by Cara Black
“Don’t start on me about Melac,” she warned Morbier. “Not you. Not now.”
“Who said I would?” He jutted out his chin. “Dig your own hole, Leduc.”
Helpful as usual.
The tisane burnt her tongue, and she set down the cup. “I’m finding a lawyer,” she said.
“Good,” he said. She’d expected recriminations, arguments about the benefits of shared custody and how much the baby needed a father figure, but instead Morbier said, “I’ve been hearing things about his new woman.”
Aimée blinked. Melac wasn’t on the up-and-up.
“Make sure you hire a family-law specialist,” said Morbier. “Like this one.”
He pulled out his notebook, tore out a page with the name Annick Benosh written above a phone number and an address in the 8th.
Aimée stared at the paper on the counter. “Can I afford her?”
“I’d say you can’t afford not to hire her.”
Touched, she noticed the look on his face. One she hadn’t seen in a long time. His guard was down; emotion welled in his eyes.
“Get smart, Leduc. For once. My great-goddaughter’s involved.” He dipped his steaming teabag several times. “And if anything happens to me, alors, there’s something set aside for Chloé.”
“Happens to you, Morbier? You’re not threatening retirement again?”
But she knew that wasn’t what he meant. If only they got along better. If only she didn’t always feel like a child with him. He had been the only constant in her life since her father died.
She hugged him. Hadn’t hugged him like that since she couldn’t remember when. Inhaled that Morbier muskiness, so familiar from her childhood: the smell of wool, a trace of unfiltered Gauloise and—mon Dieu—something new. She sniffed.
“Is that Eau Sauvage, by Dior?” She sniffed again. “Another gift from Jeanne?”
He shrugged. “Ce n’est rien, just some experimentation with my fragrance palate.”
“Fragrance palate?” Did he even know what that meant?
His thick eyebrows drew down in irritation. “It’s all to do with the body’s chemistry. Olfactory stimulation.”
Her jaw dropped again. “Next you’ll be taking vitamins, mixing protein shakes and doing yoga.” And the world would spin off its axis.
He stretched both hands in the air, reached for the ceiling. “They call this the talasana, or palm tree pose.”
“Really? Yoga?” She caught herself before she said, “At your age?”
“No age limit, according to the instructor.” Why did she always forget his uncanny skill for reading her mind at the most awkward moments?
“Tisane, Dior eau de cologne and now yoga. Wonders never cease.” Or maybe he was just getting in shape to impress the sexy grandmothers at Chloé’s playground. She grinned but quickly hid it. Time to be serious. She needed to find out if he knew anything that might help her find Drina Constantin. “Who do you know at the commissariat central in the seventh, Morbier? Does Jojo still man the desk on rue Peronnet?”
“What trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Leduc? Does this have anything to do with the Gypsy-looking boy you were talking to after the christening?” He looked at her and shook his head. “Does it?”
She nodded.
“Go on, what happened, Leduc?” He sighed and sipped his tisane.
Standing next to him at the counter, she told him about Nicu and Drina. Held back the meeting with Martin. After all, Morbier was a commissaire divisionaire and Martin an ex-con and private informer.
“Leave it alone. What’s the point of bringing all this up again, Leduc?”
“A dying woman’s abducted from a hospital and new information about Papa is hitting me in the face. What am I supposed to do, ignore it? Let Papa’s murderer go unpunished?” she said. She slammed her hands on the counter. “Let the murderer evade justice again?”
Morbier put his cup down and shrugged. His profile was dark against the window overlooking the Seine and the quai’s globe streetlamps.
“Morbier, you were Papa’s first partner on the beat. Did you know this woman? Have you heard of Drina Constantin?”
“Putain, Leduc. Say this woman did inform for him. We had tons of informers,” he said. “Why connect her to him years later? Doesn’t make sense.”
“She’s the one who made the connection—maybe a secret she needs to get off her chest before she dies?” she said. “Some Gypsy code of honor—I don’t know.”
“She thinks of you while she’s lying on her deathbed, Leduc?” Skepticism filled Morbier’s voice.
