Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

by Cara Black

  Had she looked at this all wrong? She stared at the photo, concentrating on the dark-haired girl, Nelie. Momo had let her use the phone in the garage. Bernard, Sabine, and Janou had recognized her.

  Had Nelie, though limping and injured, met Orla after the demonstration at the café? But then why hadn’t she used the telephone downstairs in the café rather than the one at the garage? On top of that, why hadn’t Nelie explained the situation calmly and clearly to her over the phone? Instead, she’d spoken frantically, almost incoherently. She had seemed desperate, sure that someone was after her. And now Orla was dead.

  There was still no clue as to why Nelie had chosen to telephone Aimée. Nor any explanation of the writing on Stella’s skin. Questions swirled in Aimée’s mind as she tried to fathom a frightened woman’s thought processes. But now at least she knew whom she was looking for. She had to find Nelie, get answers, and resolve the baby issue without involving the authorities. She turned into rue Poulletier, feeling a frisson in her bones as she passed the words carved in worn limestone—SAINT-VINCENT DE PAUL ÉTABLIT LES FILLES DE LA CHARITÉ 1652. A reminder of the time when priests found babies abandoned on church steps and the parish provided social services that the king didn’t. A newer sign, hanging near the ancient metal S-shaped hinge, which compressed the inner beams and held the floors together, read WATCH OUT.

  In a few minutes, she imagined, she might be handing Stella over to Nelie. Stella stirred and Aimée felt a pang of regret.

  Get on with it! she told herself. Resolutely, she pressed the digicode at the entrance to the soot stained stone building. The door buzzed open. Now she’d find out why Nelie had entrusted Stella to her.

  “NO BABIES ALLOWED, MADAME.” A honeyed voice belied the sharp expression of the stout woman at the window of the reception area.

  In the crowded alcove behind the woman, faxes hummed and a phone console lit up with red lights.

  “I’m meeting Nelie,” Aimée smiled, determined not to let this dragon of a sentry put her off. “Can you ring her room?”

  “We’re a busy office. You’ll have to call her yourself.”

  “Her room number, please?”

  “We don’t give out that information,” the receptionist said warily. “You should know that.”

  Had the flics sniffed her out and come for Nelie already? She doubted that.

  “I’d appreciate your help, Madame.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me, it’s our busiest time. If you’re meeting her, she’ll come down,” said the woman. A red light was blinking on the switchboard. Several young women entered the vestibule, crowding around the window asking for mail.

  A brunette with a long braid down her back leaned down and cooed at the baby. “What’s her name?”

  “Her name . . . Stella.” Aimée seized the opportunity. “You don’t know Nelie, do you? We’re supposed to meet and I forgot her cell phone number.”

  “I’m sorry.” The brunette shook her head.

  Aimée showed her the photo. “Maybe you’re on the same floor.”

  The girl shook her head. “I’m in the exchange section, just here short term.” She smiled, a milk-fed provincial girl. “Sorbonne students occupy the second floor, that’s all I know.”

  Aimée found a seat near a table bearing old magazines. Another group of girls in tracksuits carrying soccer balls in a net assembled by the desk. On the back wall Aimée saw room numbers next to linen assignments on a blackboard. She stood and scanned the numbers until she came to one for Nelie Landrou on Staircase C. Finally! That had to be her.

  She edged through the glass doors to the courtyard while the receptionist was busy. Charcoal gray tiles formed the slanted rooftop overlooking the grass-covered rectangular courtyard. There were no blue zinc roofs on this island; that would have been too modern.

  Stella nestled closer in her arms, radiating warmth. “Such a good girl,” Aimée whispered. If only she’d stay that way.

  Staircase C lay at the back. Aimée mounted a flight of covered stone steps. She faced a line of planked doors. There was a name holder outside each room, next to the door.

  Nelie’s resembled the others. At least no police crime-scene tape was visible. She took a breath before she knocked. “Nelie, it’s Aimée Leduc. I can help you.” There was no answer even after she knocked repeatedly.

