Murder in Pigalle Read online

  “How you feeling, Aimée?” said Virginie, making change for customers at a window table. “Got over the morning sickness?”

  She wished. “Not yet.” The malted beer odor filled her nose, but her stomach stayed in place. For once.

  “Don’t I remember,” said Virginie.

  Warm air rippled in from the street, and a dog barked outside the open door. Aimée caught Virginie’s eye. “Can we talk before Zazie gets back? It’s important.”

  “Zazie’s late.”

  Aimée felt a prickling up her spine.

  One of the flushed-faced World Cup fans walked up to pay.

  “Verez,” Virginie said. “Do me a favor and make two cafés crèmes for those ladies down the counter? And help yourself to an express.”

  “Pas de problème,” she said. Not the first time she’d barista’d. She whacked the grinds out from the stainless steel, frothed the milk with a whoosh and dolloped foam. The steaming brown–black liquid dripped serré, double strength, for her.

  Sipping her express décaféiné, she followed Virginie behind the zinc counter to the unventilated back kitchen. Steaming heat came from the stove. “You’re working by yourself tonight?” Aimée asked.

  “Pierre’s gone for more wine, the baby’s with my niece.” Virginie wiped her face with a towel, reached for a tray. “This World Cup makes for booming business. We’re run off our feet. Pierre’s brother’s supposed to help.” Virginie sighed. “Don’t know why I gave in and let Zazie use his phone when she won’t answer it.”

  Zazie wasn’t answering her phone? Aimée made herself take a deep breath. There could be a reasonable explanation. Not the horrific one her mind jumped to. “Dites-moi, how late is she?”

  “An hour.” Virginie glanced at the wall clock. “More. Not like her with exams coming up. She’ll have to answer to her father now.”

  All Aimée could think was that Zazie had gone to surveil the bar again. She was underage, but she would somehow talk her way in. Or watch this “rapist” she thought she’d tracked down from the street.

  Aimée pulled out her phone, scrolled to the number she’d entered for Zazie. “Let me try her.”

  No answer.

  “She could be in the Métro and have no service. Stuck in a—” She caught herself before she said dead zone.

  Virginie blinked. A momentary stillness settled over her and then she grabbed Aimée’s arms. Irritation mixed with fear in her eyes. “She’s told you about Mélanie’s assault, hasn’t she? Her silly plan. I forbade her to get involved.”

  “That’s why I wanted to talk.”

  “She said she was going to study with Sylvaine tonight.” Virginie emanated an almost palpable tension. “It sounded perfectly safe, but now she’s so late and not answering her phone …”

  This feeling piercing Aimée’s gut told her Zazie had another agenda. Calm, she had to stay calm for Virginie. “Do you know Sylvaine’s number?”

  Footsteps and someone entered the café. Hope and anger fluttered in Virginie’s eyes. “There she is. About time.”

  But it was Pierre, her husband, wiping his forehead with a bandana and pushing a dolly loaded with wine cases. “Zazie’s still not here? Tables five and six want to order. Number seven needs their bill.”

  On the board above the sink Virginie took down the business card of a cheese shop on rue de Rochechouart. “Sylvaine’s family run this shop and live above it. I’ll call them.”

  “Does Sylvaine have a cell phone, like Zazie?”

  “Impossible. Georges, her father, is old-fashioned.” Pierre winked.

  “And très religeux—the whole family is,” Virginie said. “That’s why Pierre thinks Sylvaine’s a good influence on Zazie.”

  Aimée wiped her perspiring brow, wishing for a whisper of air in the hot kitchen. Standing next to Virginie, she listened to the ringing and ringing. “Zut, they won’t answer this late …”

  But Aimée heard a click. Muffled sounds. “Allô, Georges, it’s Virginie,” she said. “What? Say that again.” A whisper of fear went up Aimée’s neck. “An ambulance?”

  Virginie dropped the receiver into the sink. Time slowed for Aimée as an explosion of Persil soap suds and brown-stained espresso cups burst from the sink, the foamy spray arcing as if in a freeze-frame—and she knew this moment would be imprinted on her consciousness forever.

  Aimée recovered the phone, shook it hard, and wiped it off with her scarf. The line was still live. “Allô, we’re looking for Zazie. Isn’t she studying with Sylvaine?”

