Murder in Pigalle

by Cara Black

  “But you already have.” Saj smiled. “Earned good karma helping each other.”

  “If only it were that simple, Saj.”

  Saj’s amber prayers beads caught between his fingers. “What did you do now, Aimée?”

  She gave him a quick version. Told him about Jules. Minimized the shooting.

  “Shooting … in your condition?”

  “Zut! Pregnancy’s not a disease. Look, it was either him or—”

  “No way whoever contracted Jules for this information will let Zacharié get away,” interrupted Saj. “Or you. You’re implicated all right.”

  Her thoughts, too. Fear vibrated through her. “What if the bent cop left insurance?”

  “We need to think this through,” said Saj.

  She pulled out what she’d discovered in his pockets. His phone, the police ID from his wallet—Assistant Chief of Internal Affairs, a bœuf-carotte. Saj whistled. “He must have been desperate, or he wouldn’t have made stupid mistakes. How’d Zacharié get involved?”

  Before she could answer, Zacharié appeared in the doorway. His shoulders heaved. “That’s the beauty of it,” he said. “Jules used everyone to pave his way from Internal Affairs to the Ministry. For years he’s kissed ass, lied, covered up and looked the other way. With the information in the file, he’d seal the evidence. Get his Ministry post. No one could afford for him not to.”

  Internal affairs and links to the Ministry … did that connect to Morbier’s corruption investigation?

  “Apart from the Corsican, his henchman, only Marie-Jo and I …” His throat caught. “Link to him.”

  She scrolled Jules’s call log. One number repeated. “Except this caller. I’d say he’s implicated, or a client for the hands-off material.”

  “Merde. I’ve got to think this through,” Zacharié said. “Act smart for once. Outwit the salaud.” He glanced back to the bedroom, where Zazie sat talking to Marie-Jo as she packed. “After I married, Jules came back into my life,” he said. “He’d risen in the force. Changed. But I had a crazy wife and my little girl. I was weak. Took the easy way. Let him wrap me around his finger. I did things for Jules I shouldn’t have.”

  Doubts assailed her. At the end of the day, she had risked her baby’s life to nail a bent flic. The price of recovering Zazie and Marie-Jo? Yet she still didn’t know anything about the rapist—who was still on the loose.

  “What did you mean when you told me Jules created a diversion in Ivry?” Aimée asked. “I don’t get it. The girls were tracking a rapist who attacked their friends. This must connect.”

  “Connect?” Zacharié shook his head. “Apples and oranges. It was convenient when it came up, so Jules used it. And to mask a robbery …” His words caught.

  A bent flic to the core, resorting to emotional blackmail. She’d seen it before.

  Then it sank in—in saving Zazie, Aimée had gotten herself implicated in whatever heist Jules had organized. From the fight she’d overheard between Zacharié and Jules, she knew there was a trail of dead bodies now—and something had been stolen that was so valuable that Jules had been willing to kill for it.

  “I need to know about this file you stole,” she told him.

  Zacharié pulled it from the back of jeans. “It’s dirt on people. Reports filed on prominent officials, industrialists. People like Jules use the dirt as leverage when they want a cut of the pie or need a favor.”

  She flipped through the pages. Her eyes popped. “Explosive stuff.” She skimmed the addendum closely enough to see it contained details of covert Ministry surveillance and operations abetted by the police judiciaire.

  “Looks like corruption at the top: the Ministry running operations with no oversight and the préfet de police sweeping any fallout under the carpet.” She swallowed hard, thinking again of Morbier’s corruption investigation.

  “Knowing Jules, he’s left some detail implicating me,” said Zacharié, his face clouded. “That happens and I’ll lose my shot at gaining Marie-Jo’s custody.”

  Her nerves jingled. And her? She’d gotten too involved already. Tangled in this web when her only goal had been to save Zazie from the rapist.

  Merde. “I never saw you, never met you, compris?”

  He nodded. “My parole officer wants an update on my job search. It’s imperative for the custody hearing.” He sagged into a doorframe, anguish in his eyes. “I can’t lose Marie-Jo again. Can’t go back to prison.”

  “May I see that file?” asked Saj. After reading the pages, he looked up. “You know what they say, use it or lose it.”

