by Cara Black
“Would you rather I turn over my findings to you or directly to La Proc?”
Pause. “I’ll discuss this with my client,” he said.
“Look, I found her concussed and injured. That should be in the report. Jacques’s pockets were inside out, they’d been searched. Since the flics don’t reveal information to outsiders, can you find out what the police report says?”
The shuffle of papers was her only answer.
“I’d like to visit Laure.”
He took a breath. “It’s questionable whether they’d allow you to see her.”
“I’d need to get a pass and letter from you, wouldn’t I?”
“Let me check into that.”
Noncommittal, avoiding a flat no. But she wouldn’t let it rest.
“I’d appreciate that and seeing the crime-scene report,” she said. “Including the lab findings. I’m concerned about the gun residue Laure said they found on her hands. Of course, there’s some mistake.”
“Lab turnaround time is from six to eighteen hours,” he interrupted.
“So you could have it by this afternoon,” she said. “I’ll call you later.”
She hung up and plopped two brown-sugar lumps into her espresso. A hot drop landed on her finger and she licked it. As she had feared, Laure had been assigned a lawyer from the bottom of the barrel.
René climbed into the orthopedic chair customized for his four-foot height. She noticed his new double-breasted suit and freshly manicured nails as he bit the glazed puff top off the religieuse, an eclairlike pastry. The shape had ancient origins and was supposed to resemble a famous convent deaconess from the fifteenth century.
“Like one?” René pushed the pastry box across the desk.
Why not? Did it matter anymore if she fit into that little black dress, a vintage Schiaparelli she’d discovered at a church sale?
“Merci,” she said, walking to his terminal and exchanging the espresso for a coffee-cream-filled eclair. “Remember my friend Laure?”
René nodded; he’d met her the year before.
“She’s in trouble.”
“So I just heard,” he said, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. “Did she really hire you? You’ll get a check?”
Aimée hesitated.
“I don’t like this already,” he said. “We do computer security, remember?”
He gestured to her desk, a pile of proposals by her laptop. “That should keep you busy.”
“I owe her, René,” she said. “She’s been set up.”
“And you know this for sure?” René stirred the espresso, his green eyes on the beige froth lining his demitasse cup. “It would be refreshing to get paid. Make for a nice change, Aimée.”
“No argument there,” she said.
If only their clients paid for their computer security on time! She perched on the edge of his desk. Walnut furniture oil, dense and heavy, stained her palms. He’d been cleaning again!
“Shooting her partner on a roof doesn’t make sense, René.”
“What do you actually know?” René’s green eyes narrowed.
She sipped her espresso and explained what had happened.
“This sounds like an accident,” René said. “Perhaps Laure tripped in the snow and her gun went off.”
“Manhurins are designed to prevent that,” she interrupted. “The sécurité de shock keeps the hammer from descending accidentally. Impossible.”
René pulled his goatee. “Internal Affairs will conclude it was an accident, won’t they?”
“René, I found her unconscious and Jacques shot. . . . His heart responded briefly, but it was too late.”
She paused, shook her head, seeing the image of Jacques’s snow-fringed eyelashes, his blood seeping onto the snow. She struggled with the feeling that he had tried to tell her something.
René stared. “I’m sorry, Aimée.”
The steam heater sputtered, sending forth waves of heat that evaporated somewhere at the level of the high ceiling. She made herself continue. “Later, on the adjoining roof, Sebastian and I discovered a broken skylight and wet footprints on the rug underneath. That spelled escape to me.”
“Escape?”
“The killer’s escape. Then flics appeared and we beat a quick retreat over the roof.”
René let out a sigh. “You promised to stop all that, didn’t you? Let the flics handle it.”
He sounded like Guy. But Guy wasn’t around to say those words anymore. She combed her chipped copper lacquered fingernails through her spiky hair.
