Opera Cake Murder (A Patisserie Mystery with Recipes Book 8)

T
his is a work of fiction
. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Some street names and locations in Paris are real, and others are fictitious.

OPERA CAKE MURDER Copyright © 2015 by Harper Lin.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

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C
lémence Damour tugged
at her turtleneck sweater dress. Although it was autumn in Paris and getting chillier every day, she was sweating her buns off.

Marcus Savin’s fashion show was about to start, and she was sitting in the front row, squeezed between her friends, the socialite sisters Madeleine and Sophie Seydoux. Clémence should’ve known better than to wear wool. She’d been to a few of these fashion shows when she was younger, and it was always boiling hot. Nowadays, Clémence was trying to keep a low profile, but Marcus was a good friend, and his collection was even inspired by Damour’s desserts. He’d made a proposition she couldn’t refuse, and now Damour’s cakes would be coming down the runway along with the couture dresses.

The cakes that Sebastien, their head baker, had provided for the show were not edible. They had to take into consideration the fact that rail-thin models were too weak to be carrying real cakes, especially while wearing four-inch heels. The fondant and icing were real, but the insides of the three cakes were Styrofoam. She hoped Marcus’s team backstage were treating the cakes well. She’d overseen the delivery of the cakes earlier in the afternoon.

Damour rarely took custom orders unless it was for special occasions, such as for a film shoot or this fashion show. They stressed Clémence out. She worried the hardest during the delivery process, when she always feared her guys dropping the cakes.

Sebastien would kill her if they did, too. He’d spent more hours than anyone on the three prop cakes and the one real one.

Before Clémence could worry some more, the lights turned off and the first model started strutting down the catwalk.

Lithe and graceful, beautiful girls stomped down the runway in mega-high heels and pastel-colored outfits to the beat of electro-pop. Most of the time, models scowled on catwalks, but Marcus must’ve told them to look happy, because they all had a hint of a smile on their fresh faces.

“I need that,” Madeleine said in reaction to a raspberry, knee-length dress on a pale, white-blond model.

“And that,” Sophie said. “The coat.”

She practically drooled over a powder-blue suede trench coat over a white silk dress worn with strappy gold heels.

“He has such good taste,” Clémence remarked.

“He’s the next Saint Laurent,” Madeleine agreed.

Clémence had visited Marcus’s atelier in the past few weeks. Marcus was always working. He had a boyfriend, but he was married to his work. If he was not in the atelier, he was either in a cafe or in his home office, sketching his next collection. The man lived and breathed fashion.

A constant stream of models, seamstresses, and assistants was always in his atelier. Marcus could usually be found nit-picking the details of his latest garb displayed on a model. He’d rip sleeves away, adjust the fabric and repin them, or just decry the design altogether if he was in one of his foul moods.

But his genius usually paid off in the end, such as in this collection. Every single look was on point, and they worked beautifully as a cohesive whole.

Magazine editors and fashion writers and bloggers were snapping away on their smartphones while professional photographers and two videographers captured the show at the end of the runway.

Then the moment Clémence had been waiting for arrived. Damour’s three cakes came down the runway.

The first was a three-tier cake decorated with the lemon-and-pistachio shells of macarons. The colors matched the model’s yellow skirt and light-green jacket.

The next model carried the fake orange opera cake, which picked up the orange accents on a maxi print dress.

The last cake was a Charlotte Royale cake, a Swiss roll cake. Making a fake Charlotte Royale was a breeze; the real thing would’ve taken much longer to perfect.

She and Sebastien had taken care that the colors of the cake were as close as possible to the sample fabrics Marcus had given them. The collaboration was an exciting and unusual project. Who knew that cake and couture would go so well together?

Clémence was excited about what was to come after the show. The photos of the runway models would hit all the major and minor media outlets. Her cakes would be all over the Internet. At the same time, Damour would be promoting the same cakes featured in the show to be sold in all their Paris locations.

Marcus Savin had also collaborated with them to create three limited-edition macarons that would be sold until the end of October. That would surely get both the designer and the patisserie chain more press as well.

Clémence’s parents were happy with her marketing ideas, since they were not the usual proposals their advertising team would come up with. And Clémence, too, not only enjoyed working with her friend, she was inspired to do more for the family brand. Collaborations such as this one were fun, and she’d open her eyes for more out-of-the-box opportunities in the future.

She was a reluctant fashionista, but she’d recently come to embrace the scene. The thing was, she had classic, almost boring taste in fashion. Dressing well was different from being a stylish fashion plate. Parisians, on the whole, were pretty safe with their clothing choices, sticking to beige, navy, or black most of the time. That was why Clémence didn’t see herself as a trendsetter, only someone who simply wished to look nice, and her only demand was for clothes to flatter her body.

