Murder in Belleville

National Fichier in Nantes hasn’t ID’d her, either.”

She shook her head, unable to figure it out. The Fichier, known for quick response time, held all kinds of information: drivers’ license number, carte bancaire, and carte rationale d’identite among others.

“What’s next?” Rene asked.

“Why don’t you try to access Sylvie Coudray’s Securite sociale and Eugenie Grandet’s—if she exists—while you’re at it.”

“You mean the name ‘Eugenie,’ the alias she used?”

“So far that’s the only thing I have to go on,” she said. “But we need proof.”

“I used to have a friend in Nantes,” Rene said. “Let me see if she’s still there.” He made a face. “Saves me much more time if you’ve got the woman’s carte bancaire.” His eyes gleamed. “I could hack the chip on her card and get into her account.”

“Wish I did,” she said.

“Tiens, Aimie, I prefer that to the 128-bit encryption system at Banque de France.”

“I’m impressed, Rene,” she said, letting out a low whistle.

“Banque de France is a royal pain to maneuver!” he said. “I haven’t cracked all their encryptions yet.” He spread his arms from the edge of her desk indicating as far as the wall. “Only about that long. But take away the best years of my life and I will.”

“Save your brain for the important stuff, Rene,” she said. “Like our rent!”

“Bien sur, but I’ll stop at your apartment for some software. If I get hold of my friend, I might be able to navigate the Fichier in Nantes,” Rene said. “Besides, I’ve got a bag of bones for Miles Davis.”

“You’re just trying to get on Miles Davis’s good side,” she said.

“Check out the Duplo,” Rene said. He scanned the fax. “Interesting explosive to use.”

She’d wondered about that, too.

“Why use Duplo?” Aimee asked.

“Instead of the more easily available Eastern-bloc explosive, Semtex? Good question.” Rene replied. “Word is the fundamentalists like Semtex.”

Aimee’s eyes widened at Renews knowledge.

“Have the flics blamed it on the fundamentalists yet?” she said. “That’s standard procedure.” Every time there was a bombing, the media referred to it as an Arabe incident in the same breath. The inherent racism made her sick.

She walked to their oval window overlooking rue du Louvre, giving herself time to think. The truth could lie somewhere in between. If the fundamentalists wanted to kill Anais, a minister’s wife, they’d botched the job. But why? The victim hadn’t been identified, Anais’s name hadn’t been mentioned, and no group had claimed credit.

“Let’s say the fundamentalists want no connection to this,” she said, “or they have no connection.”

“Life is full of possibilities,” Rene said. “But I’d say the latter. Mafioso-types and the criminal element use commercial stuff like Duplo.”

“Look here,” Aimee said, pointing at the last paragraph in the report. “Traces of a circuit board found indicate it was Swiss-made—an electronic switch manufactured in Bern. They meant business.”

“The timing feels off, Aimee,” Rene said, cocking his head sideways. “I thought you left Gaston’s cafe around seven-fifteen, which gave you time to walk there, try the door, go up the street, and then return to number 20 bis.” He paused and pointed to the report. “According to this the explosion occurred at eight o’clock. First on the scene were the pompiers, then a SAMU at eight-twenty followed by the bomb squad, which arrived at eight thirty-five. The bomb squad did its documentation and recovery; then the chemical analyses began two hours later.”

“Attends, Rene,” Aimee said. She grabbed a black marker, taped a sheet of newsprint to the wall, jotted down 7:15, then drew a thick arrow.

“Go on,” she said.

“Didn’t you say that when the flics came you hopped like a bunny over the wall?” Rene asked.

The grunting, heaving lunge of a sea lion seemed a more apt description. But she kept that to herself.

“Well, I heard sirens and they said, ‘Open up!’ ” She stopped writing, her marker held in midair. As she and Anais pulled into rue Sainte-Marthe, she remembered seeing a SAMU van and thinking how quickly someone had called the ambulance. It would have been 8:10 at the latest.

“According to this report,” Rene said, “a tenant, Jules Denet, one street over, said that after the explosion he heard suspicious noises in the courtyard.

Rene punched the paper with his stubby fingers.

She thought back to the SAMU, then nodded. “Then there were two SAMU vans,” she said. “The other one came at eight-twenty.”

“It’s pretty coincidental that another SAMU van would respond but not be listed on the report or log in with the other SAMU crew. So if it wasn’t emergency or the flics—who was it?” Rene asked.

Aimee tacked the fax next to the timeline. Stared at it. Not only were the times off, but something didn’t add up. She stood back and opened the oval office window, letting in dull light and diesel fumes from rue du Louvre. She paced to the door, flicked on the office light, then paced back to her desk.

“Follow this logic, Rene,” she said. “Say whoever planted the bomb hung nearby to activate it or make sure the thing went off. I remember hearing some Arabe music just before the bomb exploded. Maybe they planned on blowing up Anais too—are you with me here?”

“Go on,” he said.

“What if they used a SAMU van as a fake, maybe parked nearby to set off the bomb,” she said. “Or they wanted what Sylvie gave Anais and figured on grabbing Anais.”

“But you disturbed the scenario?” Rene interrupted excitedly.

“Exactly,” she said. She closed the window and faced Rene

“I think what the neighbor Denet heard was Anais and me. I wonder if he saw something more than that?”

Rene nodded.

“I better go find out.”

Wednesday

AT DAWN, UNDER ORDERS from the Paris prefect, uniformed police swept Notre-Dame de la Croix. They took Mustafa Hamid and the other nine hunger strikers to waiting SAMU vans, which carted them to nearby hospitals.

The prefect issued a statement saying that the raid had been ordered for humanitarian reasons after he’d heard alarming reports about the health of the hunger strikers from doctors attending them at the church. However, the acting director of Paris emergency medical services said the hunger strikers had been taking tea and water with sugar and vitamins.

“We were not consulted about evacuating them,” said a doctor who preferred to remain nameless. “The low ketone level tested in their urine was not considered life threatening, but characteristic for the body’s acid balance at such a stage.”

By afternoon no one had left the church. Seven of the hunger strikers had signed themselves out of the hospital. They returned to the church to applause from the others who’d vowed to take up the hunger strike in their place. Mustafa Hamid was among them.