Murder in the Bastille

by Cara Black

  “Merci, you’re wonderful, René.” She sat up, felt behind her and propped up her pillows. She tried not to think about how she must look.

  Her torched brain welcomed a warm, sweet java jolt. She opened her hands to clutch the hot cup, inched her fingers to find the spoon.

  She told him about Sergeant Bellan’s questioning and Morbier’s comments about Vaduz.

  “René, any more noises from the Judiciare about Populax?”

  “If Vincent doesn’t release the hard drive, expect a subpoena,” René said.

  She chewed her lip. “Hasn’t he reconsidered?”

  “Not so far.”

  Vincent’s attitude was outrageous. His veiled threat in the resto came back to her. And his arrogant denial. Either he felt he was above the law, or he was hiding something.

  She circled the spoon slowly against the wall of the cup, but felt hot droplets on her chest. How could it be so hard to stir with a spoon?

  “We should expect to appear at the Palais de Justice,” René said. “You know the drill.”

  She gulped the espresso then felt the cup lifted from her hands. “Me . . . testify?” she asked.

  “We’re in this together,” René said.

  “We need Martine’s help to convince Vincent to cooperate.”

  “I have your bag. Let me look up Martine’s number.”

  Startled, she turned, banging her shoulder on the metal bed-frame— the shoulder she dislocated with annoying regularity.

  “My bag . . . I thought it was stolen.”

  “Who said so? It was next to you in the passage when I found you,” he said, “under muck and grime.”

  “You’re a genius!”

  What would be left inside?

  She felt the zipper and ridges of her leather backpack, then the contents of her bag tumbling over the sheet. She ran her finger over a phone, a dog-eared software manual, the Populax file, her Ultralash mascara, the hard-edged laptop, a key ring, what was left of her stubby Chanel lip-liner, a small tube of superglue that worked miracles on broken high-heels, alligator clips, cord to hook into the phone line, screwdriver, Nicorette gum, Miles Davis’s calcium biscuit, and her father’s grainy holy medal.

  All the familiar things of her work and her life.

  Her old life.

  Aimée shivered. She ran her hands through her spiky, matted hair to cover the trembling. Not only did she need a decent cut and shampoo from Dessange and a body scrub in the steamy Hammam, she needed her Beretta, for protection. And her sight, to use it.

  “Let’s get Martine’s help. She’ll convince him. Punch in 12 on my phone, René,” she said. “That’s my speed dial for Martine.”

  René handed her the phone.

  No sound.

  She clicked off.

  “Odd, René . . . ?”

  Then it hit her.

  “Wait a minute, René,” she said, feeling around. “There are two phones in this bag. But only one’s mine.” Her voice rose with excitement.

  “Isn’t the other . . .”

  “I was trying to return the woman’s phone.”

  “You mean . . . the attacker didn’t get either of the phones?”

  She scrabbled for the instrument on the tray table and held both in her hands. “It’s like mine, isn’t it?”

  Silence.

  “René . . . are you nodding yes?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Now we can trace the dead woman’s calls!”

  “He must have been in a hurry when he found out,” said René.

  “Found out what?”

  “That he’d got the wrong woman,” he said.

  That was what Morbier had said. But this would be almost too easy— they’d just check the last call and find the killer’s number!

  “I know what you’re thinking, Aimée,” said René. “But when I press call back, the last number received comes up invalid.”

  “Invalid? Try again.”

  She heard René take a deep breath. “She’s got the cheap version, no such features offered. No real features at all.”

  “So that means we can’t trace who called her,” she said, disappointed.

  A dead end?

  Then she brightened up. “But René, it must have speed dial, non? Don’t they all have that?”

  Silence.

  “Are you nodding yes?”

  “I see three numbers listed.”

  “Parfait, we trace her phone’s speed dial numbers,” she said.

  “Seems the attacker’s not too smart if his number’s on the phone.”

  “You’re right,” she said.

  Could he be that careless?

  “We have to check, René. We have to find her name, the phone number of this phone, then who she called.”

  “It’s easy to buy a prepaid in a store without security cameras,” said René. “She could have paid cash and bought airtime without leaving a trace. But why would she do that?”

