“Absolutely nothing,” she said.
Lara Krall was hiding something.
“Very well. I won’t take up any more of your time. Don’t hesitate to call me if you remember something.”
“I’ll show you out.”
Nico walked back to his car. As he started driving away from the Place des États-Unis, he noticed that Jean-Baptiste Cassian’s ex-fiancée was peering at him from an upstairs window. He called Kriven. The commander picked up on the first ring.
“I think we’ve hit the bull’s-eye,” Nico said. “Lara Krall is distraught. She knows something about Damien Forest. But she’s not talking. Go through her file with a fine-tooth comb. I bet there’s a Tim in her group of friends. She’ll tell him about my visit. Get someone out here right away to keep an eye on what she does.”
“I’m on it.”
They were on the right track, he was sure. A moment after he ended the call, his cell phone rang. Kriven, so soon? No, it was Caroline.
“How are you, my love?” he asked with a smile.
“Listen, Nico. I’ve just finished talking with Dr. Jondeau. Your mother’s heart problems are serious. Her ventricular fibrillations are pushing her heart rate to more than six hundred beats per minute. This is very dangerous.”
Nico squeezed the steering wheel so hard, his knuckles turned white.
“When there’s ventricular fibrillation, and a patient has already had a heart attack, an ICD is recommended.”
“What’s that?” he asked. He felt a chill running through his veins.
“It’s an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, a small device with a powerful battery that weighs hardly more than a couple of ounces. It monitors the heart rhythm. The surgeon embeds the device under the collarbone and attaches electrodes from the device to the heart. If the device detects an irregular heart rhythm, it uses a low-energy electrical pulse to restore the normal rhythm. The device can deliver a high-energy pulse if it’s needed.”
“Is the operation complicated?”
“It takes a few hours under local anesthetic and sedation. She won’t be able to move around much for a few weeks after the procedure. But after that, Anya can have a normal life. She’ll set off the alarms at the airport, but otherwise there’s no inconvenience.”
“Does she know?”
“Not yet. Dr. Jondeau asked me to go with him to tell her. Tanya’s with her now.”
“I’m glad you’ll be there. I don’t think I can get to the hospital.”
“I thought as much. I’m going to be at Bichat Hospital for a meeting anyway. And I think Alexis will be at Bichat too.”
“Thank you, sweetheart. When do they want to operate?”
“Tomorrow, if possible.”
Nico took a moment to absorb the shock.
“I’ll call you in a bit,” Caroline said. “They’re paging me.”
A life-saving foreign body in his full-blooded Russian mother’s chest. It would have made him laugh if it weren’t so scary.
25
She stayed at the window for a long while without moving. Minutes passed slowly after Chief Sirsky’s car disappeared around the corner. Lara Krall felt emptied out and destroyed. Her whole life had been nothing but torture.
Losing Jean-Baptiste ate at her every day; the years hadn’t taken the edge off. She was still in love with his gentle grin and his optimism, creativity, and charm. Her dreams had become a nightmare when he vanished. There were so many questions. Why? How? Whose fault was it? She had never made peace with his disappearance. And now she knew that Jean-Baptiste was dead the whole time.
What if he’d done it? If he was the guilty one, she would die too.
26
“Lara Krall has an older brother named Timothy. Isn’t that interesting?” Kriven said as Nico walked into his office. “He’s a photographer of sorts. He’s listed on a few photography websites but doesn’t have a site of his own. I found some other tidbits, too.”
“And where does he live?”
“He lives at 32 Rue des Vinaigriers in the tenth arrondissement. It’s between the Boulevard Magenta and the Quai de Valmy. She headed over there a half hour after you left her place.”
“I’ll let Becker know right away.”
The powers of the French police were spelled out by law and strictly enforced. Like police anywhere else, they could make arrests when someone was caught committing a crime or when there was probable cause. But many other situations required an order from the investigating magistrate. In this case, it was up to Becker to issue an order to take Timothy Krall into custody for questioning. They’d put him in a cell to scare him.