  “So I should sell it to the highest bidder, like Jules planned to do?” Zacharié clenched his fist. “Get mired in that muck?” A sigh of despair. “But I already am.”

  “Did I say that?” Saj ran his hand, henna’d with a Hindu symbol, over the addendum pages. “Interesting. Remember how we handled a similar doc-sca issue last year, Aimée?”

  She shot Saj a glance. He was making this up as he went along. But he had used their code for portable scanner. So he had brought his bag of tricks. His ultra-thin scanner, as usual, in his cloth meditation bag.

  He raised his eyebrow.

  She nodded. “Bien sûr.”

  Zacharié’s fist unclenched. “What do you mean?”

  “Give me a minute to go over this,” said Saj, “explore less incriminating options. A way for you to get around this.”

  “Another reason I like you, Saj,” Aimée said. “You have a twisted angle to everything.”

  “That’s why you pay me the big francs, Aimée,” said Saj.

  She wasn’t the only one, either. After Saj had hacked into several Ministry systems, they’d found him too valuable to lock up in prison. So he consulted on an as-needed basis, constructing firewalls designed to keep those like himself out.

  Saj winked at Aimée.

  “Try to relax, Zacharié,” said Aimée with more confidence than she felt. “I think Saj has an idea.”

  SAJ PAID THE taxi driver and got out in front of the café on rue du Louvre. He bent down to the open passenger window, readjusting his orange meditation bag so it completely concealed the ax.

  “Zazie, time flows and cycles in our journeys.” He gestured to the café. “Avoiding confrontation only prolongs the circle of Samsara …”

  “You go see your parents, Zazie,” Aimée said, interrupting Saj.

  Saj nodded to Aimée. “I’m off to that consultation in Sceaux. I’ll send you the scans later.”

  “Good work, Saj.” Maybe she could figure out how to inform Morbier without implicating herself. Maybe she would regain her figure someday. She doubted both.

  Saj’s dreadlocks bounced on his muslin-shirted shoulder as he headed to the Métro.

  “I tried to do the right thing, Aimée.” Zazie’s shoulders slumped. “We followed a red herring.”

  Aimée shrugged. “You got sidetracked. But what’s fish got to do with it?”

  “A detective term. Don’t you know?”

  She did. But Zazie seemed so wilted. “See? You know more technical terms than I do,” she said, trying to make her feel better.

  “I’m not a good detective.”

  “Practice, Zazie. You’re bursting with talent. You left clues so I could find you. If you hadn’t chalked that X …” Her throat caught. Then she pulled Zazie toward her and hugged her hard. “Just never do this again, tu promets?”

  “Now you sound like a maman,” Zazie said.

  Aimée sucked in her breath. “I have to practice too, don’t I?”

  “I’m in big trouble, Aimée.”

  Aimée bit her tongue before saying she’d earned it. “Your parents love you,” she said. “Now you’re home, and that’s what’s most important. Tell the truth, Zazie.”

  “Everything, Aimée? I mean … I don’t want to get Marie-Jo’s papa in trouble. And I was so frightened you’d get hurt.”

  Aimée brushed Zazie’s red curls from her eyes. Cradled her face in her ha
nds, then pulled a café napkin from her bag and wiped at Zazie’s brimming tears. “Better to keep to the truth, but some parts … bien, say you’ll talk more about it when you’re ready.”

  Zazie nodded and shot her a knowing look. “Like you do when you don’t really want to lie.”

  “Did I say that, Zazie?”

  “But I can’t get her papa in trouble,” said Zazie. “And we still haven’t found the rapist …”

  “Who might have been caught,” Aimée interrupted. She’d left out Mélanie’s mother’s murder and the shooting last night. Zazie had enough to worry about already. “For now, concentrate on that class report that’s due.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  Aimée nodded. “But the café’s full. Why don’t we enter through the back?”

  In the café, Virginie absently rocked Lucien on her hip and stared at the télé, which was showing the news. Pierre clutched a bag of oranges with a phone wedged between his shoulder and ear. “What do you mean?” he shouted. “My daughter’s—”

  “Back home,” said Aimée.

  He dropped the bag. Oranges rolled over the floor, and the phone fell onto the counter.

  “Thathee,” lisped little Lucien and clapped his hands. “Thathee!”

