by Pryor, Mark
“Let’s see if we can find out. It’s possible the murder–robbery had nothing to do with the Tourvilles, more than possible. Maybe these two are neck-deep in what happened near Troyes and nothing more. Though it’d be some coincidence.”
“Agreed.” Lerens handed him a manila folder. “Some photos of Khlapina from last night, they might rattle him.”
Hugo glanced through them, barely recognizing the bedraggled, sodden body of the girl he’d met at Chateau Tourville. Her face was set like wax, sallow and bruised. Her teeth looked unnaturally white, perfectly so, contrasting starkly with the equally fake-looking bullet hole in her head. The pink streak in her hair looked ominous now, like diluted blood. He closed down any emotion, telling himself he could hate her for killing Raul later, or feel sorry that she was just a victim once her killer was behind bars. “If he’s just a thief, or fencing stolen goods, these pictures should do exactly that.”
“I think so, too.”
Hugo paused. “Before I go in, did you find out where she lives and search the place?”
“Yes and no. She had an apartment but technically it’s leased by Alexandra Tourville. I have an officer getting her written permission to go through the place, and once we have it, I want to do that myself.”
“I wondered if there was more jewelry in there. And when you do the search, I’ll come with you, if that’s OK.”
“Mais oui.”
“Thanks,” Hugo said. “Last question: The fingerprint from Lake’s room and the murder scene, did they match Natalia?”
Lerens grimaced. “Having a hard time with that. She was in the water for long enough that a quick comparison isn’t possible. The scientists have some techniques for dealing with it, and they have instructions to call me when a comparison is done.”
“But nothing yet.”
“Non.” She turned and looked through the one-way glass at Bruno Capron. “So, this one first?”
“Definitely. He’s the one with the penchant for stolen property and running from cops. Even if his dad knows something, he’s still a dad and will keep his mouth shut to protect his son. Kids, in my experience, are more interested in saving their own skin.”
“Alors, go get him.”
Hugo moved to the door then stopped. “Are you sure it’s OK for me to be doing this? You won’t get in trouble with your superiors?”
Lerens shook her head. “I can go in there and scream in that man’s face. I can lie to him and try and trick the truth out of him. I can make him bored, cold, and uncomfortable. I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to subject him to an American, too.”
Hugo smiled. “In that case, I’ll get to work.”
When he breezed into the little room, Bruno sat up straight, his face a mask but his eyes wary.
“Salut,” said Hugo. Bruno just watched him, so Hugo went on. “You comfortable? Need anything?”
“To see my father. Take him home.”
“Right, apart from that. Something I can actually do for you, I meant. Coffee, a cigarette, something like that.”
“A cigarette.”
Hugo sat down in the chair opposite Bruno and frowned. “Oh, I just remembered, I don’t like to be around people who smoke. I don’t mind them doing it, I just don’t think I should have to inhale their fumes. Know what I mean? In America hardly anyone smokes any more. Very different here, I’m always amazed how many young people still light up.”
The slightest hint of a sneer. “We’re not in America.”
“No, lucky for you, too,” Hugo said. “In America we still have the death penalty, at least in some states. If we were in mine, Texas, you’d be looking at having a needle stuck in your arm. After ten years of solitary confinement, of course, which isn’t much fun either.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I haven’t done anything.”
“Is that right? See, here’s how I look at it, and follow along so you can let me know where I’m stating things incorrectly. We know you bought stolen property from Natalia Khlapina. We know that property was taken after its owner was murdered. We also know that once you were confronted you ran away, and that within an hour a police officer investigating the robbery was himself killed.” Hugo paused and looked Bruno Capron in the eye. “And then we know that Natalia Khlapina was murdered last night, likely shot with the same gun that my colleague was killed with.”
A shadow passed over Bruno’s face, a flicker in his eye as he tried to stay composed and hide whatever emotion he was feeling. With a leisurely hand, Hugo flipped open the manila folder and spread four photos of the dead Natalia Khlapina across the table. Bruno’s eyes turned slowly downward, his brow wrinkling as he struggled to recognize the person displayed in front of him. The moment he did, his jaw clenched and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, the merest shake of his head, almost a shudder, told Hugo plenty.
“Which makes me wonder,” Hugo continued softly. “Where were you last night?”
Bruno Capron dragged his eyes up to meet Hugo’s. “I was . . . with my father.”
“You two,” Hugo tapped a photo of Khlapina. “Do everything together, do you?”
“We didn’t do this. We are not murderers. I didn’t even know that necklace was stolen.”
“Yeah.” Hugo sat back. “We’re not buying that. We’ve had numerous reports of stolen property going through your little antiques store, and based on this murder and the one in Troyes I’m betting the cops will shut the place down and spend a few months tracing the history of pretty much every single thing you have for sale.”
The threat struck home, as Hugo knew it would. Call a thief a thief and he’ll act outraged, but threaten to take away his ill-gotten gains, and thereby his income, he’ll do pretty much whatever it takes to hang on to them.