“But someone else thought it was important, too. Someone else cares enough to try to shut her up.”
“Gypsy culture’s a law unto itself,” said Morbier. He squeezed the teabag with his spoon. “We’re talking professional thieves here. You can’t believe they wouldn’t steal a person if they wanted to.”
Typical. The easy way out. Aimée remembered Le Parisien’s article the week before about police crackdowns on Gypsy enclaves.
She’d seen the encampments of gens du voyage off the RER B line, tin shacks hugging the rail lines, the laundry hanging from trees, the lean-tos on the other side of the périphérique near the Stade de France—mostly refugee Roma, the Eastern European Gypsies. Sad.
“I know the prefecture mandates workshops on the dangers of discrimination, how to avoid racial profiling,” she said. “Have you been skipping those seminars again?”
“Missing the point as usual, Leduc. There’s a time to realize when things are best left alone,” he said, his voice thick. “There’s nothing you can do for this woman, or for your father. Move on. You’ve got Chloé now. That’s what he would want, you know that.”
She knew. “But Papa offered her his help. My help. Look.” She thrust her father’s card in his palm. “Papa always said a person’s only as good as their word.” Over his wine glass, standing on this exact spot in the kitchen, a week before the explosion.
Morbier averted his eyes. “A promise made years ago? Grow up, Leduc.”
Aimée winced. Why couldn’t Morbier understand?
“Were you at the bombing? Did you find his melted glasses, his charred—” Her throat caught. She rubbed the burn mark on her palm, the scar had been imprinted from the smoldering van’s door handle. “Mais non, you were … you were …” She couldn’t finish the sentence. A no-show at the morgue, at the pitiful funeral. “Where were you, Morbier?”
He leaned on the counter, his fists clenched, the knuckles white. “I don’t want you to get hurt. It’s complicated …”
“Complicated how, Morbier? Isn’t it about time you told me?”
But Morbier’s chest heaved. He grabbed at his cup on the counter, missing and sending it clattering on the wood parquet.
“You all right?”
“Indigestion.”
A cry pierced the warm kitchen air, making them both jump. It was followed by a second. The baby monitor; it was right there on the counter. She could hear Chloé’s sobs, the crib springs creaking.
“We’ve woken her up, Leduc,” said Morbier. The color had drained from his face.
Alarmed, Aimée wondered if he could be having a heart attack. “Any chest pains? Shortness of breath?”
“Leave it, Leduc. I’m fine.”
“Sit down, for God’s sake.” She pushed Chloé’s high chair aside and helped him onto the kitchen step stool. Chloé’s wails rose from the counter, escalating in pitch. “Put your arms up.”
“Take care of Chloé, Leduc,” he said, catching his breath. “Your daughter needs you. Before you go: I’ll ask around on one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You keep your nose out of it, d’accord?” he said. “If you want my help, then it’s on my terms, Leduc.”
As if she wouldn’t do her own nosing around. Aimée nodded.
His phone was vibrating on the counter as he waved her off.
Aimée found Chloé
in a wet diaper and tangled blanket. The window was open, and the room was cold. Chloé could catch a chill.
How could Morbier leave the damn window open in April? She was spitting mad until she remembered. Disorientation was a classic heart-attack symptom.
She took off the sopping diaper, swept up her daughter and wrapped her in a fresh blanket, kissing her tears away as she hurried to the kitchen.
“Hold on, Morbier, I’m just changing Chloé and then we’ll call the doctor … Morbier?”
No answer.
With Chloé clutched to her hip, Aimée found the kitchen warm and empty. She rubbed her finger on the fogged window to clear it but saw only a spotlit cone of mist under the yellow sodium lamp on the empty, cobbled quai.
On the piece of paper with the attorney’s name on it, Morbier had written a message: Get your priorities straight.
Sunday, 11 P.M.
NICU FELT SOMEONE shaking his shoulder, pulling him from his nightmare. He blinked awake, sitting up on the hard bench in Hôpital Laennec’s chapel. Before him stood a white-coated hospital attendant and a blue-uniformed flic.
“Nicu Constantin?”
