AL01 - Murder in the Marais ali-1

by Cara Black

  "No, of course not." Aimee shook her head. "It's just strange that Foborski didn't have those forms."

  "Let me help you."

  She shook her head. "I'm reserving you for computer work." His hacking skills were the best she'd ever seen besides her own. Even better than her own. She saw the rejection in Rene's downcast eyes.

  "Because I'm small?"

  "Stop that. I dealt with your size long ago. You're my best friend."

  "And tact is not your strong suit, Aimee," Rene said. "Even though you're my best friend, too. Do you think if I were tall I'd be able to help you?"

  "Alors! This has nothing to do with your size, Rene. Lili Stein's homicide isn't our usual corporate crime."

  "Don't count me out, Aimee."

  "I swore on my father's grave." She put her head down. "Now I've blabbed to you."

  "You swore to deliver something to Lili Stein. You did. Remember, I'm a black belt." He nudged her proudly. "And a good backup."

  She sighed. "You keep reminding me."

  "What about Soli Hecht?"

  "He said no contact."

  "Come to the dojo with me. You need all the self-defense kicks you can master."

  "Merci." She squeezed his hand. "I'm going to see Morbier. He should have the forensics report by now."

  "What is that stuff on your fingernails?"

  "Like it? It's called Urban Decay," she said. "I'm going to Les Blancs Nationaux meeting tomorrow."

  "Why?"

  "If they murdered Lili Stein. . ."

  He interrupted. "You need backup with those types, Aimee."

  She hesitated. That might not be a bad idea. But if it was a setup. . .She decided against exposing him to danger.

  "If I need you I'll call you." She kissed him on both cheeks. "Pressure Eurocom's accountant, make him sweat. See you later at the office."

  LE COMMISSARIAT de Police seemed quiet for an early Friday afternoon. Few desks were occupied and the television blared an old American rerun of Hunter. As Aimee approached, Morbier's head appeared from under his desk.

  "Lost the grip that holds up my suspenders," he said with a sheepish grin.

  "Try this." Aimee plucked a safety pin from her jeans and passed it to him. "I've got plenty."

  Morbier hitched up his trousers and pinned them.

  "Just for that, I won't comment on your appearance." He smiled and sat down heavily at his desk.

  Her father would have said something like that.

  "Look, Morbier," she began. "I need a favor."

  "You're a big girl now, I know," he said stiffly. "Our investigation will remain professional." He winked.

  She controlled her impulse to stuff the cigarette dangling from his mouth down his throat. One minute he played hard-line and by the book. The next, he became a paternalistic old coot who couldn't express his feelings. She wished he'd decide on the role, then play it.

  "I'd appreciate Les Blancs Nationaux's phone records, calls made and calls received," she said. "I want to know who Rambuteau talked with when I was in the office."

  "Back up here. Who's Rambuteau?"

  "A born-again Nazi who could be setting me up."

  "Why?"

  She hesitated. "I'll know when I infiltrate Les Blancs Nationaux's meeting."

  His eyebrows lifted. "How did you manage an invitation? They don't let just anyone in—the scum level is high."

  She told him.

  "Maybe you shouldn't go."

  "It's a bit late now."

  He whistled. "Could be a trap."

  "Exactly. Can you get me the phone numbers?"

  Morbier's mouth hardened. "Before I do anything, hit me with the real reason you're mixed up in this Stein pot-au-feu."

  "Maybe if you believed in community policing and made friends with the rabbi at Temple E'manuel"—her shoulders tightened—"he wouldn't have called me about Lili's shoplifting." She paused, realizing she had to be more careful. . .what if Morbier contacted the rabbi? She shifted the conversation's focus. "I'd like to see the forensics report."

  "Me, too." Morbier scowled. "Somehow it's lost in the shuffle between the Brigade de Recherches et d'Intervention, the Brigade Criminelle, and the Commissariat," he said. "You know, the usual rivalry in our three-pronged justice system. Either of the other two would sooner let someone escape than let us at the Commissariat grab them."

  To avoid him venting his frustration on her, she tried being sympathetic. She sighed, "Why don't the branches work together?"

