The French Widow

by Mark Pryor

  “Yes, you have said that.”

  “Call it instinct, a sixth sense. I’ve trusted mine plenty of times, and been thankful for doing so.”

  “Especially when dealing with Tom.”

  “Most definitely. But my point is . . . well, I’m not sure what my point is.”

  “Something about houses retaining the history of the people who’ve lived in them?” Lerens offered.

  “Yes. Something like that.” He gazed out of the window at the beautifully manicured gardens. “And died in them, too.” He came out of his reverie when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He answered it when he saw who was calling. “Mr. Ambassador, how can I help?”

  “I’d like a sit rep, please.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m doing just fine. And you?”

  “Hugo. Don’t be difficult.”

  Hugo chuckled. “So, as well as the attack on Tammy Fotinos, who is going to be fine by the way, someone stole four paintings from the house last night.”

  “What? Why?”

  “We’re working on it. Not priceless works of art, by any means.”

  “Well, that puts a wrinkle in the picture. Pardon the pun.”

  “Pardoned, boss,” Hugo said. “Camille thinks maybe Tammy encountered the burglar in the middle of the night and he attacked her to keep her quiet while he got away.”

  “But judging from your tone of voice, you don’t.”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Why?” Taylor asked.

  “The use of the garrote. The fact that she didn’t see him, which we know because she told us. He could’ve waited for her to go downstairs to bed—he didn’t need to strangle her.”

  “Any chance the Fotinos girl is hiding something?”

  “Oh, I think she is.” A cold hand clutched at Hugo’s stomach. “At first I thought it was a secret meeting with someone in the family. Now I’m wondering.”

  “Like, she might have been in on the burglary, and her accomplice decided not to share the spoils?”

  “That’s not impossible.”

  “You better go talk to her again.”

  “I’ll wait until tomorrow. She has a very protective doctor by her bedside, and she’s not going anywhere.”

  “That’s fine.” Ambassador Taylor cleared his throat. “So, I’ve arranged a couple of interviews for you.”

  “We’re hiring?”

  “No, Hugo, don’t play dumb.”

  “Boss, I don’t have time for that.”

  “You’ll have to make time. Believe it or not, some cases in France get solved without your involvement.”

  “Not this one.” He glanced at Camille Lerens and winked. “Lieutenant Lerens just told me I’m invaluable and she can’t do without me for even a moment.”

  Taylor sighed dramatically. “You’re a terrible liar, Hugo. Maybe I should talk to her myself?”

  “She just went to the restroom, sorry boss.”

  “You saved lives. You may be a reluctant hero, but a hero you are. And heroes give interviews.”

  “Can I just give one to Claudia?’

  “One what?” Taylor snickered. “Sorry, that was the thirteen-year-old who lives inside me. And no, you can’t. We can’t be playing favorites among the media, not on a story this large.”

  “Fine. They want us out of the house this afternoon anyway, so I can do it then. At the embassy?”

  “Yes, I told them they could set up in my office. Other than a bland conference room, it’s the only place big enough. Three o’clock.”

  “What can you tell me about the shooting investigation? I’ve not had a chance to check the news.”

  “Well.” Hugo heard the hesitation in the ambassador’s voice. “I probably shouldn’t tell you too much. Not before your interview.”

  “Worried I’ll spill the beans?”

  “You’re not supposed to know the beans, Hugo. In theory you’re a suspect in the shooting death of a man.”

  “You know, that’s really weird because I thought I was a hero.”

  “Funny.”

  “Should a suspect in a shooting case really be giving an interview?”

  “When he’s also a hero, yes.”

  “Well played, sir.”

  “Three sharp, Hugo. Brush your hair and wear a tie.”

  “I’m not wearing a tie, boss. The hair I can do, but no tie.” He hung up before Taylor could say anything else.

  “You’re giving a television interview?” Lerens asked.

  “Apparently.”

