by Cara Black
The connection—murky but there. So did her father know him? Or.…
She read further. The article detailed doings of the leftist squatters who’d played host to the German Haader-Rofmein gang—radical seventies terrorists—before a security forces raid.
Her throat caught. Several years ago she’d learned her American mother—Sydney Leduc—had been captured with the Haader-Rofmein group after she’d abandoned Aimée. Sydney had been imprisoned and deported in a deal wangled by her father. Her father never talked about it, refused to speak her mother’s name.
The hurt that never went away surfaced. Her hands shook.
Here was the connection. Why had her father kept this in his files?
She punched in Yuri Volodya’s number. Busy. She counted to sixty, tried again. Still busy. She pondered his logic of leaving her an envelope of cash with an urgent note about a priceless painting that needed protection, then going out for dinner, trusting a broom closet for security. Some elaborate ruse? But his anguish and fear had seemed genuine.
Tense, she glanced at the time. At Maxence, working at René’s desk. Wondered if she should chance leaving him alone and visiting Yuri.
Her cell phone trilled, startling her.
“Oui?”
“Since when do you run over Serbs, Aimée?” said Serge, her pathologist friend from the morgue.
“And live to tell?” She put Yuri’s information in her bag, switched gears and grabbed her ankle boots from the floor. “At first I thought he had a death wish, attempted suicide, or that he was drunk and confused, but.…”
“It didn’t feel right?” said Serge.
“All wrong. Tell me you’ve gotten results. His ID?”
“Besides the little Eastern European dental work he had?”
“That’s rhetorical, I assume.”
“Can’t talk, I’m finishing the autopsy.” In the background came the unmistakable whirring of a bone-cutting saw.
She grimaced. But with Saj facing a prospective manslaughter charge, his future teetered in the balance. Serge just loved to bargain; she would have to humor him. “S’il te plaît, Serge. I’ll babysit the twins.”
Pause. She heard the pumping spray of water pressure hoses. She cringed, unable to stop herself from picturing how the hoses were being used.
“Bon, twenty minutes. The usual place.”
SHE’D BEEN SLEEPWALKING since René’s departure yesterday, numb with the shock of hitting the Serb, Saj’s injuries. But now she needed to wake up and take action, figure out the dead Serb’s story and get Saj out of hot water. René would have warned her against getting involved and given valid reasons—a business to run, rent to pay.
Too late for that. Saj was in trouble. And there was no nagging finger to stop her.
But she also needed to figure out this Yuri Volodya. She’d checked Leduc Detective’s answering machine. Empty.
“Ever used Xincus database for a person search, Maxence?”
“Cut my teeth on Xincus,” he said.
“So dazzle me.” She wrote down Yuri Volodya’s name and address. “Find everything you can about him: birth, schooling, family, organizations he belonged to, politics, his bookbinding business, something with Salvador Dalí.”
“The works, Aimée?”
She nodded, rummaging in her drawer for a fresh cell phone. Thank God René kept them charged. She found a midnight-blue one and inserted her SIM card.
“Can you handle things?”
“I’m on it, Aimée.”
“Keep in contact with me at this number. Check with me on the hour. Don’t forget to monitor the reports.” She double-looped her scarf, grabbed her metallic ballet flats and stuck them in her bag. It was time to test Maxence’s efficiency and get to what needed doing. To where Leduc started. Grass roots.
“Good luck holding down”—she paused—how did they say it across the pond?—“le fort.”
A shrug. “If the Indians attack?”
“Arrows in the back,” she said over her shoulder.
AIMÉE KEYED THE ignition, popped into first gear, and wove her faded pink scooter through the congested traffic on Quai de la Mégisserie. Ten minutes later, she parked on the rain-dampened cobbles near the redbrick Institut Médico-Légal entrance. In the morgue’s waiting hall, busts of medical pioneers looked down on her, impassive and marble-eyed.
Last night’s incidents replayed in her mind with slow clarity: arguing with Saj, that white van pulling out, the terrible thump and those dull eyes of the Serb, his splayed palms pressed on the windshield for what seemed like forever but was only a few seconds.
