Murder at la Villette, page 19
“You couldn’t get a larger vehicle, René?”
René fumed. He’d almost gotten two speeding tickets in his hurry, and right now they couldn’t afford getting pulled over.
“And you couldn’t dress down, Saj?”
Saj grinned. “I know you don’t mean that. I’m wearing my electrician’s jumpsuit underneath—the one Aimée gave me. To avoid suspicion.”
René hoped so.
Saj pulled out a dark knitted cap and stuffed his blond dreadlocks inside.
“But what about the equipment, Saj?”
“Such a worrywart, René.” He patted his back. “All the gear we need is in my cross-body bag. I’m beta testing new mini-size prototypes.”
“Ahh . . .” Finally good news. “Our bons amis en Zeelakon Vallée.” René turned into the dark impasse. He pulled over. “Go around the front. You know what to do.”
“But I thought Aimée said we should—”
René interrupted. “I’ll meet you inside, Saj.”
Saj waded off in his hastily donned work boots, and René felt the lock on the back gate. It was open. In the small yard, he heard shouting and mounted the old wine carton beside the glass atrium’s half-open windows. René was craning to listen when a hand gripped his shoulders. He gasped and lost his balance. It was Aimée.
But it was too late.
Glass broke and he was tumbling inside.
He landed on the worn tile in a carpet of broken glass. In front of him was Aimée’s friend Isabelle, tied to a chair. A sliver in his thumb emitted tiny drops of blood.
Great.
A burly blond man looked at him in surprise. “Who the hell are you?”
Quick. He had to move quick. He sucked his thumb, spit out the glass and pulled himself to his feet.
And then Aimée was right behind him, whispering in his ear, “Can you keep him busy?”
Thursday • Squat Behind the rue de l’Ourcq Biker Bar
RENÉ’S JUJITSU KICK knocked Blondie sideways. Aimée heard a hard crack as his head hit the tiles and his eyes rolled into his head.
Impressive. René hadn’t lost his touch.
Aimée undid the ties around Isabelle’s wrists and helped her up from the old rattan café chair with its seat unraveling.
“What happened?” asked Aimée. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” Isabelle rubbed her chafed red wrists. “He claims he’s an undercover flic and asked a lot of questions about you.”
Great.
“Quick, René, tie him up before he comes to.”
Aimée went through his pockets, front and back. She found a pack of Menthol cigarettes—jazz musicians smoked those in the sixties.
No ID. But if he really was undercover, he wouldn’t carry ID on him.
Except for in the places her father had taught her to look: the seams, socks or shoes.
She found his police ID under the removable orthotic in his right boot. It was faded and worn.
“What if he’s dead, Aimée?”
“Don’t get my hopes up,” she said.
She felt for his pulse.
“Unfortunately alive and soon to be kicking,” she said. “How long has he kept you here? What did he want?”
“You name it.” Isabelle shook her head. “He wanted me to rat on you, tell him our supply network chain. He threatened to screw up my brother’s housing place.”
Merde.
“He’d never do that that, Isabelle. I wouldn’t let him.”
“He knows too much about me, about us here. Most flics we just bribe. They look away. Like Latour did.” Isabelle slid the broken glass shards on the wooden floor with her foot and shook out her freed arms. “They’re happy, get free cigarettes,” she said. “And everyone benefits, more fric in their pockets.”
Money, the great equalizer.
“But this felt different, Aimée,” Isabelle said. “Why didn’t he arrest me? It’s against the law to hold me like this.”
“He might have gone rogue. Who knows if he’s still active in the force.”
“Rogue?”
“Acting alone.”
At least she hoped so.
Isabelle rubbed her reddened wrists and winced.
Again that feeling washed over Aimée—someone was protecting faux flics.
“Who’s this Latour? Is he on the force? Have you had dealings with him?”
Isabelle nodded. “I know of him. My father dealt with him.”
“Do you mean he bribed him?”
That came out wrong.
