Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis (26 page)

“So you’ve got it all figured out, eh?”

“Figured out?” She shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

She didn’t know what else to say. She stood up, buttoned the tuxedo jacket, shouldered her bag, and walked to the door.

“Still not going to tell me, Leduc?”

She froze. “Tell you what?”

Hiding the baby? Finding Vavin’s body? There was so much she’d kept from him. She wished she could confide in him, like she had before.

“Leduc, you there?”

She turned to face him. But he sat shaking his head, in disgust or anger, she couldn’t tell. When he looked up, she saw the redness of his eyes and the pouches under them. And, for a moment, she saw him for the hard-working, aging man he was. And the one constant in her life, her father’s old partner, whose pigheadedness time hadn’t tempered. Others came and went, but Morbier was always there.

“Leduc, I covered for you . . . the hole in the Seine . . .”

She cringed. So he knew about that. Would they make her pay for the damage?

“Don’t ask me to go out on a limb. Again!”

“You’re focusing on me, Morbier. Focus on that
salaud
Gabriel, who set the bomb.“ She fixed her eyes on him. “It’s not MondeFocus, not Krzysztof or Nelie. It’s those who employed Gabriel. It’s Halkyut and the ones who hired them.”

“I know,” he said, a thaw in his voice. “That’s the problem.”

She felt vibrations shaking the table. Noticed Morbier’s hands clutching the edges.

“You OK, Leduc?”

Startled, she nodded. What had come over him?

“Remember the pool in Butte aux Cailles?” he said, a distant look in his eyes.

A faded image of cracked yellow tiles, spring water feeding into a pool. She hadn’t thought of that in years.

“She insisted you take swimming lessons,” he said, an unreadable look in his eyes. “She overrode your father’s objections. She took you every week, even talked me into it a few times.”

Aimée’s gut wrenched as she remembered the smile on the carmine red lips greeting her as she emerged from the swimming pool and the feel of the dry towel her mother held to wrap around her.

“Maman?”

Her American mother, the woman Morbier never mentioned.

“For once in her life she was right,” he said with a sad smile. “It’s a good thing she made you take swimming lessons.”

“Are you going to tell me something about her that I don’t know?”

“She always said you had to learn to take care of yourself. And you can. But now it’s time to stop.”

“Where did
Maman
go, Morbier? I . . . if you know something, tell me. I can take it.” She clenched her fists and fought back tears. “If she’s dead, just . . . can’t you just say it?”

He stared. “Now’s the time for you to step away, let us handle it. It’s too dangerous, Leduc. Will you stop?”

Bargain . . . this was the bargain. The powers that be had warned Morbier off. He’d asked for her help in nailing Monde-Focus, Krzysztof, and Nelie, but she’d tied Gabriel to the bombs and Halkyut. René and Saj would find documentation, proof, they had to. And now Morbier wanted her to back off.

“Even for you, this is low,” she said, her shoulders tensing. “Going along with them!”

“It’s for your own sake, Leduc,” he said.

Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t turn Nelie in. And she wouldn’t hand Stella over to the authorities.

“Why don’t you find a man, have babies, do what other people do?”

She averted her eyes. If only he knew. “That’s rich coming from you, Morbier.”

He’d lost custody of his grandson, Marc, to the other grandparents who lived in Morocco after his estranged daughter was killed in Belleville.

“Once and for all, will you do as I say if I tell you what you want to know, Leduc?”

She yearned to know so much it hurt. But he was trying to manipulate her. Nothing came for free from Morbier.

“Not on your terms, Morbier,” she said. “I don’t negotiate about
Maman
. Either you tell me because it’s the decent thing to do, or you don’t.”

“You make everything so difficult, Leduc.” Morbier sighed.

“You’re just dangling a carrot in front of me to get me to do what you want. You don’t know anything more about her, do you?”

Morbier said, “Your swimming saved you. It’s nothing to do with ‘them’ or this snake pit of an investigation.”

But he was wrong. Abandoning Stella, turning Nelie in were too much like her own mother’s case. She had to get out of this room, this Commissariat, with all the memories it held, before she broke down.

“You can’t ignore the video, Morbier. You saw it. Someone trumped up a plan to brand Orla and Nelie as terrorists for blocking some trucks in La Hague. They want all the ecological protesters stopped, or denounced as violent agitators. I won’t let it rest,” she said, reaching for the ice pack. “I’m leaving.”

He met her gaze full on. “I don’t know if your mother is alive or not.”

“That’s all?”

Morbier tented his fingers. Again he had that unreadable expression in his eyes.

“Your father took you to the Klee exhibition in the Palais Royal on your fourteenth birthday, remember?”

A Sunday afternoon, the crowds, and her father’s arm through hers, holding her tight. His nervous talk, none of his usual jokes about art. She remembered sitting in the café, looking out to the Palais Royal fountain, then blowing out the candle on a slice of chocolate
gâteau ganache
.

