Murder in Montmartre (24 page)

“It doesn’t make sense. You must be hiding something.”

He stared, his dark eyes plumbing her.

“The
flics
want to talk with you about the bomb planted near the Mairie of the eighteenth arrondissement,” she said, taking a guess.

He flinched. She figured her comment had hit home. She backed away from him, hitching her damp bag onto her shoulder.

“Are you going to inform on me?”

“I’ve got a better idea, musician. We’re going to find Petru.”

Thursday Night

NATHALIE GAGNARD’S DAMP SWEATER clung to her. Her hand came back wet from touching her cheeks. She was crying, and she hadn’t even realized it.

Light from the streetlamp slanted through her half-closed shutters and checkered the sisal mat under her bare feet. In her apartment, once a ballroom—a quarter of it, anyway—clung the dense odor of white chrysanthemums for Jacques’s funeral service. They lay in the sink, needing water, still wrapped in green paper. The body of the man she ached for would repose in a steel morgue drawer until the ground dried out enough for a grave to be dug. The flowers could wait.

The phone rang next to her.

“Madame Gagnard, Officer Rassac calling,” said a voice she recognized. “Please accept our condolences. We’ve taken up a collection for the funeral. The way we think Jacques would like it.” Pause. “We hope you’ll agree.”

Had they made arrangements for Jacques’s funeral without consulting her? As the ex-wife, she wasn’t even a proper widow nor would she be entitled to his pension. She scrabbled for her cigarettes, found the packet, and lit one.

“Madame Gagnard?”

She exhaled; a gray wisp of smoke trailed into the room.

“So you’ve managed everything.” She bit back the rest.

There was a pause. “We wanted to make things easier, you know. The men . . . ,” he paused again, cleared his throat. “We wanted to relieve you of this unexpected burden.”

Her tears flowed, accompanied by sobs she couldn’t control.

“Do whatever you want.” She hung up, ashamed. They knew she had no money.

If only Jacques had been able to keep his hands off the machines. The gambling fever was a curse. Their debts mounted, they’d pay off one loan shark, then Jacques would gamble again and get in debt to another.

She ground out her cigarette in the full ashtray. A few months ago he’d joined a program on his own, tried to quit, surprising her. He’d told her he was quitting for himself, it was something he had to do. She hadn’t asked him why, just thanked the stars. And then, last week, those telltale shining eyes, that fevered look. Right away she knew. He’d gone back to the machines.

Mounting excitement, pills, big plans, a coup, he said, that would make all their debts disappear. Like every big idea he’d had, it backfired. And this time, it took him with it.

Her heart heaved. Jacques’s tousled hair, the way he’d tickled her under her knees, how he’d made her purr beneath the sheets. Life with him had been a joy—on good days.

She grabbed the half-empty bottle of Ambien pills and curled her legs under her on the couch. She longed for oblivion. To forget. She thumbed open the horoscope page in
Marie Claire
, as she did every month, and scanned the advice under her sign, a Scorpion, drawn biting its lethal tail.

Jacques had said she embodied Scorpio’s dark, jealous nature and secretiveness. And despite his free spirit, he’d seemed to like it during their five years of marriage. Opposites attract, wasn’t that the saying?

Under Scorpio’s Feelings Forecast she read: Venus rising indicates time for reflection. The same for dreams. Take time, ponder, the answers will come. A warm-colored sun illuminates your journey.

Answers will come? Already, as she’d told the reporter, that bitch was in custody. The little harpy with her cleft lip, like the upper lip of a hare, a sign still regarded in her Breton village as the malicious act of an elf or fairy. Old sayings and beliefs still held sway in the countryside. Hadn’t her mother refused to let her pregnant sister cross in front of a rabbit for fear of miscarriage?

That Laure was cursed and transmitted the curse to others around her. Nathalie known it the moment she’d laid on eyes on her.

Nathalie’s fist balled, knocking the pills over, sprinkling them across the floor. How many had she taken tonight? The doctor said two would dull the edge of anxiety. Two?

She’d vowed to Jacques she’d never go back on the street. She’d given her word. Did it matter now?

Jacques, fresh from the military in Corsica, and new to the police force, had found her. She would never forget that bitter February evening. The
flics
were making a routine sweep of rue Joubert; she was just a few months into The Life. At the Commissariat he’d grinned, handing her hot coffee and offering her a seat in his warm cubicle. He’d treated her like a human being and winked, offering her a “
cousine
’s” job, which was what they called informers. He’d promised her better things and, to his credit, later he had made an honest woman of her. She owed her life to him.

And it had been sweet, especially those last few days. Talking with him every day, sometimes twice, his saying he needed her, that only she could help him, and it would all work out. He’d leave the force, they’d settle in Saint Raphael, buy that little bistro. But now, it was all over, all due to that jealous whiner.

Proof? Why did they need more than Laure’s smoking gun? Those
juges d’instructions
got more fussy every day; soon, as Jacques had said, they’d need to video a crime before anyone got nailed.

