The Red Brick Cellars: A Tolosa Mystery Read Online Free Page A

white kitchen in the corner. The left-hand wall was covered with books and three floor-to-ceiling windows opened up on the crown of the oak tree growing in the back yard. The white leather couch was definitely not from IKEA, and the wooden dinner table and matching chairs glowed in the sunlight. Hardly how Catherine had imagined the home of a prostitute.
    Gathering her wits, Catherine sat down at the table across from Mademoiselle Diatta and took out a pen and a block note. “Tell me in your own words what happened that night, please.”
    The prostitute kept her eyes on the tree outside while she talked. The leaves were starting to turn yellow. “I went home for a spell around two o’clock.” She glanced at Catherine. “I needed to take a quick shower before going back out there.” Catherine suppressed a shudder at the thought of what could make a woman in her line of business want to get cleaned up. Pretty much everything.
    “I was on my way back out. It was probably around two thirty when I found them.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I checked if they were dead. Then I called the police.” Her big, black eyes challenged Catherine. They were coming to the part the police didn’t believe.
    “Go on,” Catherine urged. “Can you describe what you saw?” She was scribbling down verbatim what was being said and kept writing nonsense even when the woman wasn’t talking. People often found it easier to confide in someone who didn’t appear to be paying one hundred percent attention. She had trained her peripheral vision, as best she could, to still be able to take in visual impressions of her interviewees.
    The woman’s voice was stronger now. She accepted the challenge and would give her story, no matter how Catherine judged her. Good for her. “When I got there, I saw two bodies. They were both naked. And though it’s been a hot summer this year and I know you white people can’t handle heat very well, you don’t usually go about naked.”
    Catherine smiled and looked directly at the girl. Deliberately, she pulled a handkerchief out of her purse and dabbed her forehead with it. This apartment was relatively cool, but she had been sweating non-stop for the last three months. It was the one thing she couldn’t get used to in Toulouse. Then she set her pen back to her notebook and nodded to her interviewee.
    “Anyway. The man was bent down like a Muslim during prayer—except he was facing the wrong way—and the woman was sitting there like some sort of Cleopatra. When I got closer, I got a look at her expression.” She shuddered. “I’ve seen a lot of horrible things in my life, but nothing has put a look like that on my face yet.” She mimicked what she had seen: open mouth, wide open eyes, all teeth showing. This woman still managed to look beautiful, but Catherine got the general idea. “So I touched her shoulder. To make sure she was dead?”
    Catherine understood her question meant she was still working out the whys in her own mind, and nodded. The prostitute wouldn’t be judged by her.
    The black woman looked down at her hands fidgeting with the seam of her shirt and continued in low tones. “When I touched her skin, I could feel it contracting. Then there was something like a hiss of air, and all of a sudden, I was touching bone.” Her voice firm again, she fixed Catherine with her gaze. “The skin of the entire woman just turned to dust.”
    Right. Catherine could see why the police didn’t want to buy this story. Could the woman be making this up in order to gain attention? Had she been drunk? It wouldn’t be surprising with the job she had if she drank a glass or two before going to work. The apartment spoke in her favor, but for all Catherine knew, she could be renting it furnished.
    An ironic smile graced Mademoiselle Diatta’s wide and generous lips. “You don’t believe me.”
    Catherine sighed. “I want to,” she said. And she did. Her article would have been