Murder in Clichy (12 page)

“Bonjour,
” she said, consulting the number the man at the
anciens combattants
had written down for Gassot. “I’m on detail with Commissaire Morbier. We need a land location for a phone line, 01 38 65 02.”

“Your authorization code?” a disembodied voice asked.

She prayed Morbier hadn’t changed his code.

“Alfa Romeo280,” she said. His favorite car.

Pause.

“Checking authorization.”

Perspiration dampened her collar.

“Authorization code confirmed. Checking.”

Morbier would be mad as hell when he found out. And he’d change it right away.

“Twenty-seven, rue des Moines,” the voice said.

Encouraged, fifteen minutes later she stood in front of the shuttered townhouse with a wild, unkempt garden at its side. The townhouse, separated only by a wall, stood behind the art gallery. At one time, she figured, the buildings had been joined, like a compound.

Maybe they still did?

What if Thadée let old vets live there, or rented them rooms? That could be the connection!

No one answered the door, and the place looked deserted.

She tried René’s number as she had all night. No answer.

Then her cell phone rang.

René’s kidnappers? Her heart leaped and she looked at her Tintin watch. If she told Léo the time, it might help her track the call.

“Mademoiselle Leduc,” said a clipped voice. “Commissaire Ronsard would like to speak with you.”

Her heart sank. Ronsard from the
Brigade Criminelle
quartered in the
Préfecture De Police
at Quai des Orfévres. How had he found her?

“Concerning?”

“He’ll expect you within half an hour, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

AIMÉE STOOD in the Brigade Criminelle outer office by a scuffed mustard-colored door. Wet wool, unemptied ashtrays and the sad smell of fear kept her company. She shivered, staring at the ancient brown-tiled floor and the yellowing announcements on the faded green walls. Thick, webbed skylights let in gray diffused light.

A NO SMOKING sign hung above the metal desk and a scratched billy club lay next to binders of the staff shift schedules and a log labelled SICK DAYS.

A bored
zigzag
, a low-ranking officer with three stripes, passed by.

She tapped her high-heeled boot, smoothed down her leather skirt. The chilly waiting room felt like the polar ice cap. And the frigid glare of the young uniformed receptionist, who insisted she empty her pockets and bag twice before passing through the metal detector, didn’t help.

“Mademoiselle Leduc,” she said, at long last, “go in.”

Aimée passed a vaulted window in the long corridor. Below, the Seine snaked, pewter and dark khaki, under the overcast sky.

“You wanted to see me, Commissaire Ronsard?” she said, entering his office.

Commissaire Ronsard nodded. “
Un moment
,” he asked, handing a uniformed
flic
a red labeled file: evidence complete and ready for
la Proc’,
the Prosecutor.

The Brigade Criminelle boasted of their 72 percent solved-case rate. That didn’t include the
banlieue,
suburbs with high-rise concrete projects that the brigade didn’t police—or care to. Even the Paris
flics
avoided them.

She noted the wooden desk with stacked folders, two folding metal chairs, and photos of former department chiefs lining the mustard colored walls—one very familiar to her. Bound manuals of the Code Civil sat on a window ledge.

“Tell me about your relationship with Thadée Baret,” Ronsard said, indicating a wooden chair.

“Relationship?”

“Were you
l’autre femme?
”

Quaint, the old expression for the other woman.

“Not at all.” She stuffed her anger. “Why ask me?”

“But Mademoiselle, you lured him to the phone cabinet,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Accosted him. Bystanders heard you shouting. Said he seemed desperate.”

“Thadée was desperate, Commissaire,” she said, keeping her voice patient. “How did you get my name?”

“Bystanders heard you identify yourself,” he said.

“Of course, I stood—”

“Right here,” he interrupted, pulling down a screen with a diagram of rue des Moines. The half-moon-shaped square, the
boulangerie
and the phone cabinet were outlined in blue. Polaroid photos of Thadée’s body from various angles were tacked up beside the diagram. She winced. Thadée resembled a twisted broken doll.

“Commissaire,” she said, “he told me someone was following him. And I know he waited for my call in a café. Perhaps his phone was tapped. On top of that, my partner René Friant has been kidnapped.”

“Mademoiselle Leduc, that’s the first I’ve heard about it.”

“The kidnapper wants this.” She showed him the fifty-thousand franc check. “They said Thadée owed them. If I didn’t pay, they’d dismember my partner.”