  “So what happened exactly? We’ve not had a chance to talk, and all I know is what I’ve seen online or on television.”

  “We haven’t. It all happened so fast, to be honest. I was heading out for a glass of wine, then suddenly heard gunshots and saw the guy, right there. I just . . . did what I was trained to do, I guess.”

  “And you feel all right about it?”

  Hugo smiled. “You sound like Ambassador Taylor. Thank you for your concern, but yes, I do feel fine with it.”

  “I’ve never shot anyone,” Lerens said. “I hate to think how I’d feel after.”

  “You can’t know until it happens. Obviously, I hate it, but after a lot of years in law enforcement I have these pretty secure compartments in my head. Shooting someone who is trying to kill innocent civilians, well, that fits into one of the safest and least leaky compartments.”

  “Someone told me you shot the gun out of his hand.”

  Hugo rolled his eyes. “Good God, not you too.”

  “Is it true, cowboy?” Lerens asked, a twinkle in her eye.

  “I’m not a cowboy, and yes, while it’s technically true it wasn’t my intention. I shot center-mass where he happened to be holding the gun, and the first bullet happened to strike it and knock it out of his hand. Pure luck.”

  “No one will want to believe that.”

  “Well, it’s true.”

  “A handsome cowboy striding through town with boots on his feet and a six-shooter on his hip, a glint in his eye and a pretty lady waiting for him. He spots a bad guy, a ruthless killer, and takes him out with two shots, pinging the gun out of his hand for good measure.”

  “Enjoying yourself, Camille?” She was toying with him now, and Hugo pretended to be irritated.

  “Very much. Shame you weren’t wearing your hat.”

  “It’s a fedora, not a cowboy hat. Plus, I took four shots and missed with two of them.”

  Lerens waived a dismissive hand. “Irrelevant parts of a legend always fall away, leaving just the good bits behind. No one needs to know about those missed shots.” She held up a finger to silence Hugo as her phone chirped. “Lerens here.” A pause. “That was quick.” Another pause. “Thank you. Can you send that to my phone, in a text? Thanks again.” She hung up and turned to Hugo. “Well, well.”

  “Some news?”

  “Time to saddle up, cowboy. They located Fabien’s phone. Let’s go find its owner.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It took less than ten minutes to drive from Château Lambourd to the abandoned Renault Mégane, which sat on the grassy verge beside Avenue de l’Hippodrome, one of the few east-west roads that took traffic through the Bois de Boulogne. Sitting on the western edge of the city, the park occupied about two thousand acres and had been everything from a hunting ground for robbers to the hunting grounds of kings. Hugo hadn’t been there more than a few times, and wondered if it still was as it had been when he first came to Paris: scenic and serene during the day, but as the sun slipped from the sky and the day-trippers left, they were replaced by those looking to sell, and buy, sex and drugs, and by even more nefarious characters looking to help themselves to both at no expense. Lieutenant Lerens stopped her car behind the marked police unit that was keeping an eye on things until they got there.

  They got out of the car and, from where Hugo stood, and in the middle of the day, it seemed like a peaceful place, and it felt good to be away from the roar of the traffic that endlessly looped throug
h the city’s roads, pleasant even to be away from the beautiful but always-crowded streets of the Latin Quarter, where he lived, just a stone’s throw from the River Seine. He looked around and took in a lungful of fresh air, and then joined Lerens, who stood looking into the broken-out rear passenger window of the abandoned Renault. It looked like it had been there weeks, not hours, dusty and dirty, the wheels caked in mud and one headlight broken.

  “Anyone in it?” Lerens asked the uniformed flic, who stood to attention as she approached him.

  “Non, personne,” he said. No, no one.

  “Did you run the plate?”

  “Yes, I was first on scene and figured you’d want to know whose it is.”

  “Excellent,” Lerens said. “I most certainly do.”

  “It belongs,” the officer began, and dug a notebook out of his breast pocket, “to an Alain Juin, lives in Montmartre. He reported it stolen five days ago.”

