by Cara Black
René set down his kebab skewer. She saw him slip Miles Davis a minted lamb chunk with his other hand.
“You’ve done what you can,” he said. He wiped his hands on his linen napkin—her grandfather had found the set at auction. “We’ve got to finish this, remember?”
René had his laptop out, a bibliothèque file open.
Aimée’s phone trilled.
A number from Marcus’s second phone. Hopeful, she nodded to René.
“Oui?” she answered.
“You called. Who’s this?”
She recognized the glottal syllables, the lilting accent. Lili.
“Lili, it’s Aimée Leduc. Can I talk to Karine? She’s there, right?”
A sob escaped Lili. “Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“Someone followed her.”
Aimée’s pulse skipped. “Where’d she go, Lili? Please tell me. I can help her.”
Lili sucked in her breath. “She said she wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
Great. But maybe she really didn’t know. “Help me out, Lili.” Calm. Aimée needed to stay calm, control the conversation. Try to. “Where would Karine go? Can you think of friends, you know, people she knew from school or—”
“There’s an old painter . . .” Lili clammed up.
“Go on, Lili.”
“I’m not . . . sure, but he’s Cambodian. An avant-garde painter with an atelier . . .”
“Where, Lili?”
“Cité fleurie . . . but maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You’re right to tell me. She’s your friend, and you want to protect her. So do I.”
Lili hung up. Aimée figured she’d gotten as much as she could. She took out her map and searched for Cité fleurie.
“Aimée, just tell Éric Besson,” René said. “Let him take it from there. You don’t have to be involved anymore.”
“Who knows if Karine’s there? Say she is and he appears; she’d run like a scared rabbit. Lili said Karine was followed.”
But it was true she needed to tell Éric.
On the third ring, he answered. His voice sounded distant, as if it were underwater. “So you’re meeting Karine now?”
“No guarantees, Éric, but I might know where she is.”
“Where?”
“Cité fleurie. I’ll call you if she’s there. Someone has been following her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Later.” She hung up and nodded to René. Punched in her concierge’s number—Madame Cachou had agreed to babysit. Three minutes later, dressed in motorcycle jacket, black leather pants, and high-tops, Aimée met the older woman at the door.
“Will you be long?” Madame Cachou carried her laptop case with her. Madame Cachou wrote “romances”—more like steamy erotica, in Aimée’s opinion. The sideline earned her more than her salary as a concierge.
“Doubt it.”
René sandwiched the Citroën between two camionettes near La Santé, the last prison in Paris. Dark, high stone walls loomed in the fading twilight. They passed the adjacent Square Cadiou, a park lost in a fog of foliage, and came to the Cité fleurie gate.
A Digicode. Great. Aimée’s penlight revealed names next to a buzzer. Phan sounded Cambodian, at least Asian, so she buzzed it. Silence apart from the muted chirp of crickets. What if Karine was crashing there and was afraid to answer?
Aimée buzzed another atelier.
“Who’s that?” said a tired man’s voice.
“Desolée, it’s the materials for Monsieur Phan,” she said, plucking a reason for buzzing out of the air. “I’m dropping them off, and he doesn’t answer . . .”
“At this time of night?”
“Tell me about it, monsieur,” she said. “Important delivery, he said, and now no answer . . .”
“Atelier 417.”
The gate clicked open.
They walked into gardens that surrounded clusters of two-story timber-frame white stucco maisonettes with north-facing windows. Greenery and plants everywhere. The uneven paver walkway led through courtyard after sculpture-laden courtyard. A place for munchkins—this would be fairyland for Chloé.
“What’s this place besides being the land time forgot?” said René, slipping on wet ginkgo leaves.
Aimée pointed to a plaque by the narrow path—names of artists who’d worked in ateliers here: Gauguin, Modigliani, and Rodin, among others. Another related how a free German library with anti-Nazi books was pillaged during the German Occupation.
