Masques and Murder — Death at the Opera 2-Book Bundle

by Blechta, Rick

  “He’s still breathing,” he said into my ear.

  “Do you think he has any internal injuries?”

  Tony gave me a half-smile. “I’m not a doctor, Marta.”

  Jean-Claude let out a groan I could hear even through my diminished hearing. The fog in my head began clearing at the same time. I looked up. From everywhere, people were running toward us.

  “We have to get him out of here!” I said into Tony’s ear.

  He said into mine, “No! We should wait here for medical help. You’re both bleeding.”

  In the middle of all this destruction, it suddenly struck me how stupid we both must look having to talk into each others’ ears. A giggle slipped out, then another. I firmly took hold of myself, knowing that hysteria was lurking just below the surface.

  Jean-Claude moved with a groan and I sat down cradling his head in my lap, afraid that he might be dying and wanting him to not be without comfort on the cold street.

  Blood was seeping from a cut on his forehead, along his left eyebrow, then down onto my skirt. I dabbed it as best I could with my scarf-wrapped hand, but what he really needed was a bandage — if not stitches. It was the only outward sign of damage we could find.

  Tony and I looked at each other, knowing that there could well be serious internal injuries. I felt sick.

  Jean-Claude’s eyelids fluttered, then opened. Moving his bent left leg a bit, he looked up at me, his expression questioning.

  I leaned down in case his head was also full of angrily buzzing bees. “It was a bomb. You’ve been unconscious.”

  At the word “bomb,” Jean-Claude’s brain finally caught and held. “Help me up. I must get away.”

  I looked up at Tony. “Help me get him to his feet.”

  Tony shook his head and shouted at me, “That’s not a good idea.”

  I struggled with Jean-Claude’s shoulders, trying to wrestle him to a sitting position. “Please!” I pleaded. “I need your help.”

  It looked as if he was still going to balk, but Tony finally took the injured man’s hands, and easily got him to a sitting position. I rose to my knees and together we got Jean-Claude very shakily to his feet.

  “Now, let’s get going,” I said, standing up, too. “It’s not safe here.”

  “But there will be ambulances on the way!” Tony protested. “You both need to get to a hospital.”

  I shook my head. “No. That bomb was meant for us.”

  People continued to stream into the street from both ends, stupidly clogging the access emergency vehicles would need. Some probably wanted to help, but many were no doubt there to gawk at the dead and dying. Regardless, the crush would provide cover and protection.

  Jean-Claude began moving, and needing our help to keep standing, forced us to go along, his arms around our necks. He seemed a little more aware, but his complexion was grey and he was limping badly. Between his cut forehead and my hand and knees, we must have been a sorry sight indeed. The passing crowd, looking shocked, opened up to let us through as we made our way toward a huge and very incongruous triumphal arch seemingly dropped into the middle of the intersection at the end of the block.

  All three of us kept our eyes wide open for any sort of trouble, but if there was someone following us, I couldn’t see them.

  By the time we got to the circular bit of road that curved around the arch, the area was awash in cops, firemen, and emergency workers, all trying to get to the scene of the blast. In front of us, Boulevard Saint-Michel looked more like a parking lot than a busy Paris street.

  “Even if we find an empty cab around here,” Tony said, “it’s not going to get us anywhere fast.”

  “There’s the Métro,” I said, pointing down the block.

  “No. We need a cab.”

  At the next corner, we miraculously found one, and fortunately it was Tony who flagged it down. Jean-Claude was looking pretty bashed up, but I was horrified when my reflection in the cab’s window showed I had a huge scrape on my cheek where it had slammed into the sidewalk. Tony, on the other hand, had escaped relatively untouched.

  “Where are you staying?” Jean-Claude asked me in English as the poor driver, a man with skin as dark as night, turned in his seat and stared at the motley crew he’d allowed to stumble into his cab.

  “Near Place d’Italie.”

