by Cara Black
A pang of guilt pierced him.
She lifted a small folder. Inside were photos from a lost time; black and white images of a young boy in a sailor suit, a serious-looking girl with long braids holding his hand. They stood in a room surrounded by museum-quality furniture, Impressionist paintings on the wall.
Conflicted, he turned away. “I’m sorry, I wish I could help you. But I don’t know how.”
“Monsieur, forgive me, I’ve offended you,” she said, “I’m sorry this came out all wrong. I’m grabbing at a thread from more than fifty years ago.”
He saw her to the door and watched her make her way through the courtyard.
Nothing must threaten his arrangement. Nothing. Even though the pieta dura commode sat in his cellar, refinished and ready for the auction house.
Wednesday late afternoon
AIMÉE FIDDLED WITH THE bandages around her neck. The stiff awkward bulk bothered her. Her hair clumped in sticky strands from the gel she’d combed through it. Or thought she had. She never realized combing hair could be such an art. And how hard it was without sight.
She heard a familiar gait cross the linoleum: Morbier’s slight shuffle. His right foot was half a size larger than his left, so even though he wore an extra sock on it, one shoe flapped.
The breeze had stopped flowing through the window. He must be crossing on her left and have taken in her hospital gown and seen the chart at the foot of the bed.
“There’s food on your tie, Morbier,” she said, facing the window.
The footsteps stopped. “Can you see?”
“You always have food on your tie,” she said. “Grab a chair.”
“I spoke with the nurse. She didn’t say much,” he said. “How bad is it?”
Was that concern in his voice?
She let a big silence fill the space. Morbier, a master interrogator, knew how to wait.
So did she.
Trolley cart wheels wobbled and squeaked in the hallway. Lunch was over; maybe it was medication time.
“That bad?” he asked finally.
“You mean, can I see anything?”
“That’s a start,” he said.
He wasn’t one to deal well with emotion. If at all.
“Or will I ever see again?” She threw her leg over the bed, reached for what she thought was her comb on the tray. It clattered to the floor.
She heard him grunt as he bent down for the comb.
“The neurosurgeon’s procedure saved my life, but the lack of oxygen or the bleeding from the blows to my skull obscure where a weak vein ruptured.”
“Say it so I can understand, Leduc.”
“They call it complications of treatment.”
“Aha . . . clear as Seine mud.”
She agreed.
“Someone attacked me in the passage,” she said. “The force of the blow caused a weak vein wall in my brain to burst.”
“And the prognosis?”
She heard him rifling through his pocket, the crinkle of paper.
“The doctor’s becoming repetitive. ‘Just wait and see.’ ‘No pun intended,’ he says.”
She wished her relationship with Morbier was different. For a moment, she wanted Morbier to throw his big arms around her. Hold her. Tell her it would be all right and that he would make things better. Like he had once when she was little and her father was away on stakeout. After school, she’d tripped and split open her knee on the Commissariat’s marble step. He’d scooped her up, held her to his scratchy wool jacket, dried her tears with his sleeve and cleaned her knee while telling her stories about his old dog who loved strawberries and would fall asleep standing up.
She wasn’t a child anymore. And she might not ever be all right. What if the blindness didn’t go away?
“Got a cigarette, Morbier?”
“Didn’t you quit?”
“I’m always quitting,” she said. “There’s one in your pocket, isn’t there?”
“Why do you think the Beast of Bastille attacked you?”
“Did I say that?” She lay back and stared into the blankness, imagining what he looked like; the pouches under his alert brown eyes, his jowly cheeks, the socialist party pin worn in his lapel, a used handkerchief . . . she felt a thin stick wedged in her hand, then heard the sound of crinkling.
“Suck.”
“Morbier!” She smelled lemon. She aimed and hit her lip, then tasted a sour Malabar lollipop.
“Better than coffin nails,” he said. “So talk to me.”
“Sergeant Bellan questioned me already. I might feel like sharing, if I knew the murder victim’s name.”
