Murder on the Quai

by Cara Black

  Careful not to slip, she crouched and crab-walked her way past the glass. At the tall, dark green metal doors, she slid a bolt back. Winced at the loud screeching and slipped out the door. She scanned the street for a taxi—none. She ran.

  Paris · Late Sunday Night

  Shot at. Chased. She couldn’t count on being lucky the next time. There wouldn’t be a next time if she didn’t find the murderer. Even after taking a hot, steamy bath, she’d drifted off to wake up shivering.

  Couldn’t sleep.

  She checked outside the window overlooking the quai for a watcher, a glowing tip of a cigarette, an idling taxi with the windows fogged up. If he was there, she didn’t see him.

  The clock showed 3:00 a.m. Miles Davis was nestled on her duvet, and her grandfather’s snores issued from his back wing. An empty bottle of champagne on the table—no sense trying to wake him up. She gathered her father’s wool bathrobe around her, pulled on thick socks, and paced. Streaks of light glimmered from the quai-side lamps over the rippling Seine. Everything crowded in her head; her hands jittered. Even the tilleul tea didn’t calm her nerves.

  What would Papa do?

  She checked the answering machine. No message. Dialed into Leduc Detective’s answering machine. Only a message left yesterday from his secretary—still in bed sick with le rhume.

  Nerves eating her up, she tried to think. What had she missed? What didn’t add up?

  Note everything, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, her father would say. If an investigation stalled or got stuck, he’d go back over his notes. Reread them and tease out, with a fine-tooth comb, whatever didn’t make sense—a detail uncorroborated, an alibi that should be rechecked.

  And when that failed, he’d sigh and go back to the beginning.

  She took out Georges Ducray’s stapled file, the copy of the report she’d given Elise, her notes from her anatomy notebook. Crawled back in bed with Miles Davis, pulled up the duvet, and started reading, underlining and circling words.

  Paris · November 13, 1989 · Monday Morning

  By the time the copper light of dawn crept over the mansard roofs and pepper-pot chimneys across the Seine, her head was swimming with it all.

  Miles Davis whined. Sniffed her sleeve. A telltale sign he was about to leave a puddle on the floor.

  “At your command, fluff ball.”

  Throwing on her leather pants and a mohair Sonia Rykiel sweater, she grabbed a wool scarf and duffel coat and slipped into her ballet flats. A quick check of the suitcase-sized fridge revealed the sum total of a second bottle of champagne, this one still full.

  What could she feed the poor thing at this time of the morning?

  Miles Davis watered the pear tree in the courtyard. His keening told her he wanted a walk on the quai.

  “New route today,” she said, leashing him up and going out the back way, so narrow her shoulders rubbed the old stone. A thick plank door let them out on rue Saint-Louis en l’Îsle, the main artery of Ile Saint-Louis.

  At this time of the morning, in the spreading hint of dawn, buildings were still in shadow, and little moved or stirred. She smelled baking bread from the boulangerie. Wary, she walked, keeping an eye out for a taxi, any trace of suspicious movement. Only a sleepy street overlaid with mist. She needed to clear her head. Breathe in the crisp air, let Miles Davis scamper and do his business.

  At the tip of the island, she came across a couple, laughing, arms around each other, on their way home. Some party, she thought. For a moment she wished she’d just stayed at Martine’s party, forgotten about Elise and her broken phone call.

  “Aimée.”

  Stiffening, she turned to see Paul, the Ile Saint-Louis butcher, loading his truck. “I’ve got that order for le vieux. Mind taking it before I go to the market? I’m helping my son out today.”

  All the butchers in Paris knew her grand-père.

  In the shop, Paul came out from the back wiping his hands on his apron. “A little something for the pup—fresh horse meat, eh? They love it.”

  Miles Davis stood up on his hind legs, pawing the cabinet.

  “See, I told you.” He handed her the lamb wrapped in white paper for her grandfather and a special white-waxed-paper packet for Miles Davis.

  “I didn’t bring my wallet, Paul. Can you put it on the account?”

