The Paris Secret (15 page)

“White what?”

“White hat. It means I’m a hacker with ethics. I only look. I’m no cyber terrorist.”

“Good to know,” I said dryly, thinking it sounded like breaking into someone’s house and only
looking
at all their stuff.

We watched her do her thing for about fifteen minutes before she pumped a fist in the air in victory.

“Yes! I’m in!” She turned and gave Simon a high five. “What am I looking for?”

“Look for Juliet Rice’s case file,” instructed Simon. “We need a list of all the items collected from her crime scene.”

Her fingers flew and it only took seconds for Juliet’s name to pop up on the screen along with folder icons labeled:
dossier de cas, Notation d’évidence, photographies de scène du crime.

“Try the second file folder,” said Simon.

The folder labeled
Notation d’évidence
contained the log of evidence taken from the hotel, as well as photos of each item. But as we searched through the list and the photos we discovered a big problem.

“I don’t understand. I know she had that red dress in the hotel room. Why isn’t it listed here?” I said. We’d gone through every item on the list and every picture that had been taken of each item from the scene. No red dress had been listed as having been taken from the hotel room. In fact, nothing red in color had been taken from the room.

“Let’s look at the crime scene photos.” Simon reached over Francoise’s head, grabbing the laptop from the table and setting it on his lap.

“Hey! What are you doing?” the girl yelped but Simon held the laptop out of her reach.

“Sorry,
cherie.
No way on earth am I letting you look at grisly crime scene photos. It’ll stunt your growth and your
maman
would kill me.”

“She’ll only find out if I tell her,” she protested before adding, “And why am I old enough to get you this info but not old enough to look?”

“Because life is not fair and it’s time you got ready for school,” Simon told her as he clicked through the crime scene photos.

“Hypocrite!” Francoise got up and stalked off in a huff, leaving us alone to look at the pictures.

Looking at the pictures of my hotel room was like a kick in the gut. They took me back to the night I’d found Juliet’s body. Everything was the same as I’d remembered it, the crooked mattresses, clothes all over the floor, emptied suitcases. There was a shot of the open bathroom door that looked to have been taken from across the room that made me flinch at the memory of the sight and smell of Juliet’s body stuffed into the shower. I turned away when he clicked on the photos of Juliet’s body.

“
Merde,
” Simon exclaimed softly after opening the first picture. He looked at me, concerned, his finger poised on the touchpad.

“I’m okay. Go ahead.”

Finally, after searching through two-thirds of the pictures, I spotted what looked like something red balled up on the floor and partially hidden under Juliet’s bed.

“I think that might be it,” I said, sitting up straight and pointing at the screen. I didn’t bring anything red to Paris. That had to be the dress.

“Why isn’t it in the evidence log? It was clearly at the scene. Unless…” Simon closed out the folder and went back to the folder with the evidence log. Jerome Hubert had logged and photographed the evidence.

“You think this Hubert guy would know what happened to the dress?” I asked.

“Jerome Hubert was in charge of the evidence, so I think he should know, don’t you?”

“But why steal a dress from a crime scene?”

Simon shrugged. “Maybe he sold it or gave it to his wife.”

Before I could reply the image of a white silk gown flashed in my mind and the ghost who’d been haunting my dreams whispered in my ear with icy breath.
“It was not a gown for a wife. This was a gown for a mistress…”

Before I could process anything, Francoise emerged from her bedroom dressed in her school uniform, with her backpack slung over her shoulder. She tossed us a venomous look as she headed toward the front door. I’d bet money she was more pissed at being treated like a child in front of me than in not being allowed to look at the pictures.

“
Arrêt!
” commanded Simon. Francoise ignored him and kept walking. “
Arrêt, si vous plait,
” he said a little more gently. Francoise stopped and shifted impatiently from foot to foot but didn’t turn around.

Simon went over to the sulky girl and pulled her into a tight hug. Francoise resisted until Simon began tickling her.