“Non, monsieur, my father is an old man. He’s not well and if you shut down his business it’ll kill him.” Bruno winced as he used the word kill, his eyes almost apologetic. “Alors, it’s true that sometimes I buy things from people with . . . questionable occupations. Sometimes maybe I suspect the items they sell are not legitimate. But if there’s a crime here, it’s mine and not my father’s.”
Hugo didn’t believe for a second that André Capron was as innocent as his son made out. At best he was being willfully blind, turning his back as Bruno stocked their display case with the heirlooms of other people, making a profit from crime while pretending he was just like any other businessman.
“Oh, there’s a crime here and he’s in it as deep as you are. Possession of stolen property, theft, why not robbery and murder? Qui vole un œuf vole un bœuf, isn’t that the saying?” He who steals an egg will steal an ox.
“Stealing is not killing.”
“Very true. But you’re not denying any of my facts. What some might say are suspicious coincidences, people getting killed around you, and I’ve still not heard anything resembling an alibi.”
“I told you, I was with my father.”
“Where?”
“At his apartment.”
“Do you own a gun?”
“Non. I never have, and neither does my father.”
“When did you last see Natalia Khlapina?”
“When I bought the necklace from her. She came in off the street, I’d never seen her before and I didn’t see her after.”
A hitch in Bruno’s voice told Hugo that the young man was lying, or at least shading the truth. Hugo ran the sentence back in his mind and thought maybe Capron had emphasized the word see.
Hugo guessed. “You didn’t see her, but we do know that you spoke to her.”
“How . . . ?” Capron sat forward. “How could you know that?”
“Tell me about it.”
“The store. After I left, I called her.”
“Why did you have her number if this was a one-off deal?”
Bruno slouched in the chair, the breath leaving him in a long sigh. “When she came in, I liked her. She was . . . pretty. And it didn’t seem like she did this for a living,
at least that’s what I thought. That’s why I didn’t think it was stolen, she didn’t seem like the sort of person who would do that. She was nice.” His eyes slid to the pictures and his head twitched away, recoiling. “I told her I needed to see identification and have her phone number for tax reasons, or for legal reasons. I can’t remember which, but I said we did it for all customers. I wrote her name and address down and her phone number. I tried calling it once but it was fake. I used an online service to find her real number, using her name and address, it was easy.”
“How sweet. Did she tell you where she got the necklace?”
“I think she said something about a relative leaving it to her in a will. I wasn’t listening too closely.”
“Because you don’t care where things come from, just how much you get for them.”
Capron shrugged. “Think what you want.”
“Don’t worry, I will. So what else did she sell you?”
“Nothing else, just the necklace. As far as I could tell she didn’t have anything with her to sell.”
Hugo nodded slowly while he thought. The Caprons were small-time crooks, thieves who had no compunction about acquiring other people’s treasures and turning a profit from them. But Hugo wasn’t convinced they were involved in murder, not Raul’s or Madam Bassin’s and, if he was right, that meant they were also innocent of killing Natalia. Hugo would never claim to be able to recognize a killer just by exchanging a few words, but he felt confident he could recognize some signs of an innocent man. On a practical level, someone prepared to kill three people wouldn’t be so lazy, or stupid, as to sell items stolen from a robbery–murder in his own store. The police had turned up no other connection with Natalia, either, and he hoped a search of her computer hard drive would show she’d hunted online for places to sell the necklace.
Which begged the question: If the Caprons hadn’t teamed up with Natalia to acquire the necklace, who had?
“Last question. When you ran from me at the store, you called her.”
“Oui.”
“Why?”
“To tell her she was in trouble. To warn her, I suppose, in case she didn’t know the necklace was stolen. Or to hide if she did.”
“Very noble.” Hugo thought for a moment. “Where was she when you called?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anyone with her?”
“How am I supposed to . . . Wait, when she answered, she told me to hold on and spoke to someone else. But I don’t know who.”
“Man or woman?”
“I couldn’t tell. I didn’t hear the other person speak. She just said, ‘I have to take this,’ or words to that effect. That’s all, I promise.”
Hugo rose. “Thank you for your time, I’ll talk to the lieutenant about cutting you and your father loose tonight.”
Bruno grunted what may have been thanks as Hugo left. He slipped back into the observation room where Lieutenant Lerens was waiting.
“He’s not our killer, is he?” she said.
“No, I don’t think so. Doesn’t seem like the type, and it doesn’t make much sense.”
“I agree. In better news, I got a call from the officer assigned to find Alexandra Tourville.”
“Don’t tell me she’s blocking the search.”
“She couldn’t for long, and I’m guessing she knows that. But the officer said she’s in shock over Natalia’s death and is happy for us to go over the place.”
“That’s a relief. She signed the consent form?”
“Yes. There’s one slight complication, though.”
“She wants to be there,” Hugo said.
“Precisely. And in the interests of keeping my job I plan to play along, at least to some degree. I’ll let her unlock the door and then stand there while we go in first.”
“Actually, having her there might be good, we can do a more thorough interview with her.”
“Good idea,” Lerens said. “And since you did such a good job with young Monsieur Capron, I’m nominating you.”
“I work for you now, is that it?” Hugo smiled.