  A nod. “Alors, let’s see . . .” He’d gone behind the register. On a long sheet of butcher paper taped to the back wall, he wrote 20 francs under Leduc. He noticed her look. “State of the art, eh? My son says I need a computer. Pah, a quick glance and I see it all at once.”

  Aimée stared at it. It was like a map of the island: who ate what and when, who owes how much. She had an idea.

  “Paul, roll me out some extra butcher paper. Add that to our account.”

  In the kitchen, Miles Davis inhaled the horse meat, licked his chipped Limoges bowl clean. Aimée munched the hot brioche she’d cadged from the bakery, swept the flaky crumb from her lip, and added another name to the butcher paper she’d taped to the wall. Sipped an espresso, strong and lethal, she’d made from grinding the last coffee beans.

  Under Persons Involved—Suspects? she’d written a list:

  Suzy

  Gypsy taxi driver

  Clément

  Georges Ducray

  Bruno Peltier

  Alain Dufard

  Philbert Royant

  Baret

  executed Mayor Gaubert?

  Thérèse and Bertrand Jagametti

  Elise Peltier and Renaud de Bretteville

  Marc from the resto

  Madame Peltier

  Pinel, the accountant

  the fifth German

  Under Motive:

  gold

  control of bank?

  investments and property—greed

  revenge for the executions in Givaray?

  ritual murder, or just made to look that way?

  Under that, a rough timeline:

  December 1942—Alphonse Gaubert murdered

  October 9, 1989—Bruno Peltier murdered

  November 9, 1989—Berlin Wall falls

  November 10, 1989—Baret’s body discovered

  Nothing spoke to her yet. She added method:

  Sten gun

  bound extremities

  rags

  9-mm bullet casings

  What wasn’t she seeing? She stepped back and thought. She needed the whole picture.

  So she mapped out the locations much as her anatomy professor had diagrammed the central nervous system—he’d called it the geography of the body, explaining how the brain and spinal cord connected the entire body through cause and effect. She sketched a rough diagram of Chambly-sur-Cher, the river, the mill, Givaray, the Peltiers’ house, Gaubert’s abandoned barn, Madame Jagametti’s house with its cellar and tunnel, and approximate locations of Dufard’s and Royant’s houses. She added Georges Ducray’s cheese shop and his X showing the discovery site of the German troop truck, and a big X for the Vierzon train station. Interesting, she thought, how the rail line threaded the whole damn area like little neurons attached to a spinal cord.

  She took an old blue marker and drew lines connecting the names to locations. A blue spider web appeared. Miles Davis sat attentive, his paws crossed, eyes never leaving her.

  “What do you think, fluff ball?”

  He cocked his head.

  Nothing jumped out. She dunked her brioche and downed the espresso. Keep going, somehow she’d see a pattern, or a multiple connection that would point to the killer.

  Next she drew a circle for Paris, inside it a triangle for le triangle d’or in the eighth, and sketched dots for Le Gogo on rue de Ponthieu, the resto Laurent, the quai under Pont des Invalides, Baret’s, Peltier’s, Royant’s, and Dufard�
��s addresses, the hunting bookshop, and Banque Lazare.

  What was she missing?

  She taped up the murder-scene photos Vortek had developed, the photo Elise had given her of Bruno, the wartime snapshot of the men in Chambly-sur-Cher. Mulling it over, she stepped back to see the big picture.

  She heard the phone ring once before her grand-père stumbled into the kitchen. “Ça va, ma puce?” He kissed her. “Mon Dieu,” he said, glancing at the butcher paper on the wall before picking up the phone. “Allô?” He handed her the phone. “Morbier,” he whispered. “Sounds serious.”

  She grabbed it. “What’s happened, Morbier?”

  “Meet me at the commissariat on rue d’Anjou. Now, Aimée.”

  Commissariat on rue d’Anjou, Paris

  Monday Morning

  “What’s so important, Morbier?” Aimée’s chest heaved. She’d skipped anatomy class and run up the commissariat stairs two at a time.

