Crossing the Line

by Frédérique Molay

  The chief medical examiner glanced at the wall clock and began recording. “We are beginning the autopsy of Bruno Guedj on Thursday, December 3, at 10:30 a.m., in the presence of Chief of Police Nico Sirsky and Captain Pierre Vidal, of the Criminal Investigation Division.”

  She slowly removed the sheet that covered the body. Nico had to suppress an urge to step back. Bruno Guedj was not in the best shape, and he smelled bad. Nothing like the stiffs on TV, with their hair and makeup done.

  “The body was first examined at the Paris Descartes University by the crime squad,” Vilars continued from behind her mask. “This examination revealed a suspicious wound inside the mouth characteristic of a firearm injury, with no other traces of violence. All other evidence was dismissed, due to the number of times the victim had been manipulated in the medical school and the state of decomposition. The postmortem time frame was confirmed to be twelve days. The medical examiner’s office received the body in three distinct parts: the head, the upper right limb, and the rest as a single piece.”

  Nico focused on her words to distance himself from the scene as much as possible. Many experienced cops had fainted here, collapsing on the immaculate tile floor. It could happen to anyone. But this decapitated body, cut up and reassembled under the operating lamps, was like a Surrealistic painting. Nico glanced at Vidal, who seemed to be keeping his composure. He steeled himself. After all, he was no stranger to autopsies.

  “We’ll start with the head, the main piece of evidence.”

  After taking X-rays to identify any foreign objects and fractures, the gunshot wound specialist confirmed the existence of a bullet. Nico was an old hand at autopsy jargon and understood that diffuse dilacerations meant the bullet had disseminated tiny metallic particles along its path. The particles were in the brain tissue.

  The external examination produced nothing more. There was a small cranial fracture resulting from the impact of the bullet and traces of the postmortem operations done at the medical school. Before focusing on the mouth, the medical examiner removed a sliver of the scalp and some hair for a later DNA examination.

  “Do you see what I see?” Vilars asked her colleague.

  “Yes, small fractures in the enamel on the right central and lateral teeth, both upper and lower. Our man broke his teeth.”

  “How’s that?” Vidal asked.

  “He could have bitten into the gun,” Nico suggested.

  “It’s too early to tell,” Vilars said.

  “The bullet entry wound is round, five millimeters in diameter, surrounded by a barely visible erosive ring,” the specialist said. “I note some trauma to the mucus membrane of the palate. Around the wound, there is a contusion zone, certainly caused by the gun being shoved into the mouth.”

  “So force was used?” Vidal asked.

  “One could easily conjecture that the victim hesitated before pulling the trigger and thrust the gun against the roof of the mouth in a final act of determination,” Vilars said.

  The observations raised even more questions.

  The doctors returned to the autopsy, examining a bone splinter on the scalp. Extracting the splinter, they uncovered a bullet. It had cut through the dura mater.

  “As you certainly know, death from a .22-caliber bullet is generally the result of the direct gunshot to a vital organ, rather than the ballistic pressure wave, also known as hydrostatic shock. The .22 is commonplace but also one of the least effective kinds of ammunition available,” the ballistics specialist explained.

  Vilars used an oscillating saw to remove the skullcap. A strong odor wafted through the room, and Nico held his breath for a few seconds. Thirteen days after death, even in cold storage, the brain had collapsed. Despite the latex injection done at the university, Vilars noted the signs of subdural hemorrhage, which was the cause of death. Then she removed the brain and the cerebellum for dissection.

  “The wound is clean, consistent with a .22-caliber bullet.”

  “From the trajectory, it is clear that the bullet was shot from the front, upward and to the left,” Vilars specified.

  “I assume that explains the cracks on the incisors,” Nico said.

  “Yes, it does,” Vilars answered. “However, we cannot confirm that the victim broke his teeth on the weapon, although it does seem highly likely. In any case, the bullet trajectory would lead us to believe that if this was a suicide, Bruno Guedj was right-handed.”