She scanned the walkway for the atelier number. Wanted to keep out of sight of the man who’d buzzed them in.
“You sure about this, Aimée?” René whispered.
Not at all. “It’s a place to try, René.”
“C’est privé. People live here, too.”
“Got a better idea?”
A strange place for Karine to crash—a historic artists enclave—but secluded. In the shadows, only a few lights showed behind drawn curtains.
Toward the enclave’s rear, the timbered ateliers gave off an abandoned air, leaves strewn around the doorways.
“C’est là-bas.” René pointed to atelier 417, which lay in shadows. The minute he knocked, the wood door creaked open, yielding on to darkness.
A bad feeling danced up Aimée’s spine. The chilly breeze carried the fragrance of night-flowering jasmine and cat piss. “Wait, René.”
“Allô?” he called. “Karine?” He’d hit the light, flooding the narrow studio and revealing a large skylight over a collage piece on an easel. Canvasses were propped against the wall. Fabric scraps, metal bits, half-squeezed pigment tubes, and Spackle brushes were scattered on a bench. As if they’d been tossed haphazard or rooted through.
She noted the paint-speckled wooden floor, a thin mattress covered by a blanket in the corner.
No Karine. Only an aluminum pot on a hot plate. Touched the rim. “It’s still warm, René.”
Too late. If she’d been here, she’d gone. Had Lili warned her? But why?
Nervous, Aimée dialed Lili. No answer.
Then she tried Éric’s number—to stop him from making a fruitless trip. Heard a faint answering ring.
Merde! He’d come already.
Holding her phone, she followed the ringing sound outside to where tree branches formed a tunnellike overhang. Then she couldn’t hear it anymore. Beyond, an eerie clump of shadows turned out to be an elongated Giacometti-style sculpture of sprouting metal pipe.
“They call this art?” she heard René mutter.
“Éric?” Aimée called. She punched in his number again. Heard the ringing. “This way.”
And then Aimée didn’t hear the ringing phone anymore. Just leaves rustling in the wind. She paused, her eyes catching on a small scrap of light-colored fabric hanging in the branches, glinting in the night. And then she heard a scream.
Tuesday, Late Evening
The garden had ended at a wall. Footsteps crashed in the dark underbrush. Aimée shined her penlight, revealing red smears streaking the glossy leaves.
Blood. Her knees trembled. Whose blood?
Aimée heard a high-pitched whine of a cat in heat and then René’s shout: “Over here!”
Had René found Éric?
She forged ahead, continuing along the wall until she came to a woman’s slumped figure.
Aimée stumbled, caught herself. “Karine?”
Karine’s glassy-eyed stare reflected in Aimée’s penlight beam. The tarnished, paint-spattered handle of a pair of scissors protruded from Karine’s neck.
“Mon Dieu,” said René.
Aimée struggled to take in what she saw. Karine still wore the trench coat she had been wearing when she fl
ed down the drainpipe. She was barefoot, pink nail polish on her toes.
René stepped back, shaking.
Aimée bent down, fought the reflex to pull the scissors from Karine’s neck. Clinical objectivity took over, her premed training kicking in, and she reached for Karine’s wrist.
No pulse.
Still warm. “René, come here.”
No answer. Where had he gone?
“René?”
Her heart jumped. Was Karine’s killer still here?
She rooted in her bag for her Swiss Army knife, flicked it open. Shadows moved in the rustling branches.
Her heart pounded. Where had René gone? Where was Éric? Would they find him next, his throat slit?
Branches snapped. A moan. Good God, had René been hurt?
She found her way through a thicket.
“Aimée?” René leaned on the wall, heaving. His jacket pocket had been ripped off.
René, a black belt, could defend himself. But he looked shaken.
“Are you okay? What happened?”
René whispered. “I heard someone climbing over the wall.”
Aimée looked to see blood smears trailing up the stone.
