* * *
“Did she say he made the call, or did she say it came from his extension?” Magda took a swig from her mug of tea. “There’s a difference. Gabrielle told us she stayed late at company headquarters if she needed to. It would have been easy for her to stay late the night after Guipure died, when there were a million things to do, then purposefully use the phone in Lellouch’s office in order to implicate him.”
“That’s perfectly true. But it’s also true that we haven’t figured out why Gabrielle would want to kill Guipure, whereas with Lellouch we have a motive.”
“We haven’t found a motive for Gabrielle yet. We’re working on it.”
“But in the meantime, we have a phone call that was made from the office of a man who had a reason to kill at least one of our victims.”
“Was Lellouch even in the office the night that call was made to Ochs? Do we know that?”
“Do we know that Gabrielle was?”
They had reached an impasse. Without access to Gabrielle or Lellouch, or preferably both, they couldn’t get any further than speculation and theories about why Gabrielle might want to kill Jack Ochs, how her motive for killing Guipure was more credible than Lellouch’s, or why Lellouch’s might be more believable than hers. Really, Rachel said to herself, they’d done an exceptional job. Starting from nothing, they’d managed to discover evidence, put together a time line, and identify two plausible suspects, with no outside assistance. But as much as it pained her to admit, it seemed they’d reached the end of what they could do alone. Now only one collaboration could take them forward.
“We need to call the police.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Boussicault looked carefully through their folders and read the transcribed notes that Rachel had typed up the previous night. He listened to their story, interrupting only to ask for confirmation or clarification. When they finished, he steepled his fingers together for a long minute before he spoke.
“Of course, the police in the third arrondissement know a large part of this. They’ve already interviewed everyone at Sauveterre, and they talked to the former assistant, Madame Fauré, as well. They were also very interested in the recent announcement by Sauveterre that you’ve noted—they were made aware of Monsieur Lellouch’s arrangement with Madame Guipure, so the significance of his promotion was clear to them. But I know they don’t know anything about Mademoiselle Aubert’s adventure in buying heroin. Your connections are better than those of the police, Rachel.” He tipped his head. “And the police in the eighth—they’re no further along than I thought they’d be. I don’t believe they’ve abandoned their robbery theory yet, although I have few friends over there, so I’m less informed. I’ll telephone that commissariat and see what I can find out. And then I think I’ll suggest to the third that they bring Monsieur Lellouch and Mademoiselle Aubert in to be interviewed. Monsieur Thieriot too, I think, since both buying heroin and appropriating potentially valuable drawings without permission are crimes. Monsieur Naquet has yet to do anything really suspicious, so we shall leave him to his own devices for now.”
“How soon will you have them in?” Magda had always been more brusque with Boussicault than Rachel was.
But he just smiled politely.
“Well, if you’ll permit us a few days for background work, based on your excellent notes, of course, I would say within a week.”
“And can we sit in on the interviews?”
“Oh no. No. I allowed Rachel to do that before everyone objected. But I promise to let you know what is said. And when transcripts are available, I’ll make sure you’re sent one.”
Magda was about to object that they should be allowed better access to the activity on a case to which they had, as Boussicault himself had just pointed out, made a substantial contribution, when Boussicault’s phone rang. He held up a finger to indicate a break, and picked up the receiver. “Boussicault. Where? I see. What name? Really? All right, I’m on my way.”
He put the phone down and stood, reaching for his jacket where it hung on the back of the chair. “That was the local police of the Marais. A young man has just been found stabbed to death in his apartment. According to his carte d’identité, he is Cyrille Thieriot.”
Rachel and Magda both started to speak at the same time, but Boussicault shook his head. “No. No, you can’t.”
* * *
They watched the news together that evening. Or, as Magda insisted on putting it, they were reduced to watching the news. Rachel, who had in the previous two years discovered three bodies murdered in different ways, attempted several times to convince her friend that she truly did not want to see a freshly murdered corpse, but Magda was determined to view Boussicault’s order as a professional discourtesy despite the fact that they had no profession and that, after the initial firm refusal, he had been quite courteous. He’d accompanied them outside the commissariat and, putting them in a taxi, promised that they would be the first to know if he learned anything significant.
On the television screen, the newscaster was announcing a tragic discovery in the Marais. Seeing his neighbor’s door unlocked and open, a man had entered the apartment to check and discovered the body of the occupant, Cyrille Thieriot, face down on the bed, several stab wounds in his back. A picture of Thieriot, one Rachel recognized as having hung on the wall behind him, flashed up as the announcer said that the victim, twenty-six, had been a waiter at the LaLa Lounge and had lived in the apartment for several years.
Suddenly the program cut away from the studio, and Rachel found herself looking at a crying woman with a microphone in her face. La mère de la victime, said the subtitle.
“Who would do something like this?” the woman asked, sobbing. “My son was a good boy. We were proud of him! The police say nothing was touched, and none of the neighbors heard a fight. It was just a senseless act! My wonderful boy!”
