Murder in the Bastille (5 page)

The room felt chilly. Cold drafts licked her feet. She got in bed and pulled up the covers. She couldn’t count on Morbier. Or the
flics
. If any investigating were to take place, it was up to her.

She felt caught between a rock and a hard place . . . wasn’t that the saying? Until the police caught Vaduz, how could she prove he wasn’t the one who attacked her?

The nurse came in. “Time to draw some blood, won’t take a minute. Looks like you dropped a toothbrush.”

After the nurse left, Aimée lay back and put the brush to her cheek, rolled it, then held it in front of her eyes. But no matter how hard she tried, even though it was right there, she couldn’t see it. She’d probably never see it again.

Fatigue tugged at her. Concentrating on Morbier’s words— and on what he hadn’t said—exhausted her. Listening to him, she’d worked harder than if she’d had her sight and still she felt she’d missed something: a nuance, the way his stubby fingers worried his jacket sleeve or how he looked away when she brought up uncomfortable subjects. Like her American mother’s abandoning them when she was eight or her father’s
flic
record. All the little clues she’d learned unconsciously to depend on to read him, to decipher his meaning.

And what was all that about the explosives and pulling staff off . . . ? He’d never tell her now. She was out of the loop. Useless.

Most of the time, she could tell when he had more to say. Of course he knew, he had full access to the fat dossier on the serial killer Vaduz and he’d shared but a fraction. And now she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to figure him out—or anyone else—again.

She hooked her arm around the metal bedframe, cold and smooth, then sank back into the pillows. Deep down, the realization that she might never be able to see again loomed.

The aroma of espresso, rich and dark, encompassed her. Had it all been a bad dream?

Of course it was. She’d wake up in bed in her apartment on Île St. Louis with the Seine flowing below her window, Miles Davis, her bichon frisée, perched in the sunlight on her duvet. She’d be cuddled against that tan hunk she’d met in Sardinia, muscular and with such a flat stomach and . . .

“Aimée, how about coffee?” René said. “Or do you want to sleep more?”

She kept her eyes closed. Kept the image of Miles Davis’s wet black nose and fur that needed a trim. Then she opened her eyes.

Darkness. Only darkness. And the crisp feel of laundered hospital sheets. It wasn’t a dream: she’d woken up dumped back into reality.

“With two sugar lumps, René?”

“Just how you like,” he said.

“
Merci,
you’re wonderful, René.” She sat up, felt behind her and propped up her pillows. She tried not to think about how she must look.

Her torched brain welcomed a warm, sweet java jolt. She opened her hands to clutch the hot cup, inched her fingers to find the spoon.

She told him about Sergeant Bellan’s questioning and Morbier’s comments about Vaduz.

“René, any more noises from the Judiciare about Populax?”

“If Vincent doesn’t release the hard drive, expect a subpoena,” René said.

She chewed her lip. “Hasn’t he reconsidered?”

“Not so far.”

Vincent’s attitude was outrageous. His veiled threat in the resto came back to her. And his arrogant denial. Either he felt he was above the law, or he was hiding something.

She circled the spoon slowly against the wall of the cup, but felt hot droplets on her chest. How could it be so hard to stir with a spoon?

“We should expect to appear at the Palais de Justice,” René said. “You know the drill.”

She gulped the espresso then felt the cup lifted from her hands. “Me . . . testify?” she asked.

“We’re in this together,” René said.

“We need Martine’s help to convince Vincent to cooperate.”

“I have your bag. Let me look up Martine’s number.”

Startled, she turned, banging her shoulder on the metal bed-frame— the shoulder she dislocated with annoying regularity.

“My bag . . . I thought it was stolen.”

“Who said so? It was next to you in the passage when I found you,” he said, “under muck and grime.”

“You’re a genius!”

What would be left inside?

She felt the zipper and ridges of her leather backpack, then the contents of her bag tumbling over the sheet. She ran her finger over a phone, a dog-eared software manual, the Populax file, her Ultralash mascara, the hard-edged laptop, a key ring, what was left of her stubby Chanel lip-liner, a small tube of superglue that worked miracles on broken high-heels, alligator clips, cord to hook into the phone line, screwdriver, Nicorette gum, Miles Davis’s calcium biscuit, and her father’s grainy holy medal.

