Murder in the Palais Royal

by Cara Black

  MURDER in the

  PALAIS ROYAL

  ALSO BY THE AUTHOR

  Murder in the Marais

  Murder in Belleville

  Murder in the Sentier

  Murder in the Bastille

  Murder in Clichy

  Murder in Montmartre

  Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

  Murder in the Rue de Paradis

  Murder in the Latin Quarter

  MURDER in the

  PALAIS ROYAL

  Cara Black

  Copyright 2010 by Cara Black

  All rights reserved

  Published by

  Soho Press, Inc.

  853 Broadway

  New York, NY 10003

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Murder in the Palais Royal / Cara Black.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-56947-620-8 (hardcover)

  1. Leduc, Aimee (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women private

  investigators—France—Paris—Fiction. 3. Palais-Royal (Paris, France)—

  Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 5. Paris (France)—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3552.L297M83 2010

  813’.54—dc22

  2009041046

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Vengeance? Kill the one they love.

  —A GYPSY SAYING

  For the ghosts

  MURDER in the

  PALAIS ROYAL

  Contents

  Paris October 1997

  Acknowledgments

  PARIS

  October 1997

  Monday

  AIMÉE LEDUC SMOOTHED her vintage Lanvin blue silk blouse, a flea market find. She was determined, for once, to play by the rules. The rules in this case were set forth in an Elle article: “Now that you’ve met him, don’t blow it. • RULE 1: Bad boy or not, he likes good food.” She hoped this was true of Mathieu, media liaison for a fashion house.

  Opening the balcony doors of her apartment to the twilight, Aimée inhaled the crisp autumn air. Below, streetlights lining the Ile Saint-Louis cast yellow slants of light over the Seine.

  Fallen rose petals on the walnut dining table emitted a faint scent. The slow melodic twang of Django Reinhardt’s guitar sounded in her dining room. She lit the beeswax tapers on the candelabra, blew out the match, watched the slow gray spiral of smoke rise, and crossed her fingers.

  Chloë’s voice came from the kitchen. “But how well do you know him, Aimée?” Tall, with blunt-cut reddish-brown hair and black-framed round owl-like glasses, Chloë had recently sublet the upstairs apartment.

  “Who really knows anyone, Chloë?” Aimée asked.

  Chloë shot her a warning look. “Take it slow. Why rush?”

  But when had she taken anything slowly? Mathieu ignited a spark in her that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Miles Davis, Aimée’s bichon frisé, pawed at his leash. “You’re sweet to take him tonight, Chloë.”

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” Chloë grinned before the door closed behind her.

  Aimée heard her footsteps down the hall. The doorbell rang.

  * * *

  MATHIEU’S DEEP - SET EYES gleamed at her over the black trumpette mushroom fricassee drizzled with white peppercorns. He tore out the nub of the ficelle, a thin baguette. “Eh bien, you should have told me that you cook.”

  She didn’t; she hoped to God she’d weighted down the take-out cartons from Fauchon deep enough in the garbage.

  “You’re quite the gourmet, Aimée. Impressive,” he said. Mathieu was lean and muscular under his V-neck sweater. A silver stud earring showed under his black curling hair as he ran the back of his warm hand along her cheekbone. “What else haven’t you told me?”

  Told him? That tomorrow she was flying to New York to find her brother, a younger brother she hadn’t known existed until two weeks ago when she’d discovered ten-year-old letters with a Manhattan return address. At least that gave her a place to start.

  It was a shame she’d connected with Mathieu on the eve of her departure. But she’d figure that out later, if later happened.

  Her phone rang. She ignored it until the voice of René, her partner, boomed on the answering machine. “Aimée, care to explain the hundred thousand francs making us richer this evening? A payoff from an Eastern European arms dealer? Or did you furnish the Colombian cartel with a safe bank account?”

  Mathieu’s eyebrows rose. She grabbed the phone, explaining, “My partner! A joker. Excuse me.”

