Murder in the Sentier (17 page)

“Confidentiality?” She shrugged. “Looked like harassment to me.”

He consulted his beeper. “
Zut!
I better hurry,” he said, passing her and going down the hall. “Baby’s crowning.” Bellan shut the door behind him.

She knew she was in danger and her hands shook. She’d been hit from behind at the fire, her office phone tapped, and now someone had violated and invaded her apartment.

After she gave her statement to the
flics
, she punched in Martine’s number.

“Allô,”
came Martine’s breathy voice after one ring.

“Got a couch Miles Davis and I could borrow tonight?”

“Sounds like a perfect ending to a horrible evening,” Martine said. “Any reason why? Not that you need one.”

She told Martine about the break-in.

“
Tiens
, you better stay here,” Martine said. “Hop on your Vespa. Now.”

Aimée navigated her way to Martine’s apartment in the exclusive 16th arrondissement, overlooking the Bois de Boulogne. She avoided the notorious transvestite traffic in the
bois
, which could be quite active on a summer night.

The concierge of Martine’s Belle Epoque building yawned and pointed for her to park the scooter in the courtyard. Backlit stained-glass windows illumined the plush red runner that carpeted the apartment stairs. She carried Miles Davis in his straw basket over her shoulder, hoping Martine hadn’t acquired a cat since her last visit.

“Entrez.”
Martine greeted her in a form-fitting coral tube dress, walking awkwardly on her heels, blue foam separators wedged between her toes. “Giving myself a pedicure.”

“Don’t you usually get that done?”

“Not if I’m waging nuclear war with Jérôme and waiting for you,” Martine said. She led Aimée into the high-ceilinged white-and-gold trimmed salon with carved wood
boiserie
and gilt cornices. “How’s Miles Davis holding up?” She nuzzled his chin and palmed him a biscuit. “You two can stay with me as long as you like.”

“
Merci
, but after I fix the locks at my place, we’ll be fine.”

This flat was big enough for an army but Aimée didn’t think Jérôme would appreciate their visit. He’d inherited it from his
aristo
family who were long on name but short on cash. His ex-wife had supplied that, but liked modern skyscraper living in La Défense better.

“Don’t be silly,” Martine said. “In this museum, you can have your own wing.”

She gestured to a drinks cart loaded with decanters and bottles, then handed a champagne flute to Aimée.

Martine popped the cork of a Pol Roget, then poured the golden bubbled mixture. They clinked glasses and Aimée hoped she hadn’t spilled any on the jade, peach, and white Aubusson rug.

“Are we celebrating?” Aimée asked. “Come up with anything I should know?”

Martine gave a small shake of her head as she blew on her toes. “
Voilà
. Did they take anything?”

Aimée knew Martine too well not to notice her evasion.

“If they did, it’s not obvious,” she said. “Tomorrow, I’ll check.”

“You’ve been busy,” Martine said as she poured them another drink. “What about the Bourse hunk you met?”

Leave it to Martine to zero in on men.

“He wanted to meet at Rouge but I missed him.”

Martine looked up, horror on her face. “So exclusive … he invited you there?”

She said. “Anyway, he left with a woman,
c’est la vie
. So I checked out Romain Figeac’s burned-out apartment.”

“But he invited you!” Martine clinked her glass to Aimée’s.

“Why scour Romain Figeac’s apartment?”

Aimée told her what had happened so far: Jutta’s murder, Christian Figeac hiring her, and the lead provided by Georges, from Action-Réaction.

Martine listened. “But you’re in danger, Aimée. I think you should leave it alone.

“First tell me what you found, Martine.”

“Not much,” she said, looking away. “It can wait until tomorrow.”

“Bad?” Aimée stood up, grabbed the champagne. “Guess this will make the news go down better.”

“It’s all exaggerated. Nasty stuff. Sure you want to hear it?”

“Better hearing it this way than by hints and rumors.”