  “Bonjour to you, too, Aimée,” said Morbier. “Assieds-toi.”

  On edge, she couldn’t sit. Placed her hands on the desk.

  “Last night the old coot called it in, non? The gypsy taxi on rue du Rocher? Did you find the killer?”

  Morbier’s perplexed expression became an irritated one. “Écoutes, Aimée, I’m telling you this for your own good . . .”

  He hadn’t found the killer. Her heart sank. “I was shot at last night and—”

  “Shot?” Morbier shook his head. “We’ll get to that in a minute. There’s something you need to know.” He shot a look at the door.

  Shining her off? Fuming, she sat down. Ancient Sergeant Timset, long overdue for retirement, shuffled in bearing two demitasses of steaming espresso, a file under his arm. She hated how he surveyed her legs.

  “Commissaire, here’s the communiqué with the telexed photos.”

  “Merci.” Morbier took the file and an espresso, and waved him out after Aimée had taken hers.

  Aimée plopped in two brown sugar cubes, stirred with the tiny spoon while Morbier scanned the file.

  “Bon, Aimée, c’est entre nous. The Chambly-sur-Cher gendarmerie responded to a call this morning in the Sologne region near the Loire Valley. Two men were found bound, gagged, and shot in the head, on the Cher riverbank.”

  She gasped.

  “The report came in to us because the victims reside . . . resided in the eighth arrondissement. Their names were Philbert Royant and Alain Dufard.”

  Her mind spun. Only yesterday old Dufard had turned nervous when she mentioned the fifth German. When she’d asked him who was after them, he’d fluffed her off.

  She didn’t know what to make of their murders—the attack on her and how it connected. But it did.

  Chewing her lip, she pointed to the photos in the file. “Can I see?”

  “Not pretty, Aimée.”

  “I read ELLE when I want pretty.”

  “Not supposed to . . .”

  She shoved away the thought that Morbier was sharing this with her because he wanted something. She took the folder.

  On the riverside by the mill, two figures were slumped behind crime-scene tape. Royant’s gag had slipped and glistened with vomit, his mouth a rictus, frozen in a scream. Dufard’s head was cocked sideways, a look of cold fear caught in his dead eyes.

  Horror-struck, she covered her mouth. Yet hadn’t she suspected they were next? Tried warning them?

  When she found her voice, she said, “Just like Baret and Peltier. I told you they were in danger.” She stared at the photo. “All four were murdered in a ritual style. It’s symbolic.”

  Her mind went to Clément—his obvious feelings for Elise, the fact that he’d discovered Mayor Gaubert’s body, shot just like this, back in 1942. Now he was the only man who had been on the riverbank that day who was still alive. But Georges Ducray had a more obvious motive for revenge, if he thought these men were responsible for the execution of his father and the others in the village.

  “It smells like revenge,” Aimée said. “Either for the sixty villagers who were executed by the Germans in 1942, or for the mayor who was supposedly shot by the resistance.”

  Morbier sighed. “More fantasy, Aimée? First you think you’ve been shot at—”

  “Nazi gold, Morbier,” she interrupted. “The four executed old men—Peltier, Baret, Royant, Dufard—they stole it from German soldiers, who they murdered, melted it down, ignored the German reprisals, shot the mayor to keep it quiet. There’s proof.”

  Morbier shook a Gauloise out of its cellophane packet, scratched a kitchen match on the desk’s edge. Lit up, inhaled, sat back and exhaled a plume of smoke.

  “Proof which I’m sure you intend to furnish,” he said. “Leaving your fantasy aside for now, how do you explain this? It was found in Dufard’s wallet.”

  He slid a faxed sheet over the table, wedging it under her demitasse. It showed her faux PI business card and what appeared to be a torn paper fragment with the words Aimée Leduc 11:00.

  Merde! Who in the hell would have written that? Unless it was one of the old men who’d followed her, or the killer to implicate her.

  “Oh, that?” She couldn’t deny it, had to tell him some version of the truth. “Yes, yes, I saw them. Sometime in the morning. But I didn’t give him my card. You should be looking for suspects in the village they come from.”

