The Paris Librarian

by Mark Pryor

  She’d be in her new apartment soon enough, and Hugo resolved to visit her, aware that with a second son now lost and living in a strange place, her mind would likely deteriorate even more quickly than before.

  Hugo shook off the sadness he felt for the old woman and tried to find out what he could about Michelle Juneau. She’d been secretive about her connection to Isabelle Severin, but Hugo couldn’t see any reason why she’d want to hurt Paul or Sarah.

  After an hour, Hugo decided to clear his mind completely, stretching out on the couch with a copy of Stone Cold Dead, a murder mystery by James Ziskin. It was the third in the series, and Hugo enjoyed the 1960s setting and the tough protagonist, a female reporter called Ellie Stone who reminded him more than a little of Claudia. His mind drifted into the pages, his own mystery disappearing into the distance, and the stress washed out of his lower back and shoulders as he settled deeper into the couch, soaking up Ziskin’s persuasive portrayal of upstate New York in an era before cell phones and the Internet.

  His peaceful world was interrupted at noon, when Camille Lerens called. “You don’t mind me bothering you on a Sunday, do you?”

  “Why should I?” Hugo replied. “I let you bother me on a Saturday.”

  “C’est vrai,” she said. That’s true. “I did a little digging into Alain Benoît, but the guy seems clean. No criminal history, just your average barely known freelance writer.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t find much on him either.”

  “I did put someone outside his apartment, though. Just to keep track of when he comes and goes, and who with.”

  “Good idea.” A thought struck Hugo. “Does he have a girlfriend?”

  “Not that I know of. And I don’t want to spook him by asking too many questions of his neighbors.”

  “That’s smart.”

  “So how’s Tom today?”

  “Haven’t seen him yet. Speaking of odd, he didn’t throw things at me when he got in this morning.”

  “Too tired, maybe. He said he’d stayed awake the whole night.”

  “I’ll give him a pat on the back when he wakes up,” Hugo said. “What’s your plan today?”

  “I’m going to take a few hours off, actually. I’ll stay available in case something happens with Benoît, but otherwise I plan to sit in the bath and watch some football.”

  “You have a television in your bathroom?”

  “I have one in every room.”

  “You sure you’re not an American?”

  Lerens laughed. “Fairly certain. You guys allow transgender cops over there?”

  “I would hope so,” Hugo said.

  “Come over and watch the game if you like,” she said. “I’ll even get out of the bath for you.”

  Hugo looked at his screen as his phone buzzed. Merlyn was trying to call him. “I’ll leave you to soak in peace. Call me if something happens.”

  “Will do.”

  Hugo clicked over to the incoming call. “Merlyn, what’s up?”

  “Miki’s being a bore. Can we grab lunch?”

  “Sure. Just you and me?”

  “Yes. Her new boyfriend called her early this morning and she ran out to see him. Wouldn’t let me tag along.”

  “So are you guys an item or not?” Hugo asked.

  “I told you, it’s complicated. I don’t have an issue with her dating him, if that’s what you’re wondering. She just doesn’t need to be weird about it.”

  “Meet me at Café Laruns in ninety minutes, we can talk about it.”

  “Deal. Thanks, Hugo.”

  Café Laruns sat on the crease of the Sixth and Seventh Arrondissments, a place where most of the patrons were French, or at least lived locally. Hugo put the lack of tourists down to the location, the café being between two magnetic fields on either side: the fancy stores and cafés of the Saint-Germain area to the east and, on the west side, the museum of Les Invalides and, a little further along, the Eiffel Tower itself.

  As he took a table outside, he heard nothing but French being spoken, which always pleased him. The price of a cup of coffee dropped here, too, a couple of euros lower than at the cafés closer to the tourist sites, and that pleased him more. All around him, conversation swirled as families, couples, and friends settled in to order their coffees and carafes of wine, their omelets and steak-frites, waiters sliding between crowded tables like matadors as they delivered baskets of bread and little plates of olives to whet the appetite.

  Hugo looked inside, past the crowd of heads to the more-peaceful interior of the bistro. Two old men, each alone at his own table, ate peacefully by themselves. One picked up fries with delicate fingers as the other spooned an ice cream sundae into his mouth, both protected and seemingly immune from the surge and retreat of customers around them. Hugo wondered how long they’d been coming here, whether it was months or years. Did they know each other, even a little bit? But Parisians, in Hugo’s experience, didn’t do nodding acquaintances. Either you shook hands and talked for a moment or you passed each other by, familiarity and proximity be damned.

  Merlyn arrived late, and flustered. “I’m beginning to wonder why Miki wanted me to come with her,” she said.

  “What now?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Merlyn said, taking a deep breath. “I’ve barely seen her, is all.”

  “What time did she head out this morning?”

  “No clue, she left me a note. Before I woke up, that’s for sure.”

  Hugo grinned. “How romantic, a new love in Paris.”

  She stared at him for a moment, then couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “Whatever. But she’s supposed to be here for that book, the Severin stuff, not chasing Parisians around town.”

  “True, seems like she’s not that into the Severin story if she’s so quick to be distracted by a guy. Is she actually doing any writing?”

