Murder in the Bastille (20 page)

“In Mathieu’s shop in the passage.”

“I found Dragos’s bag,” he said, his voice vibrating with excitement.

“Dragos’s bag?”

“No, I stole it,” said René. “I’ve never stolen anything in my life!”

Aimée realized Mathieu was beside her, silent.

“Go on, René.”

“You have to see this,” he said. “I can’t describe it over the phone.”

“Slight problem, René,” she said. “I can’t see.”

“Get your white cane, come out to rue Charenton in three minutes.”

Her heart thumped. She didn’t want to walk there. Again.

“I don’t have a cane.”

“Why not?”

“A dog’s better.”

She didn’t want to admit she’d refused the white cane. Pride had prevented her from learning how to use one. Stupid. Face it. She needed one now.

“The Citroën’s too wide to get by the construction. My God, Aimée, it’s a medieval passage. Come out in two minutes, you’ve got less than fifty meters to walk.”

Her head hurt. Her brief period of sight with no depth perception, the resulting lack of balance had disoriented her. But she gathered her bag, thinking back to the layout she’d seen. Unease lingered in her mind. She didn’t want to ask Mathieu for help.

All she could think of was that awful choking. No air. Having to walk there alone, again. Her hands went to the dressing still on her neck, covered by a scarf.

“Excuse me, Mathieu,” she said. “My partner’s waiting.”

Mathieu guided her to the door. She refused his offer of further help. She stretched her hands out, felt the cold stone, and took small steps, guiding herself along the wall.

The passage felt much warmer than on the night she’d been here. Noises of trucks, the chirp of someone’s cell phone, and the smell of espresso came from somewhere on her left.

Something gnawed at her. Stuck in the back of her mind. But what was it? Immersed in the fear and frustration of blindness, had she missed details . . . important ones?

Now it all came back: the dankness from the lichen-encrusted pipes, the dark sky pocked with stars, the cell phone call’s background noise, the tarlike smell of the attacker.

She felt sick . . . had it been Mathieu? Had he thought she was Josiane?

“René?” she said, hearing the familiar Citroen engine.

“Door’s open.”

She smelled the leather upholstery he’d oiled and polished. And what smelled like fresh rubber latex.

“Put these gloves on and feel this.” She felt René thrust latex gloves in her lap, then what felt like a glass tube.

The car shuddered as he took off down the street.

“Wait . . .” She wanted a cigarette. And for the fireworks to subside in her head. Her pills. She’d forgotten to take them. She found the pill bottle inside her pocket, uncapped it, and popped two pills. Dry.

“Let’s stop. I need water and a pharmacy.” As the Citroën sped down cobbled streets, Aimée was glad for the smooth suspension.

René pulled up at the curb. “Here’s a pharmacy. Let me . . .”

“I’ll manage,” she said, feeling her way on the sidewalk. “How many steps to the door?”

But the doors opened automatically. Pharmacy smells and warm air enveloped her. Now if only she could find the tar shampoo. The one the attacker smelled of. She took small steps and listened for voices.

“May I help you, mademoiselle?” said an older woman.

“Water, please,” she said. She smelled floral bouquet soap. “Am I near the shampoo?”

“Keep going, end of the aisle, on your right.”

Aimée felt slick plastic bottles, smooth boxes, and more perfumed smells. Not what she looked for.

“Madame, what about the medicinal shampoos?”

“Here’s your water,” the woman said, grasping Aimée’s hand, putting a cold bottle in it. “Right here. Which one would you like?”

She craned her neck forward, sniffing the boxes. Both rows. And then she smelled it. “This one. What’s it called?”

“Aaah, super-
antipelliculaire
shampoo. This one really fights dandruff. Tar-based. It’s the most effective.”

“
Merci
, madame.” She paid for the water and shampoo and edged her way back to René’s car.

“What was all that about?” asked René.

“Whoever attacked me has dandruff,” she said. “And uses this shampoo.”

“Him and thousands of others,” said René.

“It’s a start,” she said. “How often does it say to shampoo?”

“Once a week, but for increased effectiveness, every three days,” said René.

“Then he’s about due if he’s conscientious.”

She dialed Morbier’s line.

“Commissaire Morbier’s attending a refresher training course in Créteil,” said the receptionist.

