Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

by Cara Black

  Should she tell him the truth to gain his sympathy? But the truth wasn’t hers to tell.

  “I’m just taking care of her.”

  “Vraiment?” He studied her. “You seem so natural, the way you hold her. Like her mother. I don’t know that much about babies . . .”

  She blinked. “Shall we get to work?”

  For a moment he directed a laserlike stare at her that went right to the bone. Her heart raced. Was it so obvious she was head over stilettos with this thing that weighed no more than three kilos?

  “Here are some of my notes,” he said, businesslike, pulling out a folder. “Background on Alstrom’s corporate structure, the North Sea territorial water disputes, environmental impact statement, and some very subdued eco groups’ responses, which I found surprising.”

  She skimmed the several pages of notes. Went back and reread the first page. “Here you note Alstrom’s funding its drilling project with a Ministry loan?”

  Daniel Ristat nodded.

  “Would you say they’re in financial trouble?”

  “Their last drill didn’t recoup their investment, and then unsafe platform construction resulted in the deaths of several workers, for which they were liable. Not to mention the bad press engendered by ecomilitants’ campaigns.”

  She put Stella over her shoulder again, patted her back, and was rewarded by a loud resounding burp. She hoped no spit-up had been deposited on Martine’s black velvet jacket.

  “In essence, the proposed agreement with the Ministry means they scratch each other’s backs,” he said. “The Ministry gains new revenue sources, higher employment, increased industrial production: it all looks good on their reports. And Alstrom snags a secure base in the North Sea from which to expand. All funded by the government. Everyone wins.”

  Except the marine life and the coasts of several countries, she thought.

  “Not according to your other notes here on environmental impact studies,” she said.

  He flashed a smile at the waiter, who’d appeared with a tray in one hand, rubbing his hand on a white apron with the other.

  “Une noisette, s’il vous plaît,” he said to the waiter.

  So trendy journalists drank macchiatos now.

  “My information comes from a reliable source,” he said.

  “Deep inside. He must remain unnamed. I can’t use this information or it will point to him as the Ministry leak. He told me Alstrom’s last spill rendered parts of the North and Baltic seas toxic to fish. And then there’s Alstrom’s deliberate misinformation campaign: deny, dupe, and delay. Dupe the public into thinking it’s an environmentally and socially responsible corporation. Have you heard yet of ‘dead zones?’”

  She shook her head.

  “Algae die from pollutants, and in the process of decomposition they consume oxygen. The depletion of oxygen leaves an oxygenless dead zone on the ocean floor, the effect of which spirals up through the chain of marine life.”

  She thought of what Krzysztof had told her. “I was informed that the supposedly abandoned North Sea oil-rig platforms were being used for dump sites. This could be corroboration.”

  “But where’s the direct proof?” Daniel said. “Everyone in power wants this agreement to go through. You know it’s almost a done deal. So even though I’d like to, I can’t help you.”

  Desperation surged through her. “I’m sure there are more reports that were suppressed. MondeFocus’s protest was sabotaged. Will you expose Alstrom if I get you proof? If I get you minutes of their corporate meetings, will you blow it wide open?”

  His eyebrow raised. “Like you blew a hole in the Seine?”

  “Moi?”

  Why didn’t anyone blame Gabriel Leclerc?

  “I read the papers.” He grinned, opening his laptop. “Martine filled me in, too. I was counting on a dramatic interview at your hospital bedside. Instead I have a tête-à-tête with two lovely ladies. Charmante.”

  “I need your help,” she said. “The agreement’s about to be signed.”

  He shook his head.

  “Like I said, I need evidence: reports, meeting notes,” he said. “No one takes shots at an oil company or the Ministry without incontrovertible evidence.”

  A young Turk? He didn’t need convincing, just proof.

  “Give me your fax number.”

  He handed her his card, slipped some francs onto the table.

  “Expect the proof this afternoon or tonight at the latest,” she said.

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.” He looked amused. “But Martine said you meant business.”

  Aimée nodded. “My best friend should know.”

  Now he’d turned the charm back on.

  “She smiled.” He nudged Aimée. “Did you see? Stella smiled at me.”

  “It’s gas.”

