Murder Below Montparnasse

by Cara Black

  She needed to see the big picture. Think big. Find the pieces and how they fit together.

  She dusted off the dry erase board behind René’s old desk and rustled up a working red marker. With the board propped on the velvet recamier, she wrote down the suspects, made columns—Motives, Opportunities, Victims, Stakes—to cross-reference. Like her father always did. Something she wished she’d done earlier. Now to fill them in: Stakes—money, prestige, a priceless Modigliani, a commodity to trade. Robbery suspects—Luebet, Morgane; Tatyana and Oleg’s crew; Damien; Feliks and Goran.

  But someone was missing. From Luebet’s note, she knew he’d never gotten the painting. He could have had nothing to do with the team in the white van, who might have stolen the painting before Tatyana and Oleg’s hired Serbs got there. But hearing Dombasle confirm Morgane once worked for Luebet, she couldn’t shake her hunch that Luebet hired Morgane to steal the painting. So what was another explanation? Perhaps Luebet had hired Morgane, but she’d fenced the painting herself before turning it over to him. Or she never got it at all, because the painting was already gone. If Luebet’s gang and the Serb found the broom closet empty—as Yuri had—who had stolen the Modigliani?

  Back to the beginning again.

  Or either Oleg and Damien could have taken it, in theory; they were the only people she was sure knew where Yuri had hidden it. But which? Damien had insisted Yuri forgot things, and Oleg and Tatyana had offered her a percentage.

  Or had the fixer beat everyone to it?

  The door alarm shrieked and she dropped her Badoit. Flecks of mineral water sprayed over the erase board. Terror thudded through her. They’d returned.

  Why had she trusted Dombasle? She took out the Beretta, checked the cartridge. Aimed.

  “Merde!” she heard from the other side of the frosted glass.

  But she knew that voice. She punched in the security code and opened the door.

  René leaned in Leduc Detective’s doorway, his linen jacket stained, a large straw hat held in one hand and a duty-free bag in the other. Her heart jumped. She wanted to hug him.

  “Forget something?” she said, finding her voice.

  His brow knit in worry and pain.

  “My common sense, Aimée. Mind setting your gun down? Look, I need to get the relay codes … don’t have time.…”

  His words tore her heart. Apparently he wouldn’t be staying.

  “So the corporate jet’s waiting at Orly, eh? Need to rush back to your millions?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t like them dirty, Aimée. Look, I’ve got four hours, maybe six.…”

  Her hurt bubbled to the surface. “Before you leave again?”

  He limped inside and pulled out his laptop from the duty-free bag. “If I don’t stop them, I’m in a little trouble.”

  His tone made her stand still. “Sounds like big trouble, René.”

  “Tradelert’s front running and I secured the back door in their damn system. Now if I don’t disable it.…” He hobbled to his desk. Must be his hip, she thought. “Please just let me work. I need my tools here. Can I explain later?”

  “Go ahead,” she said, surprised. “Why the sombrero?”

  “Mexico City.”

  “I thought you.…”

  “Long story, Aimée. I’ve had ten hours on the flight to prepare,” he said. “Think I’ve found a shortcut to rewind the algorithms, circumvent the disabler. But it’s all contingent on the clone providing me access. From here.”

  She understood less than half of what he’d just said.

  “If I don’t execute preventive measures, Wall Street will come after me and it’ll be all my fault. Not now, maybe tomorrow.…” He opened his desk drawer. “Then I’ll leave.”

  Aimée bit her lip. She’d never seen René so upset. Or with a stain on his jacket. “Can I help?”

  René connected his laptop to the terminal, his eyes never leaving the screen. “Call Saj. Tell him I need his eyes and his old relay and delay codes. Use my car.”

  His car. Aimée looked away.

  She heard a buzz—the alarm had been disabled. Saj walked in with Maxence. “I forgot my herbs … René!” He shot Aimée a look.

  She shrugged.

  “Long time no see, René. At least three days.”

  René kept his eyes on the screen. “Still have your relay and delay programs here?”

  “Bien sûr,” Saj said.

  “Let me help too, René,” Maxence said, smiling. “No luggage? Means you’re going to stay a while, I hope.”

  René looked up. His green eyes widened at Saj’s neck brace, his arm in a sling. “Saj? Mon Dieu, are you all right?”