The image was burned onto the backs of her eyelids.
Her trilling cell phone interrupted her thoughts. Yuri? But her caller ID showed Martine, her best friend since lycée.
“My publisher commissioned me to write a book, Aimée,” Martine said, excited. “A guide to looking chic.”
The last thing she wanted to hear about right now. “Congratulations, Martine.”
“I think I’ve got the main theme down. Alors, fashion sense involves mix and match,” Martine said. “Like you—it’s never just one look.”
“Moi?”
“But you’re the one who taught me to assemble outfits, make magic with two scarves. How to stock the definitive armoire. Zut, you schooled me in all the must-haves: a man’s jacket, le trenchcoat, a black sweater,” Martine rattled on. “A simple tank top, white silk blouse, a little black dress, jeans and, of course, a leather jacket. And Converse sneakers.”
“You know my feelings about tank tops,” Aimée said, shaking her head. “But you’re a serious journalist, Martine.”
“So I should refuse an outrageous advance?” Aimée heard the flick of a lighter. “I can write this in my sleep,” Martine said. A short intake of breath. “Not to mention I can use you, Aimée. Your mix of classic styles, déconstruit, that thrown-together look with a whiff of vintage. A touch of whimsy.”
“We share clothes, Martine. C’est tout.”
“But it’s how you throw them together, Aimée,” Martine said. “Tell me you’ll give me tidbits, help me do the tie-in spread for ELLE. Okay?”
Now, of all times.
“Martine, René took the job in Silicon Valley. Phfft—gone. Just like that,” Aimée said. “Compris? I’ve got a business to run.”
Not to mention saving her colleague from manslaughter charges. Or from the dead tattooed Serb’s partner.
“But René told you about his interview,” said Martine. Aimée heard a long exhale. Imagined the gray spiral of smoke, the taste of nicotine, the jolt. “Alors, they recruited him, those Silicon Valley … quoi?” Martine searched for the word. “ ‘ead’unters.”
“Headhunters, you mean?”
“Open your eyes once in a while, Aimée, before it’s too late,” Martine said. “Are you coping okay?”
All alone now. That old feeling of abandonment rose. Aimée bit her lip. “I want the best for René.”
A sigh. “Put yourself in René’s size twos. He’s gutted after losing Meizi. And haven’t you always worried over his health, how the cold worsens his hip issues? Never mind the money they offered.” Martine exhaled again. “He’s brilliant. You had to let him go.”
“As if I’d stop him even if I could,” she said. “Look, I’m at the morgue.”
“Who did you kill now?”
“Not me.” Pause. “We had an accident.”
“Et alors?” Another exhale of smoke. “There’s more. I hear it in what you’re not saying. Spill.”
Aimée could never keep anything from Martine for long. She sighed and then gave a quick version of what had happened the night before. “And to top it all off, I’ve let myself get so flabby and out of shape. Some fashion icon you’ll think I am when you see how tight my waistband is lately.”
“Saj totaled René’s car?” Martine said. “Get it fixed. But mon Dieu, are you saying now you can’t fit into the Dior?” She meant the blue
vintage Dior they found at the winter sales. “Bad enough René is missing your cousin Sebastien’s wedding; now you have nothing to wear to it either?”
“That’s all you can say, Martine?” She hitched up her legging. Examined the scuff on her boot heel.
“Serb mafia, an old Russian, a painting?” Martine exhaled. “I’d say concentrate on what’s important. Sounds like that’s getting this mec off Saj’s tail.”
“You have a bead on this? Know a Serb who trades in art?”
Why hadn’t she asked the old man about the painting’s value? She didn’t even know who painted it, whether it was someone famous. Stupid.
Martine sucked in her breath. “Watch yourself, Aimée. Serbian tough men score low on finesse points. I wrote an article on them last year. We know they contract out. It’s the employer to watch out for.”
Morbier and the medic had cautioned the same thing.
“But what’s really important is that you’re not making a mistake with Melac,” Martine said. “He’s moving in with you, non?”