“Did Thadée Baret say something to anger you?”

Why was he obsessed with that?

She shook her head. From the walls dampness emanated through the rectangular office. Goosebumps went up her arms.

“You yourself admit you pushed him into the line of fire.”

“Don’t you understand?” she stood up, paced closer to the diagram. “I’d never even met him. If I planned on killing Thadée, I wouldn’t lure him into a crowd to be the target, too. But if someone wanted to stop him talking, it was the perfect way to eliminate him and throw the blame on me.” She stared at the commissaire. “You know that as well as I do.”

She watched his face. Did a flicker of understanding cross it? She figured right now he had no other leads so he’d jumped on her.

“
Au contraire
,” he said. “A witness heard you threatening him. Saw you push him.”

How convenient. She wondered if they’d find this witness again. She was glad she kept the information about the jade to herself.

“Like I said, I told him to duck, but too late. What can you do about my partner, René Friant? Commissaire, I’m not a civilian.“ She walked to the wall, pointed to the photo of a tall man, with a gray mustache and sharp eyes. “That’s my
grand-père
. He left the Deuxième Bureau, as they used to call this section, and started Leduc Detective.”

Commissaire Ronsard would listen to her now, wouldn’t he? He pulled at a loose thread from his jacket, then looked away.

“Mademoiselle, how do you explain Baret’s ex-wife Sophie’s disappearance?”

“Disappearance?” Aimée asked. “That’s a question for you to answer, Commissaire,” she said. “She had been assaulted in her home and tied up. I cut her down from the toilet pipe, otherwise—”

“
Attendez
.” He opened a folder, took out more Polaroids. “A courtyard resident called last night and said he saw you carry a struggling Sophie to a taxi.”

The graphic artist.

“But I was helping her.”

“Then where is she?”

Should she tell him? But he didn’t seem to believe anything else she said. And she worried for Sophie’s safety.

“Sophie checked into a clinic to rest, she seemed distraught.” A small fib.

“We need to question her.”

Sleet silvered his office window, sheeting the barges in the Seine in a gray mist. The office temperature matched the dampness outside.

“Commissaire, that’s for you to arrange.”

“I can keep you in
garde à vue
until you cooperate,” he said. A
garde à vue
would smell of unwashed socks, vomit, and urine, on a good day.

“Clinique Parc Monceau,” she said. “At least I dropped her off there.”

She knew someone would check. That’s why she’d made a reservation there on her cell phone from the taxi the previous night.

“Why didn’t you help her register at the clinic?”

“Commissaire, she didn’t want my help,” she said.

“We found this in the gallery,” he said, slapping it on his desk. “Does this look familiar?”

Aimée’s black wool scarf.

Great.

“
Merci,
this must have fallen when I helped her,” she said.

“But Sophie Baret never checked in. We consulted all the registers at clinics and hopitals. Standard procedure. Found a reservation but Sophie Baret didn’t check into the clinic. Matter of fact, her name appears on an Orly flight manifest to London.”

“London?”

“On an Air France flight. How do you explain that, Mademoiselle?”

Wasn’t she still at Morbier’s? “That’s news to me.”

“So you took her to the airport,” he continued, “or made it appear that way.”

“Commissaire, I had no idea—”

“Did you silence
her
, too?” he interrupted.

Aimée didn’t like the look in the commissaire’s eye. Or his attitude. She thought fast. “This is the first I heard she went to London. All I know is what I’ve told you. Commissaire, I could have been a victim, too. What if I was the target? Aren’t you pursuing that line of inquiry?”

“So tell me about your enemies, anyone who would shoot at you,” he said. “Work related issues?”

“My partner and I do computer security,” she said. ”As I told you, I got a call. He has been kidnapped.”

“So you say.” Ronsard stared at her.

“You think I’m making this up? Have you investigated Baret’s drug connections?”

“You sound quite familiar with him,” he said. “I feel you’re holding something back, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

What good would it to do to tell him about the jade; he wouldn’t believe a word she said.

“Aren’t you going to write this down? René Friant, 19 rue de la Reynie, missing since Wednesday evening.”

“How did these alleged kidnappers make contact?” He pulled out a notebook.

“They called me on my cell phone from René’s.” She punched in René’s number now but the only response was his voice mail message.

“How many times have they called you?”

“Just the once,” she said.

“They’re waiting for somebody.”

She agreed.

