by Mark Pryor
“Why can’t I wait in my room?”
“As a favor. Please.”
“Fine. But not for long, I need to figure out what I’m doing now that . . .” His voice trailed off and he looked at the floor, then sat down on the half sofa.
Tremblay beckoned for Hugo and Drummond to follow her, and the three of them walked back to the main lobby, past the elevators and into a room marked as an office for employees only. “You can use this space,” Tremblay said.
“Thank you. Rob, you OK waiting here for a moment?” Hugo asked.
“Why?”
“I’m going to make one quick phone call, and then I’ll be in to see you.” He left the room and stepped outside the main doors of the hotel, wanting to be sure he wasn’t overheard. Light drops of rain spattered his head, so he moved back under the awning and positioned himself so he could both stay dry and not trigger the automatic sliding doors. He dialed the prefecture, irritated with himself for not getting Marchand’s cell number on Friday night. He had to wait to be connected, but he hoped that the Frenchman ran his investigations like many American homicide detectives: he’d quarterback the legwork from his office, and remain available to those working under him. Hugo guessed right.
“Marchand, who is this?”
“Bonjour, Lieutenant Intern, this is Hugo Marston.”
“Ah, working on a Saturday, how very diligent.”
“No more so than you,” Hugo said.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m at l’Hôtel Toby.”
“We’ve been there already.”
And did you find anything of use to the investigation? Hugo wondered. Instead, he said, “I know, the manager told me.”
“Why are you there?”
“I found myself between Rob Drummond and Josh Reno,” Hugo said, truthfully but also dodging the question. “Monsieur Drummond is asking if he can access Alia’s room and take custody of her belongings. He’s claiming you gave him permission, but the hotel would like to hear from someone other than him.”
“Yes, we’ve searched, photographed, and taken what we need. The rest is his . . . assuming he’s the closest relative here in Paris.”
“I’ll confirm, but I’m almost certain he is. Her parents are dead and she has no siblings. Other siblings.”
“In that case, no problem. Is there anything else you need, Monsieur Marston?”
“Would you mind telling me whether you found anything in her room that might help?”
There was a pause on the line. “I’m not at liberty to reveal any information at this point.”
“Because I’m friends with Claudia?”
“Yes, partly. Also, because you are not a member of the Brigade Criminelle.”
“I can be of use to you,” Hugo said, his voice calmer than he felt inside. “Just as I have been in the past.” He desperately wanted to proclaim Claudia’s obvious innocence, but he knew it was only obvious to him at this point, and doing so would further alienate Marchand. And that he did not need to be doing.
“I’m well aware that Lieutenant Lerens has broken protocol by allowing you to know details of previous homicide investigations, yes.”
“My understanding is that the investigating detective sets protocol for each case,” Hugo said mildly.
“Touché,” Marchand said. “And just as she does in her investigations, so do I in mine. Which means I expect you not to interview, interrogate, or otherwise tamper with any of my witnesses. And that includes Mademoiselle Roux, as well as Josh Reno, and the brother of the victim. Merci et au revoir, Monsieur Marston.” And with that, he hung up.
Hugo tucked his phone away, trying to shake off his irritation. Marchand wasn’t being unreasonable, not really. Just not as accommodating as Camille Lerens would have been, and that was frustrating. Especially when Claudia was in his crosshairs. He shivered in the cold and was glad to step back into the warmth of the hotel lobby. He walked over to the grand piano, where Tremblay sat in front of a slim laptop. She looked up and smiled. “Oui, monsieur?
“I just confirmed with the investigating detective that they are finished with Mademoiselle Alsaffar’s room, and Monsieur Drummond may take custody of her belongings.”
“Very well. Thank you for doing that. And please tell Mr. Drummond he may stay in the room for as long as he needs to handle her affairs, free of charge.” She had apparently expected Drummond to be allowed into the room, because she opened a tiny drawer and took out a key card. “Give this to him, if you would.”