  Aimée thought of the burgeoning cheap second phone business for people who’d lost theirs. “Say the woman lost hers a lot. What if she wanted a cheap phone for work,” she said. “Like I did until I got this one. Still, everyone has to show ID to activate a phone.”

  “Show ID?” asked René. “Now that makes it simple.”

  “How?”

  “My RAM’s revved up. I crack into a few databanks,” he said. “Run a program to check lists of purchases of cell phones by cash or charge. Takes about twenty minutes.”

  He was a master of his métier.

  “You’re a genius, René!”

  Aimée briefly struggled with the idea of calling Morbier to tell him her bag had been found. But first she needed to find out the victim’s identity. Find out if she was the woman from the resto.

  She had to make sure. Get concrete proof.

  “Try 12 on my phone.”

  René dialed and thrust it into her hand.

  “Allô?” said Martine, her voice low and out of breath.

  “Martine, don’t tell me you’re exercising?”

  “Feels like it,” she said. “Climbing in heels on this spiral metal staircase seems like my own personal Stair-master hell.”

  “Where are you?”

  “About to meet Vincent for Diva’s cocktail preview, our biggest night. Cherie, you were invited, too. Aren’t you coming?”

  Of course, with everything that had happened, she’d forgotten.

  “Alas, no. I’m in l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts.”

  “Visiting someone sick?” She heard Martine’s sharp intake of breath. “Ça va?”

  “You could say that.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Should she tell her best friend? On her biggest night? Ruin it for her? Not now, not when Martine was about to launch her new venture. She could tell her tomorrow.

  “I’d feel better if you persuade Vincent to turn over his hard-drive,” she said. “Besides, how could I come, I’ve got nothing to wear.”

  “All you think about is work, Aimée,” she said. “Can’t this wait until . . .”

  “Please Martine, la Procuratrice will subpoena Vincent’s firm.”

  “For what? He’s not guilty. It’s the salopes he did business with!”

  “So tell him to cooperate, Martine.”

  Again, doubt assailed her about Vincent. An unease floated over her.

  Aimée heard a low hum of conversation, strains of a chamber orchestra in the background. She visualized the fashionable crowd, smelled the wax dripping from the candles and tasted the bubbling champagne. And it came home to her that she was talking to her best friend since the lycée, as she’d done so many times, but it felt different. Like she was speaking in a vacuum.

  “Aimée, right now, it’s impossible . . . tiens, there’s Catherine Deneuve . . .”

  Aimée heard the smack of lips near cheeks as bisous were exchanged. In the background she overheard part of a conversation, “. . . she’s chic, she’s fierce and there’s so
mething fresh about her. A Belle de Jour punk.”

  “Big night here,” Martine said.

  The background conversation continued, “. . . a facility for accents and for sliding up and down the social scale to play classy or crass, posh or punk. A little glam. A little raw.”

  “If Vincent doesn’t act voluntarily,” Aimée said, raising her voice, “that makes him look bad.”

  “I’ll try, got to go,” she said, and hung up.

  “What did Martine say?”

  “Besides gushing over Deneuve? She’s rushing to interview fashionistas, do profiles on glamour queens not afraid to get dirt under their fingernails, get sidebar tidbits on hot new authors. If only I could see or . . .”

  She reached for his hand and found his arm.

  “René, remember the article we read in the Japanese software magazine about technology for the blind?”

  Silence. She heard René take a deep breath. “You mean the screen reader software that converts text into speech?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “And the speech recognition software that converts speech into text for the laptop?”

  “We make a deal,” he said. “You let me help find who attacked you, and I’ll get you these software programs. Even if I have go to Japan to do it.”

  “Deal.”

  But René didn’t have to go that far. A few phone calls and he found several programs via a hacker friend in the Sentier.

  “He’s leaving,” said René. “If I don’t go now, I won’t get it installed . . .”

  “But first I have to make sure the victim was the woman in the resto,” she interrupted, “and check the speed dial numbers on this woman’s phone.”

