The City of Blood

by Frédérique Molay

  “They’re ventricular contractions provoked by abnormal electrical discharges from the heart,” Caroline translated. “That’s why Anya keeps feeling palpitations and pain. If they recur, they can get worse.”

  “We’ll have to run some tests before making more medical or surgical decisions,” Dr. Jondeau said.

  Another moment passed, and finally they were in Anya’s room. She was so pale. Dimitri, however, brightened as soon as he saw her. He called her by her Russian name, and she responded in Russian, telling him how happy she was to see him.

  “You scared us to death,” Dimitri said in Russian. “Don’t do it again, please.”

  Anya switched back to French. “Don’t worry, my little angel. The doctors are going to fix me up.”

  Nico had never seen his mother look so fatigued. She turned to him. “Come here, my son. Give me a hug.”

  Nico tried to hold back his feelings. He clumsily worked his way around the beeping machine that was recording her vitals, her IV line, and the monitors attached to her chest and gently embraced her. Anya was so pale, and Nico could feel his anxiety rising. Neither Samuel Cassian nor Jacques Langier had been able to identify Damien Forest in the pictures. Nico had made a promise, and he still had his end to hold up.

  22

  The bathroom mirror reflected a handsome man. He pulled out his mascara, the sole bit of makeup that he allowed himself, to lengthen his eyelashes. The glam look accentuated his dark and shadowy gaze. It was provocative. The eyes and the naturally angelic smile were a winning combination. And the party was tonight. His libido was at full throttle.

  Tight jeans, a black polo shirt, Italian leather shoes—Clément looked good. He slipped his wallet and a condom into his back pocket, grabbed the car keys, and shut the apartment door behind him. He wanted to drink water and dance the whole night, to just have a grand time. A few bumps, a few caresses, a deep kiss, and his desire would become uncontrollable. He would get laid tonight.

  And if he was lucky, he’d find the right person. Maybe someone to actually spend time with, someone to see every day. A partner? He dreamed of slipping under the sheet with the same person every night, of waking up with that person each morning. Someone he could love. Someone who would love him in return. What a blissful thought.

  He came around to the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie and the Rue du Temple. He loved this neighborhood; it was one of Paris’s prettiest and trendiest areas. And the nightclubs were wonderful.

  The bouncers at his favorite club—two magnificent specimens of testosterone, one black and the other white—let him in right away. He gave them a quick kiss, a “hey there,” and a laugh. Then he was pulled into the supercharged atmosphere of the club. He felt a few glances sweep over him, most likely cast by lovers of fresh meat. A guy brushed against his ass; Clément arched his back and bit his lip in a suggestive pose. He was a mix of innocence and ferocity, a male in rut. His eyes paused on the bare torso of a server. It was going to be a good night.

  23

  The atmosphere in the Parc de la Villette had changed since the discovery of Mathieu Leroy’s body. Armed security guards patrolled the area day and night. Several had trained dogs ready to alert their masters to any suspicious activity. Many Parisians were staying away. On the other hand, the park seemed to be drawing more rowdy teenagers, who swore they weren’t afraid of anything, especially not the Butcher of Paris. If they saw him, they’d take him down, and if he happened to be gay, so much the better. “We’ll kill the fag,” they bragged. “He’ll be our bitch.”

  Clément wanted to shout for help. But only a few barely audible groans escaped from his mouth. He was bleeding to death. The pain was unbearable. He thought of his mother. She had always been there for him. He loved her so much. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to cause her grief. Why him? Another groan. He pressed his hands against his stomach as hard as he could. All this blood. His hands were sticky. He felt tears running down his face. He was afraid. Afraid to close his eyes because he knew he’d never open them again. But he was so tired. He was losing hold. It had to stop.

  “Hey, there’s somebody on the ground over there.” The voice was faint, but he heard it. Then footsteps and a cold nose sniffing him. A dog?

  “Shit, he’s bleeding to death!”

