Paris Ransom

by Charles Rosenberg

  “No. The only ‘fun fact’ listed is that I spent one summer on a treasurer salver ship helping to look for sunken Spanish treasure.”

  I smiled. “Did you find any?”

  “No.”

  “How do you explain that, Monsieur Crépin?”

  “That she didn’t find any treasure?”

  “No, that there is no ‘fun fact’ on the UCLA website stating that the professor picks locks.”

  “It was there and was taken down no doubt. You can do that easily.”

  “Eh, I am going to hire an expert who can look at the historic web—I’m told we can do that easily—to advise me if the page you say you saw was ever there. And if it was not, I intend to find out who told you that the professor could pick locks. Or whatever it was that they told you so that you’d keep watch on her.”

  “No one told me anything.”

  “Monsieur Crépin, this is now a situation in which you should get a lawyer, so I won’t ask you any more about that topic for now. But this investigation is far from over.”

  “What else is there to investigate if you’re dismissing my claim?”

  “Other than your possible perjury, there is the kidnapping. And that reminds me, Monsieur, you said earlier that you didn’t know who was staying in room 405. I will look much more kindly on you if you go back to your hotel, look at the guest register and tell me who was staying in room 405 the night that Professor James picked the lock on 406.”

  “I will do that right away.”

  “By checking the records?”

  “Yes.”

  “Be sure to read them accurately, because I’m going to ask to look at those records myself.”

  “I will do it carefully.”

  “Good. The hearing is adjourned for now. Professor, please continue to hold yourself available for a resumption of this hearing.”

  Everyone thanked me, and we adjourned. I could hardly wait to learn who had been staying in room 405.

  CHAPTER 36

  I didn’t have to wait long. Early in the afternoon, after I had returned to the office from a leisurely stroll along the banks of the Seine—the steep concrete stairway that led down to the river was only a block from my office in the Palais de Justice—my greffier told me that there was a call from Monsieur Crépin.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur,” I said.

  “I have the information for you as to who stayed in that room.”

  “Ah, good. I am going to put you on the speakerphone so my greffier can transcribe the conversation, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  After I had done that, I said, “Okay, you’re on the speakerphone now. Monsieur Crépin, can you confirm that you’re on the other end of the phone?”

  “Yes, this is Philippe Crépin.”

  “Please recall that you are still under oath.”

  “I understand.”

  “Now, Monsieur Crépin, who stayed in room 405 in your hotel the night that Professor James was arrested?” I then revised the question to add the specific date.

  “Olga Bukova.”

  “Who is she?”

  “A young Russian woman—or at least she had a Russian passport.”

  “How young?”

  “I didn’t check her birthdate, but I’d guess twenty or twenty-one. Something like that.”

  “When did she check in and out?”

  “She checked in on December 26 at four in the afternoon, and checked out very early on the morning after the professor was arrested. At eight.”

  “Did you speak with her while she was a guest at your hotel?”

  “No, because she did not speak French. Nor English, which I speak a little. We communicated in sign language, so to speak. But it was just checking in and checking out, really.”

  “Did you notice if she mostly stayed in her room or went in and out?”

  “To the extent I observed her, she was like any other guest. Mostly gone during the day, often there in the evening.”

  “Do you have a record of the credit card she used?”

  “Yes. The room was charged to Boris Bukov, on American Express. Do you want the number of the card?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave me the number along with the code.

  “Did you notice anything at all unusual about her activities while she was there?”

  “No.”

  “The evening that the professor was arrested, do you know if she was in her room at the time?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “This time, Monsieur Crépin, I actually believe that you don’t recall.”

  “I was being honest the times I said I did not recall, Monsieur le juge.”

  “So you say. Monsieur, does your hotel have a security camera by the front door?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long do you keep the recording?”

  “Only forty-eight hours. It recycles after that.”

  “Are there any other security cameras in the hotel?”

  “Yes. There is one by the front desk. It also cycles after forty-eight hours.”

  “Any others?”

  “No.”

  “The registration record that you mentioned, could you make me a copy of that?”

  “Yes, I can print it out from the computer.”

  “Good. Please do that and fax it to me. My greffier will give you the number after I get off the line.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur Crépin, for your help. I don’t have anything more today, but please hold yourself available for further questioning.”

  “Have I cooperated enough that you are going to put aside your thoughts about perjury?”

  “Not yet. Au revoir, Monsieur.”

  I was, I have to admit, disappointed. I had expected him to tell me that General Follet had been staying in room 405. The name Olga Bukova was somehow familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it. Finally, I asked my greffier, “Was an Olga Bukova mentioned somehow during these proceedings?”

  She paged through the transcript on her computer. “Here it is, Monsieur le juge. She was mentioned by Maître Bertrand, when he was telling you the complicated histoire of this entire matter.”

