Murder at la Villette, page 9
“Like I don’t know that.”
All this talk got her nowhere closer to finding the killer and proving her innocence. Nowhere closer to Chloé, whom she missed so much.
“Remember your own advice. You need to get into the mind of the criminal.”
“My father always said that.”
She rubbed her pounding temples—kept a circular motion with her fingers, as the clinician had taught her. Still, she needed to pop another Doliprane—her headache was killing her.
“Use what you know,” said René. “That’s what you always tell me. Melac thought he’d seen a ghost. What does that mean? A man dead to him. The ghost doesn’t want to be discovered, so Melac had to be eliminated.”
Made sense.
“I need to filter through all his past cases.”
She heard the unbuckling of René’s briefcase and the rustling of papers. “Halfway done.”
“Mon Dieu!”
“It’s a quick recap from his computer files. You remember that time we hacked him.”
A twinge of shame. They’d hacked into his files and installed a tracer a couple of years ago when Melac had gotten married. Aimée’d never dumped the files René had copied for her. Or removed the tracer.
Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Her temples throbbed.
“You’re a genius, René.”
“The case files I saw all seem pretty mundane—at least the ones he entered into his computer. That’s the bad news. But sift through and you might see a clue. Or ask his former colleagues and keep it on the down-low.”
The shifting barge rubbed the embankment, buffeted by a passing boat’s rippling current. A dim light shone on the quai. What was she missing?
“It’s a ghost come back to life,” she said. “I need to find whoever that is.”
Tuesday Late Evening • Saint-Germain Left Bank
AIMÉE SLUNG THE bag with her newly purchased burner phones over her shoulder. They presented a new set of problems. Few people answered their phone these days if they didn’t recognize the number. And texting left a record.
Thank God the Doliprane had numbed her headache to a low murmur. Bone-tired, she was running on adrenaline. Not like she had the choice to rest, what with a killer out there and her a fugitive.
After catching a bus to the Left Bank, she’d located the Saint-Germain apartment of Suzanne Lessage, Melac’s former colleague on the counterterrorism squad. Her husband, Paul, was Melac’s sailing partner. Or had been.
Aimée had seen them at dinner in Brittany several months ago. She and Suzanne weren’t close. Never had been. But they shared favors.
And she needed one now.
She stood in the doorway across from their building on rue Visconti, a narrow fifteenth-century street on the Left Bank where they’d moved early last year. Melac crashed there from time to time.
Her heart slowed. She was thinking of Melac in the present. In the now.
No lights shone in the windows of the street-facing apartment on the third floor. She punched Suzanne’s number into one of her burners. It rang several times before it cut to voice mail.
“It’s Aimée. I need to talk. Please answer.”
She clicked off.
Waited.
Three minutes turned to five, then to ten and fifteen. She pulled her leather jacket tighter against the damp evening chill. Her outfit came courtesy of Regula’s armoire: silk tank under a cropped cashmere sweater and chic maman jeans blended in with the quartier. Just as she was about to call again, a taxi pulled up in front of the building.
Aimée waited. She watched the woman pay the taxi driver and then get out of the car. Blond, tall, slim and wearing a long cream cardigan. Suzanne. She had her arm around a sleepy adolescent whom Aimée recognized as her daughter.
She had to act now. It was a terrible time to intrude, but if Suzanne didn’t answer her calls, Aimée didn’t know what else to try.
Suzanne was punching in the door code with one hand and supporting her daughter with her other.
Now.
“Let me get that.”
Aimée pushed one side of the large green double door open.
The merci died on Suzanne’s lips.
“Don’t call me,” she said, under her breath. “You need to leave.”
The teenager, Mado, squealed. “Aimée, where’ve you been?”
“It’s late, Mado,” said her mother, her voice calm. She shot daggers from her eyes and jerked her head for Aimée to leave. “Aimée’s just . . .”
“Having a quick word with your mom. It’s an emergency, like always.” She grinned, hoping it looked sheepish.
Mado threw her arms around Aimée. “Fantastique! I love that lipstick and want to show you my new one.”
Suzanne’s lips pursed.
“Another time, Mado. It’s a school night. You’ll march right to bed.”
As they climbed the stairs, Aimée stewed in guilt. She was ashamed to have intruded.
But again, if she didn’t talk to Suzanne, she wouldn’t know anything. Any chance Aimée had to narrow in on Melac’s killer, she had to take.
Suzanne indicated for Aimée to wait in the foyer while she saw Mado to bed.
From the foyer, a large white entryway with black and white diagonal tiles, Aimée could see practically the whole apartment. The foyer led to an open-plan living area lined with full bookshelves, plants in pots, rattan furniture, white couches littered with magazines and soft pillows and plush mohair throws. From there, the room spilled into a dining area and a kitchen, full of state-of-the-art steel appliances.
Like a spread out of ELLE DECOR.
Aimée wondered how they could afford this—Suzanne now worked part-time in Ministry admin, a desk job—a demotion, yet still a fonctionnaire. Together with Paul, an attorney, they somehow bankrolled the designer flat in Saint-Germain. Or maybe they’d come into family money.
She must have an army of cleaners and au pairs.
