Murder in Pigalle Read online

  Aimée’s knuckles whitened on the phone. “Attends, you and Melac worked counterterrorism?”

  “Can’t speak to that, but Beto’s cover was blown, so he’s undercover Vice. Got the nickname after his course at Quantico—some Brazilian Ponzi-scheme strategy.”

  “Merci, Suzanne,” she said.

  “My life’s a balancing act, Aimée,” she said, her voice blurred with tiredness. “We make it work. Thank God my husband’s mother and my sister help out, or I’d jump off the Pont Neuf.” A pause. “But I wouldn’t trade what I have for anything else in the world.”

  Clicking off the call, Aimée shifted on her side and readjusted her pillow to support her stomach and relieve the pressure on her back.

  Suzanne’s words spun in her head. Why would you want to do it all? Should she cave in to that up-and-comer Florian, head of Systex, who emailed her once a week with the same proposal—join computer security forces and expand delivery systems? Then she could take a decent maternity leave and later work part-time. Should she put the baby on a waiting list for a crèche, which Martine insisted she should have done on conception? Should she move to the country, make marmalade, be a full time maman and go stark raving mad? Should she consider putting this baby up for adoption?

  Or should she put her swollen feet on the cold wood floor and get a Badoit before the creeping nausea overtook her? A few gulps later, she stood at her window overlooking the dark, misted Seine. Burped.

  Relief at last.

  Miles Davis curled at her bare feet as she punched in Beto’s number.

  “Who’s this?” Trance music thumped in a languid wave in the background.

  “Suzanne gave me your number. I’m Aimée Leduc.”

  Pause. “So you say, chérie.”

  “Check me out. Then I’d like to talk.”

  “And I’d like the Mercedes parked across the street. We’ll see.”

  He clicked off.

  Out working undercover, she figured. Anyone worth their salt would verify her identity. All she could do was wait. And hope.

  She tried René.

  “Before you ask, the bouncer remembered seeing Zazie last week. End of report. Go to bed.”

  She was about to tell him she was sick of people telling her to go to bed, but René had hung up.

  Monday, 11 P.M.

  ZACHARIÉ PLAYED MARIE-JO’S message. “Papa, this man says he’ll take us to you. Should I believe him? But my friend thinks he’s lying … where are you?” Marie-Jo’s voice quivered. Non, non, don’t go, he wanted to yell. Then what sounded like chairs or a table scraping across the floor. “Put that down,” and the phone went dead.

  Panicked, he punched in her number. Out of service. After trying his ex-wife’s flat, where the phone rang twenty times, he remembered she’d gone to rehab. Again. He paced back and forth in the rain on rue Chaptal. No lights showing from the third-floor windows.

  His ex-wife’s restraining order hadn’t been rescinded. Only a matter of time, he knew, since he’d gain custody of Marie-Jo. Still … he had to chance it. What if someone burgled the house, or what if it was this rapist he’d heard about on the radio this evening?

  He pressed the buzzer. Nothing.

  “Monsieur? Vous me permettez?” He recognized the middle-aged woman, Cécile the concierge, unfolding her umbrella next to him in the doorway.

  Would she recognize him? Report him to the lawyer?

  “Ah, Monsieur, quite a long time,” she said with a smile. She unbuttoned her raincoat. A gold cross glittered around her neck.

  Make the best of it. Use this.

  “Bonsoir, Madame,” he said. “I’m dropping off those forms for my ex-wife. She told you to give me the key, non?”

  Doubt flashed across Cécile’s face. “Mais non, but entrez, come in out of the rain.”

  Dripping wet, he stood at the doorframe of the concierge loge. A crucifix above the minuscule brown sofa, a galley kitchen and brown tiles. Mail slots and keys to the left, in the old style. He wondered how much longer the building would pay for a concierge.

  “Désolée, I’ve been at Saint Rita’s—I volunteer for the procession,” she said. “It’s every year, you know, in honor of Saint Rita, the patron saint of hope. It’s organized by us fallen women.” She gave a grin. “I once walked the streets. But Saint Rita saved me.”

  A born-again convert. The worst.