  The detectives looked at each other. This was something they needed to check.

  Vilars dropped the bullet into an evidence bag. “You can take this to the forensics lab. Now let’s continue.”

  The two doctors carefully dissected the jaw in silence. After a while, Vidal began shifting from foot to foot.

  “Don’t be impatient, Captain,” Vilars said. “If the teeth were damaged when they came into contact with the gun, it could have been self-inflicted. As with the contusion on the palate, he could have forced the gun into his mouth and bitten on it in a final show of resolve. At any rate, we’ll have to do a tox screen. Did the university keep blood and tissue samples? I believe that is part of the protocol.”

  “Yes, they did,” Nico said.

  “I recommend that you requisition the samples.”

  The two police officers remained silent while the rest of the body was examined. Vilars described each part of the procedure in detail. They found nothing definitive suggesting a homicide. Bruno Guedj had no ligature marks on his wrists or ankles. There were no other indications that he might have tried to defend himself. The only troubling elements were the dental fractures and the wound in the roof of his mouth. And those factors, combined with the message found in the tooth, were enough to make Nico doubt that it was suicide. Nico suspected that Armelle Vilars shared his suspicions.

  The autopsy ended shortly before lunch, but the chief medical examiner was not finished. An accident had occurred on the outskirts of Paris, and she had to confirm the identity of the victims, establish the causes of death, and determine who or what was responsible.

  A happy surprise awaited Nico in his office on the Quai des Orfèvres. Caroline was standing at the window, looking out at the Seine. Seeing her made Nico forget all the questions surrounding the Bruno Guedj investigation.

  “I didn’t come to debauch you,” she said. “I suppose you have tons of work.”

  She had brought sandwiches and sodas.

  “Good idea. Eating can’t hurt,” Nico said.

  “Anything new in the molar mystery?” she asked.

  “Nothing for now, but we’ve just started our investigation. All I can say for sure is that I’m having a hard time believing it was suicide. I think that our man felt like he was in danger, and the message in his tooth was his only option.”

  “You’d have to be really desperate to come up with a plan like that. And the message could have gone unnoticed, even if he did donate his body to medical science.”

  Nico finished up his sandwich and pulled her close.

  She ran her fingers through his hair and pulled on it gently.

  “I left a message for the precinct chief in the seventeenth arrondissement this morning,” Nico said. “He’s a friend.”

  Before disappearing, Sylvie had lived near the Parc Monceau.

  “I’m sure he’ll call back,” Caroline said, pulling away. She picked up her things and got ready to leave.

  “Be careful. The sidewalks are slippery,” he said, adjusting her coat collar.

  “Oh, by the way, I’ve arranged for a few days off between Christmas and New Year’s, as we planned.”

  “You’ve got months to make up for, considering all that overtime you put in!”

  “That’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “Get out of here, before I eat you alive.”

  Caroline closed the door behind her, and Nico breathed in her lingering scent, as if to capture it forever.

  He barely had time to sit down again before someone knocked on the door. It w
as David Kriven and the rest of his squad. Claire Le Marec and Jean-Marie Rost followed them in. They had spent the morning working on the molar mystery.

  “Let’s start with the police report,” Nico said.

  Kriven jumped in. “To sum up, on November 20, at 3:32 in the afternoon, Mrs. Guedj called the paramedics. She had come home and found her husband slumped over his desk. Dr. Philippe Owen arrived with the first responders and pronounced Bruno Guedj dead. He informed the police, who then did a quick investigation. They discovered a semiautomatic lying at his feet. There were traces of gunpowder residue on his hand. Tests done on Mrs. Guedj showed none. A detail: she didn’t know that her husband owned a gun.”

  “Which hand had the residue?” Nico asked.

  “The right.”

  “Professor Vilars told us that Guedj had to be right-handed if this were a suicide,” Vidal said.

  For the time being, nothing contradicted the conclusion reached by the local police officers.

  “In addition, Guedj left a letter for the family saying that he was at the end of his rope, and he was sorry,” Kriven said.

