Murder in Bel-Air

by Cara Black

  Madeleine thought as she continued sorting the mail. “Not anymore. But there’s Yvon Triquet. He’s a master woodworker, a compagnon du devoir. He even received a médaille from the Louvre.”

  “This Yvon is a friend of Gérard?”

  “Their fathers worked together; that’s all I remember.”

  A connection or a dead end? But she had nothing else to go on. Gérard had escaped the legionnaire and the DGSE and gone under the radar. Hotels required ID. In his boots, she’d look for a short-term solution. What better place than with an old friend?

  “His address, please, madame.”

  Thursday, Early Afternoon

  This stretch off rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine was a series of courtyards, passages, and alleyways. Since the Middle Ages, it had housed guilds of woodworkers, artisans, and craftsmen employed by the powerful convents. Les dames du faubourg, the abbesses, often came from aristocratic families and were no strangers to court intrigues and alliances. An infamous fifteenth-century abbess had cornered the local meat market and dictated furniture styles to the woodworking guilds. One of the King Louises—Aimée couldn’t remember which one—had become jealous of the nun and restricted her convent’s power. The quartier still produced the classic furniture styles of Louis XIV and the Second Empire. Mazes of interconnecting yards and passages were still occupied by stainers, polishers, inlayers, gilders, and upholsterers.

  Over the centuries the faubourg, the working-class quartier, famous as the starting point of the Revolution, had evolved into a cradle of street fighters.

  Morbier’s home turf.

  From the end of the block, Aimée walked until she saw 18 rue de Reuilly. Why would Gérard Hlili’s friend Yvon, a Louvre-honored master artisan, work here, in this soot-stained, sagging building?

  She tapped her heels until a man with a package entered the code and the door buzzed open. She slid in behind him. Waited until his footsteps drifted away.

  She followed crème-colored walls past a private stairway, hooking left into a narrow courtyard of glass-windowed workshops. A world apart. Exquisite. Vines curtained the walls above, which had window boxes on every story, and tilted lemon trees grew in tubs on the cobbles. At the courtyard’s end sat a three-sided, zinc-roofed building with a trompe-l’oeil painted clock tower topped by an iron rooster weather vane.

  “You again?” came a voice from inside.

  Florence Triquet, the mother from the playgroup, stuffed a handful of horsehair into the brocade seat of a Louis XV chair. Hammering came from the adjoining atelier—a clever open space containing two workshops.

  Like a bad centime, I’ll keep turning up, Aimée almost said. “We meet again.”

  “As you can see, I’m busy. I don’t know anything else about your mother,” Florence said, her cheeks flushed from exertion. A portable heater, perched on an old coal stove, emanated warmth.

  Dumb. Aimée wished she’d put the names together before just showing up. “I’m here to speak with your husband, Yvon.”

  With that Aimée strode into the atelier, which was alive with the hissing from a slitting saw, the soft whistling of a broom, and the acrid scent of bubbling glue. “Yvon?”

  “Un moment,” a muffled voice said from the bowels of a weather-beaten walnut wood armoire. A man extricated himself. Wood shavings sprinkled his dark hair and shoulders. He put a hand broom in his work apron pocket and set down his saw. His dark brows, clouded with fine sawdust, crinkled in annoyance. It gave him a prematurely aged look, though he must have been roughly the same age as Gérard. “You are?”

  She pulled out her card. “I’m trying to save your friend Gérard’s life.”

  The annoyance spread to his tightening lips. Not a flicker of surprise. “Et what exactly is that to me?”

  “He came to see you, non?” she said, testing her hunch. “You’re friends.”

  “We lived in the same place once, went to school together for a few years. But I wouldn’t call him a friend.”

  “Close enough that he asked you for help.”

  “Politics aren’t my thing.”

  Her antennae went up. “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll ask you the same thing. What do you mean when you say his life’s in danger?”

  Smart.

  “A paid assassin tried to kill him last night,” she said. “Gérard escaped. Now he’s on the run.”

