Murder at the Lanterne Rouge ali-12 Page 13

  She peered inside at Coulade’s replacement. A tall, blond man gathered papers from the podium. If she hurried she’d manage a few words with him.

  Shoulders jostled her. By the time she’d negotiated the stampede of outgoing students, she no longer saw him.

  “Mademoiselle, you dropped this.”

  The man held up Samour’s book.

  Azure-blue eyes, a grin. Muscular shoulders under his denim jacket. Good-looking in a Nordic way, and an engineering genius to boot, she figured.

  “Merci. I heard from Coulade you took over the seminar.” She thought fast. “You’re Pascal Samour’s colleague?”

  “Pascal’s my old Gadz’Arts classmate.” His eyes flickered in pain. “Such a tragedy. I still can’t understand it.”

  “Gadz’Arts?”

  “Silly term.” He shook his head. “It’s from gars des arts, guys from the arts. Just what we call ourselves. But we graduates remain close. Our training and traditions bind us like family.” He shrugged. “That’s why I wanted to help out.”

  “So this adult school and your grande école are connected?”

  “Confusing, I know,” he said with a small smile. “This school was originally charged with collecting inventions and gradually became an educational institution, a grand établissement, a loose affiliation to us at Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers. Liken this to an adult trade school granting doctoral degrees.”

  She wondered at an engineer from an elite school teaching in an adult trade school. Service to the community?

  But he knew Samour. This man was no doubt a source of information. And he had a test to give.

  She smiled. “Do you have time for a aperitif later?”

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. He handed her his card, a slow smile spreading over his face. Jean-Luc Narzac, Communications Division, Frelnex.

  The telecom giant.

  “Not that I’d turn down an apéro with a woman like you, but why?”

  “It’s regarding your classmate, Samour.”

  “You work in the Conservatoire, Mademoiselle?”

  Not yet. But it gave her an idea. “A consultant. I’ll explain. Tonight?”

  The hall buzzer sounded. Students tramped and engulfed them. He checked his watch.

  “Let’s say nine P.M.”

  In the ten minutes it took to reach Pascal Samour’s street, Aimée came up with a plan and made three phone calls, one of them to the Musée des Arts et Métiers. She scanned Pascal’s building on rue Béranger. The dark-blue doors hung open, revealing a long, cobbled courtyard. The concierge was making a half-hearted attempt to sweep the slush to the gutter. The scraping noise grated in Aimée’s ears.

  A typical late Saturday afternoon on rue Béranger, the inroads of les bobos, the bourgeois-bohèmes. Families braved the crisp cold to guide toddlers on tricycles; middle-aged women in long down coats with shopping carts returned from the market. Newspaper delivery trucks double-parked mid-block outside Libération’s headquarters, near an indie art gallery. A leashed dog sniffed a lamppost, and a mufflered child laughed and ran ahead of his parents. Another world from Chinatown only a few blocks away.

  Inside the cavern-like portal, she glanced at the mailboxes, high-security tungsten with each resident’s name in neat, black capital letters. SAMOUR, PASCAL, she noted. Escalier C, 3ème étage.

  The concierge, trim for his fifties, set the shovel against the mailboxes with a thump. He squinted curiously.

  “Looking for someone, Mademoiselle?”

  In all the wrong places, she almost said.

  No reason to share her goal of a murdered resident’s apartment. Sooner or later, she hoped much later, the flics would affix the notice with telltale red wax signifying a deceased resident and seal the apartment.

  “Why, I just found my friend’s apartment … Escalier C.” She flashed a bright smile. “Bonne soirée, Monsieur.”

  She stepped past him into the courtyard. Escalier C, the last on the left, was a circular, tower-like outcrop with a dizzying climb of seven stories. The polished brown stairs, sagging from wear in the middle, wound upward like a snail shell. This rear area around the courtyard had to be seventeeth-century if not older, she thought. And not remodeled since then.

  On the third floor she caught her breath, found the longhandled key under the flowerpot. Anxious, she let herself in. In contrast to his great-aunt’s flat, Pascal’s was a cold room with a high-timbered ceiling.