  In the background she heard crying.

  “Monsieur, what’s going on?” The phone clicked off. Her heart thudded. Non, non, she screamed inside. “What did he say, Virginie?”

  Virginie’s shoulders were shaking. “An ambulance, but I didn’t understand.”

  Aimée fought her terrible feeling. “Neither do I, but I’m going to find out if Zazie’s there.”

  “I’m going with you …”

  Aimée hugged Virginie. Held her tight. Let go and forced a smile. “And leave a café full of patrons to serve? What if Zazie comes walking through the door?” She hitched her bag on her shoulder. “Do you trust me?” Virginie nodded. “Good. Your place is here. Let me see what’s going on, okay?”

  She was out the door before Pierre looked up, hurrying as fast as she could, feeling awkward clutching her bowling ball of a belly. Her damn kitten heels kept catching in the pavement cracks. A taxi passed. Full. Then another. Panting for breath, she tried to wave it down. No luck. No bus in sight. At the corner she saw a taxi parked near the crosswalk. Her shoulders heaving, she leaned through the window.

  “I’m off the meter,” said the driver, lighting a cigarette. “Already did my last run.”

  “Then how about fifty francs in your pocket?”

  “Against regulations.”

  Perspiring, she grabbed her wallet. There were damp rings under her arms. “Overlook the regulations. I’ve got to get to a crime scene.” She pulled out her father’s police ID, which she had doctored with a less-than-flattering photo of herself. “Now.”

  Inside the taxi she read him the address from the card of Sylvaine’s parents’ cheese shop on rue de Rochechouart. “Extra if we get there in ten minutes.”

  He hit the meter. “I’ll cut over to rue Lafitte. Faster.”

  Zazie’s face flashed in front of her. Those freckles, the red curls escaping from her clip, those determined eyes.

  “Still on the job, eh? When’s the baby due?”

  October. “Not soon enough.”

  “Wait till the contractions start,” he said, “then you’ll sing another tune. My wife did.”

  It never ceased to amaze her how strangers commented on intimate details of her pregnancy, even touched her stomach in the boulangerie without so much as a s’il vous plaît.

  Traffic slowed to a crawl on rue Lafitte. She tried to calm her nerves. Maybe she’d jumped to conclusions, overreacted. Think, think where Zazie might have gone on her way home from Sylvaine’s. Maybe she’d visited her friend Mélanie in the clinic? Zazie could be stuck on the bus in traffic. But who had called an ambulance to Sylvaine’s house, and why?

  She needed to slow her jumping heart for the baby. Good God, hadn’t the doctor instructed against stress?

  And René’s cell phone was going to voice mail. Of all times! But she left him a message to call her.

  Seven minutes later the taxi turned onto rue de Rochechouart—a sloping street of Haussmann buildings with uniform limestone facades, grilled balconies potted with geraniums and street-level storefronts. The Sacré-Cœur’s alabaster dome poked up from behind the rooftops. Behind the taxi on the narrow street a block away, an ambulance negotiated its way uphill. She heard the squealing brakes from the arriving blue-and-white police car ahead. Fear flooded through her.

  “Voilà, Madame, you made it in time,” the taxi driver said.

  Not soon enough, she thought, and it was Mademoiselle. But she thr
ust a fifty-franc note in his hand. Added a twenty, hoping to bank some late-night taxi karma. She hefted herself up from the back seat, struggled to keep the heavy taxi door open on the hill. Just in front, two flics were getting out of their car. Horns blared, and the siren whined in the blocked traffic on the street.

  If Zazie were hurt, she wouldn’t forgive herself for not convincing her to leave this alone.

  She smelled the cheese shop before she got to the door, where a man wearing a long white apron paced. Aimée racked her brain for the father’s name. Remembered.

  “You’re Georges, Sylvaine’s father?”

  He looked up. Nodded.

  “What’s happened?”

  His thick hands flailed in the air. “Sylvaine needs an ambulance. What’s taking so long?” His entire face was pale.

  “It’s coming. Where’s Zazie?” Aimée asked.

  “My baby, my baby …” Tears ran down his face.

  “Tell us what’s happened, Monsieur,” said one of the flics, nodding to his partner. The partner made for the door.

