Murder in Clichy (5 page)

Wednesday Morning

RENÉ PASSED THE LINE of people buying newspapers and Métro passes at his corner
tabac
. A man stood reading a newspaper and smoking in the chill gray mid-morning.

“Bonjour,”
René said as he opened the door of the shoe repair shop a few doors down from his apartment.

The new apprentice, whom René didn’t know, affixed taps to a pair of heels. Loud grinding noises filled the narrow shop crammed with shelves of arch supports and insoles, shoes to be worked on, shoes to be called for.

The young man switched off the grinding wheel. He wore a blue work coat with FRANCK embroidered on the pocket, that was marked with glue smears, over patched jeans. He looked down at René, took in his short stature.

The usual stare.

“Picking up for someone?” Franck asked, rubbing his hands on his pockets. His gaze hadn’t left René’s long trunk and short legs.

René pointed to the polished handmade Italian shoes on the shelf.

“Actually, that pair’s mine. What’s the damage?”

Franck lifted the shoes from the counter. “Nice! Eh, they fit you?”

“Should fit even better with the orthotics your boss put in.”

René’s hip dysplasia made arch adjustments necessary every other month. His hip ached more and more in the damp weather.

“I didn’t know . . . well, I mean . . .”

“That I wear regular shoes?” he said, taking a fifty franc note from his wallet and reaching up to set it on the counter. He buttoned his coat. “Even a cashmere coat.”

A cheap shot. He wanted to take it back as soon as he’d said it.

A sullen look crossed Franck’s face. “Guess you have to, so you feel big.”

René saw the worn jacket on the peg and Franck’s HLM— Habitation à Loyer Moderée—application for subsidized housing peeking from the pocket. He took the shoes.

“
Merci,
” he said and pocketed his change.

He left the shop, glad he hadn’t said the owner was an old friend who would have fired Franck on the spot for his comment. Everyone needed a job these days. He, too, after looking at Leduc’s finances.

Though he’d encouraged her at the outset, Aimée had jumped into the nun’s affair without thinking. As usual. Impulsive, intuitive! It didn’t pay the bills.

He paused on the cracked pavement to check his phone messages. The battery was dead. No time to charge his cell phone. As he turned back to buy a phone card at the
tabac
he noticed the man was still reading the newspaper. But he was holding
Le Monde Diplomatique
upside down.

After René bought a card and left, the man folded his paper. René watched the reflection in the store windows from the corner of his eye. Saw the man keeping a short distance between them. René kept walking. He glanced over his shoulder several times. The man kept in step a few paces behind. Afraid his short legs would give out before he got far, he thought of what Aimée would do, and hailed a taxi.

At the Métro station, he paid the driver, climbed out and ran down the steps. He changed at République, then again in the cavernous Châtelet station. By the time he left, using the Louvre-Rivoli exit, he felt sure no one was following him. Still, he sat in the café below their office and had a snifter of brandy. When he had calmed down, he paid and left a big tip.

On the rain-slicked pavement outside Leduc Detective, a smiling couple asked him directions to the Saint Eustache church. He pointed the way, then hit the digicode. Inside their building, the wire-frame birdcage of an elevator was out of service—out of service more often than in service. He faced a climb of three high floors on the dark, narrow spiral staircase to the office. He paused, wondering how the world would look from two feet higher up.

His hip ached and he dreaded a discussion with Aimée. Right now his cowardly side wanted some way out. He’d ignored the flutter he’d felt deep down the last time she’d hugged him. The hope that soared and flew away as he reminded himself that for her, it was platonic.

At the second flight of stairs, he paused. His leg throbbed and only a hot epsom salt bath would ease the bone-chill in his marrow.

“Monsieur Friant . . . Monsieur René Friant?” a man’s voice called from above.

“Oui.”

“There’s been an accident,” he said, footsteps clattered down the stairs. “Mademoiselle Leduc’s in Emergency.”

“Nom de Dieu!
What happened?” His pulse raced. Something to do with her eyes? A car accident? He pumped his legs faster. Had she been trying to call him on his dead cell phone?

He never saw their faces as they blocked the light, only felt the net over his face and arms, hands pinning him down as he struggled.

