Murder on the Left Bank

by Cara Black

  Her eyes batted in fear.

  “You’re afraid. I won’t put you in danger. Here, relax. Let me buy you a drink.” René shoved a menu toward her.

  She ignored it.

  “You came here,” he tried. “I think you want to help.”

  “No one talks,” she said finally. “They keep silent, and it made me sick.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Never mind my name.”

  “Okay, I’m René. But you saw my friend Aimée, big eyes, tall, non?”

  She nodded.

  “She’s scared for her own baby, who was almost stolen instead of Elodie, the baby who got taken.”

  She glanced at her watch. Her mouth was set with worry; René could see she was trying to decide what to say.

  “What did you see or hear? Please tell me. I won’t talk to the flics.”

  “The gang makes sure no one talks.”

  René’s ears perked up. “Which gang?”

  For a moment, she looked at him in disbelief. Then she turned her head a fraction and scanned the empty café. “You don’t understand how it works here.”

  “I’m getting that feeling. So tell me how.”

  “I heard the screams—I thought it was the man in the passage who beats his wife. But non . . . this car drove away. A Twingo.”

  “That’s helpful.” René nodded. “Did you notice what color?”

  Her index finger made a circle in a wet spot on the table. “Green, I think.”

  Good, she noticed things.

  “Do you remember if it was a two door, four door?”

  “I don’t know.” She swallowed. “After that, I saw the woman lying there, all bloody.” Then took a deep breath. “She wasn’t Asian. I’ve never seen her before. And a baby. Then a Loo Frères gang member appeared and shooed our delivery driver away. That’s all I know.”

  “Did you see the driver of the car?”

  “How could I have? It had pulled away . . .” Her index finger paused on the table.

  “You remember something?” Hopeful, René leaned forward.

  “Maybe a flash of a black sleeve . . . like leather? But there’s nothing else I can tell you, monsieur.” She stood. “If you follow me or come around again, they’ll know it was me who reported.”

  “How?”

  She scanned the café again. Whispered: “I called the emergency number.”

  René pressed his card into her hand. “Trust me. Call anytime.”

  And then she’d gone. He reached for his phone and called Aimée. Busy.

  “It’s a front, Aimée,” said an excited Maxence over the phone. His rising voice almost squeaked.

  “Attends.” She pulled her scooter over to the first place she could find. Smack in front of France’s oldest labor movement organization, Friends of the 1871 Commune. Still a rowdy bunch who carried on l’esprit des Communards in a yearly block party.

  “What’s a front?” she said, wishing she had her damn earbuds.

  “Madame de Frontenac runs a dry cleaner’s on rue de Patay.”

  Aimée switched the scooter’s ignition off. Covered her other ear with her left hand. “A money launderer?”

  “I don’t know. But her maiden name is Dandin. I remembered that name from what you wrote on the chart.”

  Dandin, the name from Morbier’s email—the flic who’d retired, whom she’d found no records of. The flic with cauliflower ears who’d played poker at the kitchen table while she sat on her father’s lap.

  “Go on,” she said.

  “Madame de Frontenac lives by her business, which she co-owns with a brother, Charles.”

  “Brilliant, Maxence.”

  “I delved deeper. Found out Dandin does security part time at you’ll never guess where.”

  She had no time for guessing games. Took a wild shot anyway. “At the Gobelins tapestry factory?”

  “How did you know, Aimée?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Still, how did that figure in the whole story?

  “So a Madame de Frontenac, co-owner of a business with Charles Dandin, who works at les Gobelins, hired Cyril Cromach to snoop around?” Aimée said.

  “Funny, eh?” said Maxence. “Why couldn’t her brother snoop around?”

  Good question. “Tell me more, and how you found out where he works.”

  She grabbed her Moleskine. Took down the details. After a check-in with Melac—Chloé was safe and eating dinner—she headed to find out.

  The sloping zinc roofs with their forests of chimney pots were barely discernable against a deepening indigo sky—entre chien et loup, the dim light in which one couldn’t distinguish a dog from a wolf. Aimée watched Dandin, more years on him but recognizable, board the number 27 bus steps away from where he worked as a guard at the Gobelins tapestry factory.