Aimée recognized the framed photo on a side table, matching the one Melac had at his farm: Suzanne, Paul and Melac on the bow of their boat in Brittany. Their wind-tossed hair, wide grins and blue windbreakers amid rolling waves spoke of a happy time.
By the photo, Aimée saw a pill bottle, a carafe and a glass.
Suzanne returned to the foyer, looking wary.
“I’ll give you one minute. Then you get out.”
“You owe me, Suzanne. Remember?”
Suzanne’s shoulders stiffened.
“I’ve moved on,” she said, “and so should you.”
Aimée wasn’t sure what that meant. But Suzanne was right to be angry. Aimée had barged her way in, had used Suzanne’s daughter’s innocence—oui, she’d feel the same.
“Melac’s murder has gutted me. I don’t know how to tell Chloé, or what to do except prove my innocence. That means finding his killer.”
“Your minute’s up.”
Suzanne picked up her bag and took out her phone.
Serious. She was serious.
“Suzanne, you know me. You can’t think that I did this.”
“Aimée, you know me.” Suzanne’s voice rose. “Can’t think I’d be friends with someone who’d leave her child’s father for his colleague and throw it in his face.”
“What?”
“Melac came here every night. We saw what you did to him. He would drink, cry. In the end, Paul, his best friend, had to kick him out. He was frightening the girls.”
Aimée, shocked, tried to picture the Melac she knew falling apart. “I had no idea.”
“Liar.”
“First I’ve heard of this, Suzanne. But I don’t want to argue.”
“As parents, you had a responsibility to make things work. Every family does, or it ruins the children’s lives.”
Aimée bristled. Family counseling now?
“You’re forgetting that Melac left before Chloé was born. Fine, he wasn’t ready to parent. I raised her.”
“Are you going to tell me something new?” Suzanne’s brittle tone could have refrozen a melting icicle.
“Melac was a good father,” Aimée said quickly. “The best. On his terms: on his farm, on his timeline and within his work life. And then when it wasn’t on his terms, he was terrible. When I didn’t move to Brittany with him, he kidnapped Chloé.”
She bit her tongue and took a breath, catching the scent of potpourri.
“That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because he tried to tell me something right before he was killed.”
“If only you’d listened,” Suzanne said. “He was trying to open communications to work on your relationship.”
The relationship had been long past saving.
“That, too. But you have to hear the last thing he said.”
“You better leave. I shouldn’t even have let you in. Melac had his faults, but we made a team. We always had each other’s back.”
The old brotherhood.
“Then have his back now.” Exasperated, she tried to keep her impatience in check. Suzanne wouldn’t listen unless Aimée appealed to their bond. “You knew him, Suzanne. Really knew him. I have to know what you think.” The front door opened. Footsteps trailed to the back of the house. Paul?
Suzanne hesitated.
“If this will make you leave faster, tell me and then get the hell out.”
Aimée looked longingly at that white sofa, wishing she could lie down and sleep until morning, wake up to a café au lait with Mado before school like they had when she . . .
“Hurry, I’m tired. I got stuck in court all day.”
Aimée found Melac’s voice mail, then increased the volume with the side button and hit play.
“Aimée . . . I’ve just seen a ghost.”
Aimée tried to read Suzanne’s eyes. Was that a flicker of a change of expression?
“Et alors?” said Suzanne.
“Who does he mean by ghost?”
“No idea.” Suzanne shrugged. “You’ve overstayed your welcome.”
Those counterterrorist teams took their secrets to the grave. Or boasted they did.
“Out.”
With that, she pushed Aimée out the door. No doubt she wanted to kick her down the stairs, but Aimée got out of striking distance.
Hadn’t Suzanne come to Aimée having seen her own ghost not that long ago? Hadn’t Aimée helped her? And this was all the thanks she got for it? No compassion or payback.
She’d learned nothing. Had gotten nowhere.
And she was still wanted.
Disappointed and frustrated, she wanted to kick something. She kept to the shadows and planned her next move, or tried to. Part of her wanted to duck into the nearby école de médicine, where she’d often slept during her first and last year of premed, and close her eyes. Everyone used to nap there back then, and she doubted things had changed. Medical students lived in a continual state of sleep deprivation and curled up where they could.
“Aimée.” A low hiss. She recognized that voice.
“Paul?”
“Shhh.” Melac’s best friend was on the street, walking a motorbike. “Get on.”
She couldn’t get over Suzanne’s hostility.
“Only if you talk to me, Paul. Be honest.”
He keyed the ignition, revved the engine and handed her a helmet.
“I want to hear Melac’s message,” said Paul.
“Why the cloak and dagger?”
“Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can talk.”
Aimée swung her leg over the seat and grabbed on to Paul’s shoulders as they bumped over the cobbled street. The frigid night wind sliced her cheeks like ice, waking her up.
They whizzed over the Seine amid the horns of a late-night traffic jam. Jewel-like reflections of blue and dull gold shimmered on the river’s surface. The lit Notre Dame loomed on the right. She gritted her teeth as Paul shifted gears, slowing down. The bike’s echoing reverberated around the square where he’d pulled over. Hedges of blossoming white camellia bushes left Aimée feeling exposed.