  “There’s time for that,” René said. “The Judiciare problem can’t wait and I need your help.”

  And with that, René left.

  She must have drifted off. Aimée heard the metal rings on the top of the curtain beside her slide across the rod. Footsteps hurried across the linoleum.

  “Mademoiselle Leduc, we’re evacuating the ward,” said the nurse from Burgundy, the nice one. She broke Aimée’s reverie of a gloom-filled future: her apartment sold to pay debts, creditors hounding René at Leduc Detective.

  “Evacuating? There’s a fire . . . ?”

  No smell of smoke.

  “A train disaster . . . the TGV crashed coming into Gare de Lyon,” the nurse said, her words rushed, breathing hard. “Two hundred people have been injured. We’re the closest facility, so we’re taking the overflow. L’hôpital Saint Antoine, too.”

  Aimée felt her blanket pulled back.

  “All the area hospitals are Code Red,” the nurse from Burgundy continued. “Your condition’s stabilized so we’ll move you to the résidence Saint Louis around the corner. A place for the unsighted to learn how to function.”

  So they were moving her to a blind people’s home.

  “You don’t understand, I have a home. . . .” She wanted to shout “I’m not like them!”

  But she was.

  “Before you return to your own home, it’s best to learn to navigate in the world of the sighted, mademoiselle,” she was told. “Chantal, our volunteer, will guide you. She’s a resident there.”

  A musty lilac scent accompanied the click of heels on linoleum. “Don’t worry,” said a quavering voice, “You can take care of yourself. I did.”

  “But how can you help me if you can’t see?”

  A cackle of dry laughter. “You’ve got a lot to learn.”

  Aimée felt the nurse tying her hospital gown and draping a robe over her. Her bag was thrust in her arms. But how would René find her?

  “I have to tell my friend . . .”

  “Don’t worry, there’s time for that. Chantal’s a pro,” the nurse said. “Stand up.”

  Aimée fought the dizzying sensation as she slid her feet to the floor. Sirens hee-hawed outside her window.

  “Now, stretch out your arm and find my shoulder.”

  Aimée gingerly extended her arm, felt smooth material, and gripped Chantal’s bony shoulder.

  “Parfait! Let yourself see shapes with your fingers, read textures and angles. We will teach you tricks. Vite, eh . . . let’s make way for the real unfortunates!”

  Aimée hesitated.

  “Allons-y!”

  Aimée shuffled forward, a baby step at a time.

  “I’m only legally blind, you know,” Chantal said, her tone confiding. Her shoulder moved forward. “I distinguish light and dark, large shapes. That’s our little secret, eh? The doctor said you had spirit, he recommended you for the résidence. Not everyone gets sent there . . . God forbid, you could be shipped off to St. Nazaire or some provincial backwater! Saint Louis only takes the quick learners, don’t forget that.”

  Wednesday

  VINCENT CSARDA WAS BORN on the wrong side of the blanket. He knew he wasn’t unique in that. A lot of the world was, and would continue to be. As a child, once a year at Christmas, his mother would take him for lunch with a “gentleman friend.” Always at the posh Ladurée, famous for thick hot chocolate, in Place de la Madeleine. This was all kept a secret from his stepfather, an injured tram conductor with a meager disability pension.

  Vincent, scrubbed clean and wearing his best, had hated the long ride at the back of the bus on the outside platform. And his mother’s nervous picking of lint from his wool jacket. This “friend,” with his wiry, amber mustache and red watery eyes, would ceremoniously give Vincent a gift. Odd or old-fashioned toys. Once, a much-thumbed book about steam engines.

  Vincent would thank him and spoon up the hot chocolate. “Growing a mustache?” the man would joke about the chocolate swipe on Vincent’s upper lip. Vincent would nod, aware of his mother’s scrutiny.

  The gifts had sat in a pile in his armoire. One Christmas his mother told him they wouldn’t see the “friend” anymore but they mustn’t be sad. He’d taken care of Vincent. His mother had never told him outright, but from what she left unsaid, Vincent figured this man was his father and he’d died.