  Amid the hugs, tears and squeals of delight, Aimée stepped back.

  “Are you all right? My God, we thought you were … don’t you realize …?” Pierre’s words died in his throat. His shoulders heaved, and he pulled Zazie to him. “You’re back. That’s what matters.”

  Zazie nodded. Her lip trembled. “I’m sorry, Papa …” And she ended in tears.

  Virginie wiped her wet cheeks with her sleeve. “Merci, Aimée. Forgive me for doubting you. But where …?”

  Aimée put a finger to her lips. Gave a warning nod.

  Understanding filled Virginie’s eyes. She hugged her daughter again. “Plenty of time to talk about things later. Are you hungry?”

  Time to leave them together.

  ON LEDUC DETECTIVE’S landing, Aimée felt an ominous rumble in her stomach. The taste of acid bile. Her damp tunic clung to her spine, to her arms. Her shoulder stung. She reached for the dressing, and her hand came back wet and sticky. Blood. Her stitches had broken open.

  She made it past the office door and down the hallway to the bathroom before she felt the heave and nausea overtook. A loud burp erupted and then she lost the coffee all over the tiles. She heaved and panted until nothing else could come up.

  Again and again. She washed her face and mopped up the floor. Her fingers trembled applying steri-strips in place of her busted stitches.

  Her stomach curdled at the risk she’d taken. Yet if she hadn’t, could she have lived with herself? She’d saved Zazie. Done what she’d promised.

  Then, like a little fish, the baby moved. She leaned on the small porcelain sink, felt the tension draining from her. Zazie was safe. She kept repeating the words inside her head. Zazie was safe.

  Forget the image of Madame Vasseur on the cobbles, the blood seeping through her jacket. Her vacant eyes and slack jaw. That momentary hesitation—as if she’d wanted to say something, and now she never would. What could it have been that the woman was about to say? Who was it that had killed her? Aimée shivered, realizing that Zazie might be safe, but the danger was far from over.

  Work was waiting—she had so much to catch up on. With the tension gone, she felt limp, tired. She wanted to put her feet up. That’s what she’d do, stretch out on the recamier and get down to reports that needed attention. Run the virus scans she’d promised René, or face mutiny.

  INSIDE LEDUC DETECTIVE’S frosted-glass door, she unwrapped her silk scarf and turned to face Madame Vasseur’s red-eyed husband.

  “You, you’re the one,” he said, irate. His linen suit hung from his shoulders. Anger emanated from him in waves. “Hounding my wife, and now she’s … she’s dead.”

  René, sitting on his ergonomic chair tailored to his height, shot her a look. “I’ve explained to Monsieur Vasseur that he needs to speak with the Brigade Criminelle.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” he said.

  The man, grief-stricken and angry, was lashing out at whatever target he could. That she understood. Still, guilt flooded her for not saving the woman.

  “I’m so sorry, Monsieur,” she said. “If it’s any consolation, Zazie’s home with her family.”

  “And where’s my family?” he said, advancing on her. Stupid. Not the most tactful reply.

  He shook his fist. “Look at you, walking around stirring up trouble. The shooter was aiming at you, and now my wife’s dead.”

  She hated to think that it could be true—she might have brought that danger down on Madame Vasseur. She shook it off. Thinking that wouldn’t help either of them now.

  “You blame me, I understand,” she said. “But shouldn’t you focus your energy on catching your wife’s murderer? The man who raped your daughter?”

  His face twisted in shame. “How dare you?” He raised his arm, ready to strike her. She stepped back, tired, sick of everything that had happened, exhausted by this poor man’s gut-wrenching pain and fury. Felt the Beretta in her back pocket hit the copier-machine lid.

  “Hitting a pregnant woman won’t change what’s happened, Monsieur.” René stood at the open door of Leduc Detective.

  Thank God. She threw him a grateful look.

  “My colleague was shot trying to protect your wife,” said René. “She’s not your enemy here. Think of your daughter. She needs you, Monsieur.”

  “Yesterday your wife called me,” said Aimée. “Wanted me to hear a message Mélanie had left her with more information about the man who attacked her. She thought I might be able to help her understand it. Your wife was trying to help Zazie.”

