"Elise asked me to drop this off. It's important."

"Come back tomorrow."

Like hell she would.

"Who is this?"

No answer.

"Then you tell Elise, who insisted I drop this off, why you won't let me-"

The massive carved door buzzed open.

About time.

The black-and-white, marble-tiled foyer, lit by a chandelier, led to a winding staircase wrapping an elevator padded with worn blue velvet and so small she held her breath as she squeezed in. The wire doors clanked shut and the shoebox ascended.

It shuddered to a halt on the fourth floor. A fiftyish woman wearing a velour turquoise tracksuit stood on the landing, framed by another set of massive carved doors. Her chin-length black hair was lacquered flat to within a centimeter of its life. She looked wide awake as she sized Aimee up. "I'll take that," she said, holding out her hand for Aimee's report.

Aimee had professors harsher than her.

"I don't think so," said Aimee, barreling past her. "Elise?"

The theme song of Dallas came from a tele down a cavernous hallway of palatial moldings and wall sconces. But the packing boxes and crates lining the walls gave it a forlorn feel.

The woman caught Aimee's arm. "Wait a minute, you can't come in here."

The tall windows overlooking the park and the chapel dome were fogged in the November cold. A faint waft of musk and leather attested to the presence of someone else.

"Where's Elise?"

The woman's long fingernails raked Aimee's jacket. "I'm calling the police, young woman."

"Not before I do." Aimee shook off her grip. "What have you done with her?"

Shocked, the woman's eyes crinkled. "Done with her? What do you mean, child?"

"I'm asking the questions. Who are you and what have you done with Elise and her mother?"

The woman stepped back.

"Answer me."

"I'm the housekeeper. They left me to finish boxing up the apartment."

"Why?"

"Madame Peltier and Elise just left."

Left?

"So late? So where have they gone?"

The woman's mouth pursed. She said nothing.

Had she stumbled into a robbery scam?

"How do I know you're the housekeeper?"

"I've worked for the family for years." The woman tugged her pocket zipper. Nervous. "Elise and her mother took the car and left."

"Like I believe you?"

"Me? You barged in here, what right do you have?"

Aimee scanned the dark hallway. On the sideboard were stacks of envelopes and newspapers, and a sheet of packing instructions with the underscored headline: For Denise.

"When did they leave, Denise?"

"Let me see your identification."

Aimee flashed her faux PI license.

Surprise filled the woman's face.

"There's a difficult situation, didn't she tell you? It's vital I reach her. Where did they go?"

"She never mentioned someone would come here." Denise's thin mouth turned down. "I remember now. A Monsieur Leduc." She was thawing a bit. "I didn't expect someone so young."

"I'm his daughter. Now tell me, Denise, when did they leave?"

"Not long. Forty minutes ago? They left for the village."

Great. "Where's that?"

"I thought you were family. Don't you know?"

She wanted to kick this stubborn housekeeper in her glaring track outfit. The turquoise didn't suit Denise's sallow color at all.

"It looks better if you help me, Denise."

Denise hesitated. Aimee heard voices down the hall.

"Who's here?"

"Only me, JR, and Sue Ellen."

Aimee never watched the tele but everyone in France who did had Dallas fever.

"But if Elise left in a hurry, didn't she leave a message?"

A shrug and shake of her dyed hair.

"I heard the police called."

"None of my business. It's supposed to be my night off."

Helpful, this Denise.

A loud buzz came from the hall intercom. Denise jumped.

"You're expecting someone?" Les flics?

But Denise dashed down the hallway to the door without replying.

Aimee took advantage of this housekeepers' preoccupation and scanned the crates for an address in the village. Nothing. On the sideboard she saw an old-fashioned leather address book, the kind her grandfather kept by the phone. Most people didn't put their own addresses in something they kept at home, but she thumbed it open to P. Only the plumber on rue d'Amsterdam.

She found a scribbled grocery list on the back of an envelope: onions, garlic, rosemary. Thank goodness Elise's generation was so frugal, never wasted a scrap of paper. She turned the envelope over to see it had been forwarded to the Peltiers in Paris from the village of Chambly-sur-Cher.

Aimee stuck it in her pocket.

"I missed her?" a man was saying at the front door. "C'est terrible. I left as soon as I could." His tone spoke of formal, aristocratic French. He shifted the overcoat from his arm and she saw he held a briefcase. He was of medium height, with a crooked nose and dark hair greying at the temples, but he emanated a presence, a charisma, like a politician. The type you noticed, Aimee thought, by their stance, their bearing, a je-ne-sais-quoi. Whatever it was, he had it.

The housekeeper was murmuring something in his ear-all Aimee caught was "that detective's daughter."

"I was supposed to meet Elise, too," Aimee lied. "Do you know when she's returning, monsieur?"