  The driver understood enough of the conversation to pull out and deke down a side street. Even though he kept his eye on us throughout the trip, he kept his questions to himself. I suspected he was aware that the less he knew, the better.

  No doubt it was due to shock and adrenaline, but I felt surprisingly fine. In a few hours, I knew I wouldn’t be so sanguine. It was smart to go to ground before that hit.

  “How are you feeling?” Tony finally asked as he dabbed at my cheek with a handkerchief.

  The buzzing in my ears was slightly less. “Just a little stiff in my knees. I went down pretty hard.”

  Jean-Claude was slumped against the door on his side, still looking grey, his breathing rapid and shallow.

  “You should both be going to hospital,” Tony whispered as he looked down at the blood-soaked scarf wrapping my injured hand. “He could have serious internal injuries and you need stitches.”

  Jean-Claude answered in a surprisingly steady voice. “I am not going to the hospital, nor to the police. Now do you see how dangerous this little game you have been playing really is, Marta?”

  “I can’t believe that they found out where I was. I was so careful coming here.”

  My husband turned his head, his expression hard. “I could have stayed hidden indefinitely if you had not stirred up trouble.”

  I didn’t have a good answer for that, and knew I never would.

  The driver seemed a little confused about where to find Rue Alphand, the street where my rented apartment was located, so it was up to me to thread us through the maze of streets beyond the Place d’Italie. I made a few wrong choices but eventually got us there.

  Jean-Claude and I struggled out of the car with Tony’s help. The driver got horrendously overpaid, so he was happy as he raced off down the hill, tires bouncing noisily on the cobblestones.

  Tony put one of Jean-Claude’s arms over his shoulder, and helped him up the one flight on the curving staircase. I stumbled on ahead of them. We were quite the jolly crew returning home after a day’s outing.

  The apartment door had a really odd lock that had previously given me trouble, and in my state I just couldn’t get it open. Tony stepped forward and took the key from me.

  I told him, “You have to turn it twice and it sticks going around the second time.”

  It opened smoothly for him on the first try. Jean-Claude and I stumbled into the apartment after him.

  “Don’t lock the door,” I said. “We may never get it open again.”

  Tony shrugged and just shut it, sticking the key in the lock on our side of the door.

  Jean-Claude flopped down on the bed as I went into the bath alcove to see what I could do about cleaning myself up a bit.

  The mirror told a rough story: that concert in Dallas next Tuesday would have one banged-up soprano on the stage. There was no way makeup was going to completely hide the two-inch scrape on my right cheek and the rising bruise and lump on my forehead. Inspecting the rest of my person, I discovered that both knees were equally scraped, so I set about gingerly cleaning the dirt out of them with a damp face cloth.

  My scarf was a complete wreck, but at least the blood was now only oozing slowly from the cut on the back of my hand. It would definitely need stitches, but that would have to wait. I wrapped it up again in a hand towel.

  My dress had two rips, and somewhere along the way I’d lost my beret and gloves. At least my heavy coat had padded my fall a bit. Still, all the damage was far better than having one’s mortal remains being scooped up with a teaspoon. If that truck hadn’t darted into the empty parking space when it did —

  Out in the room, Tony and Jean-
Claude were speaking in English. I cut short my self-nursing and walked back into the main room.

  My husband was still on the bed, one arm over his eyes, and Tony was leaning against the bookcase on the far wall. I sat down heavily on one of the chairs at the small table, pushing my open drum stick bag out of the way so I could lean on my elbows.

  “What were you discussing?” I asked.

  “I was saying that they must have followed you to Paris,” Jean-Claude answered. “How else could they have been at that restaurant today?”

  I tightened my lips and shook my head. “Not with what I went through getting out of London.”

  “You’ve used credit cards since you’ve been here, though, haven’t you?”

  That was something I hadn’t considered. I’d had to use my card to get some cash when I’d arrived two days earlier.

