Murder on the Left Bank

by Cara Black

  She met a blue-uniformed flic in front of Éric’s building, a white-columned townhouse. Yellow crime scene tape drooped at the door.

  “No entry, mademoiselle,” he said.

  “But I’ve got an appointment with Maître Besson,” she lied. “Is there a problem?”

  “Check with his assistant.”

  A petite, wire-thin redhead wearing a YSL black trouser suit consulted a PDA in her hand. Aimée lusted for the suit; if René were there, he would have lusted for the PDA. If only their clients paid on time.

  “Bonjour, I’m Aimée Leduc.”

  “I figured,” she said, giving Aimée’s outfit an up and down.

  Merde. Had she gotten out the stains from Chloé’s apricot puree that morning? Did her dress not meet this woman’s approval?

  Did Aimée care?

  “Éric Besson asked for my help.”

  “I heard,” said the woman. For a moment, Aimée wondered if this proprietary assistant resented her. But then the woman added matter-of-factly, “I’m Gaëlle. Éric’s in a tizzy. They didn’t steal anything, from what I can tell. Someone opened the safe, but no documents were removed.” She was still tapping on her PDA. “I’m trying to reschedule everything. A pain.”

  “So it was a professional job?”

  “According to the flics. With Éric’s mind on the divorce, this case in Brussels, and poor Marcus, it’s hard to tell if he remembered to set the alarm.”

  More tapping.

  Divorce? Aimée remembered that Martine had also mentioned that during lunch. Definitely not her business.

  “So you knew Marcus, Gaëlle?”

  The flic called to Gaëlle, who said to Aimée, “Look, I need to do a million things.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  Before Gaëlle could throw up a roadblock, Aimée’d followed her past the uniform and into the black-and-white-marble-tiled foyer. The interior of Besson’s office was exquisite: carved wood boiserie, Directoire furniture, sunlight streaming through floor-length windows that opened onto a private garden. The fingerprint technician was still busy dusting the room, leaving white powder traces on the walnut desk.

  The oval inset in the high ceiling, bordered by sculpted garlands, made Aimée recall her one and only ballroom dance lesson, when she was fourteen, in a room just like this one. Feeling left-footed and awkward like now. Again on the Left Bank. Maybe this had been a ballroom once, she thought, noticing the double doors, the striations of the wood parquet floor, and the walk-in-sized stone fireplace.

  The office breathed success. Serious success, with state-of-the-art computers and scanners. Good thing René wasn’t there; he would drool.

  Focus on the job, she reminded herself.

  She asked Gaëlle, “Is there any chance this break-in could have something to do with Éric’s divorce?”

  “Un peu acrimonious, but why bother breaking in? There’s nothing to steal when she’s taking him to the cleaners already.”

  Wishful thinking on Aimée’s part; she had been hoping she could convince herself the break-in wasn’t related to the notebook. “Can you tell me about Léo Solomon’s visit two weeks ago? Were you here that day?”

  Gaëlle’s thin brows creased. “I didn’t even see him. Éric had me sending registered documents to the court in Meudon.” Gaëlle’s stylus paused on the PDA in her palm. “Éric’s under such stress.”

  “What can you tell me about Marcus’s parents?”

  “Tant pis. Only a mother who’s in the hospital. Éric’s afraid to tell her the details.”

  Aimée blinked. “Details?” Didn’t Marcus’s mother know her son was a homicide victim? “How can I reach her?” She whipped out her Moleskine, ready to jot down his mother’s info.

  “You can’t.”

  “I understand you feel protective, but—”

  “I don’t mean you can’t reach her, mademoiselle. I mean, no one can. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic.”

  There went that idea. Still, she pursued it until Gaëlle revealed the hospital’s name.

  Aimée had to get something concrete, though—something she could follow up on. “How well did you know Marcus?”

  A shrug. “After school, he’d do odd jobs in the office.”

  “Would you call him secretive?”

