Murder in Belleville (9 page)

B
ERNARD STUDIED
M
USTAFA
H
AMID
. He marked Hamid’s large black eyes, sallow complexion, and the dried lace of spittle on his beard. Took in his hollow-cheeked profile and bone-thin arms.

The cold and damp called for Bernard’s lined winter coat, not the skimpy suit jacket he wore. He wondered at Hamid’s simple white cotton knee-length shirt and his smocked leggings. He wore a
Chechia,
a white crocheted cap, and a prayer shawl covered his shoulders.

The old familiarity gnawed at Bernard, intrusive and intimate. Memories of what he’d tried to forget came back to him. The wild-eyed holy man proclaiming doom in the deserted streets of Algiers. How a sniper’s bullet silenced him at Bernard’s mother’s feet in the long lines snaking to the port of Algiers.

Bernard watched Hamid’s hands trace worry beads as he sat on a thin mattress. With a deft movement Hamid touched Bernard’s hand then his own heart.

“Salaam aleikum, Directeur
Berge,” Hamid said, addressing him formally, his voice deep. “Forgive me for not rising to greet you.”

“Aleikum es-salaam,”
Bernard replied. That much of the Arabic greeting Bernard remembered. “Monsieur Hamid, I appreciate your time and hope we can arrive at fruitful negotiations.”

“Please excuse my appearance,” Hamid said. He gestured toward a tray laden with a teapot and mint sprigs in thin gold-rimmed glasses. “You are my guest. May I offer you tea?”

Bernard nodded. “Monsieur Hamid, won’t you join me?”

“Unfortunately my fast allows only weak tea.”

Not wishing to tower over Hamid, Bernard sat down on a nearby tattered cushion.

“Monsieur Hamid,” he said, “my ministry wants to provide for your people. We wish to work with you. After the dust settles, so to speak, we’ll make sure provisions allow for their return.”

Bernard had spoken quickly, dropping the bad news. He clung to the idea that Hamid would hear the sincerity in his voice. Somehow miraculously believe him and shuffle the
sans-papiers
down the aisle and into the planes.

Hamid shook his head. His eyes mirrored the sadness Bernard felt. “I apologize in advance for whatever happens,” Hamid said, bowing his head, flecked with gray under the
Chechia.
“Violence is never called for.”

“I’m sure you’re not threatening retaliatory force, Monsieur Hamid,” Bernard said, recovering quickly. “That would surprise me, coming from a leader and a man known for peaceful negotiations.”

“I speak not so,” Hamid said. “The teachings of Allah embrace the family of man, evidenced by those you see around us. Not distinguishing us as Hindu, Muslim, or Christian.”

Hamid raised his arm, then dropped it. The effort of exertions appeared to tire him.

A man with a heavy beard, dressed in the same style, appeared. “Monsieur Hamid’s health bears watching,” he said. “I’m sorry, he’s very weak. Please discuss with him later.”

“Bien sur,”
Bernard agreed. “A very delicate situation.”

The last thing Bernard wanted was for Hamid to become a martyr. Visions of the Ivory Coast Bureau, manned by disgraced bureaucrats at half their pension, danced in his mind.

He retreated to the vestibule, seeking a silent spot.

What had Hamid insinuated by mentioning violence? The hidden fundamentalist cells dotting Paris and their retributions loomed in his mind … Metro bombings, explosions in department stores … innocent people commuting to work, families buying school clothes, killed due to fanatics. His heart hardened. He’d thought Hamid was different, from a peaceful sect.

“Get me access to
le Ministre”
Bernard said, eyeing the buses lining rue de la Mare. Their rumbling engines and exhaust fumes filled Place de Menilmontant.

“As you wish,” the lantern-jawed CRS captain said.

By the time
le Ministre
came on the line, Bernard had rehearsed his plan mentally several times. He’d avert a crisis the only way he could think of and get Hamid out of the church. Hopefully the
sans’papiers
would follow.

“Hamid’s weakened condition demands attention,” Bernard said to
le Ministre.
“Setting him up as a martyr, canonized by the immigrants, is the last thing we want.”

“And what do you propose to do about that?”
le
Ministre asked.

