Crossing the Line

by Frédérique Molay

  Surrounded by twenty decapitated heads, Plassard was sweating under his coat and hat. He was nauseous and felt a headache coming on. The windows were covered, the shutters closed. No daylight seeped in. The fluorescent lights gave the room an end-of-the-world aura. The clock on the wall had stopped, its hands frozen for good.

  Professor Francis Étienne continued his class. The detectives looked at the screen and watched him cut from the ear to the top of the cheek and then down. He started pulling the skin away, as though he were doing a face-lift. He slipped the instruments in, pointing out yellowish, vile-looking fatty tissue and the ramifications of the facial nerve.

  “Trim off the fat,” he instructed his students.

  Plassard held back a gag. He was used to autopsies, but seeing the same procedure done at the same time on twenty decapitated heads was like watching a horror movie.

  “This is the same laboratory arrangement that we had this morning,” Dr. Rieux whispered to Plassard.

  “Where was the head?” the detective asked.

  “On that table.”

  They walked over to two students who were focused on scraping the yellow layer from their patient’s cheek. It was an older woman with a double chin and sparse gray hair.

  “These are the two who found the piece of plastic sticking out of the filling,” Dr. Rieux continued. “We were going to drill the tooth when we got back from lunch, but Marcel did it during the break. He called me immediately and then contacted Elisabeth Bordieu. We came back, and Elisabeth got on the phone with her director, who talked to the president of the university himself. You know the rest.”

  “What do you think about this?”

  Dr. Rieux shrugged. “It’s kind of crazy, you have to admit,” he said. “Is it some medical student prank? Everyone knows that they joke around. Did you ever hear about the hands in the metro?”

  “No, I can’t say I have.”

  “That was when I was a student. A bunch of hands were found tied to a rail in the Mabillon metro station. They came from this school. Nobody ever found out who did it. Funny, isn’t it? Today, a student who did that kind of thing would be expelled, out of respect for the subjects. I remember one day, too, when a janitor came face to face with a breast pinned to a wall.”

  “So you like that kind of joke, do you?”

  “I didn’t say that, but these anecdotes are part of the history of this place. I’m pretty sure that this morning’s message will go down in the annals.”

  “So let’s hope it’s just a joke.”

  Elisabeth Bordieu set her record book down on the table and opened it carefully. It had twelve columns specifying date of arrival, number, first and last name, age, sex, date of death, transporter information, geographic origin, lab results, how it was used, and incineration date. Nico focused on a column with the heading “W.”

  “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “Whole. It means it arrived as a complete body.”

  Bordieu ran her finger down the page to Number 510. “Bruno Guedj, age forty-seven. He died on November 20 in Paris and arrived here on the same day.”

  Now 510 had a name. And he had been dead for twelve days.

  “We need his full file,” Nico said.

  Elisabeth Bordieu nodded and was reaching for her phone when someone knocked at the door. “Come in,” she called out.

  Captain Vidal stuck his head in.

  “Can I see you for a second?” he asked.

  “I’m coming,” Nico said. “Kriven, get Mr. Guedj’s file.” Nico stepped into the hallway.

  “I have something, Chief.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It definitely doesn’t look like 510 died from natural causes.”

  5

  Back in the calm of his office, Nico thought about the Locard Principle. “Every contact leaves a trace.” That had come from Edmond Locard, the father of French forensic science, who was often called the Sherlock Holmes of France. Criminals always left evidence. Provided there were a criminal and a crime. That was a question they would have to answer quickly to keep the powers above them happy.

  “Let’s talk about Vidal’s discovery,” Nico said.

  “Vidal found a wound measuring about five millimeters in the palate, showing all the characteristics of a gunshot wound,” Commander Kriven said. “There is no exit, so we can presume the projectile is lodged in the skull. The head shows no other sign of violence, other than that done by the medical and dental students.”

  “Logically, that would make this a suicide,” Nico said.

  Deputy Chief Rost raised an eyebrow.

