Murder in Clichy

by Cara Black

  “Something stupid. Now he’s with a blonde.”

  “And he seemed to be such a good catch! But I guess he’s not your bad boy type.” Martine exhaled a puff of smoke. “Bon, this will work, I’ve done it myself. Set off the fire alarm and you’ll meet big, strong men who can cook.”

  Aimée grinned. “You seem happy now.”

  “All men come with baggage.” Martine shrugged. “I like Gilles despite the nagging ex-wife and his kids every other week. I’m getting used to living in the eye of the storm.”

  Aimée noticed the tired happiness in Martine’s eyes. And her pointed look at Aimée’s torn fishnet stockings. “How about another pair? I’ve got purple.”

  “Merci, Martine.”

  AIMÉE SAT Sophie down. Pinpricks of car lights snaked through the Bois de Boulogne outside the window.

  “Please stay here. It’s not safe for you anywhere else right now.”

  “Look, Aimée, forgive me for the way I’ve acted,” Sophie said, “but I can’t keep this check.”

  “Thadée meant it for you.”

  “I can’t help you much,” Sophie said, hesitating, “but maybe there’s something in the computer records.” She sank deeper on the low ottoman. “Instead of hindering you, I should try to help. My computer password’s 2297jil,” she said. “The safe’s behind a Jean Basquiat charcoal in the office.”

  Of course. And the first place anyone would look.

  “I’ll have to bury Thadée. Someone has to.”

  Sophie still loved him, that much was obvious.

  “Let me find out about the arrangements. But don’t move from here,” Aimée said, not wanting to add that she’d join him if the men who were after her found her this time.

  Late Friday Evening

  AIMÉE AND MADO PULLED up in the taxi outside Avenue Velasquez. The gilt-edged gates surrounding Parc Monceau’s exclusive enclave confronted them as the taxi stopped.

  “You’re sure it’s this house, Mado?”

  Mado nodded. “Nice to see how the other half lives,” she said.

  Couples walked down the wide front stairs to waiting cars. Several security men spoke into headphones on the driveway. White catering vans lined the back drive.

  ”Looks like the party’s over.”

  “It’s just beginning,” Aimée said, hiking her bag onto her shoulder. “I’ll call you later; go back to Timbuktu.”

  Instead of using the main entrance, Aimée wound her way past the catering vans. In the third van she found what she needed. Black-and-white-checked chef’s trousers, clogs, a white shirt with side buttons, and a long white apron. She tucked her hair under a white cap, left her bag in the rhododendron bushes outside the service entrance, and joined the chaos in the hot, steaming kitchen.

  She kept her head down and made a beeline for the pantry.

  An army of caterers loaded huge roasting pans on trolleys, piled hot trays, scrubbed dishes in the stainless steel sink, and loaded glassware in cardboard cartons.

  “The LÉGUMES! The LÉGUMES!” a florid, flushed man was shouting at her, pointing to the carved rosettes of zucchini. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  Aimée nodded, picked up the heavy tray, and aimed for the dining room.

  “NON! In the van!”

  She turned and headed out the kitchen door. When his head was turned, she backed up right into the pantry lined with Sèvres dishes and linens. She pulled the sliding pantry door shut, latched it, set the tray down, covered it with a tablecloth, then slipped off the shirt, trousers and apron, putting them into a drawer, and exited the other side of the pantry.

  A few couples huddled under the chandeliers, standing on the Aubusson carpet, saying goodbye to the hostess, a young blonde woman.

  “Bonsoir, Madame de Lussigny,” Aimée said.

  The woman frowned.

  Had she made a faux pas?

  “I see you’ve met Lena, Mademoiselle Leduc,” said Julien de Lussigny, wearing a tuxedo and looking ready to step onto a Vogue Homme cover. In fact, many of the guests were faces prominent in the pages of Elle.

  “So, you feel better?”

  Thank you for asking. Monsieur de Lussigny, I’m sorry to “come uninvited,” she said, “but spare me a few moments.”

  She gave him a huge smile. And he returned it, eyeing her outfit, muttering “Too bad, you would have made this more interesting.”