  “Did you search it?”

  “Non, Lieutenant. I just looked inside.” He gestured to the grimy windows. “Had to use a flashlight, but saw the phone they’d pinged. It’s right there on the back seat.”

  “Well, the crime scene people are on the way. They’ll photograph it as is, then get to work processing it for prints, DNA, all that stuff.” Lerens started to turn away, and then turned back, a little hesitant. “You didn’t see any blood in there, did you?”

  “No. And I thought about popping the trunk to make sure there’s . . . well, you know.”

  “No one inside?”

  “Right. But they told me not to, so I just tapped on it to make sure no one was alive in there. No response, obviously.”

  Lerens nodded. “If someone’s in there, the emergency has passed. So let’s hope not.” She stepped away from the car further into the verge, lowering her voice so only Hugo could hear. “What do you make of all this?”

  “It’s odd. Very odd. Did Fabien have a car at his disposal?”

  “I checked, and yes, he did. There are two at the château that the family members can use. But the thing is, they also come with drivers. Which suggests that, if he’s the one who stole this car, he didn’t want people to know he was going somewhere . . .”

  “Or who he was going with,” Hugo added.

  “Then why not just rent a car?” Lerens asked. “Or use a ride-share company?”

  “Because both of those leave a trail.”

  “I’m not sure stealing a car is any less risky.”

  Hugo gave a wry smile. “Only if you get caught.”

  “And why leave his cell phone behind?”

  “One of two possibilities,” Hugo said. “At least the way I see it. Either someone else stole the car and is the reason his cell phone is sitting on the back seat.”

  “You’re suggesting foul play.”

  “Or he did steal the car and is trying to make it look like he didn’t.”

  “Leaving the phone for us to track and find.”

  “Right.”

  “Care to make a bet on which one of those it is?” Lerens asked. “Not much of a gambling man, I’m afraid. Mostly because I hate losing.”

  Lerens laughed. “Good, because I’d have no idea which side to take.”

  Hugo looked at his watch. “If the crime scene people are on the way, there’s not much for me to do, so if you don’t mind I’ll head back to the embassy and prepare for my interview.”

  “Prepare?” Lerens raised a manicured eyebrow. “What if there’s a body in the trunk?”

  “There’s not.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Someone dumped the phone in an already dumped car.” Hugo gestured to the trunk. “I don’t smell anything and I’m pretty sure this vehicle’s been here a while.”

  “It does look that way.” Lerens was quiet for a moment. “So this television thing, you answering questions or giving a speech?”

  “The former, I think. But you can bet my boss will have certain things he wants me to say, and a fair few things he doesn’t.”

  Lerens pointed at the three police cars headed their way along Avenue de l’Hippodrome. “One of those should be Paul Jameson— you can irritate him by making him take you. And if he argues, tell him it was my idea.”

  “He won’t argue,” Hugo said. “He’s one of the good ones.”

  Ambassador Taylor’s office had been transformed from a place of quiet reflection, and occasional negotiation, to something more resembling a movie set. Three large cameras, several banks of lights, audio booms, and some equipment Hugo couldn’t identify sat around two of the ambassador’s armchairs. The scene of the interrogation, Hugo thought.

  He lurked beside his boss’s desk, watching as Taylor spoke to the overly made-up male reporter. Eventually, Taylor walked over to Hugo, who grimaced and said, “Remind me why I agreed to this.”

  “You didn’t,” Taylor said. “Under orders.”

  “Then you can’t blame me if I screw it up.”

  “Can and will.”

  “Anything specific you do or don’t want me to say? I have no idea what they know or what they’re going to ask me.”

  “I was just told the passport was fake, but don’t mention that.”

  “So he’s not an American?”

  “That we won’t know until we identify him,” Taylor said. “But that passport information is for your ears only.”

  “Got it. Any other information you want to hand me that I have to keep to myself?”