  Zacharié nodded. “But Marie-Jo …”

  “That’s the thing,” she interrupted. “Marie-Jo promised to come down and help out at Saint Rita’s like last year. So sweet, your daughter. She took those beautiful photos of the shrine for us after we’d decorated. But she couldn’t stay, said something had come up. Apologized for having to leave.”

  “Leave?”

  “With her classmate, the red-haired girl, and that nice man, that friend of yours who was waiting for them.”

  Zacharié clutched the doorframe. Jules had taken his daughter.

  “Which way did they go?”

  Tuesday, 6 A.M.

  AIMÉE BLINKED AWAKE to soft, cream sunlight streaming over the herringboned wood floor. The warm wind rustled her bedroom curtains. Her phone trilled, startling her.

  She sat up, pushed aside the Resistance book and reached for her phone on the rococo bedside table. Her eye caught on Zazie’s black-and-white photo. The men in the square.

  Her hand froze.

  She thumbed the book open again to the third chapter Zazie had marked. Slid a piece of paper in to mark the place and glanced at the phone. A number she recognized.

  “So you feel like talking,” she said.

  “That’s one way of putting it,” said Beto.

  “Bon, where do we meet?”

  “How about answering your door?” Beto said. “I’ve been ringing your bell for ten minutes.”

  She shook off her duvet and ran to the armoire. Not much in it fit her anymore. She’d been getting by with a slouched silk blouson and the oversize Gucci jacket, layered over a Dior skirt sans zipper. Soon she’d have to break down and find maternity clothes.

  But for now she pulled on black leggings that came up to her hips and Melac’s old oversized T-shirt from a jazz concert at the Olympia, stepped into her red heels and scraped her tousled hair into a clip.

  On the black and white tiles of the landing stood a bear of a man with stubble on his chin and black hair pulled into a ponytail. Butter smells wafted from the boulangerie bag he held. Delicious.

  “Those still warm?”

  He nodded. “I figured you’d provide the coffee, chérie.”

  Typical mec working Vice and les stups, she thought, rough around the edges but trained in the art of waking a woman up.

  “Entrez.” She gestured him inside. Miles Davis sniffed his jean cuffs and growled.

  In the kitchen she started up the espresso machine, took out the butcher’s packet for Miles Davis. She spooned the horsemeat into his chipped Limoges bowl and a wave of nausea rose.

  She emptied the bag of brioches into a basket on the table. Not a good idea. The smell of butter wafted through the close kitchen. “Excusez-moi.”

  She backed out of the kitchen.

  “What’s the matter?”

  No time to answer as she ran, her heels clattering in the hallway to the bathroom. Just in time. She heaved. Then again. When the shaking and nausea had subsided, she washed her face, squeezed the last bit of Fluocaril toothpaste from the tube and brushed her teeth.

  After a swipe of Chanel Red and a quick brush of mascara, she felt better.

  In the kitchen he’d helped himself to coffee.

  “Do you always greet guests this way?” He plopped a brown sugar cube in his demi-tasse. Stirred and swigged it.

  The whiff of butter made her gag.

  “Or only the ones you want favors from, chérie?”

  The queasiness hit again, and the words caught in her mouth. How stupid—why couldn’t her body cooperate?

  “Then I’ll finish
my coffee and leave.”

  “Non, désolée,” she managed. “Forgive me … I can’t eat … in the morning.”

  He put his cup in the sink. “I don’t waste time with hangovers, chérie.”

  “Mais non … it’s morning sickness.”

  His dark eyes lasered the bump under Melac’s T-shirt. “So it’s true.”

  Her heart hammered. Did Melac know? Had Morbier opened his big mouth?

  “What do you mean?”

  “Rien, not my business, chérie.”

  “Then keep it that way. You know nothing, compris?”

  Flustered, she opened her suitcase of a fridge. Cornichons, capers and kiwis. Not even marmalade for his brioche.

  He checked his phone. Yawned, revealing big white teeth. “I’m going home to bed. I thought it was urgent.”

  She nodded, wiped her damp forehead. “Off my game for a moment, désolée. I need your help finding a missing girl.” Aimée briefly outlined the situation. “Zazie’s disappeared. I think it’s connected to the attack on Sylvaine Olivet. Zazie’d been surveilling a mec she thought was the rapist in Pigalle. That’s your turf, right?”