A young man appeared on the screen next to her. He had the same full lips and doe eyes as Thieriot. “My mother doesn’t want to answer any more questions.” He moved her gently out of the frame. Without missing a beat, the picture cut back to the anchor in the studio. “The police say they are exploring several possible leads. More on this story as it develops.”
Rachel reached for the remote and clicked off the set. “It’s only a matter of time until they figure out he was once Guipure’s compagnon, and then they’re going to go crazy.”
Bu Magda didn’t reply. Instead, she sat thoughtful for a few seconds, then said, “It must be related to our murders.” She looked Rachel. “Don’t you think?”
Rachel raised her eyebrows and inhaled. “It feels like it has to be. Although that undermines our hypothesis about the connection between the first two murders. I don’t see how Cyrille could link to Ochs’s and Guipure’s grandfathers.” She thought again. “Even through Guipure.” She frowned. “You don’t suppose we have it wrong and the first two deaths were coincidences, but this one is somehow linked to Guipure? That’s all I can think of. Unless … ” She bit her thumbnail. “Unless Thieriot’s is a coincidence after all. Parts of the Marais are very rough.”
“But not that part.” Magda made a disbelieving face. “There was a sign for a new luxury development just down the street from his building. Anyway,” she said, and waved toward the blank TV screen, “the police said nothing was taken.”
They sat silent for a long while. The various possible coincidences whirled in Rachel’s head, but it couldn’t be that all the deaths were coincidental: there were too many murders and too many connections for that to be the case. But which two were connected, and how? She felt as if her brain were a sliding puzzle, one of those where, if she could just move the right piece, she would be able to make a pattern. Only she didn’t know which was the right piece, and she was beginning to think a piece was missing altogether.
At last Magda said, “Do we know Thieriot wasn’t Jewish? We never asked. And we don’t know his mother’s last name.”
“Could you drop the Jewish thing?” Rachel was startled by the harshness of her own voice. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just … I don’t think Judaism is the answer here.”
Magda would have been within her rights to say that at this stage it was just as likely to be the answer as anything else was, but with the patience of long friendship she didn’t. She picked up her mug from the coffee table and took a sip, then held it between her hands and waited.
There is something, Rachel thought. There is something that binds all three of these men together, that would bind all three of their deaths together. She felt it scratching at the back of her mind. She closed her eyes and focused, trying to pull herself back into what she envisioned as a dark space where her subconscious knowledge lay.
In the silence, a key scraped in the lock, then turned. Rachel opened her eyes as the door opened. Alan was home.
“You’re here! I thought you were coming tomorrow!” She said the first thing that came into her head. “I haven’t cleaned!”
“They offered me an earlier flight, and I took it so I could see you sooner.” He took a half step back. “I can stay at a hotel until tomorrow, if you want.”
“Oh, don’t be silly!” She kissed him.
Magda gathered her bag. “I better go. We’re at another dead end anyway.”
“No, no.” Alex pulled his suitcase into the hall. “You don’t have to. I can just go right to sleep.”
“Your lips say, ‘Don’t go,’ but your sagging shoulders say, ‘Please leave.’ We were just talking about the case, and we can finish that tomorrow.” Magda put her arms around him and pulled him into a close hug. “I’m so glad you’re back. Your wife missed you, and so did I. Let me know when your jet lag’s passed, and I’ll have the two of you over for dinner.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I can’t wait to hear about your adventures in Miami.
“My adventures in Miami can’t begin to compare with your adventures here,” Alan said after she’d left. “You’ve reached another dead end with Ochs and Guipure?”
“Yes, only now Cyrille Thieriot has been—” She stopped herself. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except that you took an earlier flight to surprise me. And I am surprised. I’m sorry that the place is a mess, though. I really was going to clean tonight. Go sit down and I’ll get you something to drink. Do you want tea?”
He took off his jacket and hung it on the hook next to the door. “I don’t care that the place is a mess, I don’t want to sit down, and I don’t want a cup of tea. I want a huge glass of water, and then I want to go to bed with my wife.”
He didn’t finish the water.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next morning they made love a second time, then a third for good measure. Afterward, Rachel went out for croissants while Alan had a shower. When she arrived back, he had laid her newspaper next to her plate, folded so the lower right-hand column showed. She found herself looking at what must have been Cyrille Thieriot’s carte d’identité photo: his lips were in their recognizable pout, his chin tilted at its familiar angle, but he wore no makeup. His face looked vulnerable without it. She read the article underneath the picture.
Fashion Designer’s Former Partner Found Dead
Late yesterday afternoon, police were called to an address in the Marais district of Paris, where they found the body of Cyrille Thieriot, 26. Thieriot, who had been stabbed several times in the back, was the former partenaire sentimentale of fashion designer Roland Guipure, who himself died last month, after a heroin overdose, at his 40th birthday party.
“At the moment we know very little about the circumstances of M. Thieriot’s death beyond being able to say that it wasn’t suicide,” said Attah Alboukhir, a police spokesman. “We ask people to remain calm and refrain from speculation. The police will release more details as they come in.”
“Clearly, he correctly sees that conspiracy theories are about to start sprouting like grass seed,” Rachel said to Alan once she’d finished reading the article.
