Page 24 of A Mother’s Love

The cab stopped just outside the Grand Palais, a splendid antique glass structure she recognized immediately.

She had gone to an exhibit of photographs there with Robert.

It was near the river, and the Petit Palais, where she’d been to art exhibits of the work of famous artists, was across the street.

The waiter who had come with her pointed to the building.

He spoke halting English. She saw that there was a small police station on the street level of the Grand Palais.

There was a line of people waiting outside.

It was in a good neighborhood and the people on line were a respectable-looking group.

She heard a cluster of three women speaking in American English.

Halley gestured to the waiter with her that she wanted to go inside.

She walked past the people on line, and into the single door that led into the station, and there was a group of uniformed police officers watching as a man was led away in handcuffs.

There was a counter with a window above it, and an officer in charge, speaking to people through the window in rapid-fire French she couldn’t understand.

She understood more if people spoke slowly.

A few minutes later, it was her turn at the little grille the officer was speaking through, and she approached, feeling overwhelmed.

Her French was not good enough to explain what had happened, which made her feel even more helpless.

“Do you speak English?” she asked him, and the officer looked annoyed and shook his head.

The waiter came forward instantly, and stood next to her to explain the situation.

The officer listened and then pointed to the door and answered the waiter.

The police officer looked bored, and the waiter translated to Halley.

“He says we have to wait outside, for our turn. They’ll take a report and you sign it.”

“And then what?” she asked, still feeling dazed.

“Nothing much. They try to find your bag, and they notify you if they do,” which they both knew was never going to happen, but she knew she would need a police report to file a claim on her insurance, for the value of the bag.

She had no idea what it was worth, since she’d bought it long ago at auction, and she didn’t know the original price.

It had been expensive at auction because it was a custom order, but it was so beautiful and unusual, she thought it was worth it.

She wondered what the thief would sell it for. It made her sick to think about it.

They went back outside and stood on line, and she realized that they looked like a motley couple.

The waiter in his apron, and Halley old enough to be his mother.

He looked to be about the twins’ age. The three American women were further up the line by then.

She could hear them talking, and gleaned that two of them had had their cell phones stolen. They were from Chicago.

There was nothing to do while they waited like sheep for it to be their turn, and everyone had to wait in line.

There was no avoiding it. With the waiter keeping her place for her, she walked down the street a few times, and once to the river.

She stood on the bridge watching the water swirl past, with a serious expression, wondering why she hadn’t kept the bag closer to her, or set it down right next to her at the restaurant, instead of under the table where she couldn’t see it.

It had never occurred to her it might get stolen at a fancy restaurant.

They waited two hours on the street, and then finally it was their turn to enter the police station. A female police officer in a bulletproof vest directed them to one of two tiny cubicles, which was why it had taken so long for the line to move.

Halley and the waiter sat down on two dirty-looking battered chairs, and waited another fifteen minutes for an officer to join them.

The room was so small, there was barely enough space for the desk, two chairs, and the file cabinets that were in it, and there was a computer on the desk.

When the officer finally came through the door, he looked like a football player.

He sucked the last remaining air and space out of the room, went to the desk, sat down, and looked at Halley.

“You’re American?” His senior officer had told him and he spoke passable English so they had assigned him to take the report. He was a very junior officer.

“Yes,” she said, feeling breathless. She normally felt so in control of every situation, but not this one.

She felt naked and young and frightened, vulnerable and exposed.

A stranger had taken her most basic and essential possessions and all the little personal things she loved that she carried with her.

“Your passport,” he said, writing something on a form. He spoke very adequate English.

“That’s why I’m here. It was stolen.” He looked immediately irritated, and put his pen down.

“You need to go to your embassy to report a stolen passport. Someone will probably turn it in.” He thought that was the end of it, as he prepared to stand up, and she corrected him.

“My bag was stolen, and everything in it,” she said, feeling desperate. He stopped in his tracks and sat down again, and picked up the pen with a sigh.

“What did the bag look like, can you describe it?” She did, and there was a glimmer of something in his eyes when she said “alligator,” and he looked her over more carefully. That was different. “Cash in the bag?”

“Five thousand euros, and a thousand U.S. dollars. I’m traveling. I’m here for two weeks. And all my credit cards.” She went down the list of contents, as closely as she could remember.

“Value of the bag?” he said, and she hesitated.

She hated to tell him what she paid for it, and didn’t know how much it was worth now.

Hermès bags multiplied in value as they got older.

And it was embarrassing to tell a normal working person what it had cost her.

She could have rented an apartment for that in a great neighborhood, or paid a child’s school tuition, but she worked for her money too.

Halley had a good sense for the value of money.

“It was expensive. It’s from a store called Hermès.” He looked vaguely insulted.

“I know Hermès, madame, we have people here all the time whose bags have been stolen. It happens.”

“My wallet and credit card case were Hermès too.” She thought of Millie’s sweet gift of the red leather passport case, also gone.

“And my iPhone was in the bag.” She still hadn’t told him how much the bag cost her, and he gave her a pointed look.

“I bought it at an auction in London fifteen years ago, for fifteen thousand dollars, and the auction charges on top of that, which were close to four thousand dollars. So it cost me about twenty thousand dollars. It would be worth a lot more today, but I’m not sure how much.

I can check. It was originally a special order, and it’s an unusual, very large size.

I suppose it could be worth twice what I paid for it,” she said apologetically, probably more than his salary in a year.

He nodded, and she gave him her home address in New York, her phone number, and her address in Paris.

“The thief got my keys to the house here, and I had some papers in my bag with the house address on it.” He looked at her sternly then.

“That means he can enter your house whenever he wants, until you have the locks changed. You may find that you’ve been burglarized now when you go back to the house, or he could show up tonight, tie you up, and rob you, or something much worse. You must be very careful. Are you living alone?”

She nodded. “But there’s a guardian in a lodge at the front gate.”

“That won’t help you if he climbs in a bedroom window when you’re sleeping.

” The thought of what the thief could do then literally made her hands shake.

“If the house has an alarm, use it. Thieves like this are usually not violent and they don’t want to confront the owners of what they stole.

They are the least prone to violence of all the criminals we see, but that doesn’t mean it can never happen.

You must protect yourself,” he said severely.

“We get lots of reports of burglaries committed with stolen keys when they know the address.” It was a warning she didn’t like hearing, and made her feel even worse.

For a fraction of a second, she thought of going home to New York, and then realized she couldn’t.

She had no passport with which to return to the United States.

She was stuck here until she got a new passport, and God knew when she’d get it, here in France.

She had to stay now, and face whatever happened next.

It took two hours to get the details down, as he typed them, and then the waiter from the restaurant handed the young police officer the security tape from the restaurant, and explained to him in French what it was.

The officer turned his computer toward them so they could see too.

He played it, and stopped it several times when the image of the thief came on.

Seeing it again, a little after the crime, she could focus on it better, and once she knew what had happened, it was shocking to see how smoothly he’d done it, and he was as well dressed as any other client at the restaurant.

He looked to be about Halley’s age. One would never have suspected him of being a thief.

The officer looked slightly more interested then. He had an idea.