Murder in Clichy

by Cara Black

  Aimée found Sophie Baret’s stained-glass-paned front door in tree-lined Cité des Fleurs. The cobbled lane of nineteenth-century houses, each with its front garden, felt like another world: ornate pink brick façades with statuary carved over the lintels of two-story houses. A spill of sunlight illuminated the trellis-covered walkway to Sophie’s house.

  Aimée knocked on the open door. “Bonjour?”

  Something hissed, then crashed.

  In the hall, Aimée saw a pink and orange-haired woman, wearing chunky black boots, and a tight, red rhinestone-trimmed dress under a faux fur orange jacket, lugging a snare drum and cymbals.

  “Pardon, Sophie lives here, right?”

  “Some of the time,” said the woman, bumping into her. “I’m Mado, her sister. I housesit when she’s away.” The woman’s face was quite pretty despite the black kohl-lined eyes and red eyeshadow that matched her outfit.

  Sisters? Two bookends that didn’t quite match. Mado looked the type who didn’t trust anyone not wearing eyeliner.

  “I’d appreciate if you could give me her number in London, something came up.”

  The cymbal crashed, causing the dog next door to bark.

  “London . . . again?”

  “She rushed there after the attack.”

  Mado’s mouth widened. “Attack? My sister, the drama queen, does it again! She overeacts to everything,” Mado said. Then paused. “She’s not hurt or anything?”

  “Someone broke into the gallery,” Aimée said. “But I’m worried that she fled to London.”

  “Then she’s fine,” Mado said.

  “But her ex, Thadée—”

  “That scum! Sorry, we’ve got a rehearsal right now! There’s a chance a scout for the label will drop by,” she said. “The bass player’s waiting for me.”

  A small Mini-Cooper with METALLOMIX spraypainted on it idled at the curb. The long-haired driver tooted the horn.

  “Do you have her number in London?”

  Mado shook her head as she edged down the walkway. “Shut the door for me, will you?”

  Aimée closed it, leaving the thumb of her glove in the lock. Worried that Mado would notice, she blocked Mado’s view and handed her a card. But Mado gripped the drum case and shook her head.

  “Put it in my jacket pocket, eh?”

  “It’s important that I speak with her.”

  Mado nodded, shoving the drum through the opened car door.

  “Sophie’s in danger,” Aimée said, “Danger? According to her, that’s the only way to live.”

  “You don’t understand,” Aimée said. But she was speaking to a closed car door.

  The Mini roared down the lane.

  Aimée knocked on the door of the neighboring house to ask about Sophie. No answer. She tried the small house on the other side. A smiling woman wearing an apron, holding a mop, opened the door.

  “Bonjour, I’m. . . .”

  “Non fala française . . . Portugais!” the woman said, retreating.

  Aimée returned to Sophie’s front door, pulled out her glove, and in ten seconds was inside. A pile of mail sat on a stool in the hallway. Water bills, gas notices, British Vogue, and postcards of upcoming exhibitions.

  The angles and colors of the walls reminded her of a child’s drawing of a house. Mauve walls, terracotta tiles, and antique and 1960s retro furniture jumbled together. Marabou feathered scarves smelling of cigarettes, and an electric keyboard littered the couch in the small living area, indicating Mado’s presence. Aimée figured she slept there. A jam jar of wilted roses, whose pink petals were strewn over an old rattan table, gave her the impression little time was spent on housekeeping. Something she could relate to.

  She identified Sophie’s room by its faint Arpège scent. A Vuitton suitcase, partially unpacked, sat on her rose silk duvet, with a bulging cosmetic bag inside. Sophie didn’t seem the type to run off without her makeup remover.

  Aimée searched for an address book, a daytimer, anything with an address in London. But all she found was a selection of Clarins eye lift and skin serum cosmetics in the modern bathroom that Aimée wished she could afford.

  In the pantry-sized kitchen, a glass coffee pression with its tin plunger screwed tight for coffee to drip through was still warm. She found Surgelé croque-monsieur frozen food boxes in the trash.

