by Cara Black
She edged past the round marble-topped tables in the rear and saw him. He stood playing a fifties-style pinball machine.
She smiled. “Bonjour, you’re the caretaker on rue Buffon, non?”
“And if I am?”
“You look thirsty,” she said. “What about a drink?”
“Women offer me a lot of things, but not that.” His sentence dangled in the air, suggestively. He was in his early seventies, she figured, had a thatch of white hair and wore thick black-framed bifocals. After a long look, he returned his gaze to the pinball machine.
“There’s always a first time.”
“Non, merci.”
Her attempt at charm evidently didn’t work with the sen-ior set.
“You’re a reporter, eh?” he asked.
Aimée shook her head.
“What do you want?”
“Besides peace on earth, Monsieur? Just to know the last time you saw the victim.”
“Victim?” He shook his head, his eyes never leaving the pinball game.
“The man murdered last night in the gatehouse.”
“Professeur Benoît? Why not say so?”
Now she had a name.
The GAME OVER sign blinked. He shot her an irritated look, his pupils like black balls magnified by the thick lenses. “You’re not an investigator. Not dressed like that!”
Not only ornery, but a fashion critic too.
“Who are you, Mademoiselle?”
“Special investigations, Monsieur. We don’t wear uniforms, if you know what I mean.” She pulled out her father’s police ID with her name on it. The card she kept for special occasions.
His eyes widened behind the thick lenses. Then he leaned forward. “Aaah. Special branch. . . . Like in that Jean Gabin film?”
Jean Gabin hadn’t made a film in twenty years.
“That’s all I can say.” She put her finger to the side of her nose, indicating secrecy, a gesture she’d seen an old Corsican mobster perform. “I’d like to ask a few questions. First, if you’d run down what happened yesterday for me and then keep your ears open . . . I’ll mention you in my report.”
“Report?” He shook his head in alarm. Fear fluttered behind those magnifying lenses. “Then round me up, like the Boches did?”
Mon Dieu, he’s still living World War II, she thought. She’d said the wrong thing. She put her hand on his arm. “Not even for a commendation? I’d really appreciate your help.”
He sputtered. “That’s different. I am a patriot. At seventeen, I served on the Maginot Line. Got the medal to prove it.”
The impregnable Maginot line. The Germans had panzered around the end of it in record time.
“When did you last see Professeur Benoît?”
“Quelle misère. After it was too late.” The old man shrugged, exhaling.
“I mean alive, Monsieur.”
His brow furrowed in thought. “Let’s see. The delivery came . . . maybe at four o’clock.”
“See, you’re helpful already.“ She smiled. “Monsieur . . . ?”
“Darquin. But I told the flics all this already.”
“Of course, Monsieur. I’m just rechecking.” She thought hard. The flics had questioned him, so she needed to elicit some detail, something they might have missed, a question they might not have asked. “Was that before or after you saw the young woman, tall, a mulatto with curly hair, wearing a denim skirt?”
“Who?”
She tried a hunch. “The woman working for Professeur Benoît upstairs in the gatehouse. Perhaps you noticed her before?”
“By mulatto, you mean . . . ?”
“Half Haitian, half French. She has light caramel-colored skin and speaks with a slight accent.” She added, “Like the professor.”
A beeping noise sounded in his pocket. “Time for my pills.”
He shuffled to the counter. Why would the research lab employ a geriatric case, well beyond retirement age, she wondered. Frustrated, she followed him and ordered a Vittel from the sloe-eyed café owner. The moisture-beaded bottle of mineral water and glass with a lemon twist arrived on the zinc counter with a slap. Aimée set down five francs.
“That’s right,” he said, taking several yellow pills from a container. “Now it’s coming back to me.”
Her ears perked up. “You remember her?”
“Professeur Benoît acted as if it was very hush-hush, you know, when he left the packet.”
“A packet? Large, heavy, or like a regular envelope?”