  Another shrug. “He talked about girls sometimes. And street art—he was really into it. He spent his money on collecting graffiti art. That’s all.”

  “Did he mention a Karine? Perhaps bring her to the office?”

  A shake of her head. “I didn’t know him well. I mean, how interested is an eighteen-year-old in carrying on a conversation?”

  In the corner, a fax groaned, spitting out pages. The wall safe behind Éric’s desk, an easy target, looked ancient. White powder dusted that, too.

  “You organized Marcus’s work schedule?” Aimée asked.

  “I do everything here. But it wasn’t much of a schedule—he just hung around the office during business hours whenever he wasn’t in class. He lived upstairs in the chambre de bonne. The flics went through it, too. Poor kid.”

  Aimée thanked her. She paused at the tall door. “Did you have his cell phone number?”

  Gaëlle checked her PDA, then took a phone out of her pocket. “Shall I write it down? Don’t know what good it will do . . .”

  “Just checking.”

  Gaëlle started writing on a memo pad emblazoned besson et fils. “Which cell number do you need?”

  Bingo. But this made Aimée wonder how Gaëlle would have both Marcus’s numbers. Were they on a shared plan? A perk of Marcus’s work? “Both, please.”

  Aimée left with the number she recognized as Marcus’s and another she hoped would lead her to Karine.

  Aimée retraced her steps down rue Pascal, past the little bistro, timing Marcus’s walk from the office to the point where his last cell phone call had been triangulated, under the Boulevard de Port-Royal, which formed a tunnel overhead. She stopped at the foot of the concrete steps that led up to it.

  Four minutes. This was where Marcus had stood at 4:24 p.m.

  She tried Marcus’s second cell phone number. Dead.

  She closed her eyes. Listened. Heard the rumbling of cars overhead on Boulevard de Port-Royal, the click of heels echoing in the tunnel, the rhythm of tires going through puddles. The chill in the tunnel sent goosebumps up her arms.

  That rumbling overhead felt familiar. Had Karine called her from here?

  Would Marcus have hidden the notebook somewhere between here and the Butte-aux-Cailles hotel? Did Karine think so, too? But where?

  Aimée scanned the area. Old buildings, full of history. Her phone alarm trilled, and she remembered life goes on. She had another business meeting to get to.

  But whatever had happened here had changed Marcus’s course.

  Ended his life.

  Tuesday Afternoon

  The fear of a computer meltdown in the new millennium got people twitchy. Aimée’s afternoon appointment was a client who was nervous about possible Y2K system malfunctions. Or complete and total chaos, as some doomsayers predicted.

  Nice to have a client meeting that ended with a hefty retainer. For once.

  Pay up front—her new mantra.

  Pigeons cooed from the eaves as she parked her scooter near Leduc Detective. A violent rain shower had left the pavement slick and sparkling in the afternoon light. Freshened the air.

  In the office, quiet with René working at the bibliothèque, she kicked off her Chanel sling backs and relished the smooth wood floor under her bare feet. The chandelier’s crystals fractured the light into rainbows, reflecting on the age-patinaed mirror—Chloé loved that.

  Aimée could do this. Manage her business, help out Éric Besson, and be a good maman. Couldn’t she?

  She’d i
gnore the cold unease that crept over her when she thought of the Hand. The Hand had engineered the explosion that had killed her father—she knew that. Would proof of his collusion in their dirty dealings matter? Matter enough for her to risk opening that basket of deadly snakes?

  But if the Hand was still running the show, wouldn’t her father want her to deal with it?

  She pushed those thoughts aside and got to work running virus scans, returning client calls. Noticing only an hour later Maxence’s folder labeled léo solomon.

  Brilliant. More information.

  First, though, she took the time to try to reach Marcus’s mother, an Eve Gilet, at the clinic whose name Gaëlle had given her. Madame Gilet, Aimée was told, was a patient there, oui, but did not take calls or visits. Family would be notified at the appropriate time for making contact.

  Translation: Eve Gilet resided in a locked down secure facility—either a zombie from shock treatments or under severe sedation.