Wednesday Morning

AIMÉE SAW TWO BLUE and white police cars parked on the pavement of rue de Chazelles in front of Guy’s office.

“Not a professional job,” the
flic
was saying to Marie, the receptionist.

She saw the broken door lock and overturned chairs. Heard the static of police walkie-talkies.

“I don’t understand,” Marie said, shaking her head. “The small narcotic supply we keep under lock and key wasn’t touched. Dr. Lambert and his partners have just renovated this office. New cabinets, redone the examining rooms . . .
tout!
”

The
flic
nodded, writing in his notebook. “Knocking off a pharmacy makes more sense. There’ve been several break-ins this month.”

“Excuse me, I’m Dr. Lambert’s patient and I forgot my bag. I’ve come for it.”

“There’s nothing here,” Marie said. “We’ve had a robbery.”

Aimée felt guilty. She should have stashed it somewhere else. “May I just check the examining room?”

“We’re dusting for fingerprints,” the
flic
said. “You’ll have to wait.”

Just then Guy walked into the office, his coat beaded with rain. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw her.

“Dr. Lambert, I’ve already called the insurance company,” said the receptionist. “The claims adjuster’s on the way.”

“Good job, Marie,” he said, taking in the damage with a glance. “I left at six-thirty. I was on call and had rounds at l’hôpital des Quinzes-Vingts. They must have broken in after that.”

“Thank you doctor, I’ll talk with you in a moment.”

Aimée took Guy aside.

“I feel sick that this happened.”

Guy’s eyes softened.

“Does your arm hurt?”

Aimée shook her head. “Not much.” Only when she breathed. The fingerprinter, carrying his metal case, edged past them into the reception area.

“Didn’t you go to the police last night?” he asked.

“Guy, I left something in that room . . .”

“What?
”

“I have to get in there,” she said edging toward the examining room. “Please!”

“You don’t mean . . .”

“Just block the door. For one minute.”

She slipped past him into the antiseptic white room. A rain of stainless steel instruments and surgical gloves littered the linoleum floor. The cabinets lay open and gaping. She bent down. Under the sink, the bacterial soaps had been pushed aside, the particle board was askew. The backpack with the jade was gone.

She stood up. Stumbled. Guy grabbed her arm. Concern and anger warred in his eyes.

“You owe me an explanation,” he said.

“I meant to tell you. It’s my fault, I thought it would be safe here.”

She looked around the trashed office, sick. Patients arrived and Marie ushered them into the hallway.

“Of course, I’ll pay you for all the damage,” she said. “Guy, I’m so sorry.”

“What hurts, Aimée, is that you
didn’t
tell me.” He shook his head. “Even after. . . .” He stared at the examining table. “Why didn’t you go to the police
?
”

“Guy, I knew you wouldn’t want me to keep it, and I couldn’t turn it over to them. . . .”

“Why not?”

Guy had never broken a law in his life. She doubted he’d even gotten a traffic ticket: A rare Frenchman who never parked illegally, drove too fast, or cheated on his taxes. He didn’t know the other side, the world outside the law, where things didn’t work like that.

“Last night, the RG were waiting outside my apartment,” she said. “They threatened me that I’d never work again if I didn’t turn the bag over to them. They had ransacked my place, too. There’s a lot more behind this than I suspected.”

He shook his head. “I thought you had changed, that you wanted a new start, not a job that endangered your eyesight and your life,” he said, his gray eyes hard. “But you haven’t changed. You never will.”

“Please, Guy, it’s not like that. Try to understand!”

“Dr. Lambert, we’ll take your statement now,” the
flic
said, as he entered the examining room. “If you’ll come with me, please.”

“Of course,” he said.

The policeman’s back was turned and she put her finger over her lips, then mouthed “Please” to Guy. But she couldn’t read his expression.

Out in the reception area, she heard Marie. “Dr. Lambert, the adjuster’s here to estimate damages.”

Aimée edged past the policemen to Marie’s desk. “Please tell Dr. Lambert I’ll call him later.”

She left the office, emerging into rue de Chazelles. What had she done? She called the temple, left a message for Linh that she was en route, and took the Métro to the Cao Dai temple.