  She ran to the kitchen, checking the oven she never used to see if the roasted rosemary chicken had warmed up. “Damn embarrassing, René. Some joke? I’m not laughing.”

  “Me, neither,” René said. “Not that we couldn’t use the money. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “I won the lottery?” Had she even remembered to buy a ticket this week?

  “Lottery winnings arrive in nice big checks, Aimée.”

  He sounded serious.

  “I don’t understand, René.”

  “No client owes us even half that much,” René said.

  “You checked our overdue accounts?”

  A snort came over the line. “Double-checked.”

  Mathieu . . . and the rosemary chicken was burning. “There’s got to be a bank error. A mistake.”

  “Get over here, Aimée, and deal with this. I’m up to my neck organizing the Nadillac investigation.” René exhaled. “Their fee is legitimate money, remember?”

  She racked her brain. No explanation for such a sizable unexpected deposit came to mind.

  “Bien sûr,” she said, reaching into the oven and burning her hand. “Merde! I’ll get back to you soon.”

  Another snort. “Hot date, eh?”

  “In more ways than one, René.” But he’d hung up.

  Monday Night

  IN LEDUC DETECTIVE’S office, René Friant stood and stretched, all four feet of him. Stress, he knew, aggravated the pain of dysplasia common in dwarves his size. Sometimes stretching would alleviate it.

  The beveled mirror over the office’s marble fireplace reflected his computer’s flashing green cursor. A brass arm lamp hanging over his desk provided the only other light. Above him, the chandelier and the woodwork of the carved nineteenth-century ceiling disappeared in shadow.

  This addition of a hundred thousand francs to the business’s currently strapped bank account raised alarms in his head. Hadn’t Aimée championed their latest economy move, insisting that he order printer toner in bulk? And now, no doubt, she was writhing in the arms of another bad boy, too distracted to deal with the bank problem. He tried to push her out of his mind, to repress his feelings for her. As he always did.

  Mentally, he replayed the ongoing computer security projects from which they earned their bread and butter. He knew every client, every firm. There was no explanation for the payment of such a sum. He re-checked the bank’s e-mail notification of the wire transfer. Perhaps the bookkeeping department had made a numerical error.

  Or was Aimée in trouble? Hiding something? Something involving this wild-goose chase across the Atlantic to look for a “brother” who might not even exist. But he and Aimée were best friends, she always said. How could he suspect her?

  Shouts and yells came through the office wall. He sighed. Those crazy Italians in the new travel office next door were watching a soccer championship match, like everyone else on their floor this evening. He switched on Radio Classique. Strains of a Haydn sonata filled the room. Before he dealt with the computer surveillance dossier for Nadillac’s impending trial, he needed a break. The compromising findings in Nadillac’s data files had to be plainly
presented. He needed to clear his mind.

  René assumed a yoga position on the hardwood floor, closed his green eyes, inhaled a cleansing asana breath, then exhaled.

  After a half hour of stretching and yoga poses, he sat up, his limbs and spine more limber, ready to deal with Nadillac.

  He heard the faint tumble of the lock; then the frosted glass door of Leduc Detective opened. Yells came from the soccer fans down the hall.

  “About time, Aimée,” he said.

  He heard only footsteps, then the groan of her desk drawer opening. He turned down the radio and looked up. But the office was dark and the partition blocked his view.

  “Giving me the silent treatment?” he asked.

  René got to his knees, taking his time. There was no reason to throw his back out of alignment before she revealed what she’d withheld over the phone.

  He heard her rooting around in her desk drawer.

  “So you’re angry about our phone conversation.”

  She didn’t answer. He saw a blur in the darkness heading to the coat rack.

  “Zut alors!” René said. “If you’re in trouble, tell me, Aimée.” In the coved doorway he saw light hit the visor of the motorcycle helmet she wore. He hadn’t heard her scooter pull up in the street but then why would he, up here on the third floor?

  Still, why hadn’t she hung up her helmet?

  Yells erupted from the open door of the travel agency. “Another goal!”

