by Cara Black
She checked the kitchen cabinets, under the sisal rug, unzipped the sofa cover, checked the lamp shades, and felt for anything taped under the table. Again, nothing. In Nathalie’s armoire, she found a selection of skirts, white shirts, several jackets, and one black dress. And an array of colorful scarves to dress up her basic wardrobe.
Didn’t she ever wear jeans?
Aimée got on her knees and struck gold. Under Nathalie’s bed she found a squat olive green file cabinet. Nicked, old—and locked. She levered it out and pushed it across the floor to the kitchen where she swiveled her nail file inside the lock. Instead of popping open, the lock jammed and broke. Just her luck! Par for the course, she thought, a perfect accompaniment to an eventful evening: a knife held to her throat; an encounter with a moody, sarcastic artiste whose touch she wanted to forget; Félix Conari’s reminder of his affiliation with church and state; and only a garbled reference to Jacques’s gambling from a pilled-out Nathalie. And then Nathalie’s special addition, vomit on her good heels!
Bound and determined to find something while her shoes dried, she rooted through the kitchen drawers, found a meat-tenderizer mallet, summoned her energy, and whacked the lock, over and over, until it cracked.
Feeling better, she tried jimmying the top drawer open, only to end up using a can opener to open its side. Inside lay financial statements in folders going back some years. The second drawer held letters, and the third, mostly receipts and clippings.
She stirred two brown-sugar cubes into the chipped espresso cup and sipped, yawning while scanning the files. Statements from the last five years, requiring tedious checking. She opened the window a crack, trying to keep her head clear. Below lay the frosted, skeletal grape vines that produced a harvest each fall. The pride of Montmartre, but acidic. An acquired taste. She found a crocheted blue blanket and wrapped it around her feet.
Bankruptcy papers, the divorce decree. She leaned forward and got to work. The plaintive strains of someone practicing the cello accompanied the drip of melting ice outside Nathalie’s window.
Boring, routine checking of handwritten financial notes and printed bank documents. After half an hour she discovered the discrepancies. Big discrepancies. And easy to track after she’d discovered the pattern.
The large deposits had started three months ago, coinciding with the Gagnards’ divorce decree and bankruptcy. No moonlighting flic made fifty thousand francs a month working part-time! No wonder Jacques had convinced Nathalie to keep the driving school. It was a perfect place to stow the infusion of francs that had been deposited every month for three months. A simple way to hide blackmail?
Looking around the clean, utilitarian kitchen and IKEA assemble-it-yourself apartment furnishings, she doubted whether he had shared the largesse with Nathalie. Simple greed, always demanding more . . . had that been his downfall?
But this didn’t dispel the possibility that it was something Jacques knew that had killed him.
With the few rigged machines she’d seen, she doubted Zette could afford a fifty-thousand-francs-a-month payoff. Jacques could have collected from other small bar owners and mined the district. A pattern?
Zette’s murder might have been a warning to others of what lay in store if they neglected to pay up. Yet, Jacques had been murdered two days before Zette’s death.
She opened another file and glanced at a water-stained Monoprix flyer advertising a men’s coat sale, a torn typed page inside. Why keep something like that? She put it back with the other papers.
Stymied, she sipped more espresso, pulling the blanket up over her lap. Had Jacques worked with others? She found several deposit slips with J. Gagnard written both as payee and payor.
So far, she’d only found answers that raised more questions. Opened a can of worms. Jacques could have been killed by any of his “clients” eager to stop the payoffs. That gave her a whole slew of possible suspects. She doubted that the authorities would be eager to investigate extortion charges against a slain, respected officer. After all, they had Laure and her smoking gun.
She looked at the twisted mess she’d made of the file cabinet drawer and was about to kick it when an idea stopped her. She bent down and, avoiding the rough, sharp edges, felt under each drawer for something taped. Nothing.
She’d found evidence of Jacques’s extortion and knew that he gambled. But on a deeper level, she suspected there was more.