  "Our squad car radios can't even communicate with each other. Napoleon's theory of divisiveness still prevents us from ever getting together to overthrow the government."

  She grinned. "An interesting idea that makes for lousy police work."

  "Supposedly, the feds at BRI have a covert operation." He rolled his eyes.

  She could tell he was warming up, testing whether to toss a few morsels her way.

  "Far as I'm concerned they're all clowns. But you never heard that from me."

  "In other words, be careful not to step on anyone's territorial toes?" she said.

  "That's one way to put it," he said. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out the crime scene photographs and a clear plastic Baggie which he dangled in front of her eyes. Jumbled inside were dirt, scraps, and leaves.

  "Voila."

  She reached up but he slipped the Baggie behind his back.

  "My commissaire has become extremely interested in this case." He shook his thick finger at her. "Share and share alike, Leduc?"

  He'd make her pay for every particle of information. She bit back her nasty reply. "D'accord."

  He pulled out two pairs of tweezers, gauze masks, and sterile plastic bags. Aimee put on a mask. He wiped his arm across the top of his computer terminal, laid down newspaper, and dribbled the Baggie contents.

  "Where did your men find these?"

  "You tell me." His eyes narrowed.

  She remembered the splinters in Lili Stein's palm and the bloodless swastika. "You mean she was murdered in the light well?"

  He nodded. "There's evidence of a struggle—forearm bruising, linear marks on fingertips from the ligature, concrete bits under her fingernails, metal scratches from the screws in her crutches. Points to the perp dragging her upstairs."

  One hell of a struggle, Aimee thought. She leaned over and smelled the damp earth from a cluster of dirt-encrusted leaves. She gripped the tweezers and picked up a mud-spattered paper strip covered with numbers. Carefully, she lifted a length of variegated-colored wool, then a centime-sized cloudy, plastic cylinder. She peered intensely at each. She left the knobby pink button in the Baggie. Aimee turned the Baggie over, pointing out the double interlocked C's on the button.

  "Odd," she said. "Lili Stein didn't look the Chanel type."

  "Aha!" He let out a big sigh. "The killer wore Chanel and lost a button in the struggle pulling her upstairs." Morbier poked the chunky button. "A designer murder!" He smiled.

  She ignored him. "Assuming that's Lili Stein's wool, where are her knitting needles? Or the bag she carried her knitting in?"

  And what about Soli Hecht's name in Lili's knitting, the photo, or the threatening fax? She didn't mention any of this to Morbier, especially since Morbier had mentioned the federal BRI, the government's strong-arm enforcement. She'd figured Hecht didn't want flics involved due to his innate suspicion of them. But maybe it was something else. . .maybe he suspected corruption.

  "Checked the dustbins, public and private?" she asked.

  "Dustbins, that's quaint," he said. Morbier made a long face and consulted his notes. "Garbage pickup was that morning and the hotel bin had just been emptied."

  She cocked her head sideways. "Which hotel?"

  "Hôtel Pavilion de la Reine nearby." She'd heard of this exclusive hotel, multi-starred in the Michelin guide.

  "What about this?" She pointed to the scrap of paper in the Baggie. "How near to Lili's body was it?"

  "The crime-scene unit
noted this was found in the courtyard entrance," he said.

  "See the numbers. That looks like a receipt. Let me make a copy," she said. "And I'd like to borrow the photographs."

  He nodded.

  She took a sterile strip of Saran Wrap, laid it on the copier plate, picked up the paper scrap with tweezers, and set it down. Then she laid another sterile Saran strip over it, put down the lid, and pressed "Copy."

  The ripped edge had a number, like the bottom of a receipt. She decided to check the shops near the alley.

  "Thanks, Morbier." She eyed a Columbo-style trench coat with a patched lining on a hook. "Yours?"

  Morbier shook his head. "I'm on call. Inform me if you find out anything."

  "Think someone would mind if I borrowed the trench coat for a while?" she said.

  He grinned. "Be my guest, your tattoos are guaranteed to offend every group."

  "I do try," she said, donning the coat.

  OUTSIDE OF La Double Morte, Aimee walked smack into a large knot of people clogging one side of the rue de Francois Miron. Orthodox Hasidic Jews in black stood grouped among bystanders in suits and jeans.