Her friends, like the Seydoux sisters, were trendsetters. Their tastes and eye for detail were starting to rub off on her. Clémence was starting to become more interested in new styles of clothing and new designers.

What she liked about Marcus’s designs was that they were wearable. They were innovative without being over the top. Even though she usually stuck with neutrals, she could see herself wearing his wool framboise-and-cream striped statement coat next spring. The colors were bold, and she should really start wearing more colors for a change.

The closing model was Gabrielle. She was a twenty-eight-year-old French supermodel who’d been modelling for more than a decade. Gap toothed with more curves than the typical runway model, she walked with a sensuality that gave Marcus’s gold dress more sex appeal. She was flaxen haired with tan skin that was probably a result of a recent holiday, and together with the dress, she gave the impression that she was dripping in gold or that her body was like molten gold, as if she was a statue.

At the end of the show, Marcus came out for the applause, holding his Persian cat, Milou. He beamed and bowed. The super-tall models clamored around him. As he turned to walk away, he winked at Clémence.

After the show, the fashionistas in the audience stuck around to talk about the collection. Many were interviewed for TV sound bites.

“I’m going backstage,” Clémence told her friends. “Are you coming?”

“In a few minutes,” Sophie said. “We promised Fashion File and some other outlets that we’d give them a quick interview or some sound bites to help Marcus. See you in a bit.”

Clémence ducked and tried to escape the frenzy of the media before anyone recognized her. She was sweating like crazy, and the last thing she wanted was to be caught sweating on camera. Luckily, there were plenty of famous models and actresses to steal the spotlight, so she was able to escape unnoticed.

Backstage, Marcus was also busy giving an interview to three lucky journalists who had been able to get exclusive backstage access. The models were in a state of undress, and Marcus’s team were either helping them or chatting excitedly amongst themselves, high from the success of the show.

Clémence looked around for Natalie, Marcus’s assistant. Before the show, she had dealt with Natalie to arrange the delivery of the cakes. The edible cake was a surprise for Marcus. After Clémence and two of her delivery guys from Damour met outside to show her the cake, Natalie said that she would find a fridge in which to store the cake and hide it from Marcus. It was an oversized, lavish opera cake, which Clémence knew Marcus would love, and one Sebastien had taken care to make perfect.

Natalie had mentioned that she’d get it to the second floor of the building, where there was a fridge. The fashion show was taking place in the gorgeous French Archives building, and she had to wait for an employee of the building to give her the keys to the kitchen. Clémence’s guys had left her to take care of it, since they had other deliveries to make, and Clémence herself had gone to sit in the front row for the fashion show.

Now that the show was over, Clémence did not know where this cake would be without Natalie. She took out her phone from her purse and tried to call her, but there was no answer.

“Have you seen Natalie?” Clémence asked a makeup artist who seemed to be waiting for someone to sit in her empty chair.

“No,” the makeup artist sniffed. “Thank goodness.”

Natalie had a reputation for being a bit bossy, so it wasn’t surprising that she wasn’t well liked by many people backstage.

Clémence decided to check in the room she knew was Marcus’s makeshift office for the show. It was behind a row of screens that acted as a wall. People only went behind it to go to the restrooms.

Perhaps Natalie had gone to get the cake, Clémence thought. But there was no harm in checking the office.

She knocked on the door. “Natalie?” she called loudly over the noise of backstage. “You in there?”

There was no response. Clémence opened the door.

The first thing she saw was a knife. She recognized it. It was a special knife that Clémence had brought from Damour. It was supposed to be for Marcus to cut the cake.

Now it was stuck upright in Natalie’s back. Blood drenched her yellow blouse. She wasn’t moving and didn’t look as if she would ever again.

Clémence screamed.

C
lémence stepped back
from the door as the others came rushing to her from the other side of the screen in response to her scream.

“What’s going on?” a burly security guard asked.

Clémence only pointed to the bloody body. He winced but tried not to react. With robotic professionalism, he spoke into his walkie-talkie, then took out his cell phone and made a call to the police.

Only a handful of the fashion set were able to peek into the room before the security guard closed it.

“
Mon dieu!
” a model exclaimed.

“Mesdames et messieurs,”
the security guard announced in a deep, authoritative voice. “This is a crime scene. Please step back. The police are on their way.”

“Who was that in there?” asked another model, a blonde who looked barely sixteen years old.

“Please step back,” the first security officer repeated. “But do not leave the premises. I’m sure the police will have questions for all of you.”