“This case belongs to the special detail for the 11ième.” That’s what Bellan had said. But Morbier must know some- thing since he’d answered the phone there. However, as always, he’d make her pay for his information. “Not my fiefdom,” he said.
If only she could see his face!
She’d give him an edited version.
“Look Morbier, here’s what I know, maybe you can open your mouth after you listen to me,” she said. “In that trendy resto, Violette, I incurred the wrath of my big client, Vincent. Next to us sat a woman, wearing the same Chinese jacket I’d paid the moon for, talking on her phone.”
She told him the rest.
“Now tell me. Who was the woman killed on Monday night? Which passage was she found in?”
Morbier hesitated. “Like I said, this isn’t my case.”
“I heard the old woman who found her interviewed on the télé,” Aimée said. “The old woman gave out more details than you.”
She heard tapping on the linoleum.
“Keep this to yourself. The victim was found in the cour de Bel Air,” he said. “The courtyard next door to where you were attacked.”
“Those passages and courtyards all connect somehow, don’t they?”
“Nice theory,” he said. “But who knows?”
Since she couldn’t see his face or body language she had to listen more closely to his words. “They’ll find Vaduz. Don’t worry,” he said.
“What worries me, Morbier, is that it’s not him.”
“Leduc, he’s killed five women,” said Morbier. “This case and the attack on you both fit the victim profile.”
“Which is . . . ?“
He yawned. She heard a slight snapping. He broke toothpicks when he was nervous or deep in thought.
“Why not tell me, Morbier?” Frustrated, she twisted the sheets between her palms. “Early thirties, currently blond-streaked, single . . .”
“Wrong,” interrupted Morbier. “Single like you, but all living in the Bastille area. The victims were in their late twenties, thirties, and one was a woman in her forties. Dirty blonde, tall like you. Usually a party girl. Some hung out in the Spanish tapas places, the clubs. A certain type. Showy.”
She hesitated. “I planned on staying in Bastille, in Martine’s brother’s place, while he’s working in Shanghai.”
“Since when?”
“Remodeling a kitchen and bathrooms takes forever. And fixing the electric wiring will take until the next century. René’s neighbor’s taking care of Miles Davis now . . .”
“Won the Lotto, have you?”
Why did she always forget how quick Morbier was?
“You could say that,” she said, wondering whether to tell him how she’d justified finally updating her apartment’s electric wiring and plumbing.
“Non,” he said. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
She visualized his thick hands held up, as she’d often seen them if she teased him.
“Tell me, Morbier, did this latest victim match the profile?”
Silence. What she wouldn’t give to see the expression crossing Morbier’s face right now!
“So I take it she didn’t,” Aimée said. “Or the fit isn’t close.”
“This victim was in her early forties. Like one of the others. Close enough,” he said, his voice tired. “Vaduz was released M
onday afternoon on a technicality. Let’s give a big round of thanks to his salope of a supposed socialist lawyer! One of those gauche-caviar elite who give socialism a bad name. So Vaduz suffered a hurry-up urge to kill after his mother’s funeral. Maybe the woman reminded him of his mother. Or maybe you did.”
So Vaduz was still out of jail.
“The woman in the resto had long Purple Vamp nails, thick blonde hair.” She hoped Morbier would finish for her.
He didn’t.
“Black Chinese silk jacket . . . it’s her, isn’t it? said Aimée. “Tell me, Morbier. I’m stuck in a hospital bed.”
And she couldn’t say it . . . blind and scared.
“Alors, Leduc, the victim lived above Marché d’Aligre. Next of kin haven’t even been notified, so I can’t give her name out. You know the rules. Like I said, I’m en route elsewhere.”
A chair scraped on the linoleum; Morbier must have stood in his odd-sized shoes.
“However, Vaduz was seen in the Bastille area,” he said. “So there’s location and the window of time. Let’s say he knows the victim, phones her, but gets you. It shows malice, forethought.”