By the temple’s storefront window, Linh came into view, her eyes bright under a hooded burnt orange shawl, her hands placed together in greeting. Aimée’s heart sank. There was no way around it; she had to tell Linh the truth. She took a deep breath and even though she wanted to run in the opposite direction, said, “Linh, I’m sorry. There’s no other way to say it,” she said. “The jade’s been stolen.”

“What do you mean?” Linh stepped back, shocked.

“Forgive me. I hid the pieces of jade, and someone broke in . . .”

“But Thadée gave them to you,
non
?”

Aimée nodded.

“Everything’s gone?”

Aimée reached in her pocket. “Here’s the envelope you gave me for him.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Someone must have followed me and stolen the jade after I hid it in my doctor’s office.”

“Why hide it there?”

“I needed stitches. I knew the doctor. I’m sorry, I thought it would be a good hiding place.”

“Stitches . . . why?”

“From a bullet’s ricochet,” she said. “Linh, I’m all right, but Thadée Baret . . . was shot and killed.”

Linh closed her eyes, fingering her amber beads.

Aimée felt sick with guilt. “My mistake.” Then she remembered. The jade disk! She reached into her coat pocket.

“I do have this.”

Hope, then sadness, filled Linh’s eyes. “So you did have the jade.” She nodded. “You must find the rest and get them back for me.”

“Forgive me,” Aimée said. “But . . . why didn’t you warn me? Why did you entrust such things to me, almost a stranger?”

“I had no choice.” Linh’s eyelids fluttered in the nervous mannerism Aimée remembered. “The Communists’ grip has loosened. Next year or the one after, the country will open up to foreign trade. We should be able to return too. But to legitimize and rebuild our congregation, we must have the jade.”

“Legitimize in what way?”

The wind rose and whipped around them. “If we want to return, we must give the jade to the government. It’s a national treasure that was in our care. The Cao Dai safeguarded it. Then just before the French left, it was stolen from us. It must be returned to my country.”

“This jade was looted during the battle of Dien Bien Phu?”

Linh nodded.

“But how did Baret come to have it in his possession?”

“We’ve searched for a long time. We don’t know how he ended up with the jade. All I know was that he needed money, quickly, and promised to deliver the jade in return.”

“We should go somewhere and talk,” Aimée said.

Cockleburs fallen from the row of chestnut trees littered the wet pavement. Ahead, steam billowed from the Métro grill vents. Passersby pulled their collars up and fastened their winter coats tighter.

Linh looked behind her. “It’s not safe,” she said. “Keep walking while I explain. There’s a whole culture of jade,” Linh told Aimée. “The ancients revered jade’s durability and luminous quality. Jade was believed to be a sacred embodiment of essential vital forces; it was used for ritual objects with cosmological and religious meaning.”

“Used how?” Aimée asked.

“To channel supernatural powers, to communicate between the mortal and celestial worlds.”

Aimée recalled the aura she’d felt radiating from the pieces.

Buses shot past on the wide boulevard. A siren resounded in the distance. In front of them, two women with wheeled shopping carts met and exchanged
bisous
on each cheek.

Linh pulled Aimée closer. “The vital force, the power of jade to channel the spirits of the other world, still exists.”

She gave the envelope containing the cashier’s check back to Aimée. “You’re my only hope. Keep this and the disk you still have. Find the rest for me.”

“But I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Gassot, a French engineer, saved my father’s life at Dien Bien Phu. I never was able to thank him. He knew about the jade.”

Gassot . . . that name. He’d written the article she’d found online, about jade looted from the Emperor’s Tomb.

“Do you know if he’s still alive?”

“I have no idea.”

“How did you meet Baret?”

“I didn’t,” Linh said, pulling her robe’s hood closer about her head. “He contacted the temple. He knew we’d been searching. We’d heard a rumor that the jade was in Paris.”

“What rumor?”

“Something about an auction catalogue?” Linh asked, shaking her head. “I don’t know about these things. I understand your country less and less every day. Bloodshed. . . that’s not our way. We don’t believe in taking life, not even an animal’s.”

Yet, Linh came from a country that had been at war almost continuously for the past hundred years. Aimée had to keep her on track. “Linh, what about Baret?”

“He telephoned and said it had to be arranged quickly, but as we were the rightful owners, we could have the jade for a small payment. Somehow, I felt that he had a good heart.”