“Sorry, Isabelle, I meant . . .”
Isabelle gave a little grin and shrugged.
“We call it the price of doing business here, Aimée. But I think he’s retired. Owns a péniche, it’s a resto and club after hours. He got into boating commercially up on the coast.”
Why did this niggle in her brain?
“So he was the local flic during the le Balafré era?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. Her voice choked. “Zut, Aimée, I’ve got to shut down. Move.”
“Relax, Isabelle. Do nothing yet,” she said. She cupped Isabelle’s chin, raised it so her gaze met Aimée’s. “We’ll deal with Blondie.”
Somehow.
At that moment, René returned with Saj.
“Good job, partner,” she said.
“Once I saw this young mademoiselle, I had to jump into action.”
René winked at Isabelle and smiled. Flirting. He was flirting.
“Saj found some old bugs. That’s what we came to tell you. He’s disconnected them and wonders if the mademoiselle would like new ones installed courtesy of Leduc Detective?”
Aimée’s jaw dropped.
“Bien sûr,” said Isabelle. She returned René’s smile.
“I don’t know you,” he said. “But I hope you smile like that often.”
Isabelle laughed. “Only with special people.”
Then he was following her into the tattoo bar’s warehouse.
Saj caught Aimée’s gaze. Put his palms together in greeting. “Namaste, Aimée. I’ve already installed a few bugs for our own surveillance as requested.”
So they could keep an eye on this place. René’s request was a formality.
Stray blond dreadlocks fell from Saj’s red wool cap. Instead of a smile, his brows knit in worry.
“What’s wrong, Saj?”
“Disturbed auras crown you. It’s time to align your chakras.”
Not this again.
A beeping came from her coat.
“You’re the one who’s been emitting. The tracker’s on you.”
She took off her coat and followed the beeping until she discovered the covering on the coat’s top button.
Saj removed it.
“Want me to throw it in the canal?”
“Let’s attach it to Blondie’s jacket and throw him in the canal. See who picks him up.”
As Saj prepared the button, she memorized Blondie’s info from his ID: Georges Bouvier, from Saint-Brieuc in northern Brittany. Not far from Melac’s place.
A coincidence? Her father always said there were no coincidences. A connection—but how?
She needed to lay out what she knew and use Saj and René as sounding boards. And she needed to do it before the tattoo bar was raided and the flics caught her.
“WHY DIDN’T YOU throw him in the canal?” asked Saj.
Aimée shrugged. “Good as.”
René had chained him inside one of the Angels’ delivery vans; the Angels would be on guard duty until she figured out what to do with him. Instead of leaving the tracker in Blondie’s coat, Saj had stuck it to the wall near a tattoo machine.
She and Saj had walked to the drawbridge at the rue de Crimée and paused at the bridge railing.
“Is this where . . .”
“Melac was killed? Non, farther down, where the canal narrows by Jaurès.”
Saj bent his head in prayer. Aimée did the same. For a minute, she let herself grieve.
The gel-like surface reflected filtered light spilling through the trees. A whiff of a floral perfume came from a woman hurrying by. Across the bridge a child’s laughter echoed off old stone arches.
“Melac’s spirit’s here.”
“How do you mean, Saj?”
“He’s trying to say something.”
She remembered how he’d tried to say something—his cry of pain as he’d gurgled for her help.
She had to dam up this emotion that was flooding her. She hadn’t let it knock her down. But she had to remember what he’d been saying . . . Could she replay the horrible moments in her mind?
Bile rose in her stomach.
Flashing lights from police cars bounced off the quai.
Danger was so close she could smell it.
“We have to go, Saj.”
She needed a new hiding place. The locations where they—whoever they were—had tracked her would be the first places they’d look.
Think.
“Saj, didn’t you tell me once you went to a meditation center here somewhere?”
Saj nodded just as René pulled up in the Renault Clio. “I’ll show René the way and then we can all meditate, cleanse the aura and release the bottled-up chakras.”
