Crossing the Line

by Frédérique Molay

  Nico often came to this place to relax, even on a day like this, when the sky was gray and low, nearly threatening. Wrapped in his coat, he was thinking about Bruno Guedj. The evidence pointed to suicide. He had been depressed since September. The good-bye letter had his prints on it. The gun was at his feet, and there was gunshot residue on his hand. But it was on his right hand. That detail was enough to make Nico think that someone else was involved, someone who had harassed Guedj on the phone and perhaps had visited him at the pharmacy at the end of September. The police now had a sketch of the man, but it didn’t match anyone on record.

  Feeling threatened, Guedj had formulated a unique plan to disclose what really happened to him. The plan had two parts. In mid-October, he signed the forms to give his body to the Paris Descartes University, his alma mater, and at the end of the month, he asked his dentist friend, Dr. Maxime Robert, to help him hide a message under a rough filling. The plastic had only Guedj’s DNA on it. Furthermore, the sheet of plastic and the pen used to write the message matched those found in the pharmacy.

  All these measures seemed to be justified, because on November 20, Guedj had died from a gunshot to the head. Where did the gun and the bullet come from? Kriven was on that, helped by Professor Queneau’s ballistics team. In addition, toxicology had turned in its report. They hadn’t found any illicit drugs or medication in the samples from the victim. It was possible that Guedj had bitten down on the gun and cracked his teeth in a final defensive reflex.

  Marc Walberg’s handwriting analysis was more intriguing: The victim’s good-bye letter showed signs of intense stress and apprehension. Was this the mind-set of a man a few minutes away from committing suicide or that of a man forced to write something before being murdered?

  Nico and his detectives had this information, but it wasn’t nearly enough. First, they needed more on the semiautomatic that was used and the bullet, which had been identified as a .22-caliber long-rifle bullet. Despite its name, it was common handgun ammunition. With any luck, they would find some trace evidence, prints, or some other element that would lead to someone who was already in the system. They also needed to look into the calls the victim received and Denis Roy’s acquisition of the pharmacy. Was that a motive for murder? They would meet with Maître Belin and Dr. Robert and try to establish Bruno Guedj’s schedule.

  Nico heard a voice behind him. “You’re going to turn into an icicle.”

  Deputy Chief Jean-Marie Rost had guessed where Nico was hiding. Like the other cops at headquarters, he used the rooftop for an occasional escape from the demands of the job.

  “It’s about time,” Rost said. “The team is ready.”

  Nico stepped down from his aerie. It was nearly the end of the afternoon. Dusk would fall soon, and the officers from the division were all focused on the night’s operation: locking up the Avenue Montaigne burglars.

  The two men returned to Nico’s office and were joined by Le Marec and commanders Théron and Hureau.

  “We’ve fine-tuned everything,” Nico said. “The bastards don’t suspect a thing. They’ll be behind bars before they have time to react.” Nico turned to Hureau. “Make the most of your last night with La Crim’. You’ll miss us soon enough.”

  “Starting Monday, you’ll be living it up in the city’s cabarets and dives,” Rost joked. “Your wife must be thrilled that you’ve been transferred to vice. Or maybe you haven’t told her.”

  “I told her that as a section chief, I’d end up just like you: stuck in the office with my ass in a chair. Easy and no danger.”

  “Smart-ass.”

  Claire Le Marec put an end to the banter. “Boys, your conversation is brilliant and all, but…”

  Nico, Le Marec, and Rost were to meet at operation headquarters, while Théron and Hureau would head out to the field, armed and in bulletproof vests.

  “It’s time,” Nico said, choosing to believe they would all come back in one piece.

  10

  The end was near. Like this snow-covered city spread at his feet. This city, pinned beneath a dark gray sky. At that moment, he wanted to pick it up and squeeze the buildings and crush the crowds. He would spread his hate and anger, making the world pay for his suffering. Yes, he was suffering. Even the powerful could suffer. But he would not surrender. There were no limits to what he was capable of. It didn’t matter how many people died, how much blood flowed. He would have his way. Or he would have his vengeance. Even God, that bastard who was waving Christmas under his nose, could not stop him.

