Murder in the Marais (Aimee Leduc Investigations, No. 1)

by Cara Black

  "Bonjour, ca va? Permit me," she said to the older woman with headphones typing data entry who nodded distractedly and then ignored her.

  Aimee walked past her and opened the double windowed doors to the street. She climbed over the black wrought-iron balcony guard, gripping the thick rail, and was greeted by a dusky sunset over the Louvre and the Seine beyond. It was almost enough to sweep away the anticipation of finding out who was in her office.

  The moon dangled over the distant Arc de Triomphe and the traffic hummed below her. Carefully, she wedged her toe into a crack in the limestone facade and rested her boot heel on the metal sign support. Four stories above the rue du Louvre, she slowly climbed down the first E of the LEDUC DETECTIVE sign to peer into her office window for an intruder.

  From the slightly open window, a smell of fresh paint hit her. Very fresh. She knew Rene wouldn't schedule the office to be painted and forget to tell her. She slipped her Glock 9-mm from the strap around her leg.

  As she molded her body to the semicircular curve of the window, she hesitated. She had the firearms permit but not the license to carry her Glock. Drawing an unlicensed gun on anybody spelled trouble. French firearm laws, still enforced by the Napoleonic code, didn't allow her the right to bear arms. Even in self-defense or equal-force situations. If the flics were inside, she'd really be in trouble. Her PI license would be revoked immediately, if Herve Vitold of the Brigade d'Intervention hadn't already done that.

  She didn't feel like bursting into her office when the door had been left ajar, without any kind of backup. She pulled her cell phone out and punched in her office number. The phone rang right below her toehold, inside the window.

  As the answering machine came on, she waited, then shouted, "You're in my crosshairs, salope. I'm at the window directly opposite."

  Heavy footsteps beat below her, then the office door slammed shut. This is going to be easy, Aimee thought, I'll just wait and see who comes out of the building.

  Five long minutes later, no one had emerged from the entrance. Of course, she'd realized she'd told them they were being watched from across the street. Only an idiot would exit from the front. Now she'd have to go in, not knowing if they'd really left or not. She steadied her gun. The flics wouldn't act like that. At least, she didn't think they would.

  As she slid down and perched on the rusted tin drain she heard an ominous creak below her and grabbed the big D. Just in time, too. The drain came loose and went crashing down four stories to the street. Luckily, no one was on the pavement below. By the time she'd jimmied the window lock and fallen into her office, it was empty.

  Papers and files were strewn everywhere. Her desk drawers had been dumped upside down, every nook and cranny searched. A professional job by the look of it, she thought. She kept her gun drawn as she slowly opened the closet. Miles Davis tumbled out, ecstatic to see her. Cautiously, she searched her office to make sure no one was there.

  She inched into the hallway. A chill breeze blew from the open window facing a shadowy passage between prewar boxlike apartments. She heard the creaking of the rusty fire escape swinging below her. Her intruder had probably made it to the Metro station by now. Dusting herself off, she took a swig of mineral water and called Martine.

  "Someone's ransacked my office!" she said. "Can you fax those sheets again?"

  "Aimee, be careful, I'm serious," Martine said, all in one breath. "Give me the exclusive on this one, please? With this story I'd get into editorials and off my back with Gilles."

  "You sleep with Gilles to keep your job?" Aimee couldn't keep the surprise out of her voice. "Of course, this story is yours." She paused. "But no print yet, nothing. I've got to document everything airtight. Do we have an understanding?"

  "D'accord," Martine spoke slowly. "It's not that bad with Gilles, we have an arrangement. I know I'm good at what I do but I've never been like you, Aimee. You don't need a man."

  "I wouldn't call screwing the neo-Nazi hunk I met at an LBN meeting a smart relationship choice. That's a whole other story."

  "Probably spices up his performance," Martine giggled. "I'm still checking one name."

  A ring and click signaled a fax coming in. "Is this from you, Martine?"

  "Yes. Don't forget—this is my story," Martine said.

  The smell of paint was stronger now and came from near the fax machine. Aimee walked around her office partition to confront a terrifying image. A black swastika was painted on the wall, angled and off center like the one incised in Lili's forehead. Next to it were three words in dripping red paint:

  YOUR TURN NEXT!