  OUT ON THE STREET she put Daniel Ristat’s fax number in her pocket.

  “À bientôt, mes princesses.” He winked and ran down the Metro steps.

  Shadows burnished the shop windows, passersby hurried along the street. The last rays of light illumined cottony puffs of clouds framed by the sloping tiled rooftops. The incandescent clouds were tinged with yellow, as though lit from within, reminiscent of a Monet sky.

  Aimée wrapped Stella tighter in the blanket that enfolded the baby in the carrier on her chest. She was about to hail a taxi for Leduc Detective when she realized that she was standing in front of the blue awning of Jacadi, the upscale baby store. The window display had a christening theme featuring a delicate christening gown trimmed with lace, surrounded by white sugar-coated almonds—de rigueur for a bourgeois baptism—that had been sprinkled among a phalanx of stuffed animals.

  The shop door opened to reveal a young woman wheeling twins in a double stroller. The clerk, a middle-aged woman with her hair in a chignon and appraising eyes, held the door for her. Stella stuck out her little fists and Aimée could have sworn that she was pointing in the direction of a pink terrycloth onesie in the side window.

  “Looks like your daughter knows what she wants,” the clerk said.

  Newborns couldn’t focus farther than a meter, according to the baby manual. Aimée stroked Stella’s velvety ear. And in the next moment, she found herself standing inside the store, which was filled with every kind of infant clothing possible.

  “You were born with fashion sense, too, Stella,” she whispered.

  SHE LEFT THE shop hoping Stella would wear the expensive onesie longer than it took her to sneeze. Stella seemed to grow a size a day. Horns honked from cars jammed in the rond-point evening traffic. The taxi stand lay just ahead.

  “Aimée?”

  Startled, she turned at the corner, bag in hand, Stella strapped on her chest, to stare into the face of Yves, her former boyfriend. In a pinstripe suit and long hair, he was more of a hunk than ever. She felt her face flush. A stream of passersby parted around them, as if they were rocks in the middle of a current, then flowed together again at the zebra crosswalk.

  “You’ve been busy,” Yves said.

  She couldn’t tell if the expression in his eyes was hurt, wonder, or both.

  He leaned down and brushed her cheek with his lips, inhaling her scent. “You still wear Chanel No. 5.”

  “And you’re still in Cairo.” More of a question than a statement.

  “I’m bureau chief now.” He gave a wistful sigh. “You’re radiant, Aimée. Motherhood becomes you.”

  Words caught in her throat. She remembered the little mole behind his ear, how he hummed Coltrane’s ballad “Crescent” when he cooked, the way his legs had wrapped around her under her duvet.

  “What’s your daughter’s name?”

  She stared at him, found her tongue. “Stella. Her name’s Stella.”

  “Aaah, you always had a thing for the stars.”

  And you, she almost said.

  “Remember this?” She felt around in her bag, found the lucky Egyptian coin, the one he’d given her on a street corner in Cairo w
hen they’d said good-bye.

  A beeping came from her phone, indicating a message. Yves stared at the coin, then at her phone. “Don’t you think you should check that?”

  She hit the voice-mail button and listened. One message. Jean Caplan’s voice. “Hélène wants to talk to you about the girl. She knows you somehow. The side door code is 78C65, Come to the back of the store. She’ll be waiting.” And then the loud buzz of a hang up.

  “Have to get home, eh? Your man’s waiting,” Yves suggested, watching her.

  Claude. But she wasn’t sure he was her man. She’d put Stella first last night and he’d given his freedom priority over her.

  “Non, it’s . . . it’s business,” she said. She wanted to explain, tell him everything, even on this busy street.

  “Of course, you’d never stop working,” he said. “But I always thought if I gave you enough babies, well, you’d slow down.”

  “You did?”

  He pressed something into her hand. Another shining bronze coin covered in Arabic writing. “One can never have too much luck, Aimée.”

  His cell phone rang but he ignored it. His warm hands held hers, not loosening their grasp.

  “Got to go,” he said. “Another meeting. I fly back tonight.”

  “Look, Yves, I—”

  He put his finger over her lips. “Don’t tell me how happy you are, or that you’ve found the right one at last. It’s wonderful; I’m happy for you. And quit batting those big eyes at me, Aimée. I understand.”

