He shook his head. She pulled out her PI license with the less than flattering photo on it. He examined it quickly.

Aimee ran a hand over the worn rolltop desk, trying to get the feel of Lili Stein. Yellowed account books were shelved inside.

"Why would a private investigator care?" he asked.

"I lost my father to terrorists, Monsieur. We worked with the Brigade Criminelle, as part of surveillance, until the plastic explosive taped under our van incinerated my father." She leaned forward. "What eats at me still is how his murderers disappeared. The case closed. No one acknowledges the victims' families…I know this and I want to help you."

He looked away. From down the hall came the muted moaning of the old women. Medieval and dark, this apartment echoed with grief. Ghosts emanated from the walls. Centuries of birth, love, betrayal, and death had soaked into them.

"Tell me about your mother."

His face softened. Perhaps the sincerity in her tone or the isolation Abraham Stein felt caused him to open up.

"Maman was always busy knitting or crocheting. Never still." He spread his arms around the room, every surface covered by lace doilies. "If she wasn't in the shop below, she'd be by the radio knitting."

Dampness seeped into this unheated room. "Can you tell me why someone would kill her this way?"

Deep worry lines etched his brow. "I haven't thought about this in years but once Maman told me 'Never forgive or forget.'"

Aimee nodded. "Can you explain?"

He unwound the scarf from his shoulders. "I was a child but I remember one day she picked me up after school. For some reason we took the wrong bus, ending up near Odeon on the busy rue Raspail. Maman looked sadder than I'd ever seen her. I asked her why. She pointed to the rundown, boarded-up Hôtel Lutetia opposite. 'This is where I waited every day after school to find my family,' Maman said. She pulled the crocheting from her little flowered basket in her shopping bag, like she always did. The rhythmic hook, pause, loop of the white thread wound by her silver crochet needle always hypnotized me."