“She wanted to see you.”

Aimée stared, speechless. And the walls seemed to shift. Her lip quivered. This talk of her mother . . . was it true?

Morbier’s shoulders slumped. “She’d been deported, banned from reentry. It was dangerous for her. If she was in the crowd, he didn’t see her.”

Her mother had wanted to see her.

“That’s it.”

She found her voice, a whisper. “How did Papa know?”

“An arrangement, letters. He tore them up. End of story.”

His words cut her to the bone. She blinked, determined not to let him see her cry. Her mother had risked her freedom and had been in contact with her father . . . yet he’d never told her.

“I’ll question Gabriel,” Morbier said. “No promises.”

“Merci.”

Her throat tightened and she nodded. Morbier looked even older now.

She felt numb. She’d think about this later. She made her feet move. Now she had to protect Stella.

AIMÉE SQUARED HER shoulders and nodded to the policewoman behind the desk. She crossed the worn marble floor that smelled, as always, of industrial-strength pine-scented cleaning fluid. Each tap of her heels echoed off the limestone walls. Orla’s face in the morgue, an injured Nelie on the video, Stella’s flushed peach cheeks, and her own mother’s almost forgotten face spun in her head.

A few Commissariat casement windows were lit, and a blue-uniformed
flic
guarded the courtyard door at street level. She needed to clear her head, to try to fit the pieces together as she walked along the quai. The last vestiges of the night clung to the sky. Warm wind, the gravel crunching under her heels, the muted cry of a seagull.

But she couldn’t think straight. She’d been rocked to her core, set adrift, as the memories flooded her. She hunched down against a stone wall. The lone pigeon pecking on the gravel ignored her. She covered her face with her hands, tears wet her cheeks. Her mother had risked everything for a chance to see her and she hadn’t even known. Her father had never told her. Nor Morbier.

And Nelie . . . what was she risking to save her baby?

She was still overcome, her thoughts jumbled, when she heard the whoosh of a street-cleaning truck. She had no idea how long she’d sat there but her face and jacket were wet with tears. Stella, she reminded herself, she had to get back to Stella.

Aimée grew aware of the cell phone ringing in her pocket.

She answered it, wiping her nose. She heard loud buzzing.

“Where are you?” Claude’s concerned voice was breaking up into static. “I’m worried . . . looked for you . . .”

He’d
deserted
her, left her with those
mecs
. She’d thought he was different.

“I made a deal and got Krzysztof immunity; why didn’t you help me convince him to stay?” she asked. Why did you run away? she wanted to ask him, but she bit back the words.

“I couldn’t, Aimée,” Claude said. The line had cleared. ”I’m involved with the eco freedom trail. People depend on me, a whole network. I cannot get involved with the
flics
.”

A chain of safe houses for ecoterrorists on the lam, she realized. But then why wouldn’t Nelie have used it? Or maybe she had?

“Do you mean Nelie’s there—”

“No,” he interrupted. “She’s gone underground but no one knows where.”

The reason must have to do with Stella and the ink marks on the skin under her arm. She remembered Krzysztof’s words—Nelie had told him there was a doctor’s report

“Let me talk to Krzysztof.”

“He jumped off my bike and ran into the Métro. He said he’ll take care of it his way,” Claude told her. “I couldn’t stop him.”

He, too, had run like a scared rabbit.

The line was clearer now.

“Aimée, are you all right? What’s happened?” he asked, breathless.

“Why did this
mec
Gabriel demand Nelie’s baby?” she said.

In the silence she could hear the sputtering of the motorcycle engine.

“Who knows?

“France2 has news footage showing Nelie and Orla at the demonstration.”

“You saw it?”

“But there was no baby with them,” she said.

“The march erupted into chaos. But . . . ,”

Claude paused.

“He didn’t work alone, right? Now you may be in as much danger as Nelie and her baby.”

He was right.

“Gabriel didn’t believe that we would give him the disc; he wanted the baby. Otherwise why did he show up?” she said. “But at least we accomplished something: he’s headed across the river to La Santé.”

“What do you mean?” Something had changed in Claude’s voice.

“Gabriel skipped a meeting with his parole officer, so he’ll be locked up,” she said.

Her head ached, the muscles in her legs had cramped, and tiredness flooded her body.

“Claude,” she said. “I have to go.”

“You’ve gotten under my skin,” he said, his voice low and hesitant. “I’ve never met anyone like you. We’re alike, you know . . . we share so much.”

She wished she weren’t attracted to him.

“Stay at my place. At least I know you’ll be safe with me,” he said. ”I’ll make sure of that.”

She pictured his warm studio, imagined his arms around her, his musky sandalwood scent. But with René and Saj working on the incriminating files and the babysitter having to leave, her duty was clear. She had to care for Stella; she had to protect her.

