Murder in the Marais by Cara Black Read Free Book Online Page B

eyes at Rachel, who nodded knowingly.
    "I don't speak ill of the dead, she was my mother-in-law. We lived under the same roof for thirteen years," Sinta said. "But she could be difficult. Lately she'd taken to seeing shadows everywhere—in her closet, out the window, on the street. Ghosts."
    "Shadows?"
    Sinta had turned away, as if dismissing her. Aimee stood up and grasped Sinta's elbow, forcing the woman to turn and face her directly.
    "What do you mean by that?" Aimee asked.
    Reluctantly, Sinta spoke. "Talking about the past, seeing ghosts around the corner." She shook her head and sighed. "Imagining some collaborator had come back to haunt her." Sinta cocked her head and rested her hands on her hips. "She grew so agitated the other day that I finally said, 'Show me this ghost,' so we walked to rue des Francs Bourgeois and up rue de Sevigne to that park with Roman ruins. We sat there for a long time, quietly. Then she seemed calm and said, 'It comes full circle in the end, always does,' and that was that. No more mention of ghosts."
    "Collaborators?" Aimee said, surprised.
    Sinta repinned a lock of hair that wouldn't behave. "Yes, all that old talk."
    "Why wouldn't you believe her?" Aimee said.
    "Up and down rue des Rosiers, Les Blancs Nationaux spray graffiti and smash windows. Seems obvious."
    This was the second time she had heard Les Blancs Nationaux mentioned.
    Sinta paused and looked around the room. Rachel's eyes had closed, low snores rattling from her open mouth.
    "Lately, Lili had become very paranoid." Sinta lowered her voice. "Between you and me, she didn't have many friends. Poor Rachel put up with her, the others wouldn't. Go investigate that trash, that's where you should be looking." Sinta sighed. "I don't have time for the past anymore."
    Sinta opened Lili's cracked wooden wardrobe and a strong whiff of cedar came out. Sinta shoved some black skirts together and moved aside a pair of freshly heeled shoes, a repair tag hanging off them. "Too bad. She had just picked these up from the cobbler's." Sinta shook her head. "All this goes to the synagogue sale benefiting Jews in Serbia."
    "What's the hurry, Sinta?"
    "Time to clean things out," Sinta said with determination. "No more living in the past."
    As Sinta reached in the back, Aimee noticed a coat half-covered in yellowed paper with an old cleaning tag labeled MADAME L . STEIN pinned to it. The cut and drape spoke couture, but the combed wool with nubby black tufts resembled a postwar concoction of available materials.
    "That's beautiful," she said.
    Sinta grabbed it from the wardrobe and threw it in the pile.
    Aimee stared into Sinta's eyes as she lifted the coat up. "Maybe you should keep this."
    "Why?"
    Aimee looked at it wistfully. Her mother had worn a coat like this. "Don't you feel this coat was from a happier time in her life?"
    Rachel snorted awake. Her eyes brightened, seeing what Aimee held. "Ah, the new look from Dior. . .1948! Lili sewed a coat for me like this one. Mine had bows down the back seam."
    " Schmates! Rags! Everything goes to the synagogue; Serbian refugees will use the cloth. Make it functional and useful, not just a moth-eaten memory."
    Aimee felt something intensely personal from Lili Stein emanated from that coat. "Instead, let me keep the coat and I will donate money to the synagogue fund. In honor of my mother. I didn't know her either."
    Sinta stood back. "I'm supposed to feel sorry for you?" Her black eyes glittered. "Grieving for a mother you didn't know?" She planted herself close to Aimee. "My sympathy market is closed. I had a mother born in Treblinka. As far as I'm concerned, mentally she never left. Couldn't leave the past. Kept scratching for lice and begging for food even on the kibbutz in 1973. . ." She stopped as Abraham came in.
    He glared at Sinta.
    "That's enough." He picked up the coat and handed it to Aimee. "Maman hadn't worn it in years. Take it."
    "Thank you, Monsieur Stein," she said. She picked some piled