“Jerk.” She laughed and pushed him away. “And you owe me—again. Big time.” She pulled a set of keys on a Hello Kitty keychain from her backpack and handed them to Simon.

“I am forever in your debt,
mademoiselle.
” Simon bowed. Francoise rolled her eyes but I could tell she was pleased.

Simon had been forgiven but the hard look she gave me before walking out the door told me that no amount of tickling would make her a fan of mine.

“She adores you, Simon. Where’s her dad?”

“He died when she was three. A brain tumor.” Simon shoved Francoise’s keys into his pocket and rejoined me on the couch.

“Was he a good friend?”

“The best,” he said, smiling softly. “I met Marty Samuelson at Columbia University when I did a study abroad program in college. My English wasn’t so good back then and Marty was my tutor. He was a funny guy and really smart. But we had a big fight about a month or so before it was time for me to return to Paris. We never spoke again. Then six years later I got a letter from his lawyer informing me he’d died. His last wish was for me to be Phoebe’s godfather.”

“That’s so sweet, Simon. He must have thought a lot of you, too.”

“I just wished he’d have asked me himself. I would have said yes in a heartbeat.”

Simon’s eyes held the same pain they had when he’d talked about his late wife. I had the urge to hug him but reminded myself about that photo with Francoise’s mother and him. It was only natural that he and Claire had grown close. How would she feel knowing I’d slept with her man and was wearing her clothes? Probably exactly the way I’d had when I found out Ben was sleeping with his ex. And speaking of cheating…

“Look, I don’t know if this Jerome Hubert is married. But if he is, I doubt he gave Juliet’s dress to his wife,” I said with certainty. “He’s either got a girlfriend or a mistress he’s trying to impress.”

“What makes you think so?”

“He’s an evidence tech, Simon. A wife would know he couldn’t afford to buy her designer clothes. She’d figure out where it came from. But a mistress wouldn’t care.” This explanation was better than telling him about my dream.

Simon nodded in agreement. “It does make sense.”

“But how are we going to talk to Jerome Hubert? We can’t go to the DCPJ.”

“If we’re lucky we won’t have to.” Simon grabbed the cordless phone from the end table and started dialing. “Keep your fingers crossed,” he told me then asked whoever answered for Jerome Hubert.

I listened as he conducted a terse conversation in French. After ten minutes, he hung up and rubbed his hands together in excitement.

“Monsieur Hubert is going to come to us.”

The sky threatened to erupt with rain at any moment. Simon and I sat in the back booth of an Indian restaurant about two blocks from Francoise’s apartment. No one gave us a second glance when we walked in. The murders of Oliver and Sylvie Renard had bumped Simon and me from the front page of the papers. But I’d put on the red horn-rimmed glasses and piled my still-damp hair under one of Claire Samuelson’s tweed hats just in case. Simon wore a black woolen scarf wrapped around his neck, partially obscuring the lower half of his face.

“What makes you so sure he’s going to show up?”

“He’ll show. He must be ready to crap his pants after what I told him on the phone.”

To test my theory, Simon had called Jerome Hubert at work and told him he was a private eye hired by his wife and he would be willing to sell him the info he’d uncovered about his affair instead of turning it over to his wife.

“I can’t believe he agreed to meet.”

He laughed. “Trust me. He doesn’t want his dirty little secret getting back to his wife. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep living his double life.”

It takes a cheat to know a cheat,
I thought as I sipped my chai. A bell above the door chimed, announcing Monsieur Hubert’s arrival. He was a chubby-cheeked man of about forty, with slightly bulging brown eyes that darted nervously around the room. Simon put up a hand and waved him over.

“Have a seat,
monsieur.
”

“
Qui est ceci?
” He gestured toward me instead of sitting. He wanted to know who I was; that much I understood.