So he’d gone. What about that explosives case he’d mentioned? He’d always said he was too old a dog to learn new tricks.

Didn’t he care? Deep down she’d thought maybe he’d . . . what? Give up his caseload and devote himself to her? That wasn’t Morbier.

Morbier always struggled with his emotions. Even when her father died. He’d avoided seeing her in the burn hospital after the explosion.

And though she wasn’t surprised, it had hurt.

What more could she do?

She wanted to avoid faxing their information about Vaduz to Bellan. Too many prying eyes in the Commissariat. Maybe he wasn’t back yet from Brittany? Lieutenant Nord had promised he’d call her.

Right now she had to concentrate on what René wanted to show her.

“Why don’t we check Dragos’s bag?”

René parked at tree-lined Place Trousseau. Aimée rolled down the window of his Citroen. A police siren reverberated in the distance; the gushing of water and the noise of plastic rakes scraping over the stone sounded in the background.

She inhaled the soft, autumn air tinged by dampness. Sounds of crackling leaves and a dog’s faint bark reminded her of why she loved this time of year.

“What does the bag look like, René?”

“Dirty natural canvas, D.I. stitched on the inside of the flap,” he said. “Long strap. You know, the ones people drape around themselves on motorcycles.”

Common and available everywhere. She pulled the latex gloves on, finger by finger, an arduous process. It reminded her of when she was little and her grandfather insisted she put her winter mittens on by herself. Never mind that she couldn’t see where her fingers were going.

“Tell me what you see,” she said.

“Better yet,” said René. “Open your hands.”

“No guessing games.”

Too late. Again she felt a long, glass-hard tube. Then another. “Feels like a beaker. From a laboratory. Any markings?”

“Just worn red lines indicating measurements.”

She smelled a cloth exuding stale sweat.

“Can you describe this?”

“That’s a bandanna, here’s some used Métro tickets, a stick of cassis chewing gum,” said René, “a roll of black masking tape and a flyer for the Chapel of the hôpital Quinze-Vingts.”

“Does the flyer have a map?”

“
Non,
but isn’t the Chapel on the right of the hospital as you enter?”

Now she remembered. She’d seen it, rushing by in the rain, parallel with the disused Opéra exit. The Chapel was tall, medieval-walled. In the centime-sized courtyard before the Chapel, large blue doors led to rue Charenton. A shortcut to Vincent’s office.

But the doors had been locked. So, in the pouring rain, she had kept on to the hôpital entrance, the remnant of the Black Musketeers’ barracks, surmounted by a surveillance camera.

Her thoughts spun. So easy for someone, if they had a key, to avoid the main portal. Or to jimmy the lock mechanism and avoid the surveillance camera.

“Why would Dragos have this flyer? You wouldn’t suppose a thug for hire and dope seller would be religious.”

“Says here one of the first French cardinals has a crypt there,” he said. “The holy water font was commissioned by the nuns of the Abbaye Royale de Saint-Antoine.”

The scratch of the streetcleaner’s broom receded in the background. She heard the whirr of the small, green pooper-scooper truck, and exclamations from the pedestrians it dodged on the pavement.

“Could Dragos have killed Josiane? But the man who called spoke without an accent, and he knew her. I’m sure of it,” she said. The thoughts spun faster and faster. “If Dragos is newly arrived he’d have a Romanian accent. And the field’s specialized. Hired thugs, muscle men, aren’t hit men, right? We’ve been through this before.”

“If you say so,” said René. “But the Chapel’s right there. Dragos could have gone into it on his lunch hour. No, wait, it says here it’s only open one Thursday a month for services.”

An idea came to her.

“What a perfect place to stash something.”

“Stash what?”

“Whatever was in these glass beakers . . . wouldn’t it be safer there than on the
péniche
?”

“But how would Dragos get into the Chapel?”

She sat back against the cream-soft leather, let the breeze flutter over her.

“Brault, the architect, knows more than he was telling you, René,” she said.

“Shall we pay him a visit?”

“Good idea, partner.”

BY THE time she and René sat in Brault’s waiting room, the little light flashes behind her eyes had subsided. The grayish hue had deepened, lightened, fragmented, and then faded out like the snow on a TV screen.