“A padded envelope. The woman picked it up later.”
Excited, Aimée leaned forward. “The woman? Her name?”
“He’d written her name on the front of the envelope. Mireille.”
It was her!
Darquin exhaled slowly. “I never saw her again.”
She thought of the timing. At her office, Mireille had mentioned a file and that she was in trouble.
“So that was at about 4 P.M.?”
“My memory’s a sieve . . . it might have been later.”
Darquin took another pill, a green one, and swallowed it. Did he have a memory problem?
“Would you say it was closer to 5 P.M.?”
“I am half dead. With all the commotion, I couldn’t sleep. At least the flics took them to the station.”
“Who?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me if they were suspects,” he said, uncapping a bottle of water that he’d taken from his pocket.
A skinflint, too tight to buy a drink in the café. He had needles in his pocket, as the saying went. Bringing one’s own drink to a café was just not done. The patron whistled in dis-gust and emptied some half-full glasses into the sink.
“I caught the couple in flagrante delicto, I think they call it. That’s why I called the flics. Seems they were married, but to other people. The way they rut like cats in the bushes at night. . . .”
Confused, she thought about what he’d said and hadn’t said. He seemed more outraged by this couple than by a murder. “Let me clarify this. You saw a couple in the bushes, and . . . ?”
“They woke me up.” He took a swig of water, set the empty bottle down, and muttered to himself.
Then it dawned on her. Darquin had called the flics due to the amorous couple, not the murder.
“And what time was this?” Aimée asked.
“Late. I don’t know.”
Two men in plumbers’ blue overalls, wrenches and pipes hanging from their pockets, entered the café arguing over last night’s motocross matches. Aimée moved farther down the counter.
“Monsieur, didn’t you notice that the gatehouse room was lit up?”
“The flics did,” he said. “They found him, the poor man. What’s the quartier coming to? I was born here, lived at Number 12 behind the lab my whole life. But the area’s changed.”
She had to get him back to the point.
“You can ask until you run out of air; I don’t know any more,” he said. “You’re more direct, much heavier-handed than the other flics.”
She’d better watch her step. He needed coaxing.
“But Monsieur Darquin, I tried for the light touch. Con-versational, breezy.”
“Sure. Breezy like the wind that blows the horns off a bull.”
She hadn’t heard that saying since she’d worn knee socks drinking hot chocolate in her grandmère’s kitchen.
“My nephew suffered an attack of acute appendicitis yesterday. I filled in for him,” Darquin said. “And look what happened on my shift!”
In other words, quit badgering him. But what if he knew more? She checked her phone for messages. None.
“Help me to understand, Monsieur,” she said. She smiled, sipping her sparkling water. “Let’s start at, say. . . .” She thought back to the time at which Mireille had run out of Zazie’s café. “Seven P.M. What do you remember? Did you see the woman again?”
“I’ve answered enough questions,” he said. He pulled a pocket watch on a chain from inside h
is blue work coat. “Time to sort the mail.”
“Please, just to help my inquiries, one more thing, Monsieur. Did you notice if this woman, Mireille, went into the gatehouse? Did she leave carrying the envelope?”
“The Professeur was very specific. Like all the ENS. ‘It is only for her,’ he said. I didn’t see which way she went.”
Aimée choked on the water she was swallowing. “Did Professeur Benoît teach at ENS?”
“Like most of them here.”
ENS was the Ecole Normale Supérieure. A Grande Ecole, one of the country’s prestigious and highly elitist state schools. Very selective. She stifled her excitement and handed him her card. “Merci, Monsieur Darquin. Please call me if you see her or if you should remember something else. Don’t forget about that commendation you’ll receive.”
Darquin shuffled out the open café door. Pigeons cooed in the lilac bushes overhanging the laboratory wall. The same wall she had jumped from last night.