  Someone was turning him on his back. But his body felt so numb.

  “He’s got a pulse! Call an ambulance!”

  “Look at his shoulder. He’s like the others!”

  “Sir, sir, can you hear me?”

  He groaned.

  “Hang in there. We’re getting help.”

  “Call La Crim’ right away. Go do it!”

  And then the cold and the dark. Death.

  Nico was deep asleep, his face buried in Caroline’s neck, his arm across her stomach, his hand on her breast.

  His Freddie Mercury ringtone woke him up with a start. It was intruding on their sleep all too often these nights. Caroline purred. She felt wonderful. But Nico knew he had to turn over and answer the phone.

  “It’s Charlotte, sir. There’s been a third attack. He didn’t wait long to strike again.”

  Nico sat up.

  “Shit! Same MO?”

  “Except for one thing. The victim’s on the operating table.”

  “So he might live?”

  “It’s touch-and-go. The doctors don’t want to say for sure.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Clément Roux. He’s twenty-three years old, a chef at the Carré des Feuillants restaurant. Two security guards heard him groaning and found him in one of the architectural follies.”

  “Which one?” Nico asked. He was now familiar with each of Bernard Tschumi’s playful pavilions.

  “Le Belvédère,” Charlotte replied. “At the southern end of the Prairie du Cercle. My team’s there already.”

  That particular folly offered a bird’s-eye view of the park and Claes Oldenberg’s monumental sculpture, Buried Bicycle, a huge bike saddle, wheel, and handlebars.

  “Did he have a shoulder wound?”

  “Yes, just like the others.”

  “We need to sweep the scene before any evidence disappears. And if Clément Roux survives, I want him under protection. The killer failed and might try to finish the job.”

  “Got it, Chief.”

  “Has his family been told?”

  “His parents are at the hospital. I’ll ask them a few questions later.”

  “Good, but don’t wait too long,” Nico said.

  So the Butcher of Paris had struck again. But he had made a mistake. He hadn’t managed to kill his prey. Nico felt sure that his emotional state was worsening, and he was losing control. Beneath his veneer, he had to be a vulnerable person with memories and nightmares. The butcher was now a wounded animal, and the police were tracking him. Still, he was a threat, and he had to be stopped before he attacked yet another young man.

  Or maybe exhaustion was setting in, displacing his anger. Were these murders forcing him to confront the void left by his lovers? The same way he had been forced to face the void thirty years ago?

  “You’ve got your work cut out for you, and you could wind up falling on your ass,” Michel Cohen had warned him. But Nico’s gut told him that he was on the right track.

  Who was Damien Forest? Why had Jean-Baptiste told his father that he was a Reuters photographer?

  Could this man be a suspect? It was time to answer those questions.

  In a few hours, the full excavation of the banquet would begin. Nico prayed that no more surprises would complicate the investigation.

  24

  “It’s urgent,” Dr. Xavier Jondeau said over the phone. He was calling Caroline Dalry from the hospital, where Anya had taken a turn for the worse. “We need to make a decision now.”

  “How soon?” Caroline asked.

  “Tomorrow at the very latest.”

  “Understood. I’ll let him know.”

  It had been a week since th
e discovery of Jean-Baptiste Cassian’s skeleton. His landscape painter friend, Laurent Mercier, had been summoned once more, this time to Magistrate Becker’s office.

  He was fifty-two—the same age Jean-Baptiste would have been, had he lived. But Jean-Marie Rost thought he looked like an aging adolescent. And not just that. As far as Rost was concerned, he had the mannerisms of a dilettante.

  “How long have you been in Vincennes, Mr. Mercier?” Becker asked.

  “About ten years now, and we’re very happy there.” His voice was high-pitched, almost annoyingly so. “You’ve been married for twenty-seven years,” Becker said. “And you had three children with Camille Frot.”

  “That’s right.”

  Mercier was extraordinarily calm. He had a polite smile on his finely chiseled face. A nice ass and a nicer face, Rost’s wife would have observed.

