Murder in the Palais Royal

by Cara Black

  “Wednesday? Impossible.” Gabrielle shook her head. “Roland was negotiating with delegates about the proposal to disclose the National Archives documents. No one can leave negotiations.”

  Her instinct said Gabrielle was telling the truth. Then who had murdered Clémence? But two things seemed certain.

  “Face it, your husband covered up his crime. And he’s still covering up.”

  “Or maybe it was you, Madame?” Out of the corner of her eye she watched Olivier for a reaction. “Did you engineer the coverup?”

  “Liar!” Olivier’s fist shot out.

  Aimée caught his arm, twisted it, and shoved him down onto a red velvet seat. “Make another move and I break your fingers. One by one.”

  “I won’t let you hurt my parents,” said Olivier in the voice of a scared child. “Not you or anyone.” His lips trembled, tears brimmed in his eyes. He looked desperate. “Let me go.”

  “What’s the matter, Olivier?” Gabrielle said. “What haven’t you told me?”

  “How can you of all people ask me that?” He stared at his mother, lip quivering, an accusing look in his eyes. “All through my childhood, there were whispers, people stopped talking when I entered a room. Did you think I didn’t know why grand-père hanged himself? They wanted to imprison him for deporting Jews.”

  A dawning recognition formed on Gabrielle’s face. She gestured to Aimée, who let go. Gabrielle caressed Olivier’s hair, then took him in her arms. “Mon petit, grand-père couldn’t live with his mistakes.”

  “But Papa didn’t mean to.” A sob escaped Olivier. “He didn’t mean to hurt the old couple. I don’t want Papa to hang himself too.”

  “Oh, my God,” Gabrielle’s voice quavered.

  She held her son tight. Her eyes were pools of pain.

  Aimée felt for this woman who had to decide between her son and her husband.

  “My son can’t go to prison for what Roland did.” Her voice was firm as she spoke her decision. “I’ve done things I’m not proud of. But no more. It’s time to tell the truth, break this curse.”

  Curse? Aimée recalled an incident years earlier: a government official had hanged himself in his garden to avoid revelations concerning his notorious Vichy past.

  Aimée stared at her. “Robert Bressac was your father?”

  Gabrielle gave a small nod.

  “No wonder you’re working to keep the National Archives sealed,” Aimée said.

  “You think revelations of my father’s past still matter? Will they bring him back to life? Or the people he sent to their deaths? They’re gone. Smoke.” A tired bitterness crept into her voice. “I just bleach the government’s dirty linen.” A small shrug. “My boss, le ministre, has more to hide than anyone. But he can keep the lid on for only so long.”

  Aimée glanced at her watch. “We need to have a little talk with your husband.”

  Gabrielle averted her eyes, but not before Aimée saw her fear. “Non.”

  “Didn’t you say you wanted to break this ‘curse’ and tell the truth? Now’s your chance.” Aimée pulled out the micro recorder. “It’s all on tape anyway.”

  “You can’t use that,” Olivier said. “It’s illegal.”

  “Try me.”

  Aimée pointed to the red-velvet-quilted door of the box.

  “But we don’t want to be late for your husband’s investiture ceremony at the ministry, do we?”

  Gabrielle blinked back tears. “Please, can’t this wait?”

  Until Roland de la Pecheray became entrenched in the ministry, making the case against him harder to mount? She flicked open her cell phone and hit La Proc’s number.

  “I’m sorry, Madame. Nicolas waited four years, and look what your husband did to him.”

  * * *

  IN THE MINISTRY of Culture’s high-ceilinged anteroom to the Grand Salon, Aimée picked out Roland de la Pecheray hovering near two ministry assistants. He wore a black morning suit and striped silk tie. Pride suffused his face as he saw his wife and son approach. He rushed forward.

  “The ministry staff organized a champagne reception following the investiture, Gabrielle.” He took her arm and Olivier’s. “May I escort my family, whose love and support has brought me here?”

  Through the salon’s open doors, Aimée saw a crowd of well-dressed dignitaries gathered within cream-and-gilt-edged walls. They exuded an almost palpable power. Chandeliers glittered with Bohemian crystal. A scent of honeysuckle wafted through the open balcony doors overlooking the Cour d’Honneur below.

