AL05 - Murder in Clichy

Sophie, who’d passed out again in the taxi, blinked, barely conscious. Aimee poured her a glass of water and helped her to sit up and, painfully, drink it.

“Sophie, did you see who attacked you?”

“Where am I?” She rubbed her eyes, sniffed. “Smells like the warehouse.”

Morbier’s housekeeping skills left a lot to be desired, but a warehouse? Then Sophie stiffened.

“I was tied up, hung from. . . .” She stiffened. “You’re kidnapping me!”

“I found you and helped free you,” Aimee said. “This man’s my godfather, he’s a Commissaire de Police. Show her your badge, Morbier.”

“A votre service, mademoiselle, you’re safe here.” He winked, finding his wallet and opening it to show his ID.

“Poor Thadee.” Sophie burst into tears, her shoulders heaving.

“Listen to me, Sophie, someone on a motorcycle shot him, then came after me,” Aimee said, leaning closer. “I pulled him into the phone cabinet, where he died in my arms.”

“We were divorced,” Sophie said, wiping her blue eyes with her sleeve. “But we remained friends. I became his partner at the gallery. We were always better at that anyway.”

Sophie’s eyes were pools of hurt. Did she still love Thadee?

“Can you remember what happened?” Morbier asked.

Sophie blinked several times. “They took me to the morgue to see Thadee’s body this morning. It was horrible,” she said, her wide eyes filling with tears again. Her light brown hair was matted to her cheeks.

“Did you talk to him before he was shot, Sophie?”

“I only arrived from London this morning to prepare for the exhibition,” she said, rubbing her head.

“But you must have talked, non? ”

“He hadn’t even hung all the artwork for the show!”

“Sophie, did he speak about jade?”

She shook her head and winced. “The only time I saw him was in the morgue.” Tears rolled down her cheeks. “Tonight, after I checked the gallery for the shipment, I turned the light off in the bathroom. Someone grabbed me. Next thing I knew, I was hanging from the overhead water tank.”

“Shall I call a doctor? ”

“Give me a Doliprane, eh? Let me sleep.”

Aimee reached into her pocket for the aspirin packet she carried. “Here. Do you know who Thadee owed money to? Had he mentioned—?”

“Merde . . . aches like a. . . .” Sophie swallowed the pill, leaned back, her eyes closing. “Une catastrophe. The gallery exhibition’s supposed to be hung, but nothing. . . .”

“I think he wanted me to give you something. A check?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sophie said, pulling her stained silk blouse around her. “A check for what?”

“Do you know how he came into possession of . . . ?

Sophie yawned. “I don’t know what you’re going on about.” She curled up on her side and within a minute she was snoring.

Morbier shook his head. “I can’t take care of her, Leduc,” he said. “I work, remember. And this trouble’s not my business. My retirement’s around the corner.”

“You always say that,” she said. He was the busiest commis-saire on the verge of retirement she knew.

He shrugged and motioned her to a dark wood table by his window overlooking a dilapidated ironmonger’s courtyard in the Bastille district. The dark building’s corners were burnished by the moonlight.

“Marc’s staying with me this weekend,” Morbier said. “I don’t have room for her.”

His grandson Marc stayed with him more and more despite his Algerian grandparents’ frequent requests for visitation rights. They kept insisting Morbier’s choice of a Catholic boarding school was no proper education for a good Muslim.

She pulled out a bottle of vin du Vaucluse from her bag, shoved a dirty plate aside, and reached for wine glasses above his cracked porcelain sink.

She needed a drink. He looked like he needed one, too.

“Open this and I’ll tell you about it,” she said, giving him no choice.

“You know how long it takes to get old, Leduc?” he said, pulling out the cork and pouring. “Like this . . . pfft. Overnight. You wake up and . . .”

“Sante,” she said, clinking her glass against his.

She felt Morbier’s eyes on her. Studying her like the RG had.

“How do you know Rene’s been kidnapped, Leduc?”

She looked at her watch. “Morbier, it’s six hours since their phone call and I’m no closer to finding what they want.” She took a long sip, sat back on a wooden chair missing one of its three rungs, and told him what had happened.

Morbier shook his head. “A hollow threat.”

How could he say that? “Didn’t you hear about the shooting in the 17th?”

“Not my quartier, you know that.” Morbier rolled his eyes.

“Morbier, what should I do?”

“Why ask me? Leave it to the professionals, Leduc.”

“And what are you? It stinks, Morbier.” She hid her trembling hands under the table. “I’m scared,” she said, hating to admit it.

Morbier looked away. He never liked dealing with emotions.

“Call the RG man, Regnier,” he said. “Tell him. He seemed to like you so much.”

“Like me?” She shook her head. “Regnier wants the jade. Rene’s life wouldn’t matter.”

“Do you have a choice? Can you come up with the jade?”

“I don’t trust Regnier and the RG as far as I can spit. They were responsible for papa. . . .The ministry never acknowledged our involvement or their responsibility. Papa had a dishonorable record until I made them clean it up. And it took two years. They still won’t acknowledge it was their mission. You think I’d believe them?”

No flowers at the funeral, but a bill for her father’s autopsy.

“Leduc, you don’t do that kind of work anymore, remember? If anything happened to Rene, could you live with that?”

His words stung. She’d never forgive herself if Rene was hurt.

But what he really meant was that she wasn’t up to it. The damage to her optic nerve made her useless. A liability.

“I worked all through my hospital stay,” she said. “I don’t intend to stop now. The medication and meditation control it.”

At least she hoped so.

“Hostage negotiation’s a fine art,” he said. “How did they find you, and trace Rene?”

“They must have followed me,” she said.

Weariness had settled in her cold, damp legs. She noticed Morbier’s thinning salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than pepper now. When he was tired, his jowls sagged, reminding her of a basset hound.

Morbier poured them each another glass.

“What if you were the target, Leduc? Victim of a setup?”

Her chest tightened. “I wondered about that, too,” she said. “But why, Morbier? Then there’s the flic I saw with the RG. He was involved in the Place Vendome surveillance.”

Morbier raised his hands to ward off her words. “Not this again. Get a life, Leduc.”

“When the secret service or their lackeys are involved, everything stinks.”

Morbier pulled out a box of cigarillos and another of wooden kitchen matches from near his black phone. A relic, with a rotary dial. He scratched one of the matches and lit up a Montecristo.

“I thought you quit,” she said.

“These little cigarillos from Havana?” he said, tossing the empty yellow box into the trash. “They don’t