  “This playing detective needs to stop, Aimée.”

  Playing detective?

  “Morbier, I’m getting close. The killer drives a gypsy taxi—check the call-ins last night on rue du Rocher.”

  Morbier stabbed out his Gauloise in the overflowing ashtray.

  “Some old fart on rue du Rocher reported an intrusion, another insisted the Germans were coming.” Morbier sighed. “And for now I’m going to close my eyes to this. Pretend they didn’t report a girl fitting your description.” He leaned forward. “Your father wouldn’t appreciate this, Aimée. I helped because . . . zut, because of the family connection.”

  “You were the one who referred Elise to us, remember?”

  “Yes, and this has gone way further than I ever recommended. The brigade criminelle’s working their end. I referred the woman to get her off my back and make some business for your father. You should be studying and leaving this alone.”

  She thought of her father—the last she’d spoken to him was when he’d been rushing for the train. “Papa hasn’t called from Berlin. I’m worried.”

  A knowing look filled Morbier’s deep brown eyes. “He doesn’t want to know about this silly playing detective. And he won’t.”

  “Four men murdered ritualistically—that’s silly? I don’t know why you’re not following up on what I’ve found.”

  Morbier crumpled his empty pack of Gauloises, threw it in the bin. Missed. Pulled another from his pocket. “If your father won’t put his foot down, I will. Time you listen to sense.”

  “Sense?” She flushed. “Papa’s in Berlin searching for my mother’s records. He lied to me about why he was going. Won’t even reply to my calls. Are you in on it too?”

  “Little fool, he’s protecting you. Why can’t you get that through your head and leave all that alone? You’re a medical student—someday your real business card will say Doctor Leduc. How proud you’ll make him. Me.”

  Her throat caught. She wanted to make her father and Morbier happy. She did. Yet she heard Grand-père’s words—you take after me. He’d said her only duty to her family was to be passionate in what she attempted.

  She’d tried. But she knew she’d had enough. Couldn’t stomach it anymore.

  “Bien sûr, medicine is difficult, Aimée,” said Morbier, striking another match. “Stick to it. You’re smart, you’ll make it. Nothing worth doing doesn’t have its potholes.”

  Her father said the same thing.

  “You’ll
be using your skills to treat those in need. It will be a secure income, rewarding work. You’ll spend your life surrounded by esteemed physicians.”

  She dropped her demitasse spoon. “Like I want that. Medical school and the esteemed physicians are as corrupt as the préfecture.”

  Morbier examined the cuticle of his left thumb. Danger signal. “And you know this how, Leduc?”

  From Morbier, that counted as an insult. “Since when am I ‘Leduc’?”

  “As long as you talk to me like those I put in lockup—all attitude and mouth.”

  She swallowed. “You don’t understand. Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

  “Classique. That’s the line of poetry they all quote.”

  She slammed her fist on the table, scattering papers. “Four old men murdered—two I warned you about—and you rake me over the coals? Instead of treating me like a child, why don’t you investigate the case? I’ve done all the work, put the pieces right in front of you.”

  She stood, grabbed her bag, and wheeled around, bumping into the leering sergeant, who was hovering at the door. “Bad day in school, mademoiselle, or that time of the month?”

  She almost slapped him.

  “I’m keeping this file in my desk,” said Morbier, reaching for the phone. “No tantrums, Leduc, or you’ll get a spanking.”

  Mortified and seething, she kicked the bollard in the courtyard. Wished she had Morbier’s head to drop-kick instead.

  Her stomach knotted. She’d been shot at and did he listen? Mais non, dismissed with a warning of a spanking, as if she were five years old.

  She’d show him—all of them. The killer was on the loose, and she was going to stop him. Stop him before he stopped her.

  That photo Morbier had shown her of a bound Dufard and Royant with the old mill in the background haunted her. Twinges of guilt rustled like the plane tree leaves on the quai. Had she stirred up Georges Ducray to revenge? Or Clément, who’d said . . .