Murder in the Sentier

by Cara Black

  But robbing banks had been fun. It was all spoiled when they had decided to aim higher, when they’d become too greedy. Yet it was their mistake. The biggest one.

  So for twenty years Stefan had been underground. His Red Army group scattered: Jutta imprisoned, Marcus and Ingrid shot in the head; Ulrike had strangled herself with bedsheets in her cell. Beate and Jules had vanished. Mercenaries in Angola, last he’d heard.

  Now Jutta was dead.

  He stared down at his callused grease-stained fingers. Lucky thing he’d been good at fixing engines.

  “Alors!” said Anton, the barrel-chested owner, waving a socket wrench in his face. “Come back to earth, a carburetor’s waiting.”

  Stefan nodded and leaned over the gleaming engine.

  Anton kept him despite Stefan’s “dreamy fits,” as he called them. Because if Stefan knew one thing, it was Mercedes engines.

  He’d repair a thrown rod and make it smooth as lambskin, get a grinding gearbox purring in no time. If Anton suspected shadows in his workman’s past, he ignored them. Ignored them in favor of the forty percent markup he made on Stefan’s installation of Bulgarian-made parts stamped MADE IN GERMANY.

  “Fits like a woman’s stocking,” Anton said loudly. He shouted at Stefan as if he were half-witted, not just partly deaf.

  Stefan slid in the fuel injector, the socket wrench ratcheting with a grating noise side to side. Suddenly, his co-worker’s air gun shot lug nuts onto the tires on the huge Mercedes truck opposite.

  Like bullets.

  Stefan jumped. He always did. He couldn’t help it.

  “This little lady could use some oil, then voilà,” Anton said. “You know how to write the invoice, eh, Pascal?” His eyes narrowed.

  Stefan nodded. He hated the name Pascal.

  But he had to make do. Twenty years of making do, with his glasses, dyed hair, and the hearing aid. He’d lost a lot of his hearing in the explosion. His hair grayed naturally now and he didn’t need to retouch his sideburns and mustache every month.

  Outside the garage, the boulangerie’s metal awning rolled down, slat by slat. In the square, Stefan saw the orange-red of the traffic light flicker in the twilight. Everyone was going home. Home to someone.

  Stefan’s mind rewound as he put his tools away.

  After the robbery and kidnapping, the gang had regrouped at their safe house in the woods.

  But safe it wasn’t. Some maggot had informed on them.

  Stefan had been in the back barn, repainting the car, when smoke, screams, and loud thuds reached him. The flics were firebombing the old farmhouse. He ran from the burning barn through the woods, as rippling gunfire tore the alder tree trunks behind him. He ran for miles without stopping, his body scratched and torn when he emerged.

  He was panting and exhausted when he came out of the underbrush and crossed over the highway, running from the sirens.

  A rusted-out Opel 127’s wheels were askew, its right front tire stuck in the ditch. Stefan helped the plaid-jacketed old hunter, who was grinding his wheels, to get out of the mud. He helped him push the car onto dry ground, then asked for a lift. Glad for the help, the hunter happily obliged and even shared his black bread and wurst.

  Then the bulletin concerning the shoot-out had come over the radio. Stefan had never forgotten the hunter’s face when he realized Stefan’s identity. The man tried to hide his reaction but his shaking hands on the steering wheel gave him away. He pulled over onto an Autobahn emergency turnout and got out, saying he felt sick.

  But in the rearview mirror, Stefan saw the old man stumble and run toward the Autobahn, waving his arms frantically for help. Terror-stricken and confused, he plunged headlong into oncoming traffic, speeding vans, and whizzing cars. His body was batted like a marble in a foosball game as vehicles tried to brake, screeching and swerving. Stefan grabbed the Opel’s wheel, pumped the accelerator, and took off. The last image he had was of the man’s body lying in the road like a rag doll as cars piled up.

  Near Frankfurt, Stefan careened the car off the highway into rocky brush. But not before he took the old man’s wallet, scraped the serial numbers off the chassis, and buried the license plates under a pine tree. Then he hiked to the train station.

  The police would think he’d escaped. Now he’d be on the run for the rest of his life even though his joining the Haader-Rofmein gang was only a fluke.