A rustling came from the minister’s end as he put his hand over the phone. Bernard heard applause and murmuring voices in the background.

“A tactic to diffuse his power,” Bernard said.

He explained his plan.

Three minutes later the minister agreed, with one caveat. “He’s out, Berge. Or you are.”

A
IMEE HAD DEPOSITED
M
OMO
, a well-coiffed shih tzu, at Serge’s mother-in-law’s, declining tea despite the insistent invitation. More than a month had passed, she realized guiltily, since she’d taken Miles Davis for a trim.

In her office, she rang Philippe again, but he was out. His secretary promised to reach him and have him get back to her. She worried. Anais hadn’t returned her calls either.

Aimee stood reading Serge’s unfolding fax over Rene’s shoulder.

“The Yvette’s identity hasn’t yet been established,” Aimee said as she read the report. “But Anais identified her as Sylvie Coudray. Yet the neighbor and the custodian referred to her as Eugenie. According to this the
National Fichier
in Nantes hasn’t ID’d her, either.”

She shook her head, unable to figure it out. The
Fichier,
known for quick response time, held all kinds of information: drivers’ license number, carte
bancaire,
and
carte
rationale
d’identite
among others.

“What’s next?” Rene asked.

“Why don’t you try to access Sylvie Coudray’s
Securite sociale
and Eugenie Grandet’s—if she exists—while you’re at it.”

“You mean the name ‘Eugenie,’ the alias she used?”

“So far that’s the only thing I have to go on,” she said. “But we need proof.”

“I used to have a friend in Nantes,” Rene said. “Let me see if she’s still there.” He made a face. “Saves me much more time if you’ve got the woman’s carte
bancaire.”
His eyes gleamed. “I could hack the chip on her card and get into her account.”

“Wish I did,” she said.

“
Tiens
, Aimie, I prefer that to the 128-bit encryption system at Banque de France.”

“I’m impressed, Rene,” she said, letting out a low whistle.

“Banque de France is a royal pain to maneuver!” he said. “I haven’t cracked all their encryptions yet.” He spread his arms from the edge of her desk indicating as far as the wall. “Only about that long. But take away the best years of my life and I will.”

“Save your brain for the important stuff, Rene,” she said. “Like our rent!”

“Bien sur,
but I’ll stop at your apartment for some software. If I get hold of my friend, I might be able to navigate the
Fichier
in Nantes,” Rene said. “Besides, I’ve got a bag of bones for Miles Davis.”

“You’re just trying to get on Miles Davis’s good side,” she said.

“Check out the Duplo,” Rene said. He scanned the fax. “Interesting explosive to use.”

She’d wondered about that, too.

“Why use Duplo?” Aimee asked.

“Instead of the more easily available Eastern-bloc explosive, Semtex? Good question.” Rene replied. “Word is the fundamentalists like Semtex.”

Aimee’s eyes widened at Renews knowledge.

“Have the
flics
blamed it on the fundamentalists yet?” she said. “That’s standard procedure.” Every time there was a bombing, the media referred to it as an Arabe incident in the same breath. The inherent racism made her sick.

She walked to their oval window overlooking rue du Louvre, giving herself time to think. The truth could lie somewhere in between. If the fundamentalists wanted to kill Anais, a minister’s wife, they’d botched the job. But why? The victim hadn’t been identified, Anais’s name hadn’t been mentioned, and no group had claimed credit.

“Let’s say the fundamentalists want no connection to this,” she said, “or they have no connection.”

“Life is full of possibilities,” Rene said. “But I’d say the latter. Mafioso-types and the criminal element use commercial stuff like Duplo.”

“Look here,” Aimee said, pointing at the last paragraph in the report. “Traces of a circuit board found indicate it was Swiss-made—an electronic switch manufactured in Bern. They meant business.”

“The timing feels off, Aimee,” Rene said, cocking his head sideways. “I thought you left Gaston’s cafe around seven-fifteen, which gave you time to walk there, try the door, go up the street, and then return to number 20
bis.”
He paused and pointed to the report. “According to this the explosion occurred at eight o’clock. First on the scene were the
pompiers,
then a SAMU at eight-twenty followed by the bomb squad, which arrived at eight thirty-five. The bomb squad did its documentation and recovery; then the chemical analyses began two hours later.”

