Murder in Montmartre (8 page)

“I had a drink with someone after a full-moon party,” he said.

“You mean you went to a rave?”

“That’s for tonight,” he said. “Eh,
voilà.
”

René was full of surprises.

“What’s her name?”

He mumbled something.

“Couldn’t catch that.”

“Magali. Now pull up the Salys account.”

“I finished that proposal last night.”

He stared at her.

“While you were out dancing. Makes a change, eh?”

Chastened, René sighed. “We just met. Now don’t start with you and Guy wanting to—”

“Meet her? Don’t worry.”

She’d keep it to herself about Guy. No reason to burden René when he was so happy. Outside, melting ice spattered in silver droplets on the window overlooking rue du Louvre.

“René, I need help with a surveillance. I questioned a woman in an upper apartment overlooking the site where Jacques was shot. But there’s a prostitute on the street across from her building whom I couldn’t find.”

His eyebrows shot up. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m meeting with the Salys account in half an hour. At least they pay on time.”

And a nice fat account it was, too. “After that, please go on an assignment for Laure.”

“Me?
” René snorted. “Like I don’t stand out in a crowd?”

“Find the
pute
. It’s a village there. Those Montmartroise don’t regard themselves as part of Paris. Besides, you’re perfect.”

“Reincarnate Toulouse-Lautrec and walk around with a palette of paints for the tourists?”

She smiled. “That’s an idea.”

“In this field, you use what you have, don’t you?” he said half-seriously and paused, his fingers on the keyboard.

She leaned forward. “The building’s under renovation; someone knew an upper-floor apartment was empty. Say the killer lured Jacques from this empty apartment, then took advantage of Laure’s appearance to frame her. He knew the layout and escaped over the connecting roof. It’s a theory.”

“I’ve said it before: you have an overactive imagination. Put it to work on our new account with Salys.”

He was right, of course. “I already have.” She clicked on the keys and pulled up the Salys file on her laptop. “I submitted the proposal last night; they’ll be ready for you.”

She spread the rough diagram of the buildings and courtyard she’d made at the Commissariat across her desk. “I saw lights and heard music from a party there,” she said, pointing to an apartment. “I’m trying to get ahold of the owner, a Monsieur Conari.”

“The
flics
will question him.”

“You can look for the prostitute after your meeting with Salys. Question her and whoever else you see go into any of the buildings next to or opposite the one where Jacques was shot. The clock’s ticking. I’ll concentrate on the one where the party was held.”

“You really want me to go undercover?”

Was there a scintilla of interest in his voice?

“Haven’t you always wanted to, partner?”

AIMÉE WORKED on some computer virus checks. Two hours later, her impatience took over and she called Maître Delambre again.

“I expect him any minute,” his secretary told her.

She had to catch him before he left for another court session. She grabbed her leather coat. Without the police report, she was pedaling without wheels.

“Please tell him Aimée Leduc’s en route to talk with him.”

MAÎTRE DELAMBRE’S chambers were more impressive than his appearance. Wan, pale faced under wire-rimmed glasses and mouse brown hair, in his long black robes and white collar he looked barely twenty-five.

The vaulted wood ceiling and bookshelves lined with legal briefs and thick volumes of the penal code did little to allay her fears. The firm’s letterhead on thick vellum sheets read Delambre et Fils. A family concern. Maybe Laure should request his father’s help.

“Maître Delambre, I’m worried about Laure Rousseau,” Aimée said.

“I haven’t managed to speak with my client yet,” he told her as she sat on a wingback chair. “How can I be certain that she hired you?”

Semantics, Aimée thought. She ignored the dubious ring of his words. “Have you received the crime-scene report?”

“I just reached the office,” he said, annoyed. “I need to deal with a pile of messages. She’s just one of several clients.”

“And how many are facing possible imprisonment for shooting their partner?” Aimée asked. “Please, it’s important. I’d appreciate it if you would check.”

“Just a moment.” He sorted a pile of papers, cleared his throat. “Let’s see here.” A pause, more shuffling of papers.

Outside on the quay, sleet battered the roof of a bus stuck in traffic. She heard his sharp intake of breath and turned.

“They’ve moved her. To the Hôtel Dieu, the CUSCO ward.”

She gripped the arms of the chair. That was the public hospital’s intensive-care criminal ward on Ile de la Cité!

“Has she been charged?”

“No charges have been filed yet. However, in such cases, that’s the next step.”

“Has her condition deteriorated?”

“Figure it out, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said. “You’re the detective.”

Aimée stifled a groan. “What information do you have?”

“She suffered a severe concussion,” he said, consulting a message pad. “According to this, she’s stable but they’re monitoring her condition. That’s all I know.”

Laure in intensive care? Looming complications and the possibility of permanent damage raced through Aimée’s mind. And representing her was a young lawyer who appeared to have just gotten his diploma.

“Please show me the dossier,” she said.

With some reluctance, he slid it over the mahagony desk. At least he’s trying to be accommodating, she thought.

Inside she saw the
procès verbal
consisting of Laure’s statement, brief reports describing the crime scene, the weather conditions, and a description of the body, and a cursory pencil diagram of the roof. Even the statement she had made was included.

“Didn’t a lab report accompany this?”

Maître Delambre shook his head.

“Odd. Laure told me the lab test had found gunpowder residue on her hands, although she hadn’t fired her gun in a month.”

She looked more closely. The scene-of-crime diagrammer had missed the angle of the roof at the scaffold, an aspect she’d only viewed from the chimney top. There was no mention of the broken skylight in the adjacent building. The police photos, clipped to the back of the report, showed only the immediate area around Jacques’s corpse. “You have to demand a more thorough investigation of the roof.”

“You’re telling me how to do my job?”

She took a deep breath. How could she get him to act without revealing their rooftop exploits last night? “Not at all, Maître Delambre, but there was a Level 3 storm going on when the crime took place, impossible conditions. No doubt they missed something.”

“See for yourself,” he said.

She flipped through the addendum of partygoers interviewed in the courtyard building opposite. No one had seen, heard, or noticed anything. Had they interviewed that man she’d seen at the gate?

Was it due to time constraints that the crime-scene report for La Proc was so cursory? Laure was their only suspect; no other line of questioning had been pursued.

“I spoke with a woman on the upper floor of the building that adjoins the murder site,” she said. “Last night she heard the voices of men on the roof, but no one had questioned her. And the skylight was broken in the hall of her building.”

She handed him the Polaroids she’d taken. “You can see the broken glass in this hallway. Keep them.”

“
Merci.
If it’s relevant I’m sure the police will discover it,” he said, hesitating for the first time. “Listen, there’s another problem.”

She looked up from the report. “What do you mean?”

“A Nathalie Gagnard has filed a civil suit against Laure,” he said.

Aimée remembered Jacques’s last name. “His wife?”

“Ex-wife. Charging Laure with murder.”

Great.

“She’s also complaining in an interview in tomorrow’s edition of
Le Parisien
.”

“Can’t you stop the interview from appearing?”

She heard a clock chime in the background, measured and slow.

“Too late.”

* * *

AIMÉE SHOWED her pass and authorization to the two young police guards at Hôtel Dieu. Instead of the trouble she expected, they waved her on to the hospital’s criminal ward. Nurses scurried, their footsteps slapping on the chipped Art Nouveau tiles pleated by strips of the light coming through the window blinds. She usually avoided hospitals yet here she stood, in the second one in as many days.

And then she froze, confronted by a white-faced Laure who lay hooked up to machines dripping fluids through clear tubes. Monitors beeped. Rubbing alcohol and pine disinfectant smells clung in the corners.

Aimée’s mind traveled back to an afternoon in the Jardin du Luxembourg under the sun-dappled trees, shadows dancing over the gravel. Her father and Georges, Laure’s father, were reading the paper as they sat on the green slatted benches, partners who depended on each other when their lives were on the line, sharing a joke. The gurgle and spray of the fountain, so welcome in the humid heat. It had been two summers after her American mother had left them. Ten-year-old Laure had confided, in the playground, that she intended to follow her papa into police work.

The beep and click of the bedside machines brought Aimée back to the present. She made her legs move. Could Laure talk? Was she well enough?

“
Ça va?
How do you feel?” she asked, rubbing Laure’s chilled fingers, careful to avoid the intravenous lines taped to her wrist and the top of her hand.

Laure’s eyes fluttered open. Her pupils were dilated. Recognition slowly dawned in her face. “The report . . . you’ve read the report . . . that’s why you’re here,
bibiche
?”

“Laure, which report?”

“It’s so cold. Where am I?” Laure asked, bewildered.

“In the hospital.” Aimée pulled the blanket up to Laure’s chin.

Laure’s eyes wandered. “Why?”

Had the concussion wiped out her memory?

“Take it easy, Laure,” she said. “Don’t worry. Can you remember what happened?”

Laure tried to put her finger to her lips but missed. “It’s . . . it’s a secret.”

Aimée’s spine prickled. “Secret?”

“
Non,
I’m not supposed . . .” Laure tried to prop herself up on her elbow and slipped. With an exhausted sigh, she gave up and fell back, her matted brown hair fanning out on the pillow. “No . . . not right . . . the report.”

“Jacques’s report?”

Laure blinked, shook her head, and then grimaced in pain.

“You asked for my help, remember,” said Aimée. “If you keep things from me, I can’t help you. Even if you promised him to keep quiet, now it’s all right to speak. You won’t help him by keeping it inside.”

Nothing could help Jacques now. Aimée hated pressing Laure while she was disoriented, but, with any luck, she might mention a sound, a detail, that would identify her attacker.

Aimée placed a small pot of hothouse violets next to the water carafe on Laure’s bedside table. Say it with flowers—hadn’t René recommended that for Morbier? “Too bad they don’t have any fragrance.”

“Violets in winter!
Merci
.”

En route, Aimée had spent an off-season fortune at the Marché aux Fleurs behind Hôtel Dieu. She’d asked the red-cheeked flower seller, a stout woman wearing layers of sweaters under her smock, how the flowers survived in such cold. “But the flowers like it here, Mademoiselle!” she’d answered.

Laure gave a weak smile. “So thoughtful. You always watch out for me.”

“Laure, what do you remember?”

Pain crossed Laure’s face. The thin white scar creasing her upper lip caught the light.

“My head’s throbbing. It feels like it’s full of cotton.”

“Please try, Laure. Try to picture going up on the scaffolding and tell me what you heard.”

Laure’s hands balled into fists. But her eyes widened as though she remembered something.

“Stay calm, Laure,” Aimée said, unfurling Laure’s clenched fingers.

“So hard . . . yes, Jacques called me. Screaming. The men . . .”

Hadn’t Zoe Tardou said
she’d
heard male voices? “You said he was meeting an informer.”

Laure’s eyes brightened. “He needed my back-up. Now I remember but . . . my head’s throbbing.”

“You saw these men?” Aimée leaned forward, gripped the metal bed rail. “You were set up! What did they look like?”

“I heard men’s voices. That’s all I remember.”

“Raised in anger?”

Laure rubbed her head. “Can’t they give me something to stop the pain?”

“Like an argument? Low or deep voices?”

“Not speaking French,” she said. “I didn’t understand them.”

Zoe Tardou had said the same thing.

“What did it sound like?”

Laure closed her eyes.

“Try to think, Laure,” she said. “What language did they speak?”

“I just remember the stale smell of sweat, a quick whiff from the rooftop,” she said, her voice fading. “And thinking it was Jacques and he had to be scared. Maybe . . . I don’t know . . . the way he called out.”

A scared man because a deal had fallen through? Or was there something else?

“Were you afraid for Jacques? Did you feel that he needed help? Why did you enter the apartment, Laure?”

Tears streaked down her pale cheeks. “What else could I do? I couldn’t even pass the exam . . . Jacques fixed it for me. . . .”

Her police exam, the one Laure had spent nights studying for? “Don’t worry about that,” Aimée said, wiping away the tears with a cloth, stroking Laure’s arm.

If Laure had surprised the men meeting Jacques, they could have attacked her, taken her gun, and used it to shoot Jacques. But Aimée didn’t see how to account for the gun residue on Laure’s hands.

“Papa made me promise . . . not to tell you. . . .” Laure’s voice trailed off.

“Not to tell me what?” Aimée demanded.

Georges had passed away several years earlier. Had the concussion returned her to the past, so she was reliving a memory? A feeling of foreboding filled Aimée.