  WEDNESDAY

  Wednesday Morning

  AIMÉE PERCHED ON THE thick black velvet sofa in her red suit, the one she could afford to pick up from the dry cleaner's. She had begrudgingly slipped a few hundred franc notes to the hotel clerk. Plush hotels rated high bribes; it was the cost of doing business.

  "Mademoiselle Leduc?" came a deep voice in heavily accented French. "You wish to have a word with me?"

  Hartmuth Griffe gave a modified bow, and looked expectantly into her face. He fit perfectly in the Pavillion de la Reine lounge among the discreet clink of crystal and silver. Suave, tan, and very handsome. Curt Jurgens and Klaus Kinski, move over, she thought.

  "Herr Griffe, please sit down. I know you have a long day ahead of you. Would you care for coffee?" Aimee spread her arms, indicating the plush sofa.

  "Actually, I'm running late," he said, glancing at her cafe au lait on the table and his watch at the same time.

  "Just a quick one. I know you're extremely busy." Aimee caught the waiter's eye and pointed at her cup. She gestured towards a deep burgundy leather armchair. "Please."

  "Only for a few moments then," he said. "Of what do you wish to speak?"

  She wanted to stall him until he got his coffee.

  Loudly she demanded, "Quickly! For the monsieur, s'il vous plaît!"

  Immediately, a cafe au lait in a Limoges cup and a bountiful fruit tray appeared.

  "Compliments of the hotel," the manager said, almost scraping his chin on the table with a low bow.

  "Merci," Hartmuth said, reaching for his cup.

  She tried not to look at his hands. Tried not to stare at the pigskin leather gloves he wore. Most of all, she tried to hide her disappointment at not being able to lift his fingerprints. She decided to get to the point.

  "Did you know Lili Stein?"

  "Excuse me, who?" Hartmuth Griffe stared at her.

  She noticed the creamy foam in his cup trembled slightly.

  "Lili Stein, a Jewish woman maybe a few years younger than you." She paused.

  "No." He shook his head. "I'm in Paris for the trade summit. I know no one here."

  She sipped, watching his eyes as they met hers. His stare had grown glassy and removed.

  "She was murdered near this hotel," Aimee said, slowly setting her cup down on the table. "Strangled. A swastika was carved in her forehead."

  "I'm afraid I don't know that n-name," he said. He blinked several times.

  She heard the stutter and saw his mouth quiver at the effort to stop it.

  "Her family said she'd been very scared before it happened. I think she knew secrets." Aimee watched him. "But you've been to Paris before, maybe you met her then, non?"

  It was a long shot but worth a try.

  "You've mistaken me for someone else. This is my first time in Paris." He stood up quickly.

  Aimee stood up also. "Here is my card. Odd bits and pieces lodged in one's memory tend to emerge after conversations like this. Call me any time. One last question. Why are you listed as dead in the Battle of Stalingrad, Herr Griffe?"

  He looked truly surprised.

  "Ask the war office. All I remember is seeing bodies stacked like cordwood in the snow. Mounds of them. Frozen together. Kilometers of them, as far as the Russian horizon."

  Then Hartmuth stiffened like a rod, as if he remembered where he was.

  "But go ahead,
Mademoiselle Leduc, and pinch me, I'm real. If you'll excuse me." He clicked his heels and was gone.

  She slumped on the velvet sofa. Did he wear those gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints? All she knew was that something was bottled up inside him. Tight and close to explosion.

  Aimee finished the fruit platter; it would be a shame to waste raspberries in November. But she'd learned at least one thing. He was either an incredible liar or a mistake had been made. She opted for the former. After all, he was a diplomat and a politician.

  HORDE S OF protesters chanting, "Not again, not again!" blocked her way to the Metro. Buses lined narrow rue des Francs Bourgeois, the air thick with diesel fumes and high tempers. Aimee wished she could get past the seventeenth-century walls, high and solid, hemming her and passersby in to the sidewalk.

