Murder in the Bastille

“Sorry.”

“Now we can trace the dead woman’s calls!”

“He must have been in a hurry when he found out,” said Rene.

“Found out what?”

“That he’d got the wrong woman,” he said.

That was what Morbier had said. But this would be almost too easy— they’d just check the last call and find the killer’s number!

“I know what you’re thinking, Aimee,” said Rene. “But when I press call back, the last number received comes up invalid.”

“Invalid? Try again.”

She heard Rene take a deep breath. “She’s got the cheap version, no such features offered. No real features at all.”

“So that means we can’t trace who called her,” she said, disappointed.

A dead end?

Then she brightened up. “But Rene, it must have speed dial, non? Don’t they all have that?”

Silence.

“Are you nodding yes?”

“I see three numbers listed.”

“Parfait, we trace her phone’s speed dial numbers,” she said.

“Seems the attacker’s not too smart if his number’s on the phone.”

“You’re right,” she said.

Could he be that careless?

“We have to check, Rene. We have to find her name, the phone number of this phone, then who she called.”

“It’s easy to buy a prepaid in a store without security cameras,” said Rene. “She could have paid cash and bought airtime without leaving a trace. But why would she do that?”

Aimee thought of the burgeoning cheap second phone business for people who’d lost theirs. “Say the woman lost hers a lot. What if she wanted a cheap phone for work,” she said. “Like I did until I got this one. Still, everyone has to show ID to activate a phone.”

“Show ID?” asked Rene. “Now that makes it simple.”

“How?”

“My RAM’s revved up. I crack into a few databanks,” he said. “Run a program to check lists of purchases of cell phones by cash or charge. Takes about twenty minutes.”

He was a master of his metier.

“You’re a genius, Rene!”

Aimee briefly struggled with the idea of calling Morbier to tell him her bag had been found. But first she needed to find out the victim’s identity. Find out if she was the woman from the resto.

She had to make sure. Get concrete proof.

“Try 12 on my phone.”

Rene dialed and thrust it into her hand.

“Allo?” said Martine, her voice low and out of breath.

“Martine, don’t tell me you’re exercising?”

“Feels like it,” she said. “Climbing in heels on this spiral metal staircase seems like my own personal Stair- master hell.”

“Where are you?”

“About to meet Vincent for Diva’s cocktail preview, our biggest night. Cherie, you were invited, too. Aren’t you coming?”

Of course, with everything that had happened, she’d forgotten.

“Alas, no. I’m in l’hopital des Quinze-Vingts.”

“Visiting someone sick?” She heard Martine’s sharp intake of breath. “Ca va?”

“You could say that.”

“What’s wrong?”

Should she tell her best friend? On her biggest night? Ruin it for her? Not now, not when Martine was about to launch her new venture. She could tell her tomorrow.

“I’d feel better if you persuade Vincent to turn over his hard-drive,” she said. “Besides, how could I come, I’ve got nothing to wear.”

“All you think about is work, Aimee,” she said. “Can’t this wait until . . .”

“Please Martine, la Procuratrice will subpoena Vincent’s firm.”

“For what? He’s not guilty. It’s the salopes he did business with!”

“So tell him to cooperate, Martine.”

Again, doubt assailed her about Vincent. An unease floated over her.

Aimee heard a low hum of conversation, strains of a chamber orchestra in the background. She visualized the fashionable crowd, smelled the wax dripping from the candles and tasted the bubbling champagne. And it came home to her that she was talking to her best friend since the lycee, as she’d done so many times, but it felt different. Like she was speaking in a vacuum.

“Aimee, right now, it’s impossible . . . tiens, there’s Catherine Deneuve . . .”

Aimee heard the smack of lips near cheeks as bisous were exchanged. In the background she overheard part of a conversation, “. . . she’s chic, she’s fierce and there’s something fresh about her. A Belle de Jour punk.”

“Big night here,” Martine said.

The background conversation continued, “. . . a facility for accents and for sliding up and down the social scale to play classy or crass, posh or punk. A little glam. A little raw.”

“If Vincent doesn’t act voluntarily,” Aimee said, raising her voice, “that makes him look bad.”

“I’ll try, got to go,” she said, and hung up.

“What did Martine say?”

“Besides gushing over Deneuve? She’s rushing to interview fashionistas, do profiles on glamour queens not afraid to get dirt under their fingernails, get sidebar tidbits on hot new authors. If only I could see or . . .”

She reached for his hand and found his arm.

“Rene, remember the article we read in the Japanese software magazine about technology for the blind?”

Silence. She heard Rene take a deep breath. “You mean the screen reader software that converts text into speech?”

“Exactly,” she said. “And the speech recognition software that converts speech into text for the laptop?”

“We make a deal,” he said. “You let me help find who attacked you, and I’ll get you these software programs. Even if I have go to Japan to do it.”

“Deal.”

But Rene didn’t have to go that far. A few phone calls and he found several programs via a hacker friend in the Sentier.

“He’s leaving,” said Rene. “If I don’t go now, I won’t get it installed . . .”

“But first I have to make sure the victim was the woman in the resto,” she interrupted, “and check the speed dial numbers on this woman’s phone.”

“There’s time for that,” Rene said. “The Judiciare problem can’t wait and I need your help.”

And with that, Rene left.

She must have drifted off. Aimee heard the metal rings on the top of the curtain beside her slide across the rod. Footsteps hurried across the linoleum.

“Mademoiselle Leduc, we’re evacuating the ward,” said the nurse from Burgundy, the nice one. She broke Aimee’s reverie of a gloom-filled future: her apartment sold to pay debts, creditors hounding Rene at Leduc Detective.