Alexandre Becker drew up the papers, and Nico got everyone moving. With Kriven, Plassard, and Vidal, they drove off in two cars toward the Boulevard du Palais and the Pont-au-Change. They crossed the Place du Châtelet with sirens wailing and lights flashing. On the sidewalks, the crowds turned and stared. Children excitedly pointed at the cars speeding by. The Boulevard de Sébastopol belched thick traffic, as always, but they managed to navigate around the cars. At the Boulevard de Strasbourg, they turned toward the Gare de l’Est to bypass the Rue du Château-d’Eau. The street was usually crowded and so narrow that traffic was often at a standstill. Just ahead, Indian restaurants offered basmati rice and beignets for a few euros. The police cars split up at the Saint-Laurent church. The Boulevard Magenta, nearly a hundred feet across, let them speed up and dive into the Rue des Vinaigriers. There, they finally slowed down; the narrow artery, lined with stores and restaurants, felt like a village. They drove through the Rue Lucien-Sampaix intersection. A drugstore was on one corner, and a bakery and candy store were on the other. They were in the heart of the tenth arrondissement, with its two main train stations, the Canal Saint-Martin, the boulevards, and the neighborhoods that had given birth to the French can-can.
Nico and his men parked by Poursin, which had made copper and brass buckles since 1830, and its old-fashioned window displays. Farther off, number 32 was between the Philippe bookstore and the Santa Sed, a Chilean restaurant with its metal gate still lowered. Nico saw a school desk in the bookstore and thought of how the shop was probably filled with as much treasure as Ali Baba’s cave. His eyes met those of a customer seated on a couch. Then he turned toward number 32, its wine-colored door filthy and damaged. The building was in need of a facelift.
“On the fifth floor,” Kriven said as he entered the dark hallway.
Plassard bounded ahead, ready to draw his Sig Sauer SP 2022 automatic. Nico climbed the stairs more slowly. The cops would grab Tim any minute now. He’d have to pack a bag and put in a few clothes and toiletries before spending his night elsewhere. Perhaps he would never return to this place. According to Kriven, Lara’s brother had dreamed of being a great photographer. But he had failed. He did shoots now and then for overbooked wedding photographers and managed to sell a few prints to pay the rent. But he also needed help from Lara, and Nico surmised that this was the cause of frequent fights with her husband, Gregory Weissman. Weissman considered her brother a loser. He hated him.
The filthy and damaged door on the Rue des Vinaigriers was a far cry from the pomp of the Place des États-Unis and the celebrity of Samuel Cassian’s banquet-performance. It was also a far cry from Jean-Baptiste’s exhibition in New York.
Tim was hurtling down the stairs. Nico heard the man gasping for air. He had to be searching for a hiding spot.
“David!” Nico shouted.
There was a silhouette, a backpack. Tim seemed to be having a hard time figuring out what to do. Hide or run? A moment later, he made his decision. He dashed outside, with Vidal nipping at his heels.
Nico started running, and the other two men followed. They reached the drugstore and bakery at the corner of the Rue Lucien-Sampaix. Across the street were Le Flash, a convenience store, and the Deux Singes restaurant, which offered a ten-euro prix-fixe lunch. Tim seemed to be losing steam and was looking desperate. Finally, they closed in on h
im. “Police! Stop!” Nico shouted a few feet from the fugitive.
Tim seemed to be deaf. Nico grabbed his shoulder. The suspect tried to extricate himself, but Captain Vidal, who had just caught up, took aim at him.
“Calm down,” Nico said.
Clearly afraid and confused, Tim collapsed on the concrete.
“Timothy Krall?” Nico asked.
The man did not reply. His hair was dripping with sweat. There was panic and hate in his eyes. Kriven grabbed his arms, and Plassard searched his pockets. He took out his wallet and found an ID card.
“Timothy Krall,” he confirmed. “Thirty-one Rue des Vinaigriers, 75010 Paris. It’s him.”
“Timothy Krall, we’re taking you into custody,” Nico said.