  No chance to visit Léo’s old apartment—the complex had closed.

  Thanks to Maxence’s digging, she knew Dandin’s part-time hours. The day she’d visited he’d been off—she remembered Olivia in the caretaker loge. But no connection to the slime Cyril Cromach.

  But why? Her mind went to Morbier’s email: Tell Dandin. We’ve got to keep story straight.

  She looked up the bus route. One of its stops was on rue de Patay near the address Maxence had given her. Going home?

  Aimée followed the bus on her scooter, alert to see where he got off. Eight stops later, he did. She skirted a nineteenth-century neoclassical church, breathing diesel exhaust fumes all through the quartier Jeanne d’Arc, and watched him cross the street. There she saw a low stone wall, crumbling in places, and a closed Bricostore cut-rate carpet store in what had once been a row of small shops. Behind a gate, she could see a compound: a four-story building with green shutters; to the right a small, run-down warehouse; on the left what looked like a pensione last remodeled in the thirties.

  Dandin entered LAV-MAT, a well-lit dry cleaner’s with a seventies storefront. Over the low hum of her scooter, she heard the bell on the door tinkle as she rode past. She parked her scooter under a plane tree, walked up, and peered in the window. Dandin was talking with an older woman—an argument, judging by the raised voices. And Aimée saw the woman’s ears—a match for her brother’s cauliflowers.

  Maxence had said Dandin’s sister had gotten chatty after he’d called and mentioned a sweepstakes prize. A boy after Aimée’s own heart. Was Dandin upset that his sister had given Maxence information?

  Aimée scooted into a doorway before Dandin exited, slamming the shop’s door closed. He went through the gate next door.

  She debated knocking. Would he remember her? But he’d remember her father. No lights went on behind any windows. Then she heard a put-putting sound of a moped. The gate creaked open . . .

  Dandin had a phone to his ear. He clanged the gate shut. Then his moped shut off.

  “Non, not you,” he was saying into the phone. “Attends, I’m telling that two-bit . . . Quoi? Oui. To his face. He screwed up.”

  Her mind flew to Cyril. Screwed up the kidnapping? A murder?

  She wanted Dandin to tell the Hand to lay off her. That she didn’t have the notebook. But what proof of his connection to the Hand did she have?

  Dandin hung up, put the phone in his pocket, paused. She made herself small in the doorway as he looked up the street.

  Careful.

  Better to follow and see where he went and whom he met.

  He pedaled to restart his moped and turned into a side street. Only then did she get back on her scooter and turn her key in her ignition. There was little traffic at this time of the evening, so she stayed a block behind him in the haze of dimly lit streets, quiet apart from her thrumming scooter and the pounding of her heart.

  He followed the steep rue Regnault in the direction of Maison-Blanche
. Nearby lay the decrepit Panhard and Levassor car engine factory, commandeered by the Germans during the war to manufacture airplane engines for the Luftwaffe. On the other side, the cavernous la Petite Ceinture, the abandoned nineteenth-century rail line that had once belted Paris. Now overgrown, a deserted place where disoriented cataphiles emerged from the catacombs to find themselves with junkies and foxes. Parts of the Left Bank were wilderness, green where nature had rooted in the cracked stones. She loved the wild flowers sprouting on the tracks and the neighborhood groups that planted allotments of vegetables and kept rabbits.

  Dandin wove through the small streets to Jardin du Moulin de la Pointe, a park where mills once harnessed the power of la Bièvre. Here the Petit Ceinture tracks led into a tunnel. He got off his bike. She parked, grabbed her jacket, and picked her way down to the tracks in her ballet flats along a winding path lined by bushes and trees.

  Ahead she made out Dandin’s figure keeping to the steep wall along the rail line. His flashlight beam bobbed on chunks of gravel as he made his way.

  If she walked on the gravel, he’d hear her, as would anyone else. She kept to the wide-spaced wood ties, once the path of steam trains.