  “A little redhead?”

  Hope sparked in Aimée. “You’ve seen or heard something?”

  “I’m repaying Suzanne a favor,” he said, chewing a brioche. A flaky crumb caught on his chin stubble. “Consider this a one-off. No more.” He poured himself another coffee. “The sailor the crowd beat up last night looks good for the rapist.”

  She figured in Vice speak that meant le proc had sent the case to the juge d’instruction. Which indicated evidence, a solid base of investigation and a quick trial. Child rape and murder got the green light.

  “So there’s DNA, and he confessed?”

  “History of priors,” said Beto. “They’re checking his merchant seaman records. Ports of call. Ships’ logs. Takes time, some are out at sea. But he looks good for it.”

  “Why does he choose girls in the ninth arrondissement?”

  “They discovered he bunks with a retired seaman who lives … let’s see … on rue Cadet. His friend likes kids, too. They found lots of photos. Checking evidence at the flat.”

  “But if he’s admitted …”

  “The mec’s unconscious,” he interrupted, checking his expensive sports watch.

  She couldn’t let him leave—not before she learned more. “Say he’s in a coma for days or never comes out of it.”

  “Got to go,” he said.

  Unease ground in her gut on top of the nausea. “Please. Zazie’s missing, and no one knows for a fact this seaman from Lille’s the rapist. No actual proof or evidence.”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Lab results and DNA take twenty-four hours. They’re compromised, from what the Brigade des Mineurs said. But trust me, if you’d seen his priors …”

  “But what if he’s the wrong man? By the time the DNA comes back, it will be too late.” She held up her hand to stop him from cutting in. “Zazie’s been missing since two P.M. yesterday. You know how important the first twenty-four hours are when a child is in danger.”

  “I’m telling you, this seaman looks good for it. Figure her disappearance is coincidental.” Beto poured himself more coffee.

  “But you admit it’s possible.”

  “Mais oui, possible. But more like doubtful. And what do you want to do about it, chérie?”

  Aimée took a Badoit from the fridge, twisted off the cap. “I’d appreciate details on the other victims. These rapes started six months ago.” She swallowed a packet of prenatals from her bag, washed them down with a sip of Badoit.

  “You don’t ask much, do you?”

  “But easy for you to find out, non? In Vice I’m sure you keep tabs on sexual offenders out on parole in the ninth.”

  “The Brigades des Mineurs pulled them all in, believe me.”

  Madame Pelletier had made a move after all.

  “The rest is above my pay grade.” He brushed the flaky crumbs from the counter into her porcelain sink.

  “Quoi?” He had to say it twice before she understood. Some Americanism he’d picked up at FBI training at Quantico.

  In the meantime he’d accepted a third cup of coffee.

  She reached in her drawer for a knife to peel a kiwi, selected a Laguiole with the signature bee on the handle.

  His eyes widened. “You keep a Beretta by your spoons?”

  She nodded. “Handy. I don’t forget where I put it.”

  “You might need to work on baby-proofing,” he said, stirring the sugar.

  That and a million other things.

  “True,” she said. “But you could ask around the squad, mention Zazie.”

  “Chérie, I could do a lot of things,” he said, stifling a yawn. “The suspect came too easy, that’s what you’re thinking?”

  So he had doubts, too.

  “I’m asking where’s Zazie?” she said. “All the energy’s focused on this suspect, yet she’s still missing. I promised Zazie’s mother I’d find her. Can’t you sniff around, please?”

  “Your promise, your problem. You figure out your own case, chérie.”

  She peeled the kiwi, clammy hands gripping the bee handle. At least her stomach had quieted down.

  “I know this,” Aimée said, watching as the peeled brown skin revealed a dark emerald. “With ten francs and a Métro pass in her pocket and a school report to turn in today, she didn’t run away.”

  He nodded. “Chérie, I just got off an all-nighter. I need my beauty sleep.” Hadn’t she reached him at all? But she had, because he went on, “Right place, wrong time, you’re thinking? Zazie saw him, and he’s keeping her quiet?” he asked. “Any ransom demand?”

  Virginie would have told her. She shook her head.

  “I’ve furnished you with what I’ve heard. C’est tout. Now I’ve paid my debt, chérie.”