“
Merci,
but I can’t, Claude,” she said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Promise me you’ll come to stay with me?”

How could she? With Stella?

“Aimée, you asked me to trust you. Now I’m asking you to trust me.”

“I want to.”

“Then you’ll come?” he breathed into the phone.

“I don’t know, Claude.”

Before she could change her mind, she turned off the phone. Aimée stood and made her tired legs walk. A block later she found a cruising taxi. She collapsed against the leather seat and then realized her wallet was empty.

At the Paribas cash machine, with the taxi waiting on the curb, she took out half of what Vavin had given her. She had to pay Mathilde overtime. They’d barely limp by for the rest of the month unless René worked wonders and snagged the Fontainebleau account.

Conscious of the blur of the street lamps on the quai, the almost-deserted, rain-chased streets, the hint of dawn in the faint ribbon lightening the sky, she leaned back. At least she could tip the taxi driver who’d gotten her to Martine’s in record time.

She took a deep breath, trudged up the red-carpeted stairs, and rang Martine’s bell.

Martine opened the door In a leopard-print silk robe, cigarette dangling from her mouth, relief in her eyes. “You’ve got more lives than a cat! You scared me, Aimée. I thought—”

“Next time keep your phone on, Martine,” Aimée said.

“Damn thing’s battery ran down.” Martine hugged her hard and put the cigarette between Aimée’s lips. “Want a hit? You deserve it. Believe it or not, Jadwiga Radziwill, the celebrated anarchist, provided an interesting take on your explosion.”

“I thought she was dead,” Aimée said.

“At first, with all that makeup, it was hard to tell. But Deroche broke a sweat talking to her, then summoned his minions to a hurried caucus. I love to see those CEOs . . . well, you can tell me about it.”

All Aimée wanted was to see Stella and sleep.

“In the morning I will, I promise. And I need to meet with Daniel Ristat. But right now I need—”

“To sleep,
d’accord
.” Martine kept her arm around Aimée as she walked her down the hall and then helped her out of her clothes. “Mathilde’s asleep. Shall I wake her?”

The last things Aimée remembered were putting francs into Mathilde’s bag and then curling up on the Babar sheets next to a sweet-smelling Stella.

Thursday Morning

HE STARED AT the headlines of
Le Parisien
displayed at the news kiosk. MYSTERY WOMAN SAVES A HUNDRED LIVES—EXPLOSION ROCKS THE SEINE.

Merde!
He flicked his cigarette onto the pavement, ground it out with his foot, and read the article.
The woman, who was wearing a feather-trimmed jacket, and claimed to be affiliated in an unexplained manner with the press, has not been found. The Brigade Fluviale continues to dredge the Seine. . . .

Another screwup.

He’d told Halkyut to quit recruiting lowlifes. Had they listened? Not according to the front-page article.
Le Monde,
a more news-oriented publication, said:
Oil conference: Alstrom presence plagued by eco-group militants, bomb scares, and oil platform pollution rumors.

The man reached into his blue trouser pocket, took out a coin, and threw it on the counter.

“Genocide in Rwanda, impending Metro strike . . . but this . . . at least there’s some good news in the world, eh, Monsieur?” the smiling vendor said.

“A real bright spot.” He almost ripped
Le Monde
as he unfolded the front page, looking for the story and its continuation. He read:

Oil conference executives, attending a reception at the historic Hôtel Lambert, hosted by Mathieu Deroche, CEO of Alstrom, expecting to hear an oil rights agreement with the Ministry announced, watched in horror as a woman disposed of explosives in the Seine. The third bomb threat in two days, and the murder of an executive of Regnault, Alstrom’s high-powered publicity firm, sent shock waves through the oil-producing community. The second bomb threat, a hoax, at l’Institut du Monde Arabe, was attributed to MondeFocus, which denied responsibility, and has now been blamed on a splinter peace group. However, insiders reveal that a bomb threat delivered to M. Deroche was meant to highlight the questionable practices of Alstrom, France’s largest refiner of petroleum. An oil conference source expressed disbelief that a peace organization would use such “terrorist tactics,” insisting an inquiry be launched into Alstrom’s recent freighter accident in the North Sea. Preliminary explosive experts’ findings reveal that the unsophisticated pipe bombs used lacked a timing ignition device, indicating that the danger was in part simulated. Unconfirmed reports indicate that static electricity was the cause of the ignition. An unnamed MondeFocus spokesman said, “Disinformation and bomb hoaxes were used by Alstrom to distract attention from the underlying issues of toxic waste and environmental pollution.”

The man crumpled the paper, tossing it into a nearby trash bin. He had to fix everything himself. He patted the Beretta in his inside jacket pocket and blended in with the commuters rushing down the Metro steps.