“Bien sûr.” Her face was serious but there was a smile in her eyes. “In fact, earlier this evening I heard you on the phone with your ambassador asking to do precisely that.”
“Fine, but let me do one thing before I interview her.”
“What’s that?”
“Let me walk through the place.”
“Profiling?”
“It’s not just people themselves who can tell you about a crime or criminal. It’s the things they own, the places they put things, the state they keep their home.”
“I think you should teach courses in this, Hugo. I would be a diligent student.”
“Be happy to, but let’s catch Raul’s killer first.”
“Ah, yes.” Lerens pursed her lips. “Madam Tourville cannot meet us at the apartment until tomorrow morning. I’ve been told to give her that courtesy.”
“Politics,” Hugo said. “I’ve been subjected to those myself on occasion.”
Lieutenant Lerens nodded and then rubbed the back of her neck. “For once I’m grateful. I could use a good night’s sleep.” She glanced up. “And no disrespect, but I’m thinking that you could, too.”
“Very true.”
Lerens turned to go, then looked back at Hugo. “There’s a café close by. I’d like for us to talk for a few minutes, I’ll buy.”
“Talk?”
“Yes. I’ve found it best to answer people’s questions, the ones they pretend they don’t have, and to generally clear the air when I’m working closely with someone.”
Hugo smiled. He was happy to pretend he didn’t have questions, but curiosity was a weakness, and he genuinely wanted to understand Camille Lerens. As best he could, of course.
“Sure, we can grab a drink,” he said.
They picked a table at the back, inside and as far away from others as possible. When the carafe of red wine arrived, she poured them each a glass and began to talk.
“I was born Christophe in Bordeaux. My father was a policeman but I didn’t join because of that, but because I wanted to.” She gave a sad smile. “Of course, even then I would have preferred to join as a police woman.”
“You’ve always known?”
“Yes. This isn’t the sort of thing that hits you later in life, as if you get sick of wearing ties or shaving every day. And I think you know it’s not a choice.”
“Of course not. I can’t imagine anyone would choose that kind of . . .” Hugo searched for the right word but didn’t find it.
“Torment,” Lerens filled in. “Agony. Shame. There are lots of words for it but I’ve left most of them behind. The funny thing is, my father the macho police man, he always knew. We finally talked about it when I was sixteen, but back then there wasn’t much we could do. It was a great comfort to be able to talk to him so openly.”
“Your mother?”
“She took longer to come around. But she did and they have always supported me. I think it helps that my father was from Niger and my mother from Egypt. They’d both suffered discrimination for being who they were and they weren’t afraid to stand up for me, too.”
“I’m glad to hear that. So you joined the police as a man?”
“I did. It was something of a calculated decision. I thought that they might turn me down if I made the gender switch first, but they might have some legal problems if they fired me after I’d proved myself a good policeman.”
Hugo smiled. “I have no idea how either of those things would go down in Texas.”
“Probably not too different from Bordeaux,” Lerens laughed. “My immediate superior almost had a heart attack. But the man at the top, he . . . well, I think he thought it interesting. I also think his lawyers were advising him to play it very low-key.”
“I was wondering whether the news media had picked up on it, seems like they’d be interested in that kind of story.”
“I don’t think anyone rea
lly wanted to tell them, not back then, and not in a provincial town like Bordeaux. I didn’t want to, of course, and my chief didn’t. Plus, the many people above and around me who didn’t approve already detested the newspapers so I think they saved their words for me in private.”
“Some ugliness?”
Lerens nodded slowly, then took a drink. “The first week I used the women’s bathroom, yes. Of course, it was strange for me, too, I felt on the one hand like a trespasser but also . . . also like I was finally in a safe place. Somewhere I belonged and somewhere the men around me, including the man I was, could be excluded.”
“I can’t image how hard it must have been. You know, Raul told me very little but he held you in very high regard. He respected you for achieving everything you have.”
“He was a good man,” Lerens said, her voice a whisper. She cleared her throat and looked Hugo in the eye. “Questions?”
“No,” Hugo said, “I don’t think—”
“Not true!” Lerens laughed. “But it’s OK, most people are embarrassed to ask about the mechanics, though pretty much everyone is curious.”
“Fine,” Hugo said, sitting back. “I admit it, I’m curious. Plus, I have a friend who will pump me for details and if I don’t have them, he’ll make life unpleasant.”
“The great Tom Green?”
“I wouldn’t say great, but that’s the one.”
“Then here are your answers for him,” Lerens said, refilling Hugo’s glass. “I began with hormone shots, estrogen, and at the same time had my facial and body hair removed with electrolysis. All under the supervision of a doctor, of course. I also had some cosmetic surgery, specifically the breasts men try so hard not to stare at.” She smiled, and added: “As you can see, I wasn’t greedy. I figured I might still have to chase bad guys and you’d be amazed how much harder it is to run with these things.”
“I’ve never really thought about it.”
“No, well, you wouldn’t need to. Anyway, that was about it for cosmetics. Nowadays they can do some very clever facial reconstruction, to feminize you, but I didn’t really want to change how I look, not in that way. I wanted my body to mirror my soul, and I have the soul of a policeman, not a super model.”