  “What was your relationship with Jean-Baptiste Cassian, Mr. Mercier?” Becker asked.

  “Um, we were friends, of course.”

  The two stared at each other. Mercier offered up airtight alibis for the evenings of the murders. Rost sat and waited. Becker gave him a quick glance. It was time for him to jump in and ask a few questions. But Rost was useless. He had been up with the baby all night, and he had a splitting headache. His only thought was when he’d be able to take two ibuprofens.

  “Very well,” Becker said. “I must ask you not to leave Paris until we’ve completed our investigation.”

  “But of course,” said Laurent Mercier.

  “Deputy Chief Rost? Are we finished here?”

  Rost knew Becker was irritated with him. There was nothing to be done about it. He had a massive headache, and the urgency of the investigation was only adding to it. Hell, between the investigation and the worrying about Nico, everyone at La Crim’ was stressed. It didn’t help that they had to hide their concern, because showing it would have made things even harder for the boss.

  “You were one of Jean-Baptiste’s best buddies, and you want us to believe that you didn’t know who he was sleeping with?” Rost finally said in a quiet voice.

  Rost watched as the magistrate’s face turned red with anger. He had dropped the ball, and he knew it.

  Nico parked at the Place des États-Unis, in front of the Baccarat Museum, with its red panels above the windows and doors. There were some fine pieces in this place: the czar’s grand candelabra, glass sets, vases, jewelry… All reminders of his heritage.

  Nico crossed the Square Thomas-Jefferson under the chestnut trees’ chilly shade. Mothers and children were playing. Farther off, Lafayette and Washington were shaking bronze-cast hands, unaware of everything around them. The square had an American look to it. The benches, streetlamps, and railings were inspired by Battery Park in New York.

  Across the street were the Pernod-Ricard headquarters. This was the aniseed empire. In the world of spirits, though, Absolut Vodka had the upper hand. It was an outrage, as far as Anya was concerned, that Absolut was produced in southern Sweden. The country of ABBA had nothing on Russia.

  He walked to the end of the square and paused at the monument honoring the fallen Americans who had volunteered to fight for France during World War I. Then he turned onto the Rue Dumont-d’Urville, where he pushed a narrow wrought-iron door open, climbed the stairs to the third floor, and rang Lara Krall Weissman’s doorbell.

  She was sitting on a white leather couch in a minimalist room. On the wall, a Kandinsky painting caught his attention with its burst of colors. It was a masterpiece.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  She looked unhappy. The past few days had clearly taken a toll on her.

  “Does the name Damien Forest ring a bell?”

  “Not at all, no. Should it?”

  “Damien Forest was a photographer Jean-Baptiste hired to cover the tableau-piège’s burial.”

  “I wasn’t really involved in planning that event. That was all Jean-Baptiste and his father.”

  Nico sensed some anger in her voice.

  “He was a photographer from Reuters,” Nico pressed.

  “It’s a reputable agency. I don’t see why that would be a problem.”

  “The problem is that Damien Forest never worked for Reuters. How could Jean-Baptiste have hired an impostor for such an important event?”

  Lara Krall’s eyes were twitching.

  “We’ve made a police sketch,” Nico said. “I’m going to show it to you. Maybe it’ll remind you of someone.”

  She nodded, but she was looking even more nervous. Exactly what was she afraid of?

  Captain Franck Plassard greeted yet another guest from the banquet. He had put in more hours than he could count, but he intended to stay sharp and professional to the finish. He would not allow exhaustion to win out. With each new person, he went back into the ring with the same determination to find a lead that would move the investigation forward.

  On the other side of the room, an old gentleman collapsed into a chair and waited patiently for the questions. The man was the retired director of one of France’s largest museums. He was a bit deaf, so Plassard had to shout.

  “A photographer? Sure, yes, there was one. A young fellow about my daughter’s age. That was a long time ago, of course,” he said with a wink. He still had a twinkle in his eye. “That reminds me. There’s something that happened.”