“
Attends, Rene
,” Aimee said. She grabbed a black marker, taped a sheet of newsprint to the wall, jotted down 7:15, then drew a thick arrow.

“Go on,” she said.

“Didn’t you say that when the
flics
came you hopped like a bunny over the wall?” Rene asked.

The grunting, heaving lunge of a sea lion seemed a more apt description. But she kept that to herself.

“Well, I heard sirens and they said, ‘Open up!’ ” She stopped writing, her marker held in midair. As she and Anais pulled into rue Sainte-Marthe, she remembered seeing a SAMU van and thinking how quickly someone had called the ambulance. It would have been 8:10 at the latest.

“According to this report,” Rene said, “a tenant, Jules Denet, one street over, said that after the explosion he heard suspicious noises in the courtyard.

Rene punched the paper with his stubby fingers.

She thought back to the SAMU, then nodded. “Then there were two SAMU vans,” she said. “The other one came at eight-twenty.”

“It’s pretty coincidental that another SAMU van would respond but not be listed on the report or log in with the other SAMU crew. So if it wasn’t emergency or the
flics
—who was it?” Rene asked.

Aimee tacked the fax next to the timeline. Stared at it. Not only were the times off, but something didn’t add up. She stood back and opened the oval office window, letting in dull light and diesel fumes from rue du Louvre. She paced to the door, flicked on the office light, then paced back to her desk.

“Follow this logic, Rene,” she said. “Say whoever planted the bomb hung nearby to activate it or make sure the thing went off. I remember hearing some Arabe music just before the bomb exploded. Maybe they planned on blowing up Anais too—are you with me here?”

“Go on,” he said.

“What if they used a SAMU van as a fake, maybe parked nearby to set off the bomb,” she said. “Or they wanted what Sylvie gave Anais and figured on grabbing Anais.”

“But you disturbed the scenario?” Rene interrupted excitedly.

“Exactly,” she said. She closed the window and faced Rene\

“I think what the neighbor Denet heard was Anais and me. I wonder if he saw something more than that?”

Rene nodded.

“I better go find out.”

A
T DAWN, UNDER ORDERS
from the Paris prefect, uniformed police swept Notre-Dame de la Croix. They took Mustafa Hamid and the other nine hunger strikers to waiting SAMU vans, which carted them to nearby hospitals.

The prefect issued a statement saying that the raid had been ordered for humanitarian reasons after he’d heard alarming reports about the health of the hunger strikers from doctors attending them at the church. However, the acting director of Paris emergency medical services said the hunger strikers had been taking tea and water with sugar and vitamins.

“We were not consulted about evacuating them,” said a doctor who preferred to remain nameless. “The low ketone level tested in their urine was not considered life threatening, but characteristic for the body’s acid balance at such a stage.”

By afternoon no one had left the church. Seven of the hunger strikers had signed themselves out of the hospital. They returned to the church to applause from the others who’d vowed to take up the hunger strike in their place. Mustafa Hamid was among them.

A
IMEE PAUSED AT THE
entrance of 34 rue Sainte Marthe.
KROK
spelled out in rainbow colors spread across the door. A middle-aged man wearing an undershirt answered, a frosted white cockatiel perched on his shoulder. The man’s stomach protruded over his stained pants, and he looked vaguely uncomfortable.

“Eh,
sorry about the noise,” he said quickly. “I’ll keep her quiet. She’s a bit agitated, that’s all.”

“Monsieur Jules Denet?” Aimee asked. She kept the disappointment from her voice. Denet looked the reclusive type. Too bad. His presence would make things difficult. She needed to break into Eugenie’s apartment, which lay behind his back courtyard.

“Oui,”
he said, starting to close the door. “Like I said, I’ll keep her quiet.”

“Monsieur Denet, you misunderstand,” she said showing her card. “I’m a private detective. If you’d be so helpful as to answer a few questions about the incident you reported, I’ll be on my way.”

“I thought you were from the tenants’association,” he said. “There’s nothing more to say.” He stroked the cockatiel, which pranced back and forth on his shoulder. Dark circles hollowed under Denet’s eyes. He seemed as nervous as his bird.