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  Sawdust powdered the concrete floor. Any minute, she’d start sneezing. “So what do you know?”

  “Who are you again?”

  Florence Triquet poked her head into the atelier. “I told you about her; she’s the one from the playgroup, the one whose baby got left behind. She’s obsessive. Irresponsible. A stalker.”

  Aimée’s anger boiled. She wanted to punch Florence. Show her what real lack of responsibility looked like.

  But a voice in Aimée’s head said Florence wanted a confrontation. She took a long breath.

  “Why can’t you just leave us alone?” said Florence.

  “I will,” Aimée said. “Once I get answers.”

  Florence turned to her husband. “Did l’Africain, that radical, ask you for help?”

  The woman had been eavesdropping on their conversation and apparently didn’t think of Gérard as a friend.

  Bells jingled as a door opened, sending in a gust of chill air. “Madame Triquet? I know I’m early, but . . .”

  Florence sighed and left to greet her client.

  Aimée stifled a sneeze. Waited.

  Yvon shrugged. “Politics, like I said. The troubled situation in his country. Gérard’s passionate about changing conditions for the poor—the polluted water, the substandard infrastructure. Raises good points, okay. He went on about change, how he was part of it.”

  “Go on.”

  “Not my thing, I told him. I’m a craftsman, worked hard for this. My clients include the ministry . . .”

  “So you don’t want to get involved. Kicked him out—that it?”

  He hesitated. A shiver of guilt crossed his face.

  “Look, that’s not my concern,” she said. “I’m just trying to track him down so I can help him. He’s hunted, on the run. What can you tell me?”

  “You’re a flic?”

  “Like my card says, I’m a private detective.”

  Yvon snorted. “And I should trust you?”

  “So you do know where Gérard is.”

  He clenched his fist. “That’s just it—I don’t. He was waiting for someone to make contact.”

  “I know,” she said. “A woman named Genelle—or he might have known her as Germaine. She was found murdered in the Picpus convent grounds.”

  “Quoi? The murder they reported in Le Parisien?”

  Aimée nodded. She’d seen the brief notice in the fait divers section the day before.

  Yvon’s jaw muscles quivered. “Gérard said he couldn’t trust the situation. Didn’t know who his friends were, who he could believe. Something about the Crocodile.”

  “Crocodile?” The concierge had mentioned a childhood bully by the same name. A coincidence?

  “That’s what he said.” He jerked his eyes toward his wife, who was involved with her client. Lowered his voice. “Florence asked him to leave.”

  There was more; Aimée could tell. “Et alors?”

  He leaned closer. “My brother’s on vacation. His studio’s by the Marché d’Aligre. I told Gérard my brother hides the keys under the flowerpot.”

  The first place a thief looked.

  “When was that?” she asked.

  “Last week. A few days ago I went to leave him money, but the key was there, nothing touched. I don’t know if Gérard went there at all.”

  He might have, after last night.

  Pause.
“Don’t tell my wife.”

  Aimée nodded again. Shoved her kohl eye pencil into his hand. “Write down the address and building entry code.” She pointed to her wrist. “Hurry. I can help him.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, he did. He looked at her card. “It’s strange, but you remind me of a friend of my mother’s. A very strong resemblance.”

  She didn’t hear that often. She felt her heart speed up. “How’s that?”

  “Non, different family name. Never mind.”

  “Maybe we’re related. What’s her name?”

  “Madame Lafont.”

  Aimée went still. “Séverine Lafont?”

  “Think so.”

  Another gust of chill air filled the studio, accompanied by a booming voice. “Yvon, please tell me you can save my aunt’s armoire.” A man strode in wearing a tailored camelhair coat and the kind of handmade shoes René wore.

  Aimée slid out the door. Double knotted her scarf against the cold. Séverine Lafont. Good God, how was her mother mixed up in this?

  But she would have to hunt down Yvon Triquet’s mother another time to dig into that. First, she had to get to Gérard—before someone else did.