  “Yes?” Plassard asked.

  “I overheard the photographer and Jean-Baptiste arguing.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “As sure as I’m alive.”

  “Did anyone else hear the argument?”

  “No. Maybe you didn’t know this, but the Géode was scheduled to be unveiled about two weeks after the banquet-performance. I was fascinated with the way the clouds were reflected on the stainless steel. I left the banquet for a few minutes to go up to the dome. I just wanted to touch it. And I happened upon Jean-Baptiste and the photographer shouting at each other.”

  Jérôme Dufour from Lyon was sporting a bow tie. Conservative to the core, Deputy Chief Rost thought. He was nothing like Mercier, with his jeans and pointy-toed shoes, or Vion, with his sartorial allusion to David Beckham. Three men, three styles, and somehow three friends.

  “Here’s a police sketch of Damien Forest,” Magistrate Becker said. “Does he look familiar?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “Look carefully, Mr. Dufour.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize this person.”

  “Daniel Vion says that you told him Jean-Baptiste Cassian had perhaps gone to the United States. Is that right?”

  “Jean-Baptiste’s mother was the one who told everyone that.”

  “Did you hear her say it?”

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know his parents very well. Laurent Mercier told me. He talked to the parents every so often.”

  “And did you believe him?” Becker asked.

  “It was better than believing he died in some accident. I preferred to think he was living a quiet life in another country.”

  “But why would he do that?” Jean-Marie Rost broke in, determined to make amends for his sorry performance during the earlier interview and be an active participant in this one. “Did he think that he had to go to another country to come out of the closet? Here, in France, he was about to marry Lara Krall and start a family. Was he afraid that if he stayed in France he would be forced to live a lie?”

  “You’re tarnishing his memory!”

  “Because I said he was lying and pretending to be someone he wasn’t? Or because I said he was gay?”

  “Where are you getting this from?”

  “Does homosexuality bother you, Mr. Dufour? Scare you, maybe?”

  “My God…”

  “God loves everybody, Mr. Dufour. Don’t you believe that?”

  It was Becker’s turn to be quiet. Rost couldn’t miss the stunned look on his face.

  “We need to know where you were and what you were doing last week
and last night,” Rost said.

  “Why?” Dufour asked.

  “Did you have sexual relations with Jean-Baptiste Cassian, Mr. Dufour?” Rost shot back.

  “I don’t know what they were fighting about,” the old man said. “But I heard Jean-Baptiste say, ‘Don’t ask me ever again!’”

  “What do you think he was referring to?”

  “I have no idea. I’m sorry.” The interview room was silent. Plassard finally had his finger on something. But on what, exactly? There had been an altercation between Jean-Baptiste and the photographer. Was it a lovers’ quarrel? And had this person decided to take revenge? At this point, there was no way to know.

  “What did you say his name was—Damien?” the old man asked suddenly.

  “Damien Forest.”

  “That’s not the name Jean-Baptiste used.”

  “What name did he use?” Plassard said.

  “He said, ‘Don’t ask me ever again, Tim!’”

  Lara Krall examined every detail of the composite sketch. Nico was puzzled.

  “Does he remind you of someone?”

  She shook her head. He couldn’t tell if she was upset or relieved.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket.

  He read the text message from Kriven: “Damien Forest is someone named Tim. Tim and JB had a fight on the sidelines. JB said, ‘Don’t ask me ever again, Tim!’”

  Nico turned this information over in his head and met Lara Krall’s eyes.

  “I have some news that might help us in our investigation.”

  She sat up in her chair.

  “Your fiancé hired a photographer for the banquet and gave him an assumed name. We need to figure out who this man was and what kind of relationship he had with Jean-Baptiste.”

  “But I don’t recognize this sketch.”

  “What about a man named Tim? Does that name mean anything to you?”

  She didn’t say anything, but Nico could tell this piece of information was a blow. He could see it written on her face.