Murder in the Palais Royal

by Cara Black

  Léo had moved to the Finance Ministry last year. He’d avoided her calls after she’d done him a favor. A big-time favor on his credit authorization, in return for giving her entry into the police database. Not that she felt like catching up. Especially since he was wearing a cloak and, she imagined, nothing underneath. But he owed her. And she’d kick herself if she didn’t grab this opportunity to dig for a connection to Tracfin.

  “You swing, Léo?”

  His eyes glittered. “Call me a gangster of love, Aimée,” Frot said.

  Self-important, as usual.

  “But you’re dressed, Aimée. Get into the swing.”

  Léo pronounced it “sweeeng.”

  “How’s life at Bercy, Léo?” People in the know referred to the Ministry of Finance by its location, even though it had moved there ten years ago.

  “Forget it, Aimée. I come here for pleasure, enjoyment; not work.”

  “Don’t you remember, you owe me?”

  “Not officially.”

  He knew everyone. “Connected” was Léo’s middle name. “So, unofficially, can I reach you. . . .”

  “Near the whipping post.” Léo smiled and swept away, his cloak trailing on the floor.

  Dangle something and reel him in, she thought. But at the whipping post, a fur-covered contraption, she hesitated. Flagellation wasn’t her thing, especially with a bald man, sweat dripping down his back, moaning in ecstasy “I’m so bad, bad, bad. . . .”

  Léo asked her, “Why don’t you cool off?”

  “Like this?” She unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. Thank God she’d worn her Agent Provocateur black bra edged with fuchsia lace. Tease and retreat, that was her plan.

  Her last button undone, she shook her hair back, then forked her fingers through her hair. “You will serve me.” She directed Léo to the cubicle behind him. “Now.”

  “Yes, mistress.”

  Léo, abject and wanting domination. She’d guessed right. She’d use this opportunity to worm a name out of him. And, with luck, avoid that cape and what was under it.

  She sensed a presence, edging closer in the shadows of a figure wearing a harlequin mask. She saw the glint of studs on a motorcycle jacket. A hand cupped her shoulder, pulling her. Léo had disappeared into the cubicle.

  The hair rose on her neck. “Get your hands off me.”

  “I think you and I belong together”

  The grip tightened, like a vise digging into her skin, tugging her behind the billowing red silk panels. She leaned down, biting his knuckles hard. The hand let go; a yelp of pain was muffled by the mask he wore.

  The exit; where was the exit?

  She ran behind the silk panels, reached the door, and slipped outside. In the courtyard, the static of a walkie-talkie echoed above in the chill air. Light shone on the cobblestones from the lit apartments above. The flic was still questioning Dita; she’d have to wait until he left. Her mind went back to Clémence’s pale face, her lifeless body, the small swelling in her belly.

  Then the club’s door opened. Disco music drifted out, accompanied by the clomp of boots. She had a brief glimpse of a leather jacket.

  She had to leave. Now.

  She kept to the shadows, hugging the building, pulled the entry door open, and ran out to the street. The orange, blue, and white light bar on the roof of the empty flic car bathed the buildings. Her heart beat to the clicking of her heels on dark rue Thérese. Footsteps sounded behind her, at first keeping pace. Then gaining.

  Shivering in the chill air, she turned her head. A dark figure. A man or a woman, she couldn’t tell; but the sheen of a black leather jacket that caught the streetlight.

  She ran now. Her legs pumping, perspiration trickling between her shoulder blades. Another block and she’d reach Avenue de l’Opéra and the Métro.

  At the corner, she spied the sign and ran down the Métro steps into the station. At the turnstile for the Number 7 line, she pulled out her Métro pass. Expired. Her chest heaving, she rooted in her bag for change. None.

  She set her hands on the turnstile, heaved herself up, and swung her legs over. A train rumbled on the platform below. Sprinting, and knowing she’d feel it tomorrow, she ran like hell down the steps. She regretted that last cigarette. Three weeks, two days, and four hours ago.

  She caught the train’s doors as they started to close, pulled them apart with all her might, and ducked inside.