“Karine’s killer . . . escaped over the wall?” Aimée’s words caught in her mouth, dry as sandpaper. She struggled to make sense of this. What felt like minutes or maybe hours passed in what could have only been seconds. “Who was it?”
“Too dark; couldn’t see.”
A light went on in the studio behind them. Voices.
“I’m calling the flics . . .” said René.
Aimée shook her head. “What if it’s a setup?”
Realization dawned in René’s eyes. He’d heard Éric’s phone ring, too. “Did Éric set us up?”
How could that make sense? Or was he a victim here, too? “Why would he? Éric couldn’t have had anything to do with Marcus’s murder.” Could he have? Éric Besson was one of the most ethical, straight-shooting people Aimée had ever met. And his grief had seemed so genuine. “Karine wanted to tell me something.”
Aimée edged along the path, René behind her.
“And the murderer shut Karine up before she could talk.”
They’d reached the end of the wall. “No one’s here.”
Voices were approaching. A shout.
No time to figure more out now. They had to get out of here. “I saw a gate,” Aimée said. “Quick.”
“Aimée, we’ve got to tell the flics. I can’t walk away from a murder.”
“Stick around and be accused of it?”
“This feels wrong.”
“Nothing’s right about this, René. Got any other ideas?”
The gate was locked.
“Climb. Hurry,” she said.
“Not my style, Aimée.”
Was he worried about his linen suit? It was already ripped. But given René’s four-foot height, he’d never make it over the high wall. Merde, what could she do?
Lift him up? She bent down. “Stand on my back. Or will you call Madame Cachou, tell her we’re suspects in a holding cell and we’ll need her to stay with Chloé overnight?”
After René scrambled up to the wall ledge and dropped to the other side, she hoisted herself up. Found purchase and seconds later made it over the top. She landed on a crumbling planter, and her foot twisted. Merde.
Keep going. They were in another garden, wild and unkempt. The grass had been trampled. Were they following the murderer’s escape?
Didn’t matter right then. Hobbling behind René, she made for a rusted gate that yielded on to a rolling lawn. It belonged to a school in a former mansion, glassed-in terraces overlooking a grassy slope. Every minute counted.
All of a sudden she was drenched in cold water. In her shock, Aimée slipped.
“Think you’ll rob us again tonight?” Silhouetted in the light of a second-floor room, a woman holding a pail called down to them, “The flics are already coming.”
A siren wailed in the distance.
“Great, and we’re fleeing a murder scene,” René huffed.
Aimée grabbed René’s arm and ducked into the shadows. Her ankle hurt. Her cold, wet jacket hung heavy on her shoulders. If only they could make it to the next street. To the Métro—or get to the car.
She pointed to a decrepit ladder lying sideways by a gardening shed. René needed no further prompting. He leaned it up against the wall separating the yard from the grassy park of Square Cadiou. He climbed up first, then reached down to help her. Her weight broke the last rung. A sharp pain shot up her already throbbing ankle.
Sirens wailed closer. Shoving down the pain, she scrambled over the wall and landed on damp mulched grass, wrenching her shoulder. Gasped in pain.
What next? All they needed was a shining spotlight, and they’d be caught fleeing a murder scene. Aimée could see René’s parked Citroën over the hedge in front of them.
Right where they’d started from.
Police cars had pulled up, blue lights flashing and reflecting on the trees. Forget crossing the grass with the flics out front.
A walled walkway running between the school and apartments led out of Square Cadiou to the next street. No doubt it had a locked gate, but she’d worry about that if they made it that far.
“Hurry, René, that way.” They hobbled through the back of dark Square Cadiou, disturbing night birds, who fluttered noisily in alarm. Great.
“We should just tell them the truth,” René said. “Help them investigate.”
“Never in a blue moon.” The flics hated her. She’d exposed corruption in the “family,” gotten her godfather, Commissaire Morbier, shot. Once family, always family—they would never forgive her, an ex-cop’s daughter, for betraying the family. Even if they’d betrayed her father by drumming him out of the force.