  The end was near. But he still had time.

  11

  The room was dark. Nico slid under the sheets and nestled against Caroline. She purred. Her touch warmed him, and he began caressing her soft skin. He rested his hand just above her hip for a moment, and the stillness kindled his hunger. He pulled her closer. She turned, and they kissed, first softly and then more intensely. Nico ran his tongue down her neck and shoulder, pausing at her breasts to fondle her nipples. He heard her moan. He caressed her stomach and moved down to her thighs, finally reaching the place where he could give her the exquisite pleasure she anticipated. Her moaning grew more urgent, until she invited him to enter her. He obeyed. His desire was almost agony. Then there was only the bliss, the well-being that he could find in no country or city on this earth. Caroline’s body, which he held in his arms, was his world. It was a world in which he delighted in getting lost, a world in which he found himself, over and over. It was ultimate and perfect.

  The ringing pulled him from his sleep. He opened his eyes and saw that the sun had risen and was filtering through the curtains. Caroline turned over. He reached out and grabbed his phone from the bedside table.

  “Nico?”

  He sat up when he recognized the voice. It was Michel Cohen’s.

  “Did I wake you? Damn, you managed to get some shut-eye after the night we just had?”

  What the man didn’t say was that it was Saturday. Nico had gotten home at four in the morning and fallen asleep two hours later. His alarm clock read eight thirty. It had been a short night.

  “I wanted to congratulate you, and the prefect will do so personally. You did excellent work. The thieves are behind bars, and the eighty-five million euros in jewels are where they belong.”

  “The organized crime team should get the credit.”

  “I won’t forget them, but I know the work you did on this case, including all the meetings you held in your hospital room. And the interrogation you led after you brought them in will go down in the books.”

  The burglars had been handcuffed and taken to headquarters. The Quai des Orfèvres had even been cordoned off to facilitate the transfer from the vehicles to the building. Once they were inside, Nico had been responsible for getting one of them to talk. It had been trying. The man was filled with cold rage and refused to cooperate, but after an hour of questioning and subtle strategy, Nico prevailed. He walked away with vital information that led them to the loot. The division had delivered a KO punch, and the prefect had saved his job.

  “That will keep the media busy over the weekend. They’re already milling in front of headquarters. The prefect and Nicole will hold a joint press conference this morning. They’ll mention you by name, and if you’re lucky, we’ll be seeing that handsome mug of yours on TV, too.”

  “Fantastic.” Nico liked to see the police get the credit they deserved, but he preferred staying off-camera. Being recognized on the street made his job harder.

  “You’re not jumping with joy?” his bossed teased.

  “You’re quite mistaken. My team has been under pressure, and now they’ll be able to breathe easier. We are all happy that you, Commissioner Monthalet, and the prefect can tell the press what we’ve managed pull off.”

  “Now I have to tell you to get your ass to the office. Get dressed, and be there at ten.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me, Nico. I want you to be at the press conference with your counterpart from or
ganized crime. The reporters are asking for you. You’ll be finished by lunch.”

  “I’ll be there,” Nico said.

  “See you later,” Cohen said. He ended the call.

  “What’s happening?” Caroline asked, sounding sleepy.

  “I have to go.”

  Caroline started nibbling his ear.

  “Shoot. Jacqueline and André are picking Dimitri up at eleven.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll explain. You’ll be back when they bring him home.” She was a doctor whose work hours often changed at a moment’s notice. She understood.

  “Can we have lunch together?” Nico asked.

  “Yes, my love, we’ll have lunch together.”

  Nico forced himself out of bed. Caroline followed him under the shower, answering his unspoken request. They played for a while with the soap and hot water, giggling like teenagers. Then he put on a suit and tie, while Caroline looked on.

  “Will you kiss the sleeping prince for me?”

  “If you mean Dimitri, he was up studying last night while you were out playing cops and robbers. He had some math homework to do.”