  “They can access that?”

  Jean-Claude lifted his head for a moment and looked at me. “They’re cops, Marta, Mounties, for Christ’s sake!” he snapped. “They can do whatever they bloody well want.”

  “But whoever is accessing bank records would be doing it illegally. He’d have to be worried about getting caught.”

  “He could be seen as legitimately searching for me.”

  The sun broke through my mental clouds. “Parker? He’s the one who ratted on his own witnesses? That’s a bit much.”

  “Do you have a better suggestion? There was always something about him that made my skin crawl.”

  Something bothered me, too, and I turned to Tony. “Did you see where the bomb was put?”

  Jean-Claude finally sat up. “It had to be one of my cycle’s saddlebags and I bet after it had done its job, they would have made out that I was going to kill you with it, Marta. That’s just the sort of thing they’d do.”

  Tony looked at both of us for a moment. “To be honest, I wasn’t watching the motorcycle. I was only there to make sure you were all right. My eyes were on the restaurant.”

  “It would have helped a lot if you’d seen something,” I sighed. “It’s like we’re battling ghosts here.”

  As the effects of the adrenaline wore off, I was feeling worse and worse. My hands had begun shaking and the enormity of the situation was hammering at my aching head.

  “Look,” I continued, “we have to do something. We can’t just sit here, calmly discussing this. People died on that street today. They died because we were there. The cops already know, or shortly will, that the motorcycle belonged to you, Jean-Claude.”

  Jean-Claude groaned, “Why did you have to come after me?”

  I gave it right back, “That’s a stupid thing to say! All along I’ve been trying to help you.”

  Tony stepped between us physically and verbally, talking in a surprisingly quiet and calm voice. “No. She’s right. I shouldn’t have let you leave the scene. I should have done what I was supposed to do in the first place. In all the confusion —”

  I could feel the hair rising on the back of my neck. “Tony, dear God, surely you can’t be —”

  Neither of us ever finished our sentences because I heard the door swing open behind me.

  “Can’t be what, Ms. Hendriks?” said a voice I’d heard before but couldn’t immediately place.

  Whirling around, I found myself staring at Inspector Parker of the RCMP, the suspected turncoat.

  “You two look surprised to see me,” he said, shifting his gaze to the left. “Hello, JC. It’s been awhile.”

  The object of the cop’s attention made no response but glared intently.

  I was momentarily confused by Parker’s comment. You two? Whom had he meant? There were three of us in the room.

  The situation became crystal clear when Parker said to Tony, “You should have kept them at the scene of the explosion. Things are really going to be complicated now.”

  Tony shook his head. “You hadn’t gotten there. I decided it was best to get Marta away.”

  Parker shrugged. “Like I said, it makes things more complicated, but it’s not something that can’t be dealt with.”

  I found my voice. “Tony, what the hell is going on?”

  It was Parker who spoke. “Your friend, Mr. Lusardi, contacted me a few days ago and —”

  Tony held my eyes defiantly as I shrieked, “You did what?”

  “I’m sorry, Marta, but I thought you’d taken on something you really couldn’t handle. I felt responsible for you. How could I have lived with myself if something had happened to you and I hadn’t lifted a hand?”

  I got out, “How dare you?” before words failed me.

  “Coming to me was the right thing to do, Ms. Hendriks,” Parker said.

  I rounded on Tony again. “That’s why you were so insistent on coming here last night. You were spying on me.” I pointed in the direction of the cop. “For him!”

  “It wasn’t like that at all!” Tony protested.

  “Sure it was! And fat lot of good your help proved, anyway. How many people got killed today?”

  Parker spoke. “I was held up with the French police and didn’t get to the restaurant until it was too late. You have to understand that as a Canadian I can’t just —”

  Jean-Claude finally spoke up. “So what happens now, Parker?”

  “I take all of you to the Police Nationale.”

