Murder in the Bastille (12 page)

“Madame Danoux,
ça va?
Still need a boarder?
Bon . . .
one of my patients. . . . You are a lifesaver,
merci!
”

* * *

AIMÉE, HER laptop and bag hanging heavily from her shoulder, walked with Chantal to the rear entrance of the rési-dence. They caught a taxi which dropped them off on rue Charenton, just a block away. But she’d had the taxi circle the area several times until she felt safe. Chantal helped her count out the francs for the fare. Each bill was folded differently, so she could distinguish its denomination.

“You’ve got more to learn, Aimée,” Chantal said. “We’ve got to get your orientation scheduled. But luckily you didn’t end up on the cobblestones. Things could have been a lot worse, eh?”

True. But her lip hadn’t stopped trembling. Thank God Chantal couldn’t see that.

“Chin up.” And with that Chantal left her on the second floor landing of a building that smelt of old cooking oil and musty corners.

“Crap!” seethed a soprano voice.

“But Madame Danoux, you mustn’t sell the lace panels,” said a middle-aged woman’s voice. “Such intricate work, remnants of a past time. Nostalgia passes over me when I think . . .”

“Nostalgia for what?” Madame Danoux’s voice interrupted. “Nostalgia is when you want things to stay as they were. I know so many people who stay in the same place. And I think, my God, look at them! They’re dead before they die. Living is risking.”

A complete contrast to Mimi, Aimée thought. She had lifted her bandaged hand to knock when the half-ajar door swung open.

“Who’s there?”

The woman must be looking Aimée over, deciding whether to let her in . . . despite Dr. Lambert’s introduction.

Aimée took a deep breath, wishing she could see who and where she was. “Aimée Leduc, Dr. Lambert’s patient.”

Aimée wondered if her hair stuck out, if her black boots were scuffed, if the seam of her leather miniskirt was misaligned, or if the bag of salvaged belongings on her arm bulged open. “May I come in?”

“We’ll talk later, Madame Danoux,” said the middle-aged woman. A chair scraped over wood. Footsteps clicked away.

“Of course, I need a tenant,” Madame Danoux said, her words measured and careful. “Such a saint, that man, Doctor Lambert. I help him whenever he asks. You know, he saved my husband’s eyesight after that amateur botched a simple cataract operation.”

Unsure, Aimée remained in the doorway. Where was that chair . . . was there a rug to trip on . . . tables to run into?

“Thank you, if you could tell me . . .”

“Come inside, make yourself comfortable,” Madame Danoux said, her voice edging away. “I’ll just see to some tea. You take tea, of course . . . I require it for my throat, must have it.”

And then she’d gone. For a moment, Aimée wondered if the woman knew she couldn’t see. . . . Wouldn’t she have guessed from the doctor’s call?

She reached behind her, closed the heavy door, then played back in her mind the conversation she’d overheard, the chair scraping and the direction in which Madame Danoux’s voice disappeared.

Cautiously Aimée edged forward, her arm outstretched. Dr. Lambert had given her a cane but she refused to use it. A lingering scent of roses wafted from her right; dribbling hot air warmed her wrist. She figured the purring cat signaled a chair by a window with a southern exposure, still containing the heat of the day.

Hammering came from below, the whine of a saw and then a soaring contralto voice.

“No, no,
no
! The emphasis falls on the half-note!” A piano key was pounded repeatedly. “
Zut!
Go home and practice. That’s all for today.”

Then she heard the flipping of a radio channel, quick and impatient, then what sounded like a grainy radio interview. The tinny sound came from the AM radio:

“Joining us this evening on
Talk to the People
is Michel Albin, sociologist and author of
The New Violence
:
France in the 90’s.
”

Just what she wanted to hear, a paperback sociologist spouting his theory and hawking his book!

“Monsieur Albin, since the early nineties the crime rate has soared. What’s happened?”

“Let’s give it a historical perspective,” Albin said.

“The fifties and sixties were a time of social reform and recovery from the war. The seventies were political, going into the eighties brought drugs and drug trafficking. Digicode security replaced front doorbells and concierges and Parisiens pushed minorities into the suburbs. We’re living with the results today.”