  “I suppose he took advantage of your expertise.”

  “Don’t go thinking I hand him the answers on a platter.”

  “Oh, I trust you totally, Professor.”

  “Get out of here. You’ll be late.”

  They kissed at the door. Then Nico took off for headquarters.

  Bruce Springsteen’s baritone voice filled the car. The streets passed by to the rhythm of “Dancing in the Dark.” Nico could almost see the Boss strumming his guitar outside the car, his boots covered with snow. How did that man come by such talent? Nico’s favorite Springsteen song, “Secret Garden,” had always made him thirst for the sweetness of a love that had seemed elusive—a love that was “everything.” Now he had that love.

  Several reporters greeted him at headquarters. He climbed the stairs two by two, testing his physical condition. His leg still slowed him down a little, but he felt he could run a marathon. He presented himself to Nicole Monthalet’s secretary.

  “The commissioner is waiting for you,” she said, smiling politely.

  It was time to see the other boss. Nico put Bruce Springsteen out of his mind. He was all business as he walked into Monthalet’s office.

  Caroline set down her chopsticks after finishing the last piece of sushi. They both loved this unpretentious restaurant in front of the Palais Royal. The miso soup was delicious, the bluefin tuna was perfectly fresh, and the California rolls so big that Caroline had trouble fitting them in her mouth, which made them both laugh.

  Hand in hand, they walked along the Avenue de l’Opéra, admiring the Palais Garnier and blending with the tourists before heading toward the department stores on the Boulevard Haussmann. This year, as fate would have it, marionettes and lights in the store windows celebrated Slavic culture and food. With childlike wonder, Caroline and Nico took in the displays at the Galeries Lafayette, where a brigade of animated pastry-chef bears was making a bûche de Noël. The Printemps windows held an imaginary trip along the Volga. Another showcase had been transformed into a dacha, where magical creatures played hide-and-seek with life-size Russian nesting dolls.

  Reality and imagination seemed to blur. Where was he? Was he holding Caroline’s hand on the Boulevard Haussmann, packed with holiday shoppers like a subway car at rush hour? Was that the smell of roasted chestnuts in the crisp winter air? Or was he part of this magical Russian scene, dancing with the woman he loved before pulling her behind a nesting doll to kiss her in secret?

  Work life intruded. Did Bruno Guedj kill himself? Or was it cold-blooded murder? Was his death the act of a desperate man at the end of his rope? Or was he mixed up in some dirty business? Had he seen or heard something he shouldn’t have? Had he made his murderer angry or afraid?

  “Where are you?” Caroline whispered in his ear.

  He started. “In Russia.”

  “In a charming little wooden chalet in the middle of the snow?”

  “A fire in the fireplace, lying on a bearskin.” He smiled.

  “With me?”

  “With you. Naked.”

  “Liar.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You weren’t thinking about Russia anymore. Your eyebrows were all bunched up. So, are you going to tell me where you were?”

  Nico sighed. She read him like an open book, and he was actually glad. “I was thinking about Bruno Guedj.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know. There’s no connection to any of this, except that his suicide seems about as artificial as these dolls and landscapes. An illusion. Well, we have a meeting to go to,” he said with a smile.

  They walked briskly along the sidewalk, past the famous jewelers on the Place Vendôme—Mauboussin was Caroline’s favorite. Finally, they reached the Rue de Rivoli and the tea salon Angelina, with its refined Belle Époque atmosphere. Anya was waiting for them.

  Nico’s mother was a tall, slender woman with hair that was still blond, thanks to her hairdresser’s subterfuge. Her eyes were pale blue, and her bearing was proud. Men still turned to look at her when she passed. She had set her Russian rabbit-fur cap on the table. Anya loved to cultivate her roots, down to the smallest detail.

  Her eyes brightened when she saw Nico, and she gave him a warm hug. Anya’s gravelly voice always took Nico back to his childhood, when she would read to him: poems and novels by Griboyedov, Pouchkine, Lermontov, and Gogol. She read the pages with the talent of an actress, moving with ease from laughter to tears. That voice affected him profoundly. It felt like the voice of a forgotten heroine in an old black-and-white movie. But Anya herself was a colorful character in the pure Slavic tradition. She was a woman nobody forgot.