  “We need to send that letter to the lab to check for prints and compare the writing,” Deputy Chief Le Marec said.

  “I’ll take care of that as soon as we’ve finished here,” Kriven responded.

  “The officers had also found antidepressants in the bathroom. Mrs. Guedj said that her husband had been on edge for several weeks, but he hadn’t told her why. The couple had two sons, ages sixteen and twenty. Bruno Guedj was a pharmacist who owned a drugstore on the Rue Thiron in the fourth arrondissement.”

  “You’ll have to go there and question the staff,” Nico said. “What about the semiautomatic?”

  “It was a Unique DES 69, which falls into the fourth category of civil firearms and requires a license. Guedj should have gone to the local police station for the license, but he didn’t.”

  “There is a flourishing black market,” Rost said.

  “Perhaps, but was Guedj really the kind of man who would buy a weapon that way?” Le Marec asked.

  “He was depressed and apparently suicidal,” Rost said. “In cases like that, a person will do anything.”

  “True enough,” Nico said. “What about ammunition?”

  “They didn’t find any in the home and deduced that he had no intention of missing the target,” Kriven said.

  “That’s strange. What’s become of the gun?”

  “The local authorities followed procedure and sent a request for destruction to the Police Weapons and Explosives Department on the Rue des Morillons in the fifteenth arrondissement.”

  Gunsmiths authorized by the department to destroy firearms kept logbooks and sent dated and signed receipts to police headquarters. The law did not impose any time limits, so they could reasonably hope that the gun was still in one piece. Only thirteen days had passed since Guedj’s death.

  “I’ll get my hands on it and figure out where it came from,” Kriven said.

  “Remember that Guedj could have bitten into the barrel and cracked his teeth in the process,” Pierre Vidal said. “It would be interesting to have the lab examine it. I already dropped the bullet off.”

  “Perfect. That’s all for the local police investigation. What about Dr. Philippe Owen?” Nico asked.

  Captain Frank Plassard, the second-ranking detective in Kriven’s squad, spoke up. “I went to see him. He said everything pointed to suicide. Case closed. He signed the death and noncontagion certificates for the body donation. Mrs. Guedj was aware of the arrangements her husband had made and wanted them respected. Dr. Owen said the whole idea disgusted him, but he had to respect the man’s wishes. He gave Mrs. Guedj a sedative and advised her to see her doctor to deal with the stress of losing a loved one.”

  “Owen didn’t have any doubts?” Rost asked.

  “None at all. For him, it was a classic suicide scene. Mrs. Guedj’s attitude fit that of a tearful widow in the midst of—let’s see, what were his exact words?” Plassard pulled out his notebook and flipped through the pages. “There it is. Dr. Owen’s description: ‘in the midst of psychogenic shock caused by overwhelming emotional factors.’”

  “Amen,” Kriven said.

  “The rescue center will get us the recording of Mrs. Guedj’s call.”

  “What’s forensics saying?” Nico said.

  Lieutenant Almeida responded. “Professor Queneau first examined what the message was written on.”

  Charles Queneau headed the police forensics lab. He was a kind of Professor Calculus, the character from The Adventures of Tintin, but stronger and more endearing. He had become distant from his colleagues since losing his wife a year earlier. Nico could understand. He couldn’t imagine losing Caroline. Just the thought made his heart race. There were too many things that could rip a loved one away.

  “It’s transparent polyvinyl chloride, otherwise known as PVC, a widely used plastic. One example is the plastic used to protect the covers of bound documents. This piece was two micrometers thick. Scissors were used to cut it out of a sheet of plastic that you can find in stores anywhere and online. It’s impossible to find the source. The message was written with a fine-tipped permanent marker, which is just as commonplace. Professor Queneau also found traces of what is most likely Guedj’s saliva. He will be comparing that with the DNA samples we provided. The plastic had no prints or trace evidence.”

  “That will have to do, then. Can the lab confirm that Guedj wrote the message hidden in his tooth?” Nico asked.