  “Non, non, Sylvaine needs a doctor. Not you.” Georges blocked the flic’s way. He swung his fist and punched one in the face, knocked the other one down. Was he suffering shock, unhinged?

  No time to deal with Georges. Something bad had happened. She had to quell her fear that Zazie might be involved. She stepped around the scuffling flics and into the fromagerie. Coolness emanated from the grey-and-white marble counters and the walls. She would bet each one of France’s 246 varieties of cheese was represented here; cheese filled the cases, displays, every available nook and cranny. The reek of ripe Roquefort made her stomach lurch.

  Behind the counter hung a bead curtain leading to a refrigerated back room. The layout was like all old shops, and she followed the hallway leading to the upper-level living quarters.

  Breathing hard, she took the narrow stairs to the first-floor hallway as fast as she could. On the dark, wood-paneled landing she grew aware of a woman’s low voice. Followed it past a parlor and down the dim hallway. “Madame?”

  She saw a pink T-shirt and an unlaced sneaker on the hall floor. A mounting dread made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Beyond, she saw into a girl’s bedroom. A woman in a smock—she took her for Sylvaine’s mother—crouched on the floor. “Excusez-moi, may I help?”

  “Only the doctor can come in here,” she said, looking up, blinking rapidly. A nervous tic? A gold crucifix dangled from her neck over a white apron.

  Aimée looked around. “Isn’t Zazie here?”

  “Zazie?” The woman looked confused. “You can’t come in. Sylvaine’s not dressed.”

  The woman reached for a cloth. Behind her a young girl shivered on the wooden floor, the blanket over her torso not reaching her bare calves. Her jeans were bunched around her ankles. Her blonde hair matted wet to her face. She clutched a ragged teddy bear, her whole body shaking.

  Horrified, Aimée noticed the crusted blood on her ankles, the smears on the floor. How could it be? Her mind raced. Could Zazie have been right all along, that there was a serial rapist on the loose? But how could the flics let such a thing happen in this neighborhood, so safe and quiet? And why to this particular girl, this friend of Zazie’s, where Zazie was supposed to be studying tonight? Her fear almost overwhelmed her. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Facts, she had to get the facts, not jump to conclusions. She had to calm her thoughts, get whatever information she could from this poor girl. She knelt down on the floor. “Sylvaine, did someone hurt you?”

  A brief nod.

  “It’s all right,” Aimée said, wishing it was. “You’re safe now. Where’s Zazie?”

  “I’m cleaning Sylvaine up,” her mother said. “With some fresh clothes she’ll feel better. Won’t you, ma puce?” She took a washcloth to wipe the smears and blood off those small ankles.

  Aimée cringed. Washing away DNA evidence—the last thing she should do. “Plenty of time for that, Madame,” she said, putting her hand on the mother’s shoulder. “We need to leave this. Just for now, okay?” She wanted to search the rooms for Zazie but didn’t dare to leave Sylvaine and her mother alone. What the hell was taking the medics so long? “Sylvaine, can you tell me what happened?”

  Sylvaine’s body kept shaking. Her breaths were shallow.

  The mother threw off Aimée’s hand, shot her an angry glare, tears streaming down her face. “Don’t tell me how to handle my daughter.” She stroked Sylvaine’s leg. She wanted to make it all go away. As if it could. “We can’t let people see her like this … Defiled.”

  Aimée winced at the mother’s word choice. She noticed curled duct tape lying on the floor. Images flashed in her head of the little girl brutally restrained during the attack.

  “Did Zazie come over to study with you, Sylvaine?”

  But Sylvaine’s eyes had rolled up in her head. Convulsions wracked her, throwing off the blanket. Aimée saw red bruises on her chest.

  She clutched her stomach, felt the bile rising. Where were the paramedics? She forced herself to feel for Sylvaine’s pulse. Weak and thin. Her wrist felt cold.

  “Don’t touch her,” her mother shouted.

  Aimée felt a stinging slap on her cheek.

  “Make way,” shouted a medic, bearing the front of a stretcher in from the hallway. Finally. “Give us space.”

  Aimée rubbed her cheek, watching the medics checking Sylvaine’s vitals. Her blackened left eye had swollen shut.

