by Cara Black
“Listen, my train’s pulling into Gare Montparnasse,” said Melac, the Brigade Criminelle inspector. “I still do takeout pretty well.”
“But I need to talk to you about Morbier. Isn’t that why—”
“And I’m hungry,” Melac interrupted, his voice going low. “Dinner?”
Startled, she leaned against a peeling wine-auction poster on the damp wall. “I don’t do flics, Melac.”
“Then what do you call what we did at your place?”
Getting lost in his gray eyes. Weakness. The damn painkillers? “Taking advantage of me recuperating from injuries. Flat on my back, remember?”
“You on top: that’s what I remember,” Melac said, a huskiness in his voice. “Haven’t gotten it out of my head. Not that I wanted to.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair. After that night, they’d played phone tag until there was a big silence on his end. So now he assumed she’d be willing to rekindle a one-night stand? She had more important things to rekindle, like Morbier’s alibi in this half-assed investigation.
“Ça alors, I don’t get involved with flics. Never works.”
Especially now.
“So, you speak from experience?”
Fat chance. “A lead homicide inspector in La Crim has no life outside work. That’s if he’s a good one.”
“And you’re one to talk?” Melac said. “Does your life separate from your career, like a yolk from the white of an egg? More like an omelette, I’d say.”
These days, her life made one thin omelette. Taken aback, she tried to recover. “We’re talking life in the force, Melac. I lived it.”
Her father coming home at dawn, exhausted from all-night stakeouts. The dinners waiting for him on the stove that he never had time to eat. The paperwork, the reports piled up, waiting at the Commissariat. After school, doing her homework by the potted palm near his desk, hoping he’d finish on time. For once.
“Forget old school. Things change,” he said. “Aimée, I’m just getting in from Brittany to meet with the notaire and settle the custody issue in my divorce.”
Children. Commitments. Baggage she couldn’t deal with. None of it hers.
“You know, we’re not all macho misogynists incapable of a relationship,” he said.
“That’s good to hear,” she said. “So just forget the seventy-five percent of the force in a second marriage, twenty-five on their third. Reassuring.”
“Where’d you get those stats?”
“My father’s time. Have they gone up?”
Silence.
“I’m not your father.”
“And that’s not why I left you a message,” she said, regaining her composure. “Morbier’s in trouble.”
“Who isn’t, at one time or another?”
“Boeuf-et-carottes bad, Melac,” she said. “He’s rotting in a garde à vue.”
She heard an expulsion of air over the line, the clacking of train wheels.
“Gone awful quiet, Melac,” she said. “You’re going to desert him too?”
“Tiens, I had no idea. I’ve been on leave.” Melac cleared his throat. “Put this in context, Aimée. If an investigation goes to Internal Affairs … tant pis, no one else touches it. Procedure.”
“How convenient.”
“Like you don’t know the regulations? Don’t even ask me.… ”
“To listen to the trumped-up charges against Morbier?” she said. “Someone’s framing him.”
A sigh came over the line.
Frustrated, she wanted to kick something. “Bon, I won’t waste your time. Or mine.”
“Et alors, let’s talk over dinner.”
“What’s the point, Melac?” she said. “I’m helping Morbier. No one else will.”
Pause. Leaves swirled in the overflowing gutter. Behind her came the groan of a garbage truck in the narrow street.
“What’s the evidence?” Melac asked.
She gave him a brief account.
“From what you say, it sounds circumstantial. But I didn’t say that,” he said. “Anyway, what can I do?”
“A lot,” she said. “Request the police dossier, find out who’s been questioned, obtain copies of the lab results, the daughter Irati’s statement, the statement of Morbier’s driver who took him to Lyon.… ”
“Aimée, all that’s routed to Internal Affairs.”
“As if you can’t call in favors from the responding Police Judiciaire, suggest it links to a case you investigated. There’s a million ways, Melac. Morbier says you’re the best. Prove it.”
“Look, I’m on leave. Think I’d complicate my own ongoing investigations?”
