by Cara Black
“Well, it’s a place to start, René,” she said. “But I’d feel better working in another office.”
BY THE TIME NADIA had opened the conference room, crowded with a suite of modern walnut furniture, René was right behind her, rolling in both computers on a wheeled trolley. Nadia paused at the door, a worried look on her face. “A flic just called. He wanted to visit concerning some incident having to do with one of our employees.”
Aimée’s shoulders tensed. Not standard procedure and they couldn’t have obtained a warrant so soon. “Did he identify himself?”
“I didn’t catch the name.”
René looked up and met Aimée’s eyes.
“I told him it’s impossible,” Nadia said. “He’ll have to visit during business hours with Monsieur Vavin in attendance.”
Aimée willed her hand to remain steady. “Bon, we’ll work on the system, nail the glitches.” She paused as if she’d just had an afterthought. “Did he mention any details? Or refer to a search warrant?”
Nadia’s thin eyebrows shot up and she shook her head. “I told him no one’s here; I was on the way out. Monsieur Vavin drops his daughter at her school on his way in, in the mornings, and arrives a bit late.” She shrugged. “The flic can wait.”
Aimée looked away. She couldn’t face Nadia. Or lie anymore.
“Thanks for letting us know,” René said, glancing at Aimée. “Have a good evening.”
Nadia shut the door behind her.
Either Nadia’s words had bought them time or whoever had called would arrive soon.
Aimée’s fingers ran over the smooth conference-table surface, planks in shades of light to dark walnut. Disparate yet fitting together in one piece. Like Vavin with Nelie? She’d seen MondeFocus pamphlets here, found an empty Alstrom folder in Nelie’s room, and the antiques dealer had seen them together. But she didn’t know how these pieces fit together.
“I failed Vavin, René. If only I’d talked to him . . .”
“Right now, do you know what’s the best thing you can do?” he said. “Help me find the password for this PC. Otherwise, I’ll have to use a brute force attack,” he said. “We can’t count on dumb luck; he may not have used the same password on this laptop. And what we’d need is back at the office.”
“Let me scout around.”
On Vavin’s Mac she accessed his user account with her sysadmin password. She scrolled through his activities and the functions he used on the computer. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? But then Vavin had been the boss. Why would she?
René tugged his goatee. “As I thought, he used another password. Found it?”
Appointments, meetings were noted on his calendar. All routine. Business lunches. No breakfast meetings, apart from one with de Laumain. No cache of passwords.
She shook her head. A big stumbling block and one they didn’t have time to chip away at. “If it’s buried in here, it could take hours to find.”
Her mind kept going back to his early morning call, claiming to be concerned about the firewall protection, as a pretext for accessing de Laumain’s e-mail. It all tied together.
She looked at her watch. Six minutes had passed. She hit the call-back button on her cell phone.
“Mathilde?”
“Stella’s a thirsty girl,” Mathilde said. “She drank a whole bottle.”
“No fever?”
“Her temperature’s normal,” Mathilde said.
“You’re sure?”
“Of course, I took it twice, Aimée,” Mathilde said.
Aimée let out a slow breath of relief. “Merci, Mathilde. She likes to be held and rocked, try that. I’ll stay in touch.”
She hung up.
René had plugged into an outlet, powered up the PC, and was clicking over the keyboard. “Here’s some good news,” he said. “The flics use one tech for several units. They’re overwhelmed, so my friend tells me.”
A feeling she could relate to right now.
“So unless they suspect right away that the murder was connected to his work, they won’t come for his Mac hard drive until tomorrow.” He stared at her. “Whoever called Nadia wasn’t a flic. They’d ask for the system administrators first to avoid shutting down the system. That’s us. In the meantime, Alstrom could cancel his access. And if I do find the password and log on, they’ll know; there will be a record.”
More complicated with every step.
“If Alstrom denies access, wouldn’t that mean they know he’s dead?” René asked.
“We won’t know until you try,” she said. “Your pager’s on, René?”
He nodded.