Ignoring the questions people were throwing her, Clémence looked around for Marcus, who was walking toward her with a questioning expression, the journalists trailing behind him.

“What in the world is going on?” Marcus asked, his cat still in his arms.

Clémence pulled him aside. “Can you give us a moment?” she asked the reporters.

Reluctantly, they stepped away and began to talk to the models and crew members, who were all in jitters.

“Can you please not say anything in front of the press?” Clémence told Marcus.

“Sure,” Marcus said, “but you’re scaring me. What’s all the commotion?”

She closed her eyes, not sure how to break it to him. “Your assistant…”

“Natalie?”

“
Oui.
I think she’s dead.”

“Dead?”
Marcus exclaimed.

“Not so loud.” Clémence shushed him, then she sighed. “Not that they’re not going to find out sooner or later anyway. Somebody stabbed her in the back. I’m so sorry.”

“Who? Who stabbed her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Stabbed her with what?”

“With a knife. The thing is, it’s a knife that I’d brought before the show to cut the cake. We were going to surprise you with an opera cake from Damour. Natalie had the cake, and I suppose the knife was around too, but somebody took the knife and stabbed her.”

“Somebody literally stabbed her in the back.” Marcus blinked, looking numb. “It’s unbelievable.”

“It doesn’t look good.” Clémence bit her lip. “The inspector hates me. It’s a knife from Damour. Maybe it even has my DNA on it. I have to figure out who would do this before they try to pin it on me.”

“Of course you wouldn’t do this,” Marcus said. “You hardly knew her. And Natalie, well, she actually likes you, which is more than I can say about other people.”

“So she has plenty of enemies, huh?”

“Where do I begin? The thing is, Natalie can be nasty, but that’s precisely why she’s my assistant. She’s tough on people so I don’t have to be. I can be the nice guy, while she’s the bad guy.” He buried his face in his hands. “This is all my fault.”

“Marcus, no,” Clémence said. “Don’t think that way. Neither of us have anything to do with this. We need to pull ourselves together and get through this.”

He nodded. “The police are fools, but we can’t be stupid about this, either.”

“The thing is, I was the one who found her in that room. I need to figure out when was the last time she was seen alive.”

“With all the chaos backstage, sometimes I even forget my own name.”

“There are no cameras back here?”

“No. Not unless someone was filming with a camera phone. I don’t allow cameras backstage because I don’t want the models who might be half naked and getting undressed to be filmed.”

“When was the last time you saw Natalie?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Before the show started. She was helping me sort out the models.”

He suddenly cringed at the memory.

“What is it?” Clémence asked.

“I just remembered. I was getting stressed, and I lashed out at her because she got the lineup of the models wrong. I snapped and told her to go do something useful.”

“And she did?”

“I didn’t see her after that. If she was around, I didn’t pay attention. I’m usually so anxious before a show that work is all I focus on.”

“So she was killed anytime within a fifteen-minute window,” Clémence said. “The show lasted around ten minutes, and it took me around five minutes after the show ended to get back here. That’s just an estimate.”

“What could have possibly happened to prompt someone to kill her in that short amount of time?”

“It doesn’t sound like it was planned, since it was done with our knife,” Clémence said. “But I can’t be sure of that. I need to ask around.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw supermodel Gabrielle slip out. Clémence was sure she was heading out, because she had on her Burberry trench coat on and had her oversized Hermes purse in one hand.

“Wait, where is she going?” Clémence asked the makeup artist who had been helping her.

“She’s got another job lined up,” the makeup artist replied.

“But doesn’t she know what’s going on? Didn’t she hear that she’s supposed to stay until the police get here?”

“She knows.” She shrugged. “But she does have an appointment. The girl is always on time and professional. She’s not a top model for no reason. Shoots cost thousands of dollars a minute. You can’t expect her to stay behind when she doesn’t know anything.”

Clémence looked at the makeup artist. What she was saying made sense, in a way, but it was also ridiculous. Somebody had been murdered. Even if Gabrielle’s job had been for Chanel, a modelling job was not more important than a crime scene where she could’ve helped by cooperating.

She knew it would be useless to lecture the makeup artist, however. The best use of her time was to question her.

“What’s your name?” Clémence asked.

“Tata,” she replied.

“I’m Clémence.”

“I know who you are. I guess you don’t know who I am.”

Clémence was confused. Was she supposed to? Maybe Tata had done her makeup in the past and she had forgotten.

Suddenly it came to her when she saw the makeup scattered on the table.

Tata Milan.
She was not just any makeup artist. She had her own brand of cosmetics that was pretty popular among Clémence’s friends. With chin-length hair and an unspectacular face, she wasn’t someone you’d notice. Her attitude was matter of fact, almost cold and clinical, but there was something agreeable in that frankness, like you trusted her to give you the facts straight without any filters.

