In the Spirit of French Murder

Book 4: American in Paris Mystery

by Colleen Cambridge

Genres: Historical Mysteries; Mystery; Culinary Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

After moving to France, Tabitha Knight has a new friend in fellow expat and Cordon Bleu student Julia Child, whose culinary tips can come in quite handy. But something’s cooking in postwar Paris, and it isn’t just cheese soufflé…

Tabitha has enjoyed an entertaining afternoon in Julia’s kitchen, but her return home is a bit jarring. As she arrives at her grandfather’s rue de l’Universitémansion, a woman bursts out the door babbling about messages from spirits and a warning Grand-père must heed. Oncle Rafe angrily sends the woman on her way, and neither man will answer Tabitha’s questions.

It’s not the last she sees of the mysterious visitor. While she’s on a date that evening, she’s accosted by her again—and learns that Madame Vierca is a medium who claims to have visions of a dark fate that awaits Grand-père and Oncle Rafe. The very next night, Tabitha’s messieurs host a soiree at their new restaurant, inviting fellow Resistance fighters from the war known as the Nine Bluets. To commemorate the work of the Resistance network, the vase on the dinner table sports nine of the pretty blue flowers.

But shortly after the revelers leave the restaurant, one of Grand-père’s old friends is found dead on the street . . . and one of the nine flowers is missing from the vase. When a second member of the Nine Bluets is found poisoned the next day, and a bluet flower is left with the body, Tabitha cannot ignore Madame Vierca’s frightening predictions about her dear messieurs. She has no choice but to share her suspicions and fears with the enigmatic and unruffled Inspecteur Merveille.

Tabitha soon finds herself caught up in an investigation that takes her and Merveille to the seediest, most dangerous parts of the Left Bank—home of strange, fantastical legends, disquieting events, and unusual people. As she and Merveille desperately try to find a killer, they know they don’t have much time before the rest of the Nine Bluets are targeted . . . including Grand-père and Oncle Rafe.

Release date: April 28, 2026

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 272

Sample

Paris

1950

“It was an absolute disaster!” Julia cried, gripping my arm in desperation. “I was completely mortified! I simply can’t believe what a muck I made of it!” Her bright blue eyes were wild with emotion, and her curly brown hair seemed to vibrate with emphasis.

I blinked. I had merely asked how the luncheon she had cooked yesterday for her friend had gone, and apparently, it had not gone well at all. “Well, what happened?” I asked cautiously, and also with a healthy bit of skepticism.

After all, what Julia Child might consider to be an “absolute disaster” in the kitchen was probably little more than a bit of eggshell in an omelette or the top of a cake that was not as level as she might want. Maybe she’d put too much, I don’t know, thyme or chervil or salt in something?

My friend, who was studying at Le Cordon Bleu, was a wiz dans la cuisine, and some—very little, but some—of her skills and education had been rubbing off on me. I still had my own absolute disasters, like a cheese soufflé that had collapsed like a hot air balloon; what on earth had I been thinking to even try making such a delicate dish?—but I was certain her troubles would pale in comparison to anything I had done.

“Oh, good heavens, I don’t even know if I want to tell you!” Julia finally released my arm and plopped into a chair, coffee cups, plates, and flatware rattling as her arms and elbows settled onto the table.

We were in her kitchen on the second level of the apartment she shared with her husband, Paul. It was a very small space, hardly more than a galley, and it didn’t have hot running water (something I’d taken for granted back home in Michigan but learned was a luxury in Paris). But it did have a massive stove, soapstone counters, and an entire bank of windows on one wall. Today, on this cold, crisp day in the first week of March, the sun shined through those windows and bathed the room in warm light, and I was beginning to think that spring might actually come once again to my adopted city. It had been a long, tough, cold winter—and, astonishingly and sadly, for Julia and me, it had also been filled with murder.

I was more than ready for the warmth and light of spring.

“Oh,” Julia moaned. The table rocked, and its burden clinked again under the shift of her arms.

I had taken a seat as soon as I came into the kitchen. It was a requirement in La Cuisine de Scheeld (as Paul Child called it, using the French pronunciation of their surname), for there was simply no room for more than one person to stand in the space, especially when Julia was cooking—which she was always doing, and always doing in such an energetic, choreographed fashion that you just needed to stay out of her way. Not to mention it was a good idea to be sitting so you could be lucky enough to sample whatever delicacy she was cooking.

The fact that Julia was actually sitting in her kitchen with nothing in front of her to cut, chop, or knead was shocking all on its own. Whatever happened must have really been bad.