  No. Face it. He’d joined to impress the long-haired girl who’d ignored him, chanting, “Death to imperialist tendencies” when he bought her a beer. He would have done anything for her. He’d ended up driving the getaway car on the fateful day.

  Stefan shook the memories aside as he walked home.

  Several years ago, he’d begun therapy in Poissy, not far from his village. Why not? Everyone had secrets. His weighed heavy. Especially the old hunter, who hadn’t had a proper funeral, and Beate and Ulrike. He still wished he’d helped them instead of running.

  In 1989, he’d verged on confession—there were rumors of an amnesty. But the Wall came down. The Stasi files appeared. Nasty East German files, sure to convict him. He kept silent.

  Now there was no hope of presidential pardon or amnesty. He came to the conclusion that Jutta was looking for the rest of the Laborde stash they’d stolen: the bonds, the paintings, and more.

  She’d known where some of it was hidden. He’d have to get to it before her killer did.

  Saturday Afternoon

  “TATOUAGE,” FLASHED THE ORANGE-PINK neon sign around the corner from the tower on rue Tiquetonne. The area was full of apartments and shops, combed by narrow alleys, and courtyards. Sirens wailed in the distance. From a doorway, Aimée saw the flic round the corner, then stop and question a woman with shopping bags. Quickly, Aimée slipped inside the tattoo parlor.

  The dust-laden velvet curtains had known better days. Muggy air, tinged by sweat and old wine, clung in the corners. An insistent, low whir competed with a Gypsy Kings tape.

  In the large room, a woman in a violet smock, her back to Aimée, filled jars with varying shades of makeup. Aimée stepped into a long curtained cubicle.

  Seated before the mirror, a tanned, topless woman fanned herself with a Paris Match magazine. From the edge of her left shoulder to the top of her spine, an intricate lizard design was etched in green-blue. Fine droplets of blood beaded the edges. Hunched behind her, a man with a whirring instrument stared intently at her back.

  Aimée winced. The price of adornment was minimal to some.

  Not to her.

  A muscular man in a tight white T-shirt ducked inside. Tattoos covered his arms: His bald head shone under the reddish heat lamps. He smiled at Aimée, revealing a row of gold-capped teeth.

  “Have you chosen?” He pointed to a seat like a dentist’s chair, hard and metallic.

  “Chosen?” she said, edging back toward the curtain.

  “Your design,” he said, pointing to the walls lined with photos of tattoos.

  The coppery smell of blood made her uneasy.

  Outside the curtain, she heard the flic questioning the makeup artist in the next room. No way could she go out there now.

  The tattooist tapped his fingers on a Formica table lined with instruments.

  “So, what would you like?”

  Nothing, she wanted to say.

  “Try the old Pigalle gangster designs,” he said. “A rooster symbolizing hope, the butterfly with a knife dripping blood for joie de vivre….”

  “Like hers,” she whispered, pointing to the tanned, topless woman.

  She pulled up her shirt and put her finger midback to the left of her spine. “Here. I don’t want to look.”

  “Aah, a Marquesan lizard,” he said. “The symbol of change. With the sacred tortoise inside?”

  “Oui, delicate and trés petit.”

  The man’s smiled faded. His lips pursed. “That motif doesn’t work in less than a six-millimeter format.”

  Footsteps approached.

  “
Go ahead.” She nodded, then put her head down. She covered her face with a towel and pulled a sheet over her leather skirt, praying it would be over quick. And that the flic would leave.

  “I trained with Rataru in Tahiti,” he said, as if Aimée would know. “Of course, he’s the master of the Marquesas.”

  Not only would it hurt, René would never let her forget this.

  He swabbed her back with alcohol. Cold and tingling. He rubbed his hands, probably in glee.

  “Tout va bien, Nico?”

  So the tattooist was Nico.

  “No complaints, Lieutenant Mercier,” he said.

  From the direction of the conversation, she figured the flic stood a meter away. Keep going, she thought, don’t stop.

  “Any news for me … anybody run in here?”

  Aimée’s heart hammered. Something clattered in the metal tray by her ear. If she bolted, she’d send the tattoo machine flying but she wouldn’t make it to the door.