  “And died in the process?”

  “Your wife wanted the rapist caught,” she said. “Zazie disappeared, and we thought the rapist had taken her.”

  “Didn’t the flics catch him?” Defeat painted his face, now devoid of anger. “The comatose pedophile who’ll never wake up and face justice.”

  “But another girl was almost attacked,” she said. “The answer’s on your wife’s phone. Mélanie’s message with the description of her attacker.” Aimée stepped forward. “Your wife hesitated—I think she wanted to tell me something else.”

  For a moment fear flashed in his eyes.

  “Any idea of what she wanted to say, Monsieur?”

  “How would I know?” A line of silent tears dripped to his collar.

  “Where’s your wife’s phone?” Aimée asked gently.

  But his gaze was unfocused. His collar was wet.

  “I don’t know,” he said, deflated, his voice far away. “I’m due at the morgue to identify her.”

  “Ask them for it.” Unless the shooter took it. Could that have been the real aim? But she couldn’t think about that now. “Have you told Mélanie yet?”

  “Don’t hound my daughter. I forbid you to contact her. Leave her alone. She’s lost her mother.”

  “Then let me know if you find the phone, Monsieur.”

  But he’d gone out the door.

  RENÉ SHOOK HIS head. “How can he blame you?”

  “In a way he’s right,” she said, saddened. “His wife called me to arrange a meeting, then had second thoughts. Did her best to shake me off, all to avoid …”

  “The pain of her daughter’s rape?” René interrupted.

  A frisson went up Aimée’s neck. “She said she couldn’t handle the shame. Like Sylvaine’s mother, who’s pressing charges against me.”

  “Charging you won’t take the pain away,” said René.

  “Displaced grief,” said Aimée. “Hurt and shame. Guilt over failing in the responsibility of protecting their children. Put it down to shock, devout religion, but what if …?” She paused, thinking. “It’s just a feeling, but I think Madame Vasseur was holding something back.”

  René rubbed his eyes. H
e switched on the espresso machine, and it rumbled to life. “Don’t the flics always say look to the family first—it’s the husband nine times out of ten?”

  “You’re thinking this distraught man shot his wife, then came to accuse me of …?”

  She didn’t buy it. Or did she? The woman’s second thoughts kept coming back to her. A midday glow suffused the office’s high-ceilinged carved woodwork. Shafts of light prismed in the crystal drops of the chandelier.

  “Say Monsieur Vasseur’s got a hidden history of incest with his daughter,” said René. “But that’s not enough, or he’s worried he won’t be able to keep her quiet.”

  “Where’s the proof, René?”

  “It’s always the ones you don’t expect.” He set the demi-tasse under the brown stream. “Don’t put it past him.”

  “Put what past him?”

  “He protests too much,” said René. “According to the police report, he was the one who discovered his daughter after she was raped. Imagine a different scenario—his grief and antagonism are a cover-up.”

  She shuddered. “His wife didn’t strike me as a look-the-other-way type.” Aimée remembered her strident voice, her clear unhappiness in that elegant townhouse. “Her last words were about the shame of it.”

  René stirred in a sugar cube. “For argument’s sake, what if she was ashamed not because her daughter was raped, like you thought, but because she had just realized who the rapist was?”

  He paused to let this sink in. She nodded. A possible scenario that made her insides crawl.

  “Sad but classic,” René went on. “The wife knows inside but hides the truth from herself, throws herself into work. You said Madame Vasseur was obsessed with her job.”

  “I see where you’re going, René.” She didn’t like this. She hit the wall switch, and the overhead fan lurched into motion. A slow current of tepid air stirred.

  “The father’s grown insatiable and attacks her classmates,” said René. “Easy prey. They know him already, maybe they’re friends with his daughter—say the girls practice violin together or overlap at lessons. These young girls trust him, let him into their houses when he follows them home from a lesson, then he frightens them into swearing to secrecy. Or maybe he never lets them see his face, just follows them home to familiar addresses. Sylvaine dies accidentally. He never meant this, but alors, the stakes have risen. Now you come into the picture, stir things up and get his wife asking questions. And she’s on the point of breaking down and telling you. Cornered, he has to silence her. Like he silenced his daughter, shipping her off to the Swiss clinic.”