“All right, I’ll tell you. I’ll confess it all—I’ll give you the bald truth—and then we’ll never speak of it again, all right, Tabitha? Promise me! And this,” she went on, shaking her head, her eyes wide and fixed on me, “is precisely why I am so relieved I didn’t accept the offer from your messieurs to cook for their little soirée tomorrow night! My God, if Chef Bugnard ever heard about this …!” She moaned once more, thinking of her teacher at the cooking school.

“What happened?” I said again, lifting my cup of coffee to drink. French café was one of my favorite things about the City of Light—and I had many favorite things. I tended to add a healthy amount of sugar to it to make it even better. It was rich and nutty and robust—a far cry from the Folgers I used to drink back home.

“Well, I was making eggs Florentine. Do you know how many times I’ve made eggs Florentine, Tabitha? Do you have any idea how many times I’ve cooked that dish? Probably a hundred! Maybe two hundred! It was one of the first things I learned from my dear and wise Ali-Bab,” she said, gesturing impatiently toward the massive tome sitting on a shelf. Gastronomie pratique, by Henri Babinski, written under the pseudonym Ali-Bab, was a dark, aged book the size of a cinder block. It was this “bible” for French housewives that had launched Julia’s interest in cooking.

“You’ve made it for me,” I said. “And it was wonderful!”

“Yes. It usually is. But yesterday … Good heavens, Tabs, I simply don’t know what I was thinking! I just chucked everything I know about cooking right out those windows.” She flapped a hand at them. “What does Chef Bugnard say? What has he drilled into my head every single day at class? Measure, measure, measure … taste, taste, taste! And did I do any of that?” She gave me a look, demanding me to answer her question.

“Um … no?”

“That’s right. I didn’t measure a damned thing. I just—oh, God, Tabitha—I just slopped and tossed and flung everything about like a mad scientist! It was like I was trying to make Frankenstein’s monster or something! I thought I didn’t need to measure or to taste or to look at the recipe, I’d done it so many times. I mean, who doesn’t know how to make eggs Florentine …?”

“I don’t,” I said with a grin.

“I’ll teach you,” she said. “It’ll be my penance for mucking up lunch for Winnie yesterday. Oh, I don’t mean it’s a penance to teach you, Tabs, I just mean it’s my penance because I’m going to make myself go over it and over it and over it again because I was such a fool to think I could just whip things up and ignore everything I know!”

“So … what happened after you made the eggs and they didn’t turn out?”

Julia made a strangled sound. “We ate them. I served them. I actually served that mess—that floppy, gloppy, disgusting mess! The sauce Mornay was … Ugh, it was like glue! We just sat there and choked it down, and I didn’t say a word about it. And neither did Winnie.”

“Oh,” I replied, then clamped my mouth closed with a heartfelt grimace. What else could I say?

“It was miserable, Tabs! Absolutely miserable! But do you know what? I decided then and there, I wasn’t going to apologize. I’m not going to be one of those—those fluttery cooks who go around apologizing for every little thing that’s wrong or didn’t turn out perfectly or anything. I’m never going to apologize for anything I make in the kitchen!” She slammed her palm onto the table. Clink-rattle.

“We ate it, and neither of us is dead—well, at least I’m not dead. And I certainly hope Winnie isn’t dead! Oh, heavens, that’s all I would need! God knows you and I have run into enough dead people, haven’t we?” She huffed out a laugh that turned into a half-sob.

And then, all at once, we were laughing together.

We weren’t laughing at the murders she and I had gotten caught up in over the past few months, but at the entire situation of gloppy, floppy eggs Florentine and miserably choking them down one’s throat without saying a word.

Once the hilarity had eased, I said, “Well, I, for one, am disappointed that you aren’t going to be there tomorrow night for the soirée.”

“Oh, I’m going to be there. And, Tabitha, remember what I said! We aren’t to speak of the Debacle of the Eggs Florentine ever again, and definitely not to your messieurs! I simply can’t have that delicious light of adoration for my cooking fade from their eyes.” She chuckled. “Anyway, even though I’m not going to be cooking exactly, I am going to be working with Chef Debord dans la cuisine at Maison de Verre tomorrow night. I’ll be assisting him. I think I’m making one dish on my own.”

“You are?” I exclaimed. “That’s wonderful, Julia! I’m so happy to hear that.”

“Chef Bugnard arranged it. He and Debord go way back, from before the war. I am going to learn so much! It’s going to be fabulous! And the food! It’s going to be spectacular!”