  Thursday, Early Afternoon

  Perspiration beaded René’s brow as he looked up and down rue du Rendez-Vous. Where had the taxi driver gone? Abandoned him, and here he was, lugging a dead man’s suitcase. What if Nestor, the legionnaire’s crony, summoned reinforcements?

  Time to get the hell out.

  Legs pumping, he rounded the corner. His shirt stuck to his spine. There on the tree-lined avenue, the young taxi driver leaned against his hood, smoking.

  “I thought you’d left.” René panted.

  “But you haven’t paid the fare yet.”

  “Good point. Quick, let’s go.”

  In the taxi, the driver adjusted his visor. “Found who or what you were looking for, I guess.” His gaze caught the roller bag.

  “In a way. Keep driving.”

  “What about our deal?”

  René negotiated more time and opened the suitcase. A burner phone, low on battery, programmed with the same number they’d discovered the night before. A map of the twelfth arrondissement with the Bel-Air quartier circled, photos of a young woman and Gérard. A chauffeur service card, Réserve la Luxe, with a Deauville address.

  René felt tingles in the soles of his feet. This had to be where the legionnaire’s accomplice worked.

  He called Aimée. Busy.

  Saj answered on the office line.

  “Can you manage the office this afternoon, Saj? Handle my scheduled meeting? The client file’s on my desk.”

  “Pas de problème. What’s up, René?”

  “It looks like I’m going to Deauville.”

  “Hitting the casino? Or the beaches of Normandy?”

  “I just found out the legionnaire’s accomplice is a chauffeur. His company’s based in Deauville.”

  “Nice work. Let me help. Give me what you’ve got.”

  René read out the information he had and heard Saj’s clicking of keys.

  “Not based in Deauville anymore.” Saj whistled. “Réserve la Luxe opened a new branch on Avenue Daumesnil.”

  Not far.

  “How many employees?” René asked.

  More clicking. “According to the business records, just a Jean Moulin. Seventy-five Avenue Daumesnil, along the viaduc.” Saj paused. “Sounds like an alias. So tasteless to use the name of a famous Resistance hero. According to the record, there are several firms at this address. Probably a business front, nothing but a mailing address.”

  “So possibly a money laundering operation?”

  “That’s usually the case,” said Saj.

  “Any other addresses for him?”

  “Let me check around.”

  Thursday, Early Afternoon

  Aimée hopped on the crowded number 57 bus, wedging her way past women of a certain age with shopping bags or grandchildren in tow, holding her breath against the fug of damp wool and Guerlain L’Heure Bleue. She jumped off at the next stop and ran past the rear rehab wing of Hôpital Saint-Antoine. Would Morbier be in therapy then?

  Why hadn’t he come up with anything yet? He’d promised.

  She punched in his number. The call rang through to voice mail. She left a message.

  It turned out Yvon’s brother’s studio on Passage Brûlon was closer to the hospital than to the market. She hurried, threading through a narrow street, and spotted the Ivoirian resto—the one she’d called—in the middle of the block. Stupid. Should have thought of this place first—GBH might know fellow Ivoirians here. Or have passed by this way en route to Yvon’s brother’s, if in fact he had gone there after he was rumbled at the safe house.

  Despite the closed sign, the resto door was open. Soapy smells drifted from inside. Aimée peered into the interior, small and wood paneled, decorated with macrame wall hangings and plants, which gave it a greenhouse look. The specials were chalked on a board: l’omiata maison, a type of pepper water, and poisson braisé. Yellow cushions brightened up a window seat. The télé mounted on the wall showed a cable news service, Afrique News, with a news feed running at the bottom.

  “Il y a quelqu’un?” she said.

  A middle-aged woman looked up from mopping the floor. She had dark-honey skin and ample hips; a yellow scarf tied up her hair.

  “We’re closed,” she said with an accent stretching her r. “Come back tonight.”