  Ransacked too.

  She gasped. An IKEA bookcase overturned, a drawing table upside down, an armoire open, shirts and jackets littering the floor.

  She reached for her keys, bunching them between her fingers, and scanned for an intruder. But the door had been locked, she remembered.

  In the galley kitchen, emptied spice bottles and spilled pasta were strewn over the counter. Iron sconces on the stone walls held broken candles. Behind a battered bamboo screen she found an overturned iron bed frame, sprinkled goose feathers from a ripped duvet, a slashed mattress with ticking bulging out.

  Living in a tower didn’t appear comfortable. Even the destroyed furniture gave off an unlived-in feel.

  For twenty minutes she searched every nook and cranny in the single, cold room. No laptop. No green dossier.

  She needed to put the little she knew together. Yet what good would that do, if the killer had the laptop or whatever Pascal wanted her to find? Non, she needed to think as Pascal would. Or at least try to.

  A geek with searing intelligence, a highly trained technical engineer from a grande école, a loner. A man who taught at an adult trade school when his fellow graduates took jobs in high positions at companies like Frelnex.

  Pascal, afraid for his life, had left a message two weeks ago instructing its recipient to find a green file, come to his apartment, and talk to Becquerel. But Becquerel had died. Hence, she figured, his repeated messages to Coulade yesterday.

  And no green file. Or fourteenth-century document.

  But why make it all so mysterious? Why not give concrete details? Unless …

  Something happened yesterday. Unable to update Coulade, he’d seeded info in several locations. Pieces of a damned puzzle.

  Yet, to find what?

  A project his great-aunt had mentioned—concerning a museum file he’d told Coulade he’d discovered.

  Frustrated, Aimée righted a chair by the window and noticed blue dust on her fingers. She smelled it. Chalk dust.

  She paused at the lead-framed window and, with her gloved hands, opened it and pushed the shutters back. The view gave way to scattered low buildings, the crescent edge of a courtyard, a glass-roofed atelier below. The approaching dusk darkened exposed patches of earth. Unusual to find open space in a dense quartier like this, where every meter was utilized.

  But more unusual were the diagrams in blue chalk on the curved stone wall below. Blue chalk lines intersected and arced in what reminded her of a star chart. An amateur astronomer, a stargazer? But she saw no telescope, no binoculars.

  A configuration. But of what she had no clue.

  Pascal would be a puzzle lover, she figured. A dreamer, Coulade had said.

  But driven and edgy in his work? If this was a guide, a map, she wondered again why he’d made it so difficult. Especially since he’d suspected the danger.

  Too clever for his own good? Or afraid of discovery and running out of time?

  She breathed in the cold air. Her mind cleared. The diagram was so familiar. But from where?

  She pulled out her palm-sized digital camera, René’s latest must-carry gadget, shot photos of the wall diagrams, a few of the room layout, the view from the window. If she hadn’t found answers here, she’d picked up a sense of how to look for them.

  She locked the apartment door behind her and descended to the ground level.

  Her breath caught.

  Prévost, a blue-uniformed flic, and a mec she recognized from Brigade Criminelle strode across the courtya
rd.

  She ducked into a cove containing garbage bins, crouched on the damp flagged floor behind a broken chair. Odors of last night’s fish clung in the corners.

  Prévost huddled in conversation with the plainclothes, who wore a bomber jacket just like Melac’s—a definite undercover trademark. After a long moment, the mec handed Prévost an envelope and jerked his thumb upward. Prévost turned on his heel and the man headed toward the tower entrance. And toward her.

  Pascal had left her the key, and his great-aunt had hired her to investigate. By all rights they’d given her access to the apartment. But try explaining that to la Crim or a flic. One she didn’t trust.

  They could accuse her of violating procedure, regulations, the order of the law, or of ransacking a victim’s apartment. With no time or desire to engage in semantics, she kept her head down, hoping her knees didn’t give out.

  Five minutes later, after the last footsteps sounded on the staircase above, she crossed the courtyard. She checked for Prévost or police presence on rue Béranger. None.