  Then he saw the glint of the gun barrel. Her Beretta.

  “Aimée?”

  The muzzle flash illuminated the room for an instant. Amazed, he heard the crack of a gunshot and felt a dull thud in the back brace he wore underneath his handmade Charvet shirt. The impact knocked him sideways.

  Aimée shooting at him?

  He shoved his orthopedic chair, propelling it across the polished wood floor, his five years of judo and black belt training paying off. The chair wobbled as it struck his desk, deflecting the second shot. Then a force like hitting concrete slammed against his chest. The acrid reek of cordite filled the air.

  Pain ripped through him, each breath like a knife twisting inside his chest. Shouts came from the hallway.

  Warm blood spattered his desk, his face. A haze filmed his open eyes. The next shot he didn’t feel.

  Monday Night

  AIMÉE’S CELL PHONE rang from somewhere on the floor. Her legs were entangled with Mathieu’s on the recamier, his breath hot in her ear, his musky scent enveloping her. The phone rang again. And again, insistent. Coming up for air, she scrabbled around and felt for it, locating it lodged under her leopard-skin high heel.

  “Leduc Detective,” she said. “I mean, Aimée Leduc.”

  “Mademoiselle Leduc,” a businesslike female voice said.

  “Emergency ward, Hôtel Dieu.”

  Hôtel Dieu, the public hospital, calling? She tried to sit up, but most of her was under Mathieu’s bare chest.

  “You’re the contact listed for Monsieur Friant in his medical information?”

  “Oui, but what’s happened?”

  Loud pinging noises and the squawk of a loudspeaker broke up the words on the phone at Aimée’s ear. Then she was told, “Monsieur Friant’s in surgery right now.”

  René in surgery. She sat up, pushing Mathieu aside, shaking with fear. René drove like a speed demon behind the wheel. A car accident?

  Her fingers trembled as she zipped up her skirt.

  She’d grabbed her bag and her jacket before she remembered Mathieu, who gazed at her, wide-eyed. He’d shifted his position and stood zipping his jeans.

  She put her hand over the phone. “Sorry, an emergency, Mathieu. Got to go.”

  He’d put his jacket on, a nervous look in his deep-set eyes. “Me too.”

  The hospital lay a few minutes away on the next island, opposite Notre Dame. “Please, what’s happened?” she said into the phone.

  “Ask the police.”

  * * *

  THE FLUORESCENT LIGHTING in Hôtel Dieu’s green hospital corridor flickered, hurting Aimée’s eyes. She’d waited more than two hours with no report on René’s condition, no details except that he’d suffered gunshot wounds. She was not permitted to wait in the relatives’ area. And there had been no sign of the flics, who’d left to respond to another call.

  Horrified, she paced back and forth, breathing in the cloying pine disinfectant. Although it was sparkling clean and antiseptic, she hated hospitals. Most of all, she hated having no information as to René’s condition.

  She’d known René since they’d been at the Sorbonne. After her father’s death on the job in an explosion—a bombing— in the Place Vendôme, she’d veered away from criminal investigation to refocus Leduc Detective on computer security. She’d talked René into bringing his computer skills into the business, and he’d become her partner.

  “Excuse me, s’il vous plaît.” She leaned on the counter. The reception nurse was on the phone, her back to Aimée. “Any word on Monsieur Friant?”

  The nurse shook her head, not even turning around. The Emergency door pinged open. Aimée heard the thump and squeak of a gurney’s wheels rolling over the linoleum. Then footsteps, more footsteps, running. The flash of green scrubs. What Aimée had taken for a gurney was a mobile wheeled unit, the cardiac shock paddles velcro’d to it.

  “OR Room 3, the gunshot patient. Code Blue!”

  Aimée’s heart dropped. René!

  Frantic, she tore past the surgery doors.

  “This area’s restricted,” a nurse shouted. “You can’t come in here.”