“I delved pretty deep,” Martine said. “The night desk faxed me the hard copy.” Martine lit a cigarette, blew a smoke ring. She pulled the foam from between her toes, tapped her coral pink polish to see if it had dried. “It’s not pretty.”

“That my mother ran drugs, got involved with terrorists, and escaped to Africa?” She didn’t know that for sure, but Georges had intimated as much. She figured it was a good guess.

Martine’s eyes widened. Then she blinked.

“Worse? She’s a mercenary?” Aimée asked.

“Drink your bubbly, we’ll talk in the morning.”

“What did she do?” Aimée reached for Martine’s cigarette. She took a deep drag, exhaled, and gulped her champagne. “I can take it.”

Martine sighed. “Nothing’s conclusive, the article’s full of conjecture.”

“Like I said, I can take it.”

“The article says things about your papa … I’m sorry.”

Martine gestured toward the silk-upholstered Directoire chair by the long windows. Some faxes sat on the arm. Beyond the dark black of the woods shone the distant glow of Neuilly. Aimée grabbed a paper and skimmed the article.

“Some investigation with my father … I don’t understand.”

“Rumor was terrorists blew him up. Seems there was a
l’inspection de police
, internal affairs had put him under investigation.”

“Makes no sense,” Aimée said, her hand shaking. “The
police judiciare
contracted with us for surveillance in the Place Vendome. Routine. We did it all the time.”

“Some mistake … they made a mistake, the reports are exaggerated,” Martine said, her eyes down. “It’s late, let’s find you a room.”

And then Aimée understood.

“They thought Papa was dirty, a bent
flic
!”

Her father’s half-smile floated before her. She imagined his patient eyes and the way he combed his thinning hair over his bald spot. How she’d find him asleep in his uniform in the hard chair by her bed after an all-night stakeout. How he called her his little princess.

“They said he was dirty, didn’t they?” She stood up, knocking over the champagne, which fizzed over the rug. “Never!” she shouted. “Papa worked hard. His men respected him. Not Papa!”

“Of course,” Martine said. She lit another cigarette, passed it to Aimée. “Look at how it’s written. All hearsay. Nasty innu-endo.”

“Every department has
flics
who lie, who shave the truth, stick bribes in their pocket. But not Papa!”

A
IMÉE READ
the article standing by Martine’s guest bedroom window overlooking the Bois de Boulogne. The year she’d been an exchange student in New York had been a busy one for her parents. According to the article entitled
A COUPLE IN CAHOOTS
? by Jacques Caillot in
Le Figaro
, her father had been under review in connection with art heists. Her mother was mentioned in the same sentence as two bank robberies, one of them involving Haader-Rofmein, one attributed to Action-Réaction.

She remembered the kidnapped Paul Laborde and his Modigliani collection. And that her mother had written Modigliani backwards in the notebook. But the
Figaro
article only hinted, and gave no proof.

She’d assumed her father had joined her grandfather at Leduc Detective because he’d had enough of bureaucracy. Maybe there had been more to it.

So that’s why Morbier never talked about her father, his old colleague from the police academy. He suspected he was crooked.

Desolation swept over her.

She finally fell asleep, Miles Davis beside her.

Her dreams were filled with bright-hued iguanas, scales swollen and pulsating, trampling through the artists’ squat. Then the nightmare again. This time … her father crawling over the cobblestones, his face melted, her hands bloody from the explosion, only this time the doors led to bricked-in walls … doors to nowhere. Some were blood-smeared, others covered with peeling
WANTED
posters.

T
HURSDAY

Thursday Morning

A
IMÉE WOKE UP
with a start in Martine’s guest room. Dust motes danced in the slanting sunlight on her pillow. Why hadn’t she thought of it before … the old Interpol wanted posters! She’d find this Jules!

But before that she had to ask the reporter, Jacques Caillot, about the article he’d written. Specifically, how he had obtained his information.

She gulped a bowl of café au lait. Her head was hazy so she followed it with an espresso to help her wake up.