“Of course. And that’s very generous of you.” Hugo shook her hand and turned to go.
“While you were outside, Monsieur Reno took the elevator. To his room, I assume.”
“Thank you.” Hugo paused. “Can you tell me his room number?”
“Oh. Normally we don’t do that. For the safety and discretion of our guests.” She looked slightly embarrassed at rejecting his request. “If you were a French policeman then, of course, but . . .”
“I understand.” Hugo thought for a moment. “Can I ask if his room is adjacent to Mademoiselle Alsaffar’s?”
Tremblay smiled. “They asked for that. There is a connecting door, too, but that has been locked from inside Mademoiselle Alsaffar’s room since . . . this happened.”
“By the police?”
“On their orders, yes,” she nodded.
Hugo thanked her and headed to the office to speak to Rob Drummond. “Good news,” Hugo said. “Not only are the police fine with you taking custody of Alia’s belongings, but the manager says you can stay in her room as long as you like, to take care of whatever needs doing here.”
“Oh, OK. That’s nice. And a relief. I’ve been staying at a place about a mile away, a one-star hotel, but I think the star is stolen.”
Hugo sat. “Also, we have people at the embassy who can help with the arrangements.”
“Arrangements?”
“You’re her closest relative, right?”
“Yes. I guess I am.”
“It’ll be up to you to make the decision about what happens once the police release her.”
“Her body, you mean.”
“Right,” Hugo said, his voice gentle. “I’m sure you’ve not thought about it, and you don’t need to right away. But you’re kind of in charge of making that decision.”
“I suppose. I just want to go home.”
“That’s perfectly natural. Did you talk to the police again this morning?”
“No, they called and asked me to come back to the prefecture. I guess I’ll go after I get the key for Alia’s room.”
“Here you go.” Hugo handed him the key card. “The manager asked me to give it to you. Do you mind if I come up with you and look around?”
Drummond eyed Hugo for a moment. “Did someone say you used to be an FBI agent?”
“I don’t know if they did or not. But yes, I was.”
“What did you do for them?”
“Behavioral analysis, for the most part.”
“Profiler? Like on TV?”
“Profiler, but nothing like on TV.” Hugo smiled. “Nothing’s ever like it is on TV.”
“I hope some things are.” Drummond’s head dropped and he shook it slowly. “On cop shows, they always get the bad guy. I’m hoping you can do the same.”
“I promise I’ll do my best,” Hugo said. “It might help if I can look around Alia’s room.”
“Yeah, of course. Come up with me now.” He stood slowly. “But it’s not her room you should be looking through.”
“Let me guess,” Hugo said with a small smile. “The guy staying next door to her.”
“Josh Reno?” Drummond shook his head again. “Nah. He’s a total mooching asshole, like I said earlier. But I can’t imagine he’d hurt Alia.”
“Then who?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I got to thinking, wondering about who might want to hurt her. The only people I could come up with are that Rollo couple. Something’s
not right about either of them.” They stopped outside the door to Alsaffar’s room. “Plus, as I’m sure you’ve discovered, he was madly in love with her. He’d probably even admit that, if you ask him when his wife’s not around. When you add unrequited love to Alia cutting ties to their sponsorship, that gives them both a motive, if you ask me.”
Hugo straightened with surprise. “Wait, she cut them out of her life, too?”
“Yeah, they didn’t mention that?”
“No,” Hugo said, almost to himself. “They most certainly did not.”
Drummond stood in the doorway as Hugo carried out a quick but methodical search of her room and belongings. Every time he saw something personal, he had to push back the sadness and anger that threatened to bubble up and spill over. He used his experience to keep those emotions in the right compartment, the one that let him do his job effectively and objectively. For now, anyway.
