by Cara Black
He shook his head. “A Marais hole in the wall run by her uncle, near her family’s wholesale luggage shop. Traditional types who think I should learn their Wenzhou dialect.”
Aimée grinned. “And you’re still here?”
He paused at the door. “What about you?”
She bit back her frustration, seeing the names on the wall, the looming long evening alone. Stood and booted up her computer. “Work to catch up on.”
He hesitated. His phone trilled again.
“Try and get her alone next time, René.”
* * *
IN THE WC down the hall, Aimée splashed cold water on her face and leaned on the cracked porcelain sink. In the soap-speckled mirror, she studied a fine line under her eye. Expression lines, my foot, she thought. She squeezed the tube of Dior concealer. Empty. Like the evening ahead.
Emptier for Morbier in a cell. And a pity party would get her nowhere. She had work to do.
Back in Leduc Detective, she blew on the fire and sipped her espresso. Cold.
Until she discovered more about Xavierre, she was spinning her wheels. She had no suspects to point away from Morbier. She needed to know this woman: her family, her past, her secrets.
Everyone left traces; the hard part was finding the significant ones. Start with basics, what she knew. Xavierre’s state-of-theart kitchen would have required building permits.
Online, she entered the Ville de Paris Web site, searched La Direction de l’aménagement urbain et de la construction, and input Xavierre’s address. The notation indicated the contractor’s name, license, and renovation work totaling a year. All a matter of public record. A hefty sum for work that she figured should have taken four months at most. From there she dug deeper, from the city’s approval to the renovation contract.
The approval form listed the owner as Xavierre D’Eslay née Contrexo. One bright star shone in the evening: now she had Xavierre’s maiden name. Her tracking possibilities widened.
Morbier had met Xavierre Contrexo more than twenty years ago. At that time, post-Sorbonne riots, he’d been patrolling with Aimée’s father on the beat. If Xavierre had been a student in Bayonne, had Morbier met her on holiday in the Basque country? According to Cybèle, her family herded sheep.
Or had he and Xavierre met in Paris, at a student demonstration? She let that simmer, sat back—and found it staring her right in the face: ask Cybèle. She tried immediately. No answer on her cell phone. She tried the house. No answer.
Determined now, she thought of the next family member, Cybèle’s ill husband in Bayonne. A minute later, directory assistance connected her.
A gruff voice. “Allô?”
“Monsieur Urioste?”
“Who’s this, at this time of night?”
Nine P.M.? “Excusez-moi, Monsieur, but I’m calling from Paris regarding the investigation.… ”
“You a journalist?” he said. “Call in the morning.”
He’d given her the perfect opportunity. “Before the rumors reach epic proportions, we at Le Parisien wanted to confirm—”
“Rumors? You’re all snakes.” Pause. “What rumors?”
“Xavierre d’Eslay’s link with the Basque ETA.”
Instead of hearing the phone slammed down, she heard a clearing of his throat. “That old story?” A snort. “Happened years ago. My sister-in-law married money, didn’t know us after that, changed her tune, believe me.”
A dry laugh. She sensed he didn’t hold warm feelings for his sister-in-law.
“I need more than that, Monsieur, for my article,” she said. “That’s if you want the facts presented, not distortions.”
“Check with your kind, those rodents over at Sud Ouest.” Sud Ouest was the Bordeaux daily newspaper. “Talk to the archives and for once get your facts straight. And don’t quote me.” He hung up.
The Sud Ouest archives in Bordeaux didn’t answer. But Martine, her best friend since the lycée and a journalist, could help.
“Aimée … hold on a moment,” said Martine.
Singing, music, and laughter sounded loudly in the background. Martine lived with Gilles and his children in a huge flat overlooking the Bois de Boulogne. “Karaoke night for sixteenyear-olds,” Martine shouted. “Like the old days, remember?”
“I’d like to forget them, Martine.”
She heard a door shut, the flick of a lighter, a sharp inhalation. Martine smoked a pack a day. Aimée reached in her desk drawer for the strip of “stop smoking” patches. Empty.
