My hands trembling with the effort to control my temper, I reached for another slice of bread and buttered it. “So tell me, what’s really going on? And who are you, Monsieur? Who are you, really?”
He had been in the middle of ladling a spoonful of soup to his mouth and he stopped, the spoon raised and the soup on it sending a small cloud of steam in front of his face. It struck me as appropriate, seeing as how Jacques Lavoie’s life was all about smoke and mirrors.
He put his spoon back into his soup bowl. “I am not surprised that you have discovered this about me,” he said. “You are a very smart woman. This, I have always known.”
“Not so smart that I can’t be fooled.”
“Oh, no. No, chérie!” Monsieur’s laugh was deep and throaty. It always reminded me of Pepé Le Pew. “You are very bright. You have found out-”
“That there is not now and never has been a family named Lavoie in Sceau-Saint-Angel, France. That you own a truckload of false IDs. That you are not and never have been Bill Boxley, and that when you stole his wallet, you took his driver’s license but not his credit cards.” I took a deep breath before I added, “Oh, and I also know that Fred Gardner must have been one hell of a good teacher because folks in Allentown still remember him fondly even though he’s been dead for twenty years.”
As I spoke, Monsieur’s face grew paler and paler. By the time I punctuated my last words by slapping my hand against the table, he was the color of the white apron he wore over a blue oxford shirt that looked as if it had been slept in.
“See?” He blinked rapidly and tried for a smile that never quite peaked. “It is just like I said. As a detective, you are brilliant. You must be, chérie, to know all this. You are as smart as you are beautiful. It is no wonder that my dear friend Jim thinks so highly of you. You are-”
In any other circumstances, I might have been all for basking in his praise. Right then and there, I was so not in the mood. I leaned over the table and cut him off with a look. “You can cut the crap and the phony accent-Norman.”
If ever I hoped to find proof, there it was. Monsieur’s mouth fell open and he collapsed back into his chair.
In spite of the fact that I was fighting mad, I was not heartless. Rather than continuing my attack, I backed away and gave him a moment to collect himself. He did, and right before my eyes, I saw a transformation. The swagger went out of his shoulders. The cocky Gallic smile fled his face. When he finally spoke, I wasn’t the least bit surprised that there wasn’t a trace of an accent anywhere in his voice. It was flat and nasal and East Coast sounding. Norman may have grown up in Allentown, and maybe he did come to a bad end in Las Vegas, but if I was a betting person (and it goes without saying that I’m not), I would have bet he’d spent time in New Jersey, too.
“It’s a scam. All of it’s a scam. Like all the other scams. You understand, don’t you, kid?”
I wasn’t about to let him off the hook so easily. I kept my eyes on him. “You mean like Vavoom!?”
With his spoon, he made figure eights in his soup. “Kind of.” He shrugged. “I mean, the whole thing about being French… you can see how it helps with the business, right? Who’s going to take cooking lessons from a guy named Norman from Allentown? Who’s going to buy expensive cookware from him? Norman Applebaum…” He sighed. “Doesn’t exactly have the ambience I was looking for when I bought this place.”
“And Bill Boxley?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Boxley was the guy from Fredericksburg, right? That’s where I was running a sweet little scam with this cleaning fluid.” His shoulders shot back, his eyes lit, and I didn’t have any trouble at all picturing him as Bill Boxley, hawking his product in front of an enthralled crowd. “Cleans. Shines. Polishes. Just a little dab on a rag takes care of all your cleaning needs. Tarnished silver? Just wipe it away! Dirty floors? Add a quarter cup to a bucket of warm water and they’re hospital clean! Greasy dishes?”
He chanced a glance my way. When he saw I wasn’t buying (his cleaning product or his attempt at winning me over), he went back to being regular ol’ Norman. His shoulders slumped. His cheery, confident personality disappeared, and he made a face. “I made a bundle. Until folks found out my magic cleaning fluid wasn’t so magical.”
I’m not usually cynical. Which is why he was surprised when I sneered, “What, it ate through cloth?”
“It was fine on cloth. It was fine on everything. It should have been, it was dishwashing detergent.”
“Which you repackaged and sold as something wonderful. Like the seasoned salt you sell as Vavoom!”
“And you put it on sale!” He tried to look outraged by the audacity of my management decision, but actually, Norman looked a little impressed. “You got guts, kid,” he said. “You’re good at setting things right.”
If it was true, why didn’t I feel better? I spooned up a mouthful of soup. “I’m getting nowhere on Greg’s murder,” I said. “But that’s because I haven’t been able to get all my questions answered. Because the person who has the answers…” I paused here so my words had a chance to sink in. “The person who has the answers was nowhere to be found.” A thought struck and I set down my spoon and looked across the table at Norman.
“You said Monsieur was a scam. Like all the other scams. That’s what you said. Do you think it’s possible that any of those other scams has anything to do with Greg’s death?”
He scratched a hand through his hair. “I don’t see how.”
“But you knew the killer was looking for you, and not Greg.” I didn’t say this like it was a question, but I was hoping for confirmation nonetheless.
Norman gave it to me with a brief nod. “That’s why I’ve been hiding out,” he said. “He wanted to talk to me. And I saw what happened to Greg. I’m not a brave person, Annie. If that guy gets ahold of me… well, I can’t even think about it without having a panic attack. That’s why I ran out of here the night Greg was killed. I was so upset, I didn’t know what to do. By the time I calmed down and decided to go home, there were cops at my place. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t know if they thought I shot Greg. I was so scared, I couldn’t think straight. I spent that night just driving around and the next day after the cops were gone, that’s when I came back here. I figured it was the last place anybody would look for me, the cops or”-he gulped-“the guy who killed Greg.” Embarrassed, he looked away. “I thought I’d get up the nerve to go to the cops, but I haven’t. I don’t know if I ever will. I thought-”
“What? That you could hide up here forever?”
He answered with a shrug.
“Like it or not, you’re going to have to talk to the police eventually. They’ll protect you. You’re a witness.” When Norman didn’t reply, I looked at him closely. “You are a witness, aren’t you?”
He gave me another shrug.
“This is getting us nowhere!” Frustrated, I pushed back from the table and looked around the room. There was a stack of paper on a nearby countertop and I went over and grabbed it along with a pen. I plunked both pen and paper on the table next to Norman.
“We need to work our way through this thing, and as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one place to start. Let’s go out on a limb here and say I’m right. That guy was after you, Norman, and I’m thinking that if we try hard enough, we just might be able to figure out why. Go ahead.” When he didn’t make a move to pick up the pen, I handed it to him. “Write down the ones you can think of.”
“The scams?” It was hard to look at the man seated in front of me and not think of him as the jolly Frenchman who had influenced so many people-including Jim-with his flair for food. When he looked up at me, he no longer looked larger than life. He was an ordinary guy. An ordinary guy named Norman. A little befuddled, he asked, “All of them?”