“But monsieur, violence isn’t a new phenomenon.”

“Violence constantly evolves, mirroring Society and depending on the period.”

The windows slammed shut. “Blah, blah, blah, talk is cheap. That and six francs gets you an espresso,” said Madame Danoux. “We need him to tell us the country’s going to the dogs? Have some tea and I’ll show you to your room.”

“
Merci
, madame,” Aimée said. “Picture the face of a clock. Can you tell me at what time the tea cup is?”

“Three o’clock,” she said. “Sad, to lose your sight so young. Need treatment, do you?”

Aimée nodded. Sad wasn’t the half of it. She’d been attacked now for the second time. What would the radio sociologist theorize about that?

Somehow, she’d fathom a way out of her predicament. But right now, she didn’t know how.

“Do you sing in the Opéra, Madame?”

“Nodules grew on my vocal chords,” said Madame. “Otherwise . . .” she trailed off. All the
what ifs
in life were encompassed in that long pause. “This Bastille Opéra house was an architectural disaster. Can you believe it? The building tiles fall off. They’re keeping them in place with cargo nets in the back! The dressing rooms are notorious for being filthy. Mulitiple shows go on, so someone else has used it the night before you go in. At least, the costumes are put in place every night by staff, the makeup person comes to your room. And the acoustics are marvelous. I preferred Châtelet—more beautiful, great backstage crew and the sets: huge. But at least I’ve got my health.”

Despite Madame Danoux’s words, Aimée felt she did miss her former profession.

“Mademoiselle, did you know Cyrano de Bergerac lived nearby?”

What a shift! Aimée’s brows creased in surprise. Madame Danoux was giving her an overview of the neighborhood.

Meanwhile, where were the
flics
? Chantal had promised to send them over.

Several shrill rings came from the front of the apartment.

Aimée heard a rustling and footsteps on parquet. “So much coming and going, busier than the Galeries Lafayette!” said Madame Danoux. “Excuse me.”

“Mademoiselle Leduc?” asked a deep voice. “I’m Officer Nord from the Commissariat. You reported an attack.”

“
Bon!”
she said, turning in the direction of the voice. She wished she could see him. He sounded young. “Madame Danoux, may I impose, some tea for the officer and use of this . . .” she stumbled . . . and gestured with her arm . . . what kind of room was this?

“Parlor,” Nord finished for her.

“
Bien sûr
,” Madame Danoux said.

Officer Nord showed her to a seat. The low hard divan cut into her back. Aimée fidgeted. She tried to concentrate. The better she explained and painted a picture for him
,
the more clues he’d hav
e.
What he did with them depended on how well he’d been trained.

Aimée heard the hissing of hot water being poured as Madame Danoux served him tea, then left.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened,” he said.

She started with the attack in the passage. Then she described the assault in the residence.

“You know the
flics
treated the first attack on me as the work of the Beast of Bastille,” she said.

“Now we’re treating it as an isolated assault,” he said.

Good. She realized something new must have taken place.

“Why?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that,” said the young
flic
, clearing his throat.

“You’ve found the Beast of Bastille, haven’t you?”

No answer. Had her message reached Morbier? And she thought about that night. She remembered who’d been brought into custody.

“You’re charging Mathieu Cavour, the
ébéniste
?”

Silence.

“But why . . . what evidence did you find?” she asked.

She figured he must be searching for a way to answer this. He couldn’t have been out of the police academy for long.

“Look, my father was a
flic
. I know the score,” she said. “Give me the truth.”

“They said you were a troublemaker.”

“I am. But tell me anyway.”

“Sergeant Bellan’s my superior,” he said.

Merde!
Bellan had it in for her. No wonder he’d sent a trained lackey. A nice way to show how low she rated on the totem pole.

“. . . and Sergant Bellan’s a good one,” she said, gritting her teeth.

It stung to say that. Especially after the way he’d badmouthed her father. But it was best for her to compliment Bellan if she wanted to learn more. When Bellan stayed off the liquor, kept his rage under control, and didn’t take things personally as he did with her, he scored high marks in the Commissariat. Word had gotten around he was up for promotion. “Of course Bellan’s good, my father trained him.”

