Murder in Saint Germain

by Cara Black

  Toto, one of her father’s informers, specialized in roof work—he was a cat burglar working, “monte-en-l’air,” in nineteenth-century argot. Toto always said his métier required no trapeze or acrobatic skills—just nerve and sure-footedness. She swallowed again, her mouth like sandpaper.

  Her head was full of the image of the streetlight catching the dark red pooling under the man’s head. Her legs couldn’t stop shaking, making the ladder tremble. Paralyzed with fear, she couldn’t make herself move forward. How could she get home if she couldn’t get across this ladder?

  Get it together. She had to ignore her heart pounding in her rib cage, concentrate on forcing her fingers to release the metal and grasp the next bar. She pulled herself out to the next rung, then the next. Her fingernails scraped the aluminum.

  The ladder wobbled, and panic flooded her. She forced herself forward, pushing with her toes. Move faster—less thinking.

  Don’t think at all about what’s below.

  One more rung, then one more. Her fingertips reached tile. When her elbows and knees were all safely on the solid, sloping roof of the next building, she caught her breath, her damp collar plastered to her neck.

  She’d done it. Her insides quivered with excitement—she’d made it. That old shiver of adrenaline raced through her. What would René say if he found out? She wouldn’t have to worry about falling and breaking her neck—he would kill her himself. How irresponsible she’d been—the mother of a baby couldn’t go around risking her life scaling roofs. But she’d needed to get away. Still needed to.

  She couldn’t leave the ladder—a dead giveaway. She pulled it across to her, then dragged it, rattling over the tiles, to a doorway.

  She tried the door. Locked.

  Sirens echoed in the narrow street below. No time to take a breath, only to keep moving. From where she was standing, the grey slate-tiled rooftop leveled. Reaching the next building, she caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. Someone who’d snuck up on the roof for a smoke? She took off her wig, combed her hair back with her fingers, pulled her scarf out of her bag, and poked her head around a low wall.

  An open mansard window emitting murmurs and warm air stuffy with perspiration. Inside, several people worked at desks. On the wall a TV monitor played a live feed from the red-velvet-chaired Senate chambers across the street. Of course, the Senate was on a budget deadline. The senators were working into all hours of the morning with a crew of transcribers and clerks.

  “Are you a cat burglar, or do you always meet men like this?” a voice on her right said. A middle-aged man in a white shirt, tie loosened at the collar, sleeves rolled up. He eyed her with a grin from the adjoining building’s balcony. So close she could almost touch it. A plume of grey smoke lingered above him, contrasting against the black night sky.

  A smartass. Behind him was a half-open door revealing a lighted hallway. Perfect for escape.

  She realized her torn blouse and bare feet required a plausible explanation. “Only when my boyfriend’s wife comes home early. I escaped out the window.”

  A knowing grin. Handsome in a clerky fonctionnaire way.

  “Care to let me out via your building?”

  “In return for . . . ?”

  She climbed across the short ledge, swung her leg over the railing and slid onto the balcony. “Not telling on you for skipping out to smoke?” She grinned and pretended to slip. Clutched his shirt sleeves.

  “What’s your name?” he breathed, his hand around her waist. He smelled of cigarettes and musky Dior Homme.

  “Thérèse,” she said, the first thing that came into her mind. Stars dotted the sky over the dark expanse of Jardin du Luxembourg.

  “How about an apéro later?” he said.

  Like that would happen.

  “Why not?” She moved toward the hallway, pulling his hand.

  After they’d exchanged numbers, his phone rang. He glanced at it. “I’ve got to take this.”

  His wife?

  “What’s the best way out of here?” she asked.

  A door opened on to the hallway. A harried man stuck his head out, ignoring her. “Hurry up. We need the figures, Christian.”

  He shot her a glance. “Ask the guard for the after-hours exit.”

  The staircase led down three floors to an inner courtyard—one of three—then down another level. A maze, this place. She figured she was below rue Garancière, near le Sénat. She had to get out to the street.