She pulled up the e-mail she’d forwarded to Vavin and opened it:
Regarding understanding reached in yesterday’s meeting with the vice minister of Interior and Alstrom’s bureau chief, you have the go-ahead to draft a public statement to that effect for Alstrom’s review. We’re sending statements describing the draft terms and expect you to set up a campaign enlisting public and industry support for the North Sea Oil Platform Agreement.
“This makes sense if Alstrom . . . wait a minute, sounds like they’ve already got the green light from the Ministry.”
She pulled up Vavin’s next e-mail: Regarding investigative reports you requested, unnecessary until after agreement is ratified.No further action on your part deemed necessary.
“Or, in other words, quit poking around,” she said. “They plan on inking the agreement before the investigation reports come in.”
“Maybe Vavin had grown a conscience,” René said.
His words hung in the air.
She stared at him and thought of Vavin’s daughter’s photo, his words—“ . . . like every parent, I want my child to grow up in a clean world.”
“Or he had a weight on his conscience and was about to blow the whistle,” she said.
“Speculation, Aimée,” René said. His fingers raced over the keys. “It’s impossible to prove his biggest client had him killed over these e-mails.”
True.
“Companies hire ex-military or former intelligence officers to do their dirty work,” she said. “What if Vavin had found incriminating reports in the computer files at Alstrom?”
“Even harder to prove.”
René had a point. He shook his head. “Alstrom wouldn’t leave the minutes of these meetings in their system.”
Her pulse quickened. “But what if they were in a rush and had a lot more on their minds than worrying about someone snooping in their secure internal system, René?”
De Laumain . . . Vavin’s desire to read his e-mail had caused him to call her. And gotten him killed?
“The proof is on either his Mac or this PC . . . I have a hunch.”
“Makes it like finding a grain of sand at the beach,” René said.
Shadows slanted across the conference table. Outside the window, she saw the distant dark waters of the Seine. Cars crawled over the Pont de Sully, their red brake lights like a string of jewels.
They needed help, she realized.
“Isn’t Saj back from his meditation retreat?”
“Good idea,” René said. “Two of us will work faster for sure.”
She rang Saj, heard the tinkling strain of sitar music on his voice-mail greeting, and left him a message.
“Looks like an all-nighter, René. Let’s copy Vavin’s hard drive and take the laptop PC with us.”
“Take the PC?”
“Should we leave it for the killer?”
“How many laws have you broken so far?” He flicked a piece of lint from his vest.
Running away from the scene of a crime, she thought, would be one. “We have the perfect cover. After all, we’re Regnault’s sysadmin and can plead ignorance concerning the PC.”
René rolled his eyes.
She reached in her purse and her hand brushed a cotton ball that smelled like Stella’s baby lotion. She felt a jolt in her rib cage. Somewhere there was a connection. She had to thin
k.
How had Vavin known Nelie . . . how?
She ran out into the hallway to Nadia’s empty desk. The hall was dark. She heard the elevator approaching.
“Nadia?”
She ran to the elevator.
“Nadia?”
And then the bathroom door opened to the sound of water flushing and there was Nadia, wiping her hands on a towel, having just changed into black yoga pants and a sweatshirt.
“I just wondered,” Aimée said, choosing her words. “Nelie, this girl in the photo”—she pointed to Nelie’s face—“she’s with MondeFocus. Did she visit Monsieur Vavin this week?”
Nadia shook her head. “I’ve no idea. Sorry, I have to hurry to my yoga class.”
The elevator door slid open and Nadia stepped inside.
“There are MondeFocus fliers in Monsieur Vavin’s office,” Aimée said.
Nadia glanced at her watch as the elevator door started to shut.
Aimée stuck her foot in the elevator door. “Did she bring them?”
“Why would she?”
Aimée thought quickly. “I thought maybe she met with him here to express her concerns.”
Nadia shrugged and pushed the button. “Maybe. She’s his niece. Bonsoir.”
And the elevator door closed.
The connection!
