Murder at the Lanterne Rouge ali-12

by Cara Black

  “We’re closed, Mademoiselle.”

  She noted the blue-coated assistants stocking items from stepladders. “But I didn’t see a sign, Monsieur.”

  “We’re doing inventory,” said a man, wiping his hands on a rag. “Come back tomorrow.”

  A side door opened, bringing with it a wet rush of air. Prévost stood under the dripping eaves, huddled with an Asian man.

  Her grandfather had known the owner; they’d been old drinking buddies. She could use that.

  “Does Monsieur Colles still work in the back?” She flashed a smile and her card.

  “Some problem, Mademoiselle?” The stooped, graying man eyed her.

  “Not at all, Monsieur,” she said, peering over the workman’s shoulder. From Prévost’s gestures, rigid body stance, and raised voice, she figured they were arguing. The Asian man stepped back, shaking his head. He wore a rain-spattered blue workcoat, and round, silver-framed glasses that gave him an academic air.

  A brief glimpse before the courtyard door slammed shut.

  “Routine, Monsieur,” Aimée said, emitting a bored sigh. “An insurance scam hit several firms on the street. My firm’s making inquiries.”

  He nodded. “Second door to the left.”

  She stepped to the rear amid rows of aluminum tubing, copper wire, and chrome and bronze strips on shelves reaching to the slanted glass ceiling. The reek of soldering metal and the whining grate of an electric saw assaulted her senses. Familiar, so familiar. She thought of her grandfather’s watchmaker friend, who would come to scour these shelves for bronze.

  Inside the open office door she saw a thirtyish man, shiny bald head, black turtleneck, and readers perched on his nose. He looked like a film director. She remembered the massive walnut desk he stood at.

  “But I’m looking for Monsieur Colles?”

  He gave her the once-over. “My father.” Glanced at her card. “Leduc Detective. But I knew old Leduc …”

  “My grandfather. I’m Aimée Leduc.” She smiled. “Forgive me, I came here on false pretenses.”

  “Followed in his footsteps, eh?” He grinned. “Sit down.”

  “Non, merci.” She pointed out the window to the courtyard. “That man the flic’s talking to, he’s your employee?”

  Colles Junior’s eyebrows shot up in his forehead.

  “Cho? Three years now.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s this about?”

  “He’s not in trouble. Please understand. But I’d like to talk with him.”

  “Why?”

  She looked around the office. Little had changed. “My client doesn’t trust the flics. In this case, I don’t trust the one who’s talking to your employee.”

  He sat down in the heavy wooden chair. “Big eyes. Yes, I remember you visiting with old Leduc and the watchmaker from rue Chapon. My father, like Riboux the watchmaker, is long gone.”

  She nodded. “My grandfather, too.” It took her back to her childhood, visiting here one afternoon during a sudden hailstorm in May. “Aimée, we call it les saints de glace if it hails in May,” her grandfather had said. “That means the farmers harvest crops later.”

  Colles sat down, indicated she do the same.

  “But you’ve followed in your family’s footsteps, too,” she said, hoping to warm him up. Enlist his aid.

  “At the end of the nineteenth century, seven hundred and fifty thousand artisans and craftsmen lived and worked in Paris,” he said. “Many lived in ateliers, like my great-grandfather did upstairs. Raised families. Now it’s diminished to ninety thousand, and fewer each year.” He shrugged. “But my father loved his friends and a good excuse to open one of his bottles of Montrachet.”

  The soft wooden floor creaked under her feet as she remembered. She noticed the bronze coils and intricate inner springs of the blond-wood clock that Riboux had touched with his work-worn hands. “But I can still see the watchmaker repairing this.” She gestured to the tall seventeenth-century longcase clock. “I sat crosslegged on this floor, fascinated, just watching him with his old repair diagrams.”

  Diagrams.

  Samour’s chalk diagrams jumped out at her. She caught herself, looked out the window. Prévost was nowhere in sight. “Look, forgive me for barging in and being abrupt about this, but what do you know about Cho?”

  “Determined, too. Like your old grandfather.” Colles Junior leaned back in the chair. “Cho was a metallurgist back in China. Highly educated. A shame we can only offer him technical work beneath his skills. He’s legal. I sponsored him.”