  Aimée turned the garbage can over, its contents spilling onto the turn of the century mosaic tiled floor. Among the receipts, she found an airplane boarding pass and a crumpled piece of paper. She spread it open on the counter. A postcard, with a picture of Big Ben, written but never sent. Sprawling black script, crossed out words, and blotched letters. Tears?

  She read the fragment:

  ‘You bastard! Promises broken again and again. How can I believe you, Thadée? I sold the paintings, all of them and the exhibition here’s a success. Don’t deal with that scum Blondel. The last shipment passed customs. Yours, Sophie.

  The rest was torn off. Shipment . . . art . . . that made sense, but who was Blondel?

  Now she had a name, something to check.

  And then a footstep sounded behind her. Before she could dive behind the kitchen cabinet something hard was stuck into her ribs.

  “Hands up!” Mado said. “You salope! Trashing our place.”

  “Wait, let me explain . . .”

  “Explain to the flics,” she said. “Turn around slowly, eh!” Mado was another one who had watched too many movies.

  Aimée spun and knocked the gun to the floor. Mado slipped on the frozen food box and fell, as Aimée grabbed for it. “What’s this? A cheap party favor?” She pulled the trigger and a small plastic sheet with the word BANG! on it, dropped from the snout of the gun. Aimée pointed it at her, stuffing the postcard into her pocket.

  “The flics are on the way,” said Mado, her lip quivering.

  “Nice try,” Aimée said. “Listen, as I tried to tell you before, Thadée was murdered. Your sister’s in danger. Real trouble. Start talking to me about this Blondel.”

  “Who?”

  “The one who strung your sister up to a Turkish toilet because he figures she knows where some stolen jade is. If she knows, she’s in trouble. And she’s in deeper trouble if she doesn’t, because they think she does.”

  “What’s that to you?” Mado scowled.

  “They’re after me, too! And it’s my job.”

  “Who hired you?”

  Sirens blared from in front of the house.

  Merde . . . Mado had called the flics!

  No time to explain to them. She doubted they’d listen to her. For the second time one of the Baret sisters was blaming her. That’s all Commissaire Ronsard needed to put her in garde à vue.

  “You’re as stubborn as your sister, Mado,” Aimée said. “I have to find out about Thadée. They won’t give up, and she’s next.”

  Mado said, biting her lip, “An old man was asking questions. A pain in the derrière. I told him to get lost. Like I want you to.”

  Old man . . . Gassot?

  “What did he look like?”

  “Gray hair,” Mado said. “With a wooden leg.”

  Gassot!

  “You’re in cahoots with him, aren’t you?”

  “When you realize I want to help Sophie, let me know.”

  Aimée kicked the back door open and ran. The small yard, enclosed by a rusted wire fence, was filled with wet leaves and tufts of crabgrass. The Portuguese cleaning lady next door was shaking out a carpet and beating it with a stick. A vacuum cleaner roared behind her.

  Aimée waved. “I’m locked out,” she said and mimicked trying to turn a key.

  But the cleaning lady bent over and whacked harder. She wore headphones and was beating in a rhythm. Aimée pulled an old wheelbarrow over to the fence, gathered her leather coat, and climbed over, ripping her stockings. The spindle-branched thorn bushes offered little protection from observation as she ran behind them. Sirens wailed from the small lane.

  Beyond
lay the schoolyard containing a climbing structure and a sand box. Perspiration beaded her lip despite the cold air. The flics would talk to Mado and, any second, they would come after her. At the next fence, she shoved old clay flower pots together, stepped on them, and heaved herself over. She landed on a tricycle, the handlebars bruising the arm that had needed stitches, but cushioning her fall. And then she stumbled into the sandbox.

  “That’s mine,” said a serious-faced child wearing ladybug rainboots. “It’s not your turn.”

  “Sorry, of course,” she stood, brushing the sand off her coat and scanning the playground. “Go ahead, take your turn.”

  “Big people aren’t supposed to ride tricycles,” the child said. “I’m telling the teacher.”

  Aimée didn’t like the flash of blue uniforms she glimpsed through the fence. She thought fast.

  “I made a mistake, I’m here to pick up my daughter,” she said.

  “You’re in the wrong place. Parents wait over there,” the little girl said.

