AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

MAITRE DELAMBRE’S chambers were more impressive than his appearance. Wan, pale faced under wire- rimmed glasses and mouse brown hair, in his long black robes and white collar he looked barely twenty-five.

The vaulted wood ceiling and bookshelves lined with legal briefs and thick volumes of the penal code did little to allay her fears. The firm’s letterhead on thick vellum sheets read Delambre et Fils. A family concern. Maybe Laure should request his father’s help.

“Maitre Delambre, I’m worried about Laure Rousseau,” Aimee said.

“I haven’t managed to speak with my client yet,” he told her as she sat on a wingback chair. “How can I be certain that she hired you?”

Semantics, Aimee thought. She ignored the dubious ring of his words. “Have you received the crime-scene report?”

“I just reached the office,” he said, annoyed. “I need to deal with a pile of messages. She’s just one of several clients.”

“And how many are facing possible imprisonment for shooting their partner?” Aimee asked. “Please, it’s important. I’d appreciate it if you would check.”

“Just a moment.” He sorted a pile of papers, cleared his throat. “Let’s see here.” A pause, more shuffling of papers.

Outside on the quay, sleet battered the roof of a bus stuck in traffic. She heard his sharp intake of breath and turned.

“They’ve moved her. To the Hotel Dieu, the CUSCO ward.”

She gripped the arms of the chair. That was the public hospital’s intensive-care criminal ward on Ile de la Cite!

“Has she been charged?”

“No charges have been filed yet. However, in such cases, that’s the next step.”

“Has her condition deteriorated?”

“Figure it out, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said. “You’re the detective.”

Aimee stifled a groan. “What information do you have?”

“She suffered a severe concussion,” he said, consulting a message pad. “According to this, she’s stable but they’re monitoring her condition. That’s all I know.”

Laure in intensive care? Looming complications and the possibility of permanent damage raced through Aimee’s mind. And representing her was a young lawyer who appeared to have just gotten his diploma.

“Please show me the dossier,” she said.

With some reluctance, he slid it over the mahagony desk. At least he’s trying to be accommodating, she thought.

Inside she saw the proces verbal consisting of Laure’s statement, brief reports describing the crime scene, the weather conditions, and a description of the body, and a cursory pencil diagram of the roof. Even the statement she had made was included.

“Didn’t a lab report accompany this?”

Maitre Delambre shook his head.

“Odd. Laure told me the lab test had found gunpowder residue on her hands, although she hadn’t fired her gun in a month.”

She looked more closely. The scene-of-crime diagrammer had missed the angle of the roof at the scaffold, an aspect she’d only viewed from the chimney top. There was no mention of the broken skylight in the adjacent building. The police photos, clipped to the back of the report, showed only the immediate area around Jacques’s corpse. “You have to demand a more thorough investigation of the roof.”

“You’re telling me how to do my job?”

She took a deep breath. How could she get him to act without revealing their rooftop exploits last night? “Not at all, Maitre Delambre, but there was a Level 3 storm going on when the crime took place, impossible conditions. No doubt they missed something.”

“See for yourself,” he said.

She flipped through the addendum of partygoers interviewed in the courtyard building opposite. No one had seen, heard, or noticed anything. Had they interviewed that man she’d seen at the gate?

Was it due to time constraints that the crime-scene report for La Proc was so cursory? Laure was their only suspect; no other line of questioning had been pursued.

“I spoke with a woman on the upper floor of the building that adjoins the murder site,” she said. “Last night she heard the voices of men on the roof, but no one had questioned her. And the skylight was broken in the hall of her building.”

She handed him the Polaroids she’d taken. “You can see the broken glass in this hallway. Keep them.”

“Merci. If it’s relevant I’m sure the police will discover it,” he said, hesitating for the first time. “Listen, there’s another problem.”

She looked up from the report. “What do you mean?”

“A Nathalie Gagnard has filed a civil suit against Laure,” he said.

Aimee remembered Jacques’s last name. “His wife?”

“Ex-wife. Charging Laure with murder.”

Great.

“She’s also complaining in an interview in tomorrow’s edition of Le Parisien.”

“Can’t you stop the interview from appearing?”

She heard a clock chime in the background, measured and slow.

“Too late.”

* * *

AIMEE SHOWED her pass and authorization to the two young police guards at Hotel Dieu. Instead of the trouble she expected, they waved her on to the hospital’s criminal ward. Nurses scurried, their footsteps slapping on the chipped Art Nouveau tiles pleated by strips of the light coming through the window blinds. She usually avoided hospitals yet here she stood, in the second one in as many days.

And then she froze, confronted by a white-faced Laure who lay hooked up to machines dripping fluids through clear tubes. Monitors beeped. Rubbing alcohol and pine disinfectant smells clung in the corners.

Aimee’s mind traveled back to an afternoon in the Jardin du Luxembourg under the sun-dappled trees, shadows dancing over the gravel. Her father and Georges, Laure’s father, were reading the paper as they sat on the green slatted benches, partners who depended on each other when their lives were on the line, sharing a joke. The gurgle and spray of the fountain, so welcome in the humid heat. It had been two summers after her American mother had left them. Ten-year-old Laure had confided, in the playground, that she intended to follow her papa into police work.

The beep and click of the bedside machines brought Aimee back to the present. She made her legs move. Could Laure talk? Was she well enough?

“Ca va? How do you feel?” she asked, rubbing Laure’s chilled fingers, careful to avoid the intravenous lines taped to her wrist and the top of her hand.

Laure’s eyes fluttered open. Her pupils were dilated. Recognition slowly dawned in her face. “The report . . . you’ve read the report . . . that’s why you’re here, bibiche?”

“Laure, which report?”

“It’s so cold. Where am I?” Laure asked, bewildered.

“In the hospital.” Aimee pulled the blanket up to Laure’s chin.

Laure’s eyes wandered. “Why?”

Had the concussion wiped out her memory?

“Take it easy, Laure,” she said. “Don’t worry. Can you remember what happened?”

Laure tried to put her finger to her lips but missed. “It’s . . . it’s a secret.”

Aimee’s spine prickled. “Secret?”

“Non, I’m not supposed . . .” Laure tried to prop herself up on her elbow and slipped. With an exhausted sigh, she gave up and fell back, her matted brown hair fanning out on the pillow. “No . . . not right . . . the report.”

“Jacques’s report?”