The proc didn’t seem to notice. Her head was bent as she studied the papers in a thick file. That gave Lucy plenty of time to take in her beautifully coiffed white hair, cut short. She was wearing what Lucy suspected was a genuine Chanel jacket, the same blue color as her eyes and trimmed with an intricate silver braid. When she looked up, it was obvious she treated her olive skin to frequent facials and was faithful about cleansing and moisturizing. She wore only a bit of makeup, concealer beneath her eyes, perhaps, with a touch of mascara and lip gloss. Lucy found her absolutely terrifying.

“Pardon me, Madame Stone, but I am interested in your shoes.”

Lucy glanced down at her feet, clad in her favorite white running shoes, and wondered if wearing them was actually against the law. “I wore them because they’re very comfortable, and because of the general strike, I’ve had to walk a lot.”

“They do look comfortable,” said the proc. “I have some foot problems. Bunions, I think they are called, and I wonder . . .”

“Shoes like this would definitely help,” said Lucy.

The proc bit her lip, then shrugged, shaking her head. “But no, I couldn’t.” She glanced at the papers, then leveled those steely blue eyes on Lucy. “Now to the business at hand, the murder of Monsieur Bruneau. I understand you found the wounded man and called the medical squad. Is that right?”

So Lucy went through the whole story again, beginning with the rain and the two young men and going back to the classroom to fetch her forgotten umbrella and finding Chef Larry bleeding on the floor.

“And I see here that you paid an unauthorized visit to Monsieur Bruneau in the hospital shortly before he was pronounced dead,” said the proc. She didn’t sound accusatory. She spoke in her normal voice, but Lucy felt as if the chair she was sitting on had been pulled out from under her.

“How do you know that?” she asked, gasping for air.

“It is in the file. You were observed, wearing, it says here, a cleaning smock. Why did you do this? You understand it puts you in a very bad position. You were the first to find Monsieur Bruneau after the attack and the last to be with him before he died.”

Lucy did understand only too well and pictured herself spending long years in a dark cell with damp walls, barely surviving on bread and water. “I wanted to talk to him,” she said, “but there was an officer outside his room, so I had to use a disguise.”

“And why did you want to talk to Monsieur Bruneau?”

“I wanted to know who stabbed him. I thought that if I could figure that out, we’d get our passports back and be able to go home.”

“What exactly did you do when you were in Monsieur Bruneau’s hospital room?”