Murder in the Sentier

Michel often boasted he was the only albino Jew in Paris. Maybe that was why his family gave him free rein rather than insisting on his working in the wholesale clothing business.

He and her partner, Rene, a dwarf and a computer genius, had formed an unholy alliance at the Sorbonne, the albino and the dwarf, or “the freak brothers,” as some had called them.

“What do you need?”

Before she could answer, he leaned back on the sawhorse. “Stop me if I’ve told you this one,” he said, grinning. “Ecoute, here in the Sentier, a wholesaler pays for his child’s studies. First, the son spends three years in law. Then he studies business for three years at the fancy Hautes Etudes Commerciales. After that he obtains an M.B.A. from Harvard. Then he wants to study Japanese. But the father says, ‘Listen, my boy. I paid all those years for your studies, but God says you finally have to choose your career: either clothing for men or clothing for women.’”

Michel slapped his thighs and roared. Aimee returned a thin smile as she checked the terminal ports on a nearby computer.

“Just like my uncle Nessim!” said Michel. “Too cheap to fix this place up but he lets me use it. I design upstairs. They figure they’ll make money on me. If my designs never sell, his brilliant son says he can claim it as a tax write-off, a property value loss!”

Michel had placed high in the Concours de Haute Couture, the prestigious fashion competition organized by the Ministry of Culture. His talent hadn’t gone unnoticed. He’d turned down an offer from a couture house in order to be his own boss.

“The ministry’s sponsoring our couture showing in the Palais Royal,” he said. “And my uncle’s fronting the money but I need you and Rene to help me with my computer system.”

“Michel, I doubt that there’s any juice for the cables and fiber optic hookups,” Aimee said, gesturing to the dusty fuse box.

“Pas grave,” he said. “With the Bourse nearby and Reuters news service in the hotel particulier across the street, we’ve got plenty of available power.”

But what about the rats who might gnaw through the cables, Aimee thought.

“Michel, about that favor …”

“I call it couture contre couture, couture in reverse,” he said. “Rollerblading assistants, with laptops strapped to their chests, accompany the models to the clients and take orders and measurements. We do it all at once.”

So that’s why he needed the computers.

“Michel, I need to borrow fifty thousand francs.”

But she spoke to Michel’s denim-covered hindquarters. He was on his knees digging for a power source.

She got down on her knees and pulled Michel’s arm.

“I need a personal loan. I’ll pay you back.”

Michel waved his pale arm. “OK, but better to funnel it through the business.”

“What do you mean?”

“My uncle’s company finances us.”

“I thought your Siliconsentier friends helped you.”

“My uncle made me a better offer.” He grinned. “We could really use your expertise.”

An alarm bell sounded in her head. The Sentier was notorious for under-the-table, cash-only deals. No receipts, a little payoff here and there. Voila! No taxes. Was it wise for Leduc Detective to get involved with a project based on dodgy money? Did they have a choice?

“Let me discuss this with Rene,” she said. “But I’m in a jam, Michel, I need fifty thousand francs right now.”

“Tiens, come upstairs,” Michel said. He’d crawled to the end of the room, where a scrollwork metal sconce hung above him by a frayed cord.

She followed him up the wide marble stairs, with deep grooves worn in the center. The banister snaked, coiling tighter as they mounted, like a serpent about to strike upward.

On the black-and-white-tiled landing, several bicycles leaned against the ornate wrought-iron railing of vine tendrils twined with grape clusters.

Aimee’s cell phone rang. “Ready to offer me a drink yet?” said Jutta Hald in a dry voice.

Aimee’s heart hammered. She didn’t have the money yet.

“Paris is full of cafes, Jutta,” she said. “There’s probably one in front of you right now. I’m trying to get the money.”

In the background, Aimee heard the hee-haw of a siren.

“There’s something you should know about your mother …” The rest of Jutta Hald’s words were swallowed by the blare of sirens.

“What should I know?” Aimee shouted.

When the noise receded, “… Tour Jean-Sans-Peur in twenty minutes” was all she heard.

“You know where she is?”

Pause. Aimee heard Jutta Hald draw in a deep breath.

“Twenty minutes. Bring the money,” Jutta Hald said.

“But I must know … ,” Aimee said.

But Jutta Hald had hung up.

This was the first chance in years to find out about her mother! Despite her misgivings, she decided to talk with Rene and, clutching Michel’s check made out for fifty thousand francs, she shouldered her backpack.

Out on the narrow street, pangs of longing hit her. For years, deep down, she’d feared her mother was dead. Yet she couldn’t ignore the tissue-thin shred of hope Jutta Hald offered, at a price.

She cashed the check at Banque Nationale de Paris on the corner. As she turned into the Montorgueil, the tiled pedestrian walkway lined with upscale boucheries, more memories of her mother, with a pencil tucked behind her ear, floated back to her.

She was always drawing, scribbling on anything—brasserie paper napkins, envelopes, the gas meter rate book. All of it had been burned by her father, except for the cardboard box from her fric-frac bicycle lock that had been bordered with doodles by her mother. Aimee had ceased using the awkward lock, insisted on by her father, after her training wheels came off.

Aimee passed a shoe shop and small parfumerie before she reached the fifteenth- century tower abutting what once was part of the old wall of Paris. Medieval dwellers had thrown garbage over the walls. After the population doubled, the next king constructed a new rampart and the centuries-old refuse was paved over. The ground rose higher and higher, hence the hills and buckling streets of the Sentier.

The tower, a four-story narrow rectangle of butterscotch stone with a tiled turreted roof, had been partially restored. She remembered it from a field trip in grade school. Some duke or marquis once hid there. There were so many, she got them mixed up.

The iron grillwork gate scraped as she opened it. Before her stood a leafy plane tree in the fenced stone courtyard sheltered from the busy street. Shadows from the leaves filigreed the stones. Late afternoon quiet hung in the air. On her right, an L-shaped ecole maternelle faced the tower.

No students. No Jutta Hald. Only darkening rain clouds and a crackle of hot wind.

According to the sign, tower tours were suspended until further restoration. “Welcome to the only remaining fortified feudal tower surviving in Paris,” read the inscription. “Here, Jean-Sans-Peur, the Duc de Bourgogne, built a refuge following his assassination of Louis d’Orleans in the Hundred Years’ War.”

Tools, sandblasting equipment, and a small cement mixer sat under the tree. Work, she figured, had ended for the day.

Aimee cursed under her breath when her shoe caught between the stones. She turned it sideways. The heel of her Prada sandal, a flea-market find, emerged scratched and covered with grit. She scraped it over the iron decrottoir sunk in the stones. Mud-filled streets had been a part of medieval life.

Inside the tower, rays of light slanted in from windows and doors. So many windows. It seemed odd for a medieval structure built for defense, nestled against the old fortified wall. On her right stood a pile of rebar scraps.

Still no Jutta. She mounted the spiral staircase.