by Cara Black
Or . . . Sidonie was the Hezbollah contact and Soli planned on pressuring him to make her cough up the others.
He pushed a twenty-mark note across the counter. The walrus-mustached barman looked up. “Beer or change?”
“Both, bitte.”
Coins in hand, he turned and saw the phone cabin was occupied. But from the corner of his eye, he caught a woman’s face outside the window. Only a moment. And then, with that remembered stride, she was gone.
Could it . . . ?
“Forget the beer.” Jean-Claude bounded off the stool, grabbed his coat and pushed his way past the heavy draft curtains, through the swing door, and out to the street.
He ran.
At the next street he saw people boarding a streetcar. The flash of a leg, that familiar slant of her shoulder. It was her. Mon Dieu. Sidonie.
He made himself speed up. The tram’s doors were closing. He waved his arms, yelled for the driver to stop.
But it took off just as he reached the platform, panting and gasping for breath. He saw her profile, the hint of carmine lips, and then it was gone.
Paris · Saturday, 5 p.m.
Searching the phone book at the corner café, with Miles Davis sitting at her feet on the cracked mosaic tiles, Aimée found several listings for the men. After calling a number of them, she whittled them down to three and wrote the addresses in her lab notebook. None of these numbers answered or had an answering machine. She fumed. If only Elise had given her more information. But she was committed now; she couldn’t stop.
She’d take the chance there would be a family member at home at Baret’s house, given the tragedy. Or maybe Dufard and Royant were there themselves, offering condolences? At least it was a place to start.
She cycled past the Ministry of the Interior’s side exit on rue des Saussaies. Whenever she passed it, she thought of the Resistance members who were tortured in its cells. Her father, who had been inside often, had described the messages and names scratched by fingernails into the walls. “What man did to man”—he’d said with a shake of his head—“under the cloak of Vichy . . . The ministry hid this for years.”
No one talked about it then. Or now. One never knew what another person’s past was, what he might have done during the worst days of the war, or what he might have suffered. Better not to know certain things about your friends, her father once said.
Behind the soot-darkened hulk of Saint Philippe du Roule Church, she saw fragments of the old Roule village, famed for its goose market in the thirteenth century. At the Place Chassaigne-Goyon, once Roule’s center, on the side of the church was an allée of wooden nineteenth-century storefronts. Any day it would fall to gentrification, but for now it held small shops. By a crèmerie, under a faded boulangerie sign, she spotted a miniscule café advertising international phone cards—specialty Asia. Here, in one of les quartiers les plus chics of fabulous wealth, this was no doubt where the help came to make phone calls home.
When she located Baret’s address, a three-story limestone affair, she buzzed the tarnished button by his nameplate.
An older woman in an apron answered. The concierge.
“Mais oui, mademoiselle, I clean for Monsieur Baret, but he’s out.”
Out and he wouldn’t be coming back.
“Does Monsieur Baret live alone or have other family?”
“Alone, as far as I know. Family? Outlived them, he once said.”
She could rule that out. But she had to reach the two other men.
“Haven’t his friends come by?”
The concierge shrugged.
“I don’t mean to trouble you. When did you last see him, madame?”
The concierge rubbed her hands on her apron. Took a notepad with her shopping list out of her apron pocket. Consulted it. “Must have been two weeks ago. He’s not here much these days.”
She hadn’t heard about his murder.
“He asked me to work today because I couldn’t last week. I just got back from my sister’s—”
“That’s helpful, merci,” she said, cutting her off.
“What’s this about?” The concierge’s brow creased in irritation.
Better lighten up or she’d lose this woman’s help.
“Désolée, but I’m a relative of the Peltiers, his old friends. Just got into Paris, no answer at the Peltiers’, and I’ve lost the numbers for messieurs Dufard and Royant.”
“Comprends pas. How does that involve Monsieur Baret?” she said. She shifted her mop and took a step back into the foyer. “I’m busy, mademoiselle.”
Afraid the concierge would close the door, she thought quick.
“Zut, I’m meeting them all for dinner and I don’t know where,” she said. “I’m stranded. Can you help me? Would Monsieur Baret’s address book be handy?”
“A very private man, Monsieur Baret,” she said. “Not my place to go through his personal items. I value my job.”
The flics would be going through them soon enough. She felt guilty not telling the woman, yet if she revealed Baret’s murder she’d get no link to the others.
“I understand. Any idea where he could be? If I can find him, I can ask him which restaurant.”
“Désolée, mademoiselle. But the bookstore’s right down the street. I’m sure it’s all right for me to tell you that.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The bookstore. Monsieur Baret used to run the place. He’s still involved.” The concierge stuck a rag in her pocket, stepped outside the door. Pointed. “Voilà, you can’t miss it. The hunting bookshop.”
Couldn’t miss it? The shop was the size of a postage stamp, its dark red storefront hidden in the shadows behind the church. Librairie Dupont—tout de chasse. A hunting book store, old shelves lined with both new and antique leather-bound tomes on hunting and falconry. Aimée felt like she was stepping into an 1880s lithograph.
“Allô?”