  “Monsieur de la Pecheray,” she said, stepping forward, “I suggest you first view Nicolas Evry’s notebook. In your office.”

  He paused in mid-step, the smile frozen on his face.

  “Roland, let me offer you advance congratulations. Formidable!” said a smiling white-haired man in a blue suit.

  Roland nodded, smiling. “Merci, Conseiller.”

  The conseiller patted him on the back and entered the salon.

  “Admission is by invitation only, Mademoiselle,” Roland said to her in an undertone. “Please leave before you’re escorted out.”

  “I wouldn’t like to make a scene, Monsieur,” she said, “but I will.”

  Roland let go of Gabrielle and Olivier. “What’s going on?”

  Gabrielle’s lip quivered. “Roland, talk to her.”

  “Now? You’re crazy, Gabrielle.”

  Roland caught the eye of a security guard, motioned to him.

  “Not a good idea, Monsieur.” Aimée raised her voice. “Your son’s on tape admitting that you ran over an old Jewish couple and drove off, leaving them for dead.”

  “She tricked me, Papa. I didn’t mean to tell. But you know people. Explain about the accident, and I’m sure they will understand.”

  Roland’s lips pursed. “Putting words in my son’s mouth, Mademoiselle? Hounding and coercing him? I’m pressing charges.”

  Aimée thrust the notebook pages in his face. “Not a good idea. Nicolas Evry recorded payments received from your bank account to shut him up and serve a prison sentence in place of Olivier. And then you engineered his hanging in prison. You were afraid of what he might say once he was released on parole, afraid it would injure your career.”

  The security guard approached, speaking into a small microphone clipped to his collar. A few heads turned.

  “But losing this post is nothing compared to conviction of double murder,” Aimée said. “Clémence was pregnant.”

  “What the hell . . . I don’t understand.”

  Aimée stepped forward and flashed her father’s old police ID with her photo glued to it at the guard. She had to keep de la Pecheray off keel until the flics arrived.

  “My unit’s cooperating with Groupe R and the Brigade Criminelle,” she said to the guard. She hoped Morbier wouldn’t find out and shoot her before she could explain. “It’s imperative that Monsieur de la Pecheray and all of you cooperate.”

  The young guard, in a ceremonial blue, red, and white military uniform with a red sash, looked from her to Roland de la Pecheray.

  “Let me see that.” The guard took her ID. “Ministry security doesn’t take orders from the flics.”

  “You do now.”

  Voices and the buzz of a loudspeaker came from the grand salon. “Mesdames et Messieurs, Monsieur le Ministre, it’s with great pleasure that we welcome a distinguished ministry official to the position. . . ,” a man’s voice droned.

  “Gabrielle, tell them I’m coming,” Roland said, shooting her a look. But Gabrielle stood, in shock, staring at her husband.

  “There’s some mistake.” De la Pecheray was smiling now. A thin smile. “The minister’s waiting. We’ll clear up this misunderstanding afterward.”

  Turning to the guard, Aimée said, “National Security’s involved. Within three minutes you could be called on to evacuate the ministry. Tell the minister that there’s a delay.”

  The guard blinked.

  “Do I need to remin
d you of the lives that are at stake in this building?” she said, mustering as much authority in her voice as she could. “All branches work together regarding National Security. Put emergency protocol in place. Now.”

  “Alors, you mean there’s a bomb threat?”

  “Smart boy. Move.”

  He hurried inside as he spoke into his collar microphone.

  Aimée kicked the doors shut after him. They shuddered on their intricate gold hinges. Now only Gabrielle and Olivier stood beside Roland in the long hallway.

  The honeysuckle scent was stronger now. Pigeons cooed from the balcony.

  “Weak, spoiled idiot.” Roland glared at Olivier. “And after all I’ve done for you.” He hissed at Gabrielle. “The years it took to climb the ladder because of your father. Now you pay me back like this, Gabrielle? Some pangs of conscience? A little late for that.”

  Gabrielle stepped back.

  “Fix this, Gabrielle. Make a call,” he demanded.

  Her eyes wavered. Aimée couldn’t lose her now.