“Please, spare me just a few minutes of your time,” she said.

“My bird’s upset with all this commotion. I need to calm her down.” He grabbed the door handle to shut the door.

She had to think of something that would make him talk.

“What’s your bird’s name, Monsieur Denet?” she said. “I love cockatiels. People say I have a way with them.”

Denet paused, interested, his hand resting on the handle.

“Blanca,” he said.
“Espagnol
for white. My wife came from Madrid.”

“Blanca’s a lovely bird, Monsieur Denet,” she said. “Very healthy. Obviously you must take wonderful care of her. Won’t you let me come in? The hall is too drafty for her.”

Denet shrugged, then motioned for her to come inside. He stifled a yawn.

“I’m sorry but I’ve got to nap. I go to work at ten o’clock.”

“Why’s that, Monsieur?”

“So Belleville residents get their
croissants, baguettes, et pain levain
bright and early at the
boulangerie,
Mademoiselle.”

No wonder he looked tired. He baked all night.

“
Eh bien,
Monsieur, one simple question.” She edged toward his entryway. “You keep baker’s hours and sleep during the early evening. How would you see disruption in the courtyard that I believe your dining area looks over?”

“Eh, who did you say you work with?” he asked.

She showed him her ID with the less-than-flattering photo.

“Did you hear the explosion, Monsieur Denet?”

“Those people!” he said. He pointed to what Aimee figured was the Visses’ back window. “The screaming brat woke me up, and the lady with her prayers all night. She makes sure I hear her praying for my soul. My sinful soul.”

Aimee controlled a smile, stuck her arm out, and restrained her squeamishness as the bird’s sharp talons clamped her wrist. As Blanca hopped over to Aimee’s sleeve an admiring look showed on Denet’s face.

“Blanca never goes to anyone else,” he said, his voice wistful. “Only my wife and I.”

“Nightingales nest in the pear tree outside my bedroom window,” she said, slowly stroking Blanca’s feathers. “They let me hand-feed them. Why don’t you show me the view, Monsieur?”

Denet led her inside. His apartment, a capsulelike affair remodeled in the seventies, overlooked rue Jean Moinon’s rear courtyards. Several large windows composed most of the wall of his dining area.

“Too much light for me,” he said, gesturing to the skylights and tall windows. “I can’t sleep in the daytime. My health’s being ruined—working by hot ovens all night. Only Blanca enjoys such a warm place.”

Many Parisians would kill for such a light-filled modern apartment, she thought. Warm and toasty with a working heater, plentiful electrical outlets. Even closets.

Her own He St. Louis apartment had a temperamental electrical system, archaic plumbing, and warped seventeenth-century parquet floors overlooking the Seine.

“Tell me what happened, Monsieur,” she said, as Blanca strutted up and down her arm. The pincerlike talons pierced through Aimee’s blue wool sleeve, the bird’s white feathered crest rippling as Aimee stroked it. Blanca’s pigeon-pink eye reminded her of Anais’s suit after the explosion. The suit clumped with blood. Sylvie/Eugenie’s blood.

“Blanca likes you,” said Denet, sitting down heavily in a tubular chrome chair at a glass-topped table.

Good, Aimee thought, hoping the bird didn’t need to relieve herself soon.

“I’m moving to a hotel if I can’t get some sleep,” Denet said.

“You told the police of a noise or some disturbance?”

“Sorry, Mademoiselle, even if I saw something, I stay away from gossip.”

Jules Denet, sallow-faced and paunchy, seemed out of sync with his furniture. And his apartment. A true denizen
ofpopulaire
Belleville, the socialist working class, he belonged more in the last century.

Aimee wished she could offer him space in her dark cavernous and drafty apartment. He might feel more at home. Maybe he’d be more cooperative.

“You’d like my flat, Monsieur Denet,” she said. “Dark and quiet, no heat to speak of,” she smiled. “But Blanca might object.”

Denet’s eyes softened. For a moment she thought he would open up. He had to be lonely. Then his eyes hardened.

“Bad business,” he said. His mouth set in a firm line^

“Routine questions, Monsieur, are my job,” she said. “I’m hired to find the truth. Not manufacture a theory like the
flics
often do to keep their statistics high.”