Despite the old man’s gruffness, he’d provided information: a Professeur Benoît of the ENS had left an envelope for Mireille. As to why he’d been murdered surrounded by a circle of salt on the floor, or Mireille’s connection to him and to the crime, she remained in the dark. But if Darquin had relayed the same information to the flics, she realized they would be searching for Mireille too.
Again, Aimée pulled out her cell phone to check her mes-sages. None. She left fifty-centimes on the worn zinc counter for a tip and turned.
“I think we should talk,” a man said, blocking her way.
He was thirtyish, lean and square-jawed, his carved cheek-bones highlighting a cinnamon complexion. Yannick Noah, move over, she thought, but better-looking. He wore dark glasses and a tailored black jacket over jeans, and he exuded a citrus scent. A mix of rumpled chic and bad boy. On closer inspection, she realized he was wearing the same jacket as the man she’d noticed earlier in the doorway on rue Buffon.
A frisson of fear rippled her down her spine.
“Do I know you?” she said.
“Not as well as you could, but. . . .” His words trailed off. Suggestive. He took off his glasses. Amber eyes. He gestured to the small marble-topped table overlooking the street. “We can change that. Please, sit down.”
Self-assured. And cocky. She couldn’t place his accent. But she knew his type. The kind one should kick out of bed, but didn’t.
“Sorry,” she said, trying to sidestep him, “not interested.”
“You run a good game,” he said. Feet planted, he stood unmoving. “Got the old man going just as you wanted.”
Aimée froze.
“As if it’s second nature, or you’ve been doing this for a while.”
Busy with Darquin, she’d missed his arrival and he’d eaves-dropped. Denial would be useless. He seemed more polished than the usual RG—Rensignements Generaux—operative. The security branch tapped phones and surveilled foreigners; its members could be blunt.
She’d bluff it out. Still, she wished she’d had time to touch up her mascara. “What’s it to you?” Aimée asked.
“The Special Investigation unit left an hour ago,” he said.
He was too damned observant.
“You want to do this standing up, or should we—?” he began.
“In your dreams.” Time to get out of here. Now. “I don’t talk to the RG.”
“Me?” His tone changed. “Benoît was more than my friend,” he said. “We shared the same saint’s day.”
His tawny complexion . . . she realized . . . he was part Haitian, light-complected like Mireille. But a common saint’s day meant they shared a bond. To some it was as deep a bond as the fraternal one.
“My grandparents came from his village.” Sadness and anger mixed in his light brown-yellow eyes. “I’m no flic. My name is Edouard.”
Yet she couldn’t trust him. He could say anything; how would she be able to tell if it was true?
She sat, and so did he.
The owner appeared with her half-filled glass, setting it down on the marble-topped table. “Merci,” she said. “But why talk to me?” she asked the stranger.
“It’s personal.” He set down a folded issue of Le Figaro and ran a hand through his hair. “Benoît’s murder didn’t even merit a short column on the back page. But the speculation about Princess Di’s Mercedes hitting the thirteenth pillar in the tunnel occupies pages.”
“So?”
“She knows who murdered Benoît,” Edouard said.
Was he fishing? Trying to get her to confirm Benoît’s death?
“Who does?” She’d feign ignorance and see what he knew.
“The woman you’re looking for. Mireille,” he said. “I need to speak with her.”
With effort, Aimée kept her hand steady. Get in line, she almost said.
“How do you know that Mireille has that information?”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” he said. “And no one can find her. She’s disappeared.”
“I don’t know who you are or why you’re interested.”
“Edouard Brasseur. Import/export, lucrative and boring.” He set a high-end cell phone down on the table, switched the ringer to low. “I haven’t asked why you’re looking for her.”
True. He hadn’t. And she had no intention of telling him.
“Edouard, convince me that you don’t know where she is.” She sipped the fizzing water.
A fly buzzed, trapped between the window panes.
He ran his fingers through his hair but said nothing.
She shrugged and gathered up her bag, ready to leave.