Typical. Only Martine could be thinking about Aimée’s love life at a time like this. “Only if Miles Davis agrees,” she said. “It’s complicated as usual.”
Melac, Aimée’s Brigade Criminelle detective boyfriend, was never around these days; he’d been seconded to an assignment he couldn’t talk about. Only his citrus scent clung to the sheets.
“But if you still need an escort to Sebastien’s wedding, let me suggest a man. He reminds me of the chocolate you like; deep, dark, and yes, somewhat decadent. I’ll introduce you.”
Always the matchmaker, Martine.
“Meanwhile, I’ll contact my seamstress,” she continued. “A perfect magician with Dior alterations.”
Serge beckoned from the lab door.
“Got to go, Martine,” she said. “Date with a cadaver.”
She hung up. A little shudder ran through her. Put yourself in René’s size twos. Was Martine implying that her selfish streak had surfaced again—the self-absorbed eye-blinkered mode? Had she driven René away, put too much pressure on him, relied on him too much? She’d made it all go wrong, as usual.
Practice your profession but also have a life, her Papa always told her. Morbier had no life—correction, even he had a woman making him morning coffee and she could imagine what else. In the end, René, her best friend and partner, had left her. The agency needed to be kept afloat. Yet dwelling on that right now would get her nowhere.
Aimée followed Serge down the stairs to the lower level, past the cold storage room and to the lab. The frigid air sent shivers up her neck.
Serge paused on the steps outside the morgue lab. The dark hairs below his knuckles were powdered with talc dust from his surgical gloves. “So you agree to help with the twins on their half-day holiday, Aimée?”
The usual price for any favors—babysitting his energetic twin boys, whom she likened to shooting balls of mercury.
“Your mother-in-law’s busy?” she said glumly.
He nodded. “Away for once at my wife’s sister’s in Sceaux.”
Jeanette, his wife’s mother, was a blue-coiffed, white-gloved ancien régime general’s widow with steel in her veins. Poor Serge. His mother-in-law ruled their life. Of course, Grandmère’s iron fist might be exactly what the twins needed in a babysitter.
At least Aimée wouldn’t have to take them to the pediatrician this time.
“There’s an exhibit at Cité Universitaire near Parc Montsouris,” he said. “My wife’s been meaning to take them.”
Fat chance. She’d bribe them with Orangina and pommes frites. As usual.
“Deal.”
In the Institut Médico-Légal corridor, a linoleum-tiled affair, Serge looked both ways and then pushed open a nondescript brown door. “Meet me at the dissection area. Second door on your left.”
She swallowed. Her mouth was dry as sand. “Why? Can’t you tell me here?” But the door closed with a whoosh behind him.
The formaldehyde fumes and the sweetish smells of decomposition met her in the long white-tiled room. Cadavers in various stages of autopsy lay naked on the trough-like aluminum tables. This was the part she’d hated about her first year of medical school. The part she couldn’t take, that compelled her to drop out.
“Is that necessary, Serge?” He had put on a mask, and was handing her one.
She avoided looking directly at the body, which lay facedown, and focused instead on the adjoining counter and the pair of rib spreaders resting on it. Serge consulted a clip chart, his brows crinkling.
“Intéressant.”
“That’s all you can say?”
“He the one?” Serge’s big eyes, behind his black-framed glasses, were wide. “Make sure, Aimée.”
She steeled herself and looked down. Flaps of the peeled-back scalp were draped over a portion of the exposed base of the skull. Beside the head, a blue bucket held the brain. The Serb’s back was white as aspirin but his arms were covered with blue tattoos. Crudely needled Cyrillic letters. “I’d recognize that tattoo with the wolf anywhere.” And she wished she hadn’t.
A tag hung over the dirt-ridged nail of his big toe: FELIKS.
“I hadn’t started the autopsy yet when you called. So I drew blood prior to opening him up,” Serge said. “I sent it for an expedited analysis, ran tests for the usual drugs of choice: opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and alcohol.” He consulted the clipboard again. “A slow day, so for once they expedited the tests. All negative.”
“So he wasn’t high or stoned?”