Whoever had killed him would have trashed Nathalie’s place by now if they suspected he’d hidden something valuable here. But they were divorced; Nathalie could have brushed off anyone who questioned her, denying that she remained in his confidence. Yet the newspaper article that had appeared in today’s paper would connect her to him. If they hadn’t known about Nathalie before, they would now.
Something bothered her. What was it? She stared at the moonlight on the rimmed frosted window, then back into Nathalie’s apartment, scanning it afresh. No computer. She scrutinized the apartment again. No printer.
She took out the Monoprix flyer, found the torn typed paper inside: a half page of computerese: //_e738:Ñ followed by more hash marks, numbers, strings of letters. She stared at it. Hadn’t Oscar Wilde said that the true mystery in the world is the visible, not the invisible.
A pattern repeated. Of course, part of an encryption key! Bordereau’s words about the data-encryption leak echoed in her mind. Did this fit? Had she finally found the link?
To piece the puzzle together she had to get onto a computer. Excited, she stuck the page in her pocket, put the files back, pushed the cabinet back under Nathalie’s bed, donned her now-dried shoes, killed the lights, and was just about to close the apartment door when she heard footsteps coming up.
She shut the door without a sound, slipped off her shoes, and padded barefoot up to the next floor, crouched down, and listened. A Wagnerian opera came from the neighbor’s flat, masking the sound of knocking on Nathalie’s door. What kind of séance were they having?
She peered down through the metal railing, saw knitted caps on men’s heads, and their down-jacketed shoulders. Then one of them looked up.
Her heart pounded. She’d seen the mec’s profile; it was the one with bad teeth and the knife. Her hands shook.
The timed lights clicked off. She backed up the steps. Don’t come up here, she prayed. Then light flooded the landing and stairs again. She heard shuffling, a grunt, and the impact of a crowbar as the mec wedged the door open.
“Quick,” one of them said, “. . . waiting outside.”
She’d have to hurry, silently descend, and slip past the broken door, evading whoever was waiting. Pulling on a woolen cap, she said another prayer as she tiptoed past the half-open door and downstairs to the vestibule.
An older woman wearing a winter white wool cape was checking her mailbox. “Cold, eh? Are you the new tenant on the top floor?”
Aimée was in no mood for conversation. She wanted to leave. Now. She put her finger over her lips, then whispered, “I’m worried. The door of number six has been broken open. And I heard noises inside as I walked by.”
Thumps sounded above. Alarm showed on the woman’s face.
Aimée nodded, pulling the woman close. “Don’t go up there. I forgot my cell phone. Do you have one?”
The woman nodded.
“Punch in 18, call the flics,” Aimée said.
As the woman pulled out her cell phone, Aimée slipped on her shoes, and left.
On the glistening outer steps she hesitated. Up or down? She heard the thrum of an idling engine and, looking down, saw the yellow lighted tip of a cigarette held by someone in the driver’s seat of a car. She kept to the darkened border of the stairs, climbing fast, and had almost reached the top when a figure stepped out of a doorway and blocked her path.
Thursday Night
THE OVERHEAD LIGHT POOLED on the table. René stared at a worried Isabelle.
“It’s your fault,” Isabelle said. “You! We were fine until you appeared, asking que
stions, pretending to be . . .”
“Blaming me won’t help find Paul,” René said.
Inside he felt sick and full of guilt. If the killer was on to Paul, no place he’d hidden could keep him safe.
René saw himself out of the apartment where Isabelle kept vigil. Above him, a lone brown leaf from a plane tree drifted in a slow dance on the breeze. He watched it, feeling as lost as the leaf. He had already checked the rooftops and the cave where Isabelle said Paul sometimes hid. No trace. Where would a frightened boy hide? He tried to think the way Paul would.
The darkened Montmartre street lay deserted at this time of night. René walked, the ache in his hip exacerbated by the freezing temperature. Around the corner, past the building where Jacques was murdered, he saw the construction site. Frost laced the corrugated metal fencing the courtyard.
Could Paul have hidden here? He searched the fence for holes or loose siding. Nothing.