“My partner,
monsieur.
Don’t worry. She is the soul of discretion. And in deference to her we shall speak English,
d’accord?
”

I nodded and smiled. Hubert stuffed himself into the other side of the booth and looked around again. Sweat beaded his upper lip.

“What is this about? Did Jacqueline really hire you?” he asked in a hushed tone. His accent was so thick I could barely understand him.

“I’m afraid so, Monsieur Hubert,” replied Simon with a grave seriousness that almost made me laugh.

“How did she find out? I’ve been so discreet.”

“She’s been suspicious for a while. But it was the red dress that was the final straw,” I answered before Simon could.

“You see, she saw the dress and thought it was for her. When you didn’t give it to her she must have realized what was going on,” concluded Simon, not missing a beat.

Hubert looked confused. “But I never even brought the dress home. I took it straight from work to my girlfriend Dominique’s. How could my wife have seen it?”

Simon, you idiot! Of course he wouldn’t have taken the dress home.
We’d be screwed if he realized we were lying.

“You gave your girlfriend a dress from your job? Aren’t you a crime scene technician? You gave her a dead woman’s dress?” I quickly asked to deflect any further suspicion, though my disgust was real.

Hubert started sweating even more profusely. He pulled at the neck of his too-tight sweater and let out a nervous laugh. “What does a dead woman need with a Dior dress? She’ll never wear it again. Why not let someone else enjoy it? Where is the harm in it?”

“Because it could all come out in the divorce,
monsieur.
At the very least you could lose your job if anyone found out you’ve been stealing from crime scenes,” said Simon.

“Divorce!” Hubert sputtered. “I—it—it was only just this one time. I’ve never taken anything before. What do I do?”

“You need to get that dress back,” I said.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “Dominique loves that dress. She’s wearing it to a party tonight. If I take it back, I could lose her.” He looked close to tears. I wanted to slap him.

“You’ll lose a lot more than your girlfriend if you don’t get that dress back,” I said. Simon looked over at me and I could tell by the look in his eye what he was about to do.

“Monsieur Hubert, as I mentioned on the phone, I’m willing to withhold the evidence I’ve compiled against you for a fee. I’d also be willing—for another fee—to get the dress back for you. That way neither your wife, your job, or your girlfriend will be any the wiser.”

“I’m not a rich man. How much are we talking?”

“Why don’t we talk price
after
I’ve retrieved the dress.”

“And you won’t say anything to Jacqueline?”

“Not a word,” promised Simon.

Hubert pulled a large ring of keys out of his pants pocket and pulled off a key. He slid it across the table at Simon. “She lives in the 10th at 40 Boulevard de Strasbourg. She’s a beautician. She lives above her salon. But you already know that, don’t you?”

Simon nodded and grabbed the key. “We’ll meet back here tomorrow at the same time?”

Jerome Hubert nodded then got up. He to started to walk away but suddenly turned back looking much more relaxed and confident. “Make it look like a robbery, eh? I don’t want her to know I’ve had anything to do with this.”

“Don’t worry, Monsieur Hubert,” I told him with a smile. “We’ll take care of everything.”

“I bet that ass alone was enough to make Jerome Hubert lose his religion,” mused Simon as we paused in the doorway of Gloire de Couronnement—Crowning Glory—Dominique’s beauty shop. Jerome Hubert’s mistress was petite and curvy with smooth, cocoa-brown skin and long, thin braids that fell to her waist like silken threads.

“Is that so?” I bristled. “Never trust a big butt and a smile, huh? Unbelievable. Men!” I shook my head in disgust. Simon had me so pissed off I was quoting song lyrics.

“Huh? That’s not what I meant,” protested Simon, managing to look both angry and confused. “What is with you? You’ve been moody all morning.”

“Nothing!” I snapped. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan is for one of us to watch Dominique while the other searches her apartment for the dress.”

“And I guess I know who’s going to be doing what?”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, I’m the one who’s going to be stuck down here keeping watch and risking being recognized, while you go look for a dress you’ve never seen before.”