He nodded. Rubbed his eyes. “You found Maman?”
“We’d like you to come with us,” said the flic, before saying into a small microphone clipped to his collar, “Got him.”
Fear rippled through the hair on Nicu’s neck.
“What’s going on?” He grabbed his bag. “Is she all right?”
“Par ici, Monsieur.”
The flic took hold of his arm.
They led him down the hospital corridor. He heard footsteps and the clatter of medication trolleys. A gurney whooshed past covered in bloodstained sheets.
With mounting anxiety he realized they weren’t going toward Ward C. They’d descended a deep flight of stone steps. “You found her? Is she hurt?”
“This way, s’il vous plaît.” The flic and attendant escorted him through swinging double doors to a grey, tiled hallway. They stopped at a wide, scuffed grey door. The sign above it read MORGUE.
Mon Dieu, he thought, they’d found her too late. His stomach dropped, a heaviness like stone filled him. Apart from a curtained window, the bare room resembled a prison cell. Nicu wanted to escape.
“We’d like you to identify her and answer some questions.”
“Non, non! It’s all my fault …” A sob caught in his throat.
The flic, his grip still on Nicu’s arm, looked up as the door pinged open. Instead of a doctor or a priest, a man in a leather jacket appeared, took the unlit cigarette from his mouth and stuck it behind his ear. “Pardonnez-moi,” he said. “Please proceed.”
The attendant nodded to Nicu. “Ready?”
“Oh, I think he’s ready,” said the man. The cigarette nestled under a brown curl wedged behind his ear. “Go ahead.”
Nicu’s hands shook. Cold, so cold in here. A priest glided in, nodded to him.
The attendant parted the curtain. Behind the glass Nicu saw a mound covered in a sheet with only the face exposed. The stark light exposed an older woman’s closed eyes, her sallow cheeks and mouth sunken in death.
Nicu blinked. “Who’s this?”
“We think you know, Nicu,” said the man, then inspected his fingernails. He rubbed his thumbnail on his pinkie’s cuticle. “I’m Captain Ponchet. The Père’s here if you want to make confession. To confess how you killed your mother. A mercy killing, isn’t that what you said to the doctor?”
Nicu’s mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Get if off your chest, Nicu. You’ll feel better.” Ponchet took a step toward him.
“But this isn’t my mother.”
“You just said, ‘It’s all my fault.’ I heard you. Now that’d be a good place to start.”
“There’s been a mistake.” Nicu’s stomach churned. “I meant it was my fault I didn’t make her visit the doctor sooner. But I had no idea how ill and weak she’d become.”
“So you helped her on her last journey,” Ponchet said. “You’re one of those gens du voyage, travelers, non? Gypsy culture has no room for the sick, the aged. No room in the caravan.”
One more flic who, just like the rest, subscribed to the stereotype that manouches all belonged to organized crime clans. Flics hated Gypsies—the ones they dealt with stole, begged, pickpocketed and ran cons. People like Nicu’s Uncle Radu. It was like that old joke: How do you bake a Gypsy cake? First you steal twelve eggs.
“I don’t know who this poor woman is. Quit wasting my time.” He read in their faces that they didn’t believe him. He was just another Gypsy, another criminal to be contained by whatever means necessary.
“I’m afraid, Nicu, that this medical chart we found with her says this is your mother.”
“Then there’s a mistake!” He was yelling now. His shoulders were shaking, heat spreading up his neck. “Someone stole my mother’s chart and planted it on this woman. Don’t you understand? It’s some kind of setup. The DNA will tell you. My mother’s dying somewhere. She needs hemodialysis.”
“She died by strangulation.” Ponchet’s eyes were like hard, brown stone. “Even in a terminally ill victim, we call that murder.”
Fear collected in the pit of his stomach.
“My mother’s forty-three. This poor woman looks eighty.” Nicu clenched his fists. “Where’s my Uncle Radu?”
“I’ve seen your police record, Nicu,” said Ponchet. “This will go better for you if you help us.” Ponchet nodded to the uniformed flic. Handcuffs were clamped around Nicu’s wrists. “You can tell us more at the commissariat.”
