Murder in Passy (16 page)

“Say twenty-five years,” Aimée said. “And dig into the new generation of Basques,” she said, trying to make her understand. “Euskadi Action demonstrations. The daughter’s on their mailing list; she’s afraid, too.”

“Intriguing, Aimée.” Pause. “But you’ll join us for Gilles’s birthday Sunday? An intimate dinner, close friends. Promise?”

Aimée groaned inside. Of course Martine needed another woman at the table—a date—for Gilles’s naval commander diver. She hated to think of the long evening of underwater exploits.

“Gilles loves Veuve Clicquot, like you.”

At least she had that covered. “You’ll let me know what you hear, Martine?”

“Make that two bottles, Aimée.” Martine hung up.

All this had taken time. She had an idea. It would cost her, and yet.… She sighed and grabbed a padded envelope. From René’s drawer she chose a cell phone from their collection, checked the battery, and locked the office door.

* * *

S
HE LEFT HER
scooter and, still in high-tops, walked past the verdigris iron Métro entrance at Louvre-Rivoli. She needed to walk, to think, to contact Morbier. And she hoped her little plan would work.

She followed the dimly lit quai, pulling her faux fur tighter. Under the cloud-filled night sky, she crossed Pont Neuf, the misted Seine gurgling below, and walked into shadowed Place Dauphine.

Ghosts everywhere, she thought, whispering in the wind, funneling past the damp corners, the skeletal trees, the seventeenth-century lawyers’ quarters—long a bistro—that she’d frequented with Morbier.

Beyond lay the Tribunal, massive columns lost in shadow. A squirrel skittered over the gravel and disappeared behind a slatted bench. Otherwise, the triangular square lay deserted across from the lighted bistro. Her hopes rose after she turned onto quai de l’Horloge near the jail door. The same
flic
from this afternoon stood at his guard post. With luck, he’d remember her.

Better yet, allow her into the visiting area.

He guarded the Gothic thick-planked door dotted with square nail heads, leading to
le dépôt
, the jail under La Conciergerie, originally Jean the Good’s medieval kitchen, often mistaken by tourists for the museum entrance to Marie Antoinette’s cell.

“Long shift, eh?” She flashed a smile and her pass. “I’m back again. Anyone released from the
garde à vue
this afternoon?”

“Not through here.” He stifled a yawn. “Visiting closed hours ago, too. Check with the bureau in the courtyard at eight
A.M
.”

Her heart fell. Poor Morbier. And in this cold.

Time for her plan. She pulled out her checkbook, tore off a deposit slip, wrote
MORBIER URGENT
, and taped it to the padded envelope with the cell phone.

“Papers came from the lawyer.” She smiled. “It would save me a trip tomorrow if you could leave this for Morbier with the duty sergeant.” She racked her brain for his name. At one time she’d known most of them. During her childhood, half the force had played Friday-night poker at her kitchen table. “Sergeant Roche, that’s the one. He knows me.” She widened her smile. Debated a come-hither look.

“Never hurts to ask, Mademoiselle.” He winked, then nodded to an arriving
flic
. “But I’m off duty.”

She edged closer as he took out his keys. “But since you’ll pass by Roche’s desk … it would mean so much.”

He hesitated.

“Look, Morbier’s my godfather.”

A hand shot out and he slipped the envelope into his pocket before the
flic
could see it.

* * *

“F
LIRTING WITH FLICS?
Nice, and after your little sermon.”

The hair rose on the back of her neck. She spun around to see Melac, his face just this side of craggy, defined by pale gray eyes with an unnerving focus. Arms crossed, he stood under the Resistance Memorial plaque on the Préfecture’s wall.

“No law against that,” she said.

The streetlight caught the pockmarks from bullet holes left by the Germans in 1944, the fresh flower remembrance for the fallen, and Melac’s silver belt buckle.

“I remember you said that—before you broke a few last month,” Melac said.

She felt his piercing vision going through her.

“All water under the bridge now.” She pointed to the sluggish black water of the Seine. “But you canceled tonight, and now you’re spying on me?”

“With this?” He lifted a gym bag. “Things got complicated upstairs.”

“Most things do.”

He stepped closer. A day’s stubble shaded his chin. He wore black jeans, a black leather jacket, and a thick-ribbed blue wool scarf knotted at his neck.

“What’s that saying? Don’t give excuses, just apologize later?”

She hadn’t remembered his eyes. How big they were. Why did she feel twinges of guilt?

“Nice, Melac.” She pointed to the pink hearts trimming his scarf’s edge. “Your new look? Or from an admirer?”

“My daughter knitted this,” he said. “Now she won’t stop. I’ve got one in every color.”

Aimée grinned.

And then he pulled her close in his warmth, his citrus scent. His lambskin leather jacket brushed her cheek.

“Look, Melac, I understand, ethics, compromising your work. It’s not fair.… ”

“I’ve missed you too, Aimée.” He lifted her chin. His fingers traced her cheekbone. His warm fingers. Tiny beads of moisture clung to the black hair curling over his neck.

“What plan are you hatching in that mind of yours?” he said.

As if she’d tell him. He couldn’t or wouldn’t help. “I don’t get it, Melac. Morbier’s a respected Commissaire Divisionnaire, held on circumstantial evidence—as you pointed out—but you act like I’m subversive.”

“Sabotaging Morbier’s chances would be more accurate,” he said, his finger resting on her cheekbone. “Politics are playing out behind the scenes. Don’t you know that by now?”

“Morbier’s navigated the waters and survived this long. He’s risen to the top,” she said. And then it clicked: the fall guy.

Was that it? A shiver trailed her spine.

“You’re saying it’s too late?”

“I don’t know,” Melac said. “No one’s talking upstairs. I tried. Everyone needs protection these days. Sometimes from themselves.”

Was Melac holding something back? She’d get more if she listened and appeared to acquiesce.

Morbier’s twenty-four hours in the
garde à vue
should end in the morning, barring discovery of concrete evidence of his guilt. She prayed Roche, the duty sergeant, would pass the cell phone to Morbier. She had to talk with him.

Melac drew a breath.

“But questions have been raised,” he said. “There’s an RG file. Not a place you should nose around in right now.”

“An RG file exists?”

“The victim’s got a dossier.”

If Xavierre had a file from Renseignements Généraux, which handled threats to internal security, it meant one thing: ETA. The RG had prioritized ETA and their activities from the seventies to the early nineties, when a special military police unit had been formed to cover the Basque region.

Did hope exist for Morbier after all? But she kept these thoughts to herself.

“At least you tried.
Merci
.”

“They’re stretched to the limit with events in Lyon, the
flic
killer in the
Imprimerie Nationale
heist,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “Plus the continuing priority hunt for the phantom Fiat Uno speeding away from Princess Diana’s crash. An ongoing headache.”

A white-and-blue police car sped by, lights flashing, bathing the buildings and Melac’s face in blue. Brakes squealed as it turned, bumping over the cobbles into the yawning entrance of the Préfecture.

“On top of that, my leave’s canceled,” he said. “Now I turn around, head back to Brittany, and explain to my daughter. Effective tomorrow night, I’m back at my desk.”

He gave a little smile. “But we could have that drink. My train’s later.”

“
C’est dommage,
a shame the Champagne’s chilling outside with the geraniums.”

He gave a knowing nod. “Done that myself.” He put his arm around her. “But the bar on Île Saint-Louis serves a decent
coupe
of Taittinger.”

Chez Georges, around the corner from her place.

“Just one, Melac,” she said. “That’s all.”

Wednesday Morning

T
HROUGH A HAZE
of sleep, Aimée heard beeping from the hallway. Struggling awake, she found her legs entangled by sheets, an arm around her shoulder. Soft warm breaths on her neck. The pale apricot rays of dawn wavered over the discarded clothes on the wood floor. And she remembered. Melac.

Her cell phone rang again. Miles Davis stirred on the floor, blinked his black eyes. Closed them.

She slipped from Melac’s arms, grabbing her father’s old flannel robe. She shivered at the cold floor. Good god, where had she left her phone? She found it at the bottom of her bag hanging from the coat hook.

A number she didn’t recognize. Her feet were freezing on the creaking cold wood.

“Oui?”

“What’s the emergency, Leduc?” Morbier’s disjointed voice was broken up by static.

“Morbier, are you all right?” she asked. Her knuckles clenching the phone whitened.

The flush of a toilet. “I’ve been better. Make it quick, Leduc.”

“The RG have a file on Xavierre.”

“That’s it? But there’s a file on everybody,” he said, irritated. “Thick as phone books.”

“Everybody was in ETA? How was she involved? How did you meet her?”

Pause. “I’m an old fool.” She heard the catch in his throat. “No one ever came close to her, Leduc.”

“I understand. But tell me, Morbier.”

Shouts and clanging metal. “We met at a demonstration in the early seventies near the Champs-Elysées, typical pot-au-feu, troublemakers, students. She was part of a trio from Bayonne, just students.… ” His voice faded.

She thought of Irati’s involvement with Euskadi Action: like mother, like daughter?

“En route to Lyon, you stopped at Emile’s
routier
, right? That’s your alibi?”

“Don’t go there, Leduc,” he said, anger vibrating in the static.

“But your driver.… ”

Coughing. “Told him to go home. You know the rules of the
routier
. Solo.”

Bad to worse. The informer his only alibi. She thought fast. “But couldn’t Melac talk to your informer on the quiet?”

“Merde!”
She heard the gush of water, a squeaking, like a faucet turned off. “Leave it alone.”

“Why?”

“Listen,” he said.

She heard dripping water.

“
Compris,
Leduc?”

“A leaky faucet,” she said, exasperated. “Give me something to work with, Morbier. Anything.”

“I did.” Pause. “Think.”

Her shoulders tensed. “A leak. You’re investigating a leak.… ”

“Trust no one, Leduc. No one.”

The phone went dead. The floor creaked behind her and she jumped.

“Who’s that, so early?” Melac said, his warm arms encircling her waist.

“The plumber.” She said the first thing that came into her head and shoved the phone into her robe pocket. “He wants to finish work on our floor. At this hour, too!”

He pulled her closer, nuzzled her neck. “But you’re shaking. Your hand’s like ice.”

Trust no one,
Morbier said.

“Poor circulation.” She managed a smile, steeled herself not to pull away. “Coffee before your train?”

His eyebrow lifted. “That call shook you up, I can tell.”

And I can’t trust you, she thought, even after last night. Had he overheard her talking on the phone?

She exhaled, shrugged. Miles Davis whined at the door. “Our concierge neglects things. It’s not the first time.” She made a fist and cocked it to indicate drinking. “The woman’s got a vendetta against me, leaves messages.… ”

“But I can block those calls, if the number.… ”

Why had he turned so curious? She needed to quit rambling, quit these lies before she messed up. She needed him out of here.

She nestled under his shoulder, steered him toward the kitchen. “How about
un express
before Miles Davis waters the trees and I walk you to the Métro?”

* * *

A
IMéE PARKED HER
scooter in the viaduct under the elevated Métro at Passy. Light drizzle beaded the curling white bark of the birch trees, and her eyelashes. She wished she’d worn rain gear instead of a leather coat over her ruffled silk blouse and black denim pencil skirt.

She found the café nestled at the bottom of the steps. At the crowded café counter, she wedged in the back among the horserace bettors. Wisps of blue smoke spiraled to the nicotine-stained ceiling. She almost didn’t hear her phone ring amid the whooshing of the milk steamer.