He was this much closer to keeping his promise. But would it be close enough to save his mother?
27
Police could keep someone in custody for twenty-four hours without pressing charges. With a magistrate’s authorization, they could extend the period. Suspected terrorists or members of organized crime rings could be jailed for as long as six days before facing any charges.
They used their limited time to overwhelm Tim, undermine him, and force a confession. Nico called in colleagues to help with what they called a bertillonage, a technique they sometimes used when they wanted to make a suspect miserable. It was named after Alphonse Bertillon, who in 1891 devised a biometric method of identification that involved taking the dimensions and identifying characteristics of a suspect. In Bertillon’s day, measurements included height and reach, as well as width of head, size of ears, and length of the feet. The method was flawed, however, and using fingerprints as a means of identification soon succeeded the Bertillon method.
Now, the term bertillonage referred to strategic use of procedure. The officers took mug shots and fingerprints. They also took a DNA swab from inside his cheek. He was free to refuse, but that was an offense publishable by a year in prison or a fifteen-thousand-euro fine. They shuffled him back and forth many times between the cell and the cops’ offices, where he was treated like the worst criminal.
The holding cells were Spartan at best. The floor area of each was barely a few square feet. There was no ventilation, and a bench was the sole piece of furniture. Vidal and Almeida brought Tim a mattress for the night, which he had to squeeze between a wall and an unbreakable glass window. The view was depressing: an imposing guard sitting in a chair. No hope of escape. Timothy Krall, the fifty-year-old failed photographer, was scared to death. That was Nico’s intention. Officers came in to handcuff him again and take him to an interrogation room.
“All yours,” Nico said to Becker.
An investigating magistrate was expected to use any legal means necessary to get at the truth, and that didn’t necessarily mean telling the truth. It was up to Becker to decide if the evidence was sufficient to send the suspect in front of a court, which was the only way to determine his culpability. The French judicial system was founded on the presumption of innocence, so Nico wanted a detailed and signed confession that would hold up. The door closed, and Becker sat across from the suspect. Tim looked like a mouse caught in a trap.
“I’ll get right to the point, Mr. Krall,” Becker said. “Do you admit taking the false identity of Damien Forest, a Reuters photographer, in order to cover Samuel Cassian’s banquet-performance thirty years ago in the Parc de la Villette?”
Tim licked his dry lips.
“Yes,” he replied hoarsely.
“Was Samuel Cassian aware of your true identity?”
“No.”
“To your knowledge, did he have any reason to believe that you were Lara Krall’s brother?”
“No, I don’t think so. No.”
“Did you know Jean-Baptiste Cassian, your sister’s fiancé?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Was Jean-Baptiste Cassian informed of your presence at the banquet-performance?”
“Yes!”
Becker registered the tension in Timothy Krall’s face.
“What was your reason for pretending to be Damien Forest?”
“They needed a professional photographer.”
“And you weren’t one?”
“I was unemployed.”
“Did Jean-Baptiste Cassian agree to lie for you?”
“He wanted to help me. I was broke. I needed the money.”
“A witness caught you arguing with him that day. What was the argument about?”
Tim’s eyes widened. He looked stupefied.
“A witness?” he asked. Becker could see that he was trying to recall the scene. Then his body sagged.
“Jean-Baptiste had already helped me several times. He said he’d had enough.”
“He said…” Alexandre Becker leaned over the thick folder on the desk and leafed through the pages one by one, raising the tension in the room. “‘Don’t ask me ever again, Tim!’” he read out loud. “What had you been asking him, Mr. Krall?”
“I’d asked him for help with work. That’s all.”
“And what, specifically, was Jean-Baptiste referring to?”
“Lying to his father for me, I suppose.”
“You suppose?”
“Yes… I don’t know!”
Becker spread the photos of Jean-Baptiste on the table.
“Did you take these photos, Mr. Krall?”
“No.”
“Who could have taken them?”
“I don’t know! And that’s the least of my worries.”
“Jean-Baptiste Cassian was found dead, Mr. Krall. Killed thirty years ago, shortly after the tableau-piège’s burial.”