“Laure may face prison.” She didn’t like to think of the overcrowded eighteenth-century prison La Santé; the unheated cells and the reaction of the inmates when they discovered Laure was a flic. “I feel responsible.”
“Responsible? Sorry to say it, but it sounds like Jacques brought this on himself.”
“Laure has to keep trying to prove herself, to follow in her father’s footsteps. Of course, she’d do whatever Jacques asked. Not like me.”
“No one’s like you, Aimée,” René said, rolling his eyes. “Thank the Lord.”
“René, Laure’s the closest I’ll ever have to a little sister. She’s self-conscious, sensitive about her cleft palate. I know her; she’ll break if she goes inside.”
Break into little pieces.
Aimée sniffed, aware of a floral scent from somewhere in the office. “Anyway, I caught up. I did three-quarters of the proposals last night.” And missed Guy’s reception as a result.
“Morbier left you a message,” René said, “something about keeping your paws clean. Maybe you owe him an apology.”
“What can I do?”
“You’re asking my advice?” René expressed mock horror. “It will cost you. Say you’re sorry with flowers. He’s a romantic.”
“Are we talking about the same person?”
She surveyed the office. A jam jar with sprays of paperwhite narcissus sat on the printer stand, filling the air with fragrance. A harbinger of spring.
“Celebrating spring already? Or is this a special day?” she asked, trying to find out where they’d come from without asking outright. “What’s the occasion? Good news?” She let her sentence dangle, hoping he’d say Guy had sent them.
“Pull up the Salys data,” was his only reply as his fingers raced over the keyboard. “We need to draft a proposal. By noon.”
Her heart thumped. Guy hadn’t sent them.
The way René avoided answering, his appearance . . . that twisting feeling in her gut . . . could it be jealousy? Had he met someone? How could she be jealous? Why, it was wonderful René had been bitten by the bug! She watched him. It was all over his face. She should be happy for him, ecstatic. Why wasn’t she? Just because Guy had left her didn’t mean René couldn’t find love.
“Who is she, partner?”
“Did I say that?”
She grinned. “You don’t have to.”
“There’s work to check, lots of it.”
“Better tell me,” she said, adding more water to the narcissus. “Or I’ll nag you until you do.” She pulled out her chair and thumbed through the mail.
“I had a drink with someone after a full-moon party,” he said.
“You mean you went to a rave?”
“That’s for tonight,” he said. “Eh, voilà.”
René was full of surprises.
“What’s her name?”
He mumbled something.
“Couldn’t catch that.”
“Magali. Now pull up the Salys account.”
“I finished that proposal last night.”
He stared at her.
“While you were out dancing. Makes a change, eh?”
Chastened, René sighed. “We just met. Now don’t start with you and Guy wanting to—”
“Meet her? Don’t worry.”
She’d keep it to herself about Guy. No reason to burden René when he was so happy. Outside, melting ice spattered in silver droplets on the win
dow overlooking rue du Louvre.
“René, I need help with a surveillance. I questioned a woman in an upper apartment overlooking the site where Jacques was shot. But there’s a prostitute on the street across from her building whom I couldn’t find.”
His eyebrows shot up. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m meeting with the Salys account in half an hour. At least they pay on time.”
And a nice fat account it was, too. “After that, please go on an assignment for Laure.”
“Me?” René snorted. “Like I don’t stand out in a crowd?”
“Find the pute. It’s a village there. Those Montmartroise don’t regard themselves as part of Paris. Besides, you’re perfect.”
“Reincarnate Toulouse-Lautrec and walk around with a palette of paints for the tourists?”
She smiled. “That’s an idea.”
“In this field, you use what you have, don’t you?” he said half-seriously and paused, his fingers on the keyboard.
She leaned forward. “The building’s under renovation; someone knew an upper-floor apartment was empty. Say the killer lured Jacques from this empty apartment, then took advantage of Laure’s appearance to frame her. He knew the layout and escaped over the connecting roof. It’s a theory.”
