Murder in the Bastille (16 page)

“So tell me more, Yann.”

“You gave me your business card but I didn’t want to call you too early. They had one of those loud techno parties in the abandoned building.”

“Who’s they, Yann?”

“Those East Europeans.”

René stopped unbuttoning his coat.

“At dawn they milled around in the square,” said Yann. “This Dragos, they were calling him. He was surrounded by his comrades. Some fight broke out around the block, the
flics
car pulled up, then they all disappeared.”

So Yann had called to tell him of a missed opportunity. Late again. René figured getting any information about Josiane from the Romanian
mecs
who evicted people had to be a long shot anyway. “Next time call me when you see him, Yann. Anytime.”

“But his friend’s still here, sniffing around.”

René froze.

“Which friend?”

“One of the gang who evicted old people. Tracksuit, big shoulders.”

“I’m on my way. Try and keep him there,” René said, grabbing his keys.

“How can I do that?”

René heard the panic in Yann’s voice. But if he’d got up the courage to call him, there was hope.

“You’ll think of something Yann. Call me on my cell phone if he leaves. 06 78 54 39 09.”

RENÉ GUNNED his Citroën down rue du Louvre. He thanked God he’d filled the tank earlier as he crossed three arrondissements. He’d passed through the Marais and lower Bastille in record time when his cell phone rang.

“He’s getting on his bicycle, this
mec,
” said Yann.

The cell phone reception buzzed and wavered.

“Can you speak up, Yann. What’s he wearing?”

“Navy blue tracksuit with those stripes down the side; he’s on an old battered bike,” said Yann, his voice brimming with excitement.

Not so different from many of the cyclists René passed. At least two people wore that type of gymsuit.

“Can you tell in which direction he’s headed?”

“Turned onto rue Gobert,” said Yann. “He’s either headed down Boulevard Voltaire or . . .”

“I’m on Boulevard Voltaire,” interrupted René. “Does he have a ponytail like Dragos?”

“
Non
, short black hair,” he said. “There’s a funny straw basket on the front with plastic flowers.”

And there he was, in the bike lane. Leafy trees canopied the wide boulevard, casting dappled shadows on cars and pedestrians.

“Got him,” René said. “He’s ahead of me, Yann. Call me if you see Dragos again.
Merci.”

René slipped the phone in his pocket and edged the Citroën closer. The man, pedaling hard, wiped a brow glistening with sweat. He appeared intent on the busy traffic, turned right on rue Charenton and weaved his bicycle through the crowded one way street to Avenue Ledru Rollin.

René kept pace, glad he was behind the wheel. The only other time he’d followed anyone had been with Aimée in Belleville. At least he didn’t have to run this time.

After crossing Avenue Daumesnil, right behind l’hôpital Quinze-Vingts, the bicyclist turned into a small street leading to the pedestrian bridge crossing the Bastille’s canal. Moored on both sides of the canal were upscale boats and several
péniches
, remodeled barges.

René pulled over, stuck on a one-way street. He jumped out of his car, ready to pursue. But he saw the man pedal the bike across the bridge, then coast down to the long dock lining the basin of the canal that fed into the Seine.

The man propped the bike against the pitted stone wall, Henri II’s fortifications surrounding the former fourteenth century moat. The bike was below a niche in the old, worn wall. Weeds wormed their way in its crevices. He hopped onto the narrow gangplank and disappeared.

René pulled out the cell phone and called Aimée, determined to keep his tone light.

“Aimée, I followed one of Dragos’s friends to a
péniche
moored here in the Bastille basin.”

“Dragos?”

“Yann got the name wrong,” René said.

The churning water lapped the quai below René, as a
péniche
with bright red geraniums, lace curtains, and a child playing with a dog on deck, chugged by.

“What’s he doing?”

René told her. “It’s a waiting game now. Until he comes out. But I have to meet Serge at the morgue when he gets off work.”

“So tell me René, if this Romanian, Dragos, thought I was Josiane . . . why did he want to kill her?”

“How about this?” he said. “She wrote an exposé of Mirador’s illegal evictions. He tried to stop her.”

“That fits. But why make it look like an attack by the Beast of Bastille?”

“A good cover.” He wished for the thousandth time Aimée had never picked up Josiane’s phone and answered it.

“Somehow, I doubt it,” she said. “It’s not the immigrant thugs’ style. Bold as they are, they’d have to know a lot more about the serial killer to plan it. Who knows how much French they understand? Besides, they’d speak with an accent.”