Denet nodded; he understood. Working-class folks were known for their mistrust of
flics.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you.”

C’est dommage,
she thought. A crying shame.

And a dead end.

Besides requestioning the devout Madame Visse and Elymani—the custodian with two jobs who wanted no part of her investigation—she didn’t know where to go from here. She tried one last question.

“Too bad, Monsieur,” she said. “I suppose you can’t tell me about Eugenie?”

“Aaah, the red-haired one …” Denet trailed off.

Her heart skipped. Blanca still on her arm, she sat down, containing her excitement. “Eugenie lived across at 20
bis,
didn’t she?”

“Eugenie told me too much tele was bad for my eyes,” he said.

Not what Aimee expected to hear, but she agreed.

“How did Eugenie know that, Monsieur?”

“Last summer—you know how it stays light so late in the evenings—I tried everything to block out the light. But I couldn’t sleep. And that baby had colic, crying all the time …”

Aimee leaned forward, resting her arm on the table, Blanca content to be continuously stroked. She listened, nodding encouragement from time to time.

“So I watched the
tele,
something my late wife and I never did. We always had so much to talk about…” He trailed off and looked down at his large hands. “She passed away a year ago yesterday.”

“Desolee,
Monsieur Denet,” she said.

Jules Denet, a lonely widower plagued with insomnia … Aimee wanted him to finish painting this picture.

“Until Eugenie—an angel, that one,” he said, spreading his fingers over the coffee table.

Aimee’s response caught in her throat. She took a deep breath. “Eugenie sounds very thoughtful, Monsieur Denet.”

Denet’s eyes held a faraway look.

“I told her about the
boulangerie,”
he said. “Looking back, if she was bored, she never let on. Told me it was better than waiting for her boyfriend.”

“Her boyfriend?”

“I never saw him,” he said. “Seems he was married. You know the type!”

Aimee nodded, unsure that her meaning of the “type” matched Jules Denet’s.

It was hard for Aimee to picture Philippe de Froissart, an aristocrat gone socialist, having a rendevous with Sylvie/Eugenie in this dilapidated building. Why not a hotel? Then again maybe he’d liked slumming in
has
Belleville.

“But you saw her girlfriends, of course,” Aimee said. “Did she have a friend with long dark hair?”

“Not that I remember,” he said. “I’d see Eugenie every few weeks. Maybe a month would pass.”

“What about her friends?” she asked. “Did you see them?”

Denet’s face fell. “I wouldn’t call them friends.”

Aimee sat up. “How’s that, Monsieur Denet?”

“Arabes,” he said, his mouth tight.

“Young or older?” Aimee asked.

“Eugenie had a good heart,” he said and sighed.

Aimee remembered that Roberge the jeweler had said the same thing.

“She helped anyone,” Denet said. “I told her, ‘Don’t let those types hang around. They’ll take advantage. Steal.’”

“What did she say to that, Monsieur?”

“She’d smile. Say everyone deserved a chance in life. Everyone.” Denet shrugged. “Who can argue with that?”

Aimee saw that it bothered Denet.

“Eugenie liked pearls, didn’t she, Monsieur?” she asked.

He seemed taken aback. “She wore overalls—like my baker’s ones—we used to joke about that. Very down-to-earth.” His smile turned bittersweet. “She seemed sad sometimes. There was a big hurt in her.”

Was she sad that Philippe, a minister with a family, wanted only an affair in
has
Belleville while he lived in the heights?

Aimee noticed Denet’s tapered fingers, trimmed nails, his graceful little movements illustrating his words. Here was an artist who used his hands. Every day.

She tried to question him further, but he protested, finally revealing he’d seen nothing, only heard noises, and he hadn’t been sure of
that
since he’d been watching a Jet Li action flick. She wondered how that soothed his nerves to sleep.

“Here’s my card,” she said. “If you remember anything else, please give me a call.”

But he’d seemed more concerned about his noise trouble with the Visse family. And that bothered her. She figured he’d heard her and Anais in the old garage yard and wanted to get back at the Visses. But at least now she knew when to break into Eugenie’s place.