  But he didn’t.

  “If your daughter’s anything like you . . . whoa.” He stroked Stella’s head, kissed Aimée long and lingeringly on the mouth. “You know, we’ve got to stop saying good-bye on street corners.”

  Then he was gone. People hurried past her, their shoulders hitting hers as the shadows deepened. And she felt more alone than ever.

  As she got out of the taxi at Jean Caplan’s brocante, she was astounded by the driver’s opening the door for her even before she produced her usual big tip. She stood in front of the shop for a moment with the baby bag over her shoulder, Stella strapped in the carrier and holding a bouquet of yellow daffodils for Hélène.

  “Hélène knows you somehow,” Caplan had said. Like Nelie knew her “somehow?” Caplan had realized, seen the truth in Aimée words and convinced Hélène to talk to her. For the first time Aimée sensed she’d get answers.

  She figured Hélène witnessed Orla’s killing. Then either Hélène acted in self-defense or she’d gone after the attacker. Perhaps Hélène had helped Nelie, and it was she who had written that note to Aimee. If Hélène knew where Nelie was hiding, she’d lead Aimée there.

  On the pavement, a man in a blue work coat grunted as he carried a tall sheet of glass in a frame on his back. He winked at Aimée, paused, and wiped his brow with his free hand. A vitrier—a glass man—who hawked his services on the streets. One of the few who still made the rounds with their distinctive high-pitched cry “Vi-tr-ier.” A fragment of the disappearing old Paris.

  Dark green metal shutters covered the front of Caplan’s shop. A dim light shone through the crack between the door shade and the glass. He’d said to use the side door; she tapped in the digicode number.

  Inside, she followed the narrow brown scuffed hall to the courtyard onto which Jean Caplan’s kitchen faced. Standing by the sealed-up well she saw lights in the galley kitchen, heard what sounded like the télé blaring news.

  “Time we meet Hélène,” she said. Stella answered with a wail.

  She knocked, opened the unlocked door, and entered.

  “Monsieur Caplan? Hélène?”

  She patted Stella’s back as she edged past the hanging beaded curtains that separated the kitchen from the shop. The once exquisite chandelier, with missing crystal drops, provided the only light. Scattered piles of yellowed newspapers cluttered the floor. Stairs to the right and dark heavy curtains in front of her partitioned off what appeared to be rooms in the back.

  Two half-empty demitasse cups and a blue sugar bowl with tongs sat on the small table. Were Jean and Hélène upstairs? Or in the back storeroom? Stella’s cries mixed with the evening news announcer’s words. She turned down the volume on the télé, wishing she could turn down Stella’s volume as well.

  “Monsieur Caplan, I’m here,” she said, rocking the baby in her arms, rubbing the soft rolls of skin on her ankles, leaning down to blow in Stella’s ear.

  And then she was shoved through the thick woolen curtains into the storeroom. Startled, she stumbled forward, throwing her arms out to protect Stella and break her fall. She grabbed a dusty wall hanging and righted herself. Aimée turned to see the glint of a gun pointed at the baby’s head. And gasped. A Beretta 87, the hit man’s weapon of choice, pioneered by the Mossad.

  Fear coursed through her veins. Stella’s cries escalated into screams. Why had she listened to Caplan? She’d been set up and she’d put Stella in danger.

  “I’m tired of wasting time and manpower,” said a man in a tone of mild disgust. He filled the doorway. Medium height, he had a broad, smooth forehead on a big bull of a head that joined his almost nonexistent neck. Taut muscles strained his blue work pants and jacket. A professional with dead, killer eyes.

  “What do you mean? Who are you?” she blurted out.

  But she knew. A Halkyut hired gun and she’d walked right into his hands. She ordered herself to play dumb and pretend, to buy time to figure something out. He wouldn’t shoot Stella, wouldn’t kill an innocent baby, she told herself. Then the realization sank in. He could shoot her, then take Stella. She tried to read something in his expressionless eyes. What if Caplan hadn’t set her up? Maybe she had stumbled into something else. Maybe she could still get out of this.

  “Shut her up,” he ordered.

  She stuck her finger in Stella’s mouth as she rocked her. Frantic, she looked around for any way to escape, for some weapon.