  All she could think about was getting out. She wanted to find a taxi and go low profile until she figured out what to do. What this meant.

  She wiped off her toes with a baby wipe and slipped on the black heels and large black-framed glasses she had in her bag. She was about to hurry past a session schedule when she spotted the initials ICTY.

  “Lost your way?” said a guard.

  Her insides curdled. She turned. “Désolée, I’ve never worked this late and need to find the after-hours exit.”

  Stupid. He’d ask her which office or branch she worked in. Don’t give him time to think.

  “My babysitter’s on overtime.” True. “And my baby’s got a fever.” She hoped that was a lie. “I’ve got to get home.”

  She acted harried—easy to do—and hefted her bag with her work files sticking out. “Still so much to finish tonight.”

  The guard gestured her toward a group of suited men and women. “Follow them downstairs. The guard will show you out.”

  She followed the group but was stopped at the next door by an older guard.

  “Not that way, mademoiselle. That’s the route for those voting in session.” He pointed her toward another narrow door where several people were in line to exit. “You’ll take the street exit here.” So the senators had an underground passage to the Senate in the Luxembourg. Interesting.

  “Everyone gets confused,” said the stocky guard. Former military, judging by the silvered en brosse crewcut. “It’s a warren down here.”

  She smiled, relieved he wasn’t questioning her status. “It’s my first time working so late.” In a few seconds, she’d be out of there.

  As she made for the door, he stepped in her way.

  Her stomach fell. He reached for the phone nestled in a control bank with lighted panels and red, green, and yellow buttons.

  “That one’s reserved. You’ll take the next car, mademoiselle.”

  A car service? Her shoulders stiffened in alarm. She didn’t want that—couldn’t risk them tracing her to an office where she didn’t exist. She just wanted to reach the Métro.

  “No need, monsieur . . .”

  “Didn’t they tell you? Ah, well, it’s only in July during the budget sessions. Le Sénat provides car service for everyone who works late.”

  “But I . . . don’t think I’m allowed.” Think. Play on his sympathy. “No one authorized my overtime, monsieur. Please, that would get me in trouble.”

  “No worries over that with me, mademoiselle. People come and go all night. I never log names, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He winked. A soft side. “Have a seat.”

  Nothing for it but to wait. On the bench, she crossed her legs and replayed the scene in Erich Kayser’s apartment—the darkness, the scraping noise, the swinging light by the window, the scream . . .

  The guard rang for a car, scanned the lit panels, and pressed a yellow button. Then a thought hit her—would she be on video down here? Would she be recognized despite her changed appearance?

  “Any security cameras here?” she blurted out. Stupid. What if the question made him suspicious?

  If he was surprised, he didn’t show it. Shook his head.

  “We’ve got the gendarmerie at both ends. Only way out is through a manhole, if you knew where they were.”

  A talkative type. She smiled again to keep him engaged. “Anyone ever done
it? Escaped?” She stole a glance at her Tintin watch. Wished this car would hurry up.

  “Hard to do since they sealed the tunnel entrances. Still, the kids at Lycée Montaigne sneak under their school into the old German Luftwaffe bunker. Have parties.”

  So had she in her student days—those wild raves she’d gone to with Martine. She noticed the framed, yellowed, hand-drawn map hanging on the wall by the control panel. The script was old fashioned—old school. Like this dark, musty, and damp place.

  “That map’s a bit of history, non?” she said.

  He shook his head. “More accurate than a Métro map and hasn’t changed since the thirteenth century. Except then rue Bonaparte was a canal leading from the Seine.”

  The guard hit a button on the light panel, illuminating a branch of a tunnel. Several men in suits—senators, she assumed—scurried through, deep in conversation.

  Old-fashioned, this network of tunnels. Any cataphile worth his salt could breach the system as the lycée students did.

  Another group of men appeared. What if that Christian was one of them? She put her head down, busied herself with her Moleskine.

  “Car’s here, mademoiselle,” the guard said.

