Murder at la Villette, page 11
Melac had loved this place.
Aimée questioned the waiter about Melac, whom he remembered only vaguely. At least it validated Melac making his report. But little else.
She waited for René inside this café on the roundabout, a tarnished remnant of art nouveau with a curlicue-decorated counter and liquor bottles on spotless shelves lining the mirror. Amber and dark green hues reflected from Cointreau and Ricard onto the old cash register. A lived-in relic of better days. Like time travel without the anxiety, she imagined.
The café’s caramel-colored fluffy old dog stirred, licked his paw, then yawned, uninterested.
A moment later, René strode into the café, all four feet of him, handmade Lobb brogues and Burberry trench tailored to his height.
She was so happy to see René. She almost hugged him.
But affection flustered him. Or so he’d said. Businesslike was best.
And she had little time.
René’s place in her heart wouldn’t ever change. But she’d asked him to go above and beyond, yet again.
“I printed out the log.” He handed her a Monoprix shopping bag with a folder inside. Then took off his Burberry trench and sat down. “A few emails, too.”
“Did you discover other locations in the nineteenth?”
He ordered tea from the waiter. “Look, Aimée, you can read that later. It’s all inside.”
She picked up on his unease. A pushback. “What’s bothering you, René?”
“What’s not bothering me?” he said. “Please talk to Morbier. Work it out. He’ll pave the way with the flics.”
“Are you crazy? It’s not just them. It’s whoever killed Melac that will find me.”
René adjusted his silk tie and the cuffs of his handmade Charvet shirt, then cleared his throat and looked around.
“I don’t know if I can keep this up,” he said. “The business is suffering.”
Her thumb and forefinger tightened on the demitasse of espresso as she held it to her mouth. The curl of steam moistened the tip of her nose. Think.
“You’ve got Saj. He said he’d take over the IT job at Marché Secrétan remotely.”
She’d have him pass info on to the Ministry, too.
The waiter set down René’s tea.
“Why am I the last to know?”
Irritation rippled in his voice. He sipped the scalding jasmine tea and winced.
Stupid. She should have let René know but had completely forgotten.
“Something else bothering you, René?”
“Did you . . .” He hesitated. “Did you . . . fight with Melac, and then an accident happened?”
Startled, she spilled her espresso on her skirt. The spill blended into the leopard print.
Breathe. How could René even ask that?
But Aimée and Melac had fought all the time, after all.
For a long moment, she wondered if René would jump ship. Leave. He’d done it once before.
Her stomach tensed.
She had to breathe. Inhale. Slowly exhale.
She had to not stress or she’d aggravate her eyes. Would make things worse. If that was even possible.
“You don’t trust me, René?”
“It’s what a lawyer will ask. What Morbier wants to know. Tell him the truth. He’ll help you either way.”
So René was Morbier’s messenger.
“I’ve often wanted to do Melac in,” she admitted. “Make him disappear. Kick him off the planet. But he’s Chloé’s father. If I really wanted him out, I would have banned him at the christening.”
She stared at René.
“I know, I was there,” he said.
She paused, looking at the floor, the old mosaic with chipped tiles. How many had walked here?
“I wish we’d found a way to work things out, but . . .”
“Spilled milk and all, Aimée.”
“Don’t they realize if I killed him, I’d never stick around with the murder weapon?”
“Self-defense, that’s what a high-powered attorney would argue.”
René’s phone beeped, then stopped. Five seconds later, her burner rang. René nodded at Aimée, and she answered the call.
“Oui,” she said.
“There will be a secure laptop at the pool café,” said Saj. “On it you’ll find Melac’s last coordinates.”
It was a code they’d worked out. And it was the café by the pool—sort of. Of the thirty-nine public pools in Paris, most had a café nearby, often several.
Aimée hung up, stood and left some euros on the marble-topped table.
“I’m sorry to put so much on you, René. If you need to take a break, I’ll ask Saj to do what he can.”
“That’s not what I meant. It’s about facing the problem. This won’t go away, Aimée. You can’t ignore it.”
She skittered her chipped blood-orange lacquered nails over the sticky table, then grabbed a napkin to wipe her fingers.
Relax.
Like she could?
“I didn’t kill Melac. I’m being followed, and I’m fighting for my life.”
“Right now you should take all the help you can get. Getting in touch with Morbier would be a good idea.”
Fat chance.
“I miss Chloé so much, but I want her safe.”
René tugged his goatee, like he did when he was nervous.
“She misses you.”
Aimée looked out the door. Clear. Or she thought so.
“Here’s a burner with Morbier’s number in it.” He palmed her a phone under the table.
“Merci, René.”
She took off toward the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, tossed the burner with Morbier’s number in the trash.
Wednesday Morning • Parc des Buttes-Chaumont
AIMÉE FOUND A secluded bench under a weeping willow. First she’d read Melac’s notes that René had printed out, then get the laptop Saj had left. Crisp sunshine took the edge off the chill. Her grandfather always intoned, “En Avril, ne te découvre pas d’un fil,” the old countryside proverb to never remove a thread of clothing in April, since the warm weather never lasted. She blew on her fingers, wishing she had her wool gloves.