  A man peered at her from behind a newspaper, then sniffed in disapproval. Panting and clutching her sides, she leaned her head against the glass door. A figure ran onto the platform as the train pulled out of the station. The mec who’d chased her from the club? But the train picked up speed; the smell of burning rubber and the screech of metal took over as the train entered the tunnel. She collapsed onto a seat and buttoned her blouse.

  Thursday Morning

  STANDING AT THE kitchen window, Aimée pulled her father’s old wool robe around her. Outside, dawn spread a hazy peach glow over the blue-tiled rooftops. Coffee in hand, she studied the Seine’s dark green eddies and lace-like foam from a passing barge. Brown leaves swirled in the current, sucked into the depths of a whirlpool, mirroring her feelings after last night: Clémence murdered, Nicolas’s notebook gone, René, wounded, in a clinic. She sighed. The list went on. Melac suspected her, and the financial flics expected answers concerning the hundred thousand francs plus, the source of which she had no idea about.

  And, instead of finding her brother in New York, she still had only two ten-year-old letters lying next to the coffee press. She picked up the last one, struggling with the simple English, rereading the faded childish script:

  We move all the time. Mom calls it traveling. She keeps your photo and says you’re my big sister. Sometimes she talks on the phone late at night in the booths near the public restrooms. But I don’t understand. She said “merci” once and that’s the only French word I know. Mom doesn’t know I found this address, so maybe this reaches you, maybe not. I don’t know who my Daddy is—but I don’t think we have the same one. You can’t write me back, she’d find out and who knows where we’ll be. I think we’re in trouble.

  Julien

  She stared at the name: Julien. He’d written so long ago, and here in Paris what could she do?

  A wet tongue licked her ankle. “Hungry, furball?” Miles Davis wagged his tail.

  At least she’d stocked up on horsemeat from the butcher. From her suitcase-sized fridge she pulled out a waxed paper parcel and spooned the horsemeat into Miles Davis’s chipped Limoges bowl.

  Her bedroom phone rang. No one ever called her this early except René. She felt a flash of hope. “Let’s talk with uncle René, Miles.” But Miles kept his head in the bowl.

  She ran to her room, caught her bare foot on the clothes she’d left in a heap on the floor last night, and stubbed her toe hard on the bed frame. She yelped in pain. Hopping up and down, she reached for the phone. And she noticed an overseas number displayed.

  Jack Waller, of course. With the time difference, it was late afternoon in New York. The answering machine clicked on. Stupid, stubbing her toe, and not reaching the phone in time!

  “Mademoiselle, an old address turned up a new lead. I recommend that you consider coming over.” His New York accent filled her bedroom, along with car horns blaring in the background. “My contact’s meeting me soon. But I’ll call you later. . . .”

  She hit the callback number. A strange voice in incomprehensible English repeated itself several times. The gist of it, she figured, meant no calls accepted at a public phone booth.

  He’d found something about her brother important enough to make him call her. That meant he hadn’t given up.

  Her cell phone containing his own number sat charging in her office. But he’d said he would call her back. Her message light was flashing. She’d been too tired to check the answering machine last night.

  She hit PLAY and heard Melac’s voice demand that she call him at his office, askin
g why she hadn’t answered his repeated calls to her cell phone.

  Her excitement over Jack Waller’s message evaporated. A bad feeling came over her. Melac couldn’t have seen her last night. Or could he?

  Prioritize. She had to prioritize. Nicolas’s notebook came first. If the killer hadn’t found it yet—a slim chance existed—she had to search Clémence’s apartment and question Dita. And print out last year’s tax statement before her appointment.

  While the statement was printing, she grabbed the closest jewelry, oversize earrings. From her armoire, she took a geometric-print vintage dress, and found the only shoes she could wear with an aching, stubbed toe, peep-toe blue wedge heels.

  Grabbing her secondhand Vuitton bag, she checked among her lipsticks, glad she’d taken care of that yesterday, and threw in mascara. She took the slim black coat from the rack. Downstairs, she let Miles Davis water the pear tree in the courtyard of her seventeenth-century building.

  “Changing your mind again, Mademoiselle Leduc?” Her concierge, Madame Cachou, in the doorframe of the concierge loge, peered at her over reading glasses. “You staying or going?”