“Now I can talk,” Martine said. “Ça va?” Martine took another drag, not waiting for an answer. “Bon, I shouldn’t say it but I’ll say it anyway. A Tuesday night, and you’re working late? You need a man.”
Not this again.
Martine made it her perpetual mission to set Aimée up. Blind dates, dinner parties, discreet introductions at wine bar openings— all disasters.
“Buff. Strong, of course,” Martine said. “I’m thinking of Gilles’s friend, career Navy and a champion diver, who commands the Naval underwater recovery unit in Toulon.”
She meant GIGN, the military elite assault unit.
“Don’t you have a weakness for men in Speedos?” Martine continued.
Speedos were one thing, career Navy another.
“Get back on shore, Martine,” she said. “Do me a huge favor: tap into the vein at Sud Ouest archives for Xavierre d’Eslay née Contrexo, links to ETA.”
Martine, a journalist, maintained an extensive network of contacts. De rigueur in her job.
“Now? But I’m jammed with my Radio France deadline, Aimée. Our four-part agribusiness program airs tomorrow.”
“Can’t the farmers wait an hour, Martine? They’ve waited this long.”
“ETA’s old news. Passé.” She exhaled. “No one’s interested in explosions in vacant police stations or post offices. There’s a cease-fire in the offing that they voted for in a referendum.”
“But what if this bears somehow on the haute bourgeoise matron’s murder—”
“The one on the télé, here in the 16th?” Martine coughed. “Near us?”
“Et voilà,” Aimée said.
“See, we have a dark side. Haven’t I likened our quartier to an elegant older aunt with a surprisingly hip and edgy side?”
Martine only lived there because Gilles had inherited a large flat in the building, comprising the whole floor. Fourteen-plus rooms overlooking the Bois de Boulogne.
“Think of your article explored from the angle of her past links to ETA,” Aimée said, “her relationship with a Commissaire Divisionnaire, highlighting the skewed investigation based on circumstantial evidence?”
“Why do I feel … ? Wait, Morbier’s new squeeze. That’s her?”
“Was. Your nose should be twitching like a fox at the hunt, Martine.”
A long inhale.
“Except that Morbier’s investigating and doing his job, Aimée. What’s it to you?”
“Au contraire: he’s the suspect.”
“Quoi! I don’t believe it.”
“Believe this.” Aimée drained the demitasse of cold espresso and told her. “I need anything you can find.”
“Let’s see,” Martine said. “One of the Radio France producers has a brother working at Sud Ouest. Used to. How far back?”
“Say twenty-five years,” Aimée said. “And dig into the new generation of Basques,” she said, trying to make her understand. “Euskadi Action demonstrations. The daughter’s on their mailing list; she’s afraid, too.”
“Intriguing, Aimée.” Pause. “But you’ll join us for Gilles’s birthday Sunday? An intimate dinner, close friends. Promise?”
Aimée groaned inside. Of course Martine needed another woman at the table—a date—for Gilles’s naval commander diver. She hated to think of the long evening of underwater exploits.
“Gilles loves Veuve Clicquot, like you.”
At least she had that covered. “You’ll let me know what you hear, Martin
e?”
“Make that two bottles, Aimée.” Martine hung up.
All this had taken time. She had an idea. It would cost her, and yet.… She sighed and grabbed a padded envelope. From René’s drawer she chose a cell phone from their collection, checked the battery, and locked the office door.
* * *
SHE LEFT HER scooter and, still in high-tops, walked past the verdigris iron Métro entrance at Louvre-Rivoli. She needed to walk, to think, to contact Morbier. And she hoped her little plan would work.
She followed the dimly lit quai, pulling her faux fur tighter. Under the cloud-filled night sky, she crossed Pont Neuf, the misted Seine gurgling below, and walked into shadowed Place Dauphine.
Ghosts everywhere, she thought, whispering in the wind, funneling past the damp corners, the skeletal trees, the seventeenth-century lawyers’ quarters—long a bistro—that she’d frequented with Morbier.