René had copied and printed Melac’s notes of about ten pages chronicling a surveillance of W. He’d prefaced it with a few lines of explanation.
Missing persons case, pro bono for uncle’s neighbor, three-day commitment extended to fourth day in Paris.
Interesting.
Seems X., his client, wanted to know if a teenager in the next village was her grandchild.
Aimée read the next log note. Melac had been surveilling W., the teenager. This promised to be boring.
But she scanned Melac’s notes.
6:00 W. walked dog, bus #37 to school, stayed at school until 16:30 for drama practice, bus #37 back to village, stopped at café and met friends . . .
Tuesday, Wednesday . . . Every day was the same. Complete with notations under the photos Melac had taken with a telescopic lens. He’d developed them and labeled the photos with names and precise locations. René had printed these out with his new state-of-the-art printer—which she’d paid for; the quality was worth it. The photos in black and white showed recognizable faces, and René had done a good job increasing the pixels.
But most of this seemed de rigueur. Flat, boring and nothing personal. Nothing that would seem to initiate repercussions or result in consequences.
Rote and routine surveillance work was beneath his skills. Melac had been in the elite counterterrorism squad with Suzanne—he was highly trained and skilled. This was more like a rookie training exercise.
It must have been a favor for his uncle. She wondered if Melac had just reported back to his uncle or if this had been a more formal job contracted by the client, X.
On a final reread, a note caught her eye. Under the photo of a crowd scene he’d added: middle-aged male, average height, cap and sparse beard, only profile, unable to identify.
This man stood by a line of boats on a wooden-planked walkway by a motorcycle. In the foreground were the girl and her friends. He seemed like a random person caught in the shot.
However, Melac had noted it.
The next page showed a sketchily drawn map of a stretch of the canal in Paris, the quartier and several streets marked by wavy and broken lines without names. Melac had also included bridges and monuments. She could recognize Parc de la Villette, the forking canal and the office where she’d been working. A circle had been drawn where Melac had been staked out watching her every night.
Stalking her.
A shiver went up the inside of her arm. If the flics saw this, it would point to a stronger motive for her.
But why would Melac have noted his surveillance of Aimée down in the same place as this case work of the girl in Brittany and the unidentified motorcycle man? He wouldn’t. Knowing Melac—linear and logical in his movements, at least most of the time—she would bet that he’d been working this case or another one before meeting her.
Somehow it had to tie in.
Didn’t it?
She had to quit spinning her wheels. She needed to get the laptop.
Consulting her map, she plotted out where Saj had left her the laptop. She crisscrossed the park on a high path that gave her a panoramic view of Paris below. Even as far as the Tour Eiffel. The damp grass still sparkled with dew in the sunlight. Joggers, people walking their dogs and a line of preschoolers close to Chloé’s age walked with their teachers in matching blue T-shirts. Her heart thumped. She missed Chloé. She pulled out her phone and started to punch in a number, just to hear Chloé’s voice, but stopped. She couldn’t be selfish and risk her baby girl’s safety.
The sooner she got evidence pointing to the real murderer, the sooner she’d see her baby. The waterfall and infamous “suicide” bridge on her left gave way to the carpet of jade green grass by the jagged rocky ravine. Not an area she cared for. She hurried up rue Edouard Pailleron where the Olympic-size pool—a favorite of hers—was closed for cleaning. Also on this street was the site of the terrible school fire that Devries, the journo, had obsessed over.
Turning right downhill, she passed the Bolivar Metro, hurried by the entrance of the start-up where she’d worked IT and passed the covered market. The glass-and-wire nineteenth-century roof needed a cleaning and, as ever, some love. She ducked into the local café, which was usually full of parents who’d dropped off their children for swimming lessons at the pool and lap swimmers like she used to be before Chloé. Nobody from work would come here, she knew that. They favored the café two doors down from the theater and congregated in front for a smoke.
Not to mention the shifts wouldn’t change for a few more hours. No one, not even the mucky-mucks, left the building since all meetings and appointments were conducted on site per the board mandate. A local restaurateur furnished the meals. All in the spirit of keeping it local.
While she appreciated this, it felt like prison.
Along Avenue Secrétan were small shops: optometrists, a butcher, a fishmonger, a supermarché and apartments.
Still, she was taking a risk—balancing the off chance that someone from her job came walking out of the Metro, hurried to a dentist appointment or ducked in here for a napkin after stepping in dog poo. She kept her head down, grateful for the disguise.
Thank God the café was open—only just. Now she’d consult the laptop Saj had left.
Aimée popped inside and found Zia—short for Patrizia, “part Italian but all French,” she’d said—stocking wine. Zia’s pride and joy, her collection of refrigerator magnets from many of the eighty French departments, plastered the back mirror. Cartons of wine bottles had come up from the cellar on the old dumbwaiter, the monte-charge.
Most important, she trusted Zia.
Aimée leaned over the counter and gave her bises on both cheeks.
Zia gulped. “Mon Dieu, I didn’t recognize you.”
“Let’s keep it that way,” said Aimée in a voice just above a whisper. “You have something for me, non?”