  Aimée wasn’t sure how to take that. When she looked around, Lena had disappeared.

  “Let’s talk out there,” he said.

  He escorted her to a glass-covered walkway looking over an interior garden. Small white lights and candles flickering in bubbled-glass holders lit the way.

  “I was worried about you,” he said. “But you look much better. Have you come to tell me you’ve spoken with your partner and Verlet?”

  “Right now what I’d like to know is how you’re related to Thadée Baret.”

  Her heels echoed on the stone and a white moth beat its wings imprisoned in a candle-holder.

  “Did you know Thadée?” de Lussigny asked.

  “I asked first,” Aimée said.

  “Thadée was my brother-in-law,” he said, folding his arms, “but he and my sister Pascale divorced.”

  Aimée stared at de Lussigny in the dim light.

  “Your family were prominent colonials in Indochina,”

  Aimée said, “so I presume you know about the looted jade astrological figures.”

  De Lussigny took a deep breath. “You’ve done your homework.”

  She and Mado had stopped en route at the art gallery, where she’d sent Thadée’s documents via e-mail to herself and René. Too bad she hadn’t enough time to research further. But half an hour on Sophie’s computer had been enough to give her some background. Why hadn’t she done this before?

  “And you haven’t answered my question.”

  “My father knew stories,” de Lussigny said. “Stories he’d heard from the workers on the rubber plantation.”

  “Stories about jade looted from the emperor’s tomb? Or the one where the last Vietnamese emperor entrusted the collection to the Cao Dai, to keep it safe?”

  “You continue to impress me, Aimée. Persistent as well,” he said, smiling. “I’m not a collector. It’s not in my nature. My father had more than enough acquisitive genes in his body for all of us.”

  So his father was the one?

  “So you’re saying your father acquired this collection?”

  “He dreamed of it, I know,” he said. “But no one has seen it since the fall of Dien Bien Phu.”

  Disappointed, Aimée wondered how this could be true.

  “But the jade was put up for auction at Drouot last month,” she said. “Then withdrawn. Wouldn’t your father have known about this?”

  “You’re sure?” he asked, seeming truly surprised. “C’est incroyable! I’ll bet Papa’s turning over in his grave. He passed away in October, at the dinner table. Heart attack,” he said.

  “Your brother-in-law Thadée had this.” She pulled out the auction catalog page. “Then he was killed.”

  “They’re beautiful. But I don’t understand,” de Lussigny said, puzzled. “How does this involve you?”

  Should she tell him? Something held her back.

  “I’m helping his former wife, Sophie,” she said. “She ran the gallery with him.”

  “Then she knows that Thadée was always chasing dreams,” de Lussigny said. “An artist, such a shame, with all the talent he had.”

  She’d hoped he would know more about the jade, but she’d struck out again! Aimée pulled her jacket close, wishing she had a warmer one.

  “Why would someone kill him?”

  “There are some things we want to keep private.”

  “You mean his habit?” she asked. “According to Sophie, he’d cleaned up.”

  De Lussigny’s eyes darkened. “He’s been in and out of rehab for the past year. I loved him like a brother, he was
still very much a part of our family, but I had to pull away. It hurt too much to watch.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Was Thadée a victim of a double-cross scam? Or had Blondel used his thugs to send a message about paying debts?

  She didn’t know what else to ask. The hour was late and de Lussigny looked tired, but if she didn’t press him, what other leads were there?

  “Was your father acquainted with Dinard, the curator at the Musée Cernuschi?”

  “You know a lot about my family,” he said. “Dinard’s my godfather.”

  They were all tied together.

  De Lussigny was buried in thought. “That’s strange. He was supposed to attend the benefit tonight,” he said.

  “Where does he live?”

  “Just across the park.”

  Lena stood at the door, casting a shadow over the stone. “Your guests want to say good night.”

  “I’ll let you get back to your wife,” she said.

  “My ex-wife,” he said with a sigh. “It’s in bad taste to have this affair right after Thadée’s death, but last year I promised to host it again. I sponsor this charity event for the land mine victims organization she heads. We have to help people who need help.”