What had Jacques put away, the night she came home early? Groggy, she reached down for the pills, picked them up one by one, put some back in the bottle, and took two more. Or was it three more?

Little was left to comfort her. Most days her only interactions were at work or with the cashier at Casino, the market, who lived downstairs. Her life had been mechanical and soulless since Jacques had left. And now he was gone for good.

The
Marie Claire
fell to the floor. Her muscles had relaxed. The walls glazed before her eyes, a hazy aura of vanilla light came through the window from the street. Hadn’t her horoscope indicated a colored sun . . .?

Thursday Night

“ I’M SORRY, I’M THE only one here,” said Félix Conari’s housekeeper. “Petru? I haven’t seen him. Madame and Monsieur are out.”

“Please,” Aimée said. “I must reach Monsieur Conari.”

“Monsieur Conari?” said the flustered housekeeper. “He’s gone straight from the airport to services at Eglise Saint-Pierre de Montmartre. That’s all I know.”

“
Merci,
” Aimée said, clicking off her cell phone.

“I have a gig,” Lucien said.

“First, let’s go to church,” she said.

THE TAXI stopped on rue Saint-Rustique, the oldest street in Montmartre, wide enough, she imagined, for a twelfth-century cart. She handed the driver thirty francs. “Keep the change,” she said, hoping to earn late-night taxi karma, and he grinned.

A gutter ran down the middle of the street, like an inverted seam, leading to Eglise Saint-Pierre, a church built on the site of Roman temples to Mars and Mercury. In the fifth century, an abbey, later the birthplace of the Jesuit order, had stood here. Now it was the oldest chapel in Paris. During the Revolution, it had been a telegraph station. In the Franco-Prussian War, a Prussian munitions depot. At the time of the Commune, a fortress against the Communards and starving masses who were reduced to hunting rats.

The bronze sculpted Italian doors stood open, revealing a candle-lit medieval stone chapel. A small crowd was leaving the mass. The courtyard, usually crowded with tourists, lay deserted this winter night.

The musk of incense made her nose itch. Their footsteps echoed as they passed the statue of Marie Thérèse of Montmartre and walked toward the columns crowned by sculpted leaves.

Félix Conari was shaking hands with the priest, clasping them within his own. A gray-haired man wearing a dark suit, red tie, and blue shirt, the uniform of Ministry types, stood next to him. His was a face she’d seen often in the paper next to that of the Minister of the Interior.

Church and state. Bad partners. She didn’t like it.

She caught Conari’s eye. If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. A few moments later, he excused himself and joined them.

“Forgive me, Monsieur Conari, but your housekeeper—”

“My wife didn’t tell you? Aaah, I forgot she’s at a reception, but it’s good you found me.” Conari put his arm around Lucien.
“Ça va
, Lucien?”

Lucien gave a hesitant nod.

“We celebrated the annual memorial mass for my sister. Come, let’s talk outside,” Conari said. His silk tie was rumpled, his eyes tired and red. Near the pillar, he picked up his brown overcoat, which was resting on a folded suitbag with an Air France luggage tag.

Outside the church, which was overshadowed by Sacré Coeur, he buttoned his coat and steered them to the adjacent cemetery gate. Mist topped the summit of rue du Mont-Cenis, the street that was once the ancient pilgrim route.

“We must clear up this misunderstanding, Lucien,” said Félix.

The dark cemetery, with a sign saying it was open once a year, revealed sinking sarcophagi pitched at drunken angles. Druids, Romans, medieval men, they were all under here, somewhere.

“How can we reach Petru?” Aimée asked.

“He was supposed to meet me at the airport.”

“Two hours ago he threatened us.”

“I haven’t seen him since Monday,” Conari said. “I don’t understand.”

He seemed as lost as she felt. She’d thought Conari would have answers. She’d been clutching at connections, grasping at straws driven by a feeling in her gut, unsubstantiated by anything more than an overheard conversation in Corsican, Zette’s body hanging from the WC door, a nine-year-old’s observations from the roof, lights in a construction site at night, and a sour taste in her mouth about Ludovic Jubert.

“Félix, what’s going on?” Lucien asked.

Conari gave a deep sigh. “I’m concerned, too,” he said. “Petru hasn’t returned my calls.”

“Petru tried to incriminate me. And he’s been following me.”

“You’re serious? He threatened you, Lucien?” Conari shook his head. “Petru’s a hothead, he gets out of line sometimes. But this sickens me.”

“Out of line, Félix?” Lucien said. “He planted information at the recording studio to tie me to the terrorists and then alerted the police.”

“So Marie-Dominique told me,” Conari said. “On the outside she’s a sparrow; inside, a protective hawk, like all the Vescovatis women.”

A vein pulsed in Lucien’s forehead, just visible under a black curl. So Conari’s wife had warned Lucien.

“Why, Félix?”

“Ask him,” he said. “Ever since Marie-Dominique phoned, I’ve tried to find him. There’s some misunderstanding. But don’t worry, I’m going to salvage the deal with SOUNDW-ERX.”

“I thought Kouros pulled out.” Lucien’s mouth tightened.

“Lucien, my boy, we signed the contract!” Félix said. “Look on the bright side.”

Lucien shook his head. “But Kouros didn’t sign it.”

“His handshake’s his word, remember, Lucien?”

“Not if there’s any taint of the Armata Corsa. He made that clear.”

“
We
have a contract, Lucien,” Conari said. “I’ll get you into the recording studio as soon as I can. Right now, I have to concentrate on my construction contract.”

“How long has Petru worked for you?” Aimée asked.

“Six months or so. He does odd jobs,” Félix Conari said. “His cousin married my sister. He’s from a different clan than Marie-Dominique.”

“Does that explain him turning on Lucien and sabotaging his recording deal?”

“Corsican hotheads make no sense to me, Mademoiselle,” Conari said. “I married into a family and I try to help people like Lucien when I can. But ancient wrongs don’t interest me.”

“Was one of his little jobs to cover up the shooting of a
flic
on the rooftop opposite yours during your party?”

Conari’s eyes widened. “Petru? You think he shot someone? No, he was serving at dinner. At the table. You saw him, Lucien. We all did.”

“A witness heard men speaking Corsican on the roof,” she said.

Félix Conari shook his head. “In that howling storm?”

“I think the police will be interested, Monsieur Conari.

Especially if they learn you’ve employed a suspected Corsican terrorist.”

Lucien’s hands twisted on the grip of his music case.

“Terrorist? Petru? There’s a mistake. Maybe some macho posturing. . . .” Conari pulled his lower eyelid down with a fingertip, an old-fashioned gesture meaning, Who are you trying to kid? “I want to help but I have no idea why he’d plant false information. My wife could have misheard.”

“Yet you said he’s disappeared.”

“We have to straighten this out.” Conari took his cell phone, hit the speed dial. “Petru, I’m back, we must speak,” he said. Then Conari snapped his cell phone shut. “I got his voice mail. The moment he calls me, I’ll let you know.”

“His number?” she said. She was programming the number into her cell phone as Conari showed it to her.

“Does he live in your apartment?”

Conari shook his head. “Petru lives somewhere in the
quartier
.”

“Don’t you know where he lives?”

“He just moved, but he has been secretive about a lot of things,” Conari said. “When I think about it, it is odd.”

“Where did he live before?”

“Near Place Froment, above a Turkish grocery,” Conari said.

“Something more specific, Monsieur Conari?”

“We picked him up there once,” he said. “I waited in the car by the cemetery wall. Let’s see, I remember my driver fetched him. The shop had everything—food, hookahs, even Turkish videos.”

Lucien hitched the backpack onto his other shoulder. “I’ve got to go. I’ve got a gig, Félix.”

“Lucien, believe me. Mademoiselle Leduc, I’m sorry for what happened. Petru’s got a temper. But to fly off like this? I don’t understand.”

“Where were you, Monsieur Conari?”

“I’m negotiating with the Ministry. It’s difficult with these Separatist attacks aggravating the situation.”

Wasn’t everything blamed on the Separatists? And he still hadn’t answered her.

“Where were you, Monsieur Conari?”

“The isle of beauty,” he said. “Corsica.” He let out a sigh.

The priest beckoned to Conari.

“Excuse me, I must thank the padre.”

“LUCIEN, WHERE exactly did you see those lights?”

Aimée stood shivering before the building on whose roof Jacques had been shot.

Lucien pointed. “The lights came from over the railing. You can see the hole from here.”

“Where?”

He put his hands around her waist. Strong hands. And lifted her up. Only an inky black hole fringed with frost met her gaze.

“Dots of moving lights,” he said.

A tunnel?

He set her down. His hands rested on her hips a moment too long.

“Tomorrow, I’ll sniff around Petru’s old place if I can find it. Meanwhile, if he reappears, call me.” She handed him her number. “Don’t you have a cell phone?”

“Against my principles,” Lucien said.

Annoying, and it made him difficult to reach.

“If Petru gets in my way, I’ll take care of him.” Lucien shouldered his bag. “I’m really late for a job.”

“Look . . .”

“Leave a message with Anna at Strago.”

“I already did.”

“Just a word of advice.” He paused, his face in shadow. “A girl like you ought to stay away from types like that
mec
.”

Angered, she stepped back. Her heels sank into the slush.

“The
mec
with the knife? You think I invited it? He chased me,” she said. “And threatened me, after I found Zette, the bar owner, garroted.
Another
Corsican.”

The crash of a can and the screeching of a cat came from over a wall. She paused. “Your type’s the one I should watch out for.”

And then his hands encircled her waist and he was kissing her on both cheeks. Soft kisses. Warm and lingering. She took a deep breath, enveloped in his warmth and the wet tang of his leather jacket. There was the cold promise of snow in the air.

“Especially
my
type, detective,” he breathed in her ear.

She watched until the shadows swallowed him and the echo of his footsteps faded, still feeling his warmth on her face.