No answer. Aimée shouldered her bag, which contained a sleeping Miles Davis. The bookstore foyer opened to a wood-paneled reading room with flickering fire under a marble mantelpiece. She wouldn’t mind sitting down. A perfect spot to study her anatomy textbook. But she had work to do.
Further on was a stockroom with floor-to-ceiling books. A cold, brisk draft came through the open back door. The door to the back office was also half open, and a whirring sound came from within.
“Allô?” She stepped into a state-of-the-art office—computers, boxes of floppy disks, a printer—a complete contrast to the store’s antiquarian ambience. No one here. An open bottle of sparkling Evian sat next to a computer screen, across which ran a fast-moving string of numbers and letters.
Familiar. She’d seen something like this before. Where?
Her gaze caught on a framed black-and-white photo on the wall. It showed a group of young men standing by a barn with a horse cart. Taken during the last war, she figured, noting the men’s clothes and the Vichy label on the horse’s feed sack. She thought of the plastic Vichy bottle on the quai. Under the photo was a label that read Chambly-sur-Cher. The envelope she’d stolen from the Peltier apartment had been forwarded from Chambly-sur-Cher.
Pinned to the corkboard was a typed agenda with today’s date:
Peltier estate
Baret
Dufard
Royant
The names from the Laurent reservation. A thrill rippled up her spine—it was all there, all the pieces she had puzzled out together in one place. It was almost too good to be true.
“Who are you, before I call the police?” said a voice behind her.
Chambly-sur-Cher · December 23, 1942
Midnight
Wild thyme scented the cold midnight air on the riverbank. The Cher gurgled peacefully below Gaubert. So unlike that night more than a month earlier, the night of the flash flood, the go
ld bars, the dead soldiers who drifted from their watery grave. The truck still lay sunken beneath his dangling fishing line. What ever happened to the fifth German soldier, Gaubert wondered, but he pushed the thought aside for once, savoring the moonlight that silvered the alder leaves into shiny mirrors. He crumbled the chalky soil in his fingers. He’d concentrate on his family, being together with Fanny and Gaby for Christmas. Like always.
At this time of night, trout fed among the long, green river grass that flowed like hair in the current. On Christmas Eve, for a treat, Fanny would serve his catch, merval, the freshwater catfish, baked with garlic, a specialty of the Sologne region.
He’d already caught two silverbacks when he heard the rustling in the bushes. Starlings, he thought, disturbed by a squirrel close to their nests in the blackberry brush. But then branches crunched and someone grabbed him from behind—large hands jerked his arms back and bound his wrists behind him. He managed a garbled shout, but a dry cloth was stuffed in his mouth. His heart pounded like a hammer.
What was happening? The Germans? The fifth soldier, who’d floated away and now come back for the gold?
Muffled church bells pealed in the distance.
Gaubert heaved, gagging on the rag clogging his throat. Acid bile filled his mouth. He sputtered and gasped for air.
His head was slammed from behind and pain shot through his skull. He reeled, partly blinded by blood filming his eyes, and collapsed on the band of withered, blond grass stretching to the Cher. He wanted to plead for his life, but all he could do was shake with fear and hope somehow to bargain his way out.
The rag was pulled out of his mouth. Gaubert blinked tears and blood. The swallows twittered in the bushes as he crawled toward the glistening Cher.
“Nom de Dieu, the gold’s buried in my barn,” he cried. “Take it.”
Gaubert felt the gun barrel against the back of his head. The last thing he heard was the metallic click of the trigger.
Lichtenberg · Saturday Afternoon
Jean-Claude looked for a taxi. Nothing. Not even a Trabi in these godforsaken, rubbish-strewn East Berlin streets.
He’d seen the tram number and destination—Alexanderplatz. The last stop before the now crumbling Wall. Not much good, but a direction.
Sidonie could be staying in the East or West, no Checkpoint Charlie controls now. Ten to one she hadn’t trusted him to come for her Stasi files, had taken the risk of coming herself.
He had to find her, to see her.
He kept going, crossing wide barren avenues intersected by small cobbled alleys, passing bullet-pocked buildings and vacant lots. Another tram came rumbling and the brakes screeched. He jumped on, his gaze trained on the passersby as it neared the center of town. He’d lost her. Again. Gone.
Paris · Saturday, 6 p.m.
A middle-aged man stepped in front of Aimée, blocking her view of the computer screen and peering at her over drooping black-framed glasses that sat on his cheeks.
“What are you doing in here, mademoiselle? C’est privé.”
Mon Dieu—her gut wrenched. Staring at her on the corkboard was what could be the hit list. And this man, the killer?
Breathe, think, as Papa would, do not run scared. If this was Baret’s bookshop . . .
“You’re trespassing.”
She racked her mind to come up with an excuse. Best defense is a good offense, he’d say.
“Alors, you didn’t hear me call out?” she said. She hefted her bag, expelled air in irritation. “I know I’m late.”
“Late?”
Play dumb and see what he knew.
“Zut! A Métro slowdown. What have I missed?”
She prayed her bluff would work. That he wouldn’t notice her shaking hands.
He looked more irritated than nervous. “Who are you?”