“I’ve said it before: you have an overactive imagination. Put it to work on our new account with Salys.”
He was right, of course. “I already have.” She clicked on the keys and pulled up the Salys file on her laptop. “I submitted the proposal last night; they’ll be ready for you.”
She spread the rough diagram of the buildings and courtyard she’d made at the Commissariat across her desk. “I saw lights and heard music from a party there,” she said, pointing to an apartment. “I’m trying to get ahold of the owner, a Monsieur Conari.”
“The flics will question him.”
“You can look for the prostitute after your meeting with Salys. Question her and whoever else you see go into any of the buildings next to or opposite the one where Jacques was shot. The clock’s ticking. I’ll concentrate on the one where the party was held.”
“You really want me to go undercover?”
Was there a scintilla of interest in his voice?
“Haven’t you always wanted to, partner?”
AIMÉE WORKED on some computer virus checks. Two hours later, her impatience took over and she called Maître Delambre again.
“I expect him any minute,” his secretary told her.
She had to catch him before he left for another court session. She grabbed her leather coat. Without the police report, she was pedaling without wheels.
“Please tell him Aimée Leduc’s en route to talk with him.”
MAÎTRE DELAMBRE’S chambers were more impressive than his appearance. Wan, pale faced under wire-rimmed glasses and mouse brown hair, in his long black robes and white collar he looked barely twenty-five.
The vaulted wood ceiling and bookshelves lined with legal briefs and thick volumes of the penal code did little to allay her fears. The firm’s letterhead on thick vellum sheets read Delambre et Fils. A family concern. Maybe Laure should request his father’s help.
“Maître Delambre, I’m worried about Laure Rousseau,” Aimée said.
“I haven’t managed to speak with my client yet,” he told her as she sat on a wingback chair. “How can I be certain that she hired you?”
Semantics, Aimée thought. She ignored the dubious ring of his words. “Have you received the crime-scene report?”
“I just reached the office,” he said, annoyed. “I need to deal with a pile of messages. She’s just one of several clients.”
“And how many are facing possible imprisonment for shooting their partner?” Aimée asked. “Please, it’s important. I’d appreciate it if you would check.”
“Just a moment.” He sorted a pile of papers, cleared his throat. “Let’s see here.” A pause, more shuffling of papers.
Outside on the quay, sleet battered the roof of a bus stuck in traffic. She heard his sharp intake of breath and turned.
“They’ve moved her. To the Hôtel Dieu, the CUSCO ward.”
She gripped the arms of the chair. That was the public hospital’s intensive-care criminal ward on Ile de la Cité!
“Has she been charged?”
“No charges have been filed yet. However, in such cases, that’s the next step.”
“Has her condition deteriorated?”
“Figure it out, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said. “You’re the detective.”
Aimée stifled a groan. “What information do you have?”
“She suffered a severe concussion,” he said, consulting a message pad. “According to this, she’s stable but they’re monitoring her condition. That’s all I know.”
Laure in intensive care? Looming complications and the possibility of permanent damage raced through Aimée’s mind. And representing her was a young lawyer who appeared to have just gotten his diploma.
“Please show me the dossier,” she said.
With some reluctance, he slid it over the mahagony desk. At least he’s trying to be accommodating, she thought.
Inside she saw the procès verbal consisting of Laure’s statement, brief reports describing the crime scene, the weather conditions, and a description of the body, and a cursory pencil diagram of the roof. Even the statement she had made was included.
“Didn’t a lab report accompany this?”
Maître Delambre shook his head.
“Odd. Laure told me the lab test had found gunpowder residue on her hands, although she hadn’t fired her gun in a month.”
She looked more closely. The scene-of-crime diagrammer had missed the angle of the roof at the scaffold, an aspect she’d only viewed from the chimney top. There was no mention of the broken skylight in the adjacent building. The police photos, clipped to the back of the report, showed only the immediate area around Jacques’s corpse. “You have to demand a more thorough investigation of the roof.”