“Non, I thought you wanted to have dinner tonight,” she said. “After you’ve dropped in at La Crim, chewed the fat, skimmed the file. I know you know how to do that. None of that’s changed since my father’s time, has it?”
“Alors, I go back to Brittany day after tomorrow. I just thought we could meet.” He cleared his throat. “You do know that any outside interference could hurt Morbier’s case?”
“Interference?” She tried to control her voice.
A woman bundled in a fur coat stared at her, then turned the corner.
“Morbier, my godfather, lost the woman he loves, could lose everything he’s given his life to, the reputation he’s earned, his honor, freedom,” she said. “A lot more than just his retirement, Melac. It’s all wrong. Tell me, could I live with myself if I didn’t help? But look at it this way: What if you’re in this situation some day? Who could you call?”
“You’re just using me,” Melac said, disappointed.
Her throat constricted. Was she using him? Wasn’t she asking a favor for Morbier?
“Relationships don’t work that way,” said Melac.
Melac called a one-nighter and a brief bout of telephone tag a “relationship”?
“Aimee, I needed to wind up the divorce, work out the settlement,” he said. “My ex is making it difficult. I wanted to settle custody arrangements before, well, getting back in touch with you.”
Stunned, she wondered if she’d read him wrong.
“Morbier warned me you follow jungle rules like a feral cat,” he continued.
What did she know? Her penchant for bad boys had racked up a miserable record. Feral cats did better.
In the background came the scrape of roller bags, the muffled arrival announcement. There was a pause. “I’ve been getting my life together, taking my daughter to piano lessons,” he said. “Thinking a lot. Just hoped you wanted dinner. I’m sorry.”
Score zero. Blown it again.
Dejected, she kicked at a pile of brown leaves. Soggy and damp, they clung to her heel. Like the guilt in her heart. “I understand,” she said. “It’s not fair to involve you. I just saw a broken man this morning. Not the man I know. Morbier’s given up.”
It tore her insides to see Morbier wrongly accused. In such pain. The arrival announcements boomed louder now.
She’d figure something out. Find another angle.
Somehow.
“Et alors,” he exhaled. “I’m picking up messages at La Crim. I’ll test the waters. But no promises.” Pause. “Still have that Champagne in your fridge?”
She envisioned the moldy Brie and Miles Davis’s butcher’s scraps in her otherwise empty refrigerator. Not smart to appear too easy. Her eye caught the lit maroon storefront of Nicolas, the wine shop, down the street.
“Let’s say my office. Nine P.M.” She hung up. Said a little prayer and looked at her Tintin watch. Two hours. Forget her scooter.
In the wine shop, she bought two bottles—a Veuve Clicquot and a Beaujolais Nouveau—on the owner’s recommendation. At the tree-lined intersection, a taxi’s blue light signaled that it was free. She waved her arm holding the bag and caught the driver’s attention.
The young taxi driver threw her a knowing smile. “Clubbing, Mam’selle?”
“Not tonight. 11 rue Biot, near Théâtre L’Européen, s’il vou
s plaît.”
“A little culture in couture?” He grinned. “I should have known.”
“Fifty francs if you get me there in ten minutes.”
“How about nine?” He adjusted the laminated photo on his dashboard, hit the meter, and took off. “That’s Lola, my daughter.” The radio blared sixties ye-ye pop music, and the taxi filled with the driver’s running commentary about his daughter’s progress in beauty school. Her second day back at work, and it hadn’t yet ended. Her feet ached; her hands jittered from the espresso.
The taxi sped up wide Avenue de Wagram into the 17th past dim-lit Place des Ternes and the darkened fun fair, along Boulevard de Courcelles and the gold-tipped fence under dark nodding trees bordering Parc Monceau, and over the rail lines crossed by rue de Rome.
At Place de Clichy, among a warren of narrow streets, she got off on the rain-dampened, cobbled rue Biot between Théatre L’Européen and an Indian restaurant. She buzzed the door. No answer. Her heart fell.
Tuesday Evening
“NEVER THOUGHT I’D put les bracelets on you,” said Henri, the guard. He unlocked Morbier’s handcuffs, shaking his head. Shouts and taunts issued from the cells and echoed off the walls of the low stone tunnel.