  Later Vincent found out he’d inherited a lot of money from his mother’s “friend.” A natural in business and promotion, Vincent started his agence de publicité, expanded, and never looked back. His father hadn’t given him his name or birthright, but, as Vincent rationalized, something more important: the means to get it.

  Vincent waved to his secretary, who applied makeup with a deft hand at her desk while talking on her speakerphone, indicating he needed five minutes. He shut the door of his Bastille office and checked his e-mail. Opened the one from “popstar.” The subject read “Marmalade tea.” The message:

  Call 92 23 80 29 for a good time.

  He wrote down the number on his palm. More secure. Then he deleted the e-mail. This was the last time. No more messages; he’d wash his hands of it now.

  He adjusted the white dress shirt, spritzed Le Mâle by Gaultier, and checked for lint on his tailored black tuxedo, the trousers of which hid his platform shoes. He’d be going to the Bastille Opéra’s Salle de Reception later for a press conference launch. The Arsenal Pavillon might have been more chic. But Monsieur Malraux, the art appraiser, had offered his hôtel particulier, a detached mansion in the faubourg that carried cachet. And cachet counted with the gauche-caviar.

  A SOFT, blurred blue shone from the high-paned windows overlooking the courtyard in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The pilasters and sculpted frieze on the façade reflected the glow. The bluish star Vega, in the Lyre constellation, hung in the sky. Inside, myriads of tiny blue lights blanketed the balustrades, giving a gleaming otherworldly luster to the foyer.

  Blue like Diva, their new magazine. Perfect for the pre-launch gala, Vincent thought, tenting his fingers. A mix of elegance and freshness.

  One of the Bourbon monarchs had installed his mistress, a well-known actress, here. The monarch built the petit théâtre, a gem complete with a foyer hung with Gobelin tapestries, for her performances. He liked to show her off to cou
rt intimates, to keep her happy. Rumor had it, he was so enamored of her that he had an underground passage to the Bastille dug to permit impromptu visits.

  Vincent doubted that part of the story. Why hide a liaison? Few at court had.

  The theatre, perfect for the pre-launch gala, had a gilded stage scalloped by cherubs under a painted ceiling. It seated 200 at most in the frayed maroon velvet seats. The theatre had an élan that money couldn’t buy. Vincent hungered for it. Something he’d wanted all his life . . . an entrée into a world that excluded him.

  But not for long. He would obtain his backers’ and the arbiters of fashion’s approval at this pre-launch event for the élite of society.

  Vincent lifted up the first issue of Diva, a glossy four-color magazine. On the cover were three Bastille divas representing tragedy, wisdom, and glamour. Martine’s first issue profiled women spearheading the arts; the designer Jean Paul Gaultier; and a ferment of young filmmakers, architects, installation artists, dancers, and singers in the “new” Opéra.

  A winner. He felt it in his bones. A bit of flash, glamour, and luxe tempered by conscience; interviews with activists, writers, and the editors of the Cahiers du Cinéma. A smattering of locals as a guide to the branché clubs and bistros. A French rapper and a Chinese teahouse and its owner in the Arts et Chic section.

  With the success of Diva Vincent would truly join the gauche-caviar. Not just pretend from the sidelines. Money did not guarantee entry; he had plenty of that. He needed the cachet of owning a politically conscious, avant-garde and quasi-intello fashion magazine.

  A sprinkling of socialist ministers, human rights activists, prominent left-wing lawyers, trust fund hippies, and aristos glossed the guest list. Vincent noted every detail: the lobster and truffle hors d’oeuvres, bowls of glittering Petrossian caviar, the magnums of chilled Champagne, handmade chocolate favors shaped like the Bastille columns. No matter how polit- ically diverse the guests’ views, Vincent was savvy enough to know their preferences.

  The best.

  Like the Prime Minister or President, they might be very “left” but they dined on caviar. On a regular basis.

  They would launch Diva for the public in a media circus at the Opéra’s Salle de Reception. Vincent knew Diva would shake the élite, the wannabes, the bon chic bon genre . . . but in a fresh way, the way they liked. And they would beg to be featured in it. The participation of the former editor of Madame Figaro guaranteed it.