Murder in Montmartre Page 2

  “Time to go.” Jacques stood up, placed a ten-franc note between the wet rings on the zinc bar, and shot Laure a look. “You coming or not?”

  “She’s having a conversation with me,” Aimée said, her voice rising as she stepped closer to Jacques. “Aren’t you off duty?”

  “Since when is it your business?” he asked.

  Before Aimée could answer, Laure tugged at her sleeve. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” she said in Aimée’s ear. “I’m just going two blocks away.”

  Laure had a certain look in her eyes, the same look she’d had once when she’d given her report card to Aimée to hide.

  The café owner waved away any payment and wiped the counter with a none-too-clean towel. “On the house,” he said.

  “Two blocks away? Jacques’s a big boy, can’t he handle it himself?” Aimée asked.

  But Laure was already grabbing her coat from the rack. With her gloved hand she flashed five fingers at Aimée and followed Jacques through the door. Aimée watched them from the window as they talked. The next time she looked they’d crossed the street.

  Monday Night

  THE RED LIGHT FLICKERED on Jacques’s grinning face, giving him a devilish look. He stood by the dirty snowdrift, buttoning his jacket.

  “It’s not funny, Jacques!” Laure said.

  He shrugged and his expression changed to one he bestowed on puppies or assumed when he’d surrendered a seat to an old lady on the bus. “A shame to make such a scene, Laure.”

  “You know why!”

  “Sweet, you’re sweet, Laure. Quit worrying about my prescriptions. The clinic prescribes these pills to keep my back from tensing up.”

  His nervous twitches had grown more pronounced. And the cocktail of pills he’d just swallowed with his drink hadn’t stopped them.

  “Look, Jacques, it’s my career, too. And this is my first patrol assignment.”

  “Who helped you, eh? Who talked the commissaire into overlooking your test results?”

  She’d had low scores, it was true. She ignored the flashing neon Sexodrome sign that was casting red flashes onto his face as well as the large photos of semiclad women advertising the fading allure of Pigalle.

  He flicked his cigarette into the gutter. Its orange tip sputtered and died in the gray slush. “I wanted you along, partner,” he said. “In case.”

  “In case?” Surprise and a quick ripple of pride coursed through her. Yet nothing was simple with Jacques.

  “Why do I feel you’re going to do something stupid?”

  “But I won’t if you’re with me. I’m meeting an informer. I’ll play it right.”

  Like he’d played it right into divorce and pills?

  The falling snow that had carpeted the street turned to slush under the buses but frosted the LE SEX LIVE 24/7 billboard above them like confectioner’s sugar.

  As he’d just reminded her, not only had Jacques recommended her, he’d taken her as a partner when no one else volunteered. He’d invited her for drinks after work and made her talk about her day; gotten her to laugh and bolstered her confidence. She owed Jacques.

  “Who’s this informer and why is meeting him tonight so important?” Laure asked.

  “No questions. Trust me.”

  The new Citroën he made payments on and the hip flask he sipped from when he thought she wasn’t looking bothered her. Jacques had a stellar record, but . . . his divorce had hit him hard.

  “I know you’re under pressure,” she said. “You worry me. Before we go to the meet, let’s talk it over.”

  Jacques beamed a smile at her. “I haven’t asked you for anything, Laure. I need this.”

  “Like you need . . . ?”

  “It’s personal,” Jacques said.

  The rising wind gusted snow over their feet. “This informer’s complicated.”

  “Doesn’t vice handle informers these days?” Laure asked.

  “Building trust and gaining an informer’s confidence takes time. Little by little, laying the groundwork. I’m teaching you, remember? You with me, partner?”

  Her reluctance wavered.

  Jacques winked. “Like I said, five minutes and then we’ll go back to L’Oiseau, OK?”

  She ignored her misgivings as she pulled a wool cap over her thick brown hair, determined to discover what had made Jacques’s upper lip glisten with perspiration, what had made him twitch.

  Place Pigalle, deserted by pedestrians, lay behind them. Only the sex-club barkers who rubbed their arms while greeting the taxis pulling up in front of their doorways were still out. Jacques gestured to his parked Citroën.

