A Patisserie Mystery 8: Opera Cake Murder

Clémence Damour tugged at her turtleneck sweater dress. Although it was autumn in Paris and getting chillier every day, she was sweating her buns off.

Marcus Savin’s fashion show was about to start, and she was sitting in the front row, squeezed between her friends, the socialite sisters Madeleine and Sophie Seydoux. Clémence should’ve known better than to wear wool. She’d been to a few of these fashion shows when she was younger, and it was always boiling hot. Nowadays, Clémence was trying to keep a low profile, but Marcus was a good friend, and his collection was even inspired by Damour’s desserts. He’d made a proposition she couldn’t refuse, and now Damour’s cakes would be coming down the runway along with the couture dresses.

The cakes that Sebastien, their head baker, had provided for the show were not edible. They had to take into consideration the fact that rail-thin models were too weak to be carrying real cakes, especially while wearing four-inch heels. The fondant and icing were real, but the insides of the three cakes were Styrofoam. She hoped Marcus’s team backstage were treating the cakes well. She’d overseen the delivery of the cakes earlier in the afternoon.

Damour rarely took custom orders unless it was for special occasions, such as for a film shoot or this fashion show. They stressed Clémence out. She worried the hardest during the delivery process, when she always feared her guys dropping the cakes.

Sebastien would kill her if they did, too. He’d spent more hours than anyone on the three prop cakes and the one real one.

Before Clémence could worry some more, the lights turned off and the first model started strutting down the catwalk.

Lithe and graceful, beautiful girls stomped down the runway in mega-high heels and pastel-colored outfits to the beat of electro-pop. Most of the time, models scowled on catwalks, but Marcus must’ve told them to look happy, because they all had a hint of a smile on their fresh faces.

“I need that,” Madeleine said in reaction to a raspberry, knee-length dress on a pale, white-blond model.

“And that,” Sophie said. “The coat.”

She practically drooled over a powder-blue suede trench coat over a white silk dress worn with strappy gold heels.

“He has such good taste,” Clémence remarked.

“He’s the next Saint Laurent,” Madeleine agreed.

Clémence had visited Marcus’s atelier in the past few weeks. Marcus was always working. He had a boyfriend, but he was married to his work. If he was not in the atelier, he was either in a cafe or in his home office, sketching his next collection. The man lived and breathed fashion.

A constant stream of models, seamstresses, and assistants was always in his atelier. Marcus could usually be found nit-picking the details of his latest garb displayed on a model. He’d rip sleeves away, adjust the fabric and repin them, or just decry the design altogether if he was in one of his foul moods.

But his genius usually paid off in the end, such as in this collection. Every single look was on point, and they worked beautifully as a cohesive whole.

Magazine editors and fashion writers and bloggers were snapping away on their smartphones while professional photographers and two videographers captured the show at the end of the runway.

Then the moment Clémence had been waiting for arrived. Damour’s three cakes came down the runway.

The first was a three-tier cake decorated with the lemon-and-pistachio shells of macarons. The colors matched the model’s yellow skirt and light-green jacket.

The next model carried the fake orange opera cake, which picked up the orange accents on a maxi print dress.

The last cake was a Charlotte Royale cake, a Swiss roll cake. Making a fake Charlotte Royale was a breeze; the real thing would’ve taken much longer to perfect.

She and Sebastien had taken care that the colors of the cake were as close as possible to the sample fabrics Marcus had given them. The collaboration was an exciting and unusual project. Who knew that cake and couture would go so well together?

Clémence was excited about what was to come after the show. The photos of the runway models would hit all the major and minor media outlets. Her cakes would be all over the Internet. At the same time, Damour would be promoting the same cakes featured in the show to be sold in all their Paris locations.

Marcus Savin had also collaborated with them to create three limited-edition macarons that would be sold until the end of October. That would surely get both the designer and the patisserie chain more press as well.

Clémence’s parents were happy with her marketing ideas, since they were not the usual proposals their advertising team would come up with. And Clémence, too, not only enjoyed working with her friend, she was inspired to do more for the family brand. Collaborations such as this one were fun, and she’d open her eyes for more out-of-the-box opportunities in the future.

