AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

discover if he or she had seen anything.

Above her, on rue Andre Antoine, the overcast Montmartre sky mirrored the blue-gray roof tiles. Like her heart, with Guy gone and Laure the subject of a police investigation.

Leafless plane trees bent in the wind. Steep streets wound up the butte of Montmartre. She stepped over puddles of melted snow. Tonight they would freeze and become slick. Tomorrow there would be articles in the paper about old people who’d fallen and broken their hips.

The gate to the upscale townhouse whose roof she and Sebastian had climbed over stood open for the garbage collectors. She scanned the cobbled courtyard, looking across to the adjoining townhouse roof and skylight. Several floors of iron-shuttered windows faced the enclave.

In this building, she figured most residents flew south for the winter to Nice or Monaco. They could afford to. She found the top-floor site of the geranium window box, a shutterless oval window.

She’d question all the inhabitants of the building, working her way up. In the entry, she hit the first button. There was no answering buzz. She stared at the numbers on the digicode plate.

From her bag she took a slab of plasticine, slapped it over the set of buttons, and peeled it back. Greasy fingermarks showed which five numbers and letters were most used. In less than five minutes, after she’d tried twenty combinations, the door clicked open.

Inside the building she climbed the wide marble steps, trailing her fingers over the wrought-iron railing. On the first floor, a young woman answered the door, a toddler on her hip and another crying in the background. Aimee saw suitcases and a car seat stacked inside the door.

“Oui?” the woman asked.

“Sorry to bother you but I’m a detective,” Aimee said. “I’d like to question you about a homicide that occurred last night across the courtyard on the roof of the building undergoing renovation.”

“What? I know nothing about it.” The toddler pulled the strand of beads around the woman’s neck and she winced. “Non, cheri.”

“Did you hear or see anything unusual at eleven o’clock last night?”

“You’re kidding. My baby’s teething. I can’t keep my eyes open that late,” she said, looking harried.

The toddler clung to his mother’s neck, gnawing at her beads; the other child pounded a metal truck on the floor. “We were asleep. I put the children to bed at eight; half the time I fall asleep with them.”

“There was a party in the building, maybe your husband noticed something.”

“He passes out before I do,” she said. “I’m sorry but I have to get the children ready.”

“Merci,” Aimee said. “Here’s my card just in case.”

“My husband’s picking us up in five minutes. We’re leaving for a month.”

The woman stuffed Aimee’s card in the pocket of her cardigan and closed the door. Aimee hoped the toddler wouldn’t eat it.

She knocked on the doors of the two other apartments on the floor but no one answered. No answer from the other three apartments on the next floor either. On the third floor, an aproned housekeeper answered the door at the apartment where Aimee figured the party had taken place.

“Bonjour, I’d like to speak with the owner,” she said.

“No one’s here, I’m sorry. Monsieur Conari’s at the office.”

Even this early, the rich went to work.

Aimee showed her ID. “Perhaps you served at his party last night? I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Not me, I come to work in the morning,” the woman said. “They use caterers for parties.”

“Did you speak with Monsieur Conari this morning? Maybe he mentioned the homicide across the courtyard?”

The housekeeper dropped her dust rag. “They’re never here when I get to work. Sorry.” She picked the rag up and started to close the door.

It’s important,” Aimee said. “Can you give me a number “where I can reach Monsieur Conari?”

The housekeeper hesitated, rubbing her hands on her apron. “I never bother him at work, eh, but this—”

“Oui, it’s very important,” Aimee said.

The woman took the pen and paper Aimee handed her and wrote down a telephone number.

“Merci, I appreciate your help.”

Aimee continued up the wide stairs. Her goal, the top flat, encompassed the entire floor. Here she had to find answers.

She heard low voices, music, a radio? She knocked several times. No answer. Then knocked again until she heard footsteps.

“J’arrive,” said a voice.

The door creaked open. The middle-aged woman who opened the dark green door wore a flannel nightshirt and Nordic wool slipper socks, and was sipping something steaming and smelling of cinnamon.

“Forgive me,” Aimee said. “I don’t mean to disturb you—”

“No salespeople allowed in the building, I’m sorry,” the woman interrupted in a nasal congested voice. “They shouldn’t have let you in.”

Aimee flashed her identification card. “I’m a detective, investigating a homicide in the building opposite you.”

“Homicide?” The woman pushed her glasses onto her forehead and rubbed her eyes, which were a striking aqua blue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll need to excuse me, I’m sick.”

This woman must have been at home last night. Aimee couldn’t let her shut the door in her face. “Sorry to insist, but this will take just a moment. Probably you’ve answered these questions already,” she said. She wanted to see the view from this woman’s apartment. And there should be geraniums near a window facing the courtyard.

“What do you mean? No one’s spoken to me,” the woman told her. “What homicide?”

“Haven’t the police questioned you yet?”

The woman shook her head.

Aimee wondered why not.

“Let me see your identification again, Mademoiselle.”

Aimee handed over her PI license with its less than flattering photo: squinty eyes and pursed mouth.

“The pharmacy’s late.” The woman glanced at an old clock on the wall and handed the license back. “They were supposed to deliver my medicine by now.”

“A man was murdered last night,” Aimee said, wiping her wet boots on the mat. “I need to ask you some questions. May I come in?”

“It’s nothing to do with me,” the woman said, about to close the door.

“Let’s talk inside,” Aimee said.

“Non. I can’t deal with questions,” the woman replied.

“Just while you wait for the pharmacy delivery.”

“Non,” the woman said, alarmed. “I’m sick.”

“But if we talk now, Madame—”

“I don’t go out.” The woman smothered a cough. “I won’t go to the police station.”

An agoraphobic? Aimee heard something in her voice, was it the trace of an accent?

“Madame, you don’t need to go to the Commissariat,” Aimee said. “I’m a private investigator, we’ll talk right here. And I must see the view from your window.”

The woman pulled out a wad of tissues from her pocket, reconsidered, and blew her nose. “All right, but just five minutes.”

Aimee stepped inside the pale yellow hallway, eighteenth century by the look of it. A green plastic shopping cart was parked on the black-and-white diamond-patterned floor by a pair of worn snow boots. She expected a place dripping with antique chandeliers, but instead Art Deco sconces and Surrealist collages lined the walls. Several Man Ray silver-gelatin-print photographs hung over a gleaming Ruhlmann secretaire. One appeared to be an original of Violon d’Ingres, the famous Surrealist image of Kiki, Man Ray’s lover, in a turban, musical notes drawn on her bare back down her spine.