  One flickering fluorescent panel overhead revealed marble busts standing at haphazard angles on grimy shelves, shards of glass from cracked picture frames stacked against the wall gathering dust. Stella fussed, gumming her finger.

  “She’s got colic, I have to take her to the doctor. Let us go,” Aimée begged.

  The man patted his work-pants pocket, saying nothing. Was he waiting for reinforcements? He hadn’t spoken again. What if he didn’t know who she was? She had to take the chance. Get him talking, figure out some lie, try to make a deal. Concoct a story, a way to get out.

  “We live in the building. Monsieur Caplan’s been ill,” she said, words coming fast and furious. “Monsieur, I’ve seen nothing. I don’t know you. We will leave the way we came, of course, and say nothing. The baby’s sick. We just came to—”

  “Bringing him some flowers?” he said. “Nice.”

  “I swear,” she said, shielding her eyes, at the same time scanning the black lacquered table, the pile of dusty carpets behind it, the ocher wall in back of it. She caught sight of the tarnished silver candlesticks on the table and a dust-covered sword collection lying near the carpets. She smelled something coppery. Like blood. “I haven’t seen anything. If you let us go, I won’t say anything.”

  “But that wouldn’t be sociable,” he said.

  She heard a loud groan over the sound of Stella’s cries. She looked closer and recognized that what she’d taken for a pile of carpets was a body. Jean Caplan sat slumped in a chair with his hands tied. She made out his black-and-purple swollen eyes, caked blood on his nostrils, and his sagging jaw. The coppery smell of blood mingled with that of mildew. His worn brown shoes dangled over the cracked linoleum floor.

  “What’s going on? He’s an old man. What have you done to him?”

  Think. Think. Sweat sheened her upper lip. She felt lightheaded in the dust and blood-tinged air, with Stella on her chest radiating heat, shrieking now, as she looked at the old man who seemed half dead.

  Caplan’s feet twisted and he whimpered in pain, then groaned
louder.

  “Haven’t had enough, mon vieux?” The man turned, edging closer to Caplan, and kicked him.

  “Why don’t you give him the flowers?” the man asked Aimée.

  “What?”

  “You heard me. And I’ll hold the baby.”

  “Non, that’s all right, I’ll just—”

  “Do it now! Did you hear me?”

  Her hands trembled as she reached for the flowers. Caplan blinked at her.

  “No more playing mommy,” the man sneered.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Give her to me or I’ll start with your knees,” he said. “Then work my way up.”

  She stepped back, toward Caplan, and felt the table edge with her hip.

  “But you’re not listening; perhaps you don’t think I mean it. So maybe I’ll start with him,” he said, his eyes never leaving her face, as he moved closer to her and to Caplan. So close she smelled his acrid, damp sweat. “I will shoot his hands off unless you hand the baby over and tell me where she is.”

  He glanced at his watch. What was he waiting for? He was stalling.

  “You’re waiting for someone, aren’t you? So you can kill Nelie, like you did Orla.”

  Her chest was wet with perspiration from fear and Stella’s heat. Stupid, so stupid. She couldn’t even reach her cell phone to summon backup.

  He gave a little smile. “Not my job. Sorry.”

  “Halkyut hired you,” she asserted.

  He didn’t deny it.

  “Nelie took the Alstrom file, found the proof they needed in it.”

  “Who?”

  “But the writing’s gone, the marks have rubbed off the baby,” she said. Her eyes locked with his. “I’ll show you. The baby’s not important any longer.”

  “Salaud,” Caplan shouted hoarsely.

  Moaning in pain, he kicked out with his foot, connecting with the man’s knee, throwing him off balance. And then Caplan kicked the table, sending it and everything on it crashing.

  Aimée ducked behind the overturned table. She heard the thud of a shot, the tinkle of crashing glass. She saw the flash. She pulled the baby out of the carrier and shoved her between the table and the wall.

  She had to move fast. She crawled forward, using the table as a shield. The reek of cordite filled the air. More shots were fired over her head. She heard the man cursing somewhere behind her. Her fingers scrabbled across the gritty floorboards as she groped for the antique sword blade. After she grabbed it, they moved to the cuplike handle.