  Graffitied train cars were parked in the tunnel. Farther down, at the end of the tunnel, a fire flickered; voices were raised; glass shattered. A party? She didn’t see Dandin anymore. Figured he’d gone inside a train.

  More glass shattered. Shouts that sounded like a drunken fight.

  Chance going inside? She didn’t relish waiting out here.

  High steps led to an old-fashioned train car. Dank, mildewed air. Damp newspapers, garbage on the rotted floor.

  Dandin’s voice, and another man’s. Cyril? But she couldn’t tell.

  Footsteps. Quick—she had to hide. But where in this narrow space?

  She backtracked and jumped down the steps. Landed with a crunch. Winced at the twinge in her ankle. Nowhere to go without being seen.

  She rolled under the train, crawled behind a rusted wheel, by the remnants of a soggy blanket. Something slimy on her hands as she scraped her knee. The least of her worries.

  Had anyone seen her?

  In the darkness, she saw silhouettes of shoes—what looked like Dandin’s brogues and another pair hurrying away, crunching on the gravel.

  Who had he met? What had they said?

  Frustrated, she crawled under the train until her knees ached. She rolled out to see two men rounding the bushes ahead. Leaving.

  “I’m no pushover. You owe me.” Dandin’s voice sounded clear in the night air before they disappeared.

  She should have gotten René to act as backup—thought this out more. But she’d jumped at the chance of finding Dandin.

  She needed to get back to Chloé and figure out her next move.

  She hurried now in the cool night air. Damp leaves brushed her face. As she turned on the path, her foot hit something. A rock or tree stump. Pain lanced up her ankle . . . again.

  Kneeling down to check her ankle, she realized she’d kicked a groaning man lying by the path.

  Mon Dieu.

  “Desolée,” she said.

  A wheezing her only answer. He didn’t move. Behind her, drunken shouts, yelling. Others were breaking off, running toward her.

  Her fingers closed around the hard, rectangular shape of a flashlight.

  “Are you all right?” Her fingers came back sticky with a sweetish smell. Had she stuck her hands in vomit?

  She picked up the flashlight, flicked it on, and shone it. Dandin’s glassy eyes blinked at the brightness. His pupils dilated, and his moans sputtered. His big ears stained with pink spatter. Blood oozed from a jagged slash in his neck. One bloodied hand held a shard of glass he must have pulled out. His other reaching for his neck.

  Oh my God . . . Her stomach lurched. Bile rose in her throat.

  Like Karine.

  She had to stop the bleeding. Apply pressure. His labored breaths trailed into gurgling. Mon Dieu, if she couldn’t prevent the carotid bleeding out . . .

  And then she was grabbed from behind. Gloved hands around her throat. A cold shard of sharp glass pressing into her neck. Her hands flailed as she tried to get loose. Screaming, she was screaming. Somehow one of her flailing hands still gripped the flashlight, its beam jerking all over the place.

  This was it . . . her life flashing in front of her, her bébe Chloé’s face. Only a choked-up cry was coming from her as she tried to push the man off.

  Shouts. Summoning her strength, she swung back. Connected with something hard like a skull. Then swung again. Heard an ouf. The hands released her neck; the glass shard fell, tinkling on the stones.

  Her chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. He’d taken off. Still on her knees, she made her hand reach for Dandin’s pulse. Ragged but beating. She balled up his shirt collar over the wound and applied pressure. Leaned down to his ear. Smelled the coppery tang of blood.

  “Dandin, I’m Jean-Claude’s daughter. You remember Jean-Claude Leduc.”

  His breath came in shallow rasps.

  “I know the Hand’s behind this . . .”

  Pinkish froth bubbled from his lips. A hoarse grunt.

  “Here’s your chance to tell me, Dandin.” She kept the pressure steady. “I’m calling an ambulance.” She tried reaching for her phone.

  His raspy grunts rose. Like a rattling in his chest, the death rattle . . . Mon dieu. He was trying to say something. Gurgling. Choking, and she couldn’t make out the words. His bloody hand caught her head, gripped so tight she felt hair ripped from her scalp, and jerked her close.