  Next Aimée tried her contact at France Télécom. With some luck, he’d be able to get her the call log from Marcus’s second cell phone number. But he’d left for the day. Great. She left him a message telling him to call her.

  François, whom she’d traded favors with before, had been a classmate of hers at the lycée. She couldn’t butter him up—or sweeten her request. Just remind him of what he owed her.

  A minute later he called her back. Thank God.

  “What do you want now, Aimée?” said François.

  “I’d think you’d be happier to hear from me, François,” she said. “Didn’t I run that credit check on your sister’s fiancé? Find the back taxes he owed and foreclosure history?”

  “For which she still hasn’t forgiven me,” he said. “Continues to remind me the hotel won’t refund her wedding reception deposit.”

  “I’d call that averting disaster.”

  “Wish she saw it that way.” She heard a phone ring in the background. “Make it quick.”

  She gave him the new number Gaëlle had furnished. “I need that number’s call log ASAP.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I’m heading out the door. Tomorrow.”

  “Aren’t you always complaining your union wants you racking up overtime? Here’s your chance.”

  By the time he agreed, she was running late for her next meeting.

  She stuffed Maxence’s folder on Léo Solomon in her bag to read later, set the daily surveillance scans, and locked the office. Serge, her pathologist friend, was waiting for her at the café. This would be a quick meeting; she’d get home in time to play rubber duckies with Chloé. She’d have a work-over-dinner session with René, and then tonight she’d get the truth from Karine.

  She hoped.

  Serge, whom she’d known since her year of premed, sat at the outdoor table of the très moderne café, les Docks, a Métro hop from Serge’s office at the morgue. The thick black frames on his glasses matched his thick black hair and trimmed beard. He glanced at his watch.

  “What’s so important, Aimée? Got to pick up the twins.”

  “Your wife away?”

  “Her girlfriend weekend.”

  “But it’s Tuesday.”

  Cigarette smoke drifted from the couple at the next table. Aimée wished she hadn’t quit. Again.

  “They took advantage of a midweek rate for a thalassotherapy spa package in Saint-Malo,” said Serge. “I just go with the program.”

  A docile husband ruled by a wife he loved and a gorgon of a mother-in-law. Aimée had never seen him so happy.

  She set down the homicide report. “Marcus Gilet.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “An eighteen-year-old whose body was discovered in early September on rue Watt.”

  “Sounds like that Léo Malet crime story. They always dump bodies there. Notorious.”

  She hadn’t known. “Vraiment? You mean some gangland drop point?”

  “C’est la tradition. A spooky tunnel. A badge of honor for a hood’s first murder.”

  She shivered. Gruesome. “An old-school initiation?”

  “Something like that. Still do it today.”

  If Marcus was murdered in the hotel room, as Karine had seemed to indicate, why go the distance to rue Watt to dump the body? “Do me a big favor. I need a copy of his autopsy.”

  “Not my ‘client.’ I was away at a conference in Marseille. Lots of murders there.”

  “But you can pull it up on the computer, Serge.”

  The cigarette smoldered in the ashtray at the next table. She wished she didn’t want to reach over and grab it. When would the desire to smoke go away?

  “As if it’s that easy,” said Serge. “You know the transcription process. Then there’s the pathologist’s report . . .”

  Sea gulls waddled by, emitting high-pitched cries and scrabbling over bread crumbs. Downriver the smokestacks of the incineration-recycling plant near Ivry belched white.

  “Here we are about to enter the twenty-first century, and the morgue technology has barely made it to the twentieth,” Serge was saying. “Madame Lelong, our transcriber, uses a typewriter because she says she doesn’t believe in computers . . . takes her time. Plus, it’s not like I can just—”

  “Of course you can. You do it all the time.”

  “What’s this Marcus Gilet to you?”

  Algae scents rose from the Seine’s quai. She took a sip of espresso, needing the hot sweet jolt. “I need proof there weren’t drugs in his system.”