She hoped that sank in.

“Would you say,” he asked, “robbery was the motive for the first attack?”

Robbery?

“Does it make sense for Mathieu to attack and rob someone in front of his atelier?”

Had Bellan been saddled with a new recruit he had no time to work with? Silence.

“I’m the one asking questions here,” he said. “Let’s move on. Could robbery be the motive for this incident?”

“Not in the way you think,” she said. “My laptop and things were left. Only my phone was taken.”

“Mathieu Cavour was released. This morning.”

So they’d let him go? At least she’d learned that. She wanted to stand up, get the kinks out of her neck, feel the warmth from the heater. Her thoughts flowed better that way.

If only she could see his face, read his movements. But she couldn’t. All she had were intuition, some sensory antennae and whatever she could glean from his words. She had to get him on her side. Get him to cough up more of the latest info.

“Let’s assume, after luring out Josiane Dolet, the attacker got me by mistake,” she said. “I’d picked up her phone. We were wearing the same jacket. He realizes his mistake too late, after he’s bashed in my head. People come down the passage, frightening him away. But he finds Josiane in the next passage. He kills her, the most important part, but we don’t know why, then wraps her in an old carpet which isn’t discovered until later the next day. Meanwhile I’m blind, out of commission, but Josiane’s phone is nowhere to be found and eventually he realizes I must have it. He figures his number’s on the speed dial or it incriminates him some way, so he discovers where I am and breaks into the room . . . but he gets my phone . . . not hers. Thwarted again.”

“So Mademoiselle Leduc, why not give me the phone,” said Officer Nord.

He’d learned something from Bellan after all, how to listen. Josiane’s phone was her face card . . . the only one. The murderer wanted it. So did the
flics
.

“Tell me how you’re investigating the attack on me,” she said. “If you’ve found any suspects, and what’s happened to Vaduz, the Beast of Bastille.”

“If you’re trying to negotiate by withholding evidence needed in a homicide case, mademoiselle. . . .”

“Negotiate? Someone attacked me. So viciously, Officer Nord, that it blinded me. The doctor doubts I’ll ever see again.”

Silence.

She wouldn’t give in unless he met her halfway. “I want to discuss this with Bellan.”

“That’s impossible.”

No warmth in his voice. Was he writing this down? He sounded far away . . . had he moved?

“No more until I talk to him.”

“Sergeant Bellan’s away.”

“Away? A workaholic like him?”

“Family problems. The baby’s sick,” he said.

For the first time, the
flic
sounded human.

“Aaah, sorry to hear that.” Her back felt stiff from sitting on the hard divan. “Then to Commissaire Morbier.”

“He’s assigned to another case. The Beast of Bastille won’t strike again. That’s the official story, anyway,” he said, his voice faltering. “I didn’t know you’d lost your sight. Sorry.”

He grew more human every minute.

“Has Vaduz confessed?”

“As far as the Prefet’s concerned, as good as.”

“So where is he?”

“After a rampage outside Porte de la Chapelle, he crashed the car he stole. We’re not supposed to reveal this yet, especially to the media, but whatever they found was sent to the morgue.”

“You mean . . . Vaduz is dead. . . . When?” Why hadn’t Morbier told her?

“No announcements. No details released to our unit, anyway. So please keep it to yourself.”

“I want to, but if Vaduz died before I was attacked in the residence, that’s important.”

“How?”

“It could mean that someone else attacked me in the passage and killed Josiane, the same one who later came to the residence. That’s why I have to talk to Morbier.”

“Sergeant Bellan‘s handling the case. Everything goes through him. Of course, you’ll mention Josiane Dolet’s phone and reveal its whereabouts when I pass on the message to call you, won’t you?”

She nodded. “So they said I was trouble?”

“I made that up,” he said, “but looks like I got it right.”

Thursday Late Afternoon

RENÉ PRESSED THE SECOND number he’d copied from the list on Josiane Dolet’s speed dial.

“Architecture Brault,” said a middle-aged male voice.

“I’m calling concerning Josiane Dolet,” he said.

A pause. “Who’s this?”

