Murder in Saint Germain Read online

“I just don’t have time for this right now,” Aimée blurted. “Suzanne, I want to help you. Really I do. But there’s nothing I can do for you in the next two days.” She didn’t add that René would kill her if he found out she was trying to hunt down a heinous war criminal. She shivered picturing Mirko Vladić’s dead eyes.

  Suzanne leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “According to the police grapevine, you put Morbier in the hospital. I heard he’s not going to make it.” Suzanne’s gaze locked with Aimée’s. “I’m not judging you. Things happen. But you do know what that means.”

  She did know. She was a former flic’s kid, and the police were still “family,” regardless of the fact that they’d drummed her father out of the force, and no member of a “family” turned on one of her “own.” Ever. She’d broken the unspoken rule. After Morbier’s shooting, the flics had labeled her toxic, persona non grata. She needed to hold on to Suzanne as a contact. That was how it worked. And Suzanne was reminding her.

  Just a little legwork, Aimée told herself. Just some sniffing around for a friend.

  “Alors, I’ll give it my best shot,” she said.

  “Merci. Maybe I’m crazy, overworked, and seeing things.”

  “Time to change jobs?”

  Suzanne pushed a small gift-wrapped box with a pink bow into Aimée’s hands.

  “A baby present? Suzanne, you shouldn’t have,” said Aimée, touched.

  “I didn’t. It’s a disposable phone, the drug dealer special. I’m the only contact.” Suzanne, all business, passed Aimée another envelope. “There’s sensitive data in there. I’m not even supposed to access it.”

  Merde. A burner phone, sensitive data, a ghost with a blood vendetta, and a babysitter going on vacation. Just another day at the office.

  At least she could count on Madame Cachou, her concierge, to fill in holes in her childcare situation.

  Aimée grabbed her bag and followed Suzanne to the curb. The words came out before she could bite her tongue. “How’s Melac?”

  Suzanne looked both ways before she opened the door of the car waiting at the curb. Paranoid? Then she turned and smiled, as if they were just two old friends saying goodbye.

  “Seems there’s trouble in paradise,” she said. “But you never heard that from me.”

  On rue du Louvre, at the kiosk in front of her office building, Aimée bought a copy of Le Parisien and a chichi art magazine.

  “Don’t tell me—you’re taking up painting?” Marcel, a one-armed Algerian war vet, grinned, handing her change.

  “Moi? With all my free time, Marcel? It’s research.”

  Aimée nodded to the building concierge mopping the tiles in the foyer, tucked her mail under her arm. She climbed the winding staircase, feeling last night’s marron glacé on her hips. She had such a sweet tooth these days. Quelle horreur—all those pool laps she needed to make up!

  Even stepping carefully, she almost slipped on the damp wood of the landing, which reeked of the pine soap the concierge swore by. Too often lately Aimée was still here at the office when the concierge did her nighttime housekeeping.

  Balancing her overloaded Hermès—a flea market treasure bought for a song—she caught her breath at Leduc Detective’s frosted glass door. Punched in the security code, heard the click, and turned the knob.

  Inside, she bumped the door closed with her hip, kicked off her Vivier sandals, and plopped everything on her desk. In the soft evening sun, the carved woodwork of the nineteenth-century ceiling gave off a dull luster. The overhead fan whirred, rotating the hot air.

  Saj, their permanent part-time hacker, looked up from his tatami mat, from which he was monitoring several computer screens.

  “Where’s René?” Aimée wanted to punch him for letting Suzanne corner her.

  “Still running the seminar at the Hackaviste Academy.”

  She’d forgotten. Merde. Her maman brain was addled by sleep deprivation. Not to mention this heat.

  Still, she wanted to run Suzanne’s problem by René. Pick his brain on how to find a “ghost.” Plus, she needed to talk to him about Jules Dechard.

  Incense wafted from a burning cone by an altar to Shiva to the left of Saj’s tatami. Aimée’s nose itched. Her kohl-smudged eyes watered. “I’m allergic, Saj.”

  “You weren’t yesterday.” Saj’s blond dreadlocks swung over his pale aqua Indian shirt as he stretched and unfolded his long legs. “But I’ve finished the cleansing.”

  He snuffed out the smoldering flakes. Opened the window onto rue du Louvre, letting in a breeze and the sounds of bicycle bells, a car horn. “Bad karma, Aimée. There’s an imbalance. Unhealthy auras persisting.” He raised his eyebrows, giving her a pointed look.

  Since Morbier’s shooting, Saj maintained, she’d ruined her karma, misaligned her chakras. She couldn’t deal with that right now.

  “I don’t need your judgment, Saj,” she said.

  “Judgment’s not my style, Aimée. Your nonalignment disturbs all beings connected to you. All of us.”

  “Please don’t start, Saj. There is one thing you can help me with, though.” She showed him the Post-it Jules Dechard had given her, explained the assignment.

  It was only minutes before Saj called her over to his laptop screen. “You might want to look at this, Aimée.”

  “You scrubbed the school’s server already? That’s fast, even for you.”