  She’d never picked a medieval lock before. Certainly never picked a lock of any sort with a baby in her arms. She didn’t think her credit card would work so she inserted her miniscrewdriver into the lock, swiveled it around, and then heard the tip snap. Great! Propping a gurgling Stella on her hip, she reached in her bag for her key ring, found the long old-fashioned keys to her cave, and used one as a lever to prise out the broken screwdriver shank. That done, she slid in the narrow lock-picking tool with a quick twist and upward shove.

  She heard laughter from down the hall; she had to hurry. She jiggled the lock-picking tool, heard scraping metal and a click. She pushed the door open.

  “Allô?”

  No Nelie. Empty and like a monastic cell, spartan; narrow, white-washed stone walls, a small coved window filled with old blue bubbled glass with bars across it. She saw a poster of a munitions site with the legend: One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day on the wall, a textbook on the floor, and an Indian cotton print bedspread on the single bed, which gave the room a student feeling. But it was an unlived-in feeling.

  Her hopes dashed, she debated what to do. She picked up some notices left on a chair. The one on top was for a mandatory house meeting dated a month ago. A brief message in an opened envelope read: Madame needs to meet with you regarding the balance owing on end-of-term rent. It was dated three weeks before.

  She’d been here, opened this envelope. Or someone had. Aimée wondered if she’d left when she couldn’t hide her pregnancy anymore.

  Aimée didn’t have much time. Clutching Stella in the baby sling, she searched under the bed. Nothing. She examined the sheets, the pillow, and the gray sweater tossed down on an orange crate. This girl had left little more than a textbook and that sweater.

  She hadn’t just moved out, she had fled. Aimée felt it in the pit of her stomach.

  She opened the window. In the courtyard, several uniformed flics stood talking to the woman from reception. The woman pointed up at the window. Nelie’s window.

  Her pulse raced. She had only minutes. Forget searching, she had to get out. Her foot slipped on a rag rug and she cushioned Stella with one arm, grabbing the metal bed frame with the other hand. It was a cheap tubular frame, typical of dormitories. Hollow tubed! And the screw where the tubes joined was loose. A good place to hide something, Aimée realized. After two turns, the screw came off and she wrenched the tubes apart. Inside, her index finger found a rolled-up plastic folder. Empty. The name Alstrom was embossed on the cover.

  Their client, Regnault, ran Alstrom’s publicity campaign. The protesters she’d seen from Regnault’s window, the blue lights that had illuminated the demonstration last night just across Pont de Sully . . . somehow they were related to the victim Orla, Nelie, and the baby.

  She rerolled the folder, stuck it back in the bed frame, scrabbled to her feet, and draped her jacket over her shoulder. By the time she’d closed the door behind her, the jacket covered Stella as well. She heard footsteps and the murmur of voices from across the courtyard.

  A single file of flics tramped up Staircase C on her right. She ducked behind a pillar. But not before she’d seen the leader point to Nelie’s door. The other officers fell back, in position. A keening cry came from her arms. Aimée wiped her finger, stuck it in Stella’s mouth, praying it would pacify the baby until she could give her a bottle.

  She padded down Staircase B, keeping close to the wall of the arcade. Stella’s mouth gummed her finger. She reached in the bag, found the bottle, and shook it. Thank God, the formula line reached the top.

  Head down, she threaded her way through the soccer team crowd, made it to the cove
red entryway, and opened the vestibule door.

  “Excuse me, Madame?” said a blue-uniformed flic.

  She froze.

  He smiled, and handed her a diaper. “This fell from your bag.”

  “Merci,” she said. “Excuse me.” She edged past him, eager to get away.

  Rain pattered on the warm stone buildings turning to steam in the unseasonable heat. She shielded Stella with the baby bag, quickened her step, and turned the corner onto Quai d’Anjou. Mist curled under the supports of Pont Marie. Then the spring-like drizzle turned into a downpour before she could take shelter in a vaulted doorway. Drops beaded her eyelashes. She took a few more steps, then caught her breath. An unmarked police car blocked her building entrance.

  Tuesday Afternoon

  René, holding a dripping umbrella, paced over the gravel by the statue in Place Bayre as he debated what to do.

