Murder in the Sentier

His actress wife winked when they left, implying she could handle her husband and the safe deposit box. But en route, when Jutta told Figeac about the cache in his son’s toy chest, he pulled over and pounded the steering wheel.

“If my wife acts crazy, that’s one thing,” he said. “Don’t involve my son.”

“Look, we’ve laid our life on the line for the Revolution,” Jutta said. “Struck a blow for the proletariat against a scumbag Nazi collaborator who’s stealing diamonds from our African brothers.”

Stefan had never heard Jutta so political, so impassioned, or so drunk.

“The cause needs your help to continue!”

Later on, when Romain Figeac found out his wife was pregnant by one of them, Jules Bourdon, he cooperated.

But Stefan knew it was with hate in his heart. And, after his wife’s suicide over the miscarriage, with revenge in his mind.

For the first five years, Stefan hid deep underground, moving all the time. He was terrified. But for the past fifteen years, he’d dipped into the coffin modestly, always leaving a pile of cash for Jutta or Liane or Beate. The wads of bonds had never varied, until now. Now they were all gone.

Friday Afternoon

SHOCKED AT FINALLY SEEING Idrissa, Aimee caught herself before she tripped. She surveyed the girl through the fringed palm leaves. Upon closer scrutiny, she saw that Idrissa wore a colorful African head scarf while, with quick strokes, she plucked the long-handled kora.

At least some luck shone on Aimee. Idrissa sat in the rear, behind a palm-leaf screen, adjusting a microphone and small amplifier. She wouldn’t be going anywhere for awhile. Aimee slid in beside her.

“No more avoiding me, Idrissa,” she said. “We’re going to talk. I just helped Khalifa identify Ousmane at the morgue.”

Fear registered in the girl’s eyes. A wide gulf of panic.

“You were the target, not Ousmane, weren’t you?”

“Not now, we can’t talk now,” Idrissa whispered.

“What was Romain Figeac working on? I must know.”

Idrissa gasped, “He was crazy. I didn’t understand what he wrote.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” Aimee pressed her face close to Idrissa’s. “You’re in danger, so am I.”

Michel beckoned her frantically, pointing to a shimmering outfit. Frustrated, she wanted to handcuff Idrissa to the Doric column or eighteenth-century harpsichord behind her. Keep her here.

“Please, you must wait for me, Idrissa!”

Idrissa nodded.

If the girl fled again, she’d hunt her down with wolfhounds this time.

Aimee stepped into an urban chic black silk tunic decorated with embroidered white lilies and antique Lanvin buttons. The chalky face powder of the Goth designer and a cloying perfume made her sneeze.

Michel looked up in horror. “Don’t sneeze again.”

She pinched her nose. “I’ll try not to. Any orders, Michel?”

His head bobbed, his hands and mouth too busy with pins and stitching her into the gown.

“You have a new career, Aimee,” Rene grinned. “But if you’re serious you have to stop eating and start smoking again.”

Not a bad idea, she thought. Did chocolate count?

She kept her eye on Idrissa as she catwalked. The rollerblader seemed busy with clients, and she was glad for Michel.

Her last outfit was a miniskirt of fine silver metal mesh, reminiscent of a knight’s chain mail, along with an off-the-shoulder gauze lace top. Michel draped the lace around her lizard tattoo.

“Parfait!” said the Goth designer, admiring her back. “The Marquesan lizard symbolizes change … the perfect accessory.”

Was her life going to change, Aimee wondered, as she cat-walked past the palm screen.

Annika, Michel’s premier model, had revived and now appeared in his variation of the traditional last outfit, the wedding gown. An off-white creation of pearlescent beads embroidered an old-fashioned lace twenties style tunic with a train of tiny ivory ostrich feathers draping down her back. Michel’s low bow met with resounding applause.

Aimee gestured to Idrissa, indicating a mirrored corridor outside the salon’s door.

“Let’s finish our conversation.”

Idrissa’s eyes were large with panic, but she set the kora in its case and stood up.

“Out here, away from the crowd,” she said.

After the hot lights and buzz of the collection, Aimee welcomed the stale air and creaking wood floor. She leaned against the wall, about the same height as Idrissa, in the crocodile pumps. Their reflections, Idrissa in her bright African head scarf and Aimee in the chain-metal-mesh mini, kaleidoscoped in the grainy half-silvered mirrors.

“Talk to me, Idrissa, tell me why you’re in danger. I won’t hurt you.”

Idrissa’s eyes filled with tears. “You killed Ousmane!”

Aimee blinked in surprise. “What gives you that idea?”

“Because you wouldn’t stop looking for me,” Idrissa said.

Talk about guilt transference. “Listen, Idrissa, Christian hired me to find out about the ‘ghosts,’ but I discovered that his father didn’t commit suicide,” Aimee said, with effort keeping her voice patient. “His father was killed. You’d worked with Romain but you wouldn’t talk with me. You ran away. I tried to call you but I couldn’t find you. Then I went to Club Exe. No one had seen you. And in the square beyond, a titi kicked a soccer ball into a garbage bag by mistake and there was poor Ousmane.”

Aimee looked down. The image welled up again, the ebony skin and dried blood on his neck.

“Ousmane was superstitious,” Idrissa said. “He listened to the marabout.”

From the salon, Aimee heard Michel’s laughter. Voices congratulating him.

“Tiens, did something happen in Senegal? Something to do with Romain Figeac and terrorists?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Idrissa said, but her involuntary shudder gave her away.

“You’re a bad liar, Idrissa,” Aimee said. “I should know, I’m a good one.”

Idrissa scanned the mirrored corridor. Her lips worked but no sound came out.

“Of course, you’re scared,” Aimee said. “Stay at my place, I’ll help you. Please trust me.”

“My father’s a doctor in Dakar.” She motioned Aimee to move farther down the corridor, away from the voices. “He treated Monsieur Figeac when they summered there.” The words came slowly, as if she weighed each one. “I knew he was moody, obsessive. He asked me to help him. His memoirs, he said. But he would ask me to go to the market and the docks with him, to translate the gossip in Wolof. He was looking for someone, I knew, but he never told me straight. Some Frenchman.”

She took a deep breath. Then another. “When I transferred here to the Sorbonne, my music wasn’t enough. I needed more work. So Monsieur Figeac hired me to transcribe his memoirs. He’d written most of it, you see, in longhand. With Waterman’s sea blue ink. Like always. The last part he’d spoken on tape. I hadn’t yet finished everything.”

Aimee thought back to the classic red Olivetti on his desk.

“But he had a typewriter.”

“Never used it.”

“Why?”

“It was some famous writer’s—Hemingway’s, I think. The story I heard was that he’d found it at an auction, called it his good-luck charm,” Idrissa said. “But he wouldn’t have the audacity to use it, he said. And he hated