Back in the meeting room, Aimée dumped out the contents of her bag. She rooted through her keys, a dog-eared encryption manual, a tube of mascara, her worn Vuitton wallet with her lucky Egyptian coin intact, and a disc of expired birth-control pills. She found what she was looking for on the back of her checkbook. Her copy of the ink marks she’d found written on Stella. Letters, numbers, like an equation. And part of a word . . . a name, a title? Then 2/12, part of a date.
She handed her checkbook to René. “Play with this.”
“It’s incomplete.”
“Right now it’s all we have to go on,” she said. “And Nelie is Vavin’s niece.”
René’s fingers paused on the keyboard.
Until they found Nelie, the numbers and word fragments would probably remain indecipherable.
Her cell phone vibrated on her hip.
“Did you forget, Aimée?” Martine said, her husky voice wavering. “We should be leaving for the oil conference reception.”
She’d have to hurry. “Sorry, I’ll meet you there. I’m running late.”
“You’re always late. But you’re lucky; this time everyone else will be, too. They’ve moved it. Again.”
“Not another bomb scare?”
She thought of Krzysztof and the bottle bombs. Was Morbier right?
“Alstrom picked a posh new venue for their reception.”
Aimée grabbed a pen. “Where?”
“Where else would you entertain world-weary oil execs? It’s at a shareholder’s place, the most exclusive private mansion in Paris. And it’s in your neighborhood. Hôtel Lambert.”
A few town houses down from her on the Ile Saint-Louis.
“Can you handle this, René?” She stepped into her semi-dried high heels, swiped lipstick over her lips, and blotted them with a piece of computer paper. “Copy the Mac’s hard drive and—”
“Why?”
She peered at her laptop. “With any luck, I’ll be able to corner de Laumain at the reception and find out what he has to say. First, I’ll get background on Alstrom from Martine’s young Turk journalist.”
“You’re leaving right now?
The dark blots of trees on Quai de la Tournelle swayed outside the window. The Ile Saint-Louis was a glittering cluster of lights just over the river. It wasn’t far and this wouldn’t take long.
“The Alstrom’s reception is right across the river. Let’s take the PC and leave together,” she said. Shadows had lengthened; the office seemed ominously deserted. “It’s not safe for you to work here alone.”
“I’ll leave as soon as I copy the Mac hard drive,” René said, rolling up his sleeves. “Go ahead. Just leave Vavin’s keys.”
MYRIAD DOTS OF light were reflected in the gelatinous waters of the Seine from Hôtel Lambert’s tall windows, which were illuminated by glittering candles. Aimée passed the place every day. Once, long ago, the mansion had been owned by a Polish prince who had hosted recitals by Chopin. Now the tenant, a penniless baron and friend of the grand family who owned it, kept the place running and hosted select corporate receptions and celebrations.
Aimee’s heel caught in a crack between cobblestones as she caught the attention of the broad-shouldered man wearing a headset. Strains of a cello faded in the wind from the Seine.
“I don’t see your name, Mademoiselle.” His heavy-lidded eyes were dismissive.
“Check the guest list again, please,” she said, peering around his shoulder for Martine.
“Leduc, Aimée?” He shook his head. “Désolé, Mademoiselle, now please move aside,” he told her, blocking the gate. A professional brush-off.
Martine appeared, breathless, flashing her press ID. “L’Express. Mademoiselle Leduc’s with L’Express, if you notice.”
He consulted the list again. “Of course.” He smiled, a smile that failed to reach his eyes, and waved her inside.
“Nice jacket. I saw one with feathers just like that at—”
“Plucked most of them off,” Aimée interrupted. “They made me sneeze.”
“Another find?”
“You could say that.”
Martine took Aimée’s arm, steered her across the courtyard, and up the curving entry staircase. They entered an oval gallery under a painted ceiling lit by flickering candles in crystal holders. Waiters with silver trays of hors d’oeuvres wove in and out among men in formal black-and-white attire and the occasional robed sheikh. Pyramids of fleurs de sucre—lavender and rose crystallized flower petals—bedecked the white-linen-covered tables. Aimée spied vintage champagne magnums and headed in that direction.