He took a deep breath like he was counting to ten. “You’re forgetting that I, too, saw Juliet wearing that red dress the day she died. And wouldn’t it be more reasonable for you to sit down here than me? No one is going to believe I need
my
hair done,” he replied stiffly.

“Fine,” I said, matching his tone. I knew I was being bitchy and unreasonable but couldn’t help myself.

“I’m not sure if there is another entrance to the apartment from in here. So if you lose sight of her for longer than five minutes, call me,
d’accord?
”

“Yeah, right.”

After handing me one of the two disposable cell phones he’d bought from a street vendor along the way, he left quickly without a backward glance. I walked up to the black lacquered reception desk. The receptionist, an African woman with thick braids wound round her head like a beehive, welcomed me with a gap-toothed smile.

“
Bonjour, madame. Avez-vous un rendez-vous?

“
Parlez-vous Anglais?
”

“But of course,
madame.
How may I assist you?”

“Do you take walk-ins?”

“Do you have a lot of hair,
madame?
”

Before I could answer, the receptionist pulled off my tweed hat. My hair sprang out as though I had stuck my finger in a light socket. She giggled—as did the other women in the waiting room.

“We do take walk-in appointments. But with so much hair I’m afraid it may be some time before we have a stylist with enough available time.”

Perfect, I didn’t really need an appointment. I had no money and Simon had used the last of his on the cell phones. I just needed to be able to keep an eye on Dominique.

“I can wait,
merci.
” After giving her a fake name, I put my hat back on and went to sit in the waiting room.

Ten minutes had passed since Simon left and I was getting antsy. How long could it take to find a red dress? Another ten minutes went by and I flipped through a copy of French
Vogue.

“
Bonjour, madame.
I am Dominique Barbeau. What can we do for you today?” Jerome Hubert’s girlfriend stood over me. She had a high-pitched singsong voice and a beautiful smile. There was a small diamond stud in her left nostril. She smelled of Shalimar perfume. I shook the hand she offered me.

“Uh…um…I’m…still deciding.”

“You’ll never find a style in there.” She laughed and gestured to the magazine on my lap. “I’ve got some new hair magazines in my apartment. I’ll just run up and get them for you.”

“No!” I jumped up to block her path. Everyone in the waiting room stopped what they were doing. Dominique took a step back and laughed nervously.

“I mean I have decided what I’d like. I don’t need to see any more magazines. I’m ready.” My glasses slipped down my nose. I pushed them up and pulled down the hat farther on my forehead.

“
Bon,
take my chair,
si vous plait.
”

This wasn’t the way this was supposed to go. When she found out I had no money to pay her, she was going to call the cops and I would be toast. Where the hell was Simon? I sat in a plush black leather stylist’s chair in front of a station with a large gilded mirror. Dominique took off my hat and ran a large-toothed comb through my hair.

“Such nice, thick hair. Have you had it braided before?”

“No.”

“Then I’m honored to be the first. How would you like it?”

“I don’t want anything too elaborate.”

“How about I cornrow the front halfway back and leave the rest loose,
d’accord?
”

“Fabulous.” I was getting really worried and kept checking my phone every few minutes.

“Are you expecting a call?”

“My boyfriend. He was supposed to be meeting me here and he’s late as usual. You know how men are. I could just kill him,” I said through gritted teeth. Dominique laughed.

“My man is always late. He works two jobs. But he’s so sweet to me, I hardly care. Just the other day, he gave me the most elegant Dior dress. He’s always giving me things.” I sat up straighter in the chair.

“Really? He sounds like a keeper.” I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. This poor woman must not have a clue that her man’s other job was being married to someone else.

“
Oui.
And guess what I found hidden in the hem of the dress?”

I was too afraid to ask. Instead, I smiled and shrugged. Dominique put down the comb and pulled out a thin black silk cord from inside her suit jacket. I was expecting to see a gold crucifix dangling from it. It wasn’t a crucifix. It was a small gold key. I leaned forward to get a better look.