“I’m with Leduc Detective,” he said, glancing up from the courtyard at the gleaming limestone buildings on the steam-washed cobblestoned alley. One could eat off the pristine stonework façades. A decade earlier, many would have avoided the area. It had been a district of weed-filled
cours
and small dilapidated porcelain and bronze fixture factories. These stood next to former seventeenth century nunneries that had once held an army of nuns in cloistered convents, seats of wealth and power that had rivaled the king’s. “Please spare me a few moments,” said René. “I’m downstairs.”

A head appeared at a window. All René could see was a halo of copper hair.

“I’ve got a backlog of clients . . .”

“We should talk in person,” René said. “Your number was on Mademoiselle Dolet’s speed dial.”

“My firm deals with many people.”

“This concerns Josiane Dolet’s murder. I just thought we should have a chat before I talk with the
flics
.” René let the silence hang.

“Ten minutes. Between clients,” he said. “The code’s 43A6, second floor, first door on the right.”

René took off his jacket, undid his right cufflink, rolled up the sleeve of his pink tinged custom-made shirt, got on his tiptoes, and just managed to hit the digicode.

The door buzzed. He pushed it open and reassembled himself in the glassed-in foyer, which melded two old factories. An ingenious arched portico opened up to an azure glass-roofed courtyard. Ochre-stained pots of bamboo bordered a minimalist bleached-wood desk. The reception area lay empty.

René took the lift. The wet weather kicked his arthritis into an aching winter mode early. He’d cut back his martial arts practices at the dojo. Not details he would share with Aimée in her condition. Or ever.

A man with thinning copper hair, small black-framed glasses, and a pale complexion stood as René entered. Surprise painted his face for a moment. René was used to that, and to the customary downward glance at his long torso and short legs.

“René Friant, of Leduc Detective.”

“Brault, of Brault Architecture,” the man said, extending his hand. René saw no welcome in the pale, guarded face.

René approached the side of the desk and shook hands. His arms wouldn’t have reached across the desk.

“You understand, I have a few minutes only,” Brault said, his thin mouth working in his long face. Expensive mechanical pencil tops showed in the pocket of his shirt. He wore tailored black denim jeans, a charcoal gray shirt and jacket, blue socks, and black hiking boots. All Gaultier by their look.

“Please sit down,” Brault said. “I’m concerned, but I don’t know how it involves me.”

After one glance at the tall, olive Philippe Starck-designed chair, René preferred to stand. “
Non, merci,
” René said. “I’ll get to the point.”

Instead, René headed to the window, shaking his head. He stood silently, figuring his next move, hoping to throw Brault off guard. The office window opened onto the coppered roof connected to the glass skylight. Vestiges of a bas-relief on the wall and verdigris-patinaed rain spouts stood out against the gable walls. Beyond, he saw a niche with a worn stone figure where the building roof overhung the street. Probably St. Anne, the patron saint of carpenters, René figured.

“What’s this about?” Brault said, breaking the silence.

“Josiane was protecting you, wasn’t she?” René asked, taking a stab in the dark.

A pencil lead cracked.

“Go ahead, talk to me. I’m not a
flic,”
René said. “What you tell me . . .”

“Goes to your boss, right?” Brault interrupted. “That
salope
of an editor who wants corroboration from two sources before he prints a fanny-licking article that makes it to
France-Soir
by nightfall.”

René struggled to keep the surprise from his face. “We don’t have to play it like that,” René said.

“Josiane was a good journalist. I don’t know why she associated with the likes of you.”

“Me?” René wielded his short arms in mock defense. What the hell was going on here? Brault had jumped from coolness to white-heat without a warm-up. He wished Aimée were here. He needed clues on how to proceed. And his hip ached.

“She had to pay rent like the rest of us,” he said.

“Josiane?”

Merde
. . . had she been wealthy . . . had he blown it?

“There’s a lot you didn’t know about her,” René said, hoping he could bluff this out. He regretted it immediately. How lame it sounded! Why couldn’t he have a script or a computer program to guide him?

“Look, I won’t involve the
flics,”
said René
,
“if you tell me what you and Josiane were working on.”