  She paused. “Then why …?”

  Colles Junior snorted. “He hawked faux designer bags on the quai. Had a brush with the law. How he got here from China, I don’t know. He was living with ten in a room, they took turns sleeping.”

  She nodded. No doubt Cho owed the snakeheads. And Prévost used Cho’s brush with the law to turn him into his indicateur. An informer.

  That’s how it worked.

  Now she knew she needed to speak with him, to get on the playing field with Prévost. Find out his investigative path in Samour’s murder.

  “You owe me nothing, but seeing as we have a past,” she said, and grinned, trying on the charm, “would you mind asking Cho into the office so I could talk to him without others around?”

  “Why don’t we have a drink first?”

  Aimée groaned inside. Not too hard on the eyes, but not her bad-boy type. And she needed to find out Cho’s connection.

  She edged closer to the desk. “Desolée, but I’m investigating my client’s murder. If Cho knows anything, it’s imperative we talk. And that he trust me.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m already late for the autopsy.” A little lie she figured didn’t matter. She counted on that to put him off for now.

  And it did. He’d averted his eyes. “But how can you think Cho knows anything about that?”

  She shrugged. “The flics do.” At least she hoped Prévost did.

  She noticed the wedding ring on his finger before he covered his hand. But he caught her look, and she saw a slump of defeat in his shoulders.

  “Alors, just five minutes,” she said. “Please.”

  He buzzed the intercom.

  “Ask Monsieur Cho to step into my office.”

  Not a moment later, Cho walked inside smiling. She noticed scarred flesh on his wrist that his work coat didn’t cover. “Monsieur Colles, we’re still working on the custom order …”

  Colles Junior rose and waved his hand. “Pas de problème. Talk to the mademoiselle here.”

  Cho’s eyes widened.

  Colles stopped at the door. “Not my business, you understand. But her family knew mine, and, well … I took the liberty of saying you’d cooperate.” At a loss for more to say, he left and closed the door.

  Aimée smiled. “Nothing you say will leave this room, Monsieur Cho.”

  Cho stared at her. Light glinted off his silver-rimmed glasses.

  “Monsieur Cho, I’m a private detective investigating the murder of Pascal Samour. On rue au Maire on Friday night, I think you’ve heard.”

  Cho stood as still as a cat watching a mouse. As silent, too. Well, she could play along.

  “It’s not my business if you’re Prévost’s informer in Chinatown,” she said, taking a hunch.

  “Why should I talk to you?” he said.

  “Didn’t your patron, your sponsor, request you to assist me? I’m not with the flics. But I can give you more reasons.” She returned his stare. “I want to find who murdered Samour. I don’t think he gambled, or was jealous over a woman, but no one will talk to me.” She shrugged. “Prévost holds something over your head, non?”

  “You’re threatening me?” Cho said at last.

  “Not me. Prévost’s pointing the finger to Chinatown. Even if you help him, there’s no guarantee against immigration crackdowns.” She let that sink in. “Or raids in the quartier.”

  “I’m legal,” Cho said.

  “But what about the ot
hers? The ones who helped you when you hawked bags on the quai, the ones who fed you?”

  Cho blinked. He averted his eyes. Then came to a decision.

  “You think I have a choice?” Cho’s low voice was laced with inflections, a singsong French. “Here, like in China, even when you play the game, tiptoe in the political minefields, they hold something over you and pull you in every time.”

  Recruiting him as an informer, Cho meant. She edged around the desk. Lines creased the bridge of his nose, radiated from the corners of his eyes. Older than she had first thought. Tired.

  “I’m sorry, Monsieur Cho.”

  “My laboratory, our chemistry department at the university in Wenzhou …” He shrugged. “The deals I made to keep operating our laboratory sickened me.”

  “So what have you heard?” she asked.

  Cho stared at her. “We never bring attention to Chinatown. Too dangerous. If French people kill French people, it’s not our business.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He shook his head. “No one is who they seem.”

  “I know about the false identities, the unmarked graves at Ivry, the shops fronting money-laundering operations, the protection racket.” She tapped her heel. “I need more, Monsieur Cho.”