His brow furrowed. "No idea." He set down his case to shake her hand. "I'm Renaud de Bretteville. And you are?"

"Aimee Leduc," she said. "A relative."

"How did the performance go, Monsieur de Bretteville?" Denise asked, her voice fawning.

"Typical dress rehearsal. Complete with a third-act stage-set disaster." De Bretteville sighed. "Still so much to work on." Turning to Aimee, he explained, "I'm performing and producing a piece at the theater."

An actor-that explained the presence, and the sigh. "Let me make tisane for your throat." Denise turned to Aimee, her voice dismissive. "Leave the package with me, I'll see she gets it."

No way she'd leave crime-scene photos and her report with a nosey housekeeper.

"My contact's with Elise." Aimee pulled out her notebook. "Give me the Peltiers' country number."

This time, Denise complied, and Aimee wrote it down.

Despite Denise's second invitation to tea, Renaud de Bretteville declined. Shot Aimee a look she interpreted as the last thing he wanted. So she followed him down the stairs.

"You're Elise's friend, Monsieur de Bretteville?"

"A little more," he said, his deep-timbred voice echoing off the marble stairs. A stage voice. "And you?"

"As I said, we're related." She still didn't know exactly how. "Elise left me a message on the machine that she was afraid. Can you think why? Did she say anything to you?"

"On the phone? It's so hard to hear backstage." He shook his head as he hit a button and the massive front door clicked unlocked. She pushed it open. "I think she called during-non, after the last curtain call. Maybe an hour ago," he said. "I feel terrible I couldn't get away. Has something happened?"

"If you don't mind me asking, how well do you know Elise?"

Another sigh, then a bemused grin. "How well does any man know a woman?"

She'd overheard the busybody housekeeper whisper "detective's daughter" to him-no use keeping it quiet. Her father always said it's a fine line knowing when to reveal you're a detective and when to try to get them to open up by other means. Maybe she'd learn more by enlisting his help. "Monsieur de Bretteville, this concerns her father," said Aimee.

He paused, a serious look on his face. "Her father? Look, I suggested that if the police couldn't solve her father's murder Elise should hire a professional. She said she had a family member in the business. That's you?"

"Leduc Detective's my father's firm, but I'm helping." A swell of pride filled her. She'd never been taken as a professional before. Her shoulders straightened. "I'm following up."

In the patches of light she glimpsed his expression-curiosity in his eyes. "A bit young for this, Aimee? Alors, who am I to say? The police sit back, do nothing. At least that's what Elise feels. It's been a month. What have you discovered?"

Like she'd fall for that and cough up hard-won information? "My job's asking questions," she said. "Who would want to murder Monsieur Peltier or his circle of friends?" She guessed that last part, but from Renaud's startled expression, she could see it hit the mark. What mark, she didn't know.

Suspicious, she watched him closer. Walking in the chilly, rain-freshened night air, their footsteps were muted on the wet leaves.

"I can't guess who would want to kill Bruno Peltier, and neither can the flics. Elise's so frustrated," said Renaud. "The inspector took me aside and told me they'd rounded up a suspect, but then his alibi checked out. Of course they can't share his ID or their investigation. For her peace of mind I said, 'If you don't think they're doing it right, talk to a detective.' But I figure you'd tell her the same thing."

"Alors, please, can you help me?"

"Bien sr, in any way I can." He sounded sincere and offered to walk her to the boulevard where she'd parked.

As she tried to figure out what information she could get from him, he gestured to the Chapelle Expiatoire, fronted by four Doric columns splattered with pigeon excrement. "You know, every January the right-wing aristocrats celebrate a mass here in the deposed Marie-Antoinette and Louis's honor."

"Vraiment? I never knew that," she said. Let him talk, she thought. Draw him out.

"Elise's father made a point of telling me," he said.

Here was a way to push for more information about Elise's father. "Did you know him well?"

"Pas du tout." He shook his head. "He supported our theater foundation. But supporting the theater isn't the same thing as being happy that your daughter is involved with an actor."

How old-fashioned. Wasn't Elise old enough to make her own choices? She must be practically as old as Aimee's father. Ancient.

"You're saying her father disapproved?"

"Old school, tu comprends?"

Hypocritical, too, this Bruno who frequented botes de nuit on rue de Ponthieu.

"When did you last see Monsieur Peltier?" That was too direct, so amateur. Yet how else could she find out? She wondered how her father would have handled it.

"Let me think." Renaud's condescending voice rubbed her the wrong way. "I'd just dined with the family on Sunday at home," he said. "We were announcing our engagement. That was the last time."

Engagement? "Congratulations," Aimee said, surprised. She had an idea, decided to take a shot in the dark. "Were his old friends at the party? You know, the ones he meets-I mean, met-every month?"