Murder in Saint Germain

by Cara Black

  Aimée stepped carefully past the dog and the woman and crossed the foyer. The former cloister turned into a suite of apartments lining a cold, high-vaulted passageway. Near the turn, voices echoed—Michel’s familiar nasal voice and the voice of a woman that Aimée didn’t recognize.

  Then a clicking of heels. They were coming toward her.

  She ran back into the foyer. Where could she hide? She darted toward a staircase on her left and made herself small on the second step.

  All she could see were silhouettes against the bright light streaming through the glass of the door: Michel’s rotund frame and a woman in a flared skirt.

  Then the door opened. Michel left.

  The woman was buckling her bag. After a moment, she followed.

  Aimée caught the double doors with her fingertips before they closed. Out on the street, her heart pounding, she waited a beat and followed them.

  The woman’s long brown hair sparkled in the sun. And then Aimée saw Michel was turning her way.

  She ducked through a pair of open pale blue doors. Stepped into, of all places, the courtyard entrance to the commissariat of the quartier. Two flics were talking. There she was with an APB out for her arrest, walking into the jaws of the police.

  Calm down. They were looking for a different one of her personas.

  She kept her head down, waiting in the doorway until she thought Michel must have turned again. The old-fashioned commissariat’s entrance was on a fashionable cobbled courtyard. She remembered coming here once with her father, but that was years ago. No one would remember her, her father’s colleagues all long gone.

  So far so good. At least she hoped so. From her unobstructed vantage, she watched the young woman with the flared skirt enter the square directly across the narrow street. She sat down on the green slatted bench near Picasso’s famous sculpture of Apollinaire. She took out the latest issue of ELLE, with Jane Birkin on the cover—still making magazine covers even at her age.

  The woman sat and turned pages for a few minutes. Aimée shifted in her sandals, damp with dog drool. If she hadn’t been watching like a hawk, she’d have missed it. The woman’s hand slid under the bench by a hedge. Then abruptly she tossed the ELLE into her bag, stood, and checked her watch. Aimée heard the metal click as the woman left and closed the gate behind her.

  A classic dead drop, like in an old spy movie.

  Aimée’s eyes swept the square: two disheveled men sharing a bottle of vin rouge in the shade, the Danish tourists taking photos of each other, Apollinaire playing ball with his father.

  She debated: Should she wait to see who took the envelope? She was dying to retrieve it herself and learn the contents. Jules Dechard and Michel Sarlat had to be engaging with the blackmailer—but over what? Was this related to the audit shortfall, the missing art?

  Better hold back, reason told her. The most useful thing she could do would be to identify whoever collected the envelope. Then she’d inform the attorney, let him put the pieces together, and be done with it.

  Antsy and hot, she stood perspiring and waiting, wondering if she could just go sit in the square herself. The shade of the plane trees was tempting. She checked her phone.

  No messages.

  An older man brushed off the bench with a newspaper. Sat down. Laughter came from the toddler. The ball bounced into the hedge.

  As the father reached down for the ball, the older man on the bench was speaking to him.

  A ruse to disguise a handoff? She craned her neck forward, straining to see.

  Her phone rang. Chloé’s pediatrician’s office. Of all times. She had to take it.

  “Oui?” she whispered.

  “We’re confirming your daughter’s vaccinations next week. Can you verify . . . ?”

  Aimée watched as the boy’s father sat down on the bench beside the old man, who was leaning toward him.

  “Mademoiselle . . . ? Are you there?”

  She tuned back into the phone call. “Oui.”

  “Mademoiselle?”

  “Oui!” she said more loudly, cringing.

  “Spell your last name please.”

  “Leduc . . . L-E-D . . . That’s right.” She lowered her voice again. “Oui, next week then.”

  Hung up.

  “Aimée Leduc? Is that you?”

  She felt a tap on her shoulder. Loïc Bellan, the sergeant her father had mentored on the force. Who’d idolized Jean-Claude Leduc and then blamed him for falling from his pedestal. Bellan had investigated a case involving her once, but during the whole process, he’d been suspicious of her, bogged down by the history between him and her father.

