “God blesses those who help themselves.” A fine dust of wrinkles covered her otherwise taut, translucent face. Her clawlike fingers wavered. Aimée wanted to reach out and guide the mascara comb.

“Not bad for ninety-eight, eh?” She gave a quavering laugh. “Go ahead, tell me I don’t look a day over eighty.”

“You don’t.” Aimée smiled. Must have been a beauty in her day. Clear sapphire eyes, erect posture in the wheelchair. Hopefully her mind was as clear.

“May I take a few minutes of your time?”

“Time? But that’s all I have now.” She pointed to the télé screen. “Of course, you came to hear my stories of the Ballets Russes at Monte Carlo. That’s me, the third from the left.”

Aimée stifled a groan. “Fascinating. But I’d like to know about Piotr Volodya. I hear you were his companion.”

“Where’s Piotr gone?” She tugged a crocheted throw over her withered legs. “He’s late.”

Late?

“His son Yuri sent me.” A semi-truth.

“That son who never visits him?” Natasha put down her mascara. “I outlived four husbands.” Natasha gave a theatrical sigh. The corners of her wrinkled red lips turned down. “We’re engaged. See my ring from Piotr.” Natasha flashed a blue-veined hand with a garish red stone like a cherry on her swollen, arthritic middle finger. Not even glass.

“Exquisite.” Aimée stared, her heart sinking.

“Spoils of the tsar.” Madame Natasha leaned over her wheelchair arm. “We must speak in code. They’re listening.”

No wonder Madame Gobulansky had complied, Aimée thought. The old biddy drifted through time with a good dose of paranoia.

“Who’s listening?”

“The Okhrana. The tsar’s secret police.” She put a thin finger to her lips. Nodded. “Piotr knows. Lenin told him.”

The white-tutu’d ballerinas flickered on the screen. Great. A ninety-eight-year-old ballerina with dementia.

Natasha’s lips parted in a wide smile. For a moment the years fell away. “Men have always given me things.”

Aimée scanned the dull gold icons on the walls, an assemblage of pastel and watercolor paintings. In the corner a bronze samovar bubbled and steamed.

“Can you tell me about Piotr and Yuri’s relationship?”

“After we have tea, Mademoiselle.”

Aimée contained her impatience as Natasha wheeled herself to the