“Alors, I have to finish this . . .” She looked around. The only patrons were sitting on the terrace. “Go down and use it. Right wall on the top shelf.”
Aimée followed the curved zinc counter to the side spiral stairs that went downstairs to the WC, telephones and staff door.
She checked. No one. She darted through the staff door, then flicked the old porcelain light switch to illuminate the cellar crammed with cases of beer, wine, paper goods and stacked towels.
She found the laptop in a cloth tote bag that read you haven’t meditated until you’ve meditated at Vinay Ashram. Classic Saj. The cellar was cold, illuminated only by light coming from the ancient coal grate flush with the pavement, and she sat against the old boiler as she booted up the laptop to find new information Saj had loaded inside.
Saj had included an old brigade criminelle case where Melac had testified. The defendant, a young woman, was convicted and sentenced and served time. Drug related. Melac’s next to last appointment showed him being at 6 rue Bellot, the young woman’s last-known address, a squat.
Aimée stuffed the laptop in her bag, then turned her faux-fur reversible coat inside out to reveal a nubby wool charcoal coat. She pulled up her skirt so the black leggings below covered her legs. Shoes were always the giveaway, so she added dark leg warmers to cover the ankle laces of her Doc Martens. She tucked her wig under a matching wool cap and added tortoiseshell sunglasses.
A new look.
“Ciao, Zia,” said Aimée.
Zia winked. “Ciao, bella.”
SHE KNEW THIS northeast quartier, la Villette, a sprawling crime-ridden swath up from Stalingrad. The streets that ran parallel to the Gare du Nord rail tracks and switching yards held grimy gray-façade two- and three-story buildings between sixties and seventies tower blocks. Several people slept on the grills in the street where the Metro’s hot air vented, a few others slept in doorways. Criminals hid here since no one asked questions.
Aimée wondered why Melac had visited one Madame Olivera here on the day he died.
She passed an old municipal pawnbrokers, officially called le mont de piété, but commonly known as visiting my aunt—deserted by the look of the dusty filigreed rosette grillwork. Farther on she found the address on rue Bellot—a crumbling building behind a tarnished black metal fence. One side of the double gate sagged open, like a tired arm beckoning her to a weed-choked courtyard with garbage bins labeled PROPRÉTÉ DE PARIS. One of the upper windows had cardboard for curtains.
A motorcycle was chained to an old-fashioned rusted water spigot in the wall. The building formed a two-story U of apartments, ringed by a narrow, open wraparound walkway on the upper floor. It was an old workshop with remnants of past workers’ housing—the workers had not only lived above the shop but also couldn’t get away from it.
A tall man with ebony skin sat down on a stool. He wore blue plastic shoes, a red embroidered cap and an African tribal robe that hit above his ankles. He took out papers and a tobacco pouch to begin rolling a cigarette.
She searched for Madame Olivera’s mailbox. Nothing. She tramped up an interior spiral staircase to the second floor and the door on the left.
She knocked. Knocked again.
“Madame Olivera?”
The door opened. A man wearing a stained undershirt fiddled with a hearing aid in his ear.
“Quoi?”
“Madame Olivera, please.”
He frowned. Shook his head.
“When does she return, monsieur?”
“Next door.”
He slammed the door.
Friendly.
Aimée was about to knock on the next door but before she could use her knuckles, the door flew open. She caught a draft of spicy aromas and cooking oil.
“What do you want?” asked a woman partially behind the door.
Aimée pulled out her father’s police ID, updated and retouched with her own photo. Always handy in these situations.
The woman, who had black curly, crinkly hair shot with gray and eyebrows that met like Frida Kahlo’s, stared at her ID.
“Et alors? What else do you want now?”
What else?
“May I come inside, Madame Olivera?”
The woman peered closer.
“Not the best photo you’ve ever taken,” she said, mimicking Aimée’s puckering mouth. “You look like you just sucked a lemon.”
“This won’t take long.”
She shrugged and looked around. “Make it quick.”
Aimée slid past the woman into a cramped room—a studio with a galley kitchen and sleeping alcove all draped in warm orange-and-yellow wall hangings, rugs and draperies. Cozy and colorful. It must hide a multitude of flaws—fissures and cracks in the ceiling.
“I’ll get to the point.”
“Good, because I’m not giving you more than a minute of my time.”
Aimée hated pretending she was with the flics. “I appreciate . . .”
“No, you don’t,” said Madame Olivera. “My daughter Maria died in prison the day before a stinking parole hearing her lawyer had worked for since last year.”
Is that why Melac had come here? The case he’d worked on in the brigade criminelle?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “My colleague . . .”
“The one who put her there came here the other day.” Madame Olivera’s voice rose. “I’ll tell you what I told him. Get your stinking ass out of here. Prison killed my Maria. And you put her there.”
“The system did, madame,” Aimée said. “I’m a mother, too, and if I were you . . . alors, I’d want justice.”
“Easy talk. Like you care.”
“I’m not familiar with your daughter’s case.” Aimée looked around and saw the photos of a young woman smiling, wearing cutoff jeans, swimming. “Is that her?”
A hesitant nod.