  “Not that I can tell. Perhaps that’s not fair. She was gone all yesterday, maybe she was writing and maybe not, I don’t know. I know she went to a café to do some writing after dinner, too. So yeah, I’m not being entirely charitable.”

  “But no breakthrough on the secret papers?”

  “I don’t think so. She seems excited still, so she must have something in mind. She’s always been a little secretive, like she is with this new man, so I’m not surprised she hasn’t said anything.”

  “Have you met him?”

  “No, and that’s a little weird.”

  “Afraid you’ll steal him?”

  “No clue. Maybe you can ask her for me. Anyway, enough about her.” She picked up a menu and studied it for a minute. “Do all these cafés serve the same thing? This menu looks like all the others.”

  “Pretty much. The difference is usually in the food itself, not the menu. If you want something specific they don’t have, let me know. We can go elsewhere.”

  “No, it’s fine. Do they do veggie burgers?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Fine, I’ll get the grilled salmon.”

  “Fish, eh?”

  “It’s good for the brain. Apparently the oils are absorbed by the brain and . . .” She waved a hand. “And something or other.”

  “So,” Hugo began. “Moving on from Miki Harrison and her mysterious paramour, let’s talk about you. Which direction is your life headed?”

  “Straight forward, with very little looking back.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  “I quit working at the hotel,” Merlyn said. “Doing a lot of freelance genealogy work still, which I enjoy.”

  “So much for not looking back.”

  “Ha! I meant in my life. I travel as much as I can, see old friends when I can.” She gave him a smile. “I’m happy. I don’t put great expectations on other people, so I’m rarely disappointed.”

  “Seems like you’re looking at people wrong, then. That’s a glass-half-empty approach.”

  “I’m not looking at it wrong. Life is a beautiful glass, whether it�
�s full or not.”

  “I like the sound of that.” Hugo looked down as his phone rang. It was Lieutenant Lerens, so he answered it and said, “Camille. I need to get my own ringtone for you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Brunch with a friend.”

  “Can you get away?” she asked.

  “If you give me a good-enough reason.”

  “I can try. Some Russian tourists just pulled Alain Benoît out of the River Seine,” Lerens said. “That good enough?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Hugo met Lieutenant Lerens in front of the hospital Hôtel-Dieu on the Ile de la Cité, one of those imposing buildings that millions of tourists walk right by as they take in the more famous, and even more beautiful, cathedral of Notre-Dame alongside it, to its east.

  The hospital, like many nineteenth-century hospitals, was essentially a rectangle with a central courtyard, its sides connected by colonnaded walkways. Hugo had been here before and he couldn’t quite decide whether the chill the hospital gave him was the nature of the place, or something else.

  Whatever it was, he was glad of Lerens’s company, and that she already knew the way. He followed her down a long corridor and up two flights of elegant stairs to a nurse’s station where a uniformed officer stood talking to a pair of nurses. When the flic saw Lerens, he snapped to attention and all but moonwalked back to his station, the closed doorway to a single room.

  “No one’s come by here,” the officer said defensively.

  “Thank you,” said Lerens, giving the man a less-than-appreciative look.

  “I don’t understand,” Hugo said. “Why his body is up here and not at the morgue?”

  Lerens looked at him with a puzzled expression. The she said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Hugo, I just assumed. . . . I’m an idiot. So, he was pulled from the river dead, but he was revived. Well, sort of, he was unconscious and not breathing but one of the Russians was a paramedic and somehow got his heart started.”

  “Do you know what happened to him?” Hugo asked.

  “I don’t have any details. As soon as I heard about him being found, though, I sent some officers to try and find witnesses. So far, no luck.”

  “Did he jump from one of the bridges?”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Nor how long he was in the water?”

  “Non. We really don’t know anything yet, Hugo. He may not even make it.”

  Hugo drew her down the hallway, out of earshot of the policeman and nurses. “So tell me what you’re really thinking.”

  “I can’t decide, to be honest,” Lerens replied. “On the one hand, it makes perfect sense that he’d jump. If he killed Paul Rogers and Sarah Gregory, I can see him committing suicide.”

  “And his motive?”

  “He wanted Sarah for himself, but after he killed Paul she rejected him. Either she killed herself out of despair and he followed suit, or he killed her and then himself out of guilt. Either one could be plucked from the police textbook.”

  “Could be. But you’re not convinced.”

  “I’m not. We have no actual evidence of any affair, or that he was even in love with Sarah. We’re just speculating, and I don’t close cases based on speculation. Plus, the manner of Paul’s death. I mean, poison isn’t the first weapon to come to mind when you want to kill off a love rival.” She paused, then added, “Unless you’re a woman.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Hugo said with a smile.

  “That’s reassuring.” Lerens returned the smile. “I’ll let Claudia know. But seriously, if it’s him, how did he do it? Rogers was the one running searches on curare. We basically agree it was impossible for anyone to administer the poison to him, thanks to those security cameras.”