She called the visiting office at Frésnes to find when she could see Liane Barolet again.

“Lockdown,” the officer said. “No visitors or mail.”

“For how long?”

“Depends on the warden’s mood,” he said. “Big riot last night. It could last a week.”

A disappointment. But she’d become suspicious of Liane’s having any letters from her mother. Liane was too good a liar. Still, she’d send the papers proving payment to Liane’s lawyer, as she’d promised.

After several calls she discovered Jacques Caillot no longer worked at
Le Figaro
but ran the Agence France-Presse archives.

“Sorry,” the switchboard operator said. “Monsieur Caillot only takes appointments with press staff. Our archive is limited to journalists, correspondents, and news wire organizations.”

Saying she was a researcher, Aimée made an appointment. Martine handed over her laminated clip-on
Madame Figaro
ID and her
presse
card to Aimée, then offered to take Miles Davis and drop him off at the Leduc office later. Aimée borrowed Martine’s black linen Chanel dress and a straw hat. Ten minutes later, she was speeding along the Seine on her scooter.

“Credentials, s’il vous plaît,” the wiry security man said from the booth at Agence France-Presse’s door. His partner watched the monitors fed by surveillance cameras panning the small glassed-in sixties lobby. Outside, the Bourse and the graffiti-covered squat opposite glimmered in the midmorning heat.

Aimée flashed him Martine’s ID and a large smile.

“Archives, please,” she said.

He studied the card, turned it over. She held her breath, hoping he didn’t ask for another piece of ID.

“Through these doors, Mademoiselle, take the second staircase to the basement.”

“Merci,”
she said.

She rushed ahead.

“Mademoiselle!”

She stopped. Afraid.

“Sign in, please.”

“Bien sûr,”
she said, and wrote “Martine Sitbon” with a flourish.

She passed through the double-swing doors he buzzed open for her. Photographers gripped portfolios, assistants scurried, and the world of breaking news engulfed her.

To the left, narrow linoleum-tiled stairs led down two dank flights. The cisternlike bowels of the building seemed much older than the modernized floors above. Sixteenth century, or even older, she thought.

At the microfiche desk, a pale-faced woman in overalls took her request.

“
Attends
, he’s on the phone,” she said, her tone listless. Maybe she’d worked down here too long.

By the time she nodded permission to go in, Aimée had written down her questions.

“First door on the right.”

Aimée held her breath as she entered an arched door. The vaulted rose brick walls and stone floor resembled a medieval abbey. Maybe, originally, it was.

Jacques Caillot sat at a stainless steel desk, halogen beams illuminating an old card file he was sorting. Aimée noticed the framed press clippings on the walls from Saigon, Lagos, and Kabul with his byline. There were even foreign press awards.

“Sorry to intrude, Monsieur Caillot,” she said. “I appreciate your seeing me.”

He looked up. “Sit down,” he said. “One moment, and I’ll be finished.”

The dim room and his greenish blue eyes reminded her of peering into an aquarium. She realized one of Caillot’s eyes focused in slow motion. He shut the card file, noticed her gaze.

“Venetian glass eye. Thanks to the IRA’s Enskillen Rembrance Day bombing in 1987,” he said with a lopsided smile.

“And I was one of the lucky ones. How can I help?”

“I’m researching European terrorism in the seventies for a Montreal journal,” she said. “I came across your article. It made me curious.”

She thrust the copy across his desk.

Caillot scanned the article, nodding. “Of course, I remember,” he said. “Does Lepic still man the
Figaro
night desk?” he asked without looking up.

He’d got her. She’d only known Martine and her assistant, Roxane, at
Le Figaro
. He’d tested her and he’d won.

“Tell you what,” she said, gambling. “You can kick me out, but I borrowed this ID from my friend Martine, the former
Le Figaro
editor.”

“And why, may I ask?”