Beyond lay the Tribunal, massive columns lost in shadow. A squirrel skittered over the gravel and disappeared behind a slatted bench. Otherwise, the triangular square lay deserted across from the lighted bistro. Her hopes rose after she turned onto quai de l’Horloge near the jail door. The same flic from this afternoon stood at his guard post. With luck, he’d remember her.
Better yet, allow her into the visiting area.
He guarded the Gothic thick-planked door dotted with square nail heads, leading to le dépôt, the jail under La Conciergerie, originally Jean the Good’s medieval kitchen, often mistaken by tourists for the museum entrance to Marie Antoinette’s cell.
“Long shift, eh?” She flashed a smile and her pass. “I’m back again. Anyone released from the garde à vue this afternoon?”
“Not through here.” He stifled a yawn. “Visiting closed hours ago, too. Check with the bureau in the courtyard at eight A.M.”
Her heart fell. Poor Morbier. And in this cold.
Time for her plan. She pulled out her checkbook, tore off a deposit slip, wrote MORBIER URGENT, and taped it to the padded envelope with the cell phone.
“Papers came from the lawyer.” She smiled. “It would save me a trip tomorrow if you could leave this for Morbier with the duty sergeant.” She racked her brain for his name. At one time she’d known most of them. During her childhood, half the force had played Friday-night poker at her kitchen table. “Sergeant Roche, that’s the one. He knows me.” She widened her smile. Debated a come-hither look.
“Never hurts to ask, Mademoiselle.” He winked, then nodded to an arriving flic. “But I’m off duty.”
She edged closer as he took out his keys. “But since you’ll pass by Roche’s desk … it would mean so much.”
He hesitated.
“Look, Morbier’s my godfather.”
A hand shot out and he slipped the envelope into his pocket before the flic could see it.
* * *
“FLIRTING WITH FLICS? Nice, and after your little sermon.”
The hair rose on the back of her neck. She spun around to see Melac, his face just this side of craggy, defined by pale gray eyes with an unnerving focus. Arms crossed, he stood under the Resistance Memorial plaque on the Préfecture’s wall.
“No law against that,” she said.
The streetlight caught the pockmarks from bullet holes left by the Germans in 1944, the fresh flower remembrance for the fallen, and Melac’s silver belt buckle.
“I remember you said that—before you broke a few last month,” Melac said.
She felt his piercing vision going through her.
“All water under the bridge now.” She pointed to the sluggish black water of the Seine. “But you canceled tonight, and now you’re spying on me?”
“With this?” He lifted a gym bag. “Things got complicated upstairs.”
“Most things do.”
He stepped closer. A day’s stubble shaded his chin. He wore black jeans, a black leather jacket, and a thick-ribbed blue wool scarf knotted at his neck.
“What’s that saying? Don’t give excuses, just apologize later?”
She hadn’t remembered his eyes. How big they were. Why did she feel twinges of guilt?
“Nice, Melac.” She pointed to the pink hearts trimming his scarf’s edge. “Your new look? Or from an admirer?”
“My daughter knitted this,” he said. “Now she won’t stop. I’ve got one in every color.”
Aimée grinned.
And then he pulled her close in his warmth, his citrus scent. His lambskin leather jacket brushed her cheek.
“Look, Melac, I understand, ethics, compromising your work. It’s not fair.… ”
“I’ve missed you too, Aimée.” He lifted her chin. His fingers traced her cheekbone. His warm fingers. Tiny beads of moisture clung to the black hair curling over his neck.
“What plan are you hatching in that mind of yours?” he said.
As if she’d tell him. He couldn’t or wouldn’t help. “I don’t get it, Melac. Morbier’s a respected Commissaire Divisionnaire, held on circumstantial evidence—as you pointed out—but you act like I’m subversive.”
“Sabotaging Morbier’s chances would be more accurate,” he said, his finger resting on her cheekbone. “Politics are playing out behind the scenes. Don’t you know that by now?”
“Morbier’s navigated the waters and survived this long. He’s risen to the top,” she said. And then it clicked: the fall guy.
Was that it? A shiver trailed her spine.
“You’re saying it’s too late?”