  Saj was a whiz. Before Aimée and René had found him, he’d hacked into the ministry’s files so many times that, instead of throwing him in prison, they’d recruited him to help them strengthen their security.

  “The sender’s IP address is physically located at the Galerie Tournon.” Saj pulled his dreadlocks back, and she noticed a string of turquoise around his neck. “There are emails to and from two different faculty email addresses at École des Beaux-Arts.”

  She’d heard of Galerie Tournon, an upscale art gallery in the sixth.

  “Here,” Saj said. “Read the emails first.”

  There were two sets, all from the last week. The first was a chain of four emails:

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: sale

  tried calling you. making sale thursday.

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: RE: sale

  too late. do what I said.

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: RE: RE: sale

  he’s your problem, got a buyer.

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: RE: RE: RE: sale

  I told you, forget it.

  Odd. Vague, but still fishy.

  “A drug deal?” Aimée wondered. “Would an École des Beaux-Arts faculty member be stupid enough to email about a drug deal?”

  “You’d be surprised how stupid smart people can be about their email,” Saj said. “But it could be nothing, too. Could be about a piece of art, or real estate, or anything. Look at the other chain, though.”

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: your secret’s out

  Professor Dechard,

  You should have found an envelope on your desk from me. I assume you’ve looked at the contents. Now you know what I know. No one but us has to find out, but I need to be able to trust you.

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: RE: your secret’s out

  What do you want from me?

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: RE: RE: your secret’s out

  Left instructions on your voice mail.

  From: jd86@edba,fr

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: RE: RE: RE: your
secret’s out

  I agree to your terms. Thursday drop-off?

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: your secret’s out

  No more communication by email. Call my mobile.

  Her gut clenched. “Jules Dechard is being blackmailed.” She wondered if Dechard was in real danger. Why had he insisted on discretion?

  “Who is he, exactly?” Saj asked.

  “A very famous art critic. The chair of the art history department at École des Beaux-Arts.” She picked up the art magazine she’d bought at the kiosk, flipped to the review page, and pointed to Jules Dechard’s current column.

  Saj sat back down on the tatami. “Maybe the sender’s a gallery owner and blackmailing your professor for a good review, or maybe an angry artist threatening him after a bad one? Just off the top of my head.”

  Unease roiled in Aimée’s stomach. “Now I wish I hadn’t read the emails.” Or taken the job in the first place, she thought.

  “The art world is full of cutthroat competition. Reputation—that’s everything.” Saj flexed his arms over his head. “Dechard’s got enemies, if this article’s anything to go by.”

  The professor had seemed decent enough. Yet as Aimée’s father had always said, everyone’s got something to hide—just scratch and dig. But that wasn’t her business; she’d gotten the job she’d been paid for done.

  She paced across the room and scanned René’s desk to see if there was anything that needed her attention. It was littered with papers, but there was also a box holding a new indoor-outdoor nanny cam. The thing was tiny—no bigger than a box of paper clips. Had he gotten so paranoid he wanted to spy on Babette in the park?

  While Saj ran system analysis for their new accounts, Aimée updated her last report for an ongoing client. Finally she pulled out Suzanne’s envelopes.

  What could she do?

  Even if this Mirko, a wanted war criminal, had survived—unlikely, based on what Suzanne had told her—his appearing in a café Suzanne frequented seemed even less likely. Too coincidental. If he somehow had made it to Paris, why would he risk letting himself be seen? And so randomly, in one café among hundreds?

  Her father had always said with criminals there are no coincidences, only mistakes.

  If she didn’t at least make an attempt to investigate, she’d feel guilty. She’d do some simple digging and get home in time for Chloé’s bath.

  She copied Mirko’s photo, trimmed the border with her manicure scissors.

  Seeing her at work, Saj asked, “Does that have to do with Dechard?”

  Saj was an outside-the-box thinker, and she appreciated his take on things. She decided to tell him about Suzanne’s request, despite her insistence Aimée keep it between them. “Did you tell Suzanne Lesage where to find me today?”

  “She sounded disturbed. A cosmos in turbulence.”

  “Next time leave me a message so I’m warned, okay? But here’s the deal.”

  She explained her connection to Suzanne and what Suzanne had asked of her. “I think she mistook this man for someone who’s dead.”

  “Never dismiss a visitation,” said Saj. His brows furrowed. “The path souls take after death can be fraught.”

  He’d been reading the Upanishads again. Next he’d insist they start doing yoga before beginning their workday.

  She had another few hours before Babette would need to leave Chloé. In the meantime, Aimée would nose around. She riffled through her disguises in the back armoire: the generic security suit, the fifties vintage velvet cocktail dress, the France Télécom overalls, the nurse outfit, and the Paco Rabanne chain-mail mini—her standby for impromptu party invitations. She chose a secretarial look: frameless glasses, brown wig, ballet flats, and khaki Céline safari jacket.

  “How do I look?”

  “Definitely clerical. A drone in an office.”

  “Parfait.” Always good to go incognito. Not that Aimée was worried. But since Morbier’s shooting, she took precautions. Chloé needed her maman.