  How civilized. She saw something very sad in his eyes. Brief and passing, and then it was gone.

  “I don’t mean to change the subject, but there’s a business meeting tomorrow evening at l’hôtel Ampère. Can you bring me the Olf project files and join us?”

  She nodded and watched de Lussigny slip back into his gracious host mode.

  AIMÉE WANTED to avoid the kitchen and security out front but she had to recover her bag. She’d noticed the entry to the rear wing had what looked like a handicapped ramp. If she continued on the glass-covered walkway, she figured she’d run into a rear outlet to the garden.

  It led straight to a door which she opened to find herself inside the dark rear wing of the house, near a small, high-ceilinged kitchen that smelled of lemon grass and sesame oil, warm and inviting.

  A small boy with button black eyes, wearing Superman pajamas, perched on a stool, eating with chopsticks. Beside him, an older Asian woman with shiny black hair imprisoned in a bun, spooned rice into his bowl. Her hairpin caught Aimée’s attention. Lustrous, green jade. But what took her breath away was its shape: a dragon.

  “Excusez-moi,” she said, “Are you lost?” asked the little boy.

  Lost and clueless, she wanted to say.

  “I’m avoiding the big kitchen and looking for the back door.”

  He nodded, his look serious. “I avoid it, too. So does grand-mère.”

  The hiss of steam escaped from a kettle on the stove and a clock ticked above the spice canisters.

  She hoped her stomach wouldn’t growl.

  “Are you hungry, too?” asked the little boy. His grandmother’s hand cupped his shoulder as if protecting him. Around his neck a red string was visible; suspended from it was a small jade pendant.

  “Very kind of you but non, merci. Bon appétit,” she said. “Madame, what a exquisite hairpin!”

  The woman touched her hair, then reached for the lid of the rice cooker. “The boy growing, wake up hungry. I feed him.”

  Aimée smiled. “I see. So big and strong. He’s very smart, too, I’m sure.”

  “Non, non, he too small. Weak. Worthless!” she said, horror in her eyes.

  Confused, Aimée didn’t know what to say.

  She saw the little boy grin. “Grand-mère always says that, to keep the bad spirits away. So they won’t think I’m strong and smart, and steal me.”

  Aimée nodded. “Forgive me, I didn’t think of it that way.”

  “She says things like that,” he said. “That’s why we live back here. My maman calls it a cultural land mine but I thought those were things that blew up.”

  Aimée suppressed a smile.

  “Where’s your maman? ”

  The woman’s hand tightened on the boy’s shoulder. “Finish rice, Michel. Very late, time for sleep.”

  Michel yawned. “Maman’s like a butterfly. Sometimes she comes when I’m asleep.” He took one last bite, set his chopsticks down, aligning them with the bowl, put his small hands together, and bowed his head. Aimée saw the pride in the old grand-mère’s eyes.

  “Proper way. Good boy,” she said, ushering him toward another room.

  If Aimée didn’t do something, they would disappear.

  “Excuse me, Madame, I love your jade,” she said. “It’s exquisite. A one-of-a-kind piece?”

  “From my country,” she said. “No good. Old-fashioned.”

  “You’re from Vietnam?”

  The old woman averted her eyes. “It is. Michel tired.”

  “Of course. I’ve seen a dragon like that before. What does it symbolize?”

  The woman paused at the door of a room suffused by red light. The musk of incense wafting from inside. An old Chinese chest overflowing with Legos and toys stood by the door.

  “The dragon mean strong, smart, and patient.”

  She shut the door. But not before Aimée had seen the Cao Dai shrine on the wall.

  AIMÉE STOOD in dense fog outside the locked and silent Cao Dai temple. She saw no sign of surveillance. There was no sign of anyone in the deserted street. Linh hadn’t answered her phone, but Aimée had to ask her questions. Important ones.

  Down here in the 13th, she didn’t speak the language, didn’t know the customs. Merde! She didn’t even look like anyone here.

  A video store plastered with posters of Hong Kong action movies, the only sign of life in the quiet, narrow street, stood a few doors down.