  Bellan had a few more years on him now, but he was trim in his suit. “You look so . . . different,” he said. “Your hair . . . What’s brought you out of the woodwork?”

  Of all times to be recognized. And she was a wanted person.

  “Surveillance, Bellan,” she said in a low voice. “And you’re in the way.”

  What else could she say, given her disguise?

  She looked over his shoulder. The Danish tourists were consulting guidebooks now, blocking her view.

  “Still trying to pay the bills as a PI, eh?”

  She didn’t need Bellan’s attitude. Or a tirade about how she’d gotten a commissaire shot.

  “Later.” She stepped around him and, without another word, hurried across the street. No father and little boy. No old man on the bench.

  She’d lost them. Her own fault for answering the phone in panicky-mom mode. Bad luck Bellan had heard her name and held her up.

  Across the hot shining pavement, the number 95 bus pulled away on rue Bonaparte. She caught sight of the father in one of the windows. She looked around the square, spotted the old man, who had moved to a shadier bench. His eyes were closed.

  Time to change plans.

  She pulled out a scarf, tied it babushka style around her hair, and donned Jackie O glasses. She sat on the green slatted bench, pulled out her phone, and pretended to be in a serious conversation. Her other hand reached under the bench. Felt the hedge leaves. Her fingers caught on the rough wood. Then the sharp poke of a sliver—ouch. Had she imagined seeing the woman slip the envelope under here?

  “Didn’t know you were so old school, Aimée.” Loïc Bellan sat down next to her. Grinned.

  Annoying. His left hand met hers under the bench.

  “Alors, Bellan, get lost.”

  “But I might have to arrest you if you’re involved in illegal activities.”

  “Moi?” She tried to calm her nerves. “You’ve got it wrong. Arrest the blackmailer who will pick up whatever’s hidden under this bench.”

  She felt his arm moving. Heard a rustle of leaves.

  “You mean this?” He leaned forward, tucking the envelope into a fold of his jacket. Merde!

  “Put that back. Quick.”

  “Only if you listen to me.”

  What in the world did he have to say to her? It had been years. “Listen to what?”

  “Deal or not?”

  Great. She was bargaining with a smart aleck who despised her and held a grudge against her father. Aimée nodded.

  “The sun’s boiling me alive,” he said. “Let’s sit in the shade over there.”

  They moved to a bench by Saint-Germain-des-Prés’s old stone wall, by a trellis fragrant with roses.

  “Tell me about the blackmail,” said Bellan.

  Stupid. She’d blurted that out in frustration—no way she’d tell him about Dechard’s case, especially since la Proc already had her teeth in it.

  “I thought you wanted me to listen.”

  Bellan put on Alain Mikli sunglasses. “I lied.”

  The salaud.

  “Me, too.” She stifled the impulse to get up and leave. “Get your kicks bothering someon
e else, Bellan.” She glanced at her Tintin watch. Merde.

  “Running late, as usual, non?”

  When would the jerk leave? How could she get rid of him?

  “I’m teaching a surveillance course. Right now you’re interrupting my work with a student.”

  “That’s weak.” Emotion filled his voice. “I expect better from a girl with Jean-Claude for a father.”

  “I know I’m not your favorite person, but leave my father out of this.”

  Bellan’s mouth tightened. “He’s the whole problem.” His loafer ground into the gravel. “Non, that’s not the right way to say it. It’s my problem with your father that’s haunted me.”

  His words and the tone of his voice surprised her.

  “There’s something I should have told you.”

  Her gaze never left the empty bench where they’d been sitting. “Go on.”

  “Especially now . . . with what happened with Morbier . . . I wish I had told you sooner. It’s just . . . when it happened, I had my mind on other things. I didn’t see clearly back then.”

  He clammed up all of a sudden.