  "Nom de Dieu, Soli Hecht!" she heard an old woman wail.

  Aimee flinched at hearing Soli's name.

  Red lights flashed from an ambulance straddling the sidewalk ahead. She pulled the trench coat tighter and started running. She made it to the corner before the ambulance pulled away. White-coated attendants slid a stretcher into the back door. She caught a glimpse of a blanketed mound before the doors clanged shut. The siren echoed off the cobblestones as it sped down rue Geoffrey l'Asnier towards the Seine.

  Worried, she shook her head as she stood in front of the bronze six-pointed star on the gate of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine.

  Two men conversed beside her in Yiddish. Both wore the black upturned hats; one was bearded, the other's skimpy suit pants didn't quite reach his white ankle socks.

  "What's happened?" she asked.

  "Soli Hecht got clipped by the Bastille bus," said the bearded one, switching into French. A Hebrew magazine stuck out of his pocket.

  "An accident? Is he all right?" she said.

  The bearded man turned to look at her and shrugged. "Hard to say, but they didn't pull the sheet over his head. No panier a salade," he said, referring to the blue van that picked up corpses. "An accident? If you believe it was an accident. . ." He didn't finish.

  Startled, she backed into the stone wall. "But he's an old man. . .," she trailed off as the men walked away.

  The bearded man looked back over his shoulder at her. "Do recriminations ever stop?"

  Now, with the crowd mostly dispersed, she saw the blood-stained cobblestones by her feet. A shiver ran down her spine. Lili Stein had been murdered less than three blocks away.

  The institutional-looking Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine stood close to the Seine. A bronze memorial to the Martyr Juif Inconnu filled the entrance. Aimee strode briskly past it to the gravel quai.

  She remembered the envelopes in Lili Stein's desk drawer addressed to the center, the list in her knitting with "Soli H" on it. Most of all, she thought about Hecht's words. She had put the photo in Lili Stein's hand. But it had been too late. What did Hecht know that put him in danger?

  Uneasiness gnawed at her. First Lili, now Soli.

  Pigeons swarmed near her feet hoping for bread crumbs as she pulled out her cell phone. Her footsteps popped gravel and the pewter-colored Seine flowed lazily beside her. She shooed the pigeons away as Morbier answered.

  "I just saw Soli Hecht put into an ambulance," she said. "Rumor is he got pushed in front of the bus."

  Aimee wanted to hear the official spin from Morbier. See if the police were treating it as an accident or attempted homicide.

  "Alors!" came Morbier's reply. "Someone trips in front of a bus and you call me at le Commissariat! Anybody see him pushed? Eh? A perpetrator and a motive would help, too. Voila, then you have something."

  "Just sharing information." She clicked off.

  She didn't like this at all. She hadn't from the beginning. Things didn't smell right, as her father would say. She entered the Center's paved square to inquire if Soli had been there or if someone noticed something. On the memorial, death camp names were chiseled. She gazed, saddened by the long list: Auschwitz, Belzec, Birkenau, Chelmno, Ravensbruck, Sobibor—so many places she'd never heard of. "Never forget" was handwritten in bold letters on a placard propped below.

  "Never forget," Lili Stein had told her young son, Abraham. What had Lili meant? Aimee wondered—had it killed her?

  The interior of the five-story building blended fifties architecture with anonymous high-tech features. State-of-the-art alarm sensors and high-density vision cameras perched in marble niches above her. On the wall in the sparse reception area hung a directory of the Center's services in several languages.

  A small young woman with a thick black braid down the back of her denim smock bustled out to greet her. Her name tag read "Solange Goutal, Administration Assistant."

  "Yes, may I help you?" Behind rimless glasses her bright eyes were puffy.

  Aimee displayed her ID. "Did you know Soli Hecht was involved in an accident in front of this building?"

  "Why, yes," Solange said. Anguish was printed on her face. "I spoke with him as he left."

  Aimee hoped her surprise didn't show. "When was this?"

  "Are you from the police? Show me your ID again," said Solange.

