Murder in the Latin Quarter (12 page)

The whole
quartier
had been filled with churches, con-vents, and priories until the end of the Revolution in 1799. Incensed with the Church’s power, the rebels had razed what they could. Twelve churches remained. Twelve too many, her grandfather would complain.

She climbed the wide stairs, grooved in the middle from centuries of footsteps, and followed a winding hall’s leaning walls and crooked angles, leading down to three steps. This was a makeshift arrangement of buildings that had been cob-bled together over time.

On the second floor, she rapped on a tarnished brass knocker. A moment later, the door opened to air redolent with the scent of coconut. She was in a hall with blue-green wall hangings picturing the sea, carved wooden figures, and simple, flat paintings of black figures working in sugarcane fields. A Haiti-Democracy political poster hung on one wall.

Expectantly, she stepped inside.

“Bonjour,”
said a deep male voice.

Her eyes adjusted to the light. A middle-aged man wearing black, his shirt topped by a white clerical collar, greeted her. He had pink cheeks and thin brown graying hair. One of his blue eyes was filmed by the milky haze of a cataract.

“
Désolé,
Mademoiselle, the room has been taken.”

She took a guess. “Father Privert?”

“Guilty.” He gave a little smile and turned. “Josephe, please find that hostel referral list.”

“No need, Father. Jérôme Castaing of Hydrolis referred me to you.” That wonderful smell permeating the air, a blend of coconut and fish, made her stomach growl. She’d only had a brioche today.

“Monsieur Castaing?
Mais oui,
our benefactor. I’m happy to help you.”

“That’s so kind, Father,” she said. “But I’d like to see Mireille Leduc.”

“The name’s not familiar.”

Her heart sank.

He took a magnifying glass from his shirt pocket and consulted a thick register. When he looked up, his milky eye unfocused, he shook his head. “No one here by that name. I am sorry.”

She fingered the leather strap of her bag. Did he offer sanctuary to illegals and was therefore fearful of revealing information? Instead of taking it slowly in order to win his confidence, she’d barged right ahead: her bad habit, as René often pointed out.

“Father!” a voice called from down the hall.

“One moment, please.” He disappeared, walking quickly.

Disappointed, she entered a small sitting room but saw no one else to ask. Her shoulders ached with fatigue. And she still knew no more of Mireille’s whereabouts.

“In here, Mademoiselle,” he called. She found Father Privert at the copier in a small alcove office.

“I checked our records, but I’m afraid I can’t help you,” he said.

Had he consulted with whoever had called him and decided to get rid of her? Disappointed, she wondered if he was hiding information. She looked around and noticed a bulletin board on the wall.

Photos showed hollow-cheeked children, hair a light straw color from malnutrition, eating from a garbage can behind a fish stall in an open-air market. A street scene showed sewage from a latrine running down the middle of the road. Women at a rusted water spigot were shouldering water cans beside shacks made of cardboard and flattened metal peanut-oil gallons. Fat crows surrounding a tin labeled POWDERED MILK USAID clustered near a crying barefoot child. Above the photos was a quote from Mother Teresa: “Cité Soleil’s not the poorest place in Haiti, it’s the poorest place in the world.”

She took fifty francs from her wallet and stuffed the bill into a collection box labeled FOR CITÉ SOLEIL’S HUNGRY CHILDREN.

“Father,” she said, “you do relief work in Haiti?”

“I try.” His shoulders sagged. “The government denied me reentry, you know,” he said. “Well, of course you don’t. I do what I can, but they think God’s work is too political.”

“God’s work . . . you mean feeding children is considered political?”

“Father Privert’s too dangerous,” a woman said. She stood in the doorway, a blonde in khaki pants. Her angular face was almost pretty, but it lacked expression. “After his prison sentence, they are even more afraid of him.”

Aimée blinked. “They put priests in prison?” It sounded like the Inquisition. Then she wanted to bite her tongue. How naïve she must sound.

“L’Ardeville,” she said, as if Aimée would understand. “Amnesty International paid attention, exerted pressure to obtain his release. For once!”

“Josephe!” Father Privert smiled sadly. “Monsieur Castaing referred this young woman to us. She’s looking for . . . I’m sorry, who’s the person you’re looking for?”

“Mireille Leduc.” Aimée hesitated. Compared to hunger and prison abuse, her quest paled in significance. But Mireille’s life was at stake. “Mireille’s tall; she has caramel-colored skin and curly light-brown hair. Have you seen her recently?”