  She met angry looks from the green-gowned and masked surgical team. Beside her an aluminum cart held surgical instruments; plastic bags of blood hung hooked to a trolley. “What’s happening? How’s René?”

  “Subdue this woman. Get an orderly to assist!”

  Strong arms grabbed at her. “Can’t I donate blood?” Tears welled in her eyes. “We’re both O-positive.”

  “Control yourself, Mademoiselle, or leave the hospital.”

  She found herself on a plastic chair in an inner waiting room opposite a picture of a stone farmhouse in rolling green fields, reminiscent of her grandmother’s Auvergne farm. Salty tears were stinging her cheeks.

  Across from her stood a statue of the Virgin Mary cloaked in blue. Near the statue, a woman fingered a rosary and rocked on her chair, her eyes pools of pain.

  “My baby.” A sob escaped the woman.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?” The woman blinked. “You don’t know how it feels.”

  Aimée didn’t know what else to say. Silently, she watched the woman rock, wondering how a woman could stand knowing her child was suffering. Wondering if her own mother would have been as bereft, had she been hospitalized. Would that have kept her at home instead of leaving when Aimée was eight years old?

  But self-pity would get her nowhere. Or René.

  “Désolée, you’re right,” she said. “It’s just that my best friend René’s life’s at stake.” Her throat caught.

  The woman set the black-beaded rosary in Aimée’s hands. “Pray with me.”

  So she did. Prayed for this woman’s baby, prayed for René, prayed she could take back every mean thing she’d ever said to him, every idea of his she’d ignored, the way she’d dismissed him on the phone. She didn’t know if prayers would help him or the baby.

  Tuesday Morning

  AIMÉE RUBBED HER eyes; the clock showed 5 A.M. High heels in her bag, she crept from the waiting room, down the hospital corridor. The cold smooth linoleum chilled the soles of her feet.

  In the next corridor, a glassed-in ICU held ten patient beds, each surrounded by machines. Staff, in green scrubs and white lab coats, consulted computers. Behind the reception area, an erasable board listed patients and bed numbers. Beside #6 she saw the name Friant, R.

  She stepped into her heels, combed her fingers through her hair, and opened the glass door to the ICU. Her eyes a
djusted to the bright lights. A steady thrum of beeping noises came from machines, and the smell of alcohol pervaded the room.

  “Excusez-moi, may I see Monsieur Friant?”

  “You’re a relative?” the nurse asked, looking up from a chart.

  “I’m listed on his medical card. The hospital called me.”

  The nurse pointed to a curtain on the left.

  “What’s his condition?”

  She heard short beeping sounds, then an alarm rang. “Cardiac arrest in 10,” shouted someone.

  “The doctor will explain,” the nurse said, rushing off on crêpe-soled shoes.

  Aimée took a breath and parted the white curtains of #6.

  René lay there clad in a child’s hospital gown printed with red fire trucks, his head bandaged, eyes closed, a ventilation tube filling his mouth, a large dressing taped to tubes snaking from his chest.

  She gasped. Helplessly, she watched the rise and fall of the ventilator machine breathing for him. The blip, blip, blip of a cardiac monitor beat in a steady rhythm. She bent down and kissed him, her lips lingering on his fevered cheek.

  She uttered a mantra, “Save him, save him,” to the steady rhythm of the blip, blip, blip. She pulled up a stool near his bed, sat, and took his hand.

  “Don’t die on me, René,” she said. Her lip quivered. “Don’t you dare.”

  She stroked his limp hand. IV drips were connected to tubes taped to his wrist and his dressing. Dawn’s rose-orange glow peeked in a pattern through the hospital window lace curtain. She focused on the band of light streaking across the metal headboard, praying René would wake up. Praying he’d live.

  She heard the patter of footsteps, the clinking of the curtain rings being pulled aside.

  A surgeon in green scrubs, glasses atop his thinning brown hair, consulted René’s chart, then scanned a monitor labeled OXYGEN SATURATION.

  “Is he in a coma, Doctor?”