  “Mentioned how?”

  “As the woman who was trapped in the basement of the hat shop along with the professor and her friend. She returned with them to Paris. She is currently staying with Madame Devrais.”

  “Eh, that’s interesting. Would you please call Maître Bertrand and tell him about her residence at the hotel, along with the dates she was at the hotel? In fact, please just read him Monsieur Crépin’s testimony of today.”

  “I will do that right away.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anyone else you wish to reach, Monsieur le juge?” my greffier asked.

  “Yes. The police chief in Digne-les-Bains. I want to find out if he has the bookstore owner in custody yet.”

  CHAPTER 37

  My greffier quickly reached the police chief in Digne.

  After the appropriate greetings, we got started.

  “Capitaine, I have jurisdiction of the case of Professor Jenna James here in Paris. You were kind enough the other day to serve a summons on her issued by my immediate predecessor on this case. For which I thank you.”

  “Eh, Monsieur le juge, that is so. Did this professor respond to the summons in a timely manner?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Alors, what can I help you with today?”

  “Professor James has told me that the morning after you served the summons on her, she and two others were forced into a basement at gunpoint and held there by a hat store owner in Digne. A serious crime.”

  “Yes, I am aware of it. A Madame Devrais reported it to our local police chief. We have the hat
store owner, a Monsieur Tomas Condelet, in custody. He is in garde à vue in my jail while we investigate. But he is on suicide watch.”

  “Why does he want to kill himself?”

  “He says that if he goes to jail, his family will be impoverished. If he kills himself, he has much insurance that will pay.”

  “A very practical reason for suicide, I suppose. Rather stripped of emotion.”

  “Yes. We don’t think he is very serious about it, though.”

  “I trust it is an effective watch, and, just in case he is serious about it, he will not be able to kill himself.”

  “We have never lost anyone on that watch.”

  “Good. After the forty-eight hours expire, will he be held in preventive detention?”

  “Whether to apply for that is, of course, up to the investigating magistrate who will be in charge of this matter.”

  “Has someone already been appointed?”

  “Yes, one of our best, Judge Caroline Denam.”

  It would have been better if no judge had yet been appointed, because then I could have questioned the witness directly without the need for another judge’s permission, and perhaps brought the entire case within my own jurisdiction. Now it was not exactly permission I needed, but I felt obligated to extend the courtesy of informing the other judge involved in an overlapping investigation.

  “Well, I will need to talk to her then because I want to question Monsieur Condelet. I believe he has information important to my investigation of a different matter here in Paris.”

  “Of course. I know you have the judicial directory, but for your convenience, here is her number.”

  “Merci.”

  I could have asked my greffier to make the call, but I decided to place it personally. Caroline Denam and I had gone to judge’s school together—the École Nationale de la Magistrature in Bordeaux. We weren’t close back then, but we did know each other, and it would have seemed pompous to her for me to have had someone else place the call, especially since we were of equal rank.

  She answered the phone herself, and I said, “It is Roland de Fournis.”

  “Oh! Quelle surprise! It has been many years. How are you, Monsieur le juge?”

  “I am fine. And you, Madame la juge?”

  “I am good, too.”

  And then we both laughed at the absurdity of addressing each other by our honorifics, so far removed from the time we and others had planned and carried out moving the arrogant school director’s car up onto concrete blocks, all without being caught.

  “Alors, Roland, what can I do for you?”

  I explained the situation and the need to question Condelet.

  “Yes, of course, you need to do that,” she said.

  “I can come to Digne tomorrow. Does he have a lawyer yet?”

  “He has been offered a lawyer and declined. We will need to offer again before you begin to question him.”

  “Yes, I understand. When is the forty-eight-hour hold up?”

  “Unfortunately, it will expire tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I will need to get there quickly then. Are you going to try to have him held in preventive detention?”

  “You know the problem with that these days.”

  She was referring, of course, to the fact that not very long ago, investigating magistrates could, on their own motion, have an accused held in preventive detention to stop them from escaping or harming the public. But not anymore.

  “Yes, I know it well, Caroline. One of us will have to apply to a JLD to hold him.” All because the soft hearts on the European Commission on Human Rights had pressured our government into changing the law. Now to keep someone in jail we had to apply to the ludicrously named Judge of Liberties and Detention.

  She sighed. “In this case they will probably say no, since it does not obviously involve terrorism, and no one was actually harmed.”

  “Agreed. But you will apply anyway?”

  “Yes, or I can ask the public prosecutor to apply. But if you can leave tonight and get here tomorrow morning, and assuming he doesn’t hire a lawyer, you can question him before he gets out of garde à vue.”