She made sense.

“Whoever called on that phone knew Josiane, and was trying to lure her into the passage. He got me instead. The Romanians’ trademark isn’t subtlety.”

“So that leaves us . . . ?”

“With more questions.”

Below on the quai, the man René had followed emerged.

“He’s come out,” said René. “I’ve got to go.”

“
Alors
, be careful.”

The man strode at a rapid pace, mounted his bike, and was down the quai before René reached his car. By the time René arrived at the Place de la Bastille roundabout, circling the Bastille column surmounted by the gold-winged figure of the genius of Liberty, the bike had disappeared. He could have gone in any of the 11 different directions radiating from the column.

What to do now?

Only one thing. He drove on and parked along the Boulevard de la Bastille.

Fear flickered over him as he crossed the bridge on foot. The man had seemed to be in good shape and Dragos, or others like him, might be on the boat. His confidence ebbed despite his martial art practices and black belt from the taekwondo dojo.

René took a deep breath and walked up the gangplank.

Friday

A HUNDRED THINGS WEIGHED on Loïc Bellan’s mind, which was webbed by a dull receding hangover, the least of which was the
mec
from a derelict building rave party allegedly selling Ecstasy. Bellan also had several cases on his desk. On top of it all, the little doubt about Aimée’s attacker being the Beast of Bastille still nagged him.

But the duty detective leaving his double shift had dumped everything on Bellan’s desk and rubbing his tired eyes, said, “Welcome back, we’re short staffed. Your date’s in lockup four.”

Bellan considered himself lucky to have grabbed a bed in a building used for out of town
flics
on temporary assignment. At least by working late he’d avoid facing the dormitory-style bunkhouse with its bare walls that would drive him to finish the flask of scotch malt whiskey in his pocket.

And he’d avoid Marie’s silent accusing face that woke him up at night, slicing through his dreams. And the small bundle in the Vannes hôpital, his son Guillaume, who’d lapsed into renal failure and was fighting for his life.

Bellan opened the thick metal door and stood in front of the wire cages in the Commissariat where they kept the prisoners. Like animal pens, he’d always thought. He stared at a sullen young man sitting on the narrow bench, a sheen of perspiration on his face.

“Iliescu, D.” said Bellan, consulting the file. “Come with me.”

Iliescu wore a skinny T-shirt and baggy sweatpants. He lurched toward the grille. He kept rubbing his nose and looked flushed and feverish.
Shakes like a junkie,
Bellan thought.
But more buff than the usual twitching skin-and-bone types.

They went back to an office.

“Looks like you had some bad shit, eh?”

“I don’t do drugs,” Iliescu said, with a thick Romanian accent. He heaved, then covered his mouth with his hand as if about to throw up. “Never, I work out.”

All through the short interrogation, Bellan noticed Iliescu fighting waves of nausea.

“Where do you come from?”

“Budapest.”

One of his palms had numbers written in ink on it. Numbers with odd curlicues on them.

“What’s that?”

“I write notes to myself,” Iliescu said, breathing faster. “If I don’t write down the time, I’m late for work. Listen, I’ve got a job.”

“We’ll have to search your domicile,” Bellan said, cutting it short. “I’ve applied for a search warrant.”

Iliescu’s eyes rolled up in his head. He gagged and fell back in his chair. Alarmed, Bellan pulled on some latex gloves, from a box kept handy on the desk. He grabbed the wastebasket almost in time for Iliescu to spew inside it.

And then Bellan saw the blackened skin under the man’s arms. Big charred places, some cracked and bleeding. Cigarette burns? He looked closer. Bigger. He’d never seen anything like this.

“Get the on-call medico here. Right away,” he shouted into the hallway.

The sounds of scuffling and the banging of metal drawers came from the hallway.

“Nobody answers,” said a duty sergeant. “Will a paramedic do?”

“Anybody, quick!”

A short man with a graying beard wearing lab coat rushed in.

“What’s up?”

“Look at his arm.”

“Spanish Inquisition time eh, Bellan?” said the paramedic. “Burning your victims these days?”

“They’re not new burns,” Bellan said.

“But recent. Notice the blackened skin.” He pointed.

Iliescu’s eyes fluttered. His skin appeared clammy and moist, but he was still coherent. “They’ll fire me if I don’t show up at work,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“You mean you’ll lose your drug connections,” Bellan said.

