AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

saucisson sec that she’d seen him unhook from its hanging place above the counter.

“That’s in the past,” he said. “Leave it alone.”

There was something.

He cut the sausage into small pieces with his knife.

“Aaah, the owner’s mother cures these herself,” he said.

“Tell me, Morbier.”

He sighed. “There’s no secret. We all graduated from the academy together. You know that.” He took a bite, then washed it down with rose. “Then, like now, we worked in fours, two pairs. Beat the cobblestones together —”

“You, Georges, Papa, and who?” she interrupted.

Morbier set down his knife, rubbed his finger over his thumb, and looked at Aimee, an unreadable expression on his face.

She pulled out the old card. “Was it this man, Ludovic Jubert? A few months ago, an Interpol agent told me Jubert knew about the surveillance we did in Place Vendome. If so, I want to talk to him.”

He scratched a wooden kitchen match on the table leg and lit a Montecristo cigarillo. He took several deep puffs and leaned back, silent.

“Where is Jubert?” she asked.

“How do I know?”

“But you can find out.”

The owner stood by the table and asked. “The sausage, it’s not good?”

“Lost my appetite, Philippe,” Morbier said. “Bring us an espresso and the check, please.”

She wouldn’t let Morbier off so easily. Plumes of acrid smoke rose from his cigarillo. She tried not to inhale them. Yesterday she’d thrown away the pack of Gauloises she’d hidden from Guy.

“Would you find him for me?” She took another sip of wine, thinking. “When you and Papa worked in the Marais together, where was Georges?”

“Kicked upstairs. Driven, he was.”

“And Jubert?”

Pause. “Retired now, most likely.”

“Retired? Then what did Laure mean?” She took a deep breath.

“She’s injured, isn’t she? Making no sense. Listen, I’ll say it again, I live in the here and now. So should you.” He ground out his cigarillo. “And some more words of advice.”

Morbier was good at that.

“Let Laure’s lawyer handle the matter. Don’t step on the investigators’ toes. They don’t like it.”

“How can I find Ludovic Jubert?” Aimee repeated.

Morbier stood and took his scarf and overcoat from the rack. He picked up the espresso cup, drank from it, and threw some francs on the tablecloth. “Tried the phone book?”

He took a step toward the door.

She reached for Morbier’s hand and gripped his thick fingers with their nicotine-stained, ridged nails. He tried to pull his hand away but she held tight.

“Morbier, there’s a saying ‘To continue a journey one must put the ghosts to rest.’”

A faraway look came into Morbier’s eyes. “That’s a hard order to fill, Leduc,” he said, in a voice so low she almost didn’t catch it. “One can spend a lifetime trying.”

He wrapped his muffler around his neck and was gone. A cold draft of air hit her as the door slammed. His newspaper had fallen to the floor. She picked it up, glancing at it while pulling out her wallet. Morbier’s distinctive slanted handwriting caught her eye. “The Corsican arms investigation report six years ago that traced links to the Paris Prefecture, which caused furor in the Ministry of Interior, has resurfaced. Spokesmen for the Ministry decline comment,” she read. He’d written the letters JC beside the article, in the margin, heavily underlined.

“He’s like that these days,” the owner said, bringing her change and retying the apron around his waist. He shot Aimee a knowing look. “You should try to make him happy, Mademoiselle.”

J C . . . JEAN-CLAUDE . . . Jean-Claude Leduc, her father? Or was she reading too much into Morbier’s doodles? Six years ago he’d run Leduc Detective while she was in her first year of medical school, helping him out occasionally. Then, on a weekend surveillance at the Place Vendome, there had been an explo- sion and her father had been killed. She still didn’t know who to blame but she had to keep trying to find out who as responsible, even if putting the ghosts to rest, as Morbier said, was hard to do. She folded the newspaper and put it in her bag.

She caught the bus on Boulevard Magenta, trying the Hotel Dieu twice on her cell phone to inquire as to Laure’s condition. Both times a message machine answered. Frustrated, she could only leave her number.

From the bus window, she saw the St. Vincent de Paul’s vans parked where they were setting up the soup kitchen near Gare de l’Est. A line of men was already forming for the evening handout.

She’d been lucky that food had always been on the table. It had not been easy for her father, she imagined. She remembered her excitement and the wonder in Laure’s eyes as their fathers cooked crepes for them for La Chandeleur, the feast of Candlemas on February second. This coming weekend. They’d observed the tradition of flipping crepes with a coin in hand to make one’s wish come true. She’d wished for her mother to come back. Georges had been the only one to flip without breaking the crepe.

On the bus sat an old man with his dog in a basket; a teenager wearing headphones and nodding to his own beat; a silk-scarfed woman reading Balzac, rubbing shoulders with a cornrowed mother, her coat covering a bright, flowing African boubou, a stroller at her side. Faces of Montmartre from the other side of the hill, away from the tourists and Sacre Coeur, where affordable apartments adjoined the African Goutte d’Or quartier.

Her thoughts turned to Jacques’s ex-wife, Nathalie. She dreaded an interview with the woman who’d already filed a lawsuit against Laure. But it was all she had left to go on.

* * *

AIMEE STOOD in front of Nathalie Gagnard’s work address, 22 rue de Douai, a Second Empire mansion. The building stood on the corner of the rue Duperre, a street of white stone buildings with shuttered windows and balconies bordered by black iron grilles. A one-way street, lined with parked motor scooters and a car with an AUTO-ECOLE sign on top. Across from her in a nearby cafe’s window, a leftover lumpy St. Nicolas figure still lugged presents. A mobile phone store and several immobiliers, real estate agents, indicated this was an upscale slice of the quartier below Place Pigalle.

Aimee skirted an open hole in the pavement, blocked off by plastic orange webbing, revealing the sediment and rock below. It brought back her geology teacher’s rhapsodies describing the nuanced aroma of schist, the gypsum and stone layered under the streets. To Aimee, limestone or shale, it all smelled the same. This quartier had been built over an ancient lepers’ cemetery, he’d told them. She doubted the residents would be happy to know what lay moldering underneath their feet.

Fluttering cloth banners across the front of the building advertised espace, space available for events. She entered the foyer, reached by a marble staircase beneath a hexagonal wooden fretwork of inlaid lights. Somehow she’d have to get Nathalie Gagnard to talk.

Gilt chairs were turned upside down on tables in the high-ceilinged salon. Aimee almost tripped over a waiter sitting on the parquet floor, his eyes closed, rubbing his stockinged feet. As she neared the reception desk, she saw a gaunt-faced woman in her midthirties, with black wispy hair and gold hoop earrings, wearing a white shirt, black skirt, and sensible low heels, stacking brochures on the zinc bar.

“Bonjour, we do private receptions, wedding parties.” The woman smiled, coughed, and covered her mouth. Her voice was low and grating, a smoker’s voice. “Here’s a brochure. Perhaps you’re interested in having an event?”

Aimee returned the smile and pulled out her card.

“I’d like to speak with Nathalie Gagnard,” she said before the woman could launch further into her sales pitch.

The woman’s eyes narrowed, taking in Aimee’s navy pinstriped trouser suit, pointed boots, and leather backpack.

“Regarding?” Her charm evaporated.