Murder in the Latin Quarter (29 page)

“I won’t ask how you know, Leduc.”

No doubt Edouard had put her in his statement. The slime.

“They had to stage a show to keep Edouard’s cover in place,” Morbier said, taking a long sip.

Wonders never ceased. She’d never suspected
this.

“The Brigade Criminelle cooperates with Eurodad and similar agencies,” he said.

“But Eurodad’s based in Brussels. It brings cases before the International Court of Justice,” she said. “What’s the link?”

“Not my province.” Morbier tore off a piece of bread and chewed it. “Where’s your alleged sister, Leduc?”

Sister? After Castaing’s revelation, she was no longer sure.

“Beats me. If Mireille’s not at the convent, then I don’t know.”

“Why withhold information?” Morbier said. “What can a half-sister who you don’t even know mean to you? All you need to do is tell me where she went.”

“Mireille’s been framed.”

“Then she can make a statement. Furnish an alibi, prove her innocence.”

“I’m worried, Morbier,” she said. “I don’t know any longer whether to believe we’re related.”

Morbier nodded. His look inviting confidences was the one he used during interrogations when he was playing the good
flic.
She trusted him no farther than she could spit.

“Then what are you sticking your neck out for?” Morbier said. “Why do this?”

She couldn’t answer that. But since birth, Mireille had been a victim of violence, part of the flotsam and jetsam of Haiti’s unrest, inconsequential to men in power like dictators and ministers, men who never dirtied their hands with the
les petits gens,
the little people. Mireille didn’t deserve it. No one did.

“Still a Socialist Party member, Morbier?”

Morbier was a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, like his parents and grandparents before him.

He nodded. “And I vote Socialist in every election.”

“Didn’t you quote Fanon’s
Wretched of the Earth
to me when I was still wearing diapers?”

“More like knee socks, Leduc,” he said. “I’m glad you re-member. But don’t tell me she’s a victim of the system. Murder’s breaking the law, no matter what the excuse.”

“Then tell me how it makes sense. Mireille had relatives in Benoît’s village; he helped her.”

“Relationships sour.”

“That’s all you can say? Physically, she’s not strong enough to sever his ear. She had an accident in the sugar mill. I saw the scars on her arms.”

Morbier looked down at his glass. “A distinguished ENS professor and world-renowned researcher’s seen arguing with an illegal immigrant,” he said. “He’s murdered and she disappears.”

“Too simple, Morbier. Other people wanted him silenced.”

“Where’s the proof, Leduc?” he said. “Give me something to work with. But you can’t, can you?”

She threw the napkin down and stood. “Excuse me a moment, Morbier,” she said, pointing to the WC, a cubicle near the bar.

“Don’t get any ideas about leaving, Leduc.” He pointed in turn to the car parked in the street.

She wedged herself into a closet-like Turkish toilet complete with hanging chain, hole in the floor, and walls papered by peeling seventies posters of rock groups. She punched in René’s number, pulled the chain. Over the flushing, she heard his voicemail recording.

Frustrated, she left him a message mentioning the Paris Club. Then she cupped her hands at the tiny sink, splashed cold water on her face, and wished she didn’t feel naked with-out lipstick. She pinched her pale cheeks for color.

Back at the table, she found two plates of steak
haché
and golden brown
frites.
Morbier paused, fork embedded in a morsel of rare beef dripping with red juice.

What little appetite she still had now deserted her. She picked at the white bread, molding the bits together.

“
Et alors?
” Morbier said. “You did that as a child, too.”

“What?”

“Pulled out the white part of the baguette and sculpted little figures.”

She dropped the crumbs, stared at him. “What’s this lunch really about, Morbier?”

Morbier lifted his wine glass to hers. “
Salut.
It’s your saint’s day, Leduc. Saint Ame.”

He’d remembered. She’d been named after a Benedictine monk from Grenoble who founded a monastery, became a hermit, and died in 630 A.D. Could she help it that in the hospital, her mother had stuck her finger on the calendar and saw Saint Ame, saying “Ame; that sounds like love” . . . and she could pronounce it . . . Amy.

“As your godfather, it’s one of my duties, Leduc,” he said. “Another is to protect you, if you let me.”

“Edouard shares a saint’s day with Benoît,” she said. “So that’s his involvement, right? It’s personal to him.”

“Ask him, Leduc.”

The smells of grilling meat, of people crowded into the low-ceilinged room were getting to her. The murmured conversations, clink of glasses.

“Commissaire?” A hesitant blue-uniformed
flic
stood at their table. “The Brigade chief called. He needs you out in Meudon near the Observatoire.”