“The residence is full,” Josephe said. “Father hasn’t been able to take on any new residents for the last two months.”

“Mireille’s half-Haitian. I thought she’d come here.” Aimée swallowed hard. “She’s my sister, although I met her for the first time on Monday.”

And when she said it, she almost believed it.

Josephe and Father Privert stared at her. From outside the window overlooking the courtyard came the banging of a metal trash can, then a cat’s cry.

“Mireille has no papers. I don’t know who else to ask,” Aimée said. Desperate, she tried another angle. “It’s not my business if you provide sanctuary to
sans-papiers,
but Mireille’s in trouble, on the run. I want to help her.”

“Of course,” said Father Privert, “but I don’t know how. Our last Haitian student is now doing graduate work in the States.”

She paused, unsure whether to reveal more about Mireille’s trouble; but if you couldn’t trust a priest. . . . About Josephe, she wasn’t as sure. But this information could tip the balance in favor of persuading them to help.

She took a chance. “This concerns the ENS professor murdered Monday,” she said. The aroma of wild lilac and the metallic smell of blood came back to her. Her hands shook, and she hid them in her pockets.

“Not Professeur Benoît?“ Father Privert made the sign of the cross. “We’re organizing a memorial. But I don’t see the connection.”

“The
flics
suspect Mireille,” she said. “I’m terrified for her.”

“Nom de Dieu!
” Josephe and Father Privert exchanged a look. “You’re sure?”

“I wish I weren’t,” she said. “Professeur Benoît helped Mireille, letting her stay at the lab. The guard heard some noises, and I think he saw something.”

Darquin, the guard, knew more than he’d told; he had to. Maybe he didn’t recognize the importance of what he’d seen.

“You mean he could clear her?” Josephe said.

“Mireille didn’t kill Professeur Benoît, that’s all I know,” Aimée said. “The professor might have mentioned your shelter. Mireille’s afraid. As a child, she saw the tonton macoutes murder her mother, and she’s never gotten over her terror.”

She searched their shocked faces, hoping that if they indeed were hiding Mireille, they’d trust her.

Josephe shook her head. “I don’t understand. Professeur Benoît’s a famous scientist. Who would kill him?” She fingered the fringe on her vest, paused, and glanced at Father Privert, who’d folded his hands in prayer.

Father Privert nodded. “
Oui,
a distinguished man, a role model for Haitians. Born in a ravaged farming village, one of twenty children, he was the only one who went to school,” he said. “He studied and worked hard to make his people’s life better. He’s . . .
was .
. . a world-renowned researcher, a . . . such a waste. May God have mercy on his soul.”

She hadn’t known all that. Had she judged him too harshly . . . or had Mireille lied? She didn’t know what to think. But the truth in Mireille’s voice came back to her.

Josephe took the priest’s arm. “The Lord gives and He takes away, Father.”

Aimée sensed they knew something. She had to keep prob-ing, find the link, a connection. Something.

“Didn’t he have a ticket to the Cluny baroque music con-cert, a ticket that Monsieur Castaing had provided to your organization?”

Josephe nodded, her face blank. “I left his ticket at the museum, as usual, for him to pick up. Monsieur Castaing’s so thoughtful.”

That placed Benoît at the Cluny. As she’d suspected. What if he’d met his murderer there?

“Not three hours after the concert, his body was discovered at the laboratory.”

Josephe clapped a hand over her mouth.

Father Privert laid his arm on Aimée’s. His good eye centered on hers. “I understand your concern,” he said. “But the best tribute to Benoît consists of continuing my work feeding children. A sad commentary, you may say. We never for-get that Toussaint l’Overture led the Haitian slave rebellion that overthrew colonialism and made Haiti the first independent country in the Americas. Ironic, too, as Benoît never tired of noting that Napoleon, who admired l’Overture’s ideals and had his body interred in the Pantheon, exacted the reparations Haiti still pays to France, even today, which cripple the economy.”

A mixture of hope and sadness painted his features. “President Aristide blazed a new trail. His successor, Préval, is working to eradicate poverty, unemployment, torture, and arbitrary arrests. The country’s changing. My foundation feeds our future, children, the one thing Haiti’s rich in. Our benefactors make that possible.”