  “I’m afraid not, Monsieur,” Aimée said. “La Proc’s en route to question you.”

  “You’d be surprised at Gabrielle’s connections, Mademoiselle,” Roland said with a little smile. “The ministry takes care of its own. No one here likes surprises. You and that notebook will disappear.”

  “Threatening me like you threatened Olivier? Tell your wife the truth.”

  He shook his head. “Make the call, Gabrielle.”

  “You think your wife will get you off the hook and put her son in prison?”

  Roland shoved Aimée against the half-open glass balcony doors. The long blue drapery caught around her ankles. She stumbled onto the balcony, into the sunlight. Roland’s hands circled her neck, squeezing tight. She couldn’t breathe.

  Screams came from the anteroom. Her arms flailed against the carved stone edge of the balcony. Her body pressed against the ledge, and she was pushed further and further until her shoulders hung in midair. With all her might, she kneed him in the crotch.

  She heard a “Wheuff,” footsteps, voices.

  “Monsieur de la Pecheray, we’re waiting for you!”

  Roland grimaced in pain. She struggled loose and saw the startled exchange of looks between the minister in his morning coat and his staff members.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” the minister demanded.

  “He tried to kill me,” Aimée said, panting. “He was pushing me off the balcony.”

  Blue-uniformed flics edged through the crowd led by La Proc, Edith Mésard, in a tailored black suit.

  “Et alors, never far from the action, Mademoiselle Leduc,” La Proc said.

  Aimée straightened, catching her breath.

  “Nice to see you, too, Madame la Procureur.”

  Friday Afternoon

  “AND WHY HAVEN’T you furnished this information to the Brigade Criminelle, Mademoiselle Leduc?” Edith Mésard, the investigating magistrate, tapped her red-lacquered nails on her briefcase.

  “Considering the sensitive nature of the information involved,” Aimée said, twisting the ring on her middle finger, “I thought it wiser to contact you.”

  “What else, Mademoiselle Leduc?”

  Edith Mésard, La Proc, dealt with crime on a daily basis. Bank robberies and bribery cases before lunch; murder and crimes of violence she saved for the afternoon.

  “Four years ago, I testified in the case you helped prosecute against one Nicolas Evry.” Aimée handed her the notebook, Sicard’s copy-shop receipt, and the microcassette. “But this is evidence that Olivier de la Pecheray was the guilty party in the synagogue arson and, further, that his father killed an old Jewish couple in a hit-and-run vehicular homicide.”

  “Are you saying that there is sufficient reason for me to recommend reopening the investigation and to prosecute a newly posted ministry official?”

  Aimée faced Edith Mésard in the closet-size glassed-in guar-dien’s loge adjoining the Comedie Française. “Technically speaking, de la Pecheray’s post hadn’t become official; but, put that way, oui.”

  “That depends.” Edith Mésard gave a little shrug in her tailored black jacket. “Roland de la Pecheray’s confession would help.”

  “Help?” Frustrated, she shot a glance at Gabrielle and Olivier getting into one police car, Roland into another. “De la Pecheray’s wife admitted paying off Evry to take the blame for their son. You have the bank-account information in Evry’s notebook. His son admitted on tape that his father ran the old people down and fled the scene. He attacked and almost killed me. What else do you need?”

  “It’s a start, Mademoiselle Leduc.” Edith Mésard put the notes from her conversation with Gabrielle de la Pecheray under her arm. “However, Madame de la Pecheray confirmed that on Monday, the night of the attack on Monsieur Friant, her husband attended a ministry party with a hundred and thirty officials and employees who’ll testify that he never left.”

  “He hired a lookalike,” Aimée suggested.“

  You give de la Pecheray too much credit,” La Proc said. “De la Pecheray not only ‘appeared’ at the party, he worked the room. He couldn’t have been impersonated. I find it difficult to believe he found you a threat, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

  “So he tried to throw me off the balcony because he liked me? He was afraid Evry had told me the truth. He was afraid I’d found out too much: about the old couple he’d run down, and about the strangling of Evry’s woman.”

  But Mésard had sowed doubt in her mind. Why would he hire a an impersonator to shoot René? Yet if he hadn’t had René shot, who had?