  Aimée had hired Madame Cachou to mind Miles Davis during her trip. “My trip’s cancelled, Madame.”

  “So the flic said. But one keeps asking for you.”

  “Tall, black hair?”

  “More like short, motorcycle outfit. Undercover, he said.”

  The last thing an undercover flic would tell a concierge.

  “With a scar here?” Aimée pointed to the corner of her eye.

  Madame Cachou nodded.

  Manu. He knew where she lived. Had he chased her to her home from Club Eros after all?

  “He’s not a flic, Madame.”

  “Your boyfriend? I can’t keep up with all of them.”

  “If you see him again,” she interrupted, giving her Melac’s card, “call Inspector Melac.”

  “At the Brigade Criminelle?”

  “Careful, he’s armed and dangerous.” Aimée handed her Miles Davis’s leash.

  Madame Cachou swallowed. Her gruff tone evaporated. “Ready for the park, Miles Davis?”

  * * *

  AIMÉE CAUGHT THE Number 29 bus at Bastille and fifteen minutes later entered the open courtyard door on rue de Richelieu leading to Club Eros. Fronted by green garbage bins, the club looked gray and anonymous this morning. She mounted the apartment-building stairway, the wood banister smelled of lemon oil. On the next floor, she found the nameplate Dita Louvois. The door stood ajar.

  A break-in? She reached for her Swiss Army knife.

  But a woman stepped out, cell phone to her ear, shifting the canvas bag she carried to her other arm. Medium height, her brown hair piled back and held by a clip, pointed Louis heels, jeans, orange lipstick, and raincoat to match.

  “Dita?”

  The woman looked up. Aimée noted her red-rimmed eyes. “Let me call you back, Jojo.” She clicked her phone off. “Oui?”

  “I need to talk with you concerning Clémence.”

  The flics questioned me.” Dita grabbed the doorknob, “ready to shut the door. “I told them all I knew.”

  “It’s important. Clémence was supposed to meet me last night.”

  “You’re the one Madame Fontenay called about.” Sarcasm layered her voice. “Who are you?”

  “Aimée Leduc.” She showed her PI license. “May I come in?”

  “So you’re investigating her murder? But the flics said it’s part of all the recent robberies in the quartier. A robbery gone bad.”

  “Lazy flics would say that,” Aimée said.

  Dita gave a little shrug. “I’ve got a meeting.”

  “Give me five minutes, that’s all.”

  “What’s the use?” Dita’s voice sounded hollow.

  “I found Clémence with a weak pulse and gave her CPR until the paramedics arrived.” Aimée stared at Dita. “But it was too late.”

  “Just a few minutes.” Dita gestured inside.

  The apartment—high-ceilinged rooms with raised white plaster boiserie, chipped woodwork, and paneled doors— exuded a faded charm. With a coat of paint, in view of its proximity to the Louvre, Comédie Française, the Banque de France, and government offices in former palaces, it would go for a lot on the market. Yet, even with its cachet, this arrondissement had the lowest population density in Paris.

  Green metal park chairs around a wine cask doubling as a table gave the impression of an urban campsite. A half-empty bowl of café au lait stood on a trestle. Morning light, yellow as gold leaf, slanted from the skylight.

  Dita asked, “Why did you lie to Madame Fontenay?”

  “Lie? Clémence asked for my help after her ex was murdered in prison yesterday.” She left out the part about Clémence’s blackmail scheme.

  Dita took a tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose. “There’s little I can say. We shared an apartment, but we hardly saw each other.”

  Aimée set her bag on the floor, determined to get more information. A large open leather box with several swing drawers filled with makeup sat near a rectangular gold-framed mirror propped on the floor. Pots of powder and rouge were strewn about.

  “But wasn’t Clémence in tears yesterday? Her ex had just left La Santé in a coffin.”

  “Tears? She was more angry at her cook boyfriend, the salaud, who was harassing her.” Dita stood near the window. “Look, she needed a place, and I needed a roommate. That was the extent of it.”

  “How long did you know her?”

  Dita lit a cigarette and blew a plume of smoke. Her hand shook.

  Aimée tried to ignore the smoke blowing in her direction. Dita still hadn’t answered her question.

  “So, you didn’t know her long?”

