AL05 - Murder in Clichy

Aimee pulled out her cell phone and punched in Tessier’s number. If she could get him on the phone, he might have better luck with Madame Dinard.

“Allo, Tessier?” she said. “It’s Aimee Leduc. I’m at the Dinards’. Can you explain to his wife. . . .”

“Not a good idea,” he said.

In the background Aimee heard the revving of engines and insistent beep of a truck backing up.

“What do you mean?” Aimee asked.

“I’m in the Parc Monceau.”

She heard a nervous edge in his voice.

“Has something happened?”

“Dinard left a strange message on my cell phone. To meet—” the rest of the sentence was lost in the backfire of a bus.

“Where?”

“Boulevard de Courcelles, the men’s bathroom,” he said.

Aimee knew the Chartres Pavillon, a rotunda housing lavatories at the entrance to the park, the remnant of the old toll house.

“I’m just two blocks away,” Aimee said.

She would have to hurry, to catch Dinard. This could be the break she needed. Tessier had hung up.

Madame Dinard sat in the twilight-filled back garden, rocking a small springer spaniel who growled at Aimee.

“I’ll say goodbye,” she said, handing the woman a glass of water. “Your husband just left a message with his assistant.”

Instead of the hope she expected to see on Madame Dinard’s face, the woman waved her away. “If he cared, he’d be here.”

ANXIOUSLY, AIMEE hurried down rue de Phalsbourg. The red Metro sign, like a beacon in the dusk, reflected in the puddles and off the gilt-tipped wrought-iron gates of the Parc Monceau. Guards in dark blue uniforms walked the gravel paths, informing strollers the park was closing.

No sign of Dinard.

The worn stone lavatory was at the gate of the Chartres Pavillon rotunda. From the distance came the muted quack of the ducks in the park’s pond. She remembered feeding ducks stale baguettes on a hot summer’s day long ago. Remembered her mother’s strong hands gripping her small ones, and how with deft twists they’d fashioned twigs and leaves into a duck.

Now rain clouds threatened once more. She thrust the memory aside.

The smell of wet grass and Tessier’s gaze met her over the hood of a small Renault. His glasses had fogged in the chill air and he brushed at them with the sleeve of his raincoat.

“When did you get Dinard’s message, Tessier?” she asked.

“I just found it,” he said. “I’d forgotten my cell phone in the pocket of my other coat. When I took it from the rack there was this message. I hurried over.”

Raincoated commuters spilled from the Metro. Tessier’s eyes darted over the crowd. “He’s not here.”

“Let’s check inside,” she said. “You might have missed him.”

They walked through the gate into the park. Bare sycamore branches and oriental plane trees shuddered in the evening wind.

Aimee saw the orange plastic barriers used by the toilet cleaning brigade and a sign reading FERME on the men’s lavatory door. No sign of Dinard. Just the scrape of wet gravel as a mother pushed a stroller toward the gate.

“Tessier, may I hear the phone message?”

He handed her his cell phone and Aimee listened. “Tessier, don’t answer the office phone,” said Dinard. “Meet me at the men’s room at the Parc Monceau gate. No questions . . . now!”

She took out her mini-flashlight and scanned the phone’s display.

“Alors, Tessier, look at the date. He called yesterday.”

“My mistake. He wasn’t in the office today.”

She didn’t want to let it go. “Come with me.”

“But the park’s closing.”

Guards shooed people toward the gate.

“Hurry,” she said, grabbing his arm and running up the three steps to the WC. She shoved the orange plastic stanchion aside and pushed. But the door held. She tried the handle and it turned.

“Help me. Push hard.”

“What are you doing? You’re not supposed to—” Tessier said.

The door was blocked by something. Mops and buckets, she assumed. She pushed again and it opened partway.

Aimee stumbled forward, shining her flashlight over the simple porcelain sink, then over the tiled floor to the open stalls. A man’s shoe stuck up from the metal drainpipe grill centered in the tile.

Dread filled her.

She traveled the light up a twisted trousered leg and gasped. Then further, to Dinard’s bulging eyes and to a line of dark red congealed blood across his throat. They hadn’t bothered to string him up by the toilet pipes.

“We’re too late, Tessier.” The smell of putrefaction and the iron tang of blood permeated the air of the cold lavatory.

Tessier peered in and gasped. “But who . . . mon Dieu . . . it’s my fault!”

And then she noticed what the killer wouldn’t have seen. Dinard’s swollen fingers, nails caked with blood, and the character he’d scrawled on the tile.

“You read Chinese, right?”

He gagged. “I’m going to be sick.”

“Not in here, it’s a crime scene now,” she said.

“What’s going on? You’re not allowed in there,” said the guard’s hoarse voice behind them.

“My boyfriend’s sick and then we saw this man,” she shouted.

She edged out, but not before grabbing her pen and copying the Chinese character onto her palm. Tessier heaved into the bushes and the guard muttered “Nom de Dieu!” and made the sign of the cross.

“Quick,” she said to Tessier as he straightened up. She took his arm again and left through the gate.

“Attendez, wait,” the guardian raised his voice. “You’re witnesses.”

“We should cooperate, poor Monsieur Dinard,” Tessier said.

“Not on your life,” Aimee interrupted. “Trust me.” The last thing she wanted was another encounter with the flics. They’d lock her up this time. Ronsard would throw away the key and Morbier would say, I told you so.

She led Tessier down the Metro steps, battling the onrush of the exiting crowds. They rode one stop, Tessier pale-faced, to exit at Villiers, then doubled-back two blocks to the dark Musee Cernuschi.

“We have to get into Dinard’s office.”

“But—”

“Quick. Before they identify him.” Aimee saw the horror on Tessier’s face.

“What kind of cold creature are you!” Tessier backed away.

“It horrifies me, too, but we have to find out who killed him.” And what Dinard had known, but she didn’t say that.

“Do it on your own, I don’t have the stomach for this,” he said.

“Yes, you do. Or else, you could be next,” she said. “Didn’t someone follow you the other day?”

“What? It’s related?”

She wished he wouldn’t argue. The shadows moved, night sounds rustled in the bushes. She wanted to get inside.