  Nico continued. “Several conditions must be met before the university will accept a body. The death cannot be suspicious, and it cannot be the subject of an ongoing investigation.”

  “Generally speaking, any death involving a firearm is investigated,” Rost said. “If it’s a suicide, a ruling is usually made fairly quickly, and the body is released to the family. In this case, it would have been released to the university.”

  “So we’re to believe that there was nothing suspicious about the death that would have led to an autopsy,” Kriven said.

  “Elisabeth Bordieu mentioned a certificate of noncontagion that must be signed by the physician who declares the death. Did she give you a copy?” Nico asked.

  “The certificate was signed by Dr. Philippe Owen, a first responder.”

  “Question him as soon as you can. I’ll go with Vidal to the coroner’s office to attend the autopsy. Professor Armelle Vilars will be doing it tomorrow morning.”

  “What do we know about the victim?” Rost said.

  “Bruno Guedj, forty-seven years old, residing at 10 Rue Roger Verlomme in the Marais,” Kriven said. “Profession unknown—that part of the donor form is optional. Note that his donation letter is dated October 14, which was just five weeks and two days before his death.”

  “So he had a feeling,” Rost said.

  “We can be sure of one thing,” Nico said. “A shooting death means the police were involved. We need to contact our colleagues in the third arrondissement. Their report will give us some more information. Then we’ll question his family and colleagues.”

  “What kind of man would hide something like that in his tooth?” Kriven asked.

  “The university dentists say it’s a professional job,” Nico said. “We’ll need to find the dentist who did the filling.”

  “What about the message? Did Bruno Guedj write it himself?” Rost asked.

  “Forensics has it now, along with the letter Bruno Guedj wrote on October 14, and the lab will compare the writing,” Kriven said.

  Nico wrapped up with a warning. “The media love sensation, so when they get wind of the message, it’ll be all over the news. If this is a joke, let’s find out before word leaks out. That will please our bosses, which, as you know, is especially important now.”

  Rost and Kriven nodded. There was no time to lose.

  Nico paid another visit to the commissioner. Nicole Monthalet was leaning over a pile of papers, apparently trying to catch up on her casework. The bureaucracy was part and parcel of police work. And it was seen every day in the endless documents, reports, and other forms that had to be read and signed. They bounced from one office to another like Ping-Pong balls.

  “Tell me everything, Chief Sirsky.”

  Nico sat down and summarized the situation. His superior officer leaned back in her chair and listened. When he had finished she said, “What do you make of it?”

  Nico cleared his throat. “If this were a medical school prank, it would cause a lot of trouble for those who did it. And a suicidal man generally isn’t in the mood for jokes. If that message really did come from Bruno Guedj, he felt threatened, and his death proved him right.”

  “I agree. But it is still too early to jump to any conclusions. In any case, the prosecutor wants answers. We’ll know more tomorrow, right?”

  Then she nodded, indicating that she ne
eded no more from him.

  Back in his office, Nico leaned against the window frame. It was already dark outside. The lights on the Place Saint-Michel and the riverboats exacerbated his feeling of isolation. He felt as if he were on a ghost vessel somewhere between the sky and the sea. The Christmas decorations, the thin layer of snow on the riverbank, and the bundled-up pedestrians reminded him that the holidays were dangerously close. He sighed and took out his phone.

  “Hello?” The voice on the other end was thin and high-pitched.

  “Jacqueline, it’s Nico.”

  There was a long silence. It wasn’t hostile—he had always gotten along with the parents of his ex-wife, Sylvie. Instead, it seemed filled with despair.

  “Jacqueline, I haven’t had any news from Sylvie. I’m worried. And I wanted to tell you and André that you will always be Dimitri’s grandparents. He’s missed you these last weeks, and since Christmas is coming…”

  He heard sobbing and felt a knot in his throat. He had made the right decision. They agreed that the couple would spend a whole day with Dimitri the coming weekend.