“It’s too open here. Look, I need to pick something up. Then we talk where I feel safe,” she said.
“Hold on . . .”
“Turn right. Then right. It’s important.”
A sigh.
She made a quick call to René as Paul rolled down the street. Within four minutes, he’d pulled into the garage around the block from Leduc Detective. The café on the corner run by Zazie’s parents was still open.
They were the only people she trusted besides René.
“Do you have a backpack?”
“Not on me. Why?”
“What about in your carry case?”
After a Monoprix canvas shopping bag was found, she gave Paul instructions.
“I’ll explain later, but for now, please just go along with it.”
A minute later, Paul entered the café. Meanwhile, from her vantage point in the garage, she watched the street and a portion of rue du Louvre. The surveillance was good. Professional. She couldn’t pick anyone out but knew they were there.
René was crossing the street, his briefcase in one hand and a bag in the other. He entered the café.
Perspiration beaded her lip. She prayed that Louis, the garage attendant, wouldn’t wake up before they left.
Five minutes. Six. Seven.
Paul came out of the café, Monoprix bag in hand. She watched to see if someone trailed him.
No one.
“Did you do what I asked? Were they there?”
“I gave a burner phone to René. Be careful with the bag. It’s heavy.”
In it were her makeup, a wig and two disguises.
“I told him to expect a call in thirty minutes.”
“Merci, Paul.”
“He asked what your back-up plan is.”
“Funny. I’d like to know that, too.”
She scanned the street again.
“Keep your motor off until rue Saint-Honoré and then head up Boulevard de Sébastopol.”
Seventeen minutes later, they were in the nineteenth arrondissement by the eastern entrance of Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. Aimée had Paul pull over down from the Botzaris Metro. She often brought Chloé here so she could run down the grassy hills, laugh at the spray from the waterfall and feed the ducks by the grotto.
The park, once a gypsum quarry, had been used in the nineteenth century as a dump for the abattoir at la Villette. Once the area had been famous for the gang wars at rue Burnouf’s bordellos, immortalized in Brassai’s photos. But now the quartier and park were some of the most scenic, child-friendly places in Paris.
People snuck into the park at night through la petite ceinture, the abandoned rail track that ran around it. Tracks and underground tunnels abounded.
Aimée needed to check that they hadn’t been followed.
She surveyed the connecting streets for any newly arrived car and checked the bus stops for watchers. The only people out were a couple embracing by the Metro before breaking apart so one could run down the steps to catch the last Metro.
She’d done that once. She remembered how she’d run for the last train with Melac’s kisses still burning on her neck.
Paul dismounted the bike after her, pulled it up on its kickstand and stuck their helmets in his carrier.
“There’s a point to coming here, non? A reason?”
Besides her cousin, Sébastien, coming through with a bolt hole a minute and a half away from here, and the fact that she’d clocked three escape routes from it? But Paul didn’t need to know that.
Cloud wisps floated in the night sky like cotton puffs. Shadows lengthened on the narrow street. She felt a chill in this fickle spring weather.
“You knew him the best of anyone,” she said, measuring her words. If she didn’t, she’d explode. “If anyone would know something about the days leading up to his death, it’s you.”
A flustered look filled Paul’s eyes. “Why do you keep pushing this, Aimée?”
If she didn’t, she wouldn’t learn anything.
Might not anyway.
“Was he worried? Afraid or nervous?”
“None of what happened makes sense. There was a gendarme he mentioned. That’s the only thing out of the ordinary recently.”
“A gendarme?”
“The one in the village where he grew up. That’s all I remember.”
Paul had made an effort to follow her. He’d had an agenda.
Was he a suspect? Never rule out anyone, her father would say. An undercurrent emanated from him—of what, she didn’t know. Or was he just protecting Suzanne?
Could Melac’s best friend have hired a hit man? Why?
He’d offered her little. She knew he was holding back.
“What’s on your mind, Paul?”
Paul pushed his motorcycle ahead, then abruptly stopped and turned to her.
“Suzanne’s on heavy medication to avoid another breakdown.”
Aimée remembered the pill bottle.
“We’re trying to keep our family together. Leave her alone,” he said. “She knows nothing.”
Aimée doubted that last part. “Do you suspect anyone who might be behind this? When did you last see him?”
His brow creased. He smoothed back his hair, something he did when pensive.
“You’ll leave us alone?”
She nodded, intending no such thing.
A horn blared. Paul reached out for her and pulled her onto the curb. A delivery truck roared past, clumping over the cobbles and taking a sharp turn into the uphill curve.
“Crazy and off the track, I’m sure.”
She’d judge that.
“My neck’s on the line here. Anything helps.”
“It didn’t make any sense to me until I remembered one of those old Breton sailing yarns. You know, like the phantoms of old ships at sea, the mermaids and sirens beckoning sailors to the rocks.”
Aimée rubbed her arms. The damp cold seeped through her boots. “Go on.”
“It was something his uncle told him. The retired gendarme. But he’d been assigned to Paris fifteen, twenty years ago. He was here.”
“Here as in the nineteenth arrondissement?”
