AL05 - Murder in Clichy

“It’s not all governmental, that’s what I heard,” Lars said.

“Meaning industrial espionage?” she asked.

Two men in suits walked in and gave Lars the eye.

“Of course, mademoiselle,” Lars said, his tone businesslike now, as he closed the folder and shut down the laptop, “when I tally the figures we’ll report the amounts to your father’s insurance agent. The Commissariat will have that information on file.”

“Merci, monsieur,” she said, playing along.

The men kept walking and passed them. She heard their footsteps echoing on the metal stairs leading to winding corridors and, eventually, to the holding pens under the Tribunal. She could imagine the sweating stone walls, and the prisoners awaiting sentencing in cells little changed since the Reign of Terror.

“Can’t you do a quick search to see if there’s a report filed on missing Asian jade?”

“You’re looking for missing oriental art?” asked Lars. “You want me to check the list, you mean?”

She nodded.

He sat up, pulled at a drawer that stuck, then slammed it hard and it opened.

“A stolen Rodin sculpture in the 14th from narrow Impasse Nansouty near Parc Montsouris.”

“Try the 17th arrondissement.”

He thumbed through the file. The crinkling paper competed with the low whine of the saw in the background.

“What about missing jade?”

“Hmmm . . . a dope racket and bordello, but that’s as close as it gets in the 17th.”

Frustrated, she pulled out her map, studied it.

“My brother-in-law delivers meat to a boucherie in the 17th,” Lars said. “He always bitches that he can’t unload. One time he had to walk with a whole side of a cow through the narrow passage and an old lady fainted right on her poodle.”

She read the map, half listening to Lars, thinking of the threadlike streets of this village within a village, still beating with a provincial life of its own.

“Sorry, that’s it,” Lars concluded.

She exhaled with disgust, leaning against Lars’s grease-stained metal filing cabinet. If the jade was “hot,” no one would report it stolen.

“Merci, Lars,” she said, and left his office.

SHE TRIED to make sense of what she’d learned. Regnier, under suspension, had gone rogue, which made him more dangerous. Pleyet, still a cipher, worked for the “Circle Line.” All along the quai, as brown leaves rustled past her on the gravel, she thought about Lars’s change of attitude after he had spoken those two words. She pulled off her leather glove and wrote down the last four digits of Lars’s password on her palm. She’d play with the numbers later.

Time was running out for Rene. She tried Commissaire Ronsard on her cell phone.

“The Commissaire’s in a meeting,” said a bored voice.

She tried Leo.

“Club Radio,” Leo answered.

“It’s Aimee, any luck with Rene’s phone, Leo?”

“Desolee, so far the antenna’s picked up nothing.”

Aimee’s heart sank to her feet.

“They could have trashed it, or just not turned it on,” Leo said. “Keep your cell phone calls to a minimum, in case they try you.”

“Merci, I’ll check with you later.”

She was stymied. The only person she knew of connected to Thadee was Sophie. Sophie had to know a detail, a name. Even if she didn’t realize she knew it. But she was in London. Aimee had to reach her. Besides the art gallery, watched by the police, the best place to look was in Sophie’s house.

Thursday Afternoon

AIMEE MADE HER WAY toward the address, near Clichy, she’d found for Sophie. She passed small Indian shops selling suitcases out on the pavement as well as everything from manicure sets to bootleg tapes. Nestled in between them were Vietnamese florists, and discount clothing stores with jackets on racks bearing signs that read EVERYTHING UNDER 100 FRANCS, as they whipped in the rising wind.

Mothers wearing stylish black suits, or Muslim headscarves over dark robes, hurried little children to the ecole primaire, and a motor scooter putt-putted on the cobblestones waiting before a cafe doubling as a takeout for Turkish kebab frites sandwiches. She ordered a kebab frites, paid, and ate the steaming spiced lamb sandwich as she walked down the street.

Aimee found Sophie Baret’s stained-glass-paned front door in tree-lined Cite des Fleurs. The cobbled lane of nineteenth-century houses, each with its front garden, felt like another world: ornate pink brick facades with statuary carved over the lintels of two-story houses. A spill of sunlight illuminated the trellis-covered walkway to Sophie’s house.

Aimee knocked on the open door. “Bonjour?”

Something hissed, then crashed.

In the hall, Aimee saw a pink and orange-haired woman, wearing chunky black boots, and a tight, red rhinestone-trimmed dress under a faux fur orange jacket, lugging a snare drum and cymbals.

“Pardon, Sophie lives here, right?”

“Some of the time,” said the woman, bumping into her. “I’m Mado, her sister. I housesit when she’s away.” The woman’s face was quite pretty despite the black kohl-lined eyes and red eyeshadow that matched her outfit.

Sisters? Two bookends that didn’t quite match. Mado looked the type who didn’t trust anyone not wearing eyeliner.

“I’d appreciate if you could give me her number in London, something came up.”

The cymbal crashed, causing the dog next door to bark.

“London . . . again?”

“She rushed there after the attack.”

Mado’s mouth widened. “Attack? My sister, the drama queen, does it again! She overeacts to everything,” Mado said. Then paused. “She’s not hurt or anything?”

“Someone broke into the gallery,” Aimee said. “But I’m worried that she fled to London.”

“Then she’s fine,” Mado said.

“But her ex, Thadee—”

“That scum! Sorry, we’ve got a rehearsal right now! There’s a chance a scout for the label will drop by,” she said. “The bass player’s waiting for me.”

A small Mini-Cooper with METALLOMIX spraypainted on it idled at the curb. The long-haired driver tooted the horn.

“Do you have her number in London?”

Mado shook her head as she edged down the walkway. “Shut the door for me, will you?”

Aimee closed it, leaving the thumb of her glove in the lock. Worried that Mado would notice, she blocked Mado’s view and handed her a card. But Mado gripped the drum case and shook her head.

“Put it in my jacket pocket, eh?”

“It’s important that I speak with her.”

Mado nodded, shoving the drum through the opened car door.

“Sophie’s in danger,” Aimee said, “Danger? According to her, that’s the only way to live.”

“You don’t understand,” Aimee said. But she was speaking to a closed car door.