Murder in the Sentier (21 page)

Thursday Night

A
IMÉE’S CELL PHONE VIBRATED
on her hip.

“Allô?”

“Have you found Idrissa yet?” Christian asked.

Finally!

“Where have you been, Christian? You didn’t show up at your appointment to meet Etienne or at the bank. I’ve been calling you,” she said. “Your father’s editor, Vigot, knows more than he’s saying about—”

“I know,” Christian interrupted, his voice slurred. “Forget that … Idrissa’s in trouble.”

“Forget it?” she asked, angered at being brushed off. “Do you know if Vigot’s got your father’s manuscript?”

“No, but Vigot said …”

She heard a muffled sound, as if Christian had put his hand over the phone.

And then he hung up.

Worried, she hit the call-back button but the line was busy. Was he doped up and in trouble himself?

She’d keep trying his number as she headed toward Mala’s apartment to find Idrissa.

No one answered the doorbell. Club Exe was a block away, maybe she’d find Mala there.

The club’s narrow entrance on rue Poissonnière smelled of disinfectant. A sure sign of a health inspection or the rumor of one, Aimée thought. Clubs also spiffed up when they were nervous about immigration authority visits.

“I’d like to speak with Mala,” said Aimée.

“She’s not working tonight.”

Great!

“Seen Idrissa Diaffa?”

“Not here anymore,” the voice said. Only a brown elongated neck was visible above the man’s red, yellow, and green Rasta-style tank top. His face was hidden by the Club Exe’s cracked ticket-booth shade. Pounding techno music sounded from within.

“But the advertisement says she’s still here.” Aimée pointed to the sign. Club Exe advertised Tuesdays through Thursdays as “acoustic nights with Idrissa, accompanied on the
kora
by Ousmane.”

“That’s old … but there’s music upstairs,” the voice said. “Remix downstairs. Either way, thirty francs.”

“Pas de problème,”
she said. Fine, she’d see if anyone knew Idrissa’s whereabouts or whether Ousmane had any idea where she was.

She passed the francs over worn wood. A brown hand took hers and stamped her wrist with the image of a red skeleton key. Inside, the techno beat amped up, savaging Aimée’s ears. Several men with dreadlocks leaned on the bar, an old converted zinc. They nodded at her while sipping orange
punch gingembre
, a Senegalese drink packing a rum wallop.

She found the back stairs. By the rear kitchen, she smelled and heard the hiss of palm oil spattering in a pan. The cook, his back to her, stood tasting a pot of
tibouaiénne
fish and rice.

On the next landing, past the public telephone, was a room with a small stage at the end. Patrons sat on banquettes around tables below smoky mirrors lining the walls. Some ate, most drank. It was a mixed crowd: young and old, white and black, listening to the strains of griot-inspired music. An old man wearing a long striped orange robe and what looked like a red velvet pillbox hat played the
kora
. He bore no resemblance to Ousmane in the photo with Idrissa.

He sang and plucked at the smooth calabash gourd backed by animal skin. Strings held in place by metal studs went up the long-necked instrument.

Aimée saw no sign of Idrissa. She walked down the side hall and peered backstage. A young woman, short braids poking from her curly hair, stacked rolls of napkins and paper goods over a bricked-in mantel.

“
Bonsoir
, I’m looking for Idrissa,” she said.

The woman shrugged, then moved her hands in what Aimée figured was sign language.

“Muette?”

The woman nodded. She was mute.

“Ousmane Sada?”

The woman picked up a flyer and pointed to the name Mbouela, a
kora
player “direct from Côte d’Ivoire.” “So, Ousmane’s gone?” Aimée asked.

The young woman nodded.

“What about Idrissa?” Aimée asked, pointing toward a dressing room. Maybe there’d be someone in there who knew her.

The woman shrugged.

“Merci.”
Aimée smiled. “I’ll just have a quick look.”

The young woman returned to stacking paper goods.

The rectangular dressing room lay empty except for the costume of a clown in black and white, a Pierrot. Large windows overlooked the peaks of a wrought-iron-and-glass roof. Beyond that lay the tiled rooftops of the Sentier.