He caught her arm. His hand was warm as he held on to her. “Wait. Why do you think I know where she is?”
“If you were close to Benoît, you wouldn’t be here.” She paused waiting for his comeback, a protest, but he remained quiet. Pensive.
Finally, he spoke. “They say the past is a foreign country.” He shook his head. “I hadn’t seen Azacca Benoît in a year or so. He was part of the past. But recently he telephoned me out of the blue. If only I’d met him.”
“He wanted to meet you?” she said. “When?”
“I came to Paris from Brussels on business. Maybe he’d be alive today if we’d met on Sunday,” he said. “Benoît mentioned that he needed proof. Then he said he couldn’t talk, asked that we meet later that night, said he’d call back . . . mentioned ‘Mireille.’ That’s it.”
“Sounds vague to me,” she said. She didn’t buy it.
“How can I say this?” Edouard looked up, searching for words. “I had a feeling that he was waiting for something.”
“You would know the places Haitians congregate, and his contacts, wouldn’t you?”
“His contacts? I’m a stranger in Paris.”
He sounded as clueless as she felt. She was conscious of his hand, still resting on her arm.
His eyes caught hers. And bored into them with laser-like intensity.
“I can’t figure you out,” he said.
Ditto, she almost replied. She wondered about him. His change from cocky, to sad, then to vulnerable had been rapid. But the vulnerable quality seemed real. And appealing, she admitted to herself. She sensed he would be trouble. Those eyes, the way he filled out his jacket. His citrus scent reminded her of Yves, her dead fiancé. Stop! She had to stop this.
“Your big eyes get in the way,” he said to her. His voice softened. “A nice way.”
Warnings rang in her head. Don’t get involved with this one, a little voice in her head cautioned. She twisted Yves’s Turkish puzzle ring, which she still wore on her third finger.
“Don’t even try,” she said.
“Nothing comes for free, I know.” He shrugged. “Why should you help me, even if you could?”
“Something like that,” she said.
“Benoît’s work meant everything to him,” he said. “He would have been killed because of it.”
“You sound sure,” Aimée said.
“This M
ireille must know about it,” he said. “For some rea-son, he trusted her.”
True. He’d entrusted her with an envelope. Aimée figured the envelope contained the file Mireille had mentioned.
“We can help each other.” He leaned forward, his face close to hers. “What’s your interest in this?”
Even if she didn’t quite trust him, he didn’t seem to be working for the cops. And if he located Mireille, she wanted to know. She decided to use business as the pretext for her involvement.
“I’m a private detective,” she told him.
A guarded look appeared on his face. “Employed by who?”
“That’s private information.”
Ringing startled her. It wasn’t the phone on the table. Edouard reached inside his jacket. His hand came back cup-ping a different cell phone.
“Excusez-moi,” he said, turning toward the open window facing the street. He spoke in what sounded like Flammand, a Belgian dialect.
Something had fluttered from his pocket onto the floor. Aimée stretched the toe of her shoe out to cover it, then inched it back toward her.
“Here’s my number.” His phone call over, he handed her a card.
She searched her bag, pretending to look for hers. “I’m all out, no paper . . . wait.” She reached down to the floor and scooped up what had fallen from his pocket and a sugar wrapper.
Grabbing her kohl eye pencil, she wrote her number on the sugar wrapper.
The lilac overhanging the rue Buffon wall shuddered in a sudden gust, releasing that familiar cloying scent. What else did Edouard know? What should she reveal? To get, one had to give.
“If Benoît’s murder involved his work, as you seem to think,” she said, “why attempt to give him a facelift?”
Edouard sat very still. Only a muscle twitched in his jaw. “What do you mean?”
“The skin had been peeled from his temple and his ear had been severed,” she said. “And he lay within a circle of salt. Symbolic, non? But of what?”
The lines around Edouard’s mouth creased in pain. “I don’t know.”
