by Cara Black
Instead of answering, Rouffillac leaned into the microphone clipped to his lapel. “Oui?” he listened, his expression hardening. “Sodium chlorate . . . weed burner and sulfur . . .explosif . . . you’re sure?”
Sulfur or drogene, she knew, was the yellow powder sprinkled on the pavement by her neighbor to discourage pooping dogs. And weedburner was available at Vilmorin or any garden supply store. Common everyday ingredients, but combined they made a big bang. A lethal one.
“It should have been worse, thank God they did a half-assed job. . . .” Rouffillac said, shaking his head and turning away.
Aimée didn’t catch the rest. The multicolored rose arrangements in the shop window framed the scene of now-diminishing horror outside. The last ambulance pulled away. Metro workers in blue-green vests hosed down the steps.
“Recount for me your movements and your last conversation with Yves Robert,” Rouffillac said, consulting a small notepad that had materialized from his shirt pocket.
Caught off-guard, she cleared her dry, sore throat. She felt hot and cold; her neck was flushed; the unmistakable signs of a fever.
“I didn’t expect to see Yves,” she said. “This on-again, off-again thing we had . . . well . . . always saying good-bye at street corners.” She twisted the Turkish puzzle ring on her finger. “But this time he asked me to marry him.”
Rouffillac looked up from his notes. “Mademoiselle, do me a favor and make this day a little better than it’s going, eh? Start at the beginning.”
And she did. He looked up only once, when she faltered describing the blood at rue de Paradis and the little girl’s words.
“So the last time you saw the victim, Yves Robert, was before 2 A.M. in the morning?”
“I woke up then and he’d gone.” She handed him the Le Monde she’d found behind the mattress. “Look, when I went back to search the loft, I found this article he’d underlined, it could bear on—”
“Not a smart thing, to take a victim’s items or to search the loft, Mademoiselle. You’ve tainted evidence and made my boys’ day harder.” His mouth soured and he stepped so close she could smell the old-fashioned pomade on his hair. Didn’t do much good to his curls, she noticed. For a small man, he moved with surprising speed and energy.
“But, of course, you realize that Yves was working undercover on a story.”
“ ‘Realize,’ Mademoiselle?” His voice lowered. “I investigate and gather evidence following procedure and the regulations prescribed by the Judiciare.”
“But you have informants in the quartier, non? Ask them. . . .” she paused. “No doubt you’ve consulted with his colleagues at Agence France-Presse—”
“That’s not your concern.”
Of course they had informants and had contacted the AFP. Why wouldn’t he confirm it to her?
“The Brigade has an 87% case solution rate, higher than any other European capital,” he said.
She could almost see his chest puff with pride.
“I intend to better that, Mademoiselle, I don’t need your theories or interference.”
The typical swagger, the elitism notorious in the Brigade. And Rouffillac embodied it. Granted, only the crème de la crème were accepted in its ranks, but it didn’t make them easy to deal with.
“You’ve got a lot going on, I know. . . .”
“We’re on high alert,” he told her, leaning over to speak into his lapel-microphone again, but all she caught was the word Alpha.
“Commissaire Morbier, my godfather, works at Groupe R in the Brigade,” she said. He only worked there once a week, but maybe that would soften Rouffillac up. “I’m familiar with—”
“And I’m aware of your background, Mademoiselle,” he interrupted. “Your cell phone, please.”
Sharp; he’d caught the reference to the last message from Yves’s number on her cell phone.
A plainclothes man appeared at the door, and Rouffillac snapped his fingers, like a overbearing patron to a waiter in a resto. The man took her cell phone and disappeared into a blue van outside.
“But, of course, you’re pursuing other suspects besides Romeo?”
“That’s all for now, Mademoiselle,” he said. “I may have more questions. If so, I’ll call you.”
In true Brigade fashion, he revealed nothing.
“But you’ve got my phone.”
“The officer will return it when you leave.”
He strode to the door. He wanted to brush her away, as if she were an irritating fly.
“So you’re bugging my phone?” She followed, her heels crushing the rose petals on the floor.