Jail. Not again. They’d beat him up, let him rot in the cell. Uncontrollable shaking overcame him.
The door opened on his Uncle Radu, escorted by a flic.
Radu took in the scene, his eyes brimming as he walked to the viewing window. He took off his fedora, then shook his head.
“I thought you found my sister,” he said. “Who’s this? Why the handcuffs on Nicu?”
Nicu turned to the priest. “Father, you’re a man of God. Is this right?”
The priest, a young man, shrugged. “Captain Ponchet, two members of Drina Constantin’s family can’t identify this woman as Drina Constantin. It’s not my place, but under the circumstances, I’d suggest you release this young man.”
Ponchet’s mouth tightened. He pulled the cigarette from behind his ear, rolled it between his thick fingers, nodded to the other flic. “Good point, Father. Release him. For now.”
Nicu heard the click and felt the metal handcuffs tug, then loosen. He rubbed his wrists.
“Do your job,” Nicu said to Ponchet. “Find her.”
But Ponchet had his phone to his ear.
His uncle put on his fedora. “When did the flics ever do anything for us?” he spat. “We’ll take care of it our way.”
Monday Morning
PRIORITIES. AIMÉE HAD priorities. Right now they boiled down to loading Chloé’s baby bag for shared care, finding a project proposal she’d misplaced and getting dressed. All in ten minutes. Her cell beeped.
Merde! Where had she left it? Chloé, lying in the middle of the duvet on Aimée’s bed, laughed with delight as Miles Davis licked her toes. They played this game all the time. Over the birds chirping outside the open window and Chloé’s dulcet burbling, Aimée traced her phone to her leather motorcycle jacket pocket.
She saw a voice message received last night after she’d fallen asleep. Merde again! She hit play. Nicu’s voice trembled. “The police tried to frame me.” Panting. “… done nothing and she’s still missing.” His voice was low. “When we were followed …” Shouts and banging in the background drowned out his words. “Please meet me—”
The message cut off. Where was he?
She hit callback. But a France Telecom recording came on, telling her, “This number does not accept calls.”
Her fingers tightened on her cell phone. She was worried. She wished to God she’d spoken with him last
night. Had he been followed and framed by whoever took his mother?
Morbier didn’t answer. Merde, merde, merde again. She left him a message.
She cleaned up Chloé’s apricot-smeared chin, spooned horse meat from the butcher’s white-paper packet into Miles Davis’s bowl. By the time that was done, she knew she couldn’t wait until Morbier responded. With no other lead to Nicu, she’d go to the hospital before starting her first official day back in the office.
Ten minutes later, clad in black leather pants, a silk YSL blouse (a flea-market find) and a flounced three-quarter-length wool coat by Jean Paul Gaultier, she locked the front door. Thank God the coat fit her again. Chloé, slung in the carrier on her back, drooled on her collar. “Babette’s taking care of you today, ma puce. You remember, we talked about this.”
She’d worked out an arrangement with Babette, her concierge’s twenty-something niece, who also took care of Gabrielle, the six-month-old daughter of the new family across the courtyard. Now that Aimée was going back to work full-time, they would share care in a garde à domicile arrangement, alternating apartments. This week, Babette would watch the babies at Gabrielle’s apartment, and her aunt, Madame Cachou, would take Miles Davis on his walks. On Babette’s Wednesday afternoons off, Aimée and René would take turns, or bring Chloé to the office. Between Babette and Madame Cachou, Aimée would have backup coverage if she needed to work late. Like tonight for surveillance, Babette would take her after-hours at Aimée’s place.
The carved door in the flat above the carriage house opened for them. Butter smells wafted out. A cat slinked a velvet tail across her ankles.
Chloé smiled in delight as they passed a colorful, dancing mobile. Babette, her hair up in a ponytail and an apron over her jeans, beckoned them inside with a breathy bonjour, followed by “Hungry?” In the light-filled, stainless-steel state-of-the art kitchen sat a bowl of ripe strawberries—small, fragrant gariguettes, just in season.