Serge shook his head. “Notice those incisions I made in the neck and vertebrae. Not the optimal way to remove the spinal cord.” He shrugged. “But a way to look for subtle injuries to his neck.” Serge pushed his glasses on his forehead, moved forceps out of the way. “But I found nothing.”
Was that good? Or bad?
“You want the good news first?”
Hopeful, she nodded. “You found something else in the blood test, Serge?”
“First, explain your interest in this tattooed Serb, Aimée,” he said. “And why I’m helping you out again.”
“Saj ran over this Feliks,” she said, motioning to the toe tag. “Killed him, or so the flics think. I’m not so sure.”
Serge moved the scalpels and knives to the next cutting board. “A little difficult to argue, given the tire tracks on his fractured arm.”
“But the lack of blood bothered me,” she said. “And his expression—blank, even as he hit the windshield. Seemed so strange.” She made herself look down again at the scraped, tattooed torso. “Sounds stupid, since my closest experience to seeing someone get run over by a car was a rabbit René ran over near Charles de Gaulle once.”
“A rabbit?” He lifted his arm. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
The whole scenario from last night smelled, and she needed to air it out. “Can’t you give me the autopsy results now, Serge? I need ammo to shove in the flics’ faces to clear Saj.”
“Clear him?”
Why did he pretend not to understand? His pager buzzed. After a quick glance he shook his head. “I’ve got to make a call. Let me get back to you later.”
“Saj could sit in garde à vue under suspicion for involuntary homicide while.…” She took a deep breath. A nauseating sickish-sweet filled her nostrils. Bad move.
“What if I throw in overnight babysitting, chez moi? You know, twelve uninterrupted hours of freedom for you and your wife.” He wouldn’t be able to turn that down. But she didn’t own a TV. Somehow she’d figure out how to entertain the twins. Or take them to Martine’s.
Serge set the autopsy report down near the bucket containing the liver. “Make it quick. You were pre-med—figure it out yourself. And I never did this, compris?”
After the door closed, she picked up the clipboard and concentrated on trying to decipher the autopsy-ese:
1. Right forearm fracture, with relatively little hemorr
hage.
2. Abrasions on front and back torso, arms, face consistent with scraping on street cobbles, again relatively bloodless.
3. In terms of the head, no hemorrhages beneath the scalp, skull fractures, or collections of blood around the brain—epidural, subdural and subarachnoid hemorrhages, or contusions of the brain itself. No lacerations in the ponto-medullary junction where one might expect.
She looked up as Serge entered.
“Zut alors, we ran over a dead man?”
Serge gave a small nod.
What the hell had happened? What had they gotten into? Between this news and the nauseating smells, her knees went weak. She grabbed at the table. Felt the corpse’s leather-cold flesh, gasped and let go.
Serge cleaned his glasses with the edge of his lab coat. “The medic reports the victim was still warm upon resuscitation attempts, no rigor mortis or lividity until later. His heart could have stopped anywhere from five minutes to an hour before.”
He turned the corpse over.
Aimée stared down at those half-lidded eyes. They looked exactly as they had when pressed against the windshield in front of her. Dead. “That accounts for his expression. No look of pain. No blood from the cuts on his face.”
Serge pointed his ballpoint pen at the pale bruise on the Serb’s shoulder. “I’d say he bounced off the windshield here. After he landed, his arm was run over, as the fracture indicates.”
“But if Feliks the Serb was already dead, how could he fall in front of the car?”
“Good question. The whole thing bothers me. Let’s look at the prelim crime scene photos.” Serge rustled through a folder. “This one shows the angle. Do you recall any parked cars, a tree, a motorcycle—anything he could have fallen off of?”
“It happened so fast, although it felt like slow motion at the time.” She studied the photos. The position of René’s Citroën. “A white van pulled ahead of us.…” Her index finger stabbed at the photo. “Here. If the Serb was standing between this parked truck and this motorcycle.…” She paused to think for a moment. “He could have caught his sleeve on the truck’s side mirror. For reasons unknown, his heart stopped. Then the car’s vibrations on the cobbles caused him.…”