Brault’s stainless steel intercom buzzed. “Planning commission’s assembled and waiting in the conference room, Monsieur Brault.”

“Tell me or I turn over my info,” René said. “I’m waiting.”

“What guarantee do I have you’ll conceal the fact that my number was on Josiane’s speed dial?”

Behind the small designer glasses, Brault’s eyes glared.

“We’re not the Brigade Criminelle,” René said, and winked. “One source works for me.” If that didn’t confuse Brault even more, he didn’t know what would. “There’s no benefit for me in involving the
flics.
I’ll erase your number.”

“Your boss knows, doesn’t he?” Brault glared.

Knows what? But René returned the glare in silence. And waited.

Brault snapped the mechanical pencil lead in and out, but it didn’t break. Just shot a little rain of pencil lead onto the Berber carpet.

“They hire flunkies to clear the tenants out,” Brault said. His tone was harsh and he spat the words out.

“Who does?”

“Mirador.”

“The big construction developer Mirador?”

Brault nodded.

“The Bastille Historic Preservation Society can’t compete with the palms greased by developers like Mirador. The Romanian spilled the beans one night after some 80 proof vodka. He plastered ceilings, did occasional jobs for us. There’s no reason to doubt him. The rue des Taillandiers project seems to be just the tip of the iceberg. That’s what I told Josiane. And that’s all.”

“What happened on rue des Taillandiers?”

“Forget the November to March ban on tenant evictions. Mirador evicts anytime.”

Brault’s words sounded like code to René. But not the kind of code he could decrypt.

“The Romanian?”

“Dragos.”

“Then Dragos can verify . . .”

“Don’t bother to check,” Brault interrupted. “He’s disappeared with the wind. That’s how they work. They hire transient Romanians, Serbs, or Russians.”

René nodded, hoping he didn’t look as clueless as he felt.

“Josiane wrote the article to put a spoke in Mirador’s wheel,” said Brault.

René’s ears perked up.

“Would it be big enough to stop Mirador from evicting illegally?”

Brault’s office door swung open. Two men in suits beckoned him. “The representative of the
Bureau de la Construction’s
here. We can’t hold up the meeting any longer.”

Brault strode out of his office, leaving René to see himself out, laboriously, with short steps. René’s mind spun. Whirled. He’d promised Aimée he’d call after interviewing Brault. But he couldn’t stop now; he had to find out about Mirador.

RENÉ LABORED several blocks to rue Basfroi, in the northern part of the Bastille. He headed to his friend Gaetan Larzan’s prop rental, where he knew he’d get information. Maybe even a decent glass of wine.

“Business good?” René asked.

“Terrible!” said Gaetan, brushing off his stained overalls, then slicking back his hair.

Always the same reply. Like his old uncle.

Gaetan, who stood near a tarnished knight in armor, returned to consulting a checklist, marking things off.

“These television crews, they’re more careless than monkeys,” he said. Beside him stood a garish green plastic palm tree, bent as though weeping on his shoulder. Ahead lay a hall full of coat racks: wood ones, bamboo, mahogany, metal, lucite, every size and shape imaginable. In a cavernous room strewn with clawfooted bathtubs, old screens, and mirrors propped against the wall, René saw a massive stuffed polar bear towering between low-slung chandeliers.

“Time for a glass?” Gaetan asked.

“Twist my arm and I might,” René said. Gaetan’s uncle and René’s mother had become friends when she’d foraged through the shop for props for her act.

“How’s your uncle?”

“Spry, as usual. He escaped from the home last week,” Gaetan nodded. “But his leg gave out. He didn’t get far.”

His uncle’s wooden leg, a souvenir from the Austerlitz battlefield hospital, intrigued René. After the war he’d refused a prosthetic, saying so many had died, he’d been lucky to get the stump, and he wouldn’t let anyone forget that. René felt empathy for him. “Makes a nice pair of salt and pepper shakers,” he’d heard some workers laugh behind their backs, “a tall cripple and a short one.”

At the secretary’s desk, littered with piles of yellow invoices under a stuffed hedgehog, Gaetan cleared a place for René. He reached back and pulled out a dusty, unlabeled bottle. In the pencil holder he found a corkscrew, then rinsed two long-stemmed wine glasses with bottled Evian, flicked the water into the waste bin, and poured.