  “You look superb, my dear,” she said to Caroline.

  Anya had taken to Caroline immediately. Nico knew that Anya thought his new love had all the necessary qualities to make him happy, unlike Sylvie. Anya had been civil to her daughter-in-law, but she considered Sylvie a bad mother and a horrible wife.

  They ordered the tea salon’s rich and delicious hot chocolate, along with three monts-blancs—meringue with chestnut puree and whipped-cream filling. Tourists the world over came to Angelina to sample this delicacy. The line of foreigners waiting to get into the tearoom was proof of that.

  “So Dimitri is with his maternal grandparents?” Anya asked right away.

  “Don’t worry. It will all be fine,” Caroline said. “I think they are very kind people, don’t you?”

  “That is true,” Anya said. “And André is the only grandfather Dimitri has left.”

  That was what Nico had told his mother when he broke the news. Given Anya’s feelings about Sylvie, he had expected her to vent about his former in-laws spending time with Dimitri.

  “I have nothing against them at all,” Anya said. “Just Sylvie.”

  “Nico told me that they never denied their daughter had problems. I understand they tried to help her.”

  “I can’t say the contrary.”

  Nico’s mother was hard to predict. She had so much bitterness against his ex-wife, this would have been a fine occasion to express it. But it was clear that she was relieved to see her son with someone she thought he deserved, and she never wanted to hurt Dimitri. Anya loved Dimitri as much—perhaps even more—than she loved Nico. So she had nothing mean-spirited to say about her ex-daughter-in-law today.

  “You are a very perceptive woman, my dear,” Anya said to Caroline. “I am happy you are here with us, at this table.”

  At the end of the afternoon, Jacqueline and André Canova rang the doorbell. When Nico opened the door, he saw the happiness on their faces, which were pink from the cold. They also looked older. He regretted not contacting them sooner. But didn’t Caroline always say that things happened when they were meant to happen? They hugged Dimitri a final time before letting him go.

  “It was really cool to see you
again,” Dimitri said. “Let’s do it again soon, okay?” Tall and well-built already, with deep-blue eyes and blond hair, Dimitri looked so much like his father. Nico was even more astonished at how much he and his son thought alike. Dimitri had the same sense of duty and responsibility. Nico had sometimes put his own aspirations aside because of that sense of duty and responsibility—to Sylvie, for example. Nico wanted Dimitri to pursue the dreams he had for himself. But helping him do that wouldn’t necessarily be easy. Nico knew Dimitri took pride in being like his father.

  “Caroline seems to be a fine woman,” Jacqueline said. “Dimitri loves her. That’s clear. We are happy for you, Nico.”

  “Thank you. But Sylvie needs to come back. That’s what we’re hoping for.”

  André began walking away without saying a word. Jacqueline gave Nico a worried look. He returned it with a reassuring nod. He was on it.

  Nico closed the door. It had been an excellent day. Tomorrow, Sunday, he would spend time with his family. Squash with his son and Caroline, a new convert to the sport, then brunch with his sister, Tanya, her husband, and their children. They would take a walk in the afternoon and return home to read novels on the couch.

  Then there was Bruno Guedj, a ghost to remind him that life was not always so sweet.

  12

  Notaries were professionals who never ceased to astonish Nico. Their role in the French legal system was well rooted in history. As early at the third century, civil servants in Gaul, then part of the Roman Empire, were authenticating documents. Notaries disappeared with the Barbarian invasions, only to be resuscitated by Charlemagne. From that point on, notaries grew in power under kings of France, including Louis IX the Saint, Philip IV the Fair, and Henry IV. Much later, in 1945, the Conseil Supérieur du Notariat was created by law. It had a large hand in rebuilding the country following the Second World War. After that, the notary’s sphere of influence quickly expanded into many areas of French life.