All the familiar things of her work and her life.

Her old life.

Aimée shivered. She ran her hands through her spiky, matted hair to cover the trembling. Not only did she need a decent cut and shampoo from Dessange and a body scrub in the steamy Hammam, she needed her Beretta, for protection. And her sight, to use it.

“Let’s get Martine’s help. She’ll convince him. Punch in 12 on my phone, René,” she said. “That’s my speed dial for Martine.”

René handed her the phone.

No sound.

She clicked off.

“Odd, René . . . ?”

Then it hit her.

“Wait a minute, René,” she said, feeling around. “There are two phones in this bag. But only one’s mine.” Her voice rose with excitement.

“Isn’t the other . . .”

“I was trying to return the woman’s phone.”

“You mean . . . the attacker didn’t get either of the phones?”

She scrabbled for the instrument on the tray table and held both in her hands. “It’s like mine, isn’t it?”

Silence.

“René . . . are you nodding yes?”

“Sorry.”

“Now we can trace the dead woman’s calls!”

“He must have been in a hurry when he found out,” said René.

“Found out what?”

“That he’d got the wrong woman,” he said.

That was what Morbier had said. But this would be almost too easy— they’d just check the last call and find the killer’s number!

“I know what you’re thinking, Aimée,” said René. “But when I press call back, the last number received comes up invalid.”

“Invalid? Try again.”

She heard René take a deep breath. “She’s got the cheap version, no such features offered. No real features at all.”

“So that means we can’t trace who called her,” she said, disappointed.

A dead end?

Then she brightened up. “But René, it must have speed dial,
non?
Don’t they all have that?”

Silence.

“Are you nodding yes?”

“I see three numbers listed.”

“
Parfait
, we trace her phone’s speed dial numbers,” she said.

“Seems the attacker’s not too smart if his number’s on the phone.”

“You’re right,” she said.

Could he be that careless?

“We have to check, René. We have to find her name, the phone number of this phone, then who she called.”

“It’s easy to buy a prepaid in a store without security cameras,” said René. “She could have paid cash and bought airtime without leaving a trace. But why would she do that?”

Aimée thought of the burgeoning cheap second phone business for people who’d lost theirs. “Say the woman lost hers a lot. What if she wanted a cheap phone for work,” she said. “Like I did until I got this one. Still, everyone has to show ID to activate a phone.”

“Show ID?” asked René. “Now that makes it simple.”

“How?”

“My RAM’s revved up. I crack into a few databanks,” he said. “Run a program to check lists of purchases of cell phones by cash or charge. Takes about twenty minutes.”

He was a master of his métier.

“You’re a genius, René!”

Aimée briefly struggled with the idea of calling Morbier to tell him her bag had been found. But first she needed to find out the victim’s identity. Find out if she was the woman from the resto.

She had to make sure. Get concrete proof.

“Try 12 on my phone.”

René dialed and thrust it into her hand.

“Allô?
” said Martine, her voice low and out of breath.

“Martine, don’t tell me you’re exercising?”

“Feels like it,” she said. “Climbing in heels on this spiral metal staircase seems like my own personal Stair-master hell.”

“Where are you?”

“About to meet Vincent for
Diva
’s cocktail preview, our biggest night.
Cherie
, you were invited, too. Aren’t you coming?”

Of course, with everything that had happened, she’d forgotten.

“Alas, no. I’m in l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts.”

“Visiting someone sick?” She heard Martine’s sharp intake of breath. “
Ça va?
”

“You could say that.”

“What’s wrong?”

Should she tell her best friend? On her biggest night? Ruin it for her? Not now, not when Martine was about to launch her new venture. She could tell her tomorrow.

“I’d feel better if you persuade Vincent to turn over his hard-drive,” she said. “Besides, how could I come, I’ve got nothing to wear.”

“All you think about is work, Aimée,” she said. “Can’t this wait until . . .”

“Please Martine,
la Procuratrice
will subpoena Vincent’s firm.”

“For what? He’s not guilty. It’s the
salopes
he did business with!”

“So tell him to cooperate, Martine.”

Again, doubt assailed her about Vincent. An unease floated over her.