  Police encased in black Kevlar riot gear squatted between the Zionist youth and skinheads screaming, "France for the French." A light drizzle beaded in crystalline drops on the clear bulletproof shields of the police, who crouched like praying mantises.

  Ahead, a polished black Mercedes limousine, stuck in the Hôtel Pavillion de la Reine courtyard, caught Aimee's eye. The driver gestured towards the narrow street, arguing with a riot-squad member. The smoked window rolled down and Aimee saw a veined hand stretch out.

  "Phillipe, please, I want to walk," came the unmistakable voice. She remembered the last time she had heard it—on the radio after she discovered Lili Stein's body.

  The highly waxed door opened and Minister Cazaux, the probable next prime minister of France, emerged into the stalled traffic. The plainclothes guards rushing to surround his tall, bony figure caught the crowd's attention.

  "S'il vous plaît, Monsieur le Ministre, these conditions—" a bodyguard began.

  "Since when can't a government servant walk among the people?" Cazaux grinned. "With the treaty about to be signed, I need every chance to hear their concerns." He winked at the small crowd around the car, his charm melting many of them into smiles as he moved among them shaking hands, totally at ease with the situation.

  He smiled directly at Aimee, who'd become awkwardly wedged among the hotel staff. He appeared younger than he did in the media but she was surprised at his heavy makeup. "Bonjour, Mademoiselle. I hope you will support our party's platform!"

  Cazaux grasped her hands in his warm ones, as she winced at the sudden pressure.

  "Je m'excuse." He pulled back, glancing at her hand.

  His charm was laserlike. Once appointed he would be prime minister for five years.

  "Monsieur le Ministre," she said, stifling a smile, "you promote social reform, but your party sanctions this racist treaty. Can you explain this contradiction?"

  Cazaux nodded and paused. "Mademoiselle, you've made a good point." He turned to the crowd, assorted skinheads, shoppers, and young Zionists. "If there was another way to reduce our crippling 12.8 percent unemployment, I'd be the first one to do it. Right now, France has to get back on its feet, reenter the global market, and nothing is more important than that."

  Many in the crowd nodded, but the young Zionists chanted, "No more camps!"

  The minister approached them. "Simple answers to immigration don't exist; I wish they did."

  He embraced a squealing infant shoved at him by a perspiring mother. With all the time in the world, he rocked the young baby like a practiced grandfather. Then he kissed the cooing baby on both cheeks, gently handing it back to the beaming mother. "Discussion is the foundation of our republic." He smiled at the Zionists. "Bring your concerns to my office."

  Cazaux was good, she had to admit. He worked the crowd well. Several photographers caught him in earnest discussion with a Zionist youth. By the time the traffic jam broke up, even the Zionists were almost subdued.

  His guards signaled to him, then Cazaux waved, climbed in the limo, and shot down the street. The whole incident had taken less than fifteen minutes, she realized. His adept handling of potential violence triggered her unease. He'd manipulated the volatile situation almost as if he'd planned it. When did I get so cynical, she wondered.

  Ahead of her stood an old man in a lopsided blue beret. "Just like the old days. Maybe they'll do it right this time," he muttered. His face was contorted by hate.

  "There's blacks and Arabs everywhere," he continued. "My war pension is half what the blacks get. Noisy all night and they can't even speak French."

  She turned away and stared straight into the eyes of Leif, the lederhosened skinhead from LBN. He stood by the entrance of a dingy hôtel particulier, watching her. Even in a red suit with makeup and heels instead of leather, black lipstick, and chains, she wasn't going to wait and see if he recognized her.

  When she looked again, he was gone. Stale sweat and the smell of damp wool surrounded her. She froze when she saw his bristly mohawk appear over the old man's shoulder.

  "Salopes!" the old man swore into the jostling crowd, Aimee wasn't sure at whom.

  She was scared. In this narrow, jammed street, she had nowhere to go. She crouched behind the old man, pulled her red jacket off, and stuck a brown ski cap from her bag over her hair. She shivered in a cream silk top in the now steady drizzle, put on heavy black-framed glasses, and melted into the crowd as best she could.

