AL05 - Murder in Clichy

But he’d shut his laptop case and pulled on his custom-tailored raincoat. He avoided her gaze.

“I’m late,” he said. “My Firewall Protection class at the Hacktaviste Academy starts in twenty minutes.” He supplemented Leduc Detective’s income by teaching hacking safeguards. Her guilt increased, knowing how the damp air aggravated his hip dysplasia, something he never mentioned.

“Saj will help us fine-tune the Olf project,” he said. Rene had raved about his student Saj, the encryption genius. With work mounting, they needed help. And Saj, according to Rene, was a find. “Will you be all right, Aimee?”

“Look, Rene,” she said, holding up the smallest jade disk, which she’d put in her pocket. Its milky-hued translucence shimmered in the light, mirroring Rene’s green eyes.

Rene shook his head again. “I don’t feel good about this.”

“There’s more, Rene. Linh said men were watching her and the temple.”

“Call the flics.”

“And say I ran away from a murder scene?” she interrupted. “That I may have been a target? And someone chased me?” She sat down, wishing her arm didn’t still sting.

He paused at her desk, his laptop in his bag. Hurt, and something else, showed in his eyes. “You have to make up your own mind. Think of your future, your health, a relationship . . .”

“You’re part of that, Rene.”

But she spoke to the closed office door.

Why had she blurted out her dilemma about Guy? Was Rene afraid she’d give up Leduc Detective? She began to wonder . . . was he preparing to move on, to form an alliance with his friend who had a computer shop, or to go corporate? Tears welled in her eyes.

He’d get bored in a week. He’d hate corporate life. She imagined the snide remarks he’d endure about his size, told herself he wouldn’t really do it, and buried her head in her hands.

The office, quiet for once, echoed with memories; her father’s old typewriter in the corner and Leduc’s first detective license, circa 1944, framed on the wall bearing her grandfather’s prisonlike photo, the one where he looked like he had sucked a lemon.

All of her life was here.

Tears wet the Post-its on her desk. Could she walk away from all this, consult from a home office as Guy suggested? Could she run Leduc Detective by herself?

And what about Rene, who’d saved her life, and fought at her side when her world had fallen apart and she couldn’t see? Taken up the slack, kept the agency running. And fed Miles Davis.

Why hadn’t she seen it coming? Made him talk about it, listened to him?

So unlike Rene . . . he’d hesitate to tell her but . . . she couldn’t imagine not talking with him or sharing sushi take-out when they worked late at the office.

She wiped her eyes, downed her pills. Took a deep breath and switched on the computer. She couldn’t lose Rene. Besides her godfather Morbier and her dog, he was all the family she had. But she had to put that aside; she’d call him later.

She booted up her computer and searched. Twenty minutes later she found one entry specific to Cao Dai temple lands. A 1958 article, posted on an obscure mining website, by a Frenchman named Gassot of the Mining Engineer Corps affiliated with the Sixth Battalion. This article, on geologic excavations in Indochina, briefly mentioned a Cao Dai Temple and nearby emperor’s tomb that had been looted of national treasures. Chinese underground forces claimed that the missing hoard, objects from the fourth century, belonged to them. But Ho Chi-Minh and the French colonials laid claim to them, too.

The Vietnamese government blamed the Cao Dai, who were safeguarding it—as Linh had said. The theft had occurred as the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the death knell for French colonial rule in Indochina, raged. Aimee read between the lines and figured the French had wanted the treasures for the Louvre.

She found a Nicorette patch and stuck it under her clothes, near her hip. Her mind spun. Jade, and a junkie dying in her arms . . . what was it really about? Was the jade she had hidden part of the looted treasure she’d just read about?

Her hands trembled. Time to go home.

“WORKING LATE again, Aimee?” asked Nico, the balding owner of her local cafe.

She kissed him on both cheeks. “How else can I keep Miles Davis in dog food?”

He wiped the zinc counter as he set a glass down in front of her. Worn stools and warmth from a working heater accompanied by the pings of an old pinball machine in the corner gave the cafe a comfortable feeling.

“The usual?”

She nodded and he poured a glass of red wine. The dense garnet-red wine left a sediment in the bottom of the ballon-like glass. Nico was the kind of mec who listened to her stories when no one waited for her in her cold apartment under the sheets. A mec who would stifle a yawn and share a bottle at the zinc counter.

Aimee . . . how are your eyes?” “

“Pas mal. Haven’t stopped me yet, Nico,” she said.

“Not even the TGV can stop you when you get going, eh? As your papa used to say.” He wiped his wet hands on his none-too-clean apron and untied it. “Share a verre with me, my treat?”

“Next time, Nico,” she said.

He jerked his thumb toward an entwined couple nestled in the corner.

“They can’t decide between a rough little Sangria or a smooth Veuve Clicquot.” He winked. “Two ends of the spectrum. Do they want to dance on the table? Or feel it tomorrow, behind their eyeballs?”

The man in the far corner pointed to the champagne.

“Excuse-moi, a decision.” He reached for the champagne flutes and a tray. “Back in a minute.”

Aimee sipped her wine.

How could doing a simple favor for Linh have gone so wrong? And what should she do now? But the full- bodied wine with a smoky aftertaste had no answers.

She tried Rene’s cell phone. No reply.

She set five francs down, bid Nico a bientot and turned the corner to her apartment on quai d’Anjou. Fingers of fog curled under the Pont Marie and spilled over the wet, cobbled quai.

A figure walked a dog along the riverbank below. Two men in wool overcoats stood by her door. Another joined them as she approached.

She gripped the pepper spray in her pocket.

“Mademoiselle Leduc?” said the one smoking a cigarette. Pale-faced and with dark, darting eyes, he emitted a bristling energy. The stubble on his head could have used a trim, or maybe he was growing out the shaved-head look.

“Hasn’t your mother taught you manners? How to introduce yourself, and apologize for accosting a young woman alone?”

“Guess she forgot,” he said, with a narrow-lipped smile. “In my job, it’s not required.”

“And what would that be?” She scanned the quai, saw one man behind the trunk of a plane tree, another against the stone wall, the barge lights silhouetting his cap. Not exactly a subtle show of force.

“I can’t speak officially. Let’s say I’m employed by someone who guards the common good. . . .”

“Someone with nasty methods?”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said. “Now, show me what’s in your bag.”

He’d seen too many old movies. And the way he watched her, his eyes intent on her mouth, bothered her.

“What common good?”

“We work in the national interest.”

Typical RG talk. Straight out of the Renseignements Generaux manual. One of the men shifted, the gravel crunching under his feet by the wall.

“You’ll have to show me some ID. I’d feel stupid if I were to be robbed on my own doorstep.”

The two men moved closer and she backed up, pulling out her pepper spray.