Aimée heard a low hum of conversation, strains of a chamber orchestra in the background. She visualized the fashionable crowd, smelled the wax dripping from the candles and tasted the bubbling champagne. And it came home to her that she was talking to her best friend since the
lycée
, as she’d done so many times, but it felt different. Like she was speaking in a vacuum.

“Aimée, right now, it’s impossible . . .
tiens,
there’s Catherine Deneuve . . .”

Aimée heard the smack of lips near cheeks as
bisous
were exchanged. In the background she overheard part of a conversation, “. . . she’s chic, she’s fierce and there’s something fresh about her. A
Belle de Jour
punk.”

“Big night here,” Martine said.

The background conversation continued, “. . . a facility for accents and for sliding up and down the social scale to play classy or crass, posh or punk. A little glam. A little raw.”

“If Vincent doesn’t act voluntarily,” Aimée said, raising her voice, “that makes him look bad.”

“I’ll try, got to go,” she said, and hung up.

“What did Martine say?”

“Besides gushing over Deneuve? She’s rushing to interview fashionistas, do profiles on glamour queens not afraid to get dirt under their fingernails, get sidebar tidbits on hot new authors. If only I could see or . . .”

She reached for his hand and found his arm.

“René, remember the article we read in the Japanese software magazine about technology for the blind?”

Silence. She heard René take a deep breath. “You mean the screen reader software that converts text into speech?”

“Exactly,” she said. “And the speech recognition software that converts speech into text for the laptop?”

“We make a deal,” he said. “You let me help find who attacked you, and I’ll get you these software programs. Even if I have go to Japan to do it.”

“Deal.”

But René didn’t have to go that far. A few phone calls and he found several programs via a hacker friend in the Sentier.

“He’s leaving,” said René. “If I don’t go now, I won’t get it installed . . .”

“But first I have to make sure the victim was the woman in the resto,” she interrupted, “and check the speed dial numbers on this woman’s phone.”

“There’s time for that,” René said. “The Judiciare problem can’t wait and I need your help.”

And with that, René left.

She must have drifted off. Aimée heard the metal rings on the top of the curtain beside her slide across the rod. Footsteps hurried across the linoleum.

“Mademoiselle Leduc, we’re evacuating the ward,” said the nurse from Burgundy, the nice one. She broke Aimée’s reverie of a gloom-filled future: her apartment sold to pay debts, creditors hounding René at Leduc Detective.

“Evacuating? There’s a fire . . . ?”

No smell of smoke.

“A train disaster . . . the TGV crashed coming into Gare de Lyon,” the nurse said, her words rushed, breathing hard. “Two hundred people have been injured. We’re the closest facility, so we’re taking the overflow. L’hôpital Saint Antoine, too.”

Aimée felt her blanket pulled back.

“All the area hospitals are Code Red,” the nurse from Burgundy continued. “Your condition’s stabilized so we’ll move you to the résidence Saint Louis around the corner. A place for the unsighted to learn how to function.”

So they were moving her to a blind people’s home.

“You don’t understand, I have a home. . . .” She wanted to shout “I’m not like them!”

But she was.

“Before you return to your own home, it’s best to learn to navigate in the world of the sighted, mademoiselle,” she was told. “Chantal, our volunteer, will guide you. She’s a resident there.”

A musty lilac scent accompanied the click of heels on linoleum. “Don’t worry,” said a quavering voice, “You can take care of yourself. I did.”

“But how can you help me if you can’t see?”

A cackle of dry laughter. “You’ve got a lot to learn.”

Aimée felt the nurse tying her hospital gown and draping a robe over her. Her bag was thrust in her arms. But how would René find her?

“I have to tell my friend . . .”

“Don’t worry, there’s time for that. Chantal’s a pro,” the nurse said. “Stand up.”

Aimée fought the dizzying sensation as she slid her feet to the floor. Sirens hee-hawed outside her window.

“Now, stretch out your arm and find my shoulder.”

Aimée gingerly extended her arm, felt smooth material, and gripped Chantal’s bony shoulder.

“
Parfait!
Let yourself see shapes with your fingers, read textures and angles. We will teach you tricks.
Vite
, eh . . . let’s make way for the real unfortunates!”