I was nearly as excited as Julia was about the event. My grand-père and Oncle Rafe—both of whom had warmly and lovingly welcomed me to live with them in the gorgeous mansion across rue de l’Université from Julia and Paul Child’s apartment—had recently purchased and remodeled a restaurant. Maison de Verre had been one of Paris’s premiere restaurants gastronomiques before the war and the German Occupation—apparently on the same par as La Tour d’Argent and Le Grand Véfour. It had also been one of my messieurs’ favorite places to eat, for it was within a three-block walking distance and the food was incredible. The restaurant had closed down during the war, when the chef-owner decided he couldn’t welcome or even tolerate the Germans, and it had been abandoned—well, mostly abandoned—ever since.

I had had my own harrowing experiences inside Maison de Verre recently, but the fact that it would soon reopen and that surely we would frequent the place didn’t bother me at all. The so-called ghosts had been exorcised from the place, for it had been lovingly cleaned and remodeled into a stupendously and consummately French establishment.

Tomorrow night my messieurs were having a small gathering with some close friends as a sort of pre-opening for the restaurant. It was also their opportunity to debut Chef Debord to those whom they hoped would be their patrons.

I’d been delighted when Grand-père had originally suggested Julia might want to cook a dish or two for the little gathering, but she had declined, and in the end, it had been the best decision. Not because of the Debacle of the Eggs Florentine, but because it really was more appropriate for Chef Debord to present the menu since he was going to be running things. I suspected Grand-père had made the offer simply because he was sweet and kind and very grateful for all the meals Julia had cooked for them (particularly when I was off poking around into murder investigations).

“Do you know everyone who is coming tomorrow night?” asked Julia from over her shoulder. Having confessed the details of her debacle and feeling absolved—or resolved—she’d risen and returned to the stove, where she belonged. I didn’t know what she was cooking, but it smelled divine, and it was comforting to see her back to work.

“I don’t think so. Some of them I’ve met before, I’m sure. Most of them are old friends of Grand-père and Oncle Rafe from before the war,” I replied. I had been living with my messieurs for nearly a month before I realized that Oncle Rafe was no blood relation to me but instead was a very close longtime friend of my grandfather’s. His partner in every way.

“Do you think some of them were in the Resistance?” Julia said, turning from the stove even as she continued to stir the contents of a pot.

“Maybe. I’m not sure. You know it can be a difficult subject for them to talk about,” I replied. Both Julia and I had been witness to more than one tense exchange between my grandfather, who was a partner at a large, respected bank and had had to carefully balance his interactions with the Germans while remaining loyal to and protective of his countrymen, and Oncle Rafe, who’d been a staunch member of the Resistance and who tended to see things as far more definitively black or white.

“Yes,” Julia said thoughtfully. “I can’t help but think about what it must have been like … the sorts of decisions people had to make about what to do and when. Keep your head down and avoid the Germans and try and go about your daily life without getting killed or sent away to prison, or get involved trying to fight back.” She gave a little shudder.

I knew how she felt. We had recently been involved in a murder investigation that brought home to both of us how terrible it had been living here during the Occupation—and navigating and understanding the emotions and memories Parisians still struggled with five years later. Neither of us could imagine what it would have been like to live in a nation suddenly put under the rule of another country.

“We were lucky neither of us lived here during that time,” I replied. I had worked at the Willow Run Bomber Plant outside of Detroit, riveting large parts of airplanes. Julia had met Paul when they both worked for the OSS—the Office of Strategic Services—in Asia. Although we’d both been involved in the war effort, neither Julia nor I had had it thrust in our faces like it had been here in Europe. Especially France.

“We really were,” Julia said with great feeling.

I looked at the clock and shot up from my chair. “Yikes! I’m going to be late for my appointment if I don’t get going,” I said, already shoving my arms into my coat sleeves. I had a number of American students to whom I was teaching French in private lessons. My French was native and flawless, for I’d grown up learning the language with my mama and my grand-mère back in Michigan.

I glanced at the stove, but whatever Julia was cooking was obviously not ready to be eaten, and it probably wasn’t something I could take with me, anyway. I’d have to get a sandwich at one of the cafés after my tutoring appointment.

Or … I could pop into the kitchen at home and see whether Bet or Blythe—our daily maids—had left something I could eat. I had to get my car, anyway, which was parked under the portico attached to the house.

“Ta-ta!” I said, standing on tiptoes to smoosh a kiss on Julia’s cheek. “If I don’t see you before tomorrow night, I’ll see you then! Cook well!”

“Bye, Tabs! And don’t you worry—if I have any of this gorgeous boeuf bourguignon left over, which I’m certain I will—do you see how much is in this dish?—I’ll call, and you can take it over to your gentlemen.”