THE MEDITATION CENTER, a small storefront with a nineteenth-century façade and faded green sign reading PHARMACIE had closed. Aimée realized she was back in Little Jerusalem, the Orthodox enclave. A thought hit her.
“Let’s try the synagogue down the street.”
“You think they’ll let us meditate?” asked Saj.
“No idea. But I know the rabbi.”
The former rabbi of Temple E’manuel in le Marais—she’d consulted him in the past. He met her at the synagogue’s door, which was through a nondescript building lobby with no signage. Thank God she’d remained in contact with him.
“Glad you remember my new posting.” The rabbi nodded a welcome to Saj and René. But was he glad?
“Can I ask your help, Rabbi?”
He’d aged. He had graying forelocks yet a lively step to his walk.
“How?”
“We need someplace quiet. A refuge.”
“Here? We’re overscheduled with a bat then a bar mitzvah and the upcoming High Holy Days. Désolé.”
Why had she thought he would help her? It was the last thing a man in his position could do.
“Bien sûr,” she said with a resigned sigh, trying to mask her desperation.
Hunted and nowhere to go.
“But you, mademoiselle, I owe,” said the rabbi. “I’ll talk to my friend. Un moment.”
He left.
René looked around the lobby filling with young Orthodox Jewish men wearing black coats and hats. “You trust him?”
“He’s a rabbi, René.”
“I mean to keep our visit quiet. No doubt he’s heard the radio.”
Merde. That was a good point.
The rabbi gestured to them from the opposite end of the lobby. He led them through a polished walnut door, down a stairway, through another door and into a deafening wall of noise. They were on a metal walkway crossing over blasting furnaces and water-heating units. The yellowed floor-height ceramic canisters reminded her of mustard pots.
Did he mean for them to hide under here?
The noise was enough to send her headache into a migraine.
Her father’s words came back to her: moaning over opportunities gets you nowhere.
The rabbi opened a metal fire door leading to another walkway open to the gray sky. Low mist and drizzle fell. She pulled the collar of her coat up and shivered.
They went down another metal stairway to an asphalt playground with a seagull perched on the white spattered wall. By the gate they passed the plaque commemorating the 390 Jewish children who were rounded up in the arrondissement by French police and deported to Auschwitz. Along the other side was another plaque remembering résistants in the quartier.
The rabbi noticed Aimée’s gaze.
“This happens when people look away and don’t help. So I will always help. People need to remember the résistant groups here and the German deserters who joined them.”
“German soldiers?” René asked.
A quick nod. “Not everyone liked the Führer. Nothing’s black and white.”
The rabbi fished a slip of paper from his pocket and passed it to René.
“My friend’s expecting you.”
René accepted the paper, read it and shook the rabbi’s hand.
“Isn’t this the address of the Russian Orthodox church, Saint-Serge de Radonège?”
The things René knew.
A nod from the rabbi. “In this business we all stick together.” He winked.
THEY COULDN’T GO back to the Renault so Aimée hailed a taxi. Their destination, 93 rue de Crimée, was fronted by an iron gate. Aimée nudged Saj to overtip the driver.
“Business expense, Saj,” she said.
They pushed the gate open and climbed a narrow path, passing tables and chairs that seemed to have been abandoned and an old yellow building with a LIBRAIRIE sign barely visible. At the summit was a hidden treasure of Paris: a brightly colored wooden church—a cross between a Russian dacha, a Tibetan temple and a doll-size Swiss chalet.
Parfait.
The hand-painted sign read that it had been built originally as a German Lutheran church and was confiscated after World War I, then abandoned until 1924 when Russian émigrés fleeing the Bolshevik Revolution had bought it.
Inside, scents of incense and candle wax pervaded the church. The arched ceiling supports were covered in painted icons with dull gold halos over the saints and had muted blue, ocher and turquoise designs on the dark wood.