“I don’t know,” Melac said. “No one’s talking upstairs. I tried. Everyone needs protection these days. Sometimes from themselves.”
Was Melac holding something back? She’d get more if she listened and appeared to acquiesce.
Morbier’s twenty-four hours in the garde à vue should end in the morning, barring discovery of concrete evidence of his guilt. She prayed Roche, the duty sergeant, would pass the cell phone to Morbier. She had to talk with him.
Melac drew a breath.
“But questions have been raised,” he said. “There’s an RG file. Not a place you should nose around in right now.”
“An RG file exists?”
“The victim’s got a dossier.”
If Xavierre had a file from Renseignements Généraux, which handled threats to internal security, it meant one thing: ETA. The RG had prioritized ETA and their activities from the seventies to the early nineties, when a special military police unit had been formed to cover the Basque region.
Did hope exist for Morbier after all? But she kept these thoughts to herself.
“At least you tried. Merci.”
“They’re stretched to the limit with events in Lyon, the flic killer in the Imprimerie Nationale heist,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Plus the continuing priority hunt for the phantom Fiat Uno speeding away from Princess Diana’s crash. An ongoing headache.”
A white-and-blue police car sped by, lights flashing, bathing the buildings and Melac’s face in blue. Brakes squealed as it turned, bumping over the cobbles into the yawning entrance of the Préfecture.
“On top of that, my leave’s canceled,” he said. “Now I turn around, head back to Brittany, and explain to my daughter. Effective tomorrow night, I’m back at my desk.”
He gave a little smile. “But we could have that drink. My train’s later.”
“C’est dommage, a shame the Champagne’s chilling outside with the geraniums.”
He gave a knowing nod. “Done that myself.” He put his arm around her. “But the bar on Île Saint-Louis serves a decent coupe of Taittinger.”
Chez Georges, around the corner from her place.
“Just one, Melac,” she said. “That’s all.”
Wednesday Morning
THROUGH A HAZE of sleep, Aimée heard beeping from the hallway. Struggling awake, she found her legs entangled by sheets, an arm around her shoulder. Soft warm breaths on her neck. The pale apricot rays of dawn wavered over the discarded clothes on the wood floo
r. And she remembered. Melac.
Her cell phone rang again. Miles Davis stirred on the floor, blinked his black eyes. Closed them.
She slipped from Melac’s arms, grabbing her father’s old flannel robe. She shivered at the cold floor. Good god, where had she left her phone? She found it at the bottom of her bag hanging from the coat hook.
A number she didn’t recognize. Her feet were freezing on the creaking cold wood.
“Oui?”
“What’s the emergency, Leduc?” Morbier’s disjointed voice was broken up by static.
“Morbier, are you all right?” she asked. Her knuckles clenching the phone whitened.
The flush of a toilet. “I’ve been better. Make it quick, Leduc.”
“The RG have a file on Xavierre.”
“That’s it? But there’s a file on everybody,” he said, irritated. “Thick as phone books.”
“Everybody was in ETA? How was she involved? How did you meet her?”
Pause. “I’m an old fool.” She heard the catch in his throat. “No one ever came close to her, Leduc.”
“I understand. But tell me, Morbier.”
Shouts and clanging metal. “We met at a demonstration in the early seventies near the Champs-Elysées, typical pot-au-feu, troublemakers, students. She was part of a trio from Bayonne, just students.… ” His voice faded.
She thought of Irati’s involvement with Euskadi Action: like mother, like daughter?
“En route to Lyon, you stopped at Emile’s routier, right? That’s your alibi?”
“Don’t go there, Leduc,” he said, anger vibrating in the static.
“But your driver.… ”
Coughing. “Told him to go home. You know the rules of the routier. Solo.”
Bad to worse. The informer his only alibi. She thought fast. “But couldn’t Melac talk to your informer on the quiet?”
“Merde!” She heard the gush of water, a squeaking, like a faucet turned off. “Leave it alone.”
“Why?”
“Listen,” he said.
She heard dripping water.
“Compris, Leduc?”
“A leaky faucet,” she said, exasperated. “Give me something to work with, Morbier. Anything.”