“Because, Monsieur Caillot, there didn’t seem to be any other way to see you. You see this ‘couple in cahoots’ you described in the article are my parents.” She stood up. “No one will talk to me.” She sat back down, put her elbows on his desk, and leaned forward. “The only files available have been sanitized. At least your article makes me think so. So far, your piece has been the only one to surface.”

“You lied to get in here,” Caillot said, returning her gaze. His glass eye was fixed on a spot below the mole on her neck.

“D’accord,”
she agreed. “But I didn’t know what else to do. I need to know about Action-Réaction, Haader-Rofmein terrorists still wanted by Europol, Romain Figeac, and agit888.”

“Impressive,” he said. “You’ve been doing some homework.”

Metal rods behind his back caught the light as he leaned forward. She realized he sat in a wheelchair.

“Not enough,” she said. “Help me out, please.”

“Why do you think I’m down here, Mademoiselle … what was your name?”

“Aimée Leduc.” She pulled out her detective’s badge and
carte d’identité
with the less than flattering photo. “I’m guessing, but after Enskillen you wanted to let it all settle. Write a book.”

“It’s being printed as we speak. You’re quick.” He gave her another lopsided smile. “Why should I help you, even if I could?”

“You didn’t get into reporting to stay safe,” she said. “It’s all about risks. Finding something, trying out hunches until one pays off. Like a detective.”

The lid over his glass eye quivered.

“What evidence did you find?” she said, leaning over his desk.

“Don’t badger me,” he said. “I’m a pro.”

She wanted to say,
So am I
, but she didn’t feel like one.

“Please tell me where you got your information,” she said. “Then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Know anybody at the DST?”

Her mind raced. “No one who likes me.”

He tented his fingers. Tapped his index fingers together.

“I’m curious what you’d do with the information,” he said, leaning back in his wheelchair, “if I had any to give.”

She had to make him understand. And there was only one way. Something she hated to do. Reveal herself to a stranger.

“Monsieur Caillot, one day, when I was eight, I came home from school and my mother was gone,” she said. “Papa burned her things. Told me we’d closed a chapter in our life and started another. Wouldn’t talk about her.”

She rubbed her goose-pimpled arms. “Years later, during a routine surveillance contracted for with our detective agency by the police, our van blew up. Papa died. No one gave me any reasons or answers. For years I’ve tried to find out who these terrorists were. All I reached was dead ends. My last shot, an informer in Berlin, gave me zip. But when I returned a few days ago, a former terrorist, Jutta Hald, appeared at my door—straight from a twenty-year prison sentence—telling me she’d been my mother’s cell mate in Frésnes.”

Jacques Caillot’s hands remained tented. His odd gaze never left her face.

“Somehow, searching for leads to my father’s death triggered the arrival of this terrorist who knew my mother. Then Jutta Hald was murdered. But that’s just the beginning, Monsieur Caillot,” she said. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me what you know and how you found it out.”

“But you still haven’t said what you’ll do with the information.”

“All I want to know is who was behind my father’s death and if my mother’s buried in some lime pit in a field or alive in Africa.”

“Africa?”

“It’s personal, Monsieur … I need to know if they’re connected …”

“You mean …?”

“If she caused my father to be killed.” There. She’d said it, then she hung her head. When she looked up, he hadn’t moved. “Guess I’m stubbborn, but I have to know and I won’t leave until you tell me.”

“There are a few life lessons I’ve learned,” he said. “Important ones: When you find the love of your life, never hesitate, grab her; brush and floss every night; and don’t mess with the DST.”

“Thanks for the warning,” she said. “I thought Papa’s files were at the
police judiciare
.”

“You’re not wearing a wire, eh?”

“Wired? Only on espresso,” she said. She stood up, took off her hat, and opened her backpack. “But you can check.”

He paused, then shook his head. “If you mention anything outside this thick-walled dungeon, I’ll deny it all.”

Dungeon was right.

“You have my word.”

Caillot took a deep breath. “Don’t think I’m proud of the afternoon I spent on rue Nelaton more than twenty years ago.” He shrugged. “But I was starting out, a hungry reporter, ready to chew on anything. Sounds trite, but live and learn.”

