AL01 - Murder in the Marais

relish, and a bottle of Orangina. She waved to Zazie, who was doing her homework by the window in Cafe Magritte.

As she mounted the worn stairs to her office she decided she had to keep investigating, no matter what Morbier said. They might be able to push him around but no one could tell her what to do.

Inside the office Miles Davis greeted her, excitedly sniffing her bag of food. He'd spent the night with Rene. She fed him some scraps from the butcher's. The only trace of Rene was a message taped to his computer screen with one word: 'later.'

Miles Davis fell asleep perched near the heater and Rene's chair. Aimee poured the Orangina into a crystal Baccarat wineglass left over from her grandfather. She folded the cheese and tapenade into the crusty baguette and ate.

After she finished her meal, she carefully taped the photo image and torn snapshot piece from Lili Stein's room together. She scanned the complete image into her computer and digitally enhanced the photo and printed a copy.

Aimee placed this image among the spread-out photos from the police folder and her own archive files. Then in chronological order, she tacked them up along her wall and looked for connections to the swastika.

She peered at them though a magnifying glass. The black-and-white photos cast everything in a timeless past. Each snapshot held a different scene, but they were all views of the Marais. She recognized the cafe, Ma Bourgoyne, she often went to. A group of booted Nazis sat drinking at the corner table. Next to it, women with rolled pompadour hair wearing ankle socks and t-strap shoes stood in line holding ration books.

Another photo showed the local Kommandantur on the rue des Francs Bourgeois, with armed Nazis guarding the heavy wood entrance doors. She almost dropped her goblet of Orangina.

On flags flying above the Kommandantur, the swastikas were tilted, with rounded edges, exactly like the one carved in Lili Stein's forehead.

Miles Davis growled, then someone knocked loudly on the office door. Had Rene forgotten his keys? She slipped her unlicensed Glock 9-mm from the desk drawer into her back jeans pocket.

'Who's there?' she said.

A muffled voice came from behind the door. 'Herve Vitold with BRI.'

'Show me your identification.'

A laminated photo identity card with Brigade de Recherches et d'Intervention flashed in front of the peephole.

'Un moment.' She shuffled the photos together and slid them back into a large envelope in her drawer.

'Excuse the caution.' She opened the door slowly. 'I've had some threats.'

Aimee had never seen a Saville Row suit before but figured the Nordic-looking man standing at her door wore one. Probably a Turnbull and Asser handmade shirt, too.

'Of course,' he said. His white blond hair glinted in the hall light but his features remained hidden. 'Mademoiselle Leduc?'

Aimee nodded, keeping her hand cocked on the gun's safety.

'I have no appointment, but I'd like half an hour of your time. With commensurate compensation, of course,' he said.

Aimee opened the door wider and let him in. She tried to appear as professional as possible in her too tight jeans and a torn Asterix vs. Romans T-shirt. A whiff of something expensive laced with lime hit her.

'Please come in and have a seat, I'll be with you right away,' she said.

'Herve Vitold.' He held out his hand as she showed him into her office. 'Security administrator.' He had gold- green eyes and an expensive tan for November.

'Please sit down,' she said, surprised he didn't wear a uniform.

He leaned forward, took out a leather checkbook, and flashed a kilowatt smile at her. 'Your rates, please. I want to take care of the business first.'

Aimee briefly wondered why a Gentlemen's Quarterly type from the federals at BRI would walk into her office and want to pay money to talk to her.

'Five hundred francs for a half hour,' she said promptly.

Let him put his money where his mouth was. See if this handsome man in an expensive suit was real or joking.

Immediately he pulled out a Montblanc pen, filled in the amount, and slid it across the desk, briefly touching her fingertips. She could have sworn his fleshy, manicured fingers lingered a second too long. Shell-shocked at receiving such a check though she was, she didn't react. Her mind was mostly on his very curly blond eyelashes and the green in his eyes. Consciously, she ignored a danger signal in her brain flashing 'Too good to be true.'

'How may I help you?' she smiled.

'First, may I say I appreciate your taking the time. A business like yours. . .' Here he vaguely gestured around the office, not exactly a beehive of activity. 'And with a busy schedule, I'm sure.' He flashed his brilliant smile. 'But I'll get right down to it, shall I?'

'It's your franc.'

'My branch works with precautionary services, sort of a field unit, out of La Defense,' he said.

Get with it, girl, and ask a question, she told herself. 'Sorry to interrupt, but I'm not familiar with government security. Don't you wear uniforms?'

Again that smile. 'No uniforms. We exist and we don't exist, if you get my meaning.'

Talking in tongues was what it sounded like to her. 'Not really. Maybe you should get to the point.'

A glimmer of amusement crossed his face.

The shadows lengthened across her office walls and she stood up to switch on the office lights.

'Mais bien sur,' he said. 'Special branch out of Bourget, responsible for terrorist management, has taken over the Stein case. All inquiries, surveillance, and follow-up are to be handled by us.'

That fit Morbier's dictum. 'Why?'

'Given the present political climate and sensitivity of the issue, Special Branch feels it must be handled with care.' Vitold sat back, crossing his trousered legs precisely at a ninety-degree angle. 'This is a historic moment. Finally, for the first time since the last war, the European Union delegates will sit together and sign a treaty that binds Europe. Nothing must endanger this or the covert operation we've mounted to nab terrorists intent on destroying this process.'

Too good to be true, all right. 'Are you telling me to, let us say, butt out?' she said.

'Mademoiselle Leduc, I'm asking you.' His eyes flickered again with amusement, then hardened. 'I know how important the tax extension is to your firm right now and I wouldn't want anything to interfere with the process.'

'Is this some kind of veiled threat?'

He stood up with a perfect crease down his pant leg and a still wrinkle-free shirt. 'Now, now,' he clucked patronizingly.

She stood up, too. 'You walk in here, write a check, and expect me to back off a paid case by threatening to interfere with my taxes? Who do you think you are?'

'Vitold, as I've said, but I neglected to mention that your investigator's license is about to expire, since you've not renewed it.'

'My investigator's license is code orange. Permanent and nonrenewable,' she said.

'Not anymore.'

'Threaten somebody else.' She glared at him, ripping his check into franc-sized bites.

He grabbed her wrists, imprisoning them in a viselike grip. Little white pieces of his check fluttered onto the parquet floor. She realized his large manicured fingers could snap her bones in half like matchsticks.

'Must be careful of your little hands.' He stroked the scar on her palm.

She jerked her head towards the video camera mounted into the deco molding. 'Go ahead, the security camera is capturing our moment as we speak.'

An odd smile washed over his face and he let go.

Then he was outside her office, striding toward the glass-paned hallway door.

'Consider carefully. I would if I were you,' he said.