Morbier stared with longing at his half-eaten steak. “Another sighting of that damned Fiat Uno in the suburbs?”

The
flic
nodded and turned his cap over in his hands.

Morbier set a wad of bills on the table, pulled the napkin from his collar, and wiped his chin.

“Meanwhile, they’re waiting to question you, Leduc.” He shrugged. “Look, I tried.”

“Tried, Morbier?” she said, clenching the napkin in her fist.

“Officer, wait for me outside.”

The
flic
took off to the waiting car. Beyond lay the bell tower of medieval Saint Etienne du Mont. Cloud wisps hovered in the night sky.

“My influence extends only so far. The Brigade’s on my neck, Leduc. Help me out, and yourself too. Explain to them. Get Mireille to give a statement. My Immigration contact can work something out if she’s innocent.”

Here it came. A deal. She smelled it.

As always, he’d make her work for it.

“Don’t tell me your Immigration contact’s interested in helping a murder suspect with motive and opportunity who’s in hiding, as you reminded me?”

“He’s in line for promotion,” Morbier said and shrugged. “And the ambitious type. The traffickers give his division a bad name. But if Mireille identified them and testified against them, a deal’s likely.”

Mireille might even agree to it.

And if she didn’t play along with Morbier, she had no chance of finding the real killer. “You’re right, Morbier,” she said. “Mireille’s desperate; she’ll try to contact me. But what good will it do if I’m being held at the Prefecture? Buy me some time.”

He grimaced. “You don’t want much, do you?”

“We had time for this bistro,” she said. “What’s a few hours? Fend the Brigade off. You’re going to the suburbs. What’s the difference?”

“Got something up your sleeve, Leduc?”

“I won’t know until I try. And I need your help.” She stood and pushed her chair in, then embraced him, kissing him on both cheeks, something she hadn’t done in a long time. She felt his rough cheeks, smelled the same aftershave her father had used, saw his graying hair curling behind his ears.

“Please, Morbier,” she whispered in his ear. “You know she’s innocent. No one will blame you if I do this. Just say we met later.”

“I can’t, Leduc,” he said.

“But you can,” she said. “You’re a Divisional Commissaire now.”

She felt his shoulders tighten.

“And it’s my saint’s day. Call it my present, Morbier.”

She pulled away and saw Morbier’s red face. Morbier, blushing? She heard the engine start. The
flic
had put the flashing light on the car roof.

“Morbier, I promise.”

He glanced at his watch.

“Two hours, Leduc. Don’t disappoint me.”

The
flic
stood, wide-eyed, in the doorway. She picked up her bag.

“Looks like we’ve given him something to talk about, Morbier.”

“All the way to Meudon, Leduc.”

She quickened her step and hit the street.

A BREEZE KICKED up on rue Toulier. She ran past the infamous Carlos the Jackal’s hiding place in the seventies. Now it was just a nondescript fawn-colored building. Carlos, during routine questioning in the doorway, had shot three
flics.
And that’s what had nailed him, in French eyes. No matter how grave his acts of worldwide terrorism, it was the shooting of French
flics
that had ensured him the lifetime sentence he was serving in Clairvaux.

She felt uneasy at Morbier’s conversation, the lack of his usual probing questions. Was it the wine, or his fatigue? Looking back, he’d let her go too easily.

She turned around to look for a police tail. A long-haired man, wearing a knotted scarf and stylish rumpled jacket, gesticulated to another standing in a small bookshop doorway. The Latin bookstore she’d shopped at in her Sorbonne days. The long-haired man said “Impossible. Kant and Heidegger, two divergent German philosophers. . . .”

Just two
intello’s
in passionate discussion. Where else but here in the Latin Quarter, she thought.

She checked her watch. Not much time. She headed to rue Buffon.

En route, her cell phone rang. Professeur Zarek’s caller ID was displayed. She winced.

“Allo,
Professeur.”

“Aimée, Sister Dantec had visitors,” said Professeur Zarek.

“I heard. Where’s Mireille?”

Aimée held her breath, afraid of the answer.

“Sister Dantac works her magic in many ways. Full of sur-prises. For now, don’t worry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why, Mireille’s wearing the habit, a ripe convert.” A child’s voice sounded in the background . . . “
Grand-mère!”

A habit. Perfect disguise. No one looked at nuns.

Aimée relaxed. “Please, tell Mireille we have to talk.”

“Must go,” Professeur Zarek said. Before Aimée could ask more, the professor ended the call. Another call came through; she heard René’s voice.

“Aimée, I netted the Aèrospatiale contract,” he announced.

She heard the pride in his voice.