  “I thought we were only going two blocks?” she said.

  “That’s right,” he said, “but we’ll get there and back faster in this weather if we drive.”

  They passed the corner guitar store, a heavy-metal hangout in the daytime, in a quartier thick with instrument shops.

  Turning into rue André Antoine, they rode by a small hotel. Fresh snow layered the mansard roofs of the white stone Haussmann–style buildings. A black-coated woman teetering in heels and fishnet stockings stood under a lampadaire in a doorway at the corner, then stepped back into the shadow.

  Jacques parked at the curb where the street curved. He pushed a button on a grillwork gate and it buzzed and the gate clicked open. Laure caught up with him as he strode across the small courtyard, her feet crunching on the ice. The building’s upper floors and roof were wrapped in wooden scaffolding.

  She stamped the snow from her feet, wishing she’d worn wool socks and different boots. Her gloves . . . she’d forgotten them in the car. Jacques hit the digicode and a door opened to a tattered red-carpeted hall.

  “Wait here,” Jacques said.

  “In a freezing vestibule?”

  He was going to do something stupid. Police procedure required that a pair keep together, not split up.

  “We’re a team, aren’t we?”

  Team? On the job they were. “We’re off duty, remember?” she said. “How personal is this?”

  “More than you know. But you can quit worrying. I know what I’m doing.” He tugged his earlobe, a mannerism some women might find endearing. Grinned. Monsieur Charm was what they’d nicknamed him at the Commissariat.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Jacques.”

  “I just need some back up.”

  Was she reading this wrong? “So you want me to warn you in case some thug shows up?”

  He put his fingers to his lips and winked. “Trust you to figure it out.”

  Jacques ran up the stairs. She listened as his footsteps stopped on the third landing.

  Laure studied the names on the mailboxes uneasily. It didn’t add up. A cold five minutes later she followed the red carpet up the creaking staircase. Three flights up, in a dim hallway filled with piles of wood and an old sink, cold drafts swirled against her face. An open door led into a dark apartment.

  “Jacques? Quit playing games,” she called out.

  No answer. What had the fool done now?

  She stepped into the apartment, into musty darkness, her footsteps echoing on the wood floor. It seemed vacant. From an open window, gusts of snow blew onto the floor. And then she heard a distant sound of breaking glass.

  Alarmed, she unzipped her jacket and drew the gun she’d only fired previously on the shooting range. Her heart raced. Drugs! Was he on the take? No way in hell would she risk her badge for his dope habit. She peered out the window. No Jacques.

  She climbed out onto the scaffold and navigated the slippery two-plank walkway gripping the stone building, her bare hands frigid.

  “Laure . . .” Jacques’s voice, the rest of his words, were lost in the wind.

  A howling gust whipped across her face as she pulled herself up from the scaffolding and reached for the gray-blue tile edge of the slippery roof. A punch knocked her to her knees. The second blow cracked her head against the scaffold with a bright flash of light.

  Monday Night r />
  AIMÉE PEERED AGAIN AT her Tintin watch. Nearly eleven o’clock. “What’s taking Laure so long?”

  Morbier shrugged, taking a swig from his wineglass. “Better congratulate Ouvrier now, before he leaves.”

  Ouvrier stood near them, holding an open blue velvet box containing a glinting gold watch. “Thirty-five years of service.”

  She saw a wistful look on his long face.

  “Congratulations, Ouvrier.” Aimée nudged him. “How will you keep out of trouble now?”

  “Ma petite, I’ve had enough trouble,” he said, giving her a little smile.

  Ouvrier, widowed, and estranged from his children, subject to flare-ups in winter from a knee injury in his rookie days, had been sidelined. A new generation of flics was taking over. She felt for him, aware of his scars, inside and out. For now, he had camaraderie but not much else to show for years of service besides the gold watch.

  Where was Laure? Aimée stood and pulled on her coat. There was only one way to find out.