Brault was in a meeting. They waited. Aimée tried Morbier. No answer on his personal line. She left a second message. Then called Bellan. Also, no answer. With her luck they would both be at a retirement party for the Préfet.

She heard René’s footsteps.
“Merde,
Brault’s crossing the courtyard, I see him from the window. He’s trying to avoid us.”

“Go ahead, René, I remember the way. I’ll catch up.”

She felt her hand grabbed, as René ran ahead.

“Trust me, keep up,” he said.

She stumbled, awkward and hesitant, to the elevator behind René. Why had she worn her T-strap heels? But the only other pair she had were boots. Just as high-heeled.

On the ground floor, René pulled her along, “Run. We have to stop him before he gets into his car.”

Aimée heard a car door slam, an engine start, then a gear whining into first.

“Brault’s pointing to his wristwatch,” said René, his tone anguished. “I can’t believe it, he’s driving right by us. He won’t stop.”

“Oh, yes, he will,” she said, waving and stepping off the curb in front of the approaching car. Brakes squealed at the last minute and she felt a bumper dust the hem of her leather skirt. A window rolled down.

“Look, I’m late for a meeting,” Brault said irately. The revving of his engine almost drowned out his words.

“Monsieur Brault, you’ll be late for a lot more if you don’t cooperate,” said Aimée. She edged her hands along the car’s warm hood. The wind picked up, gusting leaves, a garbage can and what sounded like a clay flower pot striking the stone pavement.

“Threatening me?”

“Where can we talk?”

“I’ve told him everything I know,” Brault said.

“You mean my partner?” she said. Aimée bent down, feeling her way toward Brault’s voice. “My partner suspects you withheld information. That’s trouble for you, since I feel inclined to name you and your firm in my legal action.”

“What legal action?”

“Meet us in the electrical shop in rue Sedaine,” she said. “The small one, around the corner from Café de l’industrie, in five minutes.”

“Why should I?”

“If I were you, I’d come,” she said. “The police want Josiane Dolet’s phone. Now that they know Vaduz, the serial killer, had already had a fatal car accident, and couldn’t have killed Josiane, they’re interested in . . .”

Cars honked behind them.

“That’s my boss,” said Brault, gunning the engine. “And the administrative staff. Get out of the way.”

“Running over a blind woman doesn’t look very good,” she said. “Any way you put it.”

I know the shop,” he admitted, and roared off.
“

* * *

“SO I lied,” she said, holding René’s elbow and trying to keep in step with him over uneven cobblestones.

“Brault’s smart,” said René.

“Then my lie should get him there.”

A buttery lemon smell came from her right where she figured Café de l’industrie stood. She’d frequented the café, enjoyed the unpretentious crowd and simple décor. No
branché
Bastille types here. Turn-of-the-century plates studded the walls. Old wooden tables paired with mismatched chairs. Even a mounted rhinoceros head above the bar.

“Here?” asked René.

“Are we in front of a narrow electrical shop with fifties irons in the window?”

“Just several old Moulinex vacuums,” said René, “like Maman had at home.”

“Feels right.”

Aimée remembered the shop’s worn steps, the iron and rust smell inside, and Medou, Monsieur Fix-it, they called him. His shop was one of the few places left to get an appliance, no matter how old or from what era, repaired. Medou kept cases filled with widgets, wires, and rotary dials. Anything needed to keep one’s grandmother’s ancient fryer working. Or most anything else.

He’d also been in the Résistance. The rear of his shop connected to an old wallpaper factory, once the meeting site of
La Fiche Rouge
members, a cell of Eastern European Jews active in the Résistance. Two of them had slain a Wehrmacht soldier in the Barbès Métro station. Later they were betrayed, as rumor went, by the Communists in Bastille. The youngest, Maurice Rayman, had been twenty years old.

Now it was a
studio de danse,
replete with buffed ash wood floors, ballet bars, an upright piano, and huge gilt mirrors propped against the walls.

“
Bonsoir,
Monsieur Medou,” she said. “Still playing in the
boules
league?”

“I’m too old for bowling, eh, but my trophy’s in the back,” he said.

Silence.

“Go ahead, René,” she said, gripping his elbow harder, “go where he shows you.”

She heard René clear his throat. She’d love to see the look on his face when they entered the dance studio.

“Merci,
monsieur, our colleague will be joining us.”