A good heart?

“Bad luck curses those who have evil intentions,” Linh said. “You will find the jade. I count on you.”

Guilt warred with Aimée’s promise to steer clear of this kind of thing.

Linh paused at the temple door. “Follow where this disk leads you.”

And Aimée knew she would. Not only to restore the jade to Linh and subvert the RG’s agenda, but also because, somehow, the trail might lead back to her father.

AIMÉE STOOD in yet another café-
tabac
in the Clichy
quartier
, drumming her chipped boa-blue nails on the zinc counter. So far, in the six she’d visited, no one had seen or remembered Baret. If she had to drink yet another espresso she’d sprint down Avenue de Clichy and never fall asleep again.

“Une tisane, s’il vous plaît
,” she said, ordering an herbal tea. She caught the owner’s eye during a lull between commuters buying Métro passes and Lotto tickets. She pulled out the PMU betting receipt, handed it to him, and he ran it through the machine.

She was about to engage him in conversation when he slapped one hundred francs on the counter. “You won.”

Aimée had never won anything in her life. But she took the hundred francs. Thadée didn’t need it now.

“Monsieur, it belongs to my friend Thadée Baret. Maybe you remember, I called last evening and you passed him the phone?”

“Not me,” he said, ringing up a sale. “Too busy. Me, I work the early shift.”

“Bon
, who would have answered?”

He shrugged and turned to another waiting customer.

“Monsieur, it’s important. Do you know who worked last night?” she asked, determined to discover more about Baret.

“Ask Gérard,” he said. “He’s stocking the beverage shipment.”

Aimée wound past the curved zinc and old streaked bubbled mirrors lining the café. Mechanics in jumpsuits, workers in blue smock coats and an old man with his dog at his feet sipped a morning espresso or
un demi de bière blonde
. This was a working class pocket of the old Paris like the one she had known growing up.

“
Pardonnez-moi
, Gérard?” she asked a thirtyish man, buff but bulky, in a T-shirt and stovepipe jeans, lugging a crate of Stella Artois beer.

“Did you work last night?” she asked, her feet crunching sugar cube wrappers littering the floor.

“Why?”

She pulled out the PMU racing receipt and twenty francs. “Maybe you sold my friend Thadée the winning ticket. If so, I owe you a little thank you.”

“Congratulations, but I was at the gym,” he said.

“So, who should I talk to?” she said.

Gérard jerked his thumb at a middle-aged man, tying an apron around his waist, by the orange juice squeezer.

“Alors
, Jojo, something to brighten your morning,” he shouted.

Aimée smiled at the man. “Did you answer the phone last night when I called for Thadée Baret?”

“Eh? Speak up,” Jojo said.

She noticed the calluses on his hands.

She held out the form. “Did you sell this to Thadée?”

“I sell a lot of those,” he said, “more than a hundred yesterday.”

Great. “Of course, but when I called around 5:30 you passed the phone to Thadée. Remember, a
mec
with glasses, no coat?”

He nodded. “Comes in here almost every day. A nice guy.”

Heartened, she grinned. “Here’s twenty, he wanted to share his winnings with you.”

“So I brought him luck!” Jojo squeezed another orange on the spinning machine. Juice trickled through the thick orange pulp.

Aimée didn’t want to inform him just what kind of luck.

“Know where I can find him, now?”

“At work, I’d guess,” he said.

“Where’s that?”

Jojo’s eyes narrowed. “How’d you get his ticket anyway?”

“He gave it to me,” she said. “Said he moved. And I’ve got to give his money to him.”

Despite the reluctance in Jojo’s eyes, he wiped his hands and pocketed the twenty francs. “He lives above the art gallery on rue des Moines. The
chichi
place.”

Elated, she buttoned her coat.

“
Merci,”
she said.

Now she had somewhere to start.

AIMÉE KNOCKED on the closed door of Galerie 591, a renovated warehouse. Rain pattered on the cobblestones. She wound her black wool scarf tighter against the chill, trying to figure out what she’d say. Posters advertised an upcoming British collage exhibition. She peered inside the darkened gallery: framed oils, collages, and metal sculptures filled the space. Upscale, and with prices to match, no doubt.