“Rue Nelaton,” Aimée said, “you mean where the DST’s housed in the former Elf Oil building?” Aimée had long since dropped off a request to see her father’s files at the Ministry of Interior located in the unmarked building constructed over the Vel d’Hiver, the velodrome that held Jews before shipment to Drancy, then the long train ride to Auschwitz.

“Exactement,”
he said. “They refer to it as
politesse
or good manners. Very simple, very civilized. Upon invitation, a journalist gets access to files the
flics
or the DST wants them to see. But the real agenda is that the story the
flics
want published gets published.”

“Selective leaks?”

“From selective files,” he said. “Your papa, a
flic
, would’ve understood. Take the agit888 file. They trailed Sartre for years; tapped his phone, noted whom he met, where he went. On the surface it looks suspicious, eh? A thick surveillance log, reels of phone tapes, hidden photos … and what did it show? Basically, that he and Simone de Beauvoir had an unsatisfactory love life and he was in trouble with his publisher. Missed his deadlines.”

That dovetailed with what Morbier had told her about Sartre and agit888. And it made sense.

“But my mother probably translated Sartre’s interview in the jail with Haader, and that’s part of the agit888 file, isn’t it?”

“Another nail in Sartre’s coffin, but she didn’t figure in the file or I would have written that.”

So the agit888 file led nowhere.

“What about my father?”

“Same analogy applies,” Caillot said. “Fingers pointed at him after an art heist. They left me in a room with his file and some Action-Réaction articles mentioning your mother. I figured they were helping me and I knew I’d have to repay them someday.”

“So they used you,” Aimée said.

“That’s clear now, but then …” His voice trailed off.

“Did you repay them?”

He rearranged a foam pad on the arm of his chair. “After my tour of duty in the world’s hot spots I came home to a secure job. Or so I thought. But they had another assignment, “like old times,” they said. It backfired and I’m in a chair for life.”

She refrained from asking if that’s why he hid down here. “Did you find proof my father assisted in robberies?”

“For that, Mademoiselle, you’d have to look at
police judiciare
files … all I saw were the allegations of culpability. And that’s what I reported. Seems I did the damage they intended. Forgive me.”

He wheeled himself out from behind the desk. “For years it haunted me. I’m a reporter first of all. Word came out the investigation was dropped. Whether your father was dirty …” Caillot shrugged. “I don’t know. Sixty percent of the force is rumored to be. But I heard he landed on his feet, ran a detective agency. Again, I’m sorry.”

Caillot must have had a lot of time to think about the past. Aimée stood up.
“Merci.”

“Last advice: Narrow Africa down … try Senegal.”

She thought of Idrissa, who came from Senegal. “Why Senegal?”

“The economy’s more stable for
intellos
who become mercenaries.”

She tried questioning him further but that’s all he would say.

“I understand why you wrote the story, I might have done the same thing,” she said. “But I didn’t, and they’re my parents. Here’s my card, in case you want to talk later.”

It seemed as if all she’d been doing was giving her card to people. People who knew things but would tell her little.

She consulted the microfiche directory at the archive desk on the next floor, searching entries for mercenaries, Senegal, terrorists, and links between European terrorists.

What she found made her glad she’d looked. She’d never have found them otherwise. Few of these articles appeared in Internet archives. They only lived in dank vaults like this one. She copied the relevant ones.

A few hours later, copies in hand, she emerged, glad to feel the sun’s rays again. She pulled the scooter off the kickstand. While she’d been inside, a purple fluorescent sticker had been placed on it,
MESSY ART FOR THE MASSES
!

René would love that!

At a café on rue des Colonnes, a shady colonnaded arcade like the rue de Rivoli, she ordered
a double café crème
.

“Why not a
grenade?
” asked the man behind the counter, flicking a none too clean towel at a fly.

“Grenade?
”

“What we call a depth-charge espresso drink,” he said.