“You and Armand Benoît’s son were the last known people to have contact with him before he was found dead in his restaurant.” Schulz leaned closer.
Maurice semi-blocked Amelie’s body with his without saying anything.
“I spoke to Armand two days before he died,” Schulz blurted.
Amelie touched a hand to her chest, an image of Armand lying on the floor of his beloved kitchen filling her thoughts. She swallowed hard to force the lump rising in her throat back down.
The German continued. “He told me much the same story as you have relayed.”
“You spoke to Armand?” Amelie shook her head. As their bond had deepened, Armand had shared so much with her about his love for Julia and how he’d spent a lifetime second-guessing his decision to stay in Paris and let her go. “He said nothing to me about this conversation.”
“Probably because nothing came of it.” Schulz drew in a breath and let it out. “I met with him at his restaurant. Having purchased a meal, I asked to speak to the chef. He came out to speak to his customer. When I told him the real purpose of my visit, he sat for a few minutes and listened. He said he’d never seen or heard his parents speak of any special artwork. If they had taken it with them when they left their estate, they had sold it along the way. Even if they had left it for him, he had no use for such expensive decoration. He would have sold it to upgrade his restaurant. I believed him. When he died two days later, I began to think the thief that had followed my research had gone from stealing priceless objects to killing those who might currently possess them.”
Amelie’s gut knotted. She’d been shocked and found it very hard to believe that such a vibrant man, so full of life and passion for his culinary art, could drop dead so suddenly. She’d convinced him to get a physical the year before, and the doctor had given him a squeaky-clean bill of health. How could he suddenly have had a heart problem?
Had Armand been murdered?
A hand reached for hers in her lap. Maurice curled his warm fingers around her cold ones and squeezed gently. He directed his gaze toward Schulz. “Why wait all this time after Armand’s death to come after his son and Ms. Aubert?”
Schulz looked down at his hands. “After I learned of Armand’s demise, I stopped searching for the painting. Between the thefts of other artwork I located and Armand’s death after I spoke with him, I stepped back from my research and focused on other pursuits. I felt responsible in a way for the death of Armand Benoît and refused to be responsible for leading the killer to others I might interview in my search for her.”
Amelie couldn’t help but notice Schulz’s use of the word her in reference to the painting of the Lady by the Stream.
“For over two years, I resisted the urge to physically follow the Benoît’s journey. Instead, I continued my research online and looked for any evidence of a sale of that painting in the French countryside near where they’d hidden while waiting for a ship to the US. I also looked for any mention of such a sale in New Orleans during the time they lived there.”
“Did you find one?” Amelie asked.
“None listing a Claude Monet.” His brow furrowed. “Although I didn’t find a sale, I found a record from a respected New Orleans art dealer who had performed an appraisal on a painting for an anonymous Frenchman. That appraisal was performed in June of 1945, shortly after the victory in Europe. The notes indicated an impressionist painting. Artist’s name was identified by only the initials C.M., with the appraised value of two thousand dollars, which, at that time, was significant, especially considering the cost of funding a world war.”
“You think that was the Benoîts’ painting?” To Amelie, it made sense.
Schulz nodded. “The information was worth investigating.”
“Which would indicate the painting made it to the US,” Maurice concluded. “And they didn’t sell it. At least, not in New Orleans.”
“If Armand had no knowledge of the painting’s whereabouts, I would assume you hit a dead-end,” Amelie said.
“I would have agreed, except for old letters I discovered on an ancestry website, written by Germaine Benoît to Olivier Lecroix, his distant cousin in Nice, dated before the German occupation of France. In those letters, Benoît warned his cousin that if German occupation of France was imminent, he should hide his assets and record the location in a code, like they used when they’d played secret agents as children. He should place that code in something meaningful to him but not to anyone else.”
Maurice’s brow furrowed. “What’s meaningful to you but not to anyone else?”
“A personal journal would mean a lot to yourself and not to anyone else.”
Amelie’s lips twisted. “Unless your life was more interesting.” She didn’t recall seeing any journals in Armand’s possessions. However, he could have stored them away.
Photographs of family members were another medium meaningful only to those who cared about the people in them.
Amelie almost spoke but then bit down on her tongue instead. Luis had Armand’s old photographs. Though Schulz was leading them to believe someone else was following him around and stealing the items he’d located, Amelie wasn’t ready to trust the man.
And then there was the watch. She wanted to look at Maurice but resisted. Once Schulz left, she would share her thoughts with him and give Luis a call.
“Again, if you were researching online, why did you decide to get out and put boots on the ground?”
Schulz sighed. “An acquaintance I know at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, who knew I’d spent a lot of time with the files containing the artworks, sent a text, letting me know the photo album containing the Lady by the Stream had been stolen a week ago.” His brow furrowed. “I suspect whoever took it could be connected to Armand Benoît’s untimely demise.” He met Amelie’s gaze.
“Why would he take three years to show up looking for more clues?” Maurice asked.
“Like me, he might have turned to online research. The letters I found were posted recently. The search then went from the actual painting to a document or journal with a code that could lead to the painting.”