  Taylor shrugged. “The interview is going to be in French, so just listen carefully and use your discretion.”

  Hugo gave Taylor a look. “Real helpful, thank you.”

  “It’s not live—it’s for broadcast tonight, so if you say anything really dumb maybe we can beg them to delete it.”

  “Again, thanks for the guidance.”

  The news reporter approached, his hand extended. “Monsieur Marston, I am Pascal Gross, delighted to meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Hugo said, shaking his hand.

  “So, the way this will work is that you’ll give one interview to me, and I’ll share it with the other channels. Kind of like a pool reporter. The ambassador didn’t want you to give a dozen interviews to a bunch of different people.”

  “He’s thoughtful that way,” Hugo said.

  “Shall we get started?” Gross smiled, and Hugo was reminded of an alligator, except this one had perfect teeth.

  “I suppose so.”

  Gross led Hugo to the chairs, and as soon as they sat down a woman appeared in front of Hugo and clipped a tiny microphone to his shirt. “Can you say your name and count to five, please?”

  “Sure.” Hugo did as he was told, and the woman apparently received a thumbs-up from one of the technicians.

  “You want some powder? You’re a little shiny in a few places.”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  She looked at Gross, who nodded, and then left and returned moments later with a powder puff, dabbing at Hugo until she was satisfied.

  “Just so you know, there are three cameras. One on my face, one on yours, and one capturing us both.” Pascal Gross picked up a notepad from the floor beside his chair, and smiled at Hugo. “All three are rolling, so are you ready?”

  “I think so.”

  “Great.” Gross straightened himself in the chair and looked over Hugo’s shoulder, presumably into a camera. “My name is Pascal Gross, and I am here at the United States embassy in Paris, with Hugo Marston, the man who stopped the Tuileries shooter yesterday. Monsieur Marston, thank you for giving us this interview.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “And I should thank you, too, for stopping the gunman from gunning down more people than he did.”

  “Again, most welcome.”

  “Tell us what happened in your own words, if you don’t mind reliving it.”

  “Sure. It was like any other evening, really, I was going to meet a friend for a drink—”

  “That would be
Mademoiselle Roux?”

  You’ve done some homework. Or spying.“Yes.”

  “If you don’t mind me interrupting, Mademoiselle Roux is quite a well-known journalist. I think people might be interested in how long you’ve been together.”

  “We’re just friends.”

  “Vraiment?” Pascal Gross flashed his most ingratiating grin. “Then I’ve been misled. Please, carry on.”

  Hugo nodded “Well, I was just walking through the gardens when I heard a popping sound ahead of me.”

  “Did you recognize the noise?”

  “Initially, no. But then I heard more and quickly realized what it was, so I ran in that direction. I saw him seconds later. He had two guns, one in each hand. I think one must have jammed or something because he knelt down to do something with it. Anyway, I pulled my gun at some point and kept running toward him.”

  “Why didn’t you shoot from where you were?”

  “There were too many people out there. I wanted to get as close as I could to improve my chance of hitting him, and only him.”

  “Did you say or shout anything to him?”

  “Not at first. I wanted to get as close as possible before he saw me. After that . . . I don’t recall, to be honest. I may have told him to drop his weapon. Weapons. But I don’t really remember.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I do remember the moment he looked up and saw me. I could almost see his eyes focus in on me. He started to raise his gun toward me, so I fired. Four times in all, I believe.”

  “You shot the gun out of his hand, did you know that?”

  Hugo smiled. “I missed with the first two shots, and the third happened to hit his gun, yes.”

  “Knocked it out of his hand.”

  “Yes. Yes, that . . . happened.”

  “And the final shot killed him.”

  “I suppose. I know they were giving him CPR. I didn’t hear what happened after he was put into the ambulance.”

  “You shot him through the heart. Knocked the gun out of his hand and then shot him through the heart.”

  “People keep forgetting the first two shots,” Hugo said.

  “You’re from Texas, yes?”