  Dita’s eyes were far away.

  “Clémence came from Toulouse,” Aimée said, trying to draw her out. “But you sound Parisian.”

  “Born and bred. Like you,” Dita said without missing a beat.

  Aimée noticed a takeout menu on the table and took a guess.

  “Did you meet her at the bistro in Palais Royal?”

  Dita nodded. Took another drag. She sat down as if she’d made a decision. “Here’s what I know. We had the perfect arrangement. She worked at the bistro. Didn’t need Métro or bus fare.” Dita crushed the cigarette out in a saucer. “She was very young, a wild child. You know, Clémence had moved around. She got the bistro job from the owner, a fellow Tou-lousain. Clémence couldn’t serve worth a franc, but customers liked her.”

  “Clémence was four months pregnant.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.” Dita shook her head. “From that creep Carco?”

  “Not according to Clémence. Didn’t she talk about Nicolas, her ex in prison?”

  “Maybe once. Alors, we had different schedules and I needed to pay the rent. Having a roommate gives me extra so I can finish the advanced makeup course and work my way up to do the principals.”

  “Principals?”

  “The lead actors in the Comédie Française,” she said. “If that’s all?”

  “Nothing else?”

  “According to her, she’d made her butter,” Dita said. “But I’d say she was going to chase the rainbow south. Back to Maman and a sty full of pigs.”

  “Making her butter” meant she had scored big-time. Aimée sat up.

  “Who was financing her butter in Paris?”

  “She claimed she hadn’t cashed in yet, but any minute . . . .” Dita expelled air from her mouth, shrugged. “Like always.”

  “Dita, she planned to show me her ex’s notebook last night.”

  “Talk to the flics,” she said.

  “Someone murdered her for Nicolas’s notebook. If it’s here, I need to see it.”

  Dita’s cell phone rang.

  “Take your call.” Aimée stood. “May I see Clémence’s room?”

  “I’m not sure you should poke around.”

  “I’ll look around, that’s all.”
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  Dita’s hands paused on her phone. “Over there. Then I need to leave.”

  In Clémence’s high-ceilinged bedroom, she found a mattress on the floor, a poster of Johnny Hallyday at the Olympia circa 1995, a canvas carryall, and a Bon Marché shopping bag. Several Voici magazines were strewn on the floor.

  She knelt on the floor and emptied Clémence’s carryall: a pair of jeans, cotton skirts, a makeup kit with Bourjous eyeliner. Nothing else.

  Disappointed, she searched the Bon Marché bag. To her surprise, she found a man’s black T-shirt, Levi’s, loafers and a corduroy jacket, all in fashion four years ago. A thick linked ID bracelet, engraved “Nicolas” and a form stamped “La Santé” at the top that read December 13, 1993, incarcerated; October 5, 1997, deceased. Under family members, a sister, Maud Evry with an address in Lille was listed as well as Clémence, as “spouse.”

  Nicolas’s possessions were all contained in a shopping bag. He was a wannabee, eager to join Les Blancs Nationaux and elevate his status by torching a synagogue. He’d boasted of it and landed in prison.

  She searched the jacket pockets and found only a used caked-hard Kleenex. He’d been someone’s brother. Had his sister lost track of him or disowned him? But that was not her concern. Still, she felt she was overlooking something important. Something that was staring her in the face.

  Wouldn’t Clémence have had a bank account or at least wage stubs, and rent receipts? In the carryall’s outside pocket, she found a much-read copy of On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and a pamphlet entitled Eat Right in Your Second Trimester from the local maternity clinic.

  She put everything back with care. Her hands trembled as she replaced Clémence’s meager possessions. For Clémence there would be no country air for her baby; no baby. She closed the suitcase buckle.

  No notebook. She sat up, her worst fears realized, with a heavy heart. Nicolas’s notebook had gone with Clémence’s killer. And she had gotten no further.

  She pictured the deserted Palais Royal passage, the shadowed columns. The killer could have hidden behind any of them, followed Clémence, and, taking advantage of the deserted place, argued with her, demanded the notebook, and, when she refused, strangled her.

  Or had it been the chef after all, using the tunnels, who’d taken her things to make it look like robbery? Unlikely.