  Edith Mésard signaled to her driver. “Melac informed me that Tracfin has assembled evidence of your firm laundering illicit funds. You’ve got big problems of your own, Mademoiselle.”

  Hadn’t Saj found the wire deposits’ origin? A link, something?

  “What evidence?”

  “I shouldn’t even have revealed that,” Edith Mésard said. “But considering what you’ve brought to my attention, which of course I will say came from an anonymous source, maybe I owe it to you. Forewarned is forearmed, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

  And with that, Mésard’s heels clicked over the stone pavers to her waiting Renault. If de la Pecheray hadn’t had René shot, or murdered Clémence, she was back at zero. All this for . . . what?

  But right now she had a “big problem” to deal with. Saj hadn’t answered her call to Leduc Detective, nor could she reach him on his cell phone.

  Ten minutes later, she unlocked Leduc Detective’s door. Her desk, René’s, and the shelves were bare. Only outlines in the dust showed where their computers had sat. BRIF must have impounded their computers and, no doubt, taken Saj in for questioning.

  Fear licked up her spine.

  How could they do that?

  Never mind how. They had.

  She sat at her bare desk, cradling her head in her arms. Discovering Nicolas’s notebook, confronting Gabrielle de la Pecheray, obtaining the truth from Olivier, and furnishing the proof to Edith Mésard had gotten her nowhere. Meant nothing. She was still a suspect, no closer to finding the woman who’d attacked René.

  Failure. Her best friend had been shot, her business had ground to a halt. She felt her grandfather gazing down from the framed photo on the shelf. Could hear him saying once again, “A nice mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Aimée.”

  She racked her brain trying to think what she could have done to have endangered René. Revenge, love, or money were the three motives for crime, he’d always say. He’d based his career in the Sûreté and later in Leduc Detective on that.

  What was she missing?

  She sat up and checked the answering machine. No messages. But in the dust on her desk she saw finger marks. Words. And then she made out, in Saj’s hand, LUX-SWISS-CAYMAN.

  Luxembourg banks to Swiss banks, on to Cayman Islands accounts, the usual route traffickers used to launder money.

  She didn’t know how it fit, but sh
e knew who could find out. She punched in Léo Frot’s old number at the Finance Ministry. Three departments later, she found him.

  “Léo? Too bad we didn’t hook up at Club Eros.”

  “I lost you at the whipping post,” he said, his voice low.

  She suppressed a shudder thinking of the whip, the cubicles, and the figure in leather who’d chased her to the Métro.

  “I’m going there tonight,” she said, letting out a big sigh, “if I get my work done. Tracing funds to a Cayman bank is really holding me up.”

  “Forget it, Aimée. No more favors.”

  “Pretend you don’t owe me, Léo.” He never liked being reminded. “Call it a simple favor so I can finish up soon.” She honeyed her voice and paused to let that sink in.

  “How soon?” A hopeful tone crept into his voice.

  “Depends if you can help me or not,” she said. “Tracfin’s tracing an account I need.”

  “Tracfin’s a different branch under the Ministry of Economy,” he said. “Not my stomping grounds.”

  “But you know people, Léo.”

  He knew everyone and massaged egos to get favors.

  “And if I do it?”

  “Alors, if not I’ll be here all night.”

  “Before ten?”

  Like hell she would.

  “Count on it.”

  * * *

  TEN MINUTES LATER , a knock sounded on Leduc Detective’s door. Taking her bag, she opened it, keeping her hand on her Swiss Army knife inside.

  Luigi stood outside on the landing with a sheepish expression. He shifted his feet and put a finger to his lips, pointing to Viaggi Travel’s open door.

  She started to speak, but he shook his head. Warily, she followed him. He closed his office door and turned off the light.

  “Not so fast, Luigi.” What had she walked into?

  Luigi clicked on a small desk lamp. “But it’s for you.”

  A telephone receiver lay on the green blotter of his desk.

  “A call for me here? Why?”

  His eyes flickered over the knife. Then he pointed to his ears, then to her office.

  Before she could say anything, he took his jacket from the chair, turned, and left. She picked up the receiver.

  “Allô?”