“You’re telling me how to do my job?”
She took a deep breath. How could she get him to act without revealing their rooftop exploits last night? “Not at all, Maître Delambre, but there was a Level 3 storm going on when the crime took place, impossible conditions. No doubt they missed something.”
“See for yourself,” he said.
She flipped through the addendum of partygoers interviewed in the courtyard building opposite. No one had seen, heard, or noticed anything. Had they interviewed that man she’d seen at the gate?
Was it due to time constraints that the crime-scene report for La Proc was so cursory? Laure was their only suspect; no other line of questioning had been pursued.
“I spoke with a woman on the upper floor of the building that adjoins the murder site,” she said. “Last night she heard the voices of men on the roof, but no one had questioned her. And the skylight was broken in the hall of her building.”
She handed him the Polaroids she’d taken. “You can see the broken glass in this hallway. Keep them.”
“Merci. If it’s relevant I’m sure the police will discover it,” he said, hesitating for the first time. “Listen, there’s another problem.”
She looked up from the report. “What do you mean?”
“A Nathalie Gagnard has filed a civil suit against Laure,” he said.
Aimée remembered Jacques’s last name. “His wife?”
“Ex-wife. Charging Laure with murder.”
Great.
“She’s also complaining in an interview in tomorrow’s edition of Le Parisien.”
“Can’t you stop the interview from appearing?”
She heard a clock chime in the background, measured and slow.
“Too late.”
* * *
AIMÉE SHOWED her pass and authorization to the two young police guards at Hôtel Dieu. Instead of the trouble she expected, they waved her on to the hospital’s criminal ward. Nurses scurried, their footsteps slapping
on the chipped Art Nouveau tiles pleated by strips of the light coming through the window blinds. She usually avoided hospitals yet here she stood, in the second one in as many days.
And then she froze, confronted by a white-faced Laure who lay hooked up to machines dripping fluids through clear tubes. Monitors beeped. Rubbing alcohol and pine disinfectant smells clung in the corners.
Aimée’s mind traveled back to an afternoon in the Jardin du Luxembourg under the sun-dappled trees, shadows dancing over the gravel. Her father and Georges, Laure’s father, were reading the paper as they sat on the green slatted benches, partners who depended on each other when their lives were on the line, sharing a joke. The gurgle and spray of the fountain, so welcome in the humid heat. It had been two summers after her American mother had left them. Ten-year-old Laure had confided, in the playground, that she intended to follow her papa into police work.
The beep and click of the bedside machines brought Aimée back to the present. She made her legs move. Could Laure talk? Was she well enough?
“Ça va? How do you feel?” she asked, rubbing Laure’s chilled fingers, careful to avoid the intravenous lines taped to her wrist and the top of her hand.
Laure’s eyes fluttered open. Her pupils were dilated. Recognition slowly dawned in her face. “The report . . . you’ve read the report . . . that’s why you’re here, bibiche?”
“Laure, which report?”
“It’s so cold. Where am I?” Laure asked, bewildered.
“In the hospital.” Aimée pulled the blanket up to Laure’s chin.
Laure’s eyes wandered. “Why?”
Had the concussion wiped out her memory?
“Take it easy, Laure,” she said. “Don’t worry. Can you remember what happened?”
Laure tried to put her finger to her lips but missed. “It’s . . . it’s a secret.”
Aimée’s spine prickled. “Secret?”
“Non, I’m not supposed . . .” Laure tried to prop herself up on her elbow and slipped. With an exhausted sigh, she gave up and fell back, her matted brown hair fanning out on the pillow. “No . . . not right . . . the report.”
“Jacques’s report?”
Laure blinked, shook her head, and then grimaced in pain.
“You asked for my help, remember,” said Aimée. “If you keep things from me, I can’t help you. Even if you promised him to keep quiet, now it’s all right to speak. You won’t help him by keeping it inside.”