  “Of course, you’re right.”

  Aimée edged toward the throng of teachers and laughing students lining up at the school gate.

  “What are you doing here?” said a teacher with a clipboard. “You must wait outside, it’s the law. Who let you in?”

  “Forgive me, but I had to run to le cabinet, Madame,” she said, patting her stomach. Aimée wiped the perspiration from her brow. “It’s morning sickness, but with this second one it happens all day long.”

  The teacher’s eyes softened as Aimée joined the waiting parents on the curb. Aimée melted into the crowd, careful to avoid the police cars.

  Thursday

  RENÉ SQUIRMED ON THE dirt floor and thumped his feet. The dank chill, and the diffused light from the kerosene lantern, reminded him of the ancient cave in the Loire Valley he and his mother had camped in one August holiday. With its thick walls it stayed cool despite the heat of summer. But he hadn’t had his ankles taped up then.

  “Time for pipi?” asked the gravel-voiced man.

  He nodded and tried to talk but the tape over his mouth garbled his voice.

  “Water?”

  He nodded harder. The mec came into view, blocking the pile of bricks, and the ants still pushing their crumb. He had to get out of here.

  “Let’s see, it’s been a while,” said the mec.

  A while . . . more like six hours!

  The mec was wearing denim overalls, snakeskin boots and his brown hair was pulled back in a stringy ponytail. He slit the duct tape binding René’s ankles with a knife and pulled René to his feet. Were they going to kill him?

  “Little guys like you have an interesting sex life, eh?”

  René snorted.

  “What’s that?” he grinned. “Oh I forgot, you can’t speak.”

  René’s cheeks burned with a searing pain as the mec ripped the duct tape off his mouth. He groaned.

  “Quiet!”

  “Sick. I’m going to be sick,” René whispered, his voice hoarse.

  “Watch the boots,” the mec said, pushing René toward a rusted iron bucket by a pile of old newspapers. “Over there.”

  René gagged. “I’m dizzy,” he gasped, heaving. “Help me.”

  “Hold the wall,” said the mec, a look of disgust on his face.

  “Can’t.” He gagged, spitting near the man’s boots.

  “Not on the boots, dwarf, or I kick you with them.”

  René heard the slow rip of duct tape and felt his wrists being freed. Numbed, tingly, but free. He leaned on the wall for support, pushed off and shot out his left leg, kicking the surprised mec in the kidney. The man doubled over. René’s next powerful straight kick landed under the mec’s chin and whipped his head back.

  If his hip hadn’t throbbed so much he’d have broken the mec’s fourth and fifth rib, too. Still, he would need a hospital visit.

  René flexed his short, swollen fingers, grabbed the duct tape and wound it around the mec’s mouth, hands, and feet. Then, huffing, he pulled the limp body behind the high cobwebbed pile of bricks.

  Phone, where was his phone? Not on the dirt floor where there were only men’s magazines and a small notebook. He grabbed the notebook with his numbed fingers and stuck it in his pocket. He took the kerosene lantern, the fumes making his nose itch, and searched the moaning mec’s pockets. Only a pack of Gitanes. His fingers didn’t obey well, but he ran them over the packed dirt, back and forth. And near the corner they found his cell phone. With his thumb he turned it on as he stumbled toward the stairs. He punched in Aimée’s number.

  He heard several clicks, then ringing. But there were footsteps on the stairs. Merde!

  “I’m underground in an abri near a Bata shoe store,” he whispered and clicked the phone to silent mode.

  “Hey, the beer’s cold,” said the second of his captors. “Wake up! Where are you?”

  René ducked behind a rotting wood chair and felt something long, like a pole. He grabbed the end, slid it across the third to bottom step, and raised it. The chair blocked his view but he heard the whoosh of air and a loud ouf! as the man tripped and fell. Bottles crashed, spraying beer. There was a smell of malt everywhere.

  Stunned, the heavy-set red-haired man sprawled on the dirt floor. René reached for his thick neck, pinched the carotid artery, and gave it a twist. The man’s head sagged. René shone the lantern on him, took the roll of duct tape, and covered his mouth with tape.