  "They laid my son off, but he doesn't get the fat welfare check those blacks get for nothing," the old man shouted.

  Aimee felt groping fingers under her blouse, but she couldn't see who they belonged to. Leaning down, she opened her mouth and bit as hard as she could. Someone yelped loudly in pain and the crowd scattered in fear. Aimee darted and elbowed her way through the grumbling crowd. She didn't stop until she had reached the Metro, where she shoved her pass in the turnstile and ran to the nearest platform. Gusts of hot air shot from the tiled vents as each train pulled in and out. She stood in front of them until her blouse had dried, she'd stopped shaking, and had come up with a plan.

  Wednesday Noon

  AIMÉE WORKED IN HER apartment on her computer, accessing Thierry Rambuteau's credit-card activity, parking tickets, and even his passport. He drove a classic '59 Porsche, lived with his parents, and had dined the night before at Le Crepuscule on the Left Bank using his American Express card.

  On the previous Wednesday morning, the day Lili was murdered, the card showed a gas purchase off the A2 highway near Antwerp, Belgium. That gave him plenty of time to drive into Paris by early evening. She scrolled through the rest and was about to give up, but just to be thorough she checked his passport activity. There it was. Entry into Istanbul, Turkey, a week ago Saturday and no record of return. But most countries didn't stamp your passport on departure. No wonder he had a tan, she thought, when she'd first seen him at LBN office. And a possible alibi.

  She took a swig of bottled water and called Martine at Le Figaro.

  Martine put her on hold briefly, then spoke into the phone. "Here's what I found. Like clockwork, there's a deposit every month into Thierry and Claude Rambuteau's joint account from DFU. That's the Deutsche Freiheit Union, the fascists who burn Turkish families out of their homes. Why are you investigating this guy? I'm just curious."

  "He's a suspect in a Jewish woman's murder," Aimee replied.

  "Let me guess," Martine yawned. "He's really a Jew."

  Aimee choked and almost dropped her bottle of water. "That's an ironic angle I hadn't thought of."

  Martine was awake now. "Really? I was just kidding; it would give him some excuse to be screwed up."

  "Screwed up enough to strangle a woman and and carve a swastika into her head?" Aimee said.

  "Oh God, Gilles told me about that, it's in his follow-up story for the Sunday evening edition. You think he did it?"

  "Martine, this is between us. Not Gilles," Aimee said firmly. She tapped the name Claude Rambuteau into her computer as she talked. "Why would Thierry's father. . .?"

  "Wait a minute, Aimee. Who is his father?"

  "According to Thierry's Amex application, his father is Claude Ra
mbuteau," she said, pulling up the information from her screen and downloading it.

  "Were you wondering why he would have a joint account with his son Thierry and receive DFU money?" Martine asked.

  "Something along those lines," Aimee said. "I better go ask him."

  RAIN SPLATTERED over the cobblestones as Aimee ran to number twelve. She rang the buzzer next to the faded name Rambuteau, adjusting her long wool skirt and tucking her spiky hair under a matching wool beret.

  The outline of a smallish figure materialized, silhouetted in the frosted-glass door. A portly man, short with gray hair and dark glasses and dressed in a fashionable tracksuit, opened the door halfway.

  "Yes?" He remained partly in the door's shadow.

  "I'm Aimee Leduc, with Leduc Investigation," she said, handing him her card. "I'd like to speak with Thierry Rambuteau."

  "Not here, he doesn't live here, you see," the man said. Already she'd caught him in a lie.

  "Perhaps I could come in for a minute," she said evenly. Her beret was soaked.

  "Is there a problem?" he said.

  "Not really. I'm working on a case and—"

  Here he interrupted her. "What is this about?"

  "Lili Stein, an elderly Jewish woman, was murdered near here. A local synagogue enlisted my services." She glanced inside the hallway. A black leather storm-trooper coat hung from the hall coatrack. "That's your son's coat, isn't it? Let me talk with him."

  He shook his head. "He's not here now. I told you."

  "I'd like to clear up a few points, Monsieur Rambuteau. You can help me." She edged closer to him. "I'm getting awfully wet and I promise I'll go away after we talk."