“I had nothing to do with that! I didn’t kill him if that’s what you’re thinking!”
Lara Krall had been taken into another interrogation room under the eaves. The heat was stifling. It wasn’t a trick. The air-conditioning was broken.
Nico put on his poker face and sat down opposite her. She had lied to him, and they both knew it.
“Mrs. Weissman, it’s clear that your brother, Timothy Krall, pretended to be Damien Forest, a Reuters photographer, at Samuel Cassian’s banquet thirty years ago. Were you aware of this?”
Lara Krall’s years were hanging on her like dead weight.
“Yes,” she said.
“How did you learn this?”
“Tim told me.”
“Were you aware that Samuel Cassian, your future father-in-law, and his guests were taken advantage of?”
Her lips were trembling now.
“I… I never saw it that way.”
But of course not.
“Tim was having financial difficulties. Jean-Baptiste was willing to help him. And my brother was a good photographer. I didn’t see the harm.”
“Evidently, your brother’s financial situation hasn’t changed. I imagine you still help him regularly?”
She looked down. Nico could tell she was confused. Tim was probably Jean-Baptiste’s complete opposite.
“That wasn’t a small thing that Jean-Baptiste did for your brother. He was willing to lie to his father. And what if the photos hadn’t turned out? It would have been a disaster. This wasn’t just a banquet, after all. It was an art event designed to span three decades. Jean-Baptiste was willing to go out on quite a limb for your brother.”
“Jean-Baptiste wasn’t taking any risk as far as my brother’s abilities were concerned.”
Tears had started to stream down her cheeks. Nico sensed that the woman had died on a June night thirty years ago, when her fiancé disappeared. Since then, she had walked through life as though it were an immense, dry, and dangerous desert.
“During the banquet, a witness overheard an altercation between Jean-Baptiste and your brother. Did they have any reason to fight?”
“Timothy could be tiresome. He always seemed to think that we owed him, as if making him happy and successful was our responsibility. I suppose Jean-Baptiste had had enough. He was right; I wouldn’t have reproached hi
m for it.”
“Your fiancé told him, ‘Don’t ask me ever again, Tim!’ What was he referring to?”
“He was probably sick of putting up with Tim.”
There was a knock on the door, and a guard gave Nico a note from Deputy Chief Rost: “Gregory has just arrived in the building.”
“Their argument could have escalated, and your brother could have killed Jean-Baptiste out of rage or jealousy,” Nico suggested.
“My brother didn’t kill Jean-Baptiste!” Lara Krall shouted. “That’s impossible! He’d never do that to me!”
“Was Tim aware of your fiancé’s infidelity?”
Lara’s rapid blinking told Nico that she was petrified.
“Yes,” she said.
“How did he find out?”
“I felt horrible. I had to tell someone.”
“And you picked Tim, your brother.”
Lara had taken the wrong person into her confidence. Nico surmised that Lara’s immature and unstable brother had taken advantage of the information.
“Did you specify the nature, back then, of this relationship? Let me be clear: Did you tell Tim that Jean-Baptiste had been involved with another man?
Lara Krall’s face flushed. Tim knew Jean-Baptiste’s secret.
“I’d like to know how Jean-Baptiste Cassian agreed to give you the job of photographing the banquet-performance, Mr. Krall,” Becker said. “He was lying to his father and risked being found out.”
“My photos were good! And nobody else would give me a chance.”
“That’s not what I’m asking, Mr. Krall. Much had to be at stake for Jean-Baptiste Cassian to lie for you. The burial of his father’s final tableau-piège was a major event. Samuel wanted to avoid even the smallest mistake.”
“Let’s say he owed me.”
“Okay, he owed you,” Becker said. He was getting angry. “What was it, exactly, that he owed you?”
“Let’s just keep it at that,” Krall said.
Alexandre Becker suspected that this man had all the qualities of a blackmailer.
“I think Jean-Baptiste was buying your silence.”
The City of Blood Page 14