If Sylvie lived a double life, it could have been a rendezvous spot with Philippe. However, she doubted that this part of Belleville was to his taste.
“Why would someone get murdered here?”
“Good question,” Madame said, slamming the baguette on the table, attacking it with a steak knife, and carving uneven slices. “Never seen her before. No one had.”
“Who?”
“The dead woman, God rest her soul.”
“Madame, you said you never saw the murdered woman!”
“Why should I?” she said. “But people who live here don’t drive Mercedes!”
The woman had a good point, Aimee thought.
Madame opened the silverware drawer, pulling out a long-handled serving spoon. Amid the cutlery Aimee saw a distinctive silver box with “Mikimoto”—the famous pearl store on Place Vendome—embossed across the top. She doubted Madame Visse would own expensive pearls.
Then she remembered the odd-shaped pearl she’d found in the mucky passage. When Anais had denied it belonged to her, Aimee had slipped it in her pocket and forgotten about it.
“I love pearls,” Aimee said, inclining her head toward the drawer. “I see you do too.”
Madame glanced at the box.
“Just the boxes,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. She picked up the distinctive rectangular box, surveyed it. “Eugenie was throwing some away. I kept this one.”
Owning Mikimoto pearls and living in Belleville didn’t add up, Aimee thought, unless one was a wealthy mistress.
Mikimoto was in Place Vendome near the bronze-spiraled column melted from cannons Napoleon captured at Austerlitz. Again the carnage of her father’s explosion revisited her. She pushed those thoughts away. Reliving the past would get her nowhere.
“Pearls aren’t cheap, Madame,” she said. “Eugenie has expensive taste, wouldn’t you say?”
“She kept to herself,” Madame Visse said.
Madame motioned her to the door. “My boy will be home soon. He doesn’t like me to have guests. It’s up to God, my dear,” she said. “Good day.”
At least she’d found out Madame Visse knew Eugenie, corroborating Elymani’s comment. And she liked pearls. But was Eugenie Sylvie? Eugenie lived in a building ready for the wrecking ball and had expensive tastes. That’s if Elymani and Madame Visse were telling the truth.
Back on rue Jean Moinon, Aimee buzzed the remaining apartment buildings. No answer. Most had bricked-up windows. She figured soon they would all be gone and the area would look like the day-care center nearby: concrete, squat and ugly.
Several more attempts at ringing doorbells on the back street brought no luck.
Aimee tried reaching Anais again to check on her health, but the person who answered stonewalled her, saying Anais couldn’t be disturbed. Why hadn’t Vivienne answered the phone? she wondered.
Since she’d discovered Madame Visse’s box she felt it all connected. She decided to call Mikimoto.
Monsieur Roberge, the Mikimoto appraiser, declined to answer her questions or give an appraisal over the phone. “Liability,” he’d sighed. “Bring the piece in.” Aimee had wanted no part of Place Vendome or the memories it carried for her.
But she’d made an appointment for later in the day, picked up her partner Rene’s car and driven the winding Belleville streets. She parked by Leduc Detective on rue du Louvre.
State-of-the-art computer monitors and scanners lined their art deco office walls. Sepia-tinted Egyptian excavation photographs and digitally enhanced African maps hung beside a poster of Faudel, a French-born star of Algerian descent, Rene’s favorite. Beside that was a Miles Davis poster, her favorite, from his performance at the Olympia.
“What happened to you last night?” Rene asked as she burst through the door.
A handsome dwarf with large green eyes, black hair, and a goatee, Rene enjoyed comparisons to Toulouse- Lautrec. The hem of his Burberry trenchcoat, tailored for his height, had dripped a puddle on the parquet floor under the coatrack by the door.
“Sorry, Rene,” she said. “I had guests.”
“I’ve refined our Electricite de France systems vulnerability scan,” he said. He sat on his customized orthopedic chair, clicking on his keyboard, eyes fastened on the flashing screen in front of him.
“Any word on the EDF probationary contract?” she asked, picking out her black leather coat from the rack.
“The EDF manager liked you—liked you a lot,” he said. “He had some questions.”
Too bad she hadn’t spent time discussing their services with him since she’d hurried to meet Anais.
“But it’s the big guys at headquarters who need persuading,” Rene said. “I’m meeting EDF’s lawyer later.”
“Did you check the data report?” she asked. “See any virus?”
“So far the EDF system looks clean. But there’s a nasty little virus going round,” he said. “Think I’ve isolated its birth mother. She’s uglier than her spawn!”
“You’re the terminator at the terminal.” She grinned. “The virus’s days are numbered.”
Rene watched her. “Anything else you want to tell me?”
“I had visitors last night,” she said. “One thanks to you. Yves.”
“Did everything work out?” Rene said, a smile in his voice.
“Let’s say Yves took my mind off the first one. A rat. Sorry I didn’t make it—long story.”
He hit Save. “Want to talk about it?”
She told him. Most of the story, anyway. She kept her hands in her pockets so he wouldn’t see them tremble.
Rene shook his head.
“No wonder you look like you’ve been hit by a truck,” he said. Rene swiveled his chair toward her. “You, of all people, get nervous with things that ignite. Can I help?”
She wedged her feet out of the damp chunky-heeled boots, setting them by the door. In the storage room she changed into her Chanel suit. It was black, tailored, and short, the one classic she owned. Her father’s face had lit up whenever she wore it. “That fits the Parisian in you,” he’d always said.
“Who died?” Rene’asked, his eyes quizzical when she emerged.
Startled, Aimee almost dropped her Hermes bag.
“You only wear that to funerals,” Rene said.
She doubted one would be held for Sylvie Coudray: There wouldn’t be anything to bury.
“I’ve got an appointment with a pearl expert,” she said. “See you later.”
STANDING ON RUE DU Louvre, Aimee took several deep breaths. She told herself she could do it, and began the ten-block journey.
It was time.
It had been five years since she’d walked up rue St-Honore toward Place Vendome. She concentrated on keeping her high-heeled feet one in front of the other, planning what she’d say. But, as if it were yesterday, she saw her father’s half grin, heard his low voice say “Attends, Aimee, let me check. Wouldn’t want anything exciting to happen.”
But it had.
The bomb exploded into a fiery ball of metal, blowing him and the surveillance van through the fence and into the column base. The blast slapped her backward with the van door handle in her hand, still burning. Debris rained over the column. Glass shards, burned bits of rubber and flesh—just like the explosion that killed Sylvie.