I called a thanks as the elevator doors closed between Julia’s apartment and me. As often happened when I was in this particular elevator, I couldn’t help but remember back in December, when I’d ridden down in it with a young woman who was later murdered in the cellar of this very building. Besides the killer, I had been the last person to see her alive.

That incident had been the catalyst for my involvement in several murder cases over the past few months. Despite what some people might think, I hadn’t gone looking for crimes and homicides to get involved in—they just kept showing up in my and Julia’s lives. And in every case so far, I’d been compelled to poke around because of that connection.

The cold, crisp air bit at my nose and cheeks as I hustled across rue de l’Université. The home I shared with Grand-père and Oncle Rafe was a majestic three-story building made from creamy Parisian limestone. Like much of the city’s architecture, it boasted high ceilings and many windows and dormers decorated with ornate iron railings.

The front door opened into an elegant two-story foyer with a rose, black, and white marble floor and an ornate fin de siècle chandelier with electric lights. A kitchen three times the size of Julia’s took up the back of that level (and included an actual refrigerator, over which she often expressed her envy) and opened onto the gated courtyard behind. There was a small sitting room and a study on that floor as well, but we never used those spaces.

Grand-père and Oncle Rafe were somewhere near eighty and they preferred to spend most of their time on the first floor—the one above the ground floor. That was something I’d had to get used to here in Europe: that the first floor was one floor above the ground floor, unlike back home.

Except lately, when they’d been over at Maison de Verre, overseeing (and arguing) about the decor and decisions, my messieurs tended to sit in the well-appointed salon that took up a large part of the first floor. It had a large fireplace as well as a furnace that did a pretty good job of keeping them toasty warm, even during the coldest days. There was also the added benefit of the door opening into Grand-père’s little greenhouse, which had been built on top of the portico roof. He loved to putter about with his bébés délicieux, as he called them: herbs and small fruit trees, as well as a pleasant little pond with large goldfish.

I had been given the entire top floor for my living space, and it was mostly made up of a large, airy room that had originally housed the staff. I had a bathroom of my own up there, too, with running water—hot water, all the time, just like at home—and a large tub that I liked to soak in. I had no idea how my messieurs arranged for the luxury of hot water at the turn of the tap, but I enjoyed every moment of it. Along with that, I also noticed that for some reason, our house was never included in the scheduled electricity blackouts that plagued a city still recovering from war and occupation.

Just as I was crossing the street, the front door of our house swung open. A woman bundled up in coat, scarf, and mittens rushed out, and I could hear someone calling after her from inside. She ignored them and continued on her way, nearly running into me on the walkway leading to the house.

“Ah, pardon, mademoiselle,” she said. She glanced at me, then suddenly stopped and gripped my arm with fingers in thick knitted mittens. “You. Are you the granddaughter?”

The woman had to be at least fifty or sixty, much older than me but still younger than my grand-père and Oncle Rafe. Her coat was a bulky old wool thing that smelled strongly of cigarettes and some other pungent, musky scent. Her head and neck and part of her angular, olive-skinned face were wrapped in a thick woven scarf of dark blue. Even so, I could see that she had been beautiful once, many years ago.

Startled by the intense look in her eyes and her agitation, I pulled my arm away. “I am Maurice Saint-Léger’s granddaughter, yes.” I felt in my coat pocket for my Swiss Army knife and curled my fingers around it, just in case.

“Ah, but you must tell them! You must tell them to heed what I say,” she said. Her eyes were dark and wild, gleaming with something that made a shiver go down my spine. “He—ah, he does not listen! But I tell you, I have heard from them!”

“Heard from who?” I echoed, wondering if I ought to back away and rush into the house to see whether everything was all right.

“From the spirits! They’ve told me I must warn them. And I’ve done so, and—”

The front door flew open.

Oncle Rafe stood there, his eyes dark with fury. “Go on with you, Vierca! Go! Tabitha, come inside.”

I had never been spoken to in that tone of voice by Oncle Rafe—or Grand-père, for that matter—and my stomach lurched in my middle. I didn’t even hesitate; I obeyed.

I glanced at the woman as I brushed past, and saw not madness, not fury … but fear in her eyes.

I was barely inside when Oncle Rafe closed the door with a sharp click.

“What is it? Has she gone? Tabitha! What did she say to you?”

It was Grand-père, standing at the top of the sweeping staircase on the first floor. His gnarled hand gripped the newel post, and the hem of his house robe trembled against his trousers. Monsieur Oscar Wilde, the tiny dog my honorary oncle called a pet, was standing on one of the steps, barking his head off.