Iliescu tried to sit up as the paramedic brought in another man to help him.

“No drugs,” said Iliescue. “Never.”

“Take him to Hôtel Dieu,” Bellan said. Hôtel Dieu, on Île de la Cité, one of the oldest charity hospitals in Paris, treated prisoners and the indigent.

“
No!
I’ll lose my job!”

“Where do you work?”

“The loading bay at the Opéra,” said Iliescu.

Something clicked. Vaduz, the serial killer, had worked there, too. “Do you know Patrick Vaduz?”

Bellan saw recognition in Iliescu’s fevered eyes.

“That pervert!” said Iliescu. “He made everyone’s skin crawl. We avoided him.”

After wheeling Iliescu out, the paramedic looked back at Bellan from the door,

“It’s odd, but it’s as if he has a major case of sunburn. A megadose.”

Bellan stared at him.

“What do you mean?”

“But no one gets sunburned in just one spot, do they?” said the paramedic, tugging his beard.

Friday

RENÉ CLUTCHED THE ROPE railing as the gangplank swayed. He wished he could suppress the churning of his stomach. A porthole snapped shut on a boat down the quai.

The bright glare from the water and greasy oilslick danced in front of him.
Seasick
had been one of his middle names growing up.
Le petit
was the other.

The slim dark blue
péniche
, moored in the Port de Plaisance, swayed in the wake of a tugboat. The barge’s hold had been converted to a covered living space. STARLA was lettered in white across the hull.

“
Allô?
Anyone there?” called René. His words caught in his throat. He didn’t know what he’d say if the door opened.

No answer.

He knocked on the door. Again and again.

The lapping of water against the wooden hull was the only response.

He looked around then turned the doorknob.

Locked.

Weathered wrought-iron chairs and a glass table took up the deck space. On the other side, by some piled deck chairs, he saw a round porthole. And another larger one, circled by rusted bronze. Unlocked. If he opened it wide enough, he just might squeeze through.

Should he?

He saw no sign of life on the next boat.

Breaking and entering was more Aimée’s
métier.
Yet, if he continued to stand here, he’d learn nothing.

Alors,
he might as well try. He pulled the deck chairs over as a shield, opened the porthole wider, and shimmied inside, landing on a slick pine floor. Newspapers were strewn across the counter. René looked. The mastheads read
Romania-Libera
.

He pulled on the latex gloves that he’d taken from his pocket, as he’d seen Aimée do countless times. Then rolled up his jacket sleeves and got to work, hoping to find something that dealt with Mirador. He’d have to find it soon and get out.

In a drawer, he saw names, hours, and what looked like break-times, listed on a sheet. A work roster for different shifts? He glanced down . . . Iliescu, Dragos.

His excitement mounted. He’d found Dragos. At least where he’d been known. And he’d found it all by himself.

Footsteps pounded on the wooden gangplank.

Merde
. . . he was coming back!

René looked for somewhere to hide.

Where?

The doorknob turned. Locked.

René dodged under the table that was bolted to the floor. Against the bulkhead were the built-in knee-high cabinets. He heard footsteps circling the boat like he had, someone trying the windows. Out of options, René opened a latched cabinet and backed himself inside a musty damp space big enough for a trunk. A man with longer legs would never have fit inside.

He prayed that he wouldn’t sneeze. His hand fell on a dirty beige canvas bag. Slants of custard-hued light came through the space where the cushioned seat missed meeting the wall.

In the cramped, hot space, René’s hip throbbed. On his right were glass cylinders. Long, fat, test tube-like, poking out from a bag.

But his gaze caught on the bag’s dirty canvas flap that bore the initials DI . . . Dragos Iliescu! He wished whoever was tramping about outside would leave so he could exit with Iliescu’s bag.

In his dreams.

He tried concentrating on the rays of light, not the swaying of the boat. Or his claustrophobia. He heard the barge ropes strain against the hull.

And then his cell phone trilled in his pocket.
Merde
. . . why hadn’t he put it on vibrate? How dumb!

A shadow blocked the light. He couldn’t answer it. After three rings, he shut the phone off. And prayed.

He heard the windows jiggled from outside. He held his breath. Finally, the footsteps clomped back up the gangplank.

René used his elbows and scooted out. But not before he’d slipped the sling of the canvas bag around his shoulders.