  It came back now—sometime after her father had been framed for corruption and driven out of the force, Loïc Bellan’s wife had given birth to a baby with Down syndrome. Exactly when escaped her but she remembered the rumors—that Bellan hadn’t been able to deal with it, that his marriage had fallen apart and his wife had left him with the child.

  “I remember when your baby boy was born,” she said. “You went through a rough time. I understand.”

  “I lost it. Hit the wall.”

  “Et alors?”

  “That’s so like your father,” said Bellan. “Et alors, Loïc, he’d say, that and five francs buys you a café crème. Keep on moving to the better seats. And that old chestnut, If it smells . . . You know.”

  Follow your nose.

  Aimée’s lower lip quivered. She fought down the emotion bubbling up. The two men on the far bench were done with the bottle of vin rouge.

  “A few days before your father left for Berlin, he wanted to meet me,” Bellan said.

  Aimée’s breath caught. Just before the weekend he was killed.

  “Did you meet him?”

  Bellan took a deep breath. “Stubborn and foolish, I refused. Thought myself on higher ground than my mentor who’d lied to me.” He shook his head in sadness. “I was such a fool. He’d called even knowing I’d refuse. It must have been important.”

  “Any idea why?”

  He shook his head again. “I regret how I judged him. Now I’ll never hear what he wanted to say.”

  Pain lanced her. Wasn’t that how she’d feel when Morbier passed? Was she throwing away her last chance to spare herself a lifetime of regret?

  His phone rang. He answered. “Oui. Done.”

  He hung up.

  Things slid into place for her.

  “Call me a skeptic, but I haven’t seen you for, what, a couple of years?” she said. “Now you pretend to run into me, follow me, and come out with a revelation that amounts to a handful of sand.”

  Bellan slid his phone back into his pocket. “What do you mean?”

  “So it’s a coincidence you have this regret about my father to share with me right now?” Her words were coming fast. “Non, this has Morbier’s tentacles all over it as usual. You’re in cahoots to get me to his deathbed. So he can absolve himself of his guilt.”

  Her words dried up as a woman sat down on the bench she was watching. Sunglasses, large bag—that hair was familiar.

  “You’re warped, Aimée. Paranoid,” Bellan said.

  “What?” she said, only half-listening. She wished she could see more of the woman’s face.

  “Of course this is a coincidence. My branch is DGI,” he said. “The only reason I was here was to drop off a case file at the commissariat since my little boy’s in a learning center nearby. He’s writing his own name now. Marie gave me full custody.”

  The woman closed her bag, stood, and left. Aimée didn’t need to see any more. Good God, she’d been so blind.

  Bellan stood.

  “Wait,” she said. “What were you saying?”

  “I never trusted Morbier like I trusted your father. So put that in your sick mind, and twist it how you want.”

  Gravel was sticking to her damp sandals. Despair filled her. Morbier would die with his secrets.

  “Go ahead; be stubborn like I was,” he said. He checked his phone. “Sounds to me like you’re the one who can’t face what Morbier will say.”

  “I got him shot.”

  “Merde happens, Aimée. Old dogs like him have a death wish. All you need to do is own up to your own demons.”

  Face Morbier’s allegations of what her father might have done all those years ago? Someday have to tell Chloé the truth about her grandfather?

  “Like you have owned up to yours?” she asked.

  Bellan shrugged. “I try.” He took off his sunglasses and wiped them with a tissue from his pocket. Pointed to a folder with an École des Beaux-Arts label sticking out of her bag. “I heard la Proc’s steamed up about a case involving blackmail at École des Beaux-Arts. If you’ve stuck your nose in that, consider this a warning.”

  And with that, he strode out the square’s gate. Smart. Dangerous.

  Stupid, non, careless to let that show. She wanted to kick herself. But had he taken a guess? She wouldn’t put it past him to report her to la Proc.

  Dark thoughts circled in her mind for she didn’t know how long. Heat waves rose off the roofs of cars. She sat, perspiration dampening the small of her back. Noises, people, smells, faded in the scorching sun.