  Turning left, she headed toward her parked scooter and called René. René was better at puzzles, loved a challenge. His phone rang and rang. Too late, she remembered the hotel …

  “Can’t you give us some time, Aimée?” René answered, irritated.

  “Desolée, but it’s important,” she said, checking her Tintin watch. “You’re going to get a call.”

  “From who?”

  “I’m volunteering and you’re going to give me a stellar reference, René.”

  “Gone crazy, have you?” A sigh. “Consider our accounts, our security projects out for bid. Accounts who’ll pay real money.”

  “The volunteer coordinator from the Musée des Arts et Métiers will call, can you remember that? I’m volunteering to assist in digitizing the museum holdings during their renovation,” she said. “Pro bono, of course, a service to the community. Tell her how Leduc Detective welcomes opportunities to preserve history and culture for the next generations—”

  His line ticked.

  “Right on time.” She prayed this worked out. “A glowing recommendation, René.”

  She heard the click of heels behind her. A woman walked into an art gallery. “Call me back. I’m en route there now.”

  She shouldered her bag, double-looped her scarf, and turned the key in her scooter’s ignition.

  “Seems they’re desperate since the last volunteer left. You got the job,” René said, ten minutes later. “Digitizing the catalog collection, sorting through centuries.”

  She figured as much.

  “She wants to meet you. I said you’ve made time in your busy day, et cetera.” Pause. “This involves Pascal Samour, n’est-ce pas?”

  “Bien sûr. It’s the only way to find out.”

  “Find out who murdered him by volunteering at the museum?”

  “Long story, René.” The image of Pascal Samour’s corpse flashed in her mind. “I took the job. Five thousand francs retainer.” Not to mention Tso’s cash “retainer,” but she kept that to herself. “You in, René?”

  “The old lady reminds you of your grandfather, n’est-ce pas?”

  Maybe she did.

  “And Meizi’s still a suspect,” Aimée said.

  Pause. “I’m in. See you at the office in a few hours.”

  Saturday, 6 P.M.

  “OUR MUSEUM DEPARTMENT appreciates your donation of time and expertise,” said Madame Chomette, the curator, a tall, slender woman with white hair pulled back in a sleek ponytail. She was dressed head-to-toe in black, which highlighted the silver teardrop pendant hanging from her neck. “I think that’s all, Mademoiselle Leduc. It’s been a long day.”

  All? Aimée stared at three centuries of the Musée des Arts et Métiers’ cataloged holdings to digitize.

  “We hope you don’t mind the accommodation, as we can’t transport the documents. Legal issues.”

  Madame Chomette gestured to the alcove office carved out behind a Gothic strut pillar. Worn Latin was just visible in the floor paver. The extensive renovation of the museum revealed that the walls stripped down to eleventh-century stone. Thoroughly medieval, apart from the power strips and space heater.

  “Tomorrow we’ll have a desktop operational for you and functioning within the museum network.”

  Aimée wouldn’t hold her breath. After one look at the antiquated system, she’d decided to bring a laptop or three for backup.

  Now to the meat, and finding Samour’s project. “To prevent duplicating Monsieur Samour’s efforts, perhaps you could tell me where he left off?”

  She wondered if Madame Chomette was in on this, or a friend of Samour’s. Or both.

  “So sad. Such a loss.” The conservator paused. “But I’m new, on loan from the archives to finish things up by the reopening deadline.” She gave a small shrug. “I met Samour last week for five minutes. But each person who worked on this logged the details.”

  “Who did he work with?”

  Another shrug. Madame Chomette glanced at her watch. “He was a wonderful help, that’s the memo I got. I’m late for a meeting. Desolée.”

  Did this woman really not know? Aimée tried again. “I’m looking for a fourteenth century document.”

  “The museum building was a church until the sixteenth century, so our holdings don’t go back that far,” Madame Chomette said. “We concentrate on inventions and machines from the eighteenth century on.”

  “Could there have been another collection? A mistake? Or might it have been misfiled?”

  Madame Chomette shook her head. “Not to my knowledge.”

  Was Aimée some pawn in an elaborate setup? She wondered at how eagerly they’d accepted her services. Or was this more paranoia?