  Just in time. Christian’s head bobbed in a group coming toward her.

  She rushed up the narrow stairs and into a waiting Peugeot with smoked windows. She was the lone passenger, thank god. Her hands shook all the way to the rue de Rivoli. She waited until the car took off before doubling back on the rue Bailleul and turning the corner. After scanning the pavement, she entered her office building.

  Within ten minutes she’d charged her phone, powered up her laptop, opened the content from the CD she’d found in Erich Kayser’s apartment, and hit print on each document. No time to read whatever it contained—maybe nothing to do with his death—but she’d pore over it later. At least the office printer could handle the job.

  She emailed Suzanne the bank’s CCTV footage as a compressed file, mentioned that she had information about Isabelle Ideler and Erich Kayser but left it at that. She marked the email urgent and hit send.

  Only then did she realize René was picking up the pages spilling from the printer tray.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  “International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia?” René’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait a minute. Does this have to do with that supposed missing woman Suzanne insisted you check out in the morgue?”

  So much had happened since then.

  “You could say that,” she said. “That young woman, Isabelle Ideler, is dead.”

  René’s face clouded. “Murdered?”

  “No. She died from anaphylactic shock from beestings—she was highly allergic.”

  “Et alors?”

  Her fingers trembled. René hated her investigating anything other than corporate crimes. Since Chloé’s birth she’d promised him—and herself—that it was hands off anything dangerous.

  “I don’t know. But there’s more.” She hooked up the nanny cam to her computer. “Look at this, René.”

  “So that’s where my nanny cam’s gone.” He slapped the pile of papers on her desk.

  “Hold on, René. Watch.” She loaded up the feed and played it.

  René’s green eyes narrowed in worry. “You shot this video from a roof?”

  She took a breath. Explained her visit to the morgue, how she’d tried to catch up with Isabelle’s brother, ended up talking to the tearful Charlotte and hearing the message Erich Kayser left on her answering machine. How she’d taken Isabelle’s newly arrived bag with her now-useless EpiPens to the Dutch embassy. Recounted the strange conversation with Johan. How she’d then gone to Erich Kayser’s apartment in time to hear the screams from the street where his body had fallen.

  René slammed his fist on the desk. “You ran away? Now you’re a suspect in a suspicious death that should have been ruled an accident. Couldn’t you have just told the truth? Reported it?” René had an innocent trust in the police. Believed in liberté, égalité, fraternité.

  “And spend all night in garde à vue? Behind bars in a cell? Deal with flics, who bare their teeth at my name, who’d relish withholding my rights?”

  Guilt washed over her. And fear.

  “My name’s mud,” she said.

  “What’s new, Aimée?”

  “It’s even worse now.”

  “And whose stubborn fault?” said René, exasperated. “Show your face at Morbier’s hospital bed. That’s all you have to do. They’re old gossips. Let the police grapevine hear you sucked it up, that Morbier’s forgiven you. Have a grand reconciliation.”

  Like hell she would. “It’s the other way around. Morbier should make amends for my papa—not that it would matter, but . . .”

  “Haven’t you thought he might want to?”

  Why couldn’t René shut up?

  Her phone rang. Martine. Great.

  “Martine, I’m still at work. Can’t do dinner.”

  “Party pooper,” said Martine.

  Thank God Martine didn’t insist.

  “Gianni’s got to work late anyway. We’ve got to finalize our plans for Sicily. Gianni’s family owns a fabulous villa on the beach . . .”

  Finalize?

  With her phone held between her shoulder and her ear, she scooped up the rest of the papers from the floor. Clipped them together and put them in a folder.

  “Did you hear me, Aimée? I’m making reservations . . . Gianni’s serious, Aimée. He wants me to meet his mother.”

  Pause.

  “Aren’t you happy for me, Aimée? I’d be for you if it was the other way around.”

  In other words, be a friend.

  Aimée’s insides churned again. “How many months have you known him, Martine?”

  “That’s rich coming from you.”