  SHE CROSSED Place Pigalle toward the mounting zinc rooftops silhouetted against the moonlike dome of Sacré Coeur. Midway, in a frame shop, the white-coated long-haired owner nodded to her as he pulled the blinds down. But not before she saw the notice of an upcoming organic market below a Warhol-style silk-screen print of Che Guevara . . . black and red all over.

  Montmartre embodied the bohemian spirit. In its past it had been the home of anarchist Communards and then of artists and writers for whom absinthe provided inspiration. Now it held a mix of small cafés and theatres that hosted poetry readings or a playwright testing a first act on patrons, and dance studios occupying ateliers that once boasted students like van Gogh.

  Young Parisians treasured converted studios here, trading the trudge up the steep streets and flights of stairs for the view of the sweeping panorama below, just as Utrillo, Renoir, and Picasso once made their homes in cheap ateliers. This was where the Impressionists, Cubists, and Surrealists had painted. The tradition of the village, eccentric and stubborn, still remained.

  There was no sign of Laure. Aimée turned the corner and saw a new Citroën at the curb under a No Parking–Tow Zone sign. Only a flic would dare. It was a nice chrome green Citroën, too. Jacques’s? A glance through the half-frosted window revealed a crushed pill bottle on the floor by the clutch and blue gloves on the passenger seat. Laure’s gloves.

  Something smelled bad, as her father would have said.

  A gate stood open. Fresh footsteps in the snow trailed across to a darkened building. She entered and crossed the courtyard, her heels slipping on the ice. Strains of music from the building opposite wafted through the courtyard, and patches of light came from a window. Another party?

  Snow clumped in the building’s half-opened door. Aimée walked inside into the dark foyer. A broken stained-glass window and water-stained doors met her gaze. There was a darkened concierge’s loge on the right. Once plush and exclusive, she thought, now the building looked shabby.

  “Laure?”

  A gust of wind rattled the metal mailboxes. Wet footprints mounted the red-carpeted stairs.

  She followed them to the third floor. Piles of lumber and paint cans sat under a skylight attesting to a renovation in progress. The apartment door stood open.

  “Allô?”

  No answer. She went inside, her footsteps echoing in a hallway. Beyond lay a dark, nearly empty series of rooms swallowed by shadows. What looked like a piano stood, ghostlike, covered by a sheet.

  She shivered and backed up. In this bitter cold, half-empty apartment something felt very wrong. Metal clanged from outside where a construction scaffold was visible through the open salon window. Had Jacques and Laure, the idiots, gone out there? Snow blew in through the window, dusting a large armchair and wetting the carpet as it melted.

  She stepped over the window ledge to the scaffold, which was barely illuminated by the dim light of the moon. Freezing wind and gusting snow flurries met her. Gloves, she needed gloves and a snowsuit!

  At the shadowy scaffold’s end, she could just make out a slanted mansard rooftop and behind it, a small flat area piled with rebar and bricks. Snow crusted the wooden slats over the windows; suffused moonlight showed a mesh of footprints.

  She heard creaking and forced herself to traverse the scaffold, to look beyond the pepper-pot chimneys and zinc rooftops laced with snow stretching like steps down the hill of Montmartre. Taking small steps, Aimée edged toward the roof edge and tripped. Her arms flew out; icy slush brushed her cheeks. Then she saw Laure’s sprawled body.

  “Laure!” she cried.

  A groan answered her.

  “Laure, can you hear me?” she said, bending down. Her fingers located a weak pulse on her friend’s neck.

  She rooted in Laure’s pockets for a police radio, couldn’t find one, pulled out her cell phone, and tried to control her shaking hands to punch in 18, the emergency number for the police.

  “Officer down, possibly two, 18 rue André Antoine, on the roof,” she said. “Send backup, an ambulance. Hurry.”

  The Commissariat was nearby. Would they get here in time?

  “Jacques,” Laure moaned.

  Dull thuds came from somewhere on the roof.

  “Help him . . . hh . . . have to . . .”

  Aimée tried to control her panic. Think, she had to think straight.

  “Laure, backup’s on the way. . . . What’s going on?”

  “Jacques . . . couldn’t wait anymore, some informer. . . . He saved me . . . I . . . owe Jacques!”