  “Did you tell him, Aimée?”

  “Not now, Saj.”

  A knowing look passed over René’s face. “My car? Never mind, are you okay?”

  “All systems go,” Saj said, rubbing his good hand. “Two seconds for me to dig out that program. But I think you’ll be more interested in the newer version.”

  Glancing at the time, Aimée reached for her scarf and left them to it.

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, on rue Delambre, she pushed open the tall green door into a courtyard. She felt like she’d stepped back in time. A cold dampness crept up her legs. Ivy trailed the walls of faded tea-stain-colored stuccoed workshops, timbered two- and three-storied ateliers roofed by zinc tiles. Tall windows, like dead eyes in the twilight, faced northern exposure—as favored by artists. Skylights dotted the slanted roofs, glowing patches swept by the beacon light of the Eiffel Tower. A mustard-colored cat padded over the wet cobbles at her approach. Strains of a high-pitched binioù kozh bagpipe trailed from the Ti ar Vretoned, the Breton cultural center at the heart of the courtyard.

  She wondered why Dombasle insisted on meeting here. What happened to the vernissage? Inside the large hall of the Breton cultural center, children held hands in a wide circle, dancing, concentration on their faces. The girls wore lace caps, kicking and performing intricate back steps. The sheepskin pipes wheezed in the background.

  “Any luck on the white van?” Aimée said, sidling up to Dombasle by the Breton-language bulletin board.

  “The traffic chief’s daughter-in-law went to school with my sister,” he said. “Life’s a gratin, non? The white van with corresponding license plates clocked Avenue du Général Leclerc’s traffic cameras at Alésia five times within an hour.”

  That confirmed what she’d thought. He’d come through. “Et voilà.”

  The music and the dancers’ pounding feet made it hard to hear. She edged closer and caught Dombasle’s scent. A woodsy musk … Aramis? Stupid, she needed to focus.

  “Morgane’s on parole,” Dombasle said. “A single mother, eager to talk.”

  “She confessed?”

  “Nothing we can use.”

  Would Aimée have to drag each word out of him? But she smiled. “Meaning?”

  “Luebet hired her to organize the job. She admitted to planning and hiring her accomplices: Servier, to break into Volodya’s atelier, and a mec called Flèche to transport the painting to Orly. But someone else beat him to it, Servier says, no painting. A mec punched Servier, he returned the favor and ran.”

  “But you can arraign them on breaking and entering.”

  “After the fact.”

  Flics always worried about technicalities and judges.

  “You don’t call screwing up my building door, drugging and almost drowning me in a bucket in my office …?”

  Ahead of them, a mother with her child in her arms turned in alarm.

  “Blindfolded, weren’t you?” Dombasle said, his voice lower. “Can you prove who did it?”

  Her head hurt—the music and the dense air made it hard to think.

  She forced herself to remember. Felt those large hands shoving her head down as she gasped for air, water filling her mouth, her nose, down her throat, her lungs bursting. Those hands ripping her hair. Stop, she had to go back to the voice on the phone. Remember. The
slushing tires over wet pavement, the car horns, the street sounds. No doubt the call came from a pay phone. Useless.

  “Morgane blamed it on the hot-tempered amateur she’d hired,” Dombasle said, pulling out a notebook from his pocket. Consulted it. “This Flèche. She said he’d threatened to take things in his own hands.”

  “Rounded him up yet?

  He turned pages in the notebook, sucked in his breath. “You could say that. We discovered his corpse in a rented room close to Yuri Volodya’s. The concierge heard a gunshot. Saw a tall female figure leave the courtyard.”

  Aimée shivered. The fixer?

  “So make it up, Dombasle,” she said. “Morgane doesn’t know if the blindfold slipped, if I saw her mec leave. That I couldn’t identity him from a mug shot.”

  Lie, she wanted to say. Force the truth. That’s the flics’ speciality.

  “You’re scared,” he said, his tone changing to concern.

  “No wonder you’re a detective,” she said. Her mind went back to poor Yuri tied to his kitchen sink, to Madame Figuer, his neighbor, the sobbing tale of her brother water-tortured on rue des Saussaies.

  Dombasle enveloped her hand in his warm ones. Calming and firm. “You’re shaking.”