“Or
something
. What do you think that would be?”

She shook her head.

“I’ll alert the
Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmie Nationale
unit,” he said.

The supposedly elite group that dealt with terrorism? Léo’s help was more promising.

A look crossed Commissaire Ronsard’s face that she couldn’t decipher.

“If Sophie Baret gets in touch, we expect to be informed,” he said, his tone dismissive. “You can go.”

That seemed quick. Too quick. Was he letting her go so they could follow her, see if Sophie got in touch? Or, Aimée shuddered, if she’d lead them to Sophie’s body?

She walked to the door.

“Mademoiselle Leduc?”

She turned.

“I’m sure you’re aware we have the right to keep you in
garde à vue
,” he said. His small eyes never left her face. “We can hold you for forty-eight hours. Think of it this way; it’s secure, no enemies could shoot at you.”

“I’m aware of the law and the legal system, Commissaire,” she said, buttoning her coat. “Matter of fact, I took an oath when I obtained my detective license. Like you, we’re sworn to uphold the law. But thanks for refreshing my memory. I thought it was seventy-two hours.”

She wrapped the scarf around her neck, hitched her bag onto her shoulder.

“If there’s nothing more Commissaire?” she said, looking again at the Polaroids, the sad crumpled body of Thadée Baret.

All the way down the Préfecture’s staircase, she wondered how hard they would try to find René. And why the hell had Sophie fled to London? Why hadn’t Morbier called her?

Thursday Afternoon

MORBIER, WEARING A SUIT and tie and carrying a briefcase, locked the door of his Bastille district apartment. The briefcase was one her father had given him long ago. She’d only seen him in a suit once before.

“Why didn’t you let me know Sophie’d left?”

Startled, Morbier turned around.

“Leduc, don’t sneak up on me like that. We’ll talk later, I’m late for the Tribunal,” he said. “Turns out Marc’s other grandparents have called for a mediation to extend their visitation rights.”

“Morbier, you were supposed to call me!”

“Et alors,
Sophie said she’d told you!”

She clenched her hands. The bile rose in her stomach.

“You believed her, Morbier?”

He glanced at his watch, an old one with a frayed leather band. “She’s in London by now.”

Incredulous, she stared at Morbier. “Why did you let her go?”

“
You.
You didn’t tell me to cuff her to the chair, did you?” he said. “I would have. Sophie said there was nothing you could do.” He shrugged. “No one can babysit her if she doesn’t want it.”

True. A scared Sophie might be safer in England, but it left Aimée in the dark.

“Didn’t you ask her about Thadée, question her about the jade?”

“Stubbornness runs in your veins and those of your ‘friends,’ too!” Morbier said. “She said she didn’t know anything. And you know what, I believed her. Then she made coffee, complimented me on my taste in Havana cigarillos, and left.”

Aimée wanted to steady her shaking hands. Couldn’t. Not since Thadée Baret had landed in her arms. But she wouldn’t let Morbier see them. Couldn’t let him know the stress had gotten to her.

“Morbier, do you think I can’t handle this now because of . . . my eyes?”

“Leduc, I recommend you stick to what you do best. Computers.”

“But René. . . .”

“Have they called back?”

She shook her head. “I told Commissaire Ronsard.”

“Good,” Morbier said.

“But he thinks I lured Thadée into the street so he could be killed.”

“The kidnappers will call. Ronsard knows his stuff. He’ll get them.”

She had to convince Morbier. Persuade him now. Like milk, he soured quickly.

“Morbier, you have to speak with Ronsard. Persuade him I had nothing to do with shooting Baret or abducting Sophie. And that René’s in great danger.”

“I’ll try.”

And with that, he locked his door and ushered her out.

AIMÉE WOVE her way among the bicycles and buses stalled on rue de Rivoli. The stench of exhaust and beeping of horns wore on her nerves.

She tried René’s number again, then listened to her messages. Nothing.

The faint hope she’d nursed with respect to Guy died. Guy hadn’t been one to burn up the phone lines. But he’d written her letters from Geneva, putting into words his impressions and feelings about life, and for her. A sketch in the corner, a line of poetry here and there . . . she’d read them over and over. An old-fashioned part of her loved the words he’d penned and even the crisp paper he’d touched.

She missed him. She hesitated, but she knew she had to explain. She called his office. “Doctor Lambert, please,” she said. “It’s Aimée Leduc.”