No matter how he added it up, she knew it didn’t compute.
“What happened to the cell phone he rang?” he said. “We could trace the call.”
“Gone,” she said.
“The victim fits the type Vaduz chose: Close enough in looks, the right location, and method of murder.”
It couldn’t be.
“But the man on the telephone insisted she ‘forget her pride and meet him.’ He knew her, Morbier.”
“Vaduz knew some of his victims. And when he was released, he said he was going to visit his dentist in the Bastille. He had a mouthful of rotten teeth.”
“The file would show if they were acquainted,” she said.
“It’s not my case,” he said. “Right now, it’s a botched-up job from when they let Vaduz out. A real pétard.”
Of course, releasing a serial killer to kill again wouldn’t restore public confidence in the police.
“This sexual predator is supposed to have killed several women in the Bastille area. How come no one connected them until last year?” Aimée asked.
“Not you, too,” Morbier said. “You sound like the parents. The one this morning harangued me for an hour; why didn’t we do DNA testing, compare samples?”
“Good question,” she said. “But that would be hard, since you have no DNA repository to check it against, much less . . .”
“No funding from the Police Judiciare,” he interrupted.
“You know how that is . . . half of Brigade Criminelle don’t even have computers at their desks.”
He let out a big sigh.
“That’s why they called me in,” he said. “Last minute.”
Damage control. He’d been doing more and more of that recently.
“Like I said, it’s not my case,” said Morbier. “Bellan’s in charge. I’m supposed to be en route to Créteil.”
“Créteil?”
“‘Law enforcement in the new millennium’ seminar,” he said, expelling a loud breath. “Spare me. But that’s up in the air now.”
“Why?”
Silence. She hated it when he dribbled out bits of information then clamped shut.
“Talk to me, Morbier,” she said.
“They don’t have enough staff to handle the explosives scare,” he said. “The ministry’s pulling Commissaires and men from the arrondissements.”
She took a last lick of the lollipop and wound the damp stick around her finger.
“An explosives scare? Sounds big.”
“Huge, Leduc,” he said, a tone of finality in his voice. “You’re out of commission. So stay out of this. Don’t think about asking any more.”
Bigger than huge. Gigantic, if Morbier talked like this.
“I’m interested in Vaduz’s teeth,” she said.
“Not a pretty sight. Seems Vaduz opened his mouth, pointed to his rotting fillings,” Morbier said, “moaned about needing the dentist’s drill.”
“What about the jealous husband angle?”
“She wasn’t married,” he said. “The Préfet keeps reminding me he’s got another five days to retirement,” Morbier said. “After a stellar twenty-five year career, the Préfet wants to depart with full honors from the Mayor. So he’d like the blame for the Vaduz mess to rest elsewhere. Too bad he can’t think of where else to put it. Right now, the Gendarmerie looks like the next candidate.”
“Why?” she said. “They’re not responsible.”
“Tell that to the public,” he said. “All us uniforms look alike, and we’re all to blame. The victims’ families want justice or vengeance.”
Morbier’s pager beeped and she heard him fumble in his pockets.
“May I borrow your hospital phone, Leduc?”
She nodded. Then her aching neck protested in response.
From the brusque tone of Morbier’s conversation, she knew something had gone wrong. He hung up.
“What happened?”
She heard Morbier’s long sigh.
“Some problem in the Place du Trône,” he said, using the old name, the King’s throne, for Place de la Nation. Aimée found it ironic, since he was a dyed-in-the-wool socialist.
“But Morbier, the caller who spoke to me knew the woman he was phoning. He sounded intimate with her.”
“You told me. I’ve got to go,” he said. “The Préfet wants the case closed, clean and neat. Let’s agree on this, Leduc. Vaduz thought you were the victim. He was scared off when passers- by came down the passage. Lots of nightlife in the Bastille quartier. He’d been stalking the other woman before he encountered you. Then he found her.”