“Château Margaux nineteen seventy-six?” René swirled the rich rust-red liquid, sniffing the cork.

“Close. You’re quite the connoisseur. Nineteen seventy-five was a vintage year.”

René wondered how Gaetan managed to get hold of such excellent wine. He wouldn’t mind a bottle.

Gaetan shrugged. “Fell off a truck in Marseilles,” he said.

Comme d’habitude—
as usual—René thought. Business must be booming, or else he was paid in wine.

“Didn’t I miss your party this year? . . . Here’s a late present. Don’t drink it all once. Happy birthday.” Gaetan pushed another bottle toward René.

“Salut.”
They clinked glasses. The wine poured down his throat like raw silk, full-bodied yet light.

“
Merci,
Gaetan.”

Gaetan’s prop shop overlooked a narrow passage. Beyond lay a dirt lot, fenced in by jagged aluminum siding and stone building walls pockmarked by old, peeling wallpaper.

“Wasn’t there a ceramic factory here?” He remembered his mother buying a piece of
faience
, a flowered vase from the flawed seconds batch. It had sat in the kitchen hutch for years. He still had it.

“The
patron
died. No one to run it. Soon to be a parking lot,” Gaetan said, making a
moue
of disgust. “Developers!”

A pity, René thought. He went to the window. But he couldn’t read the construction sign which had been defaced by silver and green graffiti.

Gaetan would know about Mirador. He’d grown up in the
quartier
. “I hear Mirador’s hiring Romanians to kick people out of old buildings.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me, but I know nothing firsthand,” Gaetan said. He broke into a wide grin as he announced, “I’m getting married. Remember Giselle?”

The long-legged dancer who taught at the dance studio. “Of course, lucky man!”

“We’re moving to Tours.”

“
Félicitations!
But your business?”

“Pierre, my cousin, is the manager now, he’s more involved.”

“Where’s Pierre?”

“Hiking in the Pyrenées. He deserved a vacation.”

René’s brow furrowed. “I need information about the evictions.”

“Not your style . . .
Aaaah,
it’s one of your friends,
non?
”

So he told Gaetan what had happened; about Aimée and the story Josiane supposedly was working on. By the time he’d finished, darkness had descended over the tiled rooftops.

“René, I’d like to help, but I’m hardly here these days,” Gaetan said, looking away. “Not everything in life checks out.”

But René could tell Gaetan was withholding something.

“There’s a load of returns in the yard,” he said, standing up. He flicked on the switch, flooding the office with light. “You know your way around; stay as long as you like.”

Was he afraid?

“Look, I’m worried about Aimée. You must know someone who can help me.”

“Don’t take this detective stuff so seriously,” Gaetan said. ”Look, genius, your
métier’s
computers.”

“She’s blind, Gaetan,” he said, “and my job might go down the toilet with this picky Judiciare.”

Gaetan picked up a folder of invoices, tucked them under his arm. He avoided René’s eyes. “
Desolé.
Don’t forget your wine. I’ll send you a wedding invitation.”

“Here’s my cell phone number,” René said. “Pierre might know, or be able to give me someone who does.”

DEJECTED, RENÉ didn’t know which way to turn. Calling Mirador and asking them about evictions probably wouldn’t garner information. On his way back, René passed the fenced-in lot, but he still couldn’t read the graffiti-covered sign.

After some blocks, rounding a corner, he just missed running into an old woman. She wore a faded scarf knotted at her neck, and a sealskin coat that had flaked off in patches. She stood in front of the dark Gymnase Japy. Yellow pools of light from the just-lit streetlamps glistened on the wet brick walls. She was knocking on the tall wood door.

“I promised Maman to do better. Every time the teacher says
fois
in the
dictée
I will write it correctly,” she said, then repeated in a falsetto voice, slow and measured:

“Il était une
fois
une marchande de
foie
qui vendait du
foie
dans la ville de
Foix
. Elle se dit ma
foi
c’est pour la pre-mière
fois
que je vends du
foie
dans la ville de
Foix.”