  Her gut told her the trauma of what Suzanne had witnessed in Bosnia had taken its toll, made her see things. Nevertheless, this was personal, and Aimée owed her. She’d do everything she could.

  See things. On a whim, she tucked the nanny cam into her bag as she walked out the door.

  The evening crowds filled the narrow sidewalks around Saint-Sulpice Métro station. Aimée spotted the café tabac she was looking for: a neon orange-red carrot glowed above the door. It was only steps away from the Métro entrance. Aimée’s first thought was that the Métro would provide an easy getaway. But why and from whom?

  The café was just around the corner from Suzanne’s flat.

  Stepping inside, Aimée was met by the whoosh of milk steaming and the slap of coins on the counter. The shop hummed with conversation. Locals visited their neighborhood café tabac for the cheapest espresso, a tartine jambon, Loto tickets, cigarettes, their carte grise (car or motorcycle registration) a look at Le Parisien—there was always one on the counter—or a chat with maître. The proprietor knew the pulse of the quarter, her father always said.

  She debated ordering a glass of wine, but she needed to be alert and focus. “Bonsoir, un epresso s’il vous plaît.”

  The man she figured for the proprietor wiped down the steamer wand of the shiny coffee machine, whacked the coffee grounds into the trash, slotted in the aluminum filter, brimful of fresh ground beans. A moment later he set down a steaming demitasse on a saucer and passed her the round bowl of sugar cubes.

  “Merci.” She set the copied photo of Mirko on the counter. “Do you remember seeing this man last night?”

  The man stared at the photo. Then at her. His muttonchop whiskers drooped down his cheek. “My staff served more than three hundred customers last night.” He shrugged. “Not a clue. Nor am I a public service.”

  Helpful, the proprietor. “Does he look like a regular?”

  “We get all types. Most from the quartier.”

  Further down the counter, Aimée recognized an older woman with her Chihuahua—an actress who had been in movies in the eighties.

  “Don’t remember you as local,” the owner said.

  Aimée saw suspicion in his narrowed eyes. This wasn’t going well.

  “Don’t recognize him, as I said.” His eye caught on a customer’s empty wineglass as the man motioned that he wanted to pay.

  No use beating a dead horse, as the old saying went. Aimée slid some coins across the counter. Downed her espresso.

  One down, how many more to go before she went home with a clear conscience? What would be due diligence? She stood and headed to the crowded tabac section of the shop. As she waited in line, she eyed the cigarettes, noticing foreign brands. She suppressed that Pavlovian itch to smoke. Looming over the tabac line, a man in overalls stood on a ladder as he installed an overhead fan unit. An irritating whine came from his power drill.

  The young woman stacking cigarettes finally turned to her.

  “Have any Serbian cigarettes?” asked Aimée.

  “What brand?”

  “I forget, but from the former Yugoslavia.”

  “Hmm.” The woman checked. “We normally carry Auras. But I’m all out.”

  Behind her Aimée heard shuffling in line. She whipped out the photo. “Did this man buy a pack last night? Maybe he bought you out?”

  The woman glanced at the photo and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Beats me. I’m off on Mondays.”

  “Can you ask . . . ?”

  A long line had formed behind Aimée, and shouts came from the back. A young mec stepped inside and signaled to the tabac girl.

  “We’re unloading a new shipment right now,” she said. “You want the Auras, come back later.” She motioned Aimée to the side. “Next in line. Mon
sieur?”

  Twenty minutes later she’d visited all the open businesses on the streets around the corner café: a dry cleaner and key maker, two boutiques about to close for the day, a coiffeur’s shop, and the art gallery.

  No one recognized the man in the photo. No one remembered him as a customer.

  Before going home, Aimée would try once more.

  She showed the café tabac girl the photo again. “Do you remember him ever buying those cigarettes?”

  “I see hundreds of people every day. You want the Auras or not?”

  She bought them. Left the café tabac.

  The only thing she’d gotten out of this fruitless quest was a desire to smoke and a pack in her hand.

  She passed the tall doors of a fire station, where a fireman with sapeur-pompier printed across the back of his blue shirt chatted with a highly made-up girl. Notorious, these fireman—and the groupies who clustered around them. Something about a man in a uniform, Martine always said.

  Behind the café tabac, Aimée glimpsed the young man who had unloaded the new shipment. He was leaning on the wall in his creased black Levi’s and a T-shirt, smoking.

  “Got a light?” she asked him.

  In answer he flipped open his lighter, cupped the flame. She leaned in. Took a drag. The Aura was harsh and woody.

  That faithful jolt hit her lungs.

  She stifled a cough.

  “Merci. Thank God you got these in,” she said, playing with the packet. There was some kind of Cyrillic script on the box. “My friend must have bought you out last night.”

  “These? I prefer KOOL lights myself. Menthol.”

  Thought that made him special. She could tell.

  “Did you see my friend?” She whipped out the photo.

  He glanced and gave a quick shake of his head. “You don’t look like a flic.”

  “Smart mec. I’m not.” She hoped her nondescript outfit made her look like an office worker. “Didn’t you work the tabac last night?” she said, taking a guess.