  “They called in Marc Walberg,” Almeida said. Walberg was the lab’s top handwriting expert.

  “Let’s get Guedj’s good-bye letter to him, and tell Queneau I’ll be at the lab in an hour,” Nico ordered.

  The phone rang. Nico picked it up and exchanged a few words with the caller. He ended the call and turned to his team. “That was Michel Cohen. He wants us to meet at six thirty. A run-through for tomorrow’s sting. You’re to be there, Jean-Marie, along with Théron and Hureau.”

  “I can’t wait until we’re done with this jewel heist,” Rost said.

  “Then you can get back to giving your son his bottle, and your wife will be able to get some sleep,” Kriven said.

  “Our good prefect will also be able to sleep better,” Nico said. “That said, don’t forget that our credibility is on the line. Pierre, can you summarize the autopsy results for our friend here?”

  Captain Vidal did as he was told.

  Then Nico turned to Le Marec. “Claire, I’d like you to call Mrs. Guedj and explain the situation. Can you do that?”

  “Of course. I suppose I should tell her as little as possible.”

  “It’s best not to say anything about the message for the moment. Tell her that we’ll stop by and see her tomorrow at around eleven.”

  They all stared at Nico, who guessed what they were thinking. It was a shady case, but did the head of the Criminal Investigation Division really need to show up in person at the widow’s house? He had enough to do elsewhere.

  Kriven dared to break the silence. “Given that this story will be told fifty or a hundred years from now, you want to be a part of it, right? You want to see your name in the textbooks?”

  “In the headlines and all?” Vidal said.

  “And with any luck, it will be ten times bigger than any other,” Kriven joined in.

  The others applauded.

  “Laugh all you want, but I get the feeling that this case hasn’t finished surprising us,” Nico shot back.

  Deputy Chief Rost nodded. “I agree with you. It smells fishy.”

  Homicide was something of a team sport. Nico savored the solidarity and group spirit. A cell phone rang just as everyone was standing up to leave. Almeida pulled out his phone and glanced at the screen. He put it on speakerphone.

  “Lieutenant Almeida, is that you? It’s Queneau here. I’ve got something for you on the Bruno Guedj case. It’s strange. You see, we’ve come up with this th
eory over here, if you’ve got a few minutes to spare.”

  7

  The police forensics lab was at 3 Quai de l’Horloge on the Île de la Cité. The street owed its name to the clock, or horloge, that towered over the Paris courthouse complex, the Palais de Justice. Running along the Seine between the Pont au Change and the Pont Neuf, it seemed to channel a north wind, and in the old days it was called the “street of the dejected.” Dejected was what Nico and Pierre Vidal were feeling at that moment.

  Walking briskly from 36 Quai des Orfèvres and going through building security took exactly four minutes. The lab occupied four floors and some temporary structures in the courtyard. The place was pieced together and not at all suited to its use. Furthermore, some of the departments were in other areas of Paris. Professor Queneau had been waiting for the lab operations to be consolidated in a new building for so many years, he no longer believed it would happen. He had confessed this to Nico. Now he was a few months away from his retirement, and he no longer believed in miracles.

  Nico knew that Queneau wasn’t looking forward to his retirement. Since losing his wife, he hated holidays and didn’t take all the vacation time he was entitled to. He spent little time with his daughters and grandchildren, giving the excuse that he had work to do. The lab, which brought together a number of disciplines and top-notch experts, was the only place where he could forget about everything, and especially about the cancer that was eating away at him. Cancer had an advantage over the criminals, whose pursuit both he and Nico were dedicated to. Unlike the criminals, who wound up arrested and convicted, the disease seemed to go unpunished.

  “Welcome to our modest home. It’s always a pleasure, Chief,” Queneau said, greeting Nico.

  “The pleasure is mutual,” Nico responded. He loved this part of an investigation, driven by technology and advances in criminology. Yet Nico believed that nothing would ever replace a detective’s science of deduction and ability to see the big picture.