  “We’ll take him out to eat and to a movie. Then we’ll go shopping. We have time to make up for,” Jacqueline said.

  “He’ll be happy. I’m sure of it.”

  “Nico, I understand why you might resent Sylvie. She hasn’t always done the right thing. But she’s our daughter, our only child.”

  His mother-in-law talked quickly, as though she had held in the words for some time and was now trying to unload them. It wasn’t easy to admit that one’s only child was unstable. Nico wondered if Dimitri’s looks, so much like his own, had bothered her, as they had bothered Sylvie. Sylvie had also been jealous of her son’s attachment to him. She had ended up sinking into a depression, taking medication morning and night, and finally running off and abandoning Dimitri.

  “I would like to ask a favor of you, if I may,” Jacqueline said quietly. “Of course, you can say no. I’d understand.”

  Nico knew what it was. “I’m listening.”

  “Please find our daughter. Find her. I can’t help but think the worst has happened. I can’t sleep anymore.”

  Wasn’t that what he wanted too? To find her?

  “I’ll try,” he promised.

  “Don’t tell André. I beg you. I don’t want to build up his hopes.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Thank you,” she said in barely a whisper before ending the call.

  Nico left headquarters and headed back to his place. Caroline greeted him at the door and gave him a kiss.

  “How about spaghetti for dinner?” she said, stepping aside so he could come in.

  “Perfect.”

  He set his things down and looked at her. He felt all the emotions he had experienced when they first met. He was drawn to everything about her—her gaze, her smile, her soft voice, her firm body. He took a deep breath.

  “I called Jacqueline tonight, and she asked me to do something for her.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She wants me to find Sylvie.”

  After a moment of silence, Caroline said, “I’m only half surprised. She must be worried out of her mind. What did you say?”

  “That I would try. And Dimitri will spend part of the weekend with his grandparents.”

  Nico filled a pot with water and set it on the stove.

  “So why are you hesitating?”

  “I think I prefer sticking my head in the sand.”

  “It’s time to pull it out. You need to do that. That’s what Dimitri needs. And that’s what we need.”

  Nico squeezed Caroline’s hand. Then he wrapped his arms around her and inhaled her perfume. He slipped his hands under her sweater, shivering at the touch of her soft skin. His breathing accelerated. He pressed his mouth against hers, impatient.

  Caroline pulled away. “Uh-uh. Dimitri is coming down.”

  “Why don’t you come live here? Full time,” Nico threw out.

  “Indeed, why not?”

  Nico gulped. Almost instantly, the jolting realization that the dream could fall apart—one freak on the street was all that it would take—paralyzed him. The thought was unbearable.

  Dimitri appeared, took one look his father, and asked, “Are you okay?”

  Nico turned to his son and spoke in Russian. “Yes, I’m fine, son. I asked Caroline to come live here with us. You and I have already talked about it.”

  Dimitri concentrated for a few seconds as he registered the words of his family’s former tongue, and his face lit up. He answered in Russian. “What did she say?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t look so worried. That’s great!”

  Nico felt genuinely happy, both because his son thought it was a good idea and because they had spoken in the language of their ancestors. They had been taking classes together with a friend, Iaroslav Morenko, who taught Russian at the Sorbonne. The man was an inveterate ladies’ man who admitted that his accent helped a lot. Women loved the feeling of being swept into a James Bond movie, coming that close to the bad guy. Perhaps that was additional motivation for Dimitri, Nico thought. In any case, Nico couldn’t wait to see Anya’s face when Dimitri wished his grandmother a merry Christmas in her native language. He bet there would be tears.

  “Hello. What about a translation?” Caroline said.

  “It’s man talk,” Dimitri responded, pouring himself a glass of soda.

  “I’ll take some of that,” Nico said.