  “Going to ask me to dance?” she said.

  A smile lit up his gold-flecked eyes. “Tango’s more my style. I want you to meet that man drinking cider over there.”

  Aimée’s phone vibrated. She needed air.

  “Meet you in a moment, I’ve got to take this call.”

  She didn’t want to talk to anyone, but it could be Saj or René. Another break-in attempt?

  “Aimée, given any thought to chapter titles for my book?” Martine asked.

  “Book?” Her heel caught in the cracks of the damp cobbles. She grabbed the ivy trellis for support just in time.

  “The style editor’s on my back.”

  “Right now, Martine?”

  Martine blew a long exhale. Aimée imagined the nicotine rush, the cigarette’s spiraling blue smoke. She’d kill for a cigarette right now.

  “What’s wrong? I hear it in your voice. But you can’t bail on me, Aimée. Not now.”

  A couple hurried past her into the Breton center.

  “You know you’re going to tell me,” Martine said.

  Where to begin?

  “Does this have to do with Saj running over that Serb?”

  “He didn’t kill him.” She gave Martine the capsule version. And threw in how she’d seen Melac lip-locked with a blonde.

  “Not that again! You know you were wrong before—remember, with Guy, the eye surgeon, the one I liked? He had his arm around his sister. And you were blind. Literally.”

  Like she could forget.

  “If Melac’s undercover … Alors, he’s got to do.…” Martine’s voice wavered, “what he’s got to do.”

  “Not like that.”

  “Bon, at least René’s back.”

  “I can’t count on him with all—”

  “But his tuxedo’s still at the cleaners, non?” Martine interrupted. “He’ll escort you to the wedding. The couturier alteration appointment’s the day after tomorrow. Don’t forget.”

  Aimée wanted to smack herself. The vintage blue Dior. No way could she fit into it.

  “But I’ve gained a kilo.” More.

  “It’ll be a piece of gâteau for an old pro from Patou.”

  “Letting out seams for a whale?” she said. “Martine, she’ll have to sew me into it.”

  “Like Marilyn Monroe, eh?” Martine said. “By the way, ELLE’s sending a photographer to the wedding.”

  She cringed inside. The camera would add even more kilos.

  “Vintage couture works at a hip wedding,” Martine went on. “We’ll make it the book’s last chapter, of course. C’est parfait.”

  Then it hit her. An idea that Martine, a born journalist, would eat up.

  “What if I interested the oligarch’s wife in an interview with you? Couple it with a fashion shoot—besides the usual magazine sidebar on the über-wealthy slum-shopping? With a photo spread?” Aimée said, thinking as she spoke. “If you got the style editor on board and suggested an ensemble piece … you know, a little fashion voyage you whip into an article and use in the book. Nothing wasted.”

  A little suck of breath. “You could make that happen, Aimée?”

  “Her bodyguard likes me. Her female bodyguard.” A little too much.

  “A female Russian bodyguard? Ooh, that could work for the shoot. I see Slavic cheekbones, toned body in a black leather catsuit.”

  “Picture a business suit and biceps, Martine,” she said. “I’m meeting her for a drink later.”

  “Bien sûr, you’re a big girl, you can handle yourself,” Martine said.

  “The things I do for you, Martine,” she said, letting out a sigh. “She can take people down. Probably trained at the KGB.”

  “It’s the FSB now.”

  The second person to tell her that today.

  “Then you’re interested?” Aimée paced back and forth on the dimly lit cobbles.

  She heard keys tapping on a keyboard.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m emailing the editor right now to see if we can make this month’s deadline.”

  “So do me a favor. Explore her husband Dmitri Bereskova’s projected ‘art’ museum, who he owes krysha, and if a Modigliani would put him back on top.”

  Martine sighed into the phone. “Why do I think you’ve been angling me into getting information all along?”

  Dombasle waved from inside.

  “Remember Bereskova’s art museum, Martine. Dombasle’s beckoning.…”

  “Dombasle as in Rafael de la Dombasle, son of the noted painter?”

  Did that explain his intello air? “Told me he’s an art cop. Got to go.”

  AT THE COUNTER Dombasle introduced her to Huppert. Mid-thirties, sparse brown hair, black jacket and jeans, he stood a head shorter than her, with a glass of sparkling apple cider in hand.