“That’s a key.” Tears of frustration welled up in my eyes. “You found a key in the hem of the dress?”

“I thought it was strange, too. But when I asked Jerome—my boyfriend—guess what he told me?”

“I can’t imagine,” I replied miserably as I blinked the tears away.

“He said it was the key to his heart.”

“How romantic.” Shit! We weren’t home free after all. Instead, we had another damned puzzle piece and we were running out of time.

Dominique excused herself to sign for a delivery when my phone finally rang.

“I found the dress but there was nothing in the hem,” he said in a breathless rush.

“That’s because she found it and is wearing it around her neck.”

“She’s wearing the crucifix?”

“The crucifix wasn’t in the hem, Simon. It was a key.” He swore.

“Are you sure?”

“I know a key when I see one.”

“Can you get it from her?”

“Didn’t you hear me? It’s. Around. Her. Neck.”

“Think of something. We need that key!” He hung up on me.

“Everything okay?” came Dominique’s melodic voice from behind me. She put her fingers in my hair and began to lightly message my scalp.

“Just fine.”

Forty-five minutes later, she was finished and I still had no idea how I was going to get the key or pay this woman for doing my hair.

“How do you like it? I think it suits you.”

She handed me a large mirror and I had to agree. My hair looked fierce. It hung to my shoulders like a sleek, glossy curtain. Dominique had woven bits of shiny gold ribbon into the cornrows in front. It matched my sweater perfectly. I wasn’t used to having my hair pulled back from my forehead. But it looked great.

“Wow. It’s beautiful.
Merci!
” Simon was looking through the shop’s large picture window, impatiently pointing at his watch while Dominique smiled at me. The key was hanging around her neck glinting under the fluorescent lighting a mere arm’s length away.

What the hell? I was already a fugitive. What was one more offense? Mentally promising I’d mail the key back with money and an apology when we were done with it, I reached over and yanked it from around her neck and ran like hell.

“What could this be a key to?” I asked.

Simon and I were back in Francoise’s mother’s apartment. The key in question, small, round and stamped with the number 419, was lying in the center of the kitchen island, mocking us. It wasn’t a car key or an apartment key and it was too big to be a luggage key.

“It sure as hell isn’t the key to that bastard Jerome Hubert’s heart,” said Simon. I laughed.

We were silent for a long time, each lost in our own thoughts.

“You were the one who followed Juliet for two weeks. Do you remember seeing her go anyplace where she could use a key like this?”

“I only tracked her from hotel to hotel. I didn’t follow her every move.”

“That’s a start. What hotels did she stay at?”

“She started out at the Ritz-Carlton then moved to the Westin, then the Sofitel, and finally the Bienvenue.”

“Maybe this is a key to a safe deposit box at one of those hotels,” I said excitedly. Simon shook his head.

“Wouldn’t they have given her whatever she’d kept in the box and made her turn in the key when she checked out?”

“Well, yeah,
if
she checked out. She could have been so scared of Garland that she just took off without bothering to check out.”

“And have the hotel confiscate the crucifix when she left without it, or risk some light-fingered hotel employee stealing it? I don’t think so. I think this key is to a secure location that she’d be able to easily access.”

He had a point, but before I could say anything we heard the front door open. Was Claire Samuelson home early from London? Before we could react, Francoise came flying up the kitchen steps and dumped her backpack on the floor by the fridge.

“Why are you looking at me like I’m a ghost?” she asked, then grabbed an apple from a basket on the counter, turned on MTV and plopped down next to Simon.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in school?” demanded Simon.

“Um, it’s like almost three o’clock,” Francoise said, looking at Simon like he was crazy. “School’s over at 2:30.”

It was now 2:47. While we’d been puzzling over the key, time slipped away from us. We now had little more than four hours to track down the crucifix.

“How’d you get in? You gave me your key.”