  “Bien sûr. You say you’ll do that and then something will happen, and I, at least, will be dead, if not these two people, as well. You will be sorry that it all went so wrong. ‘We underestimated the determination of those who were after him,’ you’ll say. Is that how it will work, eh, Parker?”

  The cop’s eyes flared and he walked further into the room. Jean-Claude rolled to the far side of the bed, getting to his feet with some difficulty. He had his hand on the window frame. From his body language, I thought he might try to get away by jumping.

  Parker was going to have to go through Tony to get at him, and I was wondering what was happening as the cop seemed to be in the grip of some strong emotion.

  I slammed my good hand on the table. “Everybody just hold it!”

  They all looked at me.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jean-Claude isn’t guilty of any crime. You’re here, Parker, because he ran away from your protection program that protected him from nothing. He fled to France to save his life. He’s not guilty of anything.”

  “He entered France illegally,” Parker pointed out.

  “Big deal,” I shot back disgustedly. “Jean-Claude, if you will only look at this logically, you’ll see that you’ve got to speak to the French police. They can protect you and I’ll be willing to bet that with your cooperation, they’ll let any immigration faux pas slide.”

  “I am not going with this man!” he said, pointing at Parker.

  “Do you have a cellphone?”

  “What? What does that have to do with it?”

  “It’s simple. Call the police. Tell them who you are and where you are, and they’ll come and get you. Get all of us, no doubt,” I added with a grim smile.

  That’s as far as my little try at negotiation got, as the apartment door was kicked open with a splintering crash.

  Coming through was one of the other Mounties I’d recently had contact with, Griffin was his name. His right hand held a gun.

  “All right!” Griffin barked. “Everyone get your hands where I can see them.”

  I said, “Thank heavens you’re here. Inspector Parker is the one responsible for the death of ...”

  My sentence trailed off because Griffin wasn’t paying the slightest attention to me. Seeing a movement to my right, I turned. Both Tony and Jean-Claude were putting their hands up.

  Not at all grasping the gravity of the situation, I said, “You can put your gun away. We’re not going to —”

  For the second time, I was interrupted, this time by Tony. “Marta, foreign police aren’t allowed to carry guns outside their home countries.”

  “Especially not with silencers on th
em,” Parker added.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Griffin savagely kicked the door shut with his foot. “We don’t need any more people involved in this mess.”

  Motioning with the gun, he said, “I want all four of you in a line with your hands behind your heads. Don’t even so much as breathe wrong. Good. Now turn your pockets inside out one at a time, and slowly. Drop anything in them on the floor in front of you.”

  The men did as they were told. The only semi-lethal thing discovered turned out to be an old pocket knife Jean-Claude was carrying. At Griffin’s command, he kicked it across the room where it smacked a baseboard with a loud crack. Despite myself, I jumped at the sound.

  “You carrying, Parker?” Griffin asked. “No. Of course not. You always follow the bloody rules.”

  Parker spoke, fixing the other cop with an intense expression. “This is really stupid of you, Eli. You know that. The percentages are against you.”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your bloody percentages.”

  “Whatever you have in mind, it won’t work.”

  “Shut up! You think you’re so smart, Parker. You see, right now I’m holding your gun.”

  “That isn’t my gun.”

  “Sure it is. It’s going to be the one you used to kill all these people. Unfortunately, I got here too late to save them, but I did manage to bring you down. But in the struggle it discharged and you were fatally shot. You know, I might even get a commendation for taking you on barehanded.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  Griffin’s grin held no warmth. “You know it will work.”

  “The French police know where I am.”

  “Don’t try to bullshit me, Parker. They have no idea where you are.”

  Parker seemed stunned. “You’ve spoken to them?”

  “Of course. I was with their Internal Investigation Division this morning. You see, I’m here on official RCMP business.” Griffin stopped and smiled broadly. “They sent me to France to keep an eye on you. And that’s why you’re wrong about me being able to get away with this.”