  His breath was like mold.

  “Moi? I’m Aimée. You remember me when I was little, non? Playing cards in our kitchen . . . Remember?”

  Anything to keep him with her. Get him to focus.

  His eyes showed a dull recognition. “That’s right. Of course you remember Jean-Claude, my papa. Your colleague. You can tell me, Dandin. Who’s behind the Hand?”

  His eyelids fluttered. Not looking good.

  “Stay with me . . . please . . .”

  Garbled noises. She was losing him.

  “Who, Dandin? You can tell me.”

  She leaned closer and heard rasping breaths. “Son . . . fixer.”

  A lingering gurgle. His eyes glazed. She felt his pulse. Gone.

  Merde.

  Several of the drunks had come up on the path.

  “What’s with him?” A man in a worn leather jacket grabbed at her to steady himself. “No more party in him. But plenty in you, chérie.”

  Horrified, she realized from the man’s glazed, stoned look how out of it he was. And his friend, who chugged from a wine bottle.

  “Tant pis, this poor man’s dead. Murdered by the mec who ran off.” She picked up her bag, struggled to her feet.

  But the man in the leather jacket caught her wrist, his grip like iron. “Come party with us.”

  “Mon Dieu, he’s been murdered.” How could she get away? Yet she needed to know what they’d seen. “You must have seen who he met at the train. Didn’t you?”

  “Largo, it’s not cool . . . Let’s go,” said the other stepping back, sniffing.

  Her voice rose. “Don’t you understand the murderer—”

  Aimée heard crunching on the gravel and almost reached for her knife. But it was a younger man. “Merde, that’s the old flic,” he said.

  “Shut up, Brice.”

  “You know him?” she asked. “What about the man who waited for him on the train?”

  “You gonna party or not?” the man called Largo asked.

  He hadn’t let go. She kicked him in the balls as she’d been wanting to do.

  Several pairs of headlights illuminated the building façades on the street. A roar of motorcycles. “Merde . . . les Chinois . . .
” She noticed the wild-eyed fear in the one called Brice.

  “Tell me, Brice,” she said.

  They scattered. Left her with blood on her hands, glass shards.

  With shaking hands, she felt inside Dandin’s jacket pockets. She checked for his wallet. Gone. Pockets picked clean except for an old centime wedged in one of the creases. Where was the phone? Had the killer taken it?

  Now voices speaking Chinese. Joined by more, echoing off the buildings. She had seconds.

  One last try. She scraped her hands over the dirt.

  Found the phone. Smashed to bits. Merde.

  She checked everything she’d touched. Wiped off what she could with her scarf. Then she got the hell out of there.

  Thursday, Late Evening

  By the time Aimée unlocked her apartment door on Ile Saint-Louis, her neck muscles throbbed with built-up tension, and her damp blouse clung to her shoulder blades. She was ready to drop with exhaustion. She needed to cuddle her bébé and soak in a steaming hot bath. In that order. Then she’d figure out what to do.

  Miles Davis’s pink tongue licked her ankles. She leaned down, stroked his silky back. “Missed you, fur ball,” she said.

  “Aimée?” Melac stepped out from the kitchen into the hallway. Chloé’s biological father, a former officer on the brigade criminelle, had a diaper in his hand. He was slim hipped and muscular as ever, and concern filled those grey-blue eyes, so like Chloé’s.

  And he still wore his rose gold serpent wedding ring.

  “You all right?” he asked.

  She’d witnessed a murder, been attacked, escaped a bunch of winos and a Chinese gang—all in an evening’s work.

  “Tired,” she said.

  “My contact at brigade criminelle says they’ve found the abduction vehicle, IDed the woman.”

  “I know,” said Aimée. She plopped her bag on the hall secretaire, toed off her ballet flats. Sat down and rubbed her ankle. Tried to ignore the stinging scrape on her neck. She was glad she’d already cleaned off Dandin’s blood; she didn’t want to have to explain to Melac.

  From the baby monitor propped on the table came Chloé’s sleeping whistles. Thank God.