“I’m sorry,” Clémence realized. “It just dawned on me who you are. That’s funny, because I just started using your concealer on my friend Sophie’s recommendation.”

“Sophie Seydoux? I’ve worked with her. Don’t worry about it. How many makeup artists can you count on one hand? Most people wouldn’t know what Francois Nars, for example, even looks like.”

Tata must’ve been in her late thirties or early forties. She dressed well, in a trendy and sophisticated black silk button-down shirt printed with flamingos. She wore tiny earrings shaped like pineapples. Clémence supposed she was drawn to kitsch. She had dark features set on a olive face and small brown eyes that mascara and eyeliner couldn’t enlarge. Her most interesting feature was her strong nose. Her cheeks were severe. Tata was no model, but her face had harsh angles that would’ve made interesting shadows in photographs.

“Did you know Natalie Albert at all?” Clémence asked.

“What do you mean ‘know’?” Tata asked in her brisk way. “We know each other professionally. We don’t tell each other our deepest, darkest secrets. This is maybe the second time we’ve met. As far as I know, she hasn’t been working for Marcus for long.”

Clémence had also met Natalie recently. She hadn’t known Marcus that long either, only a few months, which was as long as Clémence knew Natalie as well.

“What did you think of her?” Clémence asked.

Tata shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve met worse.”

“Any idea why anyone would kill her?”

“Kill? I don’t know. It’s a petty business. I’ve been working in this industry for almost twenty years. The backstabbing I’ve seen has been brutal. Things could get heated.”

“But a literal backstabbing?” Clémence asked. “Don’t tell me that’s commonplace in the fashion industry.”

“No, but I’ve seen a photographer almost strangle a client to death once.” Tata looked around. “When are the police getting here? I really want to go have a cigarette. Ever since they banned smoking inside, it’s been hell to live.”

“You need a smoke?” a model piped up. “I’ve got an e-cigarette.”

“Oh, thanks,” Tata muttered, taking the slim device from the girl’s hand. “I should really buy one, although I prefer the real thing. I love the sensation of burning my insides.”

Clémence bit her tongue and tried not to make any remarks. Her biggest pet peeve in the world was smoking, yet she was living in Paris, where everyone smoked. She observed the room. Everyone was talking intensely among themselves. Half of the models were sucking on e-cigarettes, too.

Tata seemed to be the only person who seemed utterly calm about the whole thing. It was as if she was used to crime scenes and hearing about people getting stabbed.

“None of this seems to faze you,” Clémence observed. “You seem to be handling this a lot better than the others.”

“Nobody here really cares about the death of an assistant,” Tata said curtly. “They just like to savor the drama of being on a crime scene. Frankly, I’m beyond that. Other people’s misfortunes bore me rather than excite me.”

“You’re not even curious who would do such a thing?”

“It wouldn’t be surprising if any of the people here committed the crime. Like I said, this industry is full of terrible people.”

Tata was saying it within earshot of the models, including the one who had lent her the e-cigarette. Clémence didn’t know whether to find the makeup artist intriguing or frightening. Was she just a jaded member of a cruel business? Tata seemed to detest the very people she worked with. Clémence didn’t doubt there was truth to what she said about them. There were cutthroat people in every industry, but there was an elevated shallowness and egoism that pervaded the entertainment industry, where everyone was clamoring for fame and status.

Tata had a piece of that pie, yet she didn’t seem to appreciate it. In fact, it didn’t seem like she had any feelings at all except for apathy. Clémence couldn’t understand how she could be so desensitized to something like murder. Even though Clémence had seen more dead bodies than she could count on one hand in the past year, she would never get used to them. The fact that someone was murdered, however little she knew about them, would never cease to disturb her.

If she didn’t know any better, she would think Tata was behaving like a psychopath. Did Clémence know any better?

But then again, psychopaths would know better than to express their true feelings openly, wouldn’t they? They would be clever enough to disguise their disgust with humanity rather than let on about their disdain.

There were some people who were simply selfish. Perhaps Tata was right. Fashion was full of selfish people, Tata included.

The fact that somebody had been stabbed barely made a dent on someone like Tata’s day. Even though Clémence couldn’t understand that line of thinking, she didn’t want to jump to conclusions to think that Tata had something to do with it.

But the fact still stood that Tata didn’t care for people, and she didn’t bat an eyelash at a murder scene. That made Clémence suspicious.

Before she could continue with her line of questioning, the person Clémence dreaded seeing came into the room.