  “Good. I have an appointment this afternoon, but I can take the night train and be there in the morning. It will be good to see you again after all these years.”

  “Yes.”

  “One more thing before you go?”

  “What?”

  “I am nervous about his being on suicide watch. And there is one thing I want to know above all others.”

  “What is it?”

  “Who ordered him to put the foreigners in the basement? Please go and ask him. And if he tells you, try to get a name.”

  “I already asked him and he refused to say. Do you want me to try again?”

  “Yes. I think the answer may be the key to all of this.”

  “I will go to the jail again as soon as I can get away from here.”

  “Thank you. See you tomorrow morning. Oh, and where are you located?”

  “I’m usually in the same building as the Prefecture. You’ll easily recognize it. It looks like a concrete tissue box with windows.”

  “I will see you in Digne.”

  Just then there was a knock on the door and an elegantly and expensively dressed woman entered and said to my greffier, “Bonjour, Madame, I am Tess Devrais. I have an appointment with the judge.”

  My greffier looked surprised. “I do not have you on the schedule—”

  I interrupted. “It is okay. I made the call myself to ask Madame to come in.”

  My greffier shot me an annoyed look, which I ignored.

  “Bonjour, Madame Devrais,” I said. “Please sit down.” I gestured to one of the chairs.

  “Merci, Monsieur le juge,” she said.

  My greffier, without needing to be asked, sensed that Madame Devrais might be more comfortable talking to me without anyone else present. She got up, saying she had an errand to run and would be back later. She closed the door quietly behind her, although I had the feeling that she had wanted to slam it.

  “Alors, Madame Devrais, may I offer you some coffee?”

  “No, I have had enough coffee today. You said on the phone you wanted to discuss the kidnapping of Monsieur Quesana. So let us discuss it. What do you want to know?”

  “Eh, first, I understand from Captain Bonpere that you have a, ah, special position with our government.”

  “Are there any recording devices going here?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, I do. I sometimes, as Captain Bonpere probably told you, aid our government when it has need of my services.”

  “This is official?”

  “Yes.” She took a placard from her purse and handed it to me.

  I examined it and its red seal and handed it back. “I am impressed, Madame. It is personally signed by the President of the Republic.”

  “I believe it is actually signed by an automatic pen, but, still, it is his signature.”

  “You must be very proud of that.”

  “I will be prouder when it is the signature of a woman. But that is another conversation. Monsieur le juge, what is it you want to know?”

  “Is this kidnapping in any way an operation of the security services?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Has our own government arranged this kidnapping or in some way prevented its solution?”

  “Not so far as I know. I have made inquiries, and the answers—I have asked several highly placed people—have been ‘definitely, absolutely not. The government has had nothing to do with it.’”

  “Would they lie to you?”

  “I do not think they would.”

  “Why, then, Madame, if you know, is the general involved? He seems somehow to reek of clandestine operations.�
��

  “I do not know. I have made some inquiries there, too, but have come up with nothing. I did ask the chief of the Brigade Criminelle about it, because the general told me he was working with them to solve the kidnapping. Which he believes involves money laundering.”

  “What did the chief say?”

  “That it was true. That the general was working with them on the case.”

  “I suppose it’s good to have what the general told you confirmed.”

  “Eh, but do you know the head of the Brigade?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know he is a man far out of his depth. The general could just as easily be using the people from the Brigade to tend to his garden and mix his drinks at night. He could be working on this kidnapping on his own, and the chief would not be wise to it.”

  “Madame, how well do you know the general?”

  “Very well. Or so I thought.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  After questioning thousands of witnesses, I had developed the ability to detect very small changes in body language that indicated discomfort. I thought Madame Devrais had just displayed a flash of anxiety. But without visibly pausing at all, she said, “A very long time. Since we were very young.”

  I decided not to pursue it further. We agreed to keep in touch, and she left. My greffier, who had apparently decided simply to wait on the bench in the hallway, returned a few seconds later. “Marie, can you make me a reservation on the next train to Digne-les-Bains?”

  “Of course.”

  After a few minutes work she said, “With a change in Aix-en-Provence you’ll be there by midnight. And I’ve booked you into the Hôtel Central. Not fancy, but near the courthouse and the jail.”

  “Perfect. I have an important interview with Monsieur Condelet in the morning. If he is willing to talk and be candid, I think it could solve the case.”

  CHAPTER 38

  My trip to Digne was not easy. My train from Paris was late getting into Aix, and I missed the connection to Digne. It was the last train out that night, and the one the next morning wasn’t going to get me to Digne until noon. I wanted to be there earlier, so there was little choice but to rent a car. The car’s GPS said it was a four-and-a-half-hour drive. It was only six o’clock, so I assumed that, even with a stop for dinner, I could make it by midnight.