He gave her a tight smile. “Mademoiselle, we’re recovering the evidence necessary to our investigation which you’re required to furnish.”
So far, she’d learned nothing.
“But how can I reach you?”
He slipped a card into her waiting hand. JEAN-MICHEL ROUFFILLAC, TERRORIST DIVISION, BRIGADE CRIMINELLE 06 42 78 09. “Leave the investigating to us, Mademoiselle Leduc. You understand, don’t you?”
And then he got into a waiting car which drove off. The plainclothes officer stepped from the van and handed her cell phone to her. She opened the back cover and checked the SIM card. In place, no obvious bug. But maybe they’d cloned it.
Great. A hostile Brigade Criminelle investigator who made it clear that he brooked no “interference” and Yves’s body cold in the morgue. She walked past the florist from whose shop came the scent of the last roses of summer.
CHILLS RACKED AIMÉE as she stood on the black-and-white tiled landing of her 17th-century apartment on Ile Saint-Louis. In spite of the heat, her nose dripped and all she craved was a hot bath. She prayed the antique boiler would cooperate.
She opened the door to her stale, empty apartment. No welcoming lick from Miles Davis, her bichon frise who’d spent the night at the vet’s for shots and teeth-cleaning.
In the bedroom, redolent of the day’s heat, she kicked off her shoes and scattered her clothes on the parquet floor, then made her way to the bathroom.
Every bone ached and she couldn’t think straight. She tossed in eucalyptus salts and dried lavender, then turned on the cracked porcelain faucet. A shudder from the pipes, then a stream of hot water and fragrant steam wafted from the claw-footed tub. She couldn’t get sick now. There was so much to do.
She drank bottled Volvic water, swallowing several pain- and fever-reducing Doliprane. From the medicine cabinet she took, and cut the edges off a brown glass ampoule—a homeopathic cold remedy her grandmother had sworn by. She poured the golden liquid into the tub, slid into the hot water, and put a towel over her head so she could inhale the vapors. Her mind whirled; Yves’s unease sitting at the window, Romeo the dead junkie hustler found with Yves’s belongings, the woman in the chador. She lay there she didn’t how long. The water had cooled when she heard her cell phone ringing from the other room.
She ran to it with the thick towel wrapped around her and reached it on the sixth ring. Evening light filled her bedroom.
“Allô?”
“Gerard Drieu with Agence France-Presse,” said a deep voice. “Mademoiselle Leduc?”
Her hand shook. If only she could rewind the past twelve hours. She stood dripping on the wood floor, toweling off.
“Thank you for returning my call. I’m afraid. . . .” she hesitated. First she had to find out if he knew Yves. “I need to speak with Yves Robert’s colleague and found there are two Gerards. Did you work with him?”
“Of course. I’m his admin boss. Sorry for the delay; I just picked up my messages.”
“That’s okay. When did you last see Yves?”
“‘See’ him? But he’s supposed to be attending a meeting that started half an hour ago.” Pause. “Is there something wrong?”
“A meeting?”
“What’s going on, Mademoiselle?”
“Hasn’t the Brigade Criminelle informed you of his murder?” she said.
Something dropped in
the background. There was a muffled sound, as if a hand had been placed over the phone.
“Murder?” She heard the crinkling of papers. “Mon Dieu! But who are you and how do you know this, Mademoiselle?”
She took a deep breath. “I identified him at the morgue.”
She heard papers shuffling.
“I’ve got so many messages, I haven’t had time to check them. Here . . . yes, a message from Brigade Criminelle.”
“I need to speak with you in person.”
Her duvet beckoned and she wanted to curl up and sleep, but the Doliprane had taken effect. She could function. She had to. She needed face time with this Gerard and the news bureau staff to discover what Yves had been investigating; especially if he hadn’t yet spoken to Rouffillac. . . . Who knew what leads they weren’t following? Forget Rouffillac’s warning, she told herself.
“This . . . you’re sure?”
“As I said, I identified Yves’s body at the morgue,” she repeated, “since no one responded from your office. Place de la Bourse, right?”
“I’m shocked, at a loss what to say. . . . Do they have a suspect?”