He tried Aimée’s phone again. There was no answer, so he left a message that was cut off by static. Why was she always breaking her phone?
Further on, he found a padlocked Cyclone fence. The thin timber slats blocked any view from the street. He retraced his steps, running his hands along the fencing, with no better result.
He tried to ignore the terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach that Paul had been kidnapped before he’d had a chance to hide.
As he was about to give up, he heard scraping sounds from a doorway. The hair on the back of his neck rose. He thought back to the photos that had been delivered to their office. Had someone followed him?
Perspiration beaded René’s forehead. He smelled mildew, old earth, and gypsum. Then he heard a creaking, followed by a louder cracking sound. Vandals, stray cats, or—?
“You lied,” a young voice accused him.
“Paul?” he said, with relief.
Paul’s white face shone in the streetlight. The faint mewling of a cat and running footsteps sounded from somewhere down the street.
“Your mother’s worried to death,” René said. “It’s freezing. Where’s your coat?”
“More lies! Maman knows I take care of us,” he said, defiance in his eyes though his lip trembled. “I’m the man of our house.”
René didn’t know what to say to this shivering “man of the house” with smudged dirt on his face and mismatched space-invader socks, one blue and one yellow, showing over his rain shoes.
“Come upstairs, Paul,” he said. “If you mean I lied about Toulouse-Lautrec—”
“You’re not a detective,” Paul said.
“I’m a computer detective,” René said.
“Prove it.”
Footsteps echoed in the distance.
“Here’s my card,” René said, looking around nervously, try- ing to herd Paul forward. “Be happy I didn’t tell your mother about those model airplanes! Now get inside before you freeze.”
Thursday Night
AIMÉE SWERVED ON THE icy steps in time to avoid the old woman and her pet schnauzer. She hiked up the cascading series of stairways and stuck her nail file in her cell phone again. One message. Why hadn’t it rung? Bad reception on the butte? Or her missing antenna? If René had deposited Varnet’s money in the bank, she’d buy another cell phone.
She listened to her message.
Static, then René’s voice. “Aimée.” Short gasps came over the phone. “The building site off rue André . . . .”
The line fuzzed and the message ended. Had René tried to investigate without her and gotten into trouble?
She looped the long wool scarf twice around her neck and knotted it as she ran into the cold night. Forget the infrequent late night Metro, she’d make it there faster on foot.
Worried, Aimée ran up the steep rue des Saules, past the pearly dome of Sacré Coeur looming over the dark rooftops. She sprinted down winding rue Lepic with its shuttered windows. Music and a crowd spilled out of Le Jungle, the Senegalese club on rue Gabrielle. “What’s your hurry? We’ve got a table. Join us,” a man called to her.
“Non, merci,” she said, swerving away from his laughing figure, her footsteps pounding on the uneven cobbles.
In Place Émile-Goudeau, she slipped on the water overflowing from the gutter and almost lost her footing. She passed the squat Bateau-Lavoir washhouse, Picasso and Modigliani’s for- mer studio, now an art gallery. Out of breath, she paused by the green metal Wallace fountain, wishing her feet didn’t hurt and that sweat hadn’t drenched her shirt. Then she ran down the steps. Not far now, a few streets more, if she could just keep running.
Her lungs heaving, she crossed windswept Place des Abbesses and kept left. Down the staircase, clutching the double railing, past Cloclo’s station in the doorway of a building adorned with stone medallions. No Cloclo, just darkness.
Rue André Antoine was deserted except for the whipping wind. Then she saw two figures, short figures, just visible in a doorway.
“René!”
As she got closer, she saw his companion was a little boy with defiant eyes, who was shivering. She pulled off her coat.
“You must be Paul,” she said, draping the coat around him.
“Where’s your computer?”
Catching her breath, she grinned. “At the office.”
“About time, Aimée,” René said.
“I found Nathalie Gagnard, overdosed on pills,” she said. “Poor thing’s getting her stomach pumped but I found Jacques’s bank statements and something else that makes for interesting reading.”