  “Excusez-moi, madame. May I take a moment, please?” said Aimée, stepping inside, trying to avoid the wet areas of the floor.

  “Be careful. It’s slippery . . . What do you want, mademoiselle?”

  Smells of pine disinfectant drifted from a wash pail. Aimée pulled out Gérard’s photo. “So sorry to bother you, madame, but have you seen him?”

  The woman set her mop against the wall, took glasses from her smock pocket, and peered close. “This man? Mais bien sûr.”

  At last. Aimée brightened. “You know him?”

  She pointed to the télé. “There he is.”

  That would have been too easy. “I mean here in person.”

  The woman shook her head. “I see him on the télé. But if he were to eat here, I’d remember. Why?”

  “I’m a journalist,” she lied. Pulled out a press pass from her alias collection, flashed it. “Writing an article on Gérard Hlili’s Paris connections, how the Ivoirian community thinks of him.”

  The woman tightened the knot on her scarf. Thought. “My nephew believes he’s the best political leader for change in Côte d’Ivoire. So do many of our customers.”

  “A popular man, eh?” She smiled encouragingly. “And you, madame, what’s your opinion?”

  “Moi? My province floods every year. People die. Crops are destroyed,” she said, gesturing again to the télé. Scenes of a storm, wind-lashed palm trees almost bent in half, debris strewn on streets, and flooded villages. “I support him, too; he’s real. Hlili’s mother died in the last cholera epidemic, as did many in my family. He’s promised to fund a new water system. A purification plant.” She made the sign of the cross. “I hope to God he’ll help change our country.”

  Germaine had hoped so, too.

  Aimée glanced at her Tintin watch. “Merci, madame.”

  Catching her breath a few blocks later, Aimée entered the building code from the kohled numbers on her wrist. The buzzing door let her into the courtyard of an old printing factory—still in operation, at least parts of it. The residual ink and chemical smells competed with whiffs of fresh paint. Painters were at work on the courtyard’s wood-timbered exterior.

  “A sin, to cover those ancient beams,” said an older man pushing a trolley cart. “Doubt you think so, eh?” Clearly he was resentful of how the quartier, a victim o
f boboïsation by bourgeois bohèmes, was changing.

  “Mais oui, I agree.”

  “But you’re a new tenant. People like you think it’s trendy to live in old factories and shoot prices into the sky for everyone else.”

  Monsieur Chip-on-the-Shoulder. Still, she could understand. His gnarled hands spoke of hard labor.

  “Not me,” she said. “I’m looking for Franck Triquet’s studio.”

  “He’s away.”

  So this codger kept his eyes open. “Right, but I’m looking for his brother’s old school friend—”

  “Le noir? Hightailed it out of here.”

  Racist. Whirs and pounds came from the nearby presses in a steady beat.

  “And you know this how, monsieur?”

  “My eyes don’t lie.”

  Cryptic old coot. “When did he leave?”

  “He climbed out the window into my bathroom at dawn. Scared the hell out of me.”

  She caught herself before she could stamp her foot in frustration. She’d missed Gérard again. An escape artist with self-preservation instincts.

  “And you helped him out of the goodness of your heart?” she asked.

  “A thousand francs covered it.”

  Her shoulders tightened. “So why tell me?”

  “You asked. Have a soft spot for les jolies femmes.”

  She doubted that. “Let me guess—two young mecs, one in a leather bomber jacket and the other in a hoodie, came here looking for him.”

  “Pas du tout. It was someone in a black Renault with smoked windows. They parked beneath my window by the island of trees. It’s illegal to park on our pedestrian passage.”

  The legionnaire’s accomplice, who’d chased her and René.

  She didn’t hold much hope as she climbed the stairs, found the key under the geraniums, and unlocked the door.

  “Il y a quelqu’un?”

  The only answer was the melody of wind chimes clinking on the metal hasp of the half-open window. The apartment was cold and held a faint trace of pine scent. The tousled duvet and greasy pan in the small sink indicated Gérard had stayed there. She checked for anything personal.