  “Who let you in here?” a uniform with a clipboard asked her.

  “I’m a family friend,” she lied. “We need to find a girl named Zazie—thirteen years old, curly red hair. She’s wearing jeans, has a black backpack …”

  “Why?”

  She motioned him to the side in the dark, paneled hall. Fading, pale light from the skylight fell in a rectangle on a music stand, which lay on its side in a pool of scattered sheet music.

  “Sylvaine, the girl who lives here, has been raped. And Zazie, her friend, was here studying with her, and now she’s missing. We’ve got to search the apartment.”

  Georges pushed past the flic. “Zazie never comes on Mondays,” he spat at Aimée. His eyes were wild. “Today’s Sylvaine’s violin lesson.” Georges pointed to the calendar pinned to the wall. The Mondays were marked by blue stickers in the shape of a violin. “That’s why we worked late in the shop—she wasn’t supposed to be home until … When I came upstairs …” His shoulders heaved.

  Was there some mistake? Had Zazie lied?

  “Maybe the lesson got canceled, and Sylvaine called Zazie,” she said, grasping at straws. “Are you sure she wasn’t here? Didn’t you see your daughter and Zazie come upstairs?”

  He shook his head. “Non, Sylvaine always comes in through the side courtyard next door, not through the shop.”

  “So you wouldn’t have seen Zazie, or the attacker, as they were coming—”

  “We’ll take your report at the hospital, Monsieur,” interrupted the flic, tall and broad-shouldered with short black hair. He gestured to another officer, who escorted the parents down the stairs.

  “You are?” he asked.

  She flashed her PI badge.

  “Ambulance chaser, eh?”

  “Call me concerned,” she said. “You need to put out a search for Zazie—thirteen years old, red hair,” she repeated slowly. Maybe he would listen this time. “The girl who was supposed to be here studying with Sylvaine.”

  “Didn’t you hear what the father said?”

  Aimée shifted on her heels. “But look how distraught he is. He doesn’t know for certain what Sylvaine was doing this afternoon, and Zazie said she was going to be here. What if she’s hiding in the closet or in the cellar?”

  “Our team will do a thorough search and question the courtyard residents to see if anyone saw anything. After we assemble the evidence …” He paused, checking his phone.

  He wasn’t taking her fear for Zazie seriously. He would be of no help
to her.

  “What if she was here?” Aimée tried one last time. “What if your team can’t find her? Maybe the rapist took her …” But she couldn’t finish.

  “Jumping to conclusions, Madame?” The knowing look he gave her round belly infuriated her.

  “She’s a minor, not where she said she’d be. Her parents are frantic; she’s not answering her phone.”

  “Sounds like a typical thirteen-year-old. Do you know how many calls like this I got today?” He looked up from his phone. “If the girl is really missing, her family needs to make a procèsverbal de disparition at the Commissariat,” he said. “After the standard twenty-four hours.”

  Quoting the rule book at her? Filing a missing persons report took time. Time they didn’t have.

  He nodded to the arriving fingerprint tech with his kit. “Get dusting.”

  Incredulous, Aimée wanted to shake him. “There’s a dangerous man, a rapist, on the loose, and a little girl is missing. Don’t you understand? Zazie’s never late—”

  “Madame, you’re not being sensible. You’ve been told this girl, Zazie, wasn’t here. Chances are she’s not answering her phone because she’s out with a boyfriend or friends her parents don’t approve of. The parents enlist us, and she comes walking in the door an hour later.”

  “Monsieur, I’ve known Zazie since she wore diapers. She’s not like that.”

  “Open your eyes. She’s a teenager, boys and parties everywhere.” He lowered his voice. “If she still hasn’t returned by tomorrow—after the mandatory twenty-four hours—her parents file the report, and the wheels start turning.”

  If Aimée’s worst fears were right, tomorrow would be too late, she thought with a sinking in her heart.

  As they spoke, she stared at the school exercise books and a violin bow scattered on the duvet. She noted the blue backpack, but not Zazie’s black one. Could the flic be right? Could Zazie have lied to her parents?

  A walkie-talkie squawked in the hallway. A uniformed flic tapped the officer’s arm, leaned forward and said something in his ear. The officer’s fingers stiffened on his tie.