  “We sent runners for coffee,” Nico said, “but they’re not back yet.”

  So Lieutenant Mercier was the friendly type, taking the pulse of his quartier. Maybe he contacted his informers here. Or he was on the take. Or looking for her.

  The tattoo needle ripped her flesh like a fine-toothed hacksaw.

  Twenty tears to the minute, searing and precise, the needle punched tiny holes in her skin. She blinked away tears, gritting her teeth, praying it would end soon.

  After what seemed like forever, Aimée heard Mercier move away. A long while later the tattoo artist switched off his torture machine.

  Aimée got up slowly and reached for her wallet. “In case service isn’t included,” she said, slipping him an extra hundred-franc note.

  “Like a complimentary makeover?” a woman’s voice asked. “You’ll love it.”

  Aimée turned and saw a petite smiling woman standing near the chair. Beyond the curtain, another flic had joined Mercier.

  “Seems it’s time for me to get a new image,” Aimée said, her mouth compressed.

  “Speed bump … like it?” the makeup artist asked, as she traced the arch in Aimée’s brow using a tapered makeup brush. “It does wonders for those lines.”

  Aimée’s shoulders tightened in pain. The tattoo hurt. In the outer room, Mercier’s voice competed with the whirring of the tattoo needle.

  “Try this too,” the woman said, holding out swabs of glittery peach powder. “This brightens up your skin tone and makes you glow. Positively glow.” She brushed a velvety sheen over Aimée’s arms, shoulders, and neck. “I’m writing a book,” she said, talking nonstop, “called How to Look Like a Goddess When You Feel like a Dog. Full of useful hints for fast-living people who have to look good at airports even in times of excess or trauma.” The woman grinned. “You know, big sunglasses, fur collars to make you appear frail and exotic, that sort of thing.”

  By the time Aimée got out of the tatouage parlor, her back ached and she positively glowed. The flics were gone and she’d signed up for a copy of the book.

  Aimée’s uneasiness followed her all the way home. She shuddered, thinking of Jutta Hald. Pathetic, desperate Jutta. As greedy and evasive as she’d been, Jutta didn’t deserve to have her brains splattered on a stone wall. No one did. After twenty years of prison, she’d paid her dues.

  Part of Aimée wanted to forget she’d ever met Jutta. Another part of her said Jutta’s killer might be able to lead to her mother.

  From her backpack she pulled out Jutta’s pill bottle. Inside was a balled-up sketch of the tower along with a torn magazine photo. In it, a salt-and-pepper-haired man was holding an award.

  The caption read “Romain Figeac.”

  She recognized the name. Romain Figeac, the monstre sacre, Prix Goncourt—winning author, and sixties radical. In the seventies he’d been the ruine du jour and in the eighties, passe. Now the old man was still a bleeding liberal, according to his own autobiography. Or was that his wife, an actress … she couldn’t remember.

  She ran her fingers over the smooth blue tiles on the basin counter. Was what Jutta Hald told her the truth … any of it?

  Aimée wondered if the address book Jutta had waved by her had really been her mother’s.

  She turned on the tap and stuck her head under the cold water. Squeezing her lavender soap, she washed the tattoo parlor smell out of her hair, then shook her wet locks like a dog. But it didn’t clear her head. Her mind was spinning.

  Jutta Hald’s words kept coming back. She had asked if Aimée’s mother had sent her something. And then Aimée realized a bathroom drawer had been left half open, her towels hastily folded, and the medicine cabinet ajar. Nothing was missing but what had Jutta been searching for?

  Then the realization hit her. Someone had killed Jutta. She could be next!

  Nothing made sense, yet it connected to her mother.

  Since the day her mother left, Aimée had been desperate to know what happened to her. Now she had a chance to find out. Slim at best. But more than before. She had to pursue it.

  She went to the kitchen and plugged in the small refrigerator. It was empty and emitted the hiss of slow-leaking Freon. She filled Miles Davis’s chipped Limoges bowl with steak tartare left from the train trip. He sniffed, then cocked his head as if to say, “What’s this?”

  “Sorry, furball,” she said. “I’ll pop into the charcuterie later.”