“The bitch … ,” Aimée heard someone mutter, “where is she?”

She heard a crash as something fell to the floor. She didn’t feel like waiting around to see whom they were looking for. She ducked out the open window. Below her spread the long glass-covered roof of Passage du Caire, the oldest passage in Paris.

On her left was an outdoor spiral staircase, remnant of an old conduit to the quarters above the passage where shop owners lived. She stepped out of the window and reached across to the outdoor metal staircase, pulled herself up by the railing, and climbed over. By the time she’d descended the stairs and reached the passage, the shop owners had long since closed and locked their doors. She made it out to the small triangular square of Place Ste-Foy.

Aimée looked back but no one had followed her. She paused at the dead end of rue Saint Spire. Where had Idrissa gone? She’d found no answers at the club or when she tried phoning her friend’s apartment. If Idrissa was in danger, Aimée didn’t know how to help her or where to look next.

And what did Christian’s comment about Vigot mean? She hit the call-back button. But the phone rang and rang. No answer.

Stumped, Aimée sat down on a green bench, the Passage du Caire behind her, and pulled out her notepad. Her mother remained a mystery. As did everything else.

The Place Ste-Foy lay quiet: the cafe s and wholesale clothing shops shuttered, plastic bags filled to bursting with cloth remnants and overflowing green garbage bins propped under the trees. The only sign of life was a young boy kicking a soccer ball under the watchful eye of an old woman, who wore a babushka. Aimée wondered what the child was doing up so late. Had it been too hot for him to sleep?

“
Attention
, Vanya,” the old woman said when his ball bounced against the stone walls of an occupied building. “Kick someplace else.”

A moped rode by, the tinny-sounding motor echoing in the square. Aimée heard its putt-putting as it sped into the distance. Only an occasional prostitute with her client turned into the ancient Passage Ste-Foy under the Roseline clothing sign.

Above her, dim lights from the narrow medieval apartments dotted the night. She thought Atget, who photographed the place in the 1900s, would probably still recognize the square. In a
quartier
with no green spaces but these few skinny trees, this warm pocket, Aimée realized, comprised nature and park to a
titi
like Vanya.

On the graph-patterned notebook page, she wrote three names, Christian, Romain, and Idrissa, and put question marks next to them. After Christian’s name she wrote “dope” and “guilt,” then connected the arrows to Romain. Christian had assumed responsibility for his father’s suicide but his father had been murdered.

She connected Jutta and her mother and wrote “Labordecache—Modigliani paintings?” None of this made any sense. Tired, she figured she better sleep on it. Aimée shouldered her bag and stood. The babushka’s tone rose in anger. The young boy had kicked the ball into a garbage bag, knocking it over. Scraps and garbage swirled in the breeze, littering the deserted square. Cloth bits blew by Aimée’s sandals. She looked over. At first she thought she saw the torso of a dummy, a mannequin. She stared.

A black mannequin.

Something was wrong.

Aimée ran over as the babushka screamed, covering the boy’s eyes with her hands. Aimée tried to shield their view.

The dreadlocks twined with cowrie shells and yellow and red beads were familiar. Very familiar. Idrissa!

Aimée gasped. The half-open eyes were visible. There was a band of
toche noire
, a reddish brown tissue, across the pupils. Not a pretty sight. But a drying effect she recalled from premed.

She must have been killed several hours ago. Her face was distorted, her neck cocked at an impossible angle. Poor Idrissa, what a waste.

She knelt down. Something looked peculiar.

Peeling the bag lower, she saw dried rivulets of blood. But it wasn’t Idrissa.

It was a man. A man who’d been in the picture with Idrissa at Club Exe. Ousmane, the
kora
player.

Don’t get involved, she told herself.

Ahead, on rue Ste-Foy, she heard the whine of the late night garbage truck. Before the truck hit the square, she took a good look at the man. The pink bra and garter belt he wore were too large. Like an afterthought, Aimée figured. To make him look the Saint Denis type, on the off chance this bag, destined for the garbage truck, might be opened and the body found.

“We have to get the
flics
,” she said, still trying to shield the boy.

Fear shone in the old woman’s eyes. She shook her head, clutching him. She didn’t know or want to know. Maybe she had no papers.