The girl laughed around her mouthful of apple. “I’ve got at least ten keys to this place. I’m always losing them and having to get a new one made. It drives Mom crazy,” she said, leaning forward in her chair. “Crap! Is that my locker key? Where’d you find it?” she asked excitedly, grabbing the small key from the middle of the island and examining it.

“Locker key?” We asked in unison.

“Yeah, I lost mine last week,” she said then shook her head. “Oh, this isn’t mine.” She tossed it back on the table.

“A locker!” I said. “Of course, Simon! Didn’t Juliet’s journal say she gave a lecture at the Sorbonne back in April during the same trip she met Garland? Maybe she had access to a locker or something in that auditorium she gave her lecture at.”

“Only one way to find out,” Simon replied with a grin. We got up to go and Francoise grabbed her backpack and followed us.

“And just where do you think you’re going? Don’t you have homework?” asked Simon when we got to the door.

“I did it all—and hellooo! You guys need me,” insisted Francoise, looking at Simon like he was an idiot.

“How?” I asked. Francoise sighed and rolled her eyes.

“You do know the Sorbonne is actually the University of Paris and is divided into thirteen separate universities and that only three of them actually have Sorbonne in their name, right?” She was looking at me.

“No.” I was embarrassed not to have known and Francoise knew it. The thirteen-year-old was way too smug for my liking.

“We don’t have time for this. But I’m sure Maya appreciated that bit of trivia,” said Simon.

“Do you have any idea at which of the three universities this Dr. Rice gave her lecture?” she persisted.

“The Richelieu Auditorium at Paris-Sorbonne University. It was in her journal,” Simon replied with a thin smile as he opened the door.

Francoise shut the door and stood in front of it. The girl reached into her cavernous backpack, pulled out a student ID card for Paris-Sorbonne University and waved it at us with a big grin. “You think they’re just gonna let you two fugitives wander around the buildings on campus looking for lockers? Besides, there could be lockers in other buildings and they aren’t open to visitors. Let me help. If anyone catches me someplace I shouldn’t be, all I have to do is say I got lost looking for my prof’s office and I have an ID to prove I’m a student. If you two get caught, it’s sirens and handcuffs.”

She had a good point and at least she wouldn’t be hacking into anything.

“Come on.” I pushed between them to open the door. “We’re wasting time. We’ll figure it all out on the way.”

The Sorbonne’s campus was in the Latin Quarter, a short ten-minute walk from Francoise’s apartment. As we walked on the Place de la Sorbonne, a cobblestoned, tree-lined street, that unique college campus vibe enveloped me. It was a mixture of carefree, youthful enthusiasm mingled with timeworn tradition and jaded weariness. It reminded me of home and my own job at Capital. A tidal wave of homesickness hit so hard it made my eyes water.

Francoise stopped at a fountain in front of a large blue domed building, the main entrance to the university.

“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” she commanded. We watched her disappear through the door. Anxiety gnawed at my stomach the second she was out of sight.

I sat on one of the low walls by the fountain and Simon joined me. I checked my watch. It was 3:27.

“Don’t worry. We’ll find it.” Simon squeezed my shoulder reassuringly, though his wary eyes and tight worry lines etched around his mouth told a different story.

“Do you think it was a good idea to give her the key?” I asked after we’d been waiting for about fifteen minutes. “What if she loses this one, too?”

Simon sighed and stood. “I’ll go check on her.”

Five minutes passed, then ten with still no sign of either Simon or Francoise. After twenty minutes had gone by, the gnawing sensation in my stomach had turned into full-blown pain.

Where the hell were they?
I became aware of a muted beeping sound coming from somewhere close. At first it sounded like an alarm on somebody’s watch, but then there was a reddish glow coming from inside my bag. My
bag
was beeping or rather Monsieur Marcel’s silver key fob was beeping. I examined the key fob more closely and for the first time noticed how heavy it was. On the back there was a compartment for a small battery.