“She has gone, Maurice,” Oncle Rafe said. He sounded a bit out of breath, and I noticed he was wearing his slippers and the knitted cap he often donned in the winter to protect his bald head—both very informal items that were never present during social visits.

Based on their relaxed attire of dressing robes over loose trousers and house slippers, I concluded my gentlemen hadn’t intended to leave the house, nor had they expected visitors. Was this why they were so upset? Because someone had interrupted their day or seen them in such deshabille?

“Oscar, silence!” Oncle Rafe shouted, still in that same terrible voice he’d used to order me inside.

The dog immediately, and shockingly, stopped barking. But he didn’t sit, and he continued to watch with eyes that seemed filled with worry.

Before I could say anything—I was still trying to figure out what to say, for I was so confused and shocked by this display—one of the housemaids emerged from the kitchen.

I say “one” because Bet and Blythe are identical twins, and none of us could tell them apart.

“Monsieur, what is it? What has happened?” Her eyes were wide, and she was carrying a feather duster and a broom. She was in her forties and had brown hair pulled back in a tight chignon. Her face was long, with creases alongside each corner of her mouth. The apron tied over a dark blue skirt and light blue blouse was impeccably white. She wore very sensible black shoes and heavy wool stockings.

Oncle Rafe collected himself and waved her off. “It is nothing,” he said. “Only a misunderstanding.” He glanced at me, then up the stairs toward Grand-père, but offered nothing more.

Bet or Blythe appeared skeptical, but she gave a little curtsy and disappeared back into the kitchen.

“Grand-père?” I said, looking up at him. The flush of agitation had faded from his face, but even from where I was standing, I could see that his hand gripped the velvet collar of his robe.

“It’s all right,” he said, but I didn’t miss the look exchanged between the two men. “Did that woman speak to you, Tabitha?”

“Yes. Who was she? What did she want? Why are you two so upset?”

I started up the stairs, scooping up Oscar Wilde along the way. He didn’t weigh more than seven or eight pounds, but what he didn’t have in bulk, he made up for with huge ears that looked like butterfly wings. They were brown tipped with black around the top edges, like a painter’s outline. His fur—mostly white, but with splotches of brown and black—was silky and soft and grew in long hairlike strands from his ears, tail, and trunk. He usually wore a bow tie of some jaunty color, and even a little tuxedo jacket or vest on occasion. Today his tie was a somber black. As one might guess, he was terribly spoiled.

“What did she say to you?” Grand-père demanded.

“Not much,” I said carefully, feeling my way. I wasn’t going to lie, but I didn’t want to upset them any further. “She just said that you needed to listen to her. What is she talking about? Listen to her about what?” I said as Grand-père muttered an irritated “Peh!”

“It was nothing,” Oncle Rafe said from behind me. “Don’t you have a tutoring appointment, Tabitha? You mustn’t be late.”

Stung by the abrupt dismissal of both myself and the event I’d witnessed, I released Oscar Wilde onto the floor of the salon without even giving him a treat. I barely noticed that he didn’t bark or whine over this omission. That was yet another testament to his sense that this was an unusual situation.

I have to admit, I felt a little shaky. I’d seen my messieurs become agitated over things as minor as the color of the drapes at the restaurant and as serious as who had done what to resist and who had collaborated during the Occupation, but in the eleven months I’d lived with them, I’d never seen them so upset, angry, and dismissive—especially with me.

“Yes, of course,” I said. “I was already running late when I saw … when … Well, I’ll be off. I’ll see you both later. And Julia has promised some leftovers of her boeuf bourguignon!” I added brightly, but this statement didn’t evoke the usual raptures of delight from my messieurs over the prospect of a meal cooked by Madame Child. My heart sank further.

I managed to press a kiss to Grand-père’s soft, hairless cheek and one above Oncle Rafe’s beard, but it felt awkward, and neither of them gave me the quick one-armed embrace I normally received. Even though I knew I hadn’t done anything to upset them, I realized my knees were shaking and my palms were damp. As I went down the stairs, I heard the two moving to take their seats in the salon and the low, intense rapid-fire of their voices.

I glanced at the clock and saw that I should have left for my appointment—which was on the Right Bank, across the river—five minutes ago. Fortunately, this lesson was with Mrs. Woodward, an American expatriate whose husband worked with Paul Child at the US embassy. She had been late every time I arrived at their flat for the French lessons I was giving her, so for once, I didn’t feel the need to rush. She could wait for me—if she was even ready at the appointed time, which had never happened yet.

I went . . .