“
S’il vous plaît
, before the trashmen come!”

Aimée didn’t want to do this. Get involved with this.

But the woman backed up, pulling the boy. What could Aimée do? The woman hobbled toward Passage du Caire. No time to follow them.

She’d been looking for Idrissa and now she’d found her accompanist. Why had Idrissa’s partner been killed? Had the killer made a mistake?

A
IMÉE DRUMMED
her heels on the 2nd arrondissement Commissariat floor. She sat inside a smudged glassed-in cubicle with scuffed walls, her hands on the wooden desk. Crumpled paper cups and memos filled the metal garbage can. On the duty binder was a stenciled memo, “Don’t forget the ten fingers of procedure!”

“Where’s Sergeant Mand?” Aimée asked. “I’d like to speak with him.”

“En vacances,”
the on-duty
flic
answered.

Too bad. She’d made her first Communion with his daughter. Knew the family well. She’d lost a baby molar down their bathroom drain.

“Let me get this right,” the
flic
from the
découvertes de cadavres
unit said, pausing with his two fingers on the typewriter. “You found the body and recognized her?”

He really meant how would she recognize an African,
un noir
.

“A him, it’s a man.” Aimée didn’t want to admit she’d been looking for Idrissa. Didn’t want to tell him why.

“
Voilà
, a man,” the
flic
said. “Then how did you recognize him?”

“He’s well known in
nouvelle
griot music,” she said. “I’ve heard him with his partner at Club Exe.” The stale air and cigarette smoke made her nose itch. Itch for a cigarette.

“Let’s see, you give your address as 17, Quai d’Anjou on Ile St. Louis.” He pecked at the keyboard, not looking up. “What were you doing in the Sentier?”

She wanted to say
None of your business.
But in reality it was.

Flics
could stop you any place, any time, demand your identification, and hold you on suspicion. Suspicion of anything.

“Going to get my nails done,” she said. She thrust her chipped red fingernails at him. “A disaster, eh? My friend has a nail salon.”

“Not much stays open this late in the Sentier.”

True. She thought quickly.

“But on rue Saint Denis, the girls stay open day and night, right? Who’s investigating the case?”

“Right now I am, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said, his tone bored. “As I’m sure you’re aware, the
police judiciare
takes charge and will confer with
le proc
,
^*
when she gets here.”

“
Le proc
, here? But that’s unusual,” she said. Normally, the
flics
submitted the evidence
dossier
to him or her at the Palais de Justice. Rarely did one get involved in investigation legwork.

“Unusual … good word,” said the
flic
, nodding in agreement. He scratched the back of his neck. “Life’s unusual these days. Especially with everyone on vacation!”

“The victim’s not a
pute
,” she said. “Nor a transvestite. He’s a musician!”

^*
Procurer de la Républic—the state prosecutor.

“I’m glad we have your word for it,” he said, even more bored.

After ten minutes the
flic
gave her a typed statement to read. There were plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes. But she thought better of bringing them to his attention.

She was about to sign when loud shuffling sounds came from the corridor. A middle-aged man was escorted to the other desk in the small cubicle.

He gripped the frayed plastic armrest, then sat down with measured slowness. His ashen pallor contrasted with his grease-stained black fingers.

“Now if you’ll sign this,” the
flic
said, irritation in his voice, “you’ll have done your civic duty and I can end my shift, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Aimée saw the man’s body jerk. After she’d signed and looked up, she realized he was staring at her. Staring with disbelief.

Like Georges and Frédo at Action-Réaction.

Again a shiver went up her spine.

“Monsieur Pascal Ourdours, residing in Conflans, Cergy Préfecture,” said the blue-uniformed
flic
, reading his ID. “Pretty late for you to drive so far to your home, eh?”

“Not really,” the man said.

“Can you explain your reason for being on rue des Jeûners?”

He sat, rodlike. “Visiting friends, like I told the officer.”

“Did you see anyone running in that vicinity?”

But Aimée never heard his answer. The
flic
tugged her arm, indicating she should give up her seat to a miniskirted, blue-eye-shadowed middle-aged woman tapping her worn sandals.