  “Look deeper,” he said.

  She didn’t have the time for a philosophical exploration. “Deeper?”

  Cho backed up toward the door. “My room’s on rue des Vertus. If a Chinese murdered this man, I would have heard, as I told Prévost. I need to get back to work.”

  She believed him. “What’s behind the surveillance?”

  “The sting operation?” he said. “The usual roundup of little fish. Why do you care? Your neck’s not on the line.”

  Cho needed convincing.

  “Call this a love bite, do you?” She pulled her scarf down, showed him her bruises. “Whoever murdered Samour thinks otherwise. I was attacked last night. And Meizi, who worked in the luggage store, is in danger.”

  “Don’t tell me you want to warn her?”

  “Protect her if I can. But I need your help.”

  Cho hesitated. “The owners of the handbag, luggage, and costume jewelry shops hide their profits.” His voice lowered. “Never pay into the fisc for illegal workers. You’re right, most of it’s a front for laundering money from China.”

  Meizi had told her the same thing.

  “But what about Tso, the snakehead? Ching Wao?”

  “Both would provide a goldmine of back taxes and penalties,” Cho said. “If the tax men find proof, they’ll freeze their network’s bank accounts. That’s all I know.”

  And then he’d gone out the door.

  She caught up with him in the wet, footprinted hallway. Slid her card with a hundred-franc note in his hand. “I’d appreciate a call if you hear anything.”

  He shook her hand off, a flash of pride in his eyes. “I cooperated for Monsieur Colles.”

  Again, she’d put her foot in it. Offended him. “Desolée, Monsieur Cho, I meant no disrespect.” Why had the few interviewing skills she had deserted her?

  “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, taking out a notepad with measurements from his jacket pocket.

  One last effort. She pulled out the photo scan of the chalk diagrams. “Can you tell me anything about this?”

  “This? A diagram.”

  “Recognize anything?” Aimée asked.

  He pulled off his glasses and peered closer. Shrugged.

  “What about this?” She pulled out one of René’s photo scans of the chalk diagrams.

  He pointed his smudged forefinger to the border. “Formulas.”

  “These?” She stared closer at what could be elongated symbols. Why did they seem so familiar? “The ones that look like old French?”

  “Partially, and engineer shorthand.” Cho gave a little smile. The first time he’d thawed. “Electrical engineering’s not my field.” Interested now, he studied the diagram. “But we metallurgists sometimes worked with similar equations.”

  “So what can you tell me?”

  “It’s hard to say.” He shook his head.

  Take a guess, she wanted to yell. Instead, she managed a smile. “But with what you know, your expertise …”

  “Clearly these symbols represent an alloy. But this … maybe glass?”

  She stared at the diagram, wishing she could see what he saw.

  “If I enlarge these, could you tell me more?”

  “The diagram looks like a map. But this? Your best bet, Mademoiselle?” Cho put his glasses back on. “Find an electrical engineer.”

  AIMÉE DOUBLE-KNOTTED THE cashmere scarf around her sore neck, donned her leather gloves, and wove her scooter through traffic on chilly Boulevard de Sébastopol. Thoughts of sunny Martinique and Melac spun in her mind.

  Her cell phone rang. With one hand she answered it.

  “Saj cracked the encryption, Aimée,” René said.

  Finally.

  “See you in five minutes.” She clicked off and veered around a bus and gunned her scooter.

  AROMAS OF CILANTRO and curry drifted from the Indian takeout cartons on René’s desk. Saj stepped on a Louis XV chair, spread a damask tablecloth over the gilt-framed mirror hanging above the fireplace. He then angled his laptop on Aimée’s desk. “I cracked a portion. A part’s missing. I figure if he’d encrypted this a week, two weeks ago—”

  “Then found the other part yesterday,” she interrupted, taking off her leather gloves, “it wouldn’t be in there. I’ll get going on that at the museum.”

  “What’s wrong with your wrists?” René asked, looking at her bruises.

  It all came back to her—the panic, struggling to breathe, her bound hands, biting at the plastic, rubbing her face against the sharp glass shards, crawling in the wet walkway. She knew if the couple hailing the taxi hadn’t frightened the killer off she wouldn’t be here now. She stilled her shaking hands and told him.