  “But open one of our storage cellars and you’d be amazed at what’s in there,” Madame Chomette said, perhaps noting the dismay on Aimée’s face. “Believe it or not, the Archives Nationales kept things here during the Occupation. It wouldn’t surprise me if some were left. In most cases no one’s looked at these things in a hundred years. We’re overwhelmed and so grateful for your generous offer. It’s a true gift, this expertise you’ll furnish.”

  Aimée believed the woman. Felt a brush of guilt for her ulterior motive, but groaned inside. It sounded like an exercise in futility. Still, she had to begin somewhere.

  “I’ll program a laptop and start tomorrow.”

  “Merci.” Looking again at her watch, Madame Chomette motioned her out. “Vardet, the security guard, will furnish your badge and outline security protocol.”

  Saturday, 6:30 P.M.

  COMMISSAIRE MORBIER NODDED to the driver of the unmarked police car. “Relay to dispatch that I’m detained. Breaking revelations in the investigation, the usual.”

  He’d miss another commissariat meeting he couldn’t afford to miss. Like every other hurry-up-and-wait bigwig caucus he’d missed in the throes of this damned investigation.

  “Compris, Sergeant?”

  Trained to cover Morbier’s ass, the driver nodded. Morbier glanced at his cell phone. Two calls from Aimée. Nothing he wanted to deal with now.

  He powered off his phone and slammed the car door. Set his shoulders for this grief-therapy session that Honfleur, the police psychologist, mandated. Otherwise he’d face a week at the stress unit “intensive” outside Paris. The last thing he wanted.

  His breath steamed in the cold, twilit air. He walked back a half block to the Sainte Elisabeth church in case the driver kept him in his rearview mirror. Morbier gripped the stair railing, taking each ice-slicked step one at a time. I’m just another old man, he thought, frustrated, terrified to break a hip. All of a sudden the thick, carved wooden doors slapped open. Two laughing boys ran out like rifle shots, just missing his leg.

  Had he ever been that young, or moved so fast? He straightened up in the cold church vestibule. Melted candle wax and frankincense, smells so familiar, rooted in some saint’s day, he forgot which. The traditi
ons of his childhood.

  Deep notes sounded from the organ above. A refrain played again and again. Saturday evening organ practice, Morbier thought. “The Lord washes away our sins,” a staccato voice joined in.

  No bets on that from his corner.

  On the community notices tacked near the side chapel, under the flyer for Narcotiques Anonymes, he found “Grief Group Meeting, Room 2, Rear Stairs.”

  Merde. More stairs.

  The room held twelve or so men and women, gathered around the pastries and coffee on a refectory table. A wall poster invited parishioners to bring guitars to Sunday sing-along Mass. Surprised, he noticed people of all ages.

  “The pastries come from the pâtisserie on rue du Temple,” he overheard a young woman saying, “off Place de la République. Wonderful pain au chocolat …”

  She looked up. Clear, steady gaze. Warm smile. “We take turns providing refreshments,” she said, not showing surprise that an extra-old codger had just appeared. Morbier hadn’t signed up. Almost backed out at the last minute. “Welcome, I’m Jeanne. The coffee’s not bad. I made it myself.”

  After a round of introductions—first names and how long they’d attended the grief group—Jeanne stood and smiled. “We’d like to welcome the newcomers to share if they wish. Speaking and getting support is what we’re all about here.”

  Not that he had any intention of “sharing” with strangers. A typical bunch of whining types with time for a pity party. He noticed a patch of mildew on the wall below a simple wooden cross.

  “For a year I couldn’t face this hole in my life,” Jeanne was saying, “always being reminded by the little things.”

  Alors, just what he’d expected.

  “I was so ashamed when I burst into tears at everyday, mundane things,” Jeanne said. “His tie I found behind the armoire, the one I’d forgotten to dry-clean. His crumpled Post-it about my library fine, which I found in the bottom of my bag. How I still listen to his voice on our answering machine.”

  “Me, too.” Several heads nodded.

  “My life’s like treading underwater and not breaking the surface,” a voice added.