“He’s with patients,” Marie said, her voice clipped and frosty. “I’ll relay the message.”

Was Guy refusing to take her calls?

With a heavy heart she mounted the spiral staircase and opened the door of Leduc Detective. Startled, she saw a young man in his early twenties, with light brown dreadlocks to his waist, eating tandoori chicken next to an open laptop. Turmeric and curry smells filled the office.

“Mind telling me how you got into my office and what you’re doing here?” she said.

“Sorry, I’m Saj de Rosnay,” he said with a sheepish grin, wiping the corners of his mouth. “René gave me a key, I thought you wouldn’t mind.”

René’s encryption genius certainly knew how to make himself at home. Saj sat crosslegged in her chair, his laptop and files strewn over her desk. He wore beige cotton Indian pants, vest, and flowing tunic. Tibetan turquoise hung from his neck. But with his pale complexion and amber eyes he looked all French.

“René asked me to prepare some data for you,” Saj said, pointing to the spreadsheets all over the
recamier
. “Sorry, but I’m not quite there.”

René trusted him. And right now she needed his help to keep the business running. She’d reserve judgment until she saw what he could do.

“I’m Aimée,” she said, biting back her comments about his work habits. She hung up her coat and shook his hand. Her stomach growled; she hadn’t eaten this morning.

“No problem,” she said. “Let’s see what you’ve got so far.”

“Try a pakora,” he said, gesturing to the open cartons. He pulled an Indian shawl around his shoulders, recrossed his legs as he sat on her chair. “I found something interesting when I factored large numbers and then . . . look!”

Threads of numbers stretched over the laptop screen. Impressive.

She nodded and grabbed a warm, crisp, potato-filled pakora.

“I’m curious about you, Saj.” She figured he was a hacker, like most of them, who enjoyed the thrill of penetrating a system, leaving a calling card, but not destroying it.

“Fire away,” he said, stretching his arms and doing neck rolls.

“You’re on loan from the Ministry,
n’est-ce pas?
” she said. “One of the hackers they train for use in the computer division, instead of sending them to prison.”

Something in his eyes shifted. Had she gone up a notch in his estimation?

“Rehabilitation, they call it,” he smiled.

She opened her laptop at René’s desk, booted up.

“What makes you so important to them, Saj?”

“Things I can do make it too scary to have me as an opponent,” Saj said. “They didn’t know what to do with me so they sent me to the hacker academy to keep tabs on me. But I’m into meditation for the world good. And I refuse to crack Swiss bank databases any more.”

She grinned, rubbing her eyes. Meditation! That’s what had gotten her into this mess.

“Should we wait for René?” he asked.

Her stomach clenched. Would he want to work, to get involved, after he heard about René? “Can I speak in confidence?” she asked.

He nodded, his dreadlocks hitting his elbows.

“He’s been kidnapped. I’m waiting for a phone call from men who took him.”

“For real?” Saj’s eyes widened.

She gave Saj a brief account, leaving out the part concerning the jade.

“A ham radio operator’s ready to triangulate the call,” she said, connecting her phone to the charger. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to get involved since the Ministry’s on your tail. But I need help, and so does René.”

Saj shook his head, his brow furrowed. “René’s an
artiste
, deft and intuitive. I respect him, he’s taught me so much in the short time I’ve known him.”

Aimée turned away, fighting back tears. Saj painted René perfectly. Even if he had taken over her desk.

“René would want us to work, not stew. I deal better with tension by working.”

“Me, too,” he said.

Three hours later, they’d finished the statistics, drafted a security proposal, and consumed the entire contents of the cartons of Indian takeout.

“Nice work,” she said.

She’d deliberately limited her comments to work. Saj was good. Very good. And he’d seemed to take to heart the news about René.

Every time the office phone rang she jumped and looked at the clock. Eighteen hours had passed and still no phone call.

“I’d like to help you,” Saj said. “Especially since René . . . well, he’s helped me.”

“I’ll take you up on that,” she said. “Give me your number, we’ll have more to do tomorrow.”

He handed her a card. “
Namaste,
” he said, putting his hands together in a gesture of peace. He gathered his laptop and left.

If she took the medication and used screen reading software, she’d avoid straining her eyes. Then she thought about the rent, her renovation contractor, Miles Davis’s grooming bill, René’s salary, and new equipment.

The phone/fax line rang. Her fingers tensed on the keyboard. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t blow it with the kidnappers this time.