She was a reluctant fashionista, but she’d recently come to embrace the scene. The thing was, she had classic, almost boring taste in fashion. Dressing well was different from being a stylish fashion plate. Parisians, on the whole, were pretty safe with their clothing choices, sticking to beige, navy, or black most of the time. That was why Clémence didn’t see herself as a trendsetter, only someone who simply wished to look nice, and her only demand was for clothes to flatter her body.

Her friends, like the Seydoux sisters, were trendsetters. Their tastes and eye for detail were starting to rub off on her. Clémence was starting to become more interested in new styles of clothing and new designers.

What she liked about Marcus’s designs was that they were wearable. They were innovative without being over the top. Even though she usually stuck with neutrals, she could see herself wearing his wool framboise-and-cream striped statement coat next spring. The colors were bold, and she should really start wearing more colors for a change.

The closing model was Gabrielle. She was a twenty-eight-year-old French supermodel who’d been modelling for more than a decade. Gap toothed with more curves than the typical runway model, she walked with a sensuality that gave Marcus’s gold dress more sex appeal. She was flaxen haired with tan skin that was probably a result of a recent holiday, and together with the dress, she gave the impression that she was dripping in gold or that her body was like molten gold, as if she was a statue.

At the end of the show, Marcus came out for the applause, holding his Persian cat, Milou. He beamed and bowed. The super-tall models clamored around him. As he turned to walk away, he winked at Clémence.

After the show, the fashionistas in the audience stuck around to talk about the collection. Many were interviewed for TV sound bites.

“I’m going backstage,” Clémence told her friends. “Are you coming?”

“In a few minutes,” Sophie said. “We promised Fashion File and some other outlets that we’d give them a quick interview or some sound bites to help Marcus. See you in a bit.”

Clémence ducked and tried to escape the frenzy of the media before anyone recognized her. She was sweating like crazy, and the last thing she wanted was to be caught sweating on camera. Luckily, there were plenty of famous models and actresses to steal the spotlight, so she was able to escape unnoticed.

Backstage, Marcus was also busy giving an interview to three lucky journalists who had been able to get exclusive backstage access. The models were in a state of undress, and Marcus’s team were either helping them or chatting excitedly amongst themselves, high from the success of the show.

Clémence looked around for Natalie, Marcus’s assistant. Before the show, she had dealt with Natalie to arrange the delivery of the cakes. The edible cake was a surprise for Marcus. After Clémence and two of her delivery guys from Damour met outside to show her the cake, Natalie said that she would find a fridge in which to store the cake and hide it from Marcus. It was an oversized, lavish opera cake, which Clémence knew Marcus would love, and one Sebastien had taken care to make perfect.

Natalie had mentioned that she’d get it to the second floor of the building, where there was a fridge. The fashion show was taking place in the gorgeous French Archives building, and she had to wait for an employee of the building to give her the keys to the kitchen. Clémence’s guys had left her to take care of it, since they had other deliveries to make, and Clémence herself had gone to sit in the front row for the fashion show.

Now that the show was over, Clémence did not know where this cake would be without Natalie. She took out her phone from her purse and tried to call her, but there was no answer.

“Have you seen Natalie?” Clémence asked a makeup artist who seemed to be waiting for someone to sit in her empty chair.

“No,” the makeup artist sniffed. “Thank goodness.”

Natalie had a reputation for being a bit bossy, so it wasn’t surprising that she wasn’t well liked by many people backstage.

Clémence decided to check in the room she knew was Marcus’s makeshift office for the show. It was behind a row of screens that acted as a wall. People only went behind it to go to the restrooms.

Perhaps Natalie had gone to get the cake, Clémence thought. But there was no harm in checking the office.

She knocked on the door. “Natalie?” she called loudly over the noise of backstage. “You in there?”

There was no response. Clémence opened the door.

The first thing she saw was a knife. She recognized it. It was a special knife that Clémence had brought from Damour. It was supposed to be for Marcus to cut the cake.

Now it was stuck upright in Natalie’s back. Blood drenched her yellow blouse. She wasn’t moving and didn’t look as if she would ever again.

Clémence screamed.