“Past tense. And the wrong one,” she said. “Please, can we meet? Say in thirty minutes?”
“Mais oui, in the lobby,” he said and hung up.
She had to get herself together. She toweled her hair dry, did a quick kohl outline of her eyes, swiped Chanel Red across her lips, and pinched her cheeks for color. She stepped into the nearest thing hanging in her armoire, a black linen V-neck Givenchy with a gathered waist; the torn-off label hadn’t hidden its pedigree from her at the flea market. She grabbed her jean jacket. Dust motes caught in the evening slants of twilight drifting onto the floor. She stuck a bottle of Volvic, more Doliprane, and a scarf into her bag.
As she turned to leave, the red light of the fax machine on the secretaire blinked, then a whirr signaled transmission. She hesitated, debating whether to stop and read it. If it came from Saj concerning the Fontainbleu account she could deal with that later. But when she glanced over, she noticed the header on the sheet grinding out: OFFICE OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
Surprised, she leaned forward and checked the time. Three A.M. in Washington, D.C., early for the State Department; but then her contact there worked odd hours. No cover letter, but a smudged photocopy of an old passport application bearing the name Sydney Leduc, her American mother who’d left when Aimée was eight years old. She gripped the edge of the secretaire.
Six months ago, she’d asked her contact to check, but she’d never heard back. She’d figured he’d found nothing and put it out of her mind. Her hands holding the fax shook.
Persona non grata—ON WORLD SECURITY WATCH LIST— was stamped on the top. Over the subsequent blacked-out lines another stamp “Pursuant to the Official Secrecy Act, contents sealed for fifty years.” Underneath this was a UNESCO Paris headquarters badge dated 1968. The year Aimée’s mother had left her and her father. And that rainy March afternoon came back to her, the empty apartment she had returned to after school. No note, the armoire empty of her mother’s clothes, only a chopstick on the floor. The one her mother used to wind back her long hair. More than twenty years ago. Knowledge of whatever was under the blacked-out line would have to wait another twenty-two years. Aching disappointment flooded her.
The whirring ceased: end of transmission. The fax machine lay silent. The one lead to her mother had ended on this paper.
That little breath of hope that went nowhere. Aimée ran her fingers over the smudged words. Now she’d never know what had happened to her. Persona non grata, on the world security watch list. Her American mother was still wanted— that is, if she was still alive.
She crumpled the paper, about to throw it in the trash, then smoothed it out and opened her bottom drawer. The drawer that held her father’s death certificate, the one photo of her mother—carmine red lips holding Aimée as a baby at the baptismal font—the drawer of the past. She had to put this away. Forget and move on. But she didn’t know if she could. Then she glanced at the time; Drieu was waiting. She put the crumpled paper in the drawer and closed it.
René’s car . . . thank God. She’d take that, faster than a taxi. On quai d’Anjou she unlocked the car, turned the key in the ignition, and gunned the engine.
She crossed Pont Louis Philippe at the tip of the island, passing over the sluggish green currents of the Seine, drove up to rue de Rivoli, and turned left.
The sun, which shone to almost 11 P.M. in July, set earlier now each day. She hated, as she had as a child, to climb in bed while vanilla light painted her room. And she loathed being sick.
Her mother’s voice came back to her, the lilting singsong voice making up stories about Emil, the Royal mouse in the Louvre, illustrating them on old postcards in the bright splashed evening, dabbing Aimée’s fevered brow. . . . Why think of that now? Useless.
She shook off memories, wedged the Citroën next to a sleek Mercedes, set the parking brake, and hurried out.
Inside the seventies-era steel-and-smudged-glass Agence France-Presse, video monitors showed sweeps of the interior. A blond man in his early thirties, his white shirtsleeves rolled up over pressed khaki pants, leaned over in earnest conversation with the reception guard.
He straightened up. Tall, wide brow in a tanned face with a jagged nose, handsome in a prizefighter sort of way. He extended his hand. “Mademoiselle Leduc?”
She nodded and reached for his.