  But she’d known most of that, except for the unconscious man’s priors. And then he’d left her kitchen, headed down the hall.

  She called after him. “Do you have children?”

  Beto paused at the double doors. “Don’t go there. I owed Suzanne a favor.”

  “You do.” She heard the turn of her doorknob. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “Let’s say he hasn’t killed before, so he’s got a dilemma,” he said. “How to keep her quiet and what to do with her. That’s supposing he hasn’t …”

  Her mind spun. Cellars, attics, abandoned warehouses in the banlieue. Anywhere.

  “If you’re right—not saying you are—there’s something else to consider, chérie. If the rapist is really still out there. School ends soon, so before his victims go en vacances he might strike again.” He paused. “So if I sniff around—not saying I can—you’ll feel up to brioches next time?”

  She chewed the inside of her cheek. Nodded. She’d just realized there was one lycée he hadn’t struck yet.

  Tuesday, 6 A.M.

  RENÉ YAWNED AS dawn haloed the mansard rooftops. The street cleaner’s broom scraped the wet cobbles, and water trickled in the gutters. He put down the binoculars and rubbed his chin. He needed a shave, a double café crème and a trip to the doctor—his damn hip was acting up again. Instead all he had were leg cramps and an estimated tax bill Leduc Detective couldn’t pay. Plus a full day ahead of him after an all-night surveillance. And still no sign of Zazie.

  Next to him on the leather car seat lay his open copy of Noir: The Real Cases of Paris Crime. Not only l’Amérique had serial killers, like he’d been trying to tell Aimée, although she hadn’t seemed to be listening to him. But serial attackers had a specific MO for cornering their victims. He’d been telling Aimée about Henri Désiré Landru, the serial killer who preyed on World War I widows via the personal ads. Later, during the Occupation, Dr. Marcel Petiot kept an office down the hill by Printemps. He’d promised wealthy Jews papers for Argentina from his office above La Chope, the Auvergne bistro, and given them “vaccinations.” Afterwards
he emulated the Nazis and burned their bodies in his building’s furnace. Petiot, like Landru, took advantage of the wartime chaos, knowing his victims wouldn’t be missed. And Thierry Paulin, known for his bleached blond Afro in the ’80s—a nice piece of work who specialized in robbing, torturing and murdering old ladies.

  René shut the book. The history lesson hadn’t led him to Zazie.

  Frustrated, he glanced at the time. Almost sixteen hours since her disappearance.

  Time for le petit déjeuner, to stretch his legs and question people he hadn’t questioned last night.

  The blonde waitress served him on the terrasse outside the café on Place Gustave Toudouze. Petite, but legs to forever, like Aimée’s, under a denim miniskirt. Her face was fresh, unlined, with a pink lip-glossed mouth like a rosebud. She winked. “Long night?”

  He smiled. “Too long.” A grinding came from inside the café as the juicer pulped oranges.

  He’d spent the night parked here watching the building on rue Chaptal, photographing everyone who went in and out. All of six people.

  Just then, a young woman came out of the double doors of the building next door and waved to the waitress. “Madie, I left the laundry to dry. Your turn next batch.”

  Madie waved back to her. “When I take a break. Pas de problème.”

  So Madie lived here on Place Toudouze. René didn’t need coffee to suss out that she’d know the quartier, have a view of rue Chaptal.

  He pulled out his camera. Flicked through the digital photos. “May I buy you a coffee?”

  “Non, merci.”

  “I’m a detective,” René said, hoping she’d bite. “Wondered if you’d look at some photos to help in my investigation.”

  Madie’s eyes popped. She glanced at the empty terrasse, the deserted café. “But I’d love a jus d’orange.”

  Tuesday, 7:30 A.M.

  AIMÉE SIPPED A Badoit at the café counter to settle her stomach. “You’re sure the Commissariat mentioned Zazie?”

  “Mais oui, like I told you, the Commissariat called about an hour ago.” Pierre’s younger brother Dizca, a club DJ, wore bibbed overalls and a tank top. He looked like he’d been up all night as he wiped the zinc counter down with a cloth. “Virginie ran out all excited, saying they needed her for an interview. Hope I get my phone back. But what do you expect with a thirteen-year-old?”