  “This is the one I told you about,” Dombasle said.

  “You know I only do business at the gallery,” Huppert said. No smile.

  Feeling awkward, she wished they’d open a window. The close air of too many bodies coupled with the pounding feet made it hard to think. She wondered why Dombasle insisted on meeting this uninterested man.

  “We won’t have a chance later. You’re always busy at receptions,” Dombasle said.

  “I’ve got to report on Maiwen’s progress to my wife,” Huppert said. “Her Breton culture’s like a religion to her. Wants Maiwen to learn Breton, move to Vannes.” He smiled at a flush-faced young girl, thick black hair in a ponytail, who winked back at him. “I draw the line at living near Montparnasse, that’s as Breton-ville as I get. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  Give this man high points for rudeness. Then again, one had to respect people’s privacy. But Dombasle was not going to let him go so easily.

  “Show him the photo from Luebet’s envelope.”

  There in the crowded hall, despite her misgivings, Aimée showed Huppert the Polaroid of Luebet and Yuri holding the small painting.

  Huppert glanced at the photo. Looked again and set down the cider. Intent now, he put out his hand. “May I?”

  She handed him the photo, and after a moment he beckoned them out the doors, past the foyer and into the courtyard.

  “Why didn’t the old fox Luebet mention this?” he muttered under the lamplight.

  “A little late now,” Dombasle said.

  “I heard.” Huppert shook his head, his gaze fixed on the Polaroid. “Terrible.”

  Aimée wanted to scream. Little good that would do now. Both men in the photo had been murdered; the Modigliani had vanished.

  “How did you get this, Mademoiselle?” Huppert said.

  “That’s not the point. He says you’re the Modigliani expert. What do you think?”

  “From a bad photo?” He shook his head. “Do y
ou know how many faux Modiglianis come across the gallery doorstep in a week?”

  Be that way, Monsieur Expert, she wanted to say, but bit her tongue. “It’s not my intention to pass anything off on you. Nor was it my idea to come here. We’re wasting everyone’s time,” she said, reaching for the Polaroid.

  She had Piotr’s Volodya’s letters to authenticate and give provenance. To her thinking, Yuri never intended for his wife’s son to inherit the painting. But if Huppert knew and it got back to Oleg, repercussions could follow; inheritance issues, a long court case.

  But Huppert didn’t let go. “Un moment.” He pulled out readers from his pocket and studied it more closely.

  “What bothers me is why someone would leave a Modigliani—say it’s real—in a damp cellar for more than seventy years,” Dombasle said. “All of a sudden it reappears, an old man claims it’s stolen but refuses to make a robbery report. He’s murdered, and then after that the art appraiser. But where’s the provenance, or credential of its authenticity, even some mention that this portrait of Lenin ever existed?”

  Piotr’s letters to his son explained some of it. Before Aimée could speak, Dombasle shot her a look to keep quiet.

  “Lenin’s wife, Comrade Krupskaya, hated Paris—and it wasn’t just the weather. No one knows or will ever know the true story. Just background for you,” Huppert said. “My research paper on les artistes Russes in Montparnasse touched on this.”

  Aimée wanted to hear something that would lead them to the painting, not an academic lecture. She was running out of time.

  “Local Bolshies recounted that Lenin carried on an affair,” Huppert said. “Few knew, but his wife Krupskaya guarded his reputation and fostered the myth with an iron hand. What papers she didn’t burn she invalidated. Anyone whose silence she didn’t trust got discredited. The comrade-wife had a stake in Lenin, she’d devoted her life to him.”

  Huppert paused to wave to his daughter inside.

  “The reason this excites me—faux or not, it’s a significant work. The bad quality can’t mask the earth tones, that musted luminosity. So much raw energy in the set of his jaw.” For a moment Huppert’s voice changed, sounded far away. “To me this portrait communicates a vulnerable man, maybe even doubtful, on the cusp of something new. A man who could be in love, non?” He nodded to himself, studying the Polaroid. “So unlike those ragged greatcoat-leading-the-masses portraits—a powerful persona he promoted, the image Krupskaya fostered until her dying day. Lenin would have rejected this. Rumors of this painting surfaced years ago when Khrushchev visited Lenin’s museum.”