Morbier continued. “This isn’t my turf, Leduc.” He let out a tired sigh. “The powers that be are trying to nail Vaduz. He’s brutally killed five women. And they’re salivating now, talking about the ‘special accomodation’ they’ve prepared for him at the Quai des Orfèvres—a wire and iron cage for his interrogation.” Another tired sigh. “The victims’ parents are angry and tired. And five bodies later, they’re demanding blood. Vaduz’s blood, and strong police action. So unless you’ve got something concrete, Leduc, I’ll recommend they tie this up with a nice bow.”
She leaned back against the large pillows. What Morbier said was likely true. But the man who had attacked her wasn’t Vaduz.
“Look, you know my hunches are good,” she said. “Papa trained me. I don’t agree. No serial stalker like Vaduz has such finesse. You said he has rotten teeth, right? But I don’t remember bad breath. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Heard of breath mints?” said Morbier. “Didn’t you suffer a concussion and black out?”
“Morbier, what aren’t you telling me?”
Silence.
“Spit it out, Morbier.”
“What your father would have told you,” said Morbier. “Get the hell out of what you’re doing and stick to computers.”
His remark made her angry.
“After dining with a client, I was attacked, blinded. But it sounds like you think I invited it,” she said. She wanted to throw the phone at him but she didn’t know where it was. “It wasn’t the Beast of Bastille, that much I know.”
A sob caught in her throat. But she stifled it.
“I just worry you’re not safe. Sorry . . . don’t do well . . . it’s this hospital. . . .” his voice broke. “Alors, I’ll keep my ears open.”
And with that Morbier was gone.
He’d never apologized to her or anyone in his life, that she knew of. What a first . . . a hollow victory.
The room felt chilly. Cold drafts licked her feet. She got in bed and pulled up the covers. She couldn’t count on Morbier. Or the flics. If any investigating were to take place, it was up to her.
She felt caught between a rock and a hard place . . . wasn’t that the saying? Until the police caught Vaduz, how could she prove he wasn’t the
one who attacked her?
The nurse came in. “Time to draw some blood, won’t take a minute. Looks like you dropped a toothbrush.”
After the nurse left, Aimée lay back and put the brush to her cheek, rolled it, then held it in front of her eyes. But no matter how hard she tried, even though it was right there, she couldn’t see it. She’d probably never see it again.
Fatigue tugged at her. Concentrating on Morbier’s words— and on what he hadn’t said—exhausted her. Listening to him, she’d worked harder than if she’d had her sight and still she felt she’d missed something: a nuance, the way his stubby fingers worried his jacket sleeve or how he looked away when she brought up uncomfortable subjects. Like her American mother’s abandoning them when she was eight or her father’s flic record. All the little clues she’d learned unconsciously to depend on to read him, to decipher his meaning.
And what was all that about the explosives and pulling staff off . . . ? He’d never tell her now. She was out of the loop. Useless.
Most of the time, she could tell when he had more to say. Of course he knew, he had full access to the fat dossier on the serial killer Vaduz and he’d shared but a fraction. And now she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to figure him out—or anyone else—again.
She hooked her arm around the metal bedframe, cold and smooth, then sank back into the pillows. Deep down, the realization that she might never be able to see again loomed.
The aroma of espresso, rich and dark, encompassed her. Had it all been a bad dream?
Of course it was. She’d wake up in bed in her apartment on Île St. Louis with the Seine flowing below her window, Miles Davis, her bichon frisée, perched in the sunlight on her duvet. She’d be cuddled against that tan hunk she’d met in Sardinia, muscular and with such a flat stomach and . . .
“Aimée, how about coffee?” René said. “Or do you want to sleep more?”
She kept her eyes closed. Kept the image of Miles Davis’s wet black nose and fur that needed a trim. Then she opened her eyes.
Darkness. Only darkness. And the crisp feel of laundered hospital sheets. It wasn’t a dream: she’d woken up dumped back into reality.
“With two sugar lumps, René?”
“Just how you like,” he said.