  He reached for his phone and the stuffed toy in his pocket squeaked. The unmarked police car parked in front of Aimée’s door indicated that she’d given in and called the authorities. Guilt racked him.

  The way she looked at the baby, the way the baby turned toward her voice. All she noticed was the baby. Now it had infected him. He’d found himself noticing babies in the bank that morning, comparing stroller prices in the window of a shop in Fontainebleau. Ridiculous.

  He’d insisted she call social services, demanded she do what he thought was right. Then why the queasiness in the pit of his stomach?

  He pulled out his cell phone. “Aimée, do you have company or shall I come up?” He tried to keep concern out of his voice. She might be in real trouble with the authorities.

  “Hurry,” she said. “Come in through the back, you know the way. I have to tell you something.”

  AIMÉE PACED BY the sputtering radiator. Nothing seemed to add up. She’d sneaked back the way she’d left, via the back passage. Stella was sleeping in the hammock she’d fashioned from an Afghan throw, suspended between the eighteenth-century recamier and the protruding window hasp.

  By the time René draped his damp Burberry raincoat by the fireplace she couldn’t wait any longer. She thrust the photo in front him. “See, René.”

  René tore his gaze away from the baby.

  “Notice the woman wearing a jean jacket?”

  “Who is she?”

  “Orla. She’s on a slab in the morgue.”

  René stepped back in alarm. “What have you gotten yourself into now?”

  “Her body was found in the Seine by Pont de Sully. I think either she left the baby, or it was Nelie, her friend. I don’t know which one is the mother.” She took him by the arm and led him to her laptop.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “Start from the beginning.”

  “I won’t know more until I can get hold of the autopsy report. But I can’t figure out why either of them trusted me.” She rolled up the sleeves of her silk shirt. “There’s no way I’m going to contact social services until I know.”

  “Know what, Aimée?” he asked. “This gets more complicated every minute.”

  She showed him the newspaper article and described her visit to the morgue and Krzysztof’s reaction—despite his denial that he knew the dead woman. Then she told him that later she’d found this photo of both Krzysztof and the blonde, Orla, with some others, in his room.

  “Don’t tell me he handed it to you after denying he knew her?” René tapped his stubby fingers on the chair.

  “OK, I ‘visited’ his room and he happened not to be there,” she said. “He’s gone.”

  “Breaking and entering, some would call it.”

  Now René would know she was crazy if he didn’t already. “His roommate let me in.”

  “You’re guessing there’s a connection. You have no facts to go on, Aimée.”

  “Guessing? Janou at the corner café recognized Nelie from the photo.” She pointed to the dark-haired one. “The two women were seen together last night with the baby.”

  “Let the flics handle this.”

  “Not only that, Nelie lives around the corner—literally—in the student hostel. But she wasn’t there when I went there just now. Somehow she looks familiar, but I can’t place her. She must know me, otherwise . . .”

  Apprehension filled her. This felt all wrong. “If the dead girl is Stella’s mother, why hasn’t Nelie come back or tried to reach me?”

  Pedestrians scurried below on Quai d’Anjou. Every other woman seemed to be pushing a stroller or holding a toddler’s hand. Had there been a baby explosion that she hadn’t noticed before? Wind chased the silver puffs of cloud across the sky, leaving pewter puddles on the pavement. Aimée felt more confused than ever and weighed down by responsibility. She couldn’t call social services and abandon the baby, like her own mother had abandoned her. At least not until she knew who Stella’s mother was and why the baby had been entrusted to her.

  René tugged his goatee. “Why must you be involved? What’s it got to do with you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “But for some reason Nelie didn’t trust the flics.”

  “The baby’s not your responsibility. Under the circumstances, you’ve done more than enough.”

  “If only it were that simple! Say Orla was murdered, René, as she was trying to hide something . . . and Stella . . .”

  “Stella?” René looked at her quizzically.

  “Well . . .” She searched for the words. “She’s not an inanimate object. I can’t keep calling her ‘it.’”

