Murder in the Sentier

“Want the good news?” Bellan blinked back the tears. “It’s going to live!” Several of the uniformed police shifted on the cobbles, looked away. One of the officers took Bellan’s arm. Bellan shook him off, staggered toward Aimee.

Why wasn’t he with his wife, why weren’t they comforting each other?

“Please, sir, no need for you to report back to the Commissariat,” the flic said.

“Someone’s got to pay the bills,” Bellan said, raising his voice. “Work overtime. That’s me. Question this woman,” Bellan roared. He pointed to Aimee.

His voice echoed off the cobblestones.

“Tiens, Bellan,” one of the men said. “Give it a rest.”

“Right now! She’s caused all this … from the beginning.”

A window opened above them. “Keep it down,” yelled an old woman.

Aimee’s hackles rose. “What do you mean?” she asked, staring at Bellan and the group.

None of them met her gaze. Bellan spat, fumbled with a lighter, and managed to light his cigarette.

“Like father, like daughter. On the take. Dirty!”

Good thing the flics grabbed Bellan and hustled him away before her fist cracked his cheekbone.

“My father wasn’t dirty,” she said. “Never! Do I have to prove it to the whole police force?”

Maybe she did. Caillot’s article implied her father was corrupt. Only the police files would hold the truth. The files Leo Frot owed her.

“I knew your old man,” said a middle-aged flic, coming up to her. He slid his blue hat off, revealing a gray crewcut, and rubbed his forehead. “Try to ignore Bellan, eh? He’s losing it over the baby. Bellan idolized your father. It hit him hard when your father left the force.”

Startled, Aimee stepped back. “But nothing was proved. Nothing. Only a slick article with allegations … that’s all. No stain on him, he got the posthumous award when he died.”

“Some things in the department, well, the powers that be just let them slide.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nobody talks about it,” he said. “You should know the code, you’re a flic’s kid. We stand together, we don’t rat on each other. And you’re one of us.”

So that’s how they thought of her? “Let me enlighten you, I’m a private detective, not police,” she said.

“But you’re getting a lot of attention these days.”

“So elect me mayor,” she said, nervous but trying not to show it. “What do you mean?”

Several flics were walking toward them. “Lie low, it’s for your own good.” He joined the others and entered the Commissariat with them.

More confused than before, she leaned against the stonewall. Doubts assailed her. Had her mother left because she thought her husband was corrupt? Would that have spurred her to leave them?

But her father wasn’t corrupt. Aimee knew that in her bones. She felt sorry for Bellan but she also wanted to kick him.

She tried to put it out of her mind. She gazed at the salon de the nestled in the Passage Grand Cerf. But the restored wire-and-glass-roofed passage was locked for the night. She settled for a glass of red wine at the zinc bar on the corner, listening to the weather report: continued heat and humidity.

In the long cafe mirror, she reapplied Chanel red lipstick, pinched her cheeks for color, and ruffled her hair with her fingers.

In a few minutes, as Pascal Ourdours emerged from the Commissariat, she approached him from behind.

“Monsieur Ourdours, let’s go talk.”

He stiffened.

“Please, I’m not police,” she said. “How about a drink? There’s a taxi,” she said, signaling to a passing cab. “Let’s go somewhere so I can get to know you.”

“Non … I have to get my car.”

She heard the furring of his syllables. Still scared, she thought. So shaken he couldn’t hide the traces of an accent. In the flickering streetlight, she saw his hunted expression.

He gave off the smell of fear.

“Nearby, there’s a quiet cafe,” she said. “We’ll converse and then you can leave. I promise … a quick drink, eh? You look like you could use one. I know I could.”

He took a step, then paused. Uncertain.

“Come on,” she said, fanning herself with her hand, “the humidity hasn’t let up. I’m thirsty and I prefer not to drink alone.”

She sensed that a bit of his wariness had dissipated.

“I work nearby,” she said, thinking fast to make the event nonthreatening. “There’s a lovely old tearoom—on Thursday nights they have a small late-night gallery opening. Let’s try it.”

“Since you put it that way,” he said, “why not?” He looked surprised but kept walking. She sensed he wanted to talk. She steered him toward Ventilo, the clothes shop with an elegant salon de the in a pie-wedge-shaped Haussmann building. Two narrow streets flanked the several-storied building, whose voluted iron balconies were filled with geraniums. Conversation and the tinkle of glasses came from the lighted third-floor windows.

He paused. Hesitated. His brow furrowed.

Before them, a couple, arms twined around each other, came down the stairs laughing and headed into the night.

Aimee pointed to the exhibition sign. “Super!” she grinned. “I’ve been dying to see this exhibition. Old black- and-white photos of Paris at night.”

She noticed he watched her lips.

“And the good thing is, we don’t have to buy art to get a drink.”

His brow unfurrowed. “After you,” he said.

Inside the high-ceilinged Art Deco tearoom people holding drinks clustered around photos. He and Aimee took the glasses of white wine offered them, and dutifully looked at the photos.

“Mind if we sit down?” she said, as soon as it seemed sufficiently polite to do so. They sat on a bench by arched windows overlooking the narrow street.

His tense shoulders relaxed as she discussed the photos. Slowly, she began to feed in questions. “Do I remind you of someone, Pascal?” she asked, putting her face closer to his. “From the way you looked at me, I wondered.”

“I used to know a woman,” he said. “Long ago. She looked like you.”

He’d used the past tense. Her hope wavered.

“What was she like?”

He opened his mouth. Then closed it. “Twenty years is a long time. I just was shaken because the resemblance is strong.”

“True. Life can take bizarre turns,” Aimee said. “My mother left when I was eight. Apparently she joined some radical leftists … who knows?” Aimee let her words dangle.

“How old are you?”

She told him.

He leaned forward, tapped his right ear. “Bad ear, speak in this one.”

“My mother was American, perhaps you ran across her.”

It had become less strange to say “my mother.”

He shook his head, looking down at the old floor tiles, but not before she’d seen his eyes flicker in recognition.

She remembered the Fresnes envelope with B. de Chambly on it that Jutta had shown her. “Sydney Leduc was her name but I think she used another one, starting with B.”

She couldn’t read his expression. He kept his head down.

The man knew something. She took a big sip of wine, praying that he’d open up.

“Those were pretty heady times in seventies Paris from what I hear,” she said, aiming for his good ear. “Lots