  Aimee kept her smile businesslike. This woman could have been the last person to speak with Hecht before his accident. "I'm a private detective, investigating the murder of the Jewish woman near here."

  "Of course I want to be helpful, but how is it related?" Solange said. She pulled a lace mouchoir from her pocket and blew her nose loudly.

  "My job," Aimee said, frustrated that Solange Goutal was the curious type, "consists of eliminating coincidences to find solid clues and build a case."

  Solange's eyes crinkled. "I see." But Aimee could tell she didn't. "Vandals set fire to our Star of David last week. Les Blancs Nationaux didn't claim responsibility, but it wouldn't surprise me if they had."

  "Hard to say." Aimee gritted her teeth but kept smiling. She wanted this woman to answer her questions, not pose other questions. "Why don't you tell me about Hecht."

  "Well, he needed assistance down the stairs because of his arthritis." She indicated the curved marble stairway. "I helped him with his coat. I always helped Soli if I could. His work is so important." She smiled sadly.

  "Did you see the accident?"

  She sniffled, holding back tears. "My back was turned, deactivating the security system," she said. "I heard brakes squeal, then a thud. I ran outside but. . ." She closed her eyes.

  "You deactivated the security system after Soli Hecht left?" Aimee said. That didn't make sense. "Why?"

  "If Soli is involved with a project, he works here any time. We close at noon Fridays for Shabbat. However, today, for the deportation memorial services I came in to finish up some work. Sometime after three Soli buzzed the office so I deactivated the alarm, then let him in. I reactivated the alarm but he only stayed a short time. To let him out I had to deactivate again. In doing so, I forgot to disarm his office alarm code."

  "But I just walked in," Aimee interrupted.

  "My mistake." Solange shook her head. "I was supposed to activate the process again. But it's so hard to remember."

  "He has special access?" Aimee asked.

  "Of course!" Solange sounded surprised. "Soli got the grant from the 4th arrondissement for this building space. His foundation maintains an office upstairs. Since the Jews lived and died in the Marais, he always said, their history should be shown here. But this week was the first time I'd seen him in several months."

  Startled, Aimee realized that this information fit if his recent contact with Lili involved his work at the center. Keeping her excitement in check, she asked, "What was he
working on?"

  "That's confidential information," Solange said. She glanced at her watch. "I need to close the center."

  "Is there anyone in his office whom I can talk to?" Aimee asked.

  "Only Soli could tell you that. There's no one else in today."

  Why wouldn't Solange talk? Supposedly there'd been an attempt on Soli's life, so why worry about confidentiality?

  "Solange, I need to know about this work he's involved in."

  "I told you it's confidential," she snapped.

  Hecht had slipped her fifty thousand francs to find Lili Stein's killer and now he'd been hurt. There must be a connection to Hecht's foundation, but she wouldn't find out if this braided lackey kept blocking her way.

  "Your director better be more helpful." She leaned close to Solange.

  "She's involved in the memorial at the deportation monument today, but she'll be in Sunday." Solange backed up against the highly polished wood reception desk.

  "What if Soli doesn't make it until tomorrow and you've obstructed my investigation—would you like that on your conscience?"

  Solange's chin quivered. "I don't make the rules, I'm sorry."

  "Answer me this." Aimee crossed her arms. "Did Soli act differently today than before?"

  Solange paused, knotting her fingers. "His rheumatoid arthritis had become worse. He was in constant pain," she said, then sighed, "That's why it seemed unusual."

  "Unusual?" Aimee said, alerted by the change in Solange's tone.

  "That he was at a bus stop," Solange said matter-of-factly. "He told me he was going to take a taxi home."

  Aimee willed her face muscles to stay put, hiding her excitement. Her suspicious feeling about Solange evaporated. "Did you report the accident to the police?"

  "They didn't even respond when I called. Told me to dial SAMU, the emergency. Soli's a special man. This doesn't seem fair."

  Outside, Aimee stared at the now dull brownish spot on the cobblestoned street. It didn't make sense for Hecht, in constant pain, to wait at a bus stop when a taxi stand was a few meters away. Especially since he'd said he would take a taxi. Somehow she'd unearth this mess, cobblestone by cobblestone if need be.