The priest, consulting what looked like a medieval bound manuscript at the lectern, wore a wispy white beard and a white smock over a black cassock. A woman, her head wrapped by a shawl, scraped wax off a row of white candles. In the corner under an orange persimmon fresco, a young boy opened a violin case and began to tighten a bow. The priest looked up, put a finger to his lips and pointed to the side door embellished with gilded designs.
Aimée followed the others down a hallway. They were greeted by a young man with an outgrown mohawk, black jeans and a pink sweatshirt emblazoned with I’m with la femme Nikita. Didn’t he know the eighties were gone?
At least he has good taste in films.
He led them to a wooden bunker-like room with bunk beds, pine walls and thick wool floor rugs, then left them to their business.
“This feels like camping.”
“You love the outdoors, René.” She smiled and sat cross-legged on the floor. “Non?”
“First off, Aimée,” said René, apprehensive, “did you notice those antennae and big dishes on the roof outside?”
She nodded. Someone was listening. “Will the Russian Big Ears bother us?”
“Shouldn’t,” said Saj.
“Pretty sophistiquée for a church,” said Aimée. “Russian or not.”
Saj pulled out his equipment, two laptops and tracking devices. Meanwhile, René took out tape and colored markers from his briefcase. While they set up, she took out her notebook, then ripped some back pages and stuck them on the wall. Just like at Leduc Detective.
She missed the inherited family office with her father’s worn wood desk, the photo of him fishing on the Seine, her grandfather Claude’s old sûréte commendation on the wall. A wave of sadness engulfed her—as if she were drowning in a sea of loss. All she held dear—Chloé and their world—wasn’t here. She’d never been separated from her daughter this long. It was her fault. If she’d arrived earlier, taken his calls, Melac wouldn’t have been given a Kabyle smile, as flics still called a slit throat—slang from the Algerian War.
Quit the pity party. She could lose everything if she didn’t find Melac’s killer. She had to fight.
While Saj hooked up his equipment and René booted up his laptop, she taped up her crude diagram of the arrondissement mapped out with Melac’s last-known locations. Lots of unknowns.
Did le Balafré connect to the gendarme François Vérgove? Two phantoms, both suddenly back from the dead?
Had Melac trailed a lead—a wisp of the past—and died for what he’d discovered?
“Melac’s uncle Alphonse left a message at the office,” said René. “Shall I play it from the answering machine?”
She looked up and nodded. René hit play.
Alphonse cleared his voice. “As I am next of kin, the police are asking if I want to proceed with funeral arrangements. I’m letting you know because you might have certain wishes.”
This wasn’t what she’d expected to hear, nor something she wanted to think about dealing with. He sounded formal and stiff. This conversation would have been uncomfortable enough, even if he didn’t know his line was tapped.
“I’ll respect whatever you wish when you let me know.”
Click. “What do you think, René?”
“You can worry about it later.”
“I agree,” she said. Then it was back to her analysis of the facts of the case. She began to write down the names and players in Melac’s life in his last few days:
Suzanne Lessage, his former counterterrorism team member, and Paul, her husband, who was Melac’s best pal and sailing buddy.
Why was Suzanne, who’d come once to her for help, now blaming her and refusing to talk? Why, as Melac’s good friends, didn’t they know more of his state of mind, or about his last job?
Melac’s contract for a surveillance job in Brittany.
A routine job or not?
The old brigade criminelle case: Madame Olivera’s daughter and le Modou, the Senegalese drug dealer.
Had le Modou followed Melac to get retribution for losing him business? That was supposition at this point.
The Angels bikers.
Possible paranoia that Melac might have witnessed their cigarette dealing and taken revenge? That was a long shot.
Blondie, who’d worked an angle with les flics.
Upset that Melac had stepped in their turf? That was another long shot.
Uncle Alphonse in Brittany.
Alphonse Melac was convinced he was being surveilled. Why?
Melac’s teenage hero, François Vérgove, a gendarme in Brittany.
Alphonse thought the man might have faked his own death. Could he be the ghost?