  “I’ve never seen you happier, Martine . . .” She had to end this call before she said something she’d regret. “Call you later.” Hung up.

  René was staring at the folder.

  “What do I do, René?”

  “You’ve done what you promised Suzanne. The favor’s repaid. But if you don’t tell the flics what you saw, they’ll be looking for you.”

  “Looking for a brunette woman with a bob.” She gestured to the wig and ballet flats in the trash bin. Under them was the box of lightbulbs.

  René gave a small sigh of relief.

  “What if his fall wasn’t an accident, René? I heard a noise.”

  “Every old building has noises. Didn’t you say the concierge had gone up to check the apartment’s fuses? The man’s lights were out.”

  True. And the concierge would remember a woman in a mousy outfit, brown hair and her damn Hermès bag. She made a mental note to switch bags when she got home.

  “Let Suzanne twist her guts over this, but it sounds plain and simple.” René stroked his goatee. “I still don’t see connections between this man’s changing his lightbulb and Suzanne.”

  “They connect,” she said. “I don’t know exactly how. But Isabelle and Erich were Suzanne’s colleagues at the ICTY, and now they’re both dead.”

  “Mais oui, colleagues in a huge international organization. Big hole number one—the whole thing that got Suzanne all nervous in the first place was she thought she saw Mirko, but there’s no CCTV evidence, so nothing to prove he’s not dead, right?” said René. He lifted his handmade Lobb shoe and polished a spot with his handkerchief. “He was Balkan. A Bosnian, whatever. Anyway, what would he be doing in France even if he was alive?”

  “Suzanne called him a Serbian thug.”

  “All right, he’s Serbian. Do you have any idea how many thousands of Serbians live and work in Paris? Maybe she saw someone who looked like him.�
�

  “So there are lots of Serbians here?” Aimée said slowly. “Then maybe it wouldn’t have been so difficult for him to get here—”

  “Alors, number two,” said René. “How would two accidental deaths benefit a dead Serbian? And even if you think Erich might have been murdered, that there was someone in his apartment when you were there, there’s no way Isabelle’s death was anything other than an accident, right?”

  That was true. She sighed, glanced at the piles of work on her desk. She was done with this, wasn’t she?

  “It’s suspicious, René,” she said stubbornly. “Doesn’t smell right.”

  René shook his head. Sighed. “Don’t start, Aimée. It’s coincidental. Sad and tragic but there’s no proof Suzanne’s paranoia is anything more than her imagination. You said so yourself—she’s suffering PTSD. Forget the whole thing. You don’t have time to get more involved.” He gestured to the pile of proposals on his desk. “We have Y2K preparations. We have to plan for projected meltdowns in all the networks we service. The new millennium is around the corner, Aimée, and it’s getting crazy. And you’ve got Chloé to think of. Spend your time on what’s important, and forget this goose chase.”

  True. Spending her time on this wasn’t fair to him or their business or Chloé.

  She nodded, grabbed her scarf. “Point taken, partner.”

  Later that night, she transferred the contents of her Hermès into a slouchy Longchamp bag: Moleskine; Chloé’s teething biscuits; map; mascara; stub of Chanel red; the old charm bracelet, missing a few charms, from her father; her worn Vuitton wallet; her mini lock-picking set disguised in a makeup kit; her Swiss Army knife; and baby wipes.

  Chloé’s sleeping breaths came over the baby monitor. In bed, Miles Davis curled on the linen duvet while she sipped a diabolo-menthe limonade infused with a splash of sirop de menthe. The lemony-mint drink kept her awake and made her mouth tingle. No Benoît that night, or for a while—he had left for Grenoble to teach a summer session.

  René was right. She should leave Suzanne’s case alone. Still, she pored over the documents from Erich Kayser’s CD. Numbers, statistics, charts. Her eyes glazed. Looked like an accounting of finances spent by the French team seconded to the ICTY. So Erich had been the moneyman for the mission, she figured, remembering his calculator.