  6

  Nico made his way across the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Quai de la Rapée and pulled up at the medical examiner’s office. He had just finished his morning meeting with his squad chiefs, and there was electricity in the air. The net they were planning to drop on the Avenue Montaigne jewelry thieves was in clear view. In a little less than thirty-six hours, Deputy Chief Rost would lead Théron’s and Hureau’s squads, alongside the Organized Crime Division, in several raids in the capital and the surrounding region. They were all counting on surprising the criminals. There were no cowboys at headquarters. One misstep, and the whole operation could go haywire. They had lost cops for less.

  The medical examiner’s red-brick building was in a location bounded by the Seine River, the Quai de la Rapée, and line five of the Paris metro. Captain Vidal was waiting for Nico at the main entrance. Although it was cold, and Vidal was shivering, he seemed to be enjoying his cigarette. Nico watched him crush the butt with his heel and then pick it up with a tissue and slip it into his pocket. Vidal was incorrigible, the perfect crime-scene investigator who never left any evidence behind.

  “Not a word,” he said, frowning.

  “I was thinking about your wife and how she must enjoy the mouthful of benzene when she kisses you.”

  “She’s used to it. I’ve always been on fire,” he said with a wink.

  Nico chuckled and pushed open the doors to the sacrosanct temple of the dead.

  “Chief Sirsky, sir,” the guard said. He gave Vidal a nod. “Professor Vilars is waiting for you.”

  Armelle Vilars’s office looked like so many other upper-management spaces in Paris. It was filled with old furniture and piles of files. The wood floors creaked. Vilars had bright red hair and a sensuality that made it easy to forget that she was the city’s chief medical examiner, that prosecutors from all over France and even foreign countries relied on her, and that few dared to question her authority. If one did forget, the microscope with a slide holding a slice of some human organ colored with solution was the telltale reminder.

  “Three thousand bodies come through this building every year, and I’ve personally perfomed over ten thousand autopsies since the beginning of my career, but this is the first time I’ve seen one from the Body Donation Center.”

  “Happy to give you a fresh challenge,” Nico said.

  She smiled and winked at Nico.

  “Commander Kriven sent me Dr. Philippe Owen’s observations. He was the physician on c
all with the paramedics,” she said. “He noted a bloody nose and periorbital bruising. Basically, a black eye. It probably came from the shock wave. His examination revealed a small cranial fracture, which could be seen under the scalp. All these elements led him to determine death by firearm, the shot penetrating the mouth without perforating the skull, as there was no exit wound.”

  “Easy enough,” Pierre Vidal said.

  “Not really. Dr. Owen made his determination without examining the mouth cavity. The victim’s jaw was, in effect, locked. A half hour to three hours after death, the jaw muscles contract, making it impossible to open the mouth. Rigor mortis actually starts with the eyelids and the mandible, spreading to the rest of the body in six to twelve hours and then disappearing in about forty-eight hours. Dr. Owen had the victim transferred to the nearest hospital. X-rays confirmed the presence of a conical foreign body lodged in the bone at the level of the left occipital area. My colleague concluded that it was a suicide. I imagine that the weapon was found near the victim and that tests for gunpowder residue came back positive.”

  Nico understood from her tone that she believed Dr. Owen’s conclusions were a little hasty.

  “Let’s take a look,” she suggested. “I asked one of my medical examiners, a specialist in gunshot wounds, to join us.”

  Nico and Vidal followed her through the hallways, passing a number of staff members, all of whom greeted them cordially.

  “Has the family been informed of this new development?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Nico said.

  “I’ll be here for them, if you think it is necessary. Just let me know.”

  While Professor Vilars was changing in the locker room, the two detectives washed their hands and slipped on their shoe covers, jackets, and masks. They didn’t say anything. In this mythic place, the reality of death and violence filled the air.

  Professor Vilars led them into the autopsy room, her green waterproof smock rustling. Looking like a clone, her colleague followed them in. Vilars and the gunshot wound specialist took up their positions near the stainless-steel dissection table, scalpel, bone cutters, saw, and cranial lever at hand. Nearby were recipients for organs that would be removed and weighed.