She noticed now his white shirt with a black armband, an old-fashioned mourning tribute. He also wore celluloid cuff protectors. A real last-century bean counter, although she guessed he was only in his thirties. He didn’t look much like a killer. But they didn’t walk around with it stamped on their forehead, as her father often said.
“Monsieur Peltier’s daughter, Elise, sent me. I’m her cousin.” She neglected to say how distant. If this was the killer, she hoped her lie on the fly would protect her. “And you?”
“Mademoiselle Peltier never told me she had a cousin,” he said. From his sneer, she could tell her youth counted against her.
“Calling me a liar now? How does that concern you anyway?”
“I’m going to call the police.”
Merde, this wasn’t working. “Go ahead. But check with Elise first.” Aimée set her bag down on the nearest swivel chair, marking her territory. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.”
He blinked. At least, she thought he did, but it was hard to tell with those glasses.
“I’ll need to verify you’re who you say you are,” he said, his arms braided over his chest. Typical defensive posture.
She smiled. “And I’ll need to do the same, monsieur.”
He shifted on his high-gloss black shoes. “That’s my desk.” He pointed to a name plaque that read M. Pinel, Directeur Financier. It stood next to a small photo of him in hunting gear holding a rabbit carcass.
She suppressed a wince. Dead animals—not her thing. She noted his muscles were visible under his shirt. If he’d murdered two old men, would he . . . ? She pushed that thought aside.
“Not so painful, was it?” She handed him her Leduc Detective card.
“You need more than a fake ID to prove a connection to Mademoiselle Peltier. I’d say you’re fishing around for private corporate information. And a very clumsy effort at that,” he said. “An amateur.”
She hoped the flush burning up her neck didn’t show.
“Well, since you’ve decided,” she said, “let’s get Elise on the phone and explain how obstructive and unhelpful you’re being.” She set her jaw. “Go ahead. Call. I’m wasting time and she’s paying for my services. I charge by the hour.”
His chin quivered. Doubt. Good.
Two minutes and several phone calls later, he hung up. “I’m unable to reach her and confirm your story.”
What the hell was he so cagey about? No customers had come in while she’d been there. The place felt bogus. A perfect front for another kind of business—she thought of a case her father had worked on in Deauville, when a shop had been a front for a gambling den.
“Then we’ll need to figure out how you can cooperate in my inquiry on a trust basis. Clarify for me your relationship with Monsieur Baret and his partners.”
She didn’t know that but took a guess.
“Relationship? I’m just an employee.” Pinel sighed. “Alors, we cancelled the meeting out of respect for Monsieur Baret’s passing. Everyone was informed.”
What meeting? But instead she said, “You mean of Monsieur Baret’s murder, n’est-ce pas?”
He swallowed. His Adam’s apple strained at his starched white shirt collar. “The police notified me this morning.”
“Doesn’t he have family they’d inform first?”
He shrugged. “Maybe they did.”
“You mean at the flat here on this street?”
“He lives . . . lived mostly on Place François Premier now.”
So what meeting with Baret would Elise have known about? Unless the hit list was really the meeting memorandum—it did say agenda and had today’s date.
“How did Dufard and Royant react to the news?”
“You’d have to ask them.”
Aimée sat back down without an invitation. “Look, it’s not my business what goes on here. That’s outside my scope.” She pointed to the black-and-white photo. Took a chance. “But two of those men were murdered. Royant and Dufard might be next.”
>
“Like I said, you’d have to talk to them. I just work here.”
“Where are messieurs Dufard and Royant?”
He adjusted his sleeve cuff. “I left them messages. Haven’t spoken to them in a week.” His pale complexion had flushed pink.
He was hiding something. Or lying.
The phone rang from the shop. “Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to work and for you to leave.”
She stood and made a show of patting Miles Davis, settling him in her basket. Meanwhile she readied her camera, which she’d pulled from her bag. As the bean counter went to the door, his back turned for the first time, she took rapid photos, coughing to hide the clicks. On a last-ditch impulse, as she was following him out the door, she shuffled the closest floppy disk and stack of papers off the corner of the desk and under Miles Davis’s blanket.
Aimée huddled under a blackened stone portico across from the bookstore, hidden by the church’s shadows. It was 7 p.m. and the bookstore would close soon; when Pinel stepped out, she’d follow him. She didn’t know what she would learn from him, but she had a hunch he might lead her somewhere.
She looked at the papers: the first was a spreadsheet, then what seemed like a draft of an article of incorporation. Having the proper company name, she’d be able to locate their business license, shareholders, board, a tax ID—maybe a trail from there. One practical thing she’d learned in med school researching a boring pharmaceutical company.
Just then she saw movement behind the shop door. Pinel turned the open sign over to closed, peered outside. A minute later the lights went out. She pulled on her wool cap, leaned against the damp stone. Minutes passed, and still no Pinel. Night had descended on the dark street.
Merde, he must have gone out that back exit. She let Miles Davis finish doing his business in the gutter. A taxi, its light on, stopped in front of her where rue de Courcelles narrowed. One of its headlights was dimmer than the other. “Non, merci.” She waved it off.