When he’d finished his search, he surveyed the room, and he did let his mind linger on what Drummond had said about JD Rollo. Unrequited love, as he well knew, could most certainly be a motive for murder.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On Sunday morning, Hugo was woken by a knocking on his apartment door. He rolled over and looked at his phone to see that it was already nine o’clock. He dressed quickly in jeans and a sweatshirt and walked to the door in bare feet. He checked the peephole and was surprised at his visitor but immediately opened the door.
“Hey, what are you doing here? You should’ve called or texted, I could’ve made coffee.”
“I’ve had your coffee plenty of times,” said Claudia as she kissed him on each cheek. “I can live without it.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“For a reason. Sit and I’ll make some, maybe we’ll live.”
“Fine.” Hugo collapsed into an armchair and watched as Claudia got busy in the kitchen. “How’re you feeling?”
“How do I look?”
“A little pale maybe. But otherwise as beautiful as ever.”
She looked back and rolled her eyes at him. “You’re starting to sound like Tom.”
“God forbid. But you really are feeling better?”
“Yes, I am, thank you. I hope that was a one-off event.”
“So do I,” Hugo said. “So really, why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
“I was told we couldn’t be in contact, which means I’m not allowed to phone you.”
“Claudia, it also means . . .”
“I know, I know.” She waved away his protests with one hand. “My surprise visit is a forensic counter-measure, I believe you’d call it.”
“Oh, would I?”
“Look, if I push my way into your apartment unannounced, then you can’t get in trouble with that awful detective.”
“Maybe not, but you sure as hell can.”
“Yes, but we need to figure this out,” she said, pouring water into the machine.
“Figure what out? You’re innocent.”
“There, should be ready in a few minutes.” She flipped the switched on the coffee machine, then walked over to Hugo and sat on the arm of the sofa nearest hm. She took a breath, looked him in the eye, and said, “I know I am. So this is some kind of joke that I’m a suspect, right?”
“To me it is, yes. Of course, it’s ridiculous.”
“That detective, what’s his name again?”
“Marchand.”
“It sure as hell isn’t Maigret,” she said with a pained smile.
“I know, he’d have cleared you by now.” Hugo took her hand.
“You told him this is insane, right, that there’s no way I could or would do something like that?”
“Of course. In the strongest way possible.”
“Good. I mean, I knew you would, but . . . thanks anyway.”
“Of course. So, did you give them an interview?”
“Yes, at the house.” Behind her in the kitchen, the coffee started to brew with a satisfying gurgle. “I should probably have been more polite.”
“What did you tell them?” Hugo asked.
“That I was thinking about doing a piece on her exhibit later in the week, which is why I’d called her.”
“When did you call?”
“Friday morning. After you’d told me about her, I did some research, and she looked pretty interesting. The world loves a beautiful artist. You know that.” She sighed. “That Marchand said her beauty was a possible motive, her messing with my man.”
“So you ran up there and strangled her?”
“Right.” Claudia rolled her eyes. “He suggested that the phone call was a warning, that we’d argued, and I . . . yeah, killed her.”
“Because I ate dinner with her one time, as part of my job.”
“That’s what I said, but he doesn’t seem big on logic, that one.”
“Not to mention you were unconscious at the time of the murder, which would make for quite an impressive feat on your part.”
“Except he says the timeline allows for me to have slipped into the museum, killed her, and run around the corner to collapse.”
The aroma of coffee drifted over them as the maker bubbled to a crescendo, then climaxed with a loud hiss. Hugo got up and went into the kitchen. He poured two mugs, adding sugar to his and Claudia’s, but no milk. He stirred them and walked back to his seat, putting both mugs on the table.
“So does he think that was fake?” Hugo asked. “Your fainting spell.”
“I assume so. But even if not, perhaps I was so overwhelmed by a mix of adrenaline and emotion after doing it, that I fainted.”
“He actually said all that?”
“He didn’t need to,” Claudia said. “He was very good at implying things without actually saying them.”
“Good detectives are.”
“Oh, so now he’s a good detective?”