“Desnos at the Lab still owes me from Friday poker,” Morbier said. “Tell him to pay me in cigarettes, compris?”
“Who the hell did you piss off, Morbier?”
“Who haven’t I pissed off, Henri?”
He gestured Morbier into the cell. Morbier stooped to avoid the low crossbeam. “So you won’t get lonely, you’re sharing with an old friend.”
The steel door clanged shut behind him. The key turned in the lock, metal grinding on metal. Near the barred oval window leaned Cheb DJ, whom he’d twice convicted of robbery and twice not convicted of murder. Morbier felt a tightness in his chest.
“Heard you killed your woman,” said Cheb DJ in a thick Congolese accent. “Even I never done that, mon vieux.” He emitted a little laugh. “You like the accommodation, the premier river view?”
“But you’re the connoisseur, must have sampled them all,” Morbier said. “How many times did I put you in here?”
Cheb DJ laughed. His front gold teeth glinted. “Lots to catch up on, mon vieux. ‘Ruled by passion’: didn’t know that defense flew any more.”
“To tell you the truth, passion’s overrated.”
“A flic like you do a stupid thing like that? Why not contract a hit man? Easy.”
“But I didn’t do it.”
Cheb DJ shrugged. “You and everyone say that. Save it for le Proc.”
All bravado gone, Morbier collapsed on the wood slat with a ragged blanket they called a cot. Dampness oozed from the corners, creeping up his legs. But the tremor in his jaw came from nerves.
“So you a jealous man, you flipped … ?”
The prospect of listening to Cheb DJ all night sickened Morbier. Worried him deep down. No doubt Cheb had worked a deal, a lesser charge for information. That’s why they’d put them together. Cheb punched walls—and people—when irritated.
“I know the plan, Cheb. Used it myself. But did I beat or chain you up all night like my partner wanted after your holdup on rue des Capucines?”
“No disrespect, but you think I like it here, mon vieux?” Cheb’s tone changed. “Give me something; my woman’s pregnant; I need the deal.”
“Eh, didn’t I respect that poor mother of yours, in tears begging to see you? Arranged a visit, didn’t I?”
Pause.
“Leave my mother out of it.”
“So give me respect,” Morbier said. “Screw the deal and shut up.”
“I don’t want them to hurt you, mon vieux,” he said. “They’ll move in the next mec who’s got no history with you. But us, we got history. Think about it.”
Cheb DJ stretched out on the cot, pulled the blanket up, and was snoring minutes later.
Surprised that Cheb seemed to have given up so easily, Morbier stared at the bars, more on his mind. He didn’t stand a chance without Laguardiere’s testimony. And during the brief phone call, Laguardiere’s wife had broken down in tears, saying Laguardiere might not live through tomorrow’s surgery.
Morbier’s indicateur—informer—might not either, if he didn’t supply him protection and keep his word. But who could he trust? No one left to trust. No more favors left.
What did it matter any more? Why even care? Xavierre lay cold in the morgue.
He remembered the first time he saw her. That hot sticky August, under the lime-tree branches, the shadows dappling her luminous skin, her lips parted in a smile. The smile he’d never forgotten. The smile he saw now. Not the blue-tinged waxen face they’d pulled from the stainless-steel drawer.
The punch slammed him against the stone wall. There was a ringing pain in his head; sparks flared behind his eyes. Dizzied and disoriented, he felt the next punch in his chest: it knocked the air out of him. Gasping for breath, he rolled and kicked as hard as he could. A thupt as his shoe heel connected with Cheb’s bulldog neck. Another kick. And again, until he heard the crunch of breaking bones.
Cheb sprawled half on the cot, half on the floor. Out of commission for a while, until he came to from the pain in his broken fingers.
Blood trickled down Morbier’s cheek, mixing with spittle on his chin. Too old, he was too old for this. The jaw tremor in his neck, his tingling shoulders. Shaking, he couldn’t stop shaking, couldn’t tolerate the pain in his ribs. And the shaking didn’t stop after he’d slid onto the stone floor, doubling over in agony.