“Merci,” she said, accepting two flutes of champagne, noting the Dom Pérignon label as she handed one to Martine and dropped a sugar-dusted rose petal in Martine’s glass. “But I still owe you,” Aimée said.
The fizzing velvet purred down her throat. Not bad. This crowd expected and got the best.
“Where’s your young Turk journalist?”
Martine scanned the groups of men in tuxedos conversing under a Louis XV chandelier that frothed with crystal. “Knowing him, upstairs with the big honchos.”
“No time like the present,” Aimée said. “I’ll fill you in en route.”
The walls of the wide staircase were crowded with a profusion of Flemish old masters, a lesser Rembrandt, a Corot, landscapes by Watteau, and a handful of Impressionist canvases. Better appreciated in a museum, Aimée thought, not hung in a hodgepodge on the wall.
“The owner’s great-uncle built the collection,” Martine said, awe in her voice. “In his heyday, he bought a painting every day.”
Aimée nodded. “But everything’s bequeathed to the Louvre now,” she said. “The baron, his tenant, rents the place out to help him pay the taxes.”
They entered the second-floor hallway, which opened onto oval Galerie d’Hercule, which was lined by rectangular windows, Corinthian columns, and stucco reliefs of Hercules’ exploits.
Aimée felt out of her league in this museum of a place. The talk around her was foreign, too. She caught snippets of conversation as they circulated. “Oil flow . . . black crude. . . . percentages.”
The L’Express journalist Martine guided her toward looked to be in his thirties. A shock of black hair nearly hid his darting eyes, and he wore a black jacket with a white shirt, but no tie.
“Aimée Leduc,” she said, extending her hand. “I’d appreciate it if you would let me see your notes.”
“Daniel Ristat,” he replied, enfolding her hands in his warm ones with a wide smile. “Get right to it, don’t you?”
She figured his smile and manner took him a lot of places. And he knew it.
“Guil
ty.” Next, she wanted to meet de Laumain. “Have you seen Monsieur de Laumain?”
He arched an eyebrow. “And you know the big players, eh? The old buzzard suffered an attack of gout. The disease of the rich.”
“Meaning?”
Ahead of her, a sheikh in a white robe, holding a glass of what looked like orange juice, walked by.
“Meaning that de Laumain left before I could interview him.”
Left after hearing of Vavin’s murder? She wondered who else she could question. They all oozed power and looked alike in their tuxedos. Even the sheikhs with their fruit juice resembled each other.
“But Deroche, Alstrom’s CEO, is standing right there.” Martine nudged her. Aimée noticed a smiling silver-haired man at the edge of the crowd, an executive who exuded authority even across the wide room. “And the press attaché looks nervous.” Martine indicated a woman with short hair in a severe navy blue suit, publicité pin clipped to her lapel.
Aimée was about to say that the press attaché’s nerves might be attributable to the murder of Vavin, Regnault’s publicity head, when the woman tapped an ivory-handled dessert knife against a champagne flute. “Attention, please.”
As the tinkle died, a hush descended over the well-dressed crowd.
“Monsieur Deroche, Alstrom’s director of operations, has asked me to convey to you his wishes for a wonderful evening.” The press attaché flashed a bright smile. “He’d hoped to make the announcement that I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for. We expect that we will be able to make it tomorrow. However, I can tell you now that out of its continued concern for the environment and as part of its ongoing program to safeguard it, Alstrom has completed the dismantling of all its North Sea oil rigs in the Baltic. Its waste-management operations have been transferred to the La Hague facility and new sites will be explored.”
The attaché waved her hand at Deroche, who raised his champagne glass. “Santé,” he said. “Enjoy . . . no one leaves until every magnum’s empty!”
Ripples of applause and laughter greeted his remark.
But both Martine and Daniel seemed amazed.
“Rumor says that the execution of the agreement between Alstrom and the government was postponed due to a bomb scare,” Daniel said, taking out a small notepad and jotting something down. “This sounds like a concession to the environmentalists.”