Hugo smiled. “He may or may not be. But the truth is, he doesn’t know you. He’d be a bad detective if he took your or my word for your innocence—I can tell you that much.”
“I get that, but given your representations about me, the terrible motive and highly dubious timeline, all that should be enough to move on and find the real killer.”
“I’m sure he is,” Hugo said. “He’ll be following every lead, looking into every suspect, not just you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Hugo, you’re defending him.”
“Like I said, he has a job to do. And I’m certain he’ll eliminate you any moment.”
“How will he do that?” She pressed. “If my word, your word, and his stupid theories aren’t enough to clear me, what more can he want?”
“He’ll look into everything you said, and, when it checks out, then I assume he’ll focus elsewhere. With such weak evidence, if it were me, I’d stop completely unless something you said turns out to be wrong or untrue.”
“Everything I told him was the truth. I called her about writing an article. I’ve never met her, or even seen her, in person. I sure as hell didn’t hurt her.”
Hugo took her hand again. “We both know that. Just ignore Marchand until he knows it, too.”
“I’m trying, believe me,” she said. “So are you helping with the investigation?”
“I thought I was, but both Marchand and the ambassador have since told me to back off.”
“Why does the ambassador care?”
“He doesn’t. He just prefers I not piss off the Paris police.”
“Well,” Claudia said, “I suppose that making nice with the locals does happen to be his job.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“In that case, I will have to assume,” she began, and gave him a conspiratorial smile. “That you’re helping unofficially?”
“Well, ma’am.” Hugo leaned back, sipped his coffee, and returned the smile. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to divulge any case information, especially to a suspect.”
“That so?” Claudia waited until he’d put his coffee mug do
wn before she leaned forward with a glint in her eye. Hugo was too slow to see what was coming, but he welcomed the weight of her body, the smell of her hair, and the tight grip of her arms around him when she slid onto his lap.
“Well, screw Marchand and his pointless investigation,” she whispered in his ear. “And since I’m here why don’t we . . .”
Claudia was in no hurry to leave, and Hugo had no desire to see her go, so they stayed wrapped together in his bed while the rain pounded the window a few feet away. Eventually they decided they were hungry, but they didn’t want to risk being spotted together in public, so Hugo concocted a lunch of bits and pieces thrown together from his pantry and fridge: pâté on crackers, pickles, ham on bread that Hugo toasted because it was a day past stale, and several large dollops of hummus each. When they’d eaten, she kissed him on the mouth and left, telling him she had a movie date with a girlfriend.
For his part, Hugo would have liked to share his plans for the afternoon. But with the specter of Marchand hovering over them, he felt it best to say little else about the investigation. When she’d left, he tried Tom again, but the call went straight to voicemail, so he hung up and called the Hôtel de Crillon. He asked to be connected to the Rollos’ room, and this time Rachel answered.
“Mr. Marston, so sorry I had to run out on you last time. Are you coming back to visit with me?”
“I’d like to this afternoon, if you don’t mind.”
“Why not? The police just finished up with us here, so the story is fresh in my mind.”
“Story?” Hugo asked.
“Series of events. That evening. Whatever you want to call it.” She gave a gentle laugh. “Don’t worry, we’ve not dreamed up some sinister tale to keep each other out of trouble.”
“I’m sure not,” Hugo said. “Three o’clock work for you? Same place as before?”
“I look forward to it,” she said. “They do a nice English tea on Sundays, maybe I’ll order one of those for us.”
“That’s kind, but I’m trying to watch my—” Hugo stopped talking when he realized she’d hung up.
Hugo spent the next two hours trying to read, his phone face-up beside him. He’d picked up a copy of Jim Thompson’s classic, The Killer Inside Me, at one of the bouquiniste stalls beside the Seine, but even that book failed to pin his attention to the pages. He kept checking his phone, just in case he’d missed an incoming call or text from Tom. Hugo was glad when two thirty rolled around, so he could do something proactive, get busy.