Right then she was spit on the soles of their shoes.
She pulled her key ring out and fumbled with the old keys. She picked an ancient one she’d stolen from Morbier years ago and copied when he wasn’t looking—one of the master postal and park keys.
It worked.
Music and laughter drifted from a lit passage. People spilled out onto the narrow street, smoking and drinking.
“Mingle, René,” she said, trying not to wince as she punched the number for a Taxi Bleu into her cell phone.
An artistic crowd—what Aimée had taken for a party turned out to be a vernissage, a gallery opening.
“They call this art?” René complained as they waited under a plastic palm.
“I heard you the first time, René,” she said, helping them both to wine from a copper tray. She smelled of damp grass, and her shoulder was pounding with pain. “It’s called found art; I told you.” From the corner of her eye, she watched for a taxi. Her heart skipped. Two blue uniforms were coming up the street.
“Dumpster diving and slapping junk together, more like it,” he said. “Even graffiti’s art now. Don’t forget—tomorrow night we’re giving the award at Demy’s art foundation.”
Demy’s art foundation was their pro bono account. It showcased street and graffiti art and was championed by the Socialist mayor of the arrondissement. “You’ll meet Xavier, the mover and shaker,” said René, nervous, gulping down the wine. “Gets things done. He’s brilliant.”
The two uniforms were making their way through the crowd.
“So how do you know the artist?” asked a rail-thin man, a culture-vulture type wearing a black jumpsuit and frameless designer glasses. Aimée hated questions like that—scrolled through a mental list of go-to stock answers.
“We’re neighbors,” she said, smiling. “Delighted to be invited and see what goes on in the atelier.”
“I didn’t think she knew anyone here yet,” he said, curious. “Why are you all wet?”
“Excuse us, monsieur. Have to go. Come on, René.”
“In a taxi?” the thin man asked. “I thought you were neighbors.”
“Theater tickets,” Aimée said. “Adieu.”
“L’Institut du Monde Arabe, s’il vous plaît,” Aimée told the taxi driver, a mec with a cigarette and cap.
René shot her a look. Mouthed, Why?
She put a finger to her lips. Taxi fares and locations were logged. They’d walk from there.
She overtipped the taxi driver, hoping in his pleasant surprise he’d remember little about his passengers.
Ile Saint-Louis’s globe lights shimmered on the dark, moving Seine. The warm air couldn’t dry her jacket, which stuck to her neck. Once the taxi had pulled away, she and René crossed the Pont de Sully.
“I need to go back and pick up my car.” René looked nervous.
She imagined his classique Citroën DS parked on the boulevard swarming with police cars. “Not a good idea. Wait till tomorrow,” she said, limping as discreetly as possible.
On the streets of Ile Saint-Louis, the restaurants were closing. She nodded to the patron of her local café and dipped inside. Emerged a moment later with a bag of ice. Leaned on René’s shoulder to take off her high-tops. Damned cobblestones.
“Are you okay?” René asked.
“After I get home, I will be.”
She’d ice her ankle, get her shoulder fixed, and figure out what happened.
In the salon, she thrust a wad of francs in Madame Cachou’s hands to forestall any questions and ushered the older woman out the door.
In Chloé’s room, Aimée breathed in her bébé’s scent, talcum powder, freshly laundered crib sheets, and sweet baby’s breath. Felt her cool brow and kissed that rosebud mouth.
Aimée discarded her wet clothes, donned après-ski silk thermals, and wrapped herself up in her father’s old bathrobe.
The salon’s chandelier sent a soft glow over the freshly folded piles of baby clothes. Miles Davis had curled up with René.
“I can’t understand what happened, Aimée,” said René. His laptop was already open in front of him. “We heard Éric’s phone ring. He was there. But then that poor girl, those scissors sticking out of her neck . . .” René shook his head. “Éric is such a geek. I’d never have thought he could go to such lengths.”