  “Answer the question, and I might think about helping.”

  She gave a brief recounting of how she’d gotten involved in looking into Marcus’s death.

  “It’s difficult to rush a report order. So much red tape. And our budget’s tightened.”

  She needed his help.

  “Make a call, Serge.”

  He sipped his espresso. Shrugged and glanced at the time. The river police Zodiac boat cruised by, trailed by a spreading V of foam.

  “The last time you helped me on the sly, didn’t you end up with a new office?” Aimée said.

  He’d inadvertently nailed a fugitive war criminal in the process of running her report.

  Serge sighed. She knew that sigh. Now the negotiations began. He’d extract a favor in return. “I’m horrible with costumes, Aimée. It’s the twins’ preschool play . . .”

  And she knew anything about costumes? On second thought, school plays loomed in Chloé’s future. Serge’s twin boys were only a few years older. “What kinds of costumes?”

  “Honeybees.”

  Might as well. She had a friend who worked in the costume and prop department at the opera and might be able to help.

  Ironing out the twins’ costume details took longer than Serge’s phone conversation with his colleague at the morgue.

  “No go,” said Serge. His thick black brows knit together. “My colleague can’t find Gilet’s autopsy.”

  “He can’t find it as in it’s not yet entered into the system?” said Aimée. “Or it’s misfiled? Under something on someone’s desk?”

  “We’re not that sloppy.” Pause. “Usually.” Serge looked worried.

  “You mean the autopsy got lost on purpose.”

  “Let me check tomorrow morning, Aimée,” said Serge, grabbing his briefcase. “I’ll comb the system, okay?”

  “Can someone disappear an autopsy report?”

  “Sounds like paranoia, Aimée.”

  She didn’t think so.

  Bath time over and rubber duckies put aside, Aimée rocked Chloé to sleep in her arms. Chloé’s sweet soapy fragrance and the smell of the fresh cotton sheets lulled Aimée into sleepiness. She wished she could join her daughter. So tired, yet she had work to do.

  With Chloé’s sleeping whistles in her ears, Aimée tiptoed down the hallway,
clicked on the baby monitor, and fed Miles Davis.

  “Almost out of horsemeat, fur ball.”

  Miles Davis’s white ears poked up in attention. He cocked his head toward her suitcase-sized fridge.

  “You think there’s a bit left in the freezer?”

  His tail wagged nonstop. She bent and ruffled the fur around his collar.

  “Smart boy.”

  René arrived with takeout—Lebanese from a place near the Panthéon. No word from Karine. Worried, Aimée wondered if the scared young girl would call.

  When Aimée was midway through a kebab, an alert beeped on her laptop. She checked. Thank God, François had come through and emailed her Marcus’s cell phone log.

  Only a handful of numbers, none of them the number Karine had called her from earlier. Most likely that had been a pay phone.

  She showed René.

  “Didn’t you say the flics’ report already contained a cell phone log?” he asked.

  “It’s for Marcus’s other phone.”

  “Eh, how did you find that?”

  “I didn’t. Gaëlle, Éric’s assistant, gave me Marcus’s other number.”

  René shook his head. “How would she have that if Marcus kept it secret?”

  “A shared plan? I don’t know. All I know is, she handles the bills. But look, René; no activity since the day he was murdered.”

  “Et alors, that’s two weeks ago. Even if Karine’s number’s here, that doesn’t mean she’ll still have that phone.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  She punched in the number of the last call made. Hoped it was Karine’s. Ringing, ringing, ringing.

  Then she tried the three other numbers. Same thing. Disappointed, she sat down cross-legged on the recamier. Her thoughts went back to the tunnel where Marcus’s last call had been triangulated. She scrolled through the call log on her own phone and matched up one set of digits with the call log for Marcus’s second phone: Éric’s number, which had called Marcus’s phone twice.

  Still, that got her nowhere. How could she get in touch with Karine?

  “Face it, Aimée. Karine’s not calling.”

  “What if she can’t?”