Strong dry grip, a white untanned thread of skin where a wedding band would have been. “Gerard Drieu. I just got off the phone with the Brigade Criminelle. It’s terrible.” He seemed shaken. “Words fail me to . . . well, to explain it.”
He’d spoken with Rouffillac, as anyone—not just the smart, accomplished type she figured him for if he worked here— would do. Gotten the lowdown. She wondered if Rouffillac had warned him against her.
“Monsieur Drieu, I’d appreciate speaking with the members of the staff who worked with Yves.” She shifted on her heels. “Could you provide me with an introduction?”
“I am sorry, but everyone’s left. There seemed to be no point to the meeting,” he said. “It’s so hard to believe. Yves’s work is up for the Renadot journalism award for that incredible piece he wrote on the Cairo poor dwelling in the cemetery. Like all his articles, incisive and based on solid reporting. Such a waste.” Drieu shook his head. “We’re stunned, we’ll have to reorganize priorities and assignments tomorrow. It’s a blow!”
More than a blow.
“A real maverick; he did it his own way. But then Yves got the stories no one else did. A stellar journalist.”
Aimée clutched her bag. An award . . . she’d had no idea.
“There’s breaking news, bureaus all over the globe, constant streams of data to coordinate. But as I told the Brigade, we’ll furnish anything pertinent they need.”
She aimed for tact. “Look, wouldn’t the Cairo branch know—”
“But Yves worked out of Turkey for the last six months.”
Why hadn’t he told her? But then she remembered his words about the indigo sky over Mount Ararat. If only she’d insisted that Yves explain instead of interrupting with her stupid excitement over his assignment in Paris.
“Yves was involved in an investigation; I’m sure it had to do with—”
“But the Brigade indicated a man with his wallet and cell phone was suspected,” Drieu said, his words slower.
Her anger rose to a slow boil. How could Rouffillac stick to that theory . . . unless it was only for public consumption.
“Somehow you were involved with this . . . ?” Drieu hesitated.
“Sordid mess?” she said. “We’d just gotten engaged.”
Drieu’s brow knit with concern; then he took both her hands in his. “Forgive me, I had no idea.”
He seemed to be a company man thrust into an awkward position. There was no reason to attack him.
“Of course you wouldn’t know, but I disagree with the authorities. An Arab woman was seen at the crime scene. Did they mention that?”
“The details he gave me were about a thief. You’re sure?” He didn’t wait for her answer. “But what does that mean?”
She shrugged. “Yves had circled an article in Le Monde about the Metro attacks, that’s all I know.” And saying that, she realized how insignificant her words sounded.
“Let’s go outside.” He opened the glass door and ushered her into the hot evening air. Across from them stood the pillared Bourse, the former Brogninart mansion, now the stock exchange, dead and deserted in the fading light.
“Excuse me, but I’m late for a meeting with my boss,” he said. “You look pale. Are you all right?” Again, he took her hand.
She wanted to beat her head against the glass window, to make Drieu understand there was more to Yves’s murder. To question him about Yves.
“I’m fine, but I feel Yves’s work was key to his . . .” she took a deep breath, “. . . murder.”
”Let me look into this more thoroughly,” Drieu said. “I’ll get back to you. That’s the best I can do right now.”
“Merci,” she said.
The lines on the brow of his tanned face crinkled. “My condolences; it’s hard to lose someone, I know,” he said, his voice thick with what seemed like pain. He checked his watch. And with a quick nod he left for a waiting taxi.
She didn’t want to leave. But without an introduction and with all the staff members who knew Yves gone, what more could she discover? A cigarette; she needed a cigarette. Too bad she’d left the pack in her desk drawer.
She stuck on a Nicorette patch. Another taxi pulled up. A young man with camera bags slung over his shoulder got out. An Agence France-Presse pass dangled from his neck.
She followed him, re-entering the reception area. The man flashed his photo ID press card, and she saw his name: Gerard Langois. Took a chance.
“01 32 55 78 23?” she asked him.
He paused and turned around. About her height, thick longish brown hair parted on the side, and deepset brown eyes in a long face. “You know my office number.”
At least she’d found the other Gerard.
