AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

Gerard grinned. “You’re a techie, right?”

“Names don’t mean much to me. Ministry types, well, they’re not part of my world. My quartier’s Montmartre, the unchic side. Looks like he started there,” she said as if it was an afterthought.

“Maybe, but he’s moved up in the world. More like rue des Saussaies now.”

That was where the head of the Ministry of the Interior had his office. An inquiry by the Prefecture de Police was accessible to the Ministry. She knew that much. Both branches could access the STIC files.

“You’re with IGS, n’est-ce pas?” Gerard whispered and leaned closer.

Inspection Generale des Services—Internal Affairs.

“Did I say that?”

“You don’t have to.” He grinned. “Just remember how I’m helping you, eh?”

“Of course, Gerard.” She returned the smile. How long could she keep up this charade? She ought to leave but first she wanted to find out as much as possible.

“What about these men? Both deceased, Leduc and Rousseau?” She tried not to flinch when she said it.

Gerard hit the control key and F1.

Rousseau’s file filled the screen. “Voila. Come have a coffee when you finish.”

Where was the secret Laure had alluded to and felt guilty about? It didn’t jump out at her. What about Morbier’s scrawl on his newspaper about a report six years ago dealing with a Corsican arms investigation? All she could find in his file documented Rousseau’s rapid rise in the Commissariat after a successful gaming investigation on rue Houdon, at a Club Chevalier.

Zette’s club!

Montmartre again. She copied it to the disc, controlled her shaking fingers, and typed in her father’s name, Jean-Claude Leduc.

And then she saw the grainy photo, one of a young Morbier, Rousseau, another man, and her papa all in uniform, smiling on the steps by Marche Saint Pierre, the textile market, Sacre Coeur in the background. The fourth man—who, she figured, was Jubert—was her father’s height and had small eyes and a prominent nose. His hands were in his pockets. All young, with expectant grins on their faces, their lives before them. What had happened? She choked back a sob.

“Simone, Simone . . .”

She realized Gerard was calling her from the hallway.

She wiped her eyes. The words jerked her back to the present. “Oui, j’arrive.” She dragged the file to the disc, copied it, and thrust her coat inside her bag.

She hit Quit and grabbed the disc as it whirred out, stuck it safely inside her blouse, then joined Gerard.

“Une debacle!” one of the techies was saying. “Just like that, the network froze.”

“You remember that, eh, Simone? Last week . . .”

Gerard was getting too friendly or too inquisitive. Testing her? Time to get out.

“Don’t remind me,” she groaned, interrupting him as he offered her a small plastic cup of steaming espresso. From the vending machine. Awful stuff! She pitied these mecs.

“Un moment, eh. I’ve got to pee,” she said with a big smile. “I’ll be right back.”

She rounded the corner, her bag hitched over her shoulder, and ducked into the women’s restroom, then peeked into the corridor. Deserted. She slipped out, ran down the hall, and to the door marked STAIRS. She shut the door so it closed without a click, then raced down the five flights. Still in the enclosed stairwell, she took off her wig and glasses, pulled on her coat and hat, adjusted the brim low to hide her face, and stepped into the main foyer. The turnstile lay just ahead and she almost breathed a sigh of relief.

“Monsieur, my card won’t work. Pass me through, eh?” she said to the new guard as she made a show of wringing her hands at the turnstile.

The phone rang. The red light lit up. The inter-building line? Gerard?

The guard glanced at the switchboard. Only one on duty. He hesitated.

“Please, Monsieur, eh, my taxi’s waiting!”

She heard a buzz, the turnstile arