Murder in Pigalle (2 page)

Zazie thrust a FotoFit, a computer-generated image culled from composite descriptions, into Aimée’s hand. “That’s what he looks like.”

Small, deep-set eyes, thin mouth, wearing a cap. He could be anyone. “How do you know?”

“Mélanie described him to the
flics.
”

“So the
flics
are working to find him, then.” Aimée shuddered. “They can’t get him off the streets too soon.”

“The
flics
haven’t put it together, Aimée. They made this composite, but they’re not moving fast enough. Mélanie was attacked three days ago, and they have no leads! He’s got a pattern. He’ll attack again.” Zazie’s face was set with determination.
“No girl’s safe until someone finds him and brings him right to their door, but I know who he is. I recognized him from the FotoFit. Now I just have to prove it’s him.”

Alarmed now, Aimée decided she needed to reason with her. “Whether he’s the one or not, it’s the
flics’
job to find him. Not yours, Zazie. If you think you know who this man is who attacked your friend, you tell the
flics
and then you stay away from him. Do you understand me.”

“All the parents went to the Commissariat for a meeting, even the teachers came,” said Zazie. “The
flics
talked about the
mec
’s constitutional rights, harassment without evidence. Mélanie’s mother was crying. Can you imagine?”

She could. The burden of proof wasn’t always fair. She’d seen it too many times. She looked into this child’s eyes and saw a budding young woman with the world’s weight on her shoulders. Innocent, but for how much longer?

Her eye caught on the papers in Zazie’s open S
USPECT
W binder. “Wait a minute, what’s this?” She pointed to a black-and-white photo of a street scene. “This photo looks like it was shot with a telephoto lens.”

Zazie nodded. “My friend’s got a good camera. It’s surveillance, like you and René do. The suspect goes to this bar on rue Pierre Fontaine in Pigalle.”

Aimée stifled a gasp. The photo was a night shot—what had this child seen? She knew that street in Pigalle, and it was no place for Zazie after dark. In the daytime, the area below Place Pigalle was a peaceful world of families, fishmongers,
boulangeries
and shops; costume ateliers that supplied the vibrant theatrical scene in the thirteen theaters dotting the
quartier
; actresses with their children at the park. But at night it was another world entirely: drugs, prostitutes, hustlers, pimps, sex shops, massage parlors. A red-light district.

“How do you know he goes there?” Aimée said carefully.

“I followed him to the NeoCancan.”

Aimée wanted to spank Zazie, but she was too big. “Followed him, Zazie? What were you thinking?”

“He hung around outside our school.”

Goosebumps rose on Aimée’s arms. She reached out and touched Zazie’s cheek. “That’s too dangerous. No more, Zazie. Please promise me.”

“If I promise not to go myself, will you check out the bar?”

“
Moi
?”

Zazie’s goal all along, she realized. But she recognized herself in Zazie—that striving to be taken seriously. Her father had always taken time with her, his patience insurmountable. But right now Aimée didn’t feel that she could live up to his example and take on Zazie’s little investigation. She had to pee every half hour, her ankles swelled, there was the nausea in the morning. She’d like to smack the next person who told her morning sickness ended with the first trimester. Then this damned tax … This was a job for the
flics
, who, it seemed, were already working on it—although privately Aimée shared Zazie’s doubts. She knew how good the
flics
were at listening to witnesses, and if this FotoFit was all they had to go on, they really didn’t have much.

Not that Zazie had any more than they did, whatever she thought.

Aimée heard the hum of a cell phone on vibrate. Zazie pulled a purple phone from her jeans pocket. Just turned thirteen and she had a cell phone?

“When did you get a phone?”

“My uncle’s letting me use his,” she said, pride creeping into her voice. She glanced at the display and put the unanswered phone back in her pocket. “I’m late, got to study, finish my class project,” she said. “Can you help, Aimée?”

Help her? What could Aimée do, other than tell Zazie’s parents to ground her after school and make some calls to a
flic
she once knew in Vice?

“Just look over my notes, please?”

“On one condition, Zazie,” she said, taking the binder. “Study for your exams, and leave this alone while I get up to speed on your …” Aimée searched for the right word. “Report.”

Zazie’s eyes widened in thanks. She jotted her cell-phone number on the binder. “Then we’ll compare notes tonight,
d’accord
? Later, Aimée.” With a wave, Zazie had gone out the door.

Deep in thought, Aimée ground the last of René’s beans and powered up their espresso machine, watched the chocolate brown drip into the
demi-tasse
cup. A little girl hunting the rapist of her schoolmate—compelled to help her friend since the
flics
were making no progress. What was the world coming to?

Zazie wore lip gloss and a touch of mascara these days, but Aimée remembered the young Zazie, sitting behind the café counter and coloring with crayons. Aimée had watched her grow up over the years. Telling Zazie flat-out to stop this would get her nowhere. She’d deflected her for the present, but Aimée knew it was only temporary.

No ice in the suitcase-sized fridge. With a sigh Aimée plopped two brown sugar cubes in the
demi-tasse
, stirred.

Even now, years later, she vibrated with fear remembering how the man had continued following her, standing and waiting on the quai outside their apartment. She remembered the hot wind blowing the curtain as she’d stood in the window and pointed him out to her father when he got home, then a
flic
at the Commissariat.

“That one? Good girl, Aimée,” he’d said. “Go finish your homework.”

She’d never seen the man again. And her father had upped her allowance. “In case you want ice cream.”

Now Aimée punched in the café number. She needed to speak with Virginie, Zazie’s mother, and warn her about Zazie’s project. Busy. She was about to slip back into her heels and
go down to the corner café in person when Leduc Detective’s phone lines lit up. Clients needed attention, networks needed security, virus scans needed running. Crunch time, like every year in June—impossible to avoid since, as contractors, they were always the last to be paid. René always had only a short window to add the last-moment revenue and compute their estimated taxes.

By the time she looked up again, the shadows on rue du Louvre had lengthened. Almost 7
P
.
M
. and still no René. The butterscotch glow of the evening sun reflected on the mansard windows opposite—the sun set late in the summer, and there were at least another two and a half hours of daylight.

Aimée satisfied her latest craving from the stash in the small fridge in back: cornichons, capers and kiwis. Didn’t that cover at least three food groups?

Still more scans to monitor, but she’d run out of
décaféiné
espresso beans, and she needed to speak to Virginie tonight before Zazie took things too far.

But when Aimée entered the bustling café she didn’t see Zazie where she would normally be on busy evenings, helping at the counter. The
télé
, a new addition for the World Cup, showed a play-off game, and the café was filled with shouts and the smell of spilled beer.

“How you feeling, Aimée?” said Virginie, making change for customers at a window table. “Got over the morning sickness?”

She wished. “Not yet.” The malted beer odor filled her nose, but her stomach stayed in place. For once.

“Don’t I remember,” said Virginie.

Warm air rippled in from the street, and a dog barked outside the open door. Aimée caught Virginie’s eye. “Can we talk before Zazie gets back? It’s important.”

“Zazie’s late.”

Aimée felt a prickling up her spine.

One of the flushed-faced World Cup fans walked up to pay.

“
Verez
,” Virginie said. “Do me a favor and make two
cafés crèmes
for those ladies down the counter? And help yourself to an
express.
”

“
Pas de problème
,” she said. Not the first time she’d barista’d. She whacked the grinds out from the stainless steel, frothed the milk with a whoosh and dolloped foam. The steaming brown–black liquid dripped
serré
, double strength, for her.

Sipping her
express décaféiné
, she followed Virginie behind the zinc counter to the unventilated back kitchen. Steaming heat came from the stove. “You’re working by yourself tonight?” Aimée asked.

“Pierre’s gone for more wine, the baby’s with my niece.” Virginie wiped her face with a towel, reached for a tray. “This World Cup makes for booming business. We’re run off our feet. Pierre’s brother’s supposed to help.” Virginie sighed. “Don’t know why I gave in and let Zazie use his phone when she won’t answer it.”

Zazie wasn’t answering her phone? Aimée made herself take a deep breath. There could be a reasonable explanation. Not the horrific one her mind jumped to. “
Dites-moi
, how late is she?”

“An hour.” Virginie glanced at the wall clock. “More. Not like her with exams coming up. She’ll have to answer to her father now.”

All Aimée could think was that Zazie had gone to surveil the bar again. She was underage, but she would somehow talk her way in. Or watch this “rapist” she thought she’d tracked down from the street.

Aimée pulled out her phone, scrolled to the number she’d entered for Zazie. “Let me try her.”

No answer.

“She could be in the Métro and have no service. Stuck in a—” She caught herself before she said dead zone.

Virginie blinked. A momentary stillness settled over her
and then she grabbed Aimée’s arms. Irritation mixed with fear in her eyes. “She’s told you about Mélanie’s assault, hasn’t she? Her silly plan. I forbade her to get involved.”

“That’s why I wanted to talk.”

“She said she was going to study with Sylvaine tonight.” Virginie emanated an almost palpable tension. “It sounded perfectly safe, but now she’s so late and not answering her phone …”

This feeling piercing Aimée’s gut told her Zazie had another agenda. Calm, she had to stay calm for Virginie. “Do you know Sylvaine’s number?”

Footsteps and someone entered the café. Hope and anger fluttered in Virginie’s eyes. “There she is. About time.”

But it was Pierre, her husband, wiping his forehead with a bandana and pushing a dolly loaded with wine cases. “Zazie’s still not here? Tables five and six want to order. Number seven needs their bill.”

On the board above the sink Virginie took down the business card of a cheese shop on rue de Rochechouart. “Sylvaine’s family run this shop and live above it. I’ll call them.”

“Does Sylvaine have a cell phone, like Zazie?”

“Impossible. Georges, her father, is old-fashioned.” Pierre winked.

“And
très religeux
—the whole family is,” Virginie said. “That’s why Pierre thinks Sylvaine’s a good influence on Zazie.”

Aimée wiped her perspiring brow, wishing for a whisper of air in the hot kitchen. Standing next to Virginie, she listened to the ringing and ringing. “
Zut
, they won’t answer this late …”

But Aimée heard a click. Muffled sounds. “
Allô
, Georges, it’s Virginie,” she said. “What? Say that again.” A whisper of fear went up Aimée’s neck. “An ambulance?”

Virginie dropped the receiver into the sink. Time slowed for Aimée as an explosion of Persil soap suds and brown-stained
espresso cups burst from the sink, the foamy spray arcing as if in a freeze-frame—and she knew this moment would be imprinted on her consciousness forever.

Aimée recovered the phone, shook it hard, and wiped it off with her scarf. The line was still live. “
Allô
, we’re looking for Zazie. Isn’t she studying with Sylvaine?”

In the background she heard crying.

“Monsieur, what’s going on?” The phone clicked off. Her heart thudded.
Non
,
non
, she screamed inside. “What did he say, Virginie?”

Virginie’s shoulders were shaking. “An ambulance, but I didn’t understand.”

Aimée fought her terrible feeling. “Neither do I, but I’m going to find out if Zazie’s there.”

“I’m going with you …”

Aimée hugged Virginie. Held her tight. Let go and forced a smile. “And leave a café full of patrons to serve? What if Zazie comes walking through the door?” She hitched her bag on her shoulder. “Do you trust me?” Virginie nodded. “Good. Your place is here. Let me see what’s going on, okay?”

She was out the door before Pierre looked up, hurrying as fast as she could, feeling awkward clutching her bowling ball of a belly. Her damn kitten heels kept catching in the pavement cracks. A taxi passed. Full. Then another. Panting for breath, she tried to wave it down. No luck. No bus in sight. At the corner she saw a taxi parked near the crosswalk. Her shoulders heaving, she leaned through the window.

“I’m off the meter,” said the driver, lighting a cigarette. “Already did my last run.”

“Then how about fifty francs in your pocket?”

“Against regulations.”

Perspiring, she grabbed her wallet. There were damp rings under her arms. “Overlook the regulations. I’ve got to get to a crime scene.” She pulled out her father’s police ID,
which she had doctored with a less-than-flattering photo of herself. “Now.”

Inside the taxi she read him the address from the card of Sylvaine’s parents’ cheese shop on rue de Rochechouart. “Extra if we get there in ten minutes.”

He hit the meter. “I’ll cut over to rue Lafitte. Faster.”

Zazie’s face flashed in front of her. Those freckles, the red curls escaping from her clip, those determined eyes.

“Still on the job, eh? When’s the baby due?”

October. “Not soon enough.”