  Her seventeenth-century apartment needed an overhaul: central heating instead of feeble steam radiators for bone-chilling winters; plumbing more current than the nineteenth century; enough juice to keep a chandelier, computer, fax, scanner, DSL line, and hair dryer on concurrently; and access to her basement cave for storage. Too bad the cave had been declared a historical treasure because it had provided an underground escape route to the Seine for nobility during the Revolution, and had been closed for repairs. Closed for as long as she could remember.

  She kept buying lottery tickets. Someday, she told herself, Architectural Digest would visit. But maybe not in her lifetime.

  She remembered her mother calling her Aamée in a flat American monotone, unlike her father’s French A-yemay, his syllables dipping at the beginning. Had he refused to speak of her mother, because of shame that he, a flic, had a wife in prison?

  Aimée consulted the Minitel. No listing for Romain Figeac. She tried his publisher, Tallimard.

  “Can you help me reach Romain Figeac?”

  “Tiens, this is a joke, right?” the receptionist said.

  Taken aback, Aimée paused. “If you can’t give his number, his address …?”

  “Such bad taste,” the receptionist interrupted.

  “Look I need to talk with him,” said Aimée.

  “Don’t you know?” the receptionist said.

  “Enlighten me.”

  “His funeral was yesterday.”

  SUNDAY

  Sunday Morning

  AIMÉE SURVEYED THE MIRRORED Café d’Or on busy rue d’Aboukir and tapped her chipped red nails. A fly landed on the sugar bowl tongs and she shooed it from the counter. Few patrons were inside on this sun-filled day, most sat under the awning on the terrasse. Shadows from the few clipped the trees on Place du Caire dappled the sidewalk.

  Christian Figeac, the deceased author’s son, was twenty minutes late to the cafe he’d chosen for their meeting. She’d contacted him via his father’s publisher, saying it was a police matter. After her bike ride from the office, she’d ordered an espresso. And waited.

  A tall man with stringy sandy hair entered. He was in his late twenties, a few years younger than she was. He wore a synthetic leather jacket, silver and tight, over a black shirt. His deep gray eyes sought her, nailed her, and she knew it was him.

  “Christian Figeac,” he said simply and shook her hand. His palms were moist and warm. He looked around, warily then said, “Let’s sit down over there.” He pointed toward an old-fashioned leather banquette.

  “For meeting me, merci,” she said, bringing her
espresso with her. “I apologize for the bad timing….”

  “I only agreed because you can help me,” he said.

  Help him?

  “Your father might have known my mother,” she said. “That’s why …”

  “He knew lots of people,” Christian Figeac interrupted, apparently uninterested.

  “Ever heard of Sydney Leduc or a woman named de Chambly?” She remembered the name B. de Chambly from the Frésnes Prison envelope.

  Christian Figeac shook his head. He rubbed his nose with his sleeve.

  “What about Jutta Hald?” Aimée asked. “Did she call or visit you?”

  He waved his hand dismissively. A nervous twitch shook his jaw every so often. “Listen, I can’t go in there anymore.”

  “Go in where?” She felt sorry for him but so far this conversation was going nowhere.

  He pulled out a thick cigar, Cuban by the look of it, and proceeded to light the end. But his hands shook, a steady tremor.

  “It’s Papa’s atelier, you see,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “Can’t seem to sell it. The realtor told me to spruce it up, you know, the vanilla treatment. But this is the 2nd arrondissement on the tony Right Bank. The place should sell itself.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “Now, I’m sorry to keep bringing this back to Jutta Hald, but I think she was looking for your father.”

  “Now she can find him under the earth with the worms.”

  He sounded bitter. And clueless.

  “It’s the ghosts, you see,” he leaned forward, a stricken look on his face. “They won’t let me.”

  Maybe he was insane. A dead end.

  She found a ten-franc piece and slapped it onto the table.

  “Look,” Aimée said, opening her backpack, “you’re going through a hard time. I wish you the best, but …”

  “Wait, please.” He grabbed her arm. Perspiration beaded his upper lip. She hadn’t seen him order but a white-aproned waiter appeared with an espresso, set it on the table for Figeac, and whisked her ten francs away.