“Does fashion do conspiracy theories?” His hair was still wet, and strands fell straight over his face as he read his iPad.
“Oh, I’d say so. These days conspiracy theories are in vogue.”
As he lifted his head to grin at her, her portable pinged. She fished it out of her pocket and woke the screen.
Bookseller.fr
Editions Sapier has negotiated a six-figure deal for Gédéon Naquet’s biography of couturier Roland Guipure. Fabric of Life is the first bio of the recently deceased designer and is tipped to offer “an in-depth look at the triumphs of his career and the squalid tragedy of his death.”
Well, Rachel thought, let that be your memorial, Cyrille. You were right about the motivations of Gédéon Naquet. She turned the phone off.
But of course that wasn’t his epitaph—the media weren’t going to let a potential scandal go that easily. When she turned the volume on the phone back up after Alan had left for a run, its screen was crowded with alerts:
Police Investigating Murder of Roland Guipure’s Former Partner
Murder Victim, 26, Was Lover of Fashion Designer
Late Fashion Designer’s Lover Found Murdered in the Marais
Sauveterre’s Bad Season: Former Partner of Fashion House Head Killed
Marais Corpse Is Ex of Addict Designer
Ten Things You Need to Know About Cyrille Thieriot, Roland Guipure’s Ex
Sad Last Days of Designer’s Toy Boy
Death had brought Thieriot the celebrity he’d yearned for in life. Too bad he wasn’t alive to revel in it.
The portable’s ringtone interrupted her thoughts.
“Have you seen the headlines?” Magda didn’t even bother with a hello.
“And the article in this morning’s Parisien.”
“Have you heard from Boussicault?”
“Not yet. But according to that article, the police don’t know much. I assumed that was why he hadn’t been in touch yet.”
“Well, we don’t need to wait for him. We know where Thieriot lived. Let’s go there.”
“I’m not breaking into his apartment.”
“I wasn’t talking about breaking in.” Magda’s tone was injured. “I thought we could interview his neighbors. He loved to talk, especially about himself. I bet he told them all sorts of things that could be useful.”
“Oh. Okay—” But Magda had hung up, and Rachel was left with only the blank silence of a broken connection.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The mid-morning sunshine bounced off the top branches of the tree outside Thieriot’s building, turning its leaves bright green. In the hours since the news broadcast, the red-and-white striped tape marking off the building’s front gate had torn, and someone had tied one portion around the linden’s trunk. Now the two pieces rose on the spring breeze like lonely arms reaching for each other.
“What do you think, start there?” Magda gestured toward the red awning of the Bar du Marché Blancs Manteaux. “We know he was a customer.”
But Rachel shook her head. “No one there paid any attention to him. He was made up like Lola at the Copacabana when we met him there, and no one even did a double take. He would have had no time for them.” If Thieriot was going to share confidences, it would be with people who performed their appreciation of him, somewhere that matched his sense of himself: opulent, lustrous, and (she thought of his peacock-colored bedspread) at least a little decadent.
“Let’s start here.” She pointed to the Marionnaud perfume shop that filled out the bottom floor of Thieriot’s building.
“Bonjour, mesdames!” A small blonde saleswoman hurried toward them. She was thickly but not obtrusively made up, foundation, blush, and highlighter all combining to draw out what was best in a sweet, snub-nosed face. Her blue eyeshadow made her eyes gleam, and her berry-colored lips curved into an eager smile. “Can I help you?”
“I hope so.” Rachel reached into her bag and pulled out a copy of the photo of
Cyrille Thieriot and Roland Guipure at Nüba. She rested her index finger on Thieriot’s hair. “Do you know this man?”
The woman glanced at the photo. “Of course: that’s Cyrille. He lives upstairs. He comes to see us almost every day. He hasn’t been in yet today, though.”
“Of course not. He’s dead.” The brunette standing behind the counter looked up from sorting perfume boxes as she said this. She had a face made for such pronouncements, Rachel thought. With a square jaw and high Slavic cheekbones, it was meant to look life directly in the eye.
“What?” The first woman turned her back on Rachel and Magda. “What are you talking about?”
The perfume sorter shrugged. “He was killed yesterday. Stabbed in his apartment.”
“We’ve been here for two hours! Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shrugged again. “I thought you knew. It was on the news.”
“You know I don’t watch the news! It upsets me too much.” The first woman looked down and shook her head. “I can’t believe it. He was in yesterday. He showed me how to do a cat eye.” The tip of her upturned nose reddened; tears welled and began to run down her cheeks.
“Oh, Miriam.” The second woman came out from behind the counter and handed her a tissue plucked from one of the cosmetics stands. “It’s important to watch the news, even if it does upset you. And as for his coming in yesterday, you might as well say he was breathing yesterday. Everyone who dies was living their ordinary life the day before.” She put out her hand and Rachel, knocked off her stride to discover a philosopher in a perfume shop, handed over the printout without thinking.
The brunette looked at it and confirmed briskly, “Yes, that’s Cyrille. That’s him with Roland when they went to Nüba.”
“You know Roland Guipure?”
Designs on the Dead Page 20