“Fantastic, René!”

“Just waiting on your signature and one from the bureau chief.” René paused. “But what’s going on, Aimée?”

He deserved to know. And he could help her.

“Didn’t you get my message? Castaing’s protected by the Ministry. This World Bank funding proposal will pass.”

“What’s that got to do with Mireille?”

“If Mireille’s the prime homicide suspect, it makes things easier for some people. I’ve got two hours before the Brigade questions me,” she said. “That’s why I asked your help to dig into Castaing’s firm, Hydrolis, and its relationship with the World Bank. Didn’t you get my message about the Paris Club?”

“Two hours? Go home, work on your laptop,” René said. “It’s safer.
Mecs
attacked you. Next time don’t count on being so lucky.”

She turned into the breeze whipping down the street. “But I need the other pieces of the puzzle, René.”

René cleared his throat. “Paris Club. Talk about big shots. I found out that Benoît submitted a paper to them last year. Give me a bit longer.”

Excited, she walked faster now. “
Merci,
René. I knew you’d help.”

“Only if you promise you’ll be careful, Aimée.”

“Done.”

She hoped René could link Castaing’s firm to the bigger players, expose Hydrolis as a provider of toxic water.

Evening shadows sculpted the crumbling walls of rue Buffon. Aimée saw two
mecs
in bomber jackets standing in a doorway, the
mecs
she’d seen outside the café. The big one jerked his thumb in her direction.

Cold fear gripped her.

She backed up, turned, and ran straight into a uniformed
flic
on patrol
.

“In a hurry, Mademoiselle?”

Friday Evening

AT HER OFFICE desk, Léonie tightened the rubber strip above her elbow, swabbed her arm with alcohol, and reached in her bag for the syringe. Her hand came back with a bank statement, her wallet, checkbook, lipstick. But no retroviral ampoule.

Perspiration beaded her brow. Castaing’s men! The damned thugs had shaken her, knocking her bag to the floor in the scuffle. Her medicinal injection was gone.

She heard loud, insistent knocking on her office door.

“Léonie?” A man’s voice.

She steadied herself against her desk. Her supply was gone and she had no time to reach the clinic doctor. Her bones ached; chills racked her body.

“Just a moment.” She found matches and with trembling hands lit the candle to Saint George. Then she turned the statue to reveal his other side, Ogoun the warrior. She bowed her head in prayer.

The door burst open.

Léonie raised her gaze and took in the
mec.
Polo, they’d called him. Polo’s stocky frame filled out a leather bomber jacket. She saw his dead flat eyes. And called on Ogoun’s spirit.

“I’m praying, can’t you see? What’s so important that you can’t wait for me to open the door?”

Polo hesitated, uneasy. One more used to following orders than thinking. “Monsieur Castaing told me to say ‘The file’s in the right hands.’”

So they had taken Benoît’s file from the detective’s bag. The woman had been about to give it to her; she’d sensed it. But now Castaing had it and would use it. Just like his father, the bastard!

“What’s his hurry?” She blew out the candle. Smoke rose as she muttered a prayer.

“He’s gone.”

She dropped her hands. “But we were supposed to go together.”

“Not according to my instructions,” Polo said.

Castaing had planned all along to shut her out of the meet-ing. Why hadn’t she anticipated this? Now she couldn’t con-front him, either to blackmail him or to negotiate with him.

She reached for the dossier on Castaing that Royet had messengered over. Royet, in his role in the World Bank, under-stood “negotiations.” But it was worth nothing if she couldn’t confront Castaing before the meeting began.

“
Bon. You’ll
take me to the meeting then.”

“Monsieur Castaing left me no such instructions, Madame.”

“It seems you’re unaware that he and I are doing the meet-ing presentation together, young man.” She summoned the little strength she had in reserve. “Bring the car to the door.”

“But he said—”

“Do you want to keep your job, young man?”

He looked unsure. “I need to check.”

She could not permit this.

“Get me my coat, first, would you?” she said. Léonie reached into her desk drawer and palmed the keys. “It’s in the closet.”

“I’m not sure about this,” he said, rocking back on his scuffed loafers.

“Help an old woman, won’t you?” She summoned a smile, gestured to the tall door flush with the carved woodwork. “I’m cold.”

Polo opened the closet. “There’s just boxes in here.”

“Sorry, my coat’s hanging in the back,” she said. “Can’t you see?”

But Polo’s answer was muffled by the slam of the closet door and its click as she locked him in.

Castaing figured he’d sewn it up. Not as long as she had a breath left in her body. She grabbed her cane, touched her juju, and walked out the door.