Murder in Belleville

“You have clearance, I presume.” The flic’s voice changed, becoming businesslike. She pulled the lollipop from her mouth.

Aimee had to think fast.

“Commissaire Morbier cleared me,” Aimee said. “Check the report on the Yvette, a car-bomb victim on 20 bis rue Jean Moinon in Belleville.”

“That would be nice,” he said, taking a pencil and scratching her neck with the eraser. “But I don’t have it.”

Of course, she wouldn’t. Procedure would have it at the autopsy table or in the Medical Examiner’s Office.

“Who does?”

“Intake’s slow,” the flic said. “The HP took up their time.”

“Look, I’m working on other investigations too.”

“Show me your clearance, and I’ll check.”

“Like I said, the clearance goes with the report,” Aimee said maintaining her cool with difficulty.

“Says here Commissaire Morbier’s on disability.”

“Par for the course, wouldn’t you say?” Aimee grinned. “Like Serge Leaud’s whereabouts.” Trying to play fair with this flic hadn’t worked. She reached into her Hermes tote and fished for the alias she reserved for special occasions.

“Marie-Pierre Lamarck,” she said, flashing the ID she’d altered from her father’s old one. “Internal Affairs.”

Marie-Pierre, according to Aimee’s computer investigations had returned from maternity leave to very part- time.

The flic studied the ID, looked up the name, then looked at her. “Eh, you could have told me,” she said, punching in numbers on the phone.

And spoil the fun? Aimee almost added.

“No one answers in Leaud’s office.”

After coming so far and going through this charade, she wasn’t going to give up now.

“Fine,” Aimee said. “I’ll leave some things for him in his office. What floor?”

“Third floor,” she said. “Take the stairs, the elevator’s broken.”

Serge’s office door, by the birdcage elevator, had CRIMINO-LOGUE taped below the DEPARTEMENT DE PHILOSOPHIE stenciled on the glass. Aimee pulled her black leather coat tighter while she waited in the frigid, damp hallway. She wondered why most institutions of learning retained the cold so well.

“Serge could be anywhere,” the harried young woman said, looking up from her microscope inside the room lit by wide skylights. She consulted a schedule from her lab coat. “They’ve got him running from lab to lab.” She threw her hands up. “All this consolidating service!”

“I’m sorry, but it’s important that I talk with him,” Aimee said, nodding in sympathy.

“We’re run off our feet, and Serge has to be in two places at once. Work grinds to a halt when that happens.”

“I’m looking for the report on the car-bomb victim,” Aimee said.

“Oh, yes, parts of an unclaimed Yvette came in,” the busy woman said. “Just bits and pieces, you understand.”

Aimee hoped the woman didn’t notice her wince.

“Try the basement. The formaldehyde smell isn’t hard to miss,” she said, peering back through the microscope. “If you see Serge, tell him he’s got a four o’clock appointment with the medecin legiste about the HP autopsy results.”

By the time Aimee took the creaking stairs to the basement, she’d realized she might as well try to find the medecin legiste herself.

Down in the chill basement, she heard the gallows-humor argot uttered by the group of medical students in the hall. She followed them and found an autopsy being performed. Inside the gray-tiled room, a bitter pine disinfectant competed with the reek of formaldehyde. The dampness mingled with the smell she remembered from when she’d identified her father’s charred remains.

The balding medecin legiste looked up, his gloved hands weighing a tan-yellow organ, huge and glistening. Below, on the enamel trough lay the pasty corpse, its chest cavity open, skin and muscles filleted back.

“Enlarged fatty liver, notice the greasy, doughy appearance,” he said, his voice clear and echoing off the tiled room, to the surrounding white-coated students. “He lived the good life.”

Snickers greeted his remark. “In more ways than one,” one of the students said.

The medecin legiste noticed Aimee and nodded.

“Bonjour. Marie-Pierre Lamarck,” she said, flashing the ID.

“The paperwork isn’t ready,” he said. “This procedure will take another hour.”

He assumed she was here for this corpse.

“Pas de probleme, but I’m picking up the report for the Yvette brought in last night.”

“We’re backed up here,” he said. “That report will be submitted shortly.”

“But the—” Aimee said.

“Scalpel,” he interrupted. A medical student handed him the diamond scalpel.

The neck vessels, she noticed, were clearly well preserved for better embalming. Care had been taken to conceal the scalp incision in his sparse hair.

Very careful job, she thought. More appropriate in a private funeral parlor for concerned relatives than in a morgue. Or maybe she was being too hard on the public morgue.

Aimee noted the expression on the corpse’s face. A lopsided grin. She wondered why.

“Some of us dream of going like this,” the medecin legiste said, noticing her gaze. “This chamber deputy had a heart attack in the arms of his mistress. During the heat of passion, we’d say. Scandal or not, he doesn’t care anymore.”

Major coitus interruptus, Aimee thought.

“Frightened the lady out of her bustier,” a student added, grinning. “It took a paramedic to untangle them.”

Aimee wasn’t keen to hear the details.

“Do you do such a good job for the Yvettes?” she asked.

The minute she’d spoken she willed the words back into her mouth. Embarrassed, she looked down. Rene often pointed out how her reactions got in the way.

Apparently they hadn’t registered, for the medecin legiste ignored her remark. The scraping and clang of stainless steel instruments echoed off the tiled walls. Aimee shifted uncomfortably in her damp heels. The formaldehyde reek, the crowding medical students, and the open dissection of the corpse’s innards made her claustrophobic. She wished he would hurry up.

“About that report?” she asked.

“I’m not finished,” said the medecin legiste, waving aside her question.

“He’s got an open-casket state funeral,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “And the family wants him, let us say, dignified.” He explored a smooth red-brown organ with the scalpel, then sniffed. “I need a resident student to weigh this spleen.”

A large-boned woman, her ponytail crushed in a hairnet, volunteered.

“Leaud’s checking the unusual results,” he said. “Et voila, then the report will be yours.”

“Unusual results, doctor—can you explain?” Aimee asked.

The organ scale’s chain creaked with the spleen’s weight as the student weighed it. Aimee pulled her coat tighter in the frosty room.

“We found traces of Duplo plastique,” he said. “Embedded in part of a leg.”

“Duplo plastique?”

“Duplo’s an English cousin of the cheaper Czech Semtex,” he said. “You’ll have to wait for the report.”