  “Samour’s murderer attacked you?” René’s eyes widened.

  The memory of the thread from his coat stuck in her fingernail came back to her. “I’m close, René.”

  “Too close,” he said. “Have you told Prévost?”

  “Not yet,” she rubbed her wrist, “but I will, and I’ll discover when the raid’s planned.” She had to move on. “But how’s Meizi?”

  A little smile painted René’s face. “Safe.” Then it disappeared. “For now, Aimée.”

  Right now Saj’s discovery of Pascal’s encryption was more important.

  “Ready, Saj?” she asked.

  He hit a key on his laptop, projecting an image of a bordered manuscript. Her mouth dropped open. Tight lines of black-ink script, ancient-looking and illegible to her, marched across the page, reminding her of the tiny, sharp curls of a monk’s illuminated manuscript. Accompanying the script was a drawing that looked like a primitive blueprint, for what she didn’t know.

  “But that looks like Latin.” Not her strong point.

  Saj bit into a potato pakora. “Latin’s the standard, the lingua franca. Samour encrypted a recipe.”

  “Like a medieval Paul Bocuse?” René stared at Pascal’s encrypted attachment under the chandelier, enlarged on the damask tablecloth. “Cookbooks in the fourteenth century? That looks like an oven.”

  Aimée peered closer. “But what is it?”

  “I’d say an alchemical formula,” Saj said.

  “Alchemy?” Aimée sat up. “You mean wizards, Merlin, eye of newt and mad monks?”

  “Why not?” Saj’s eyes gleamed.

  René frowned. “It could as easily be a poison. Or a machine.”

  “Saj, let’s forget the woo-woo.” Aimée pulled Samour’s book on medieval guilds from her bag and opened to the chapter he had marked. Glassmaking—a coincidence? “To me it’s more concrete.” Her gaze caught on a subchapter heading. “Listen.”

  She read out loud, “ ‘Glassmaking guilds guarded secret alchemical formulas
and techniques used in the prized leaded-glass-paned windows of cathedrals.’ ”

  René’s eyes widened. “He lived in a tower, didn’t he?” René lifted up the diagrams he’d scanned from her digital camera. “Drew these. We just don’t know the connection.”

  Aimée grabbed a pakora. “And we need to connect the dots.” Cho’s words came back to her: alloy, glass, formulas. “Look at the elongated swirls, René. They’re symbols, part of an equation or formula. For an alloy, or glass …”

  “A machine or a concept,” René interrupted, his voice rising. “Lost in the past, misfiled in the archives. Why didn’t we see it before?”

  She nodded. Saj clicked the brown beads around his wrist. A sign his chakras were aligned, or were out of alignment, she could never remember. “But the formula’s incomplete,” Saj said, moving the cursor down. The page ended in what was obviously the middle of the text. “I found corresponding alchemical symbols and phrases,” Saj said, “in Nicolas de Locques’s Les rudimens de la philosophie naturelle.” He patted a thick leather-bound volume under the curry takeout container. “Published in 1655.”

  “That tail of newt, eye of toad nonsense again?”

  Saj expelled air. “This explanation of the symbols cut my work in half, let me tell you. Samour used de Locques’s book as a guide. The same Latin words appear here in Samour’s incomplete segment.”

  Her excitement mounted. “Pascal searched for the missing part of the formula. He knew there was more, and where better to find it than in the museum’s archives.”

  “Formula to what? Alchemical stained glass?”

  “Why not? This connects somehow,” she said. “I’ll comb the museum holdings, Saj. I’ll find it.”

  “Et alors, so we know everything Pascal knew?”

  She paused in thought. “But not the formula’s significance,” she said. “Something so important that Pascal was murdered for it.”

  This added up. But how?

  “A nerd who grew up in the museum’s shadows,” Saj said, “an engineer who’s obsessed about a lost alchemical formula?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t add up.”

  “As René pointed out, he lived in a tower,” Aimée said. “His former classmate spoke of his obsession with the fourteenth century.” At her desk, she downloaded Saj’s enhanced encryption, then powered off her laptop. But Saj’s words raised more questions.