Tuesday Night
“FELL OFF THE earth, Aimée?” Léo, a plump woman in her forties, frowned. “Four years. Not even a call.” Léo, wearing a green tracksuit, spun the wheels of her wheelchair forward across the slick wood apartment floor. “Now you appear out of nowhere. Did I win the Keno pick?”
Aimée had kept her finger on the door buzzer a long five minutes. No wonder Léo appeared cranky.
“It’s been a while,” Aimée said. “I brought you something.” She set the bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau on the counter. Léo, named after the opera singer Léontyne Price, ran her fingers through her short gray hair.
“Still think I’m easy, eh?”
“Non, the wine merchant said it’s an excellent year. For once, a good vintage.”
“I’ll remember that for my next dinner party.”
A cigarette smoldered in a filled ashtray; a half-full demitasse of espresso sat by a laptop screen. To the side, a bank of radio receivers, a set of headphones hanging off the end. Léo, a radio engineer before her accident, freelanced cell phone triangulation for select clients. Highly illegal and quite lucrative. Even the flics used her.
“Léo, I need your expertise. Morbier’s—”
“So you work for the flics now?” she interrupted.
“Moi? Then the earth’s flat.”
“Too bad. Great benefits.”
Aimée looked at her feet. “Not my strong suit, keeping in touch, Léo.”
Léo made a phfft sound. “Like tout le monde. You’re no different. I help out, then it’s adieu.”
Stricken, Aimée realized how much it mattered to Léo, wheelchair-bound in the sixth floor walk-up, her only escape through the airwaves.
Glancing around the narrow L-shaped apartment, two rooms met her view. Clay pots with sprouting herbs lined the windowsill over the sink. “Quite a green thumb.” She pointed, grinned nervously. “Look, I’m thoughtless.”
“And I’m booked.” Léo adjusted a black knob. She scratched her neck under the wool scarf wrapping her shoulders. “Could have saved yourself the trip.”
Aimée’s shoulders sagged.
“I contract GPS satellite tracking,” Léo said. “It’s going mainstream soon, commercial. Right now it’s only a military tool, but not forever.”
“You’ve got a military contract?”
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” Léo said.
“Léo, f
or you this would be child’s play,” she said. “Only take you five minutes.”
Orange and red lights blinked on the radio receivers. “No time, I told you.”
“But Morbier’s in custody,” she said. “You’re the only one who can help.”
For the first time, Léo looked up with interest.
“So don’t do this for me, do it for him. Please, you’ve known Morbier for years, n’est-ce pas?”
Léo put on the headphones. Sighed. “What do you want this time?”
Aimée wanted to hug her. But Léo wouldn’t like that. Instead, she grabbed a pencil and the graph paper notepad on Léo’s desk.
“Do that triangulation voodoo you do so well. Record the calls, pinpoint the cell phone location.”
“National security involved?”
The lead pencil tip snapped. What if Léo had just hit it on the head? Militant French Basques? She’d think about that later. “Morbier’s girlfriend was strangled. I found her. But someone else was in the house. Her daughter blames Morbier, but she’s misguided.”
“Misguided?”
But it felt more complicated that that.
“Either mistaken and looking for an easy answer or …” She hesitated. “… lying. I don’t know.”
“Never boring with you, Aimée.” Léo typed in Irati’s phone number. “Any idea of the transmission area?”
“In Passy, the 16th.” Aimée pointed to the map covering the wall divided into arrondissements. “I figure the murderer will contact her.”
“Doesn’t sound like Morbier’s type at all.”
“She was Basque. I don’t have anything else to go on.”
“You think the murderer would call her daughter? Make a demand, more like it.” Léo swiveled her chair and put on the reading glasses hanging from her neck.
“That’s what I need to find out.” Aimée winced. “Her daughter’s not too happy with me right now.”
“Doesn’t do to piss people like that off. But then tact’s not your strong suit.” Léo sucked in her breath. Shook her head.
Aimée shivered in the barely heated apartment.
She leaned on Léo’s desk. “If I don’t find the murderer, the evidence points to Morbier. It smells, Léo.”