“Father Privert’s work is vital.” Josephe took over, as if used to handling requests for the priest’s time and energy. She handed Aimée a brochure printed in
Kreyòl
and French. “I volunteer to help manage this shelter so Father can devote himself to his work,” she said. “But we depend on generous help from Monsieur Castaing. So does our voter-initiative group in Haiti, which focuses on political solutions.”

In other words, they were busy. But Aimée wasn’t going to leave until she’d gained
something.

“In what ways does Monsieur Castaing support your work?”

Josephe’s eyes brightened. “He understands Father’s mission and makes our outreach possible. Not only does he support both groups financially, he raises funds. We’d be nowhere without Monsieur Castaing.”

“Polluted water’s killing more Haitian children than hunger,” said Father Privert. “We’re educating mothers to cook only with water from the new pipelines.”

Father Privert switched on the copy machine, which rum-bled to life.

“But they’re wary of Monsieur Castaing’s sewage-treatment plant,” Josephe said.

“Why?”

“Superstition. Oh, that’s changing.” Josephe smiled. “Opportunists charge a fortune to bring water from the hills in water trucks, then gouge these poor people. But Hydrolis offers them free water, so they will learn to use piped water.”

Father Privert leaned down, stacked a pile of copies, and fed more sheets of paper into the machine. The machine spit out copies in a steady rhythm. “Father?” Josephe shrugged. “He’s deaf in one ear from being tortured,” she explained to Aimée.

Aimée shuddered. But persevered. “Please understand, I respect your work,” she said. “And why you might feel reluctant to speak. But if you know where Mireille’s hiding—”

“I’ll ask around,” Josephe interrupted. “But people disappear.”

The finality in Josephe’s voice raised the hair on Aimée’s arms.

“Father’s optimistic; his faith guides him,” Josephe said. “The people who live in Port-au-Prince get electricity for one hour a day, if they’re lucky, and running water for a few hours daily. Human rights abuses in the system have changed little since the Duvalier days. The violence. . . .” She shrugged.

“You mean the tonton macoutes?” Aimée said.

The phone rang.

Josephe said, “Change comes from the grassroots level.”

The copier emitted a printed page that read: “More myths by those who claim to help Haiti . . . their lies endanger aid. Under the guise of party reform, Edouard Brasseur, former rebel against Duvalier, makes false accusations of corruption.”

The name Edouard Brasseur caught her eye. But he’d told her he worked in import/export.

“Josephe,” said Father Privert, picking up a sheet of paper, “I told you we must only write about feeding children and working to provide clean water for Cité Soleil, not about factional infighting. These inflammatory, divisive articles. . . .”

“We’re exposing the truth,” Josephe said. “You agreed. Re-member, Father?”

Aimée wondered: was Josephe a radical? She wished she’d been able to speak to Father Privert in private. She distrusted Josephe now.

Josephe’s eyes flashed as she continued: “Remember that radio interview, and the lies he fed them?”

“Enough, Josephe. Edouard supported us before.”

Aimée asked, “You’re in contact with this man, Father?”

“My dear, no one knows how to reach him. The government has put a price on his head.”

But Aimée had just talked to him in the café on rue Buffon. “Yet he gives radio interviews?”

“He lives in the shadows, Mademoiselle. That’s all I know.”

Yet he’d come out of the shadows to question her, even given her his card. Didn’t smell right, as her father would have said.

“We’ve got a deadline,” Josephe said with finality.

“Thank you for your time.” Aimée put her card in Father Privert’s hand. “Just in case you see Mireille.”

AIMÉE CROSSED THE courtyard, which was bathed in afternoon shadows. The crisp scent of laundry wafted by her. With a quick step, she avoided dripping water from the newly laundered shirts hanging from the balcony above.

If Father Privert and Josephe harbored illegals and provided them with sanctuary, she reasoned that they’d never open up to her, putting the foundation and their work at risk by doing so. But now she knew that Benoît had attended the Cluny concert hours before his murder.

Hunger gnawed at her. She found an empty table at the nearest outdoor café and ordered. It was time to use a connection, to call Martine, her best friend since the
lycée.
Mar-tine worked part-time at
Le Figaro
on the editorial side, doing investigative journalism, as well as consulting on book projects for a Left Bank publisher. She tried Martine’s flat over-looking Bois de Boulogne, shared with Gilles, her well-off aristo boyfriend and his children. No answer, so she called Martine’s cell phone.