  Compartmentalize. Worry about Morbier and her father later. Put what she needed to do up front. Her thoughts settled. Dreading it, she pulled out her phone. Raised voices came from the street; she put a finger to her other ear so she could hear and made some calls.

  Done, she retraced her steps past the commissariat on rue de l’Abbaye. One of the Danish tourists, a thin, straw-blonde woman with a Birkin bag Aimée lusted for, clutched her arm. The Dane pulled her into the commissariat’s doorway.

  “Please, my camera was stolen, and the idiots don’t understand. You were there.” The Dane’s fair-complected face was mottled pink in the heat, her brow creased with anger.

  “Stolen? I’m sorry. I didn’t see anything.” No way Aimée wanted to get involved.

  “But it was those winos—you saw them. Your police, they won’t take me seriously.”

  And then the Danish contingent surrounded her, moving her forward into the chill of the courtyard’s entrance to the commissariat.

  “This wouldn’t happen in Copenhagen,” the Danish woman said, stumbling over the French. “My camera snatched in front of a police station? Please help me.”

  She saw a middle-aged flic beckoning her into the commissariat’s foyer. As if she had anything to do with this. But if she bolted, that would draw unwanted attention.

  “This woman insists you witnessed her camera being stolen,” said the flic by the glassed reception.

  “Afraid not,” said Aimée.

  Aimée felt the Dane’s frustration. “But you were in the square. I saw you,” she was saying in badly accented French. “It’s those two winos who robbed me.”

  Aimée had been so wrapped up with watching for the blackmailer, she hadn’t noticed.

  She didn’t want to get involved. But she reasoned she’d be less conspicuous to the flics if she helped the irate Dane, ingratiated herself.

  “You mean those two men drinking wine under the tree?” Aimée asked.

  The Danes were directed to a cubicle to make a statement, file a police report. Everyone knew you reported a theft to the gendarmerie if you wanted action—never the local flics.

  �
��Tourists!” said the flic to Aimée. “Always complaining.”

  “Alors, the woman got robbed,” she said. Was he even going to do anything about it?

  “Very little crime here.” His voice was sleepy. “I’ve been in this station fifteen years. Quietest post I’ve ever worked.”

  Disgusting, his dismissive attitude. She hated these rotten apples. There were always one or two in a commissariat in a cushy quartier.

  Her eyes caught on the wanted posters behind him. Good God, a fuzzy police sketch of her in a wig, glasses. Those glasses were in her bag right now—she needed to ditch this place ASAP.

  She turned to leave.

  “Hold on, mademoiselle. The tourist might need you to sign as a witness.”

  Witness? She itched to get out of there. Yet the flic hadn’t recognized her. Should she chance it, play innocent, and see if she could learn anything?

  “What, no murder or suspicious deaths in your fiefdom?” she asked.

  “Alors, Pascal!” A sergeant popped his head up from his desk. “Tell her about the spoiled drunk kids partying in Lycée Montaigne’s garden.” He winked. “Or the couple with the orgy in their rooftop penthouse swimming pool. And all the old people getting themselves duped and robbed every day.”

  “Old people getting conned, oui, but that’s everywhere,” Pascal said.

  She heard the Danes’ voices rising in singsong English. The pecking of a typewriter. The commissariat didn’t even have a computer.

  “Then there’s the usual punch-up in quartier de soif,” Pascal said.

  Quartier de Soif—the quadrangle of bars and pubs by Marché Saint-Germain.

  “I responded to a knifing there last week.” A wide grin erupted on Pascal’s pudgy face. He liked to talk.

  “We had a crime of passion a few weeks ago, if you’d call it that—a concierge was strangled by her son. Serbians. They’re all unhinged,” he said dismissively.

  Something clicked in her mind. Serbian concierges would be a subject to explore.

  “That Serb threw himself under the Métro,” the sergeant added.

  “There was that mec pushed from his window near le Sénat,” said Pascal.

  Prickles went up her spine. “I read about that,” she said. “Any leads?”