  “There’s another possibility, you know. What if Benoît and Sarah were having an affair, and Paul found out. Maybe he confronted Benoît, who refused to back off. Unable to end the affair, and unwilling to leave Sarah, Paul committed suicide in an unlikely way. Using curare. In other words, he killed himself figuring that we’d look into his death and maybe would blame Alain Benoît. A few days later, Sarah realizes what happened and kills herself out of remorse, or perhaps she rejects Benoît and he loses his mind and kills her, too. Not able to face what he’s done, and knowing he’s a suspect, Benoît takes a dive into the Seine.”

  “Paul Rogers getting revenge from beyond the grave, eh?” Lerens said. “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Seems a little far-fetched, I agree, but it makes some sense.”

  “But it doesn’t explain why Benoît would take Paul’s keys, the keys to the library. If, in fact, he did. We still don’t know for sure.”

  “I’m pretty sure he did, but you’re right, we still don’t know why exactly he would take the keys,” Hugo said. “But I think he took them for a reason, and if he knew he was going to commit suicide, seems to me he’d likely execute whatever plan he had in mind before killing himself. He wouldn’t care about the consequences at that point.”

  “Everything takes us back to the library, doesn’t it?” Lerens said. “I think it’s time to find out once and for all whether there’s more to this Severin collection than we know. Figure out if there really is a secret being protected by people there.”

  “And being ferreted out by someone else. What’s your plan?”

  “You know the people down there better. Who do you think I should I talk to?”

  Hugo thought for a moment. “If it were me, I’d bring in Michelle Juneau in for a few questions. She’s pretty tough, but I’m betting she’s a lot tougher behind her desk at the library than she is in a police interview room. Start with her.”

  Hugo stood with Officer Paul Jameson, looking through the one-way glass at an irritated Michelle Juneau, who sat fidgeting with her purse and phone. Hugo didn’t know whether she was irritated at being there or at being kept waiting.

  “You brought her in?” Hugo asked Jameson. “Weren’t you up all night?”

  “Had a few hours’ kip, I don’t need much more than that. And this case fascinates me.”

  “Me, too,” Hugo said.

  Jameson gestured to Juneau. “And yes, I brought her here. She wasn’t happy at first, but then I told her I’d be happy to come by her place of work tomorrow and be a little more persuasive. She preferred the idea of a Sunday-afternoon chat over a Monday-morning embarrassment.”

  “Nice work. She say anything on the way over?”

  “Just asked what it was all about, so I played dumb. Not hard, under the circumstances.”

  “Yeah,” Hugo said. “It’s not much more than a fishing expedition at this stage.” He fell silent as Camille Lerens let herself into the interrogation room. She glanced at the one-way glass, as if checking Hugo was in place. She spoke to Juneau in French, and her voice came through to the observation room as tinny and metallic, but loud enough and clear enough.

  “Madame Juneau, I am Lieutenant Camille Lerens.” She didn’t shake hands, just sat down opposite Juneau and put a file folder between them. “This is probably obvious, but I wanted to point out the cameras that will record everything, sound and sight, that goes on in this room. We do this to preserve our conversation and to ensure there are no questions about what was said today. Is that all right with you?”

  “Oui, I understand.”

  “Good.” She flipped open the folder and picked up a photo. Hugo leaned to one side, then saw that it was a picture of Alain Benoît. “Do you recognize this man?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Look closely, please, it’s important.”

  Juneau reached out and took the photo, studying it. “Maybe I have seen him. At the library, I think. I don’t remember names, though.” She passed the photograph back. “Who is he?”

  “A friend of Paul Rogers and Sarah Gregory. You knew Sarah, yes?”

  “A little. She’d come by the library sometimes, informally to see Paul and also when we had events. I didn’t know her socially, thou
gh, if that’s what you were wondering.”

  “You told Hugo Marston about an incident at the library when you heard someone in the basement with Monsieur Rogers.”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you repeat that story for me, please?”

  Juneau nodded. “Of course.” She seemed to gather herself, then started on the account of that night, repeating the story she’d told Hugo. He listened carefully for variations, omissions, or additions, but other than the occasional word choice, the story remained the same. When she’d finished, Lerens sat quietly for a moment.

  “You know about the secret door, right?” she asked.

  “In the basement?” Juneau smiled. “It’s not so much secret as, well, we’re not supposed to use it. It’s totally off-limits.”

  “The person you think you heard. Could he or she have used that door to get away?”

  “I suppose so, yes. If they had a key.”

  “Rogers could have given them one, right?”

  “Yes, true.”

  “If you go through the door and into the university library, where can you exit? Which street or streets?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve never used the door and I don’t know anything about the building it leads into.”

  “Bon.” Lerens shifted gears seamlessly. “Tell me how you got your job.”

  “I applied.” She shrugged. “How else do people get jobs?”

  “I see.” Lerens kept her tone light.

  “You think I was gifted the job because of the Severin collection?”

  “I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking.”

  “Look,” Juneau said. She leaned forward. “I applied for the job. When I interviewed, I told them it was possible I could talk to Isabelle about getting her papers housed there. I made no promises, nor did anyone else. So if you’re asking whether there was a quid pro quo, there wasn’t from my end, so you’d have to ask . . .” Her voice trailed off.