He inhaled. “Sorry, maybe I overreacted. Varnet coughed up, that’s the good news. We’re solvent.” He paused.
Should she read between the lines to try and figure out what he couldn’t say in front of Paul?
Paul shoved her coat back at her and ran into the apartment building without a word, slamming the door.
“What was that about, René?” she asked. “Didn’t you convince Paul’s mother to let him give evidence?”
“His mother’s our witness. She saw three flashes.”
“Three? But she drinks, doesn’t she? I thought Paul—”
“I’ll explain on the way back,” René said.
Friday Morning
AIMÉE TWISTED THE WHITE porcelain knob of her claw-footed tub. The water heater had fired up, thank God. She poured in lavender essence. Steam rose as she sank her cold legs and aching feet into the hot water.
As she inhaled the citron-tinged lavender, her mind wandered. René’s recounting of Paul’s mother’s story, the names of planets, the phrase “searching the stream,” Bordereau’s mention of a data-encryption leak, and the computer printout in Nathalie’s files whirled in her head. Five minutes later, with the water still only up to her hips, the gas flame sputtered and died.
Great.
She toweled herself dry, pulled on her father’s worn flannel robe and woollen socks. With the printout, she worked on her laptop in bed, searching and culling encryption sites. Without success. She needed Saj.
As orange dawn streaked the sky, she curled up under the duvet and slept, exhausted. She was awakened by the phone ringing in her ear and opened her eyes to see the cursor on the laptop screen blinking by her face.
“Allô?”
“Aimée, big problem,” René said. “Maître Delambre’s gone to a hearing in Fontainebleau. Isabelle’s having second thoughts.
She says she can’t give evidence. What should I do?”
She couldn’t let their witness get away.
“Meet me at 36, Quai des Orfèvres,” she said. “Bring her with you, any way you can.”
She filled the sink with ice cubes and stuck her face in, to wake up. Holding her breath, she kept her face immersed until her cheekbones went numb. She pulled on black tights, a woolen skirt, and a black cashmere sweater and zipped up her knee-high boots. At the door she grabbed her coat and ran down the worn marble stairs, swiping Stop Traffic red lipstick across her lips.
She called La Proc as she ran along t
he quay. She was their only hope. Eight minutes later she met René and Isabelle huddled by the guard post. Gunmetal gray snow-filled clouds threatened above. Around her ankles, a flurry of wet leaves gusted from the gutter.
“Bonjour, we have an appointment,” she said, showing her ID to the two blue-uniformed guards.
She herded René and a hesitant Isabelle inside the courtyard of the Préfecture, turning left under the arcade to the wide brown wooden doors.
“Where’s Paul?” Aimée asked.
“At school.” Isabelle glanced at René. “Where’s her computer? You said she works on a computer.”
“Sometimes we have to do things the old-fashioned way,” René said.
They climbed several flights of the brown-tiled stairway. Aimée remembered counting them as a little girl. Five hundred and thirty-two steps, still the same. When she got to the top, if she’d counted right, her father would give her a Carambar. At the Enforcement Section, she showed her ID again.
Isabelle pulled back, staring at the group of policemen standing by the head of the stairs.
A uniformed flic ushered them along a high-ceilinged corridor, past open-doored offices. Their footsteps echoed on the polished wooden floor. A few heads looked up as they entered the long arched corridor of the procureur général’s wing. Aimée heard laughter, a snatch of conversation—“Barring the miracle of the loaves and fishes, her sighting puts the mec in the boulan-gerie at the time of the murder”—and smelled the aroma of coffee.
She paused. Isabelle had come to a halt and was buttoning her coat, her mouth tight. “I’m leaving.”
“What’s the matter, Isabelle?”
Isabelle shook her head. “Forget it.”
Dread hit Aimée. Too late now, she wanted to say. So much depends on you. Instead, she nodded. “This place makes me nervous, too.”
“Stupide, I’m leaving, I can’t get involved.”