  If he had saved Laure’s life . . . Aimée hesitated.

  “You came up here after Jacques? Where is he?”

  “Over there . . . take my gun. Help him!”

  The last thing she wanted to do was deal with Jacques, or his informer. Sleet gusted and the rising wind took her breath away. Aimée felt for Laure’s holster. It was empty.

  Worried, she stood, took a few steps, and climbed onto the tiled rooftop, grabbing at the chimney to steady herself. She worked her way across the slick roof, the sleet blinding her. And then her legs buckled.

  She landed on something bulky, inert. A body. Her gaze locked on its staring eyes. Jacques’s eyes, his eyelashes flecked with snowflakes. Terror coursed through her as sirens wailed in the distance. She brushed the snow from her face and her hands came back covered with pink-red slush. Blood.

  “Jacques!”

  He blinked, the whites of his eyes showing. He was trying to tell her something. She checked his neck and found a weak pulse, the carotid artery.

  She pulled herself to her knees, pinched his nose shut, checked his tongue, and started blowing air into his mouth. Her hands were so cold. None of the breath-and-pause sequences elicited a response from his blue lips.

  “Can you hear me, Jacques? Can you talk?”

  His mouth moved. She folded her hands, began quick, sharp thrusts to his chest. As Jacques tried to speak, a thin line of blood trailed from his mouth. She thrust harder now, counting and breathing. The air was stinging cold. Faster now, because while she panted and thrust, she felt him go limp. “Don’t leave me now, Jacques!”

  She didn’t know how long her frozen, numb hands worked on Jacques. Finally, she heard footsteps on the scaffolding and the clang of metal. Chalk white beams blinded her.

  “Take over . . . he’s . . . respond . . .” She struggled, trying to get her breath.

  She heard static from a police radio and the words “Move away from the gun!” And then she was flying into the wall, tackled, her head shoved into the snow. She couldn’t breathe. Her hands were wrenched behind her, she heard the clink and felt the cold steel of handcuffs.

  She fought, jerking her head, tried to move her legs. “What are you doing?” She spit out the ice that had been forced into her mouth.

  More radio static, biting wind.

  Catching her breath, she shouted, “Help him for God’s sake.”

  A medic leaned over Jacques. She heard
the words “crackling . . . subcutaneous emphysema wound seepage.” A stark white beam of light showed the black-red bullet hole and the blood seeping from Jacques’s chest.

  “Too late,” the medic said. “He’s gone.”

  Her shoulders slumped.

  “Backup’s here, crime-scene unit’s on the way,” a hoarse voice shouted. When it was one of their own they made it a priority response. “Move her . . . careful.”

  She felt her arms lifted, hips shoved forward.

  “I’ve seen it before,” the hoarse voice said. “They shoot them, then try to save . . .”

  “What do you mean? Check the roof,” Aimée said, melting ice running down her face. “Someone attacked the officer on the scaffold. I heard noises and came up here and found her, then him.”

  So you shot him with his own gun.” “

  “You’re wrong, I tried to save him!”

  More footsteps and a portable halogen light illuminated Jacques’s body slumped on the slanted rooftop between the chimney pots. His coat and pants pockets had been turned inside out. Clumped red matter spread across the snow. He’d been shot at close range, Aimée observed, horrified.

  In the beam of the halogen light, Aimée saw a Manhurin F1 38 .357 Magnum nonautomatic, the standard police handgun, in a plastic bag laid down on the blue tarp. Jaques’s gun or Laure’s? Snowy sleet whipped by, sending flurries across the roof.

  An officer, his crew cut sprinkled with snow, rolled up Jacques’s pants. “His gun’s still strapped to his ankle. Yet this Manhurin’s police issue.”

  “It must belong to the officer at the edge of the roof,” Aimée said.

  “And it just flew over here?” he asked.

  She realized she’d better shut up and wait to explain to the investigating magistrate.

  He leaned into his matchbox-sized monitor and spoke. “Bag the hands of the officer below and check for gunshot residue.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” Aimée burst out, despite her resolve. “Jacques came up here alone to meet someone.” She’d deduced that from what Laure had said.