  “None of this is your job. Turn the baby—Stella—over to people who can take care of her. Let the flics find the mother.”

  Aimée’s gaze rested on the pink bundle swaying in the hammock.

  René slumped and put his head in his hands. “Tant pis!Don’t tell me you want to run the office with a crib in the corner? Be realistic, Aimée.”

  “Realistic?” She realized that she did possess some facts. Maybe when she laid them out, they would lead to a conclusion. “Nelie, the dark-haired one, had information on Alstrom, the oil company,” she began.

  “Did I miss something here?”

  His words jarred her. Miss . . . missing . . . what if Nelie couldn’t contact her?

  If Nelie knew that Orla was dead . . . again Aimée came back to Krzysztof.

  A vital piece was missing from the puzzle.

  She started over. “Nelie hid an Alstrom file in her room at the women’s hostel around the corner. I found the cover of the file. The contents were gone.”

  René stood openmouthed. “How? Breaking and entering again?”

  “The flics will have found it by now. They were right behind me.” She pulled out her checkbook. “Look, René.” She showed him the marks she’d copied from the baby’s body. “Doesn’t it look like an equation?”

  He turned away.

  “It doesn’t hurt to look; it won’t bite you.”

  “It’s bitten you already.” He rolled his green eyes. “I don’t know. Where did you find this?” He pulled out his handkerchief, monogrammed RF, and wiped his forehead.

  “This was written under Stella’s arm, René,” Aimée said. “The mother’s protecting not only her baby but this, too. Whatever it may mean. Stella’s the key.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to have anything more to do with this. Neither should you.”

  She reported Krzysztof’s look of recognition when he’d scanned the papers in the Regnault file.

  “Why didn’t he identify his girflfriend in the morgue?” René asked.

  Good question.

  “There is a reason, René.” She sat down at the laptop. “I have to find out what it is.”

  “Wait, you’re not suggesting—Aimée, we work for Regnault, Alstrom’s publicity firm. So, in the first place, delving into Alstrom’s affairs is unethical,” René said.

  “Did I say I was going to do that?”

  “You don’t have to,” René said. “Second, if Alstrom suspects you are checking on inter
nal procedures in their company . . .” He cleared his throat. “We’ll never land another computer security contract, Aimée.”

  She stared out at the arms of the Seine, then back at her laptop screen, trying to figure out where Orla would have entered the water. “The Net’s an open door if you know how to navigate, right? We do it all the time, René. How do you think Libération scooped the bribes camouflaged as campaign contributions to the Socialists? Some geek on the inside fed them the information.”

  He shrugged. “We’re in the computer security business, we’re not muckrackers, Aimée. We have enough trouble of our own. The tax refund due since last year still sits on a bureaucrat’s desk, not to mention the fact that we have to eat and pay rent. Our security contracts pay our bills. Focus on our problems. Leave the rest to the activists.”

  Right. Of course he was right. “Good point. But it’s the tip of some iceberg, René. An iceberg of scandal.”

  “And Regnault? The company that pays us? I’ll ask you again, do you think what you intend to do is ethical?”

  “Vavin begged me this morning to sign a new contract.”

  René opened his briefcase. “And that would consist of?”

  “Patching their firewalls, which were hacked right before we came on board. Continued system administration. See. Boring, routine and . . .”

  “With a nice check in payment for our work,” René interrupted, scanning the contract. His eyes brightened. “We need it right now.”

  “Vavin’s desperate, his sysadmin’s in the hospital. He tripled our fee.”

  “Glad you took the initiative. I’ve handled the firewall, for now” René said.

  “With your usual threat to hackers, I suppose.”

  René nodded. “If you read this, you’re dead,” was his signature threat.

  Stella stirred, her eyes blinking open. Time for another bottle. Aimée opened the baby bag, then glanced at the mail on the table she’d picked up from downstairs.

  In the pile of bills lay a smudged, unstamped manila envelope bearing her name: Aimée. Hand delivered. Visions of the tire iron filled her mind, of the figure who had chased her on the quai. Her arm shook so much she dropped the envelope.