  She opened the shop door to the sounds of gunshots and explosions, and flinched. On a screen above the counter, Jet Li karate-chopped a gang of black-suited Ninja assassins.

  “Monsieur?” she asked a young Asian man, with spiked red-tipped hair and an earring. He sat behind the counter, engrossed in rapido Bac histoire, the study text and notes for the Baccalauréat exam. Aimée knew the rapido well—but not well enough, since she had failed her first Bac. She had passed the second time around.

  He glanced at his watch. “You’re the last rental, I’m closing.”

  She needed to thaw him out, get information. She leaned on the counter. “C’est difficile, eh, the Bac. I didn’t pass the first time.”

  He rolled his eyes. “This is my second time.”

  Aimée nodded knowingly. “You’ll make it. My friends and I did, on the second try.”

  She tried to keep the conversation going, hoping he knew something about the area. “I meditate at the Cao Dai temple,” she said. In theory, anyway. “I need to reach one of the nuns from the temple.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve got no clue about what goes on around here in the daytime. I only work evenings.”

  “Any idea where the nuns live?”

  He used a receipt to save his place and shut the book. He shook his head.

  “Have you seen Cao Dai nuns in this quartier?”

  “Never.”

  The sound of Jet Li’s karate chops, brisk and thumping, filled the store.

  “What about the concierge of the building next door? Would he know?”

  He stood, rang the cash register and cleared it. “I can’t help you.”

  Someone must rent them the space. “Sorry to ask so many questions, but do you know who owns the building?”

  “There’s a mah-jong game the video store owner goes to sometimes, behind the Cao Dai temple. I’ve seen the man who sweeps out the temple go there, too. Other than that, I wouldn’t know.”

  At least it was a place to start.

  “Thanks for your help,” she said. “Good luck on the Bac.”

  The building next door to the temple had shuttered windows and a dark green oval door with a digicode. She stood, rooting through her bag for a screwdriver with which to unscrew the plate, when the door opened. A man came out with a fox terrier pulling on a lea
sh, his collar raised against the fog.

  “Bonsoir,” she said, smiling. “I forgot my friend’s code.”

  He nodded and Aimée slipped inside and walked toward the rear. She heard the slap of mah-jong tiles before she saw the lighted concierge loge and smelled the cigarette smoke trailing out to the narrow strip of concrete between the apartments.

  Several Asian men sat around a table in the small room whose walls were tinged with brown and yellow. Everyone smoked. She recognized the squat man with a withered arm who swept the floors. A charity case, she’d figured, but he played his tiles as fast as the others.

  “Pardonnez-moi,” she said, stepping inside the open door and smiling at him. “I don’t mean to interrupt your game, but I wonder if I can have a private word with you, monsieur. I’ve seen you at the meditation sessions next door.”

  His eyes shuttered.

  “Say it here,” he said, looking down. “I’m involved in a game.”

  A man next to him nudged the man’s ribs. “Don’t want to spoil your luck, Quoc?”

  She saw the pile of francs next to the ashtray, small porce- lain tea cups, half-full, tea leaves floating in them, felt their eyes on her.

  “Forgive me, but I’m looking for Linh, the nun,” she said. “She helped me to meditate. Can you tell me if she’s staying nearby?”

  “Why ask me?” Quoc said.

  “Since you work there. . . .”

  “Never saw her before last week,” he said.

  Was he just trying to brush her off?

  “But you’re there all the time. Surely you would have noticed her.”

  He paused, irritation on his thin face. “Ask the priest,” he said.

  “Monsieur, that’s a good suggestion, but in the meantime. . . .”

  He covered his tiles, anxious to get rid of her.

  “I take it back,” he said. “The week before last I saw her. That’s all I know. Now, I need to finish this game.”

  She’d only noticed Linh at the temple a few times herself, but figured not all nuns attended every session. Why would they?

  “Can you give me the address of the nuns’ residence?” she asked, hoping they lived nearby.

  He slapped his tiles down. “But when I saw her, she wasn’t a nun.”