Murder in the Sentier

against night darkness, and felt the spray mist from the window cover her. Then a sharp blow struck her on the head.

And then, darkness.

Monday Evening

EX-POLICE COMMISSAIRE Marius Teynard, a snowy white-haired man in his late sixties, watched the streetlight pool in circles upon his desk blotter. Outside his window on rue de Turbigo, buses thrummed and the reflection of the spotlighted dome of the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers glinted on his window.

Sighing, he balled up the offending faxes. “Coding cowboys, throbbing e-mail, Jews for Java” … Zut alors! What kind of language was this?

In disgust, he pushed back his burgundy leather armchair and stood. Cyber crime, encrypted e-mail … they called this detecting? Things traveled through the air like so many radio waves. Through the ether. He didn’t understand the Web.

Didn’t want to.

His nephew insisted he “get up to speed.” Let his nephew handle the new computers, the intricate log-on procedures. When Teynard had been a commissaire, all he’d had to do was type. And two fingers had sufficed for police headquarters at Quai des Orfevres, as Teynard often pointed out to him. His nephew smiled. But he’d seen him rolling his eyes.

The fax machine spat out more. He groaned. Just what he needed, more cyber gibberish!

But after Marius Teynard tore off the fax, he sat down in surprise. A tingle ran down the outside of his thick arms, all the way to his fingertips. He hadn’t felt the once familiar rush in a long time. Like in the old days when his force could take care of vermin the way they should be dealt with, quickly and permanently.

How long had it been … five or six years since the last report? More? Now he remembered: It was when the Wall had crumbled and the Stasi files on the Haader-Rofmein and Action-Reaction gangs had come to light.

But now he saw that the terrorist Jules Bourdon was still alive. In Africa. Thriving.

Marius Teynard read further as the fax machine spewed out more sheets.

Correction, Marius Teynard realized. Jules Bourdon had left Africa … the embarkation reports from the Dakar airport were tallied once a week.

Teynard wanted to kick the fax machine to bits. And stomp on them. What did all this technological efficiency amount to when Jules Bourdon, that vermin, might already have been in Paris a week.

Monday Night

AIMEE CAME TO IN THE parked ambulance outside Christian Figeac’s apartment.

“Treatment for smoke inhalation, burns on the palms,” a stocky blue-suited man with a crew cut was saying at her side.

She felt something hard over her mouth and looked about her. It took her a minute to realize she was in an ambulance, inhaling oxygen. Aimee watched as the bag filled, then collapsed, as if it were breathing lungfuls of air. She remembered doing this in an ambulance before, after her father’s death in the terrorist explosion.

She tore off the mask, then clutched at her throat, unable to inhale. The pompier slipped the mask back over her mouth and nose and mimed taking several deep breaths.

“Back with us?” he said, not unkindly. “Bet you never thought being a plumber would be hazardous, eh?”

She looked down. She still wore the Plomberie Delincourt uniform.

She pulled the mask aside. “I’m fine,” she gasped, still short of breath.

“Voila, take it easy,” he said. “To dissipate the carbon monoxide, you need hi-flow oxygen.”

She let him slip the mask back on and greedily inhaled.

“That’s the way,” he said. He nodded encouragement until she’d inhaled the oxygen for a full five minutes.

“Ca va?”

She nodded and he took the mask off. Her head ached. The last thing she remembered was a whack on it from behind.

“Where’s the concierge?” she asked. The pompier, who wore a badge that read HERVE PICARD pointed across the van. The concierge, a butterfly bandage over his brow, waved at her. He chewed on a baguette sandwich.

“Hungry?”

Tightness gripped her chest, but she nodded.

“We had extras from the canteen,” the pompier said, handing her one wrapped in white waxy paper. “Just take it slow.”

“Merci,” she said. She was now able to breathe without much pain, and she was grateful for something to eat.

“We’ll watch you two tonight,” he said. “Just a precaution.”

“Not necessary,” she said, raising herself up on her elbow. Her shoulder tingled with pain and she winced. But it wasn’t dislocated. She knew the difference. It was her new tattoo, feeling as if it had been ripped raw. But she had no intention of spending the night in the hospital like the concierge. “What’s that?” she asked, looking at the graphite-colored box on the end of her finger.

“This pulsoximeter tells us your red blood cell levels,” he said, checking a ticker-tape type readout. “Your carboxy hemoglobin level was sixty-five percent. You were close to checking out. Permanently.”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Just that apartment was affected,” he said.

“Only that apartment?” She sat up more slowly, rewrapped her sandwich, and stuck it in her jacket pocket.

Her chest tightened again.

But something bothered her more. She’d been hit from behind. A big welt on her head throbbed.

“Go slow,” Herve said. “You can claim workman’s comp and disability from your union. I’ll give you some forms. Patients always forget down the road.”

She didn’t want to disregard his advice; his warm blue eyes and wide smile were sincere. But she wanted to run inside the building and check to see if there was anything left.

“Merci. But I need my bag,” she said. “And I’ve got to get home.”

Herve wrapped a blood pressure cuff around her arm, inserted a cold stethoscope against it, and pumped. “Can you tell me who you are, what day it is, where we are, and what happened?”

“Aimee Leduc, it’s Monday night in an ambulance in the Sentier, and I was trying to fix a plumbing problem inside the apartment.”

“A and O looks good,” he said. “Awake and orientee but the captain wanted to talk to you when you came round. See how you feel after that.”

She shrugged.

“Meanwhile, let’s get your address.”

Uh oh. If she admitted she was trying to gain entry to the apartment under false pretenses she’d be in trouble. Big trouble.

From outside, she heard raised voices. One was familiar. She recognized Christian Figeac.

“Of course, but I need to speak with the owner, he’s my friend.”

“Bien sur, but let’s get the paperwork out of the way,” Herve said with gentle insistence.

By the time Aimee made it out of the ambulance she’d accepted an ice pack for her head, given an address,