  Sweat dripped between René’s shoulderblades. After binding those thick wrists he had run out of tape. He undid the man’s belt, shifting and moving the inert body until it finally came free of the man’s waist. Then he looped the belt and knotted it several times around the man’s ankles.

  René tried to ignore his throbbing hip as he hobbled upstairs. He felt along the pebbled wall in the dark, ran into a rough wooden door and tried the handle. Locked.

  So close.

  He had to think fast. The third man was bound to arrive at any moment.

  He called Aimée.

  “René . . . don’t hang up,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “Aimée, I’m in Paris, underground someplace.”

  “I know. Stay on the line,” she said, breathless. “Whatever you do keep the phone on. We’re triangulating your position.”

  “Hold on. Don’t talk,” René said.

  He kept the phone in his pants pocket and inched his way back down the steps, fighting for breath. The key had to be on the big red-haired man. He felt around in the pocket of his down-filled jacket and pulled out a cheap pocket calculator. It took him two tries to turn the unconscious man over so he could examine his shirt pockets and his pants pockets. A wallet. Then a ring of keys jingled, and he pulled them out.

  René made his way up the stairs again, in the dark. He took one of the long-handled old-fashioned keys, reached up, and slid it toward the keyhole, but the bunch of keys fell from his still swollen fingers and vanished in the darkness.

  Below, René heard one of the men stir and groan. René ran his fingers over the stone step. Nothing. He panicked.

  If only he could see!

  Then his fingers grazed the top of the keys. He tried to grasp them but his fingers just pushed them down into a narrow crack.

  He needed something with which to pull them up to him.

  He slid down the steps once more, saving his legs for the climb back, and with the knife cut some excess duct tape from the man’s wrists. He climbed back, his legs and hip protesting. He lowered the tape into the crack, tamped it carefully around the bit of key sticking up and prayed the tape would hold. Slowly, centimeter by centimeter, he lifted the keys. By the time he had them in his hand, perspiration was running down his forehead in rivulets and dripping into his eyes.

  More noises came from the big man, a knocking and rustling as he struggled against his bonds. Then there was a metallic clang.

  The kerosene lantern!

  A crackle and thupt of something igni
ting. René’s hands shook. Despite the cellar’s dampness, with so much old wood and paper, the flames would catch, then suck up oxygen for fuel and create an inferno!

  He reached up, aimed for the keyhole, and willed his hand to be steady. He missed. He tried again, leaning his short arm against the door. The key didn’t fit. Smoke and kerosene fumes rose, choking him.

  René tried the next three keys. The fourth was the right one. He turned it, but the key stuck. With all his might, he pressed and turned. And tried again. The old-fashioned lock clicked and he rammed the door open with his shoulder.

  He fell on a wet floor by bags of cement, striking a small cement mixer. A worker, wearing overalls and a bandanna around his head, jumped back in surprise.

  “Where is this place?” René said.

  “Señor, no habla Français,” he said, alarm in his eyes.

  René crawled across the floor to pull himself up by the wall. Black smoke billowed up from the staircase. The worker yelled and grabbed a bucket of water.

  René made his legs move. Step by step, past an open door and into a garden courtyard. Birds sang by a low ivy-covered wall. He’d never noticed the sweetness of the tang of wet leaves or realized how beautiful a gray sky could look.

  Keep going, he had to keep going, follow the narrow lane past the parked vans, and get to the street. Get away. The arched porte cochère lay just before him and he heard a car slow down, shifting into first. He ducked behind a van as the car turned in. A black Peugeot.

  Hurry, he had to hurry. Despite the searing ache in his thigh, he had to keep walking. The car pulled behind him, a door opened and shut. He panicked, knowing it would only be a few minutes before they discovered he’d escaped. He heard someone yelling to call the sapeurs-pompiers, the firemen.

  He edged past the van, keeping close to the walls, and made it through the arch. Saw a narrow cobbled street lined with parked cars.

  He looked up, wiped his brow and saw the street sign: rue Lemercier, a one-way street. He reached into his pants pocket for his cell phone.

  “Aimée?” he said. “I’m on rue Lemercier, wherever the hell that is.”

  “Near Clichy. Go to your right René. Walk.”