Murder in the Sentier

by Cara Black

  A black mannequin.

  Something was wrong.

  Aimée ran over as the babushka screamed, covering the boy’s eyes with her hands. Aimée tried to shield their view.

  The dreadlocks twined with cowrie shells and yellow and red beads were familiar. Very familiar. Idrissa!

  Aimée gasped. The half-open eyes were visible. There was a band of toche noire, a reddish brown tissue, across the pupils. Not a pretty sight. But a drying effect she recalled from premed.

  She must have been killed several hours ago. Her face was distorted, her neck cocked at an impossible angle. Poor Idrissa, what a waste.

  She knelt down. Something looked peculiar.

  Peeling the bag lower, she saw dried rivulets of blood. But it wasn’t Idrissa.

  It was a man. A man who’d been in the picture with Idrissa at Club Exe. Ousmane, the kora player.

  Don’t get involved, she told herself.

  Ahead, on rue Ste-Foy, she heard the whine of the late night garbage truck. Before the truck hit the square, she took a good look at the man. The pink bra and garter belt he wore were too large. Like an afterthought, Aimée figured. To make him look the Saint Denis type, on the off chance this bag, destined for the garbage truck, might be opened and the body found.

  “We have to get the flics,” she said, still trying to shield the boy.

  Fear shone in the old woman’s eyes. She shook her head, clutching him. She didn’t know or want to know. Maybe she had no papers.

  “S’il vous plaît, before the trashmen come!”

  Aimée didn’t want to do this. Get involved with this.

  But the woman backed up, pulling the boy. What could Aimée do? The woman hobbled toward Passage du Caire. No time to follow them.

  She’d been looking for Idrissa and now she’d found her accompanist. Why had Idrissa’s partner been killed? Had the killer made a mistake?

  AIMÉE DRUMMED her heels on the 2nd arrondissement Commissariat floor. She sat inside a smudged glassed-in cubicle with scuffed walls, her hands on the wooden desk. Crumpled paper cups and memos filled the metal garbage can. On the duty binder was a stenciled memo, “Don’t forget the ten fingers of procedure!”

  “Where’s Sergeant Mand?” Aimée asked. “I’d like to speak with him.”

  “En vacances,” the on-duty flic answered.

  Too bad. She’d made her first Communion with his daughter. Knew the family well. She’d lost a baby molar down their bathroom drain.

  “Let me get this right,” the flic from the découvertes de cadavres unit said, pausing with his two fingers on the typewriter. “You found the body and recognized her?”

  He really meant how would she recognize an African, un noir.

  “A him, it’s a man.” Aimée didn’t want to admit she’d been looking for Idrissa. Didn’t want to tell him why.

  “Voilà, a man,” the flic said. “Then how did you recognize him?”

  “He’s well known in nouvelle griot music,” she said. “I’ve heard him with his partner at Club Exe.” The stale air and cigarette smoke made her nose itch. Itch for a cigarette.

  “Let’s see, you give your address as 17, Quai d’Anjou on Ile St. Louis.” He pecked at the keyboard, not looking up. “What were you doing in the Sentier?”

  She wanted to say None of your business. But in reality it was.

  Flics could stop you any place, any time, demand your identification, and hold you on suspicion. Suspicion of anything.

  “Going to get my nails done,” she said. She thrust her chipped red fingernails at him. “A disaster, eh? My friend has a nail salon.”

  “Not much stays open this late in the Sentier.”

  True. She thought quickly.

  “But on rue Saint Denis, the girls stay open day and night, right? Who’s investigating the case?”

  “Right now I am, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said, his tone bored. “As I’m sure you’re aware, the police judiciare takes charge and will confer with le proc,* when she gets here.”

  “Le proc, here? But that’s unusual,” she said. Normally, the flics submitted the evidence dossier to him or her at the Palais de Justice. Rarely did one get involved in investigation legwork.

  “Unusual … good word,” said the flic, nodding in agreement. He scratched the back of his neck. “Life’s unusual these days. Especially with everyone on vacation!”

