Murder in the Sentier

barrier.

Inside, an incandescent work light, yellow cable and wire trailing from it, illuminated a stone floor. An arc welder, and forklifts were parked by a cordoned-off ventilation duct. Several holes in the floor were taped over and crossed by rebar scraps she’d barely noticed last time. Frigid air rose from the subterranean depths. She pulled the red leather jacket tighter over her cat suit and headed to the stone stairs. The smell of old stone and powdered plaster filled the stairwell. The stair treads were piled with big suction disks, the kind used by glaziers to move glass.

She pulled Etienne’s .357 from her backpack and followed the scraping noise down the steps. Rusty-colored rebar of all different lengths poked out of the cement walls on the next floor. A gaping hole in the wall revealed a dimly lit tunnel. The scraping was louder now. She entered the curved, packed-earth tunnel.

Several bare bulbs lit the scene before her. Stacks of thick glass panes braced by a single two-by-four lined the vaulted stone walls. Ahead lay what looked like part of an abandoned Metro platform with an old cement control booth.

Suddenly, a deafening roar shook the walls. With the smell of burning rubber, a lighted train hurtled past. She jumped back as the squealing of brakes made her cover her ears. And that’s when she saw Stefan, chipping with a shovel at the tiled wall.

A hand grabbed the .357 from her, pushed her face to the cold tile, held it there.

“Nice of you to return this,” said Jules, Etienne’s uncle, gripping her arms and putting the barrel to her temple. The smell of cigars clung to him. “Your mother was thoughtful, too.”

“Showing off your mercenary technique?” Aimee asked, gritting her teeth, disgusted to think she’d found him mildly attractive when she’d met him in the Bourse. And then she’d slept with his nephew. The stupid things I do, she thought.

“Is my mother here?”

“You miss her, don’t you?” Jules asked, pushing her toward Stefan. He felt in her pocket and took the Beretta. Gisela’s Beretta.

Jules held both guns now.

Not only stupid, dead stupid.

Stefan’s knuckles on the shovel handle were bleeding. He looked tired and beaten. “Aimee, why didn’t you back off?” he asked.

Cold air rose from the dense earth. Crumpled Beghin Say sugar wrappers littered the cracked concrete. She thought back to the sugar spilled on her counter. A sweet tooth. “You broke into my apartment, but didn’t find anything,” she said.

Aimee looked at the curved arches, the platform, the small control booth, and saw how the lines intersected.

“If my mother was here with you, you’d know where to look for the diamonds,” Aimee said. “She switched them on Jutta, didn’t she?”

Aimee went on, not waiting for Jules to reply.

“But I know where they are now. You sent me the map.”

Jules grinned. “So enlighten me.”

“First, tell me where she is.”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have waited twenty years to come back,” he said.

“That’s not why … Romain Figeac lured you to Paris. He spread word in Dakar that he’d found you. That he’d expose you.”

It was a good guess. Jules slapped her head, so hard she fell against a steel drum. Her whole body stung.

“Why do you think the diamonds are still here?” Aimee asked, gasping. “Wouldn’t she have taken them long since?”

“Your mother cut a deal with the flics and turned our group in,” Jules said. “Stefan and I got away. But when she got out of Fresnes, word was she never made it back here.”

Jules’s eyes shone with a calculating coldness.

“You’re digging in the wrong place,” she said, pointing to the area next to where the glass was stacked by the rusted metal lockers.

“Prove it,” Jules said.

“Look in my backpack.”

“Empty it, Stefan,” Jules said, kicking Aimee against the tile wall. Jules pulled out the notebook. “Show me.”

She turned the page to the one showing Emil and the platforms.

“See, the vaultlike lines are the same,” she said. “And there’s the treasure chest she drew. See what looks like an arrow? But it’s pointing the other way.”

Jules pushed her forward and threw down a pickax at her feet.

“Get to work,” he said. He’d started the small cement mixer, which made a grinding noise.

And with horror she realized that Jules would make them do the dirty work, then take the diamonds and cement their bodies into some hole.

“After twenty years, do you think there are any diamonds left? It’s crazy,” she said.

“Tell her, Stefan,” Jules said. He swatted Stefan with the gun.

“She told me … on the way to the safe house,” Stefan said, his voice rasping. “We thought the flics were following us from the cemetery. There was a traffic jam, and all this Metro construction. Jutta and Beate jumped out of the car and hid the diamonds here, buried, by the tower, in the wall. They were going to come back and move them. But then there was a shootout.”

“Why didn’t they hide them in the coffin, too?” Aimee asked.

Stefan shook his head. “At the cemetery, Jana convinced them she had a connection who could fence the diamonds. So only the bonds were hidden there. Those were enough for me. But Jutta became greedy.

“After the shoot-out your mother was scared. I figure that she must have moved the diamonds. Jutta spent twenty years, plotting to find them when she got out of prison. When she saw the construction, she figured you would know where your mother had moved them.”

Aimee’s pickax hit something hard. And when the hole gaped open, she saw the metal box.

“You left the death fetish, the yellow feathers, to scare Idrissa, didn’t you?” said Aimee.

“I learned a few things living in Senegal,” Jules said.

“Etienne cultivated Christian … became his broker,” she said. “But why?”

“Etienne’s a good boy, my sister’s boy,” Jules grinned. “Smart. He sent me a new passport, has a deal for the diamonds already in place.”

“Too bad he won’t be joining us.”

She took another swing and this time, the pick made a dull thud.

“Why?” Jules’s eyes narrowed.

She wanted to stall him. “I tied him up,” she said.

Jules turned and shot Stefan in the shoulder. He cried out and fell down.

“Pull the box out slowly,” Jules ordered her.

She wedged it back and forth, easing it out of the hole, but it felt light.

He’d shoot her next.

Jules shot the lock off, stooped, and opened the box.

Empty.

Aimee rammed Jules with her shoulder and dove to the dirt. Her leg hit the two-by-four and it came loose. She scrabbled up on her elbows and tried to get behind the stack of thick three-meter-high panes of glass. Each must weigh several hundred kilos, she figured. They’d deflect the bullets.

But the stack of glass wobbled. One pane tipped and fell on top of Jules with a loud, shuddering thud.

“Get this off … me!” Jules gasped. The glass glinted, pinning him on his stomach in the dirt. He was caught under the glass up to his shoulders. Short of breath, he waved his arms. “Help!” And then the next glass sheet teetered and fell with a jarring crash. His chest was being compressed as the sheets of glass, like shimmering dominoes, fell on top of him, making the earth and the stacks of metal lockers jump.