  “The victim’s not a pute,” she said. “Nor a transvestite. He’s a musician!”

  *Procurer de la Républic—the state prosecutor.

  “I’m glad we have your word for it,” he said, even more bored.

  After ten minutes the flic gave her a typed statement to read. There were plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes. But she thought better of bringing them to his attention.

  She was about to sign when loud shuffling sounds came from the corridor. A middle-aged man was escorted to the other desk in the small cubicle.

  He gripped the frayed plastic armrest, then sat down with measured slowness. His ashen pallor contrasted with his grease-stained black fingers.

  “Now if you’ll sign this,” the flic said, irritation in his voice, “you’ll have done your civic duty and I can end my shift, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Aimée saw the man’s body jerk. After she’d signed and looked up, she realized he was staring at her. Staring with disbelief.

  Like Georges and Frédo at Action-Réaction.

  Again a shiver went up her spine.

  “Monsieur Pascal Ourdours, residing in Conflans, Cergy Préfecture,” said the blue-uniformed flic, reading his ID. “Pretty late for you to drive so far to your home, eh?”

  “Not really,” the man said.

  “Can you explain your reason for being on rue des Jeûners?”

  He sat, rodlike. “Visiting friends, like I told the officer.”

  “Did you see anyone running in that vicinity?”

  But Aimée never heard his answer. The flic tugged her arm, indicating she should give up her seat to a miniskirted, blue-eye-shadowed middle-aged woman tapping her worn sandals.

  “Vite, chérie,” the woman said. “My feet hurt.”

  On her way out, Aimée searched for familiar faces. She heard the duty desk flic talking over a police radio: “Quiet night except for a homicide, two witnesses, plus the usual working ladies. That’s all, patron.”

  So Pascal Ourdours was the other witness.

  She recognized Edith Mésard, the new Procurateur de la République, striding into the Commissariat. As “La” Proc, Mésard had a lot to prove in the male-dominated system. Aimée wanted to renew their old acquaintance and get information.

  “Madame Mésard,” she said. “Congratulations on your appointment to your position.”

  Edith Mésard paused.

  “Merci,” she said. Her voice quavered.

  Aimée knew she’d had throat surgery. The woman sounded weak but her conviction record was strong. Strongest in the court.

  Her gaze took in Aimée’s outfit. “Investigators are waiting, if you’ll excuse me….”

  “Bien sûr,” Aimée said. “Perhaps later, I’d like to talk with you.”

  “Will what you say interest me, Mademoiselle … Leduc, isn’t it? I’m sorry but my days get filled by eight A.M. I reserve my time for victims, enforcement officers, and the court docket.”

  Underneath the Rodier suit, graceful manner, weak voice, and aristo manners was pure iron—formidable, in a word.

  “The information I have concerns the homicide victim,” Aimée said.

  “Please give a statement,” Edith Mésard said, pointing a manicured finger to the cubicle.

  “But I already have. Let’s say there’s a sensitive background,” Aimée said. A good Proc kept communication lines open for those who wanted to pass on information—hookers, the gay community, and illegal workers—but were intimidated by the flics.

  “I don’t barter information, Mademoiselle, if that’s what yo
u’re implying. In my job I must reveal my sources if it impacts the criminal proceedings.” She reached in her briefcase, then handed Aimée a card. “But you can access my direct line between seven and eight A.M. only.”

  And then Edith Mésard was gone.

  Outside the Commissariat on Place Goldoni, Aimée pulled out her cell phone and called Christian’s number again.

  No answer.

  No answer at Etienne Mabry’s either. In the dark Paris street, Lieutenant Bellan arrived. Behind him, a police car pulled up in the Commissariat parking place.

  Lieutenant Bellan eyed her up and down. His wine-laced breath hit her square in the face.

  “You again?” he said. His eyes were bleary. “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  Save your tired clichés for the bar, she wanted to say. He must have been celebrating.

  “Boy or girl?”

  “What?”

  “Are you the father of a boy or girl?” she said. “Your wife was giving birth when my apartment was broken into.”

  Something caved in his face. He stumbled on the cobblestones.

  What happened? she wondered.

  The other police had caught up with them. They exchanged looks.

  “Lieutenant Bellan, you’re off duty,” one of them said. “We’ll give you a ride home.”

  “Down’s syndrome, the doctor called it,” Bellan said, his speech slurred. “Where I come from they called them Mongoloids … half-wits.”

  Oh God, no wonder he was falling apart.

  “Forgive me, so sorry,” she said.

  “Want the good news?” Bellan blinked back the tears. “It’s going to live!” Several of the uniformed police shifted on the cobbles, looked away. One of the officers took Bellan’s arm. Bellan shook him off, staggered toward Aimée.

  Why wasn’t he with his wife, why weren’t they comforting each other?

  “Please, sir, no need for you to report back to the Commissariat,” the flic said.

  “Someone’s got to pay the bills,” Bellan said, raising his voice. “Work overtime. That’s me. Question this woman,” Bellan roared. He pointed to Aimée.

  His voice echoed off the cobblestones.

  “Tiens, Bellan,” one of the men said. “Give it a rest.”

  “Right now! She’s caused all this … from the beginning.”

  A window opened above them. “Keep it down,” yelled an old woman.

  Aimée’s hackles rose. “What do you mean?” she asked, staring at Bellan and the group.

  None of them met her gaze. Bellan spat, fumbled with a lighter, and managed to light his cigarette.

  “Like father, like daughter. On the take. Dirty!”

  Good thing the flics grabbed Bellan and hustled him away before her fist cracked his cheekbone.

  “My father wasn’t dirty,” she said. “Never! Do I have to prove it to the whole police force?”

  Maybe she did. Caillot’s article implied her father was corrupt. Only the police files would hold the truth. The files Léo Frot owed her.

  “I knew your old man,” said a middle-aged flic, coming up to her. He slid his blue hat off, revealing a gray crewcut, and rubbed his forehead. “Try to ignore Bellan, eh? He’s losing it over the baby. Bellan idolized your father. It hit him hard when your father left the force.”

  Startled, Aimée stepped back. “But nothing was proved. Nothing. Only a slick article with allegations … that’s all. No stain on him, he got the posthumous award when he died.”

  “Some things in the department, well, the powers that be just let them slide.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nobody talks about it,” he said. “You should know the code, you’re a flic’s kid. We stand together, we don’t rat on each other. And you’re one of us.”

  So that’s how they thought of her? “Let me enlighten you, I’m a private detective, not police,” she said.

  “But you’re getting a lot of attention these days.”

  “So elect me mayor,” she said, nervous but trying not to show it. “What do you mean?”

  Several flics were walking toward them. “Lie low, it’s for your own good.” He joined the others and entered the Commissariat with them.

  More confused than before, she leaned against the stonewall. Doubts assailed her. Had her mother left because she thought her husband was corrupt? Would that have spurred her to leave them?

  But her father wasn’t corrupt. Aimée knew that in her bones. She felt sorry for Bellan but she also wanted to kick him.

  She tried to put it out of her mind. She gazed at the salon de the nestled in the Passage Grand Cerf. But the restored wire-and-glass-roofed passage was locked for the night. She settled for a glass of red wine at the zinc bar on the corner, listening to the weather report: continued heat and humidity.

  In the long café mirror, she reapplied Chanel red lipstick, pinched her cheeks for color, and ruffled her hair with her fingers.

  In a few minutes, as Pascal Ourdours emerged from the Commissariat, she approached him from behind.

  “Monsieur Ourdours, let’s go talk.”

  He stiffened.

  “Please, I’m not police,” she said. “How about a drink? There’s a taxi,” she said, signaling to a passing cab. “Let’s go somewhere so I can get to know you.”

  “Non … I have to get my car.”

  She heard the furring of his syllables. Still scared, she thought. So shaken he couldn’t hide the traces of an accent. In the flickering streetlight, she saw his hunted expression.

  He gave off the smell of fear.

  “Nearby, there’s a quiet café,” she said. “We’ll converse and then you can leave. I promise … a quick drink, eh? You look like you could use one. I know I could.”

  He took a step, then paused. Uncertain.

  “Come on,” she said, fanning herself with her hand, “the humidity hasn’t let up. I’m thirsty and I prefer not to drink alone.”

  She sensed that a bit of his wariness had dissipated.

  “I work nearby,” she said, thinking fast to make the event nonthreatening. “There’s a lovely old tearoom—on Thursday nights they have a small late-night gallery opening. Let’s try it.”

  “Since you put it that way,” he said, “why not?” He looked surprised but kept walking. She sensed he wanted to talk. She steered him toward Ventilo, the clothes shop with an elegant salon de thé in a pie-wedge-shaped Haussmann building. Two narrow streets flanked the several-storied building, whose voluted iron balconies were filled with geraniums. Conversation and the tinkle of glasses came from the lighted third-floor windows.

  He paused. Hesitated. His brow furrowed.

  Before them, a couple, arms twined around each other, came down the stairs laughing and headed into the night.

  Aimée pointed to the exhibition sign. “Super!” she grinned. “I’ve been dying to see this exhibition. Old black-and-white photos of Paris at night.”

  She noticed he watched her lips.

  “And the good thing is, we don’t have to buy art to get a drink.”

  His brow unfurrowed. “After you,” he said.

  Inside the high-ceilinged Art Deco tearoom people holding drinks clustered around photos. He and Aimée took the glasses of white wine offered them, and dutifully looked at the photos.

  “Mind if we sit down?” she said, as soon as it seemed sufficiently polite to do so. They sat on a bench by arched windows overlooking the narrow street.

  His tense shoulders relaxed as she discussed the photos. Slowly, she began to feed in questions. “Do I remind you of someone, Pascal?” she asked, putting her face closer to his. “From the way you looked at me, I wondered.”

  “I used to know a woman,” he said. “Long ago. She looked like you.”

  He’d used the past tense. Her hope wavered.

  “What was she like?”

  He opened his mouth. Then closed it. “Twenty years is a long time. I just was shaken because the resemblance is
strong.”

  “True. Life can take bizarre turns,” Aimée said. “My mother left when I was eight. Apparently she joined some radical leftists … who knows?” Aimée let her words dangle.

  “How old are you?”

  She told him.

  He leaned forward, tapped his right ear. “Bad ear, speak in this one.”

  “My mother was American, perhaps you ran across her.”

  It had become less strange to say “my mother.”

  He shook his head, looking down at the old floor tiles, but not before she’d seen his eyes flicker in recognition.

  She remembered the Frésnes envelope with B. de Chambly on it that Jutta had shown her. “Sydney Leduc was her name but I think she used another one, starting with B.”

  She couldn’t read his expression. He kept his head down.

  The man knew something. She took a big sip of wine, praying that he’d open up.

  “Those were pretty heady times in seventies Paris from what I hear,” she said, aiming for his good ear. “Lots of romance surrounded the radicals, some veered to violence, others to protests.” She kept trying to find the button that would get him to talk. “Our generation seems pretty tame, eh? Even with the World Trade Organization demonstrations.”

  Silence.

  She wondered if part of his fear stemmed from hearing loss, or the noises around him.

  “Talk about a small world,” she said. “Action-Réaction still has a base here in the Sentier. I met some of them, they’re your age.”

  He looked up, saw her empty glass. “More wine?” he asked.

  “Merci bien,” she smiled.

  He didn’t return the smile, just favored her with an intense stare.

  He was a hard nut to crack. Harder than the old Nazi collaborator in the Marais! Had she misread the man completely?

  Was he simply an older man from the suburbs in the wrong place at the wrong time? Picked up because a homicide happened a block away? After all, she thought, the flics had soon let him go.

  He returned and handed her a glass. She’d try one more time.

  “You’re kind,” she said, accepting the wine. “I don’t want to burden you too much, but I’ve been thinking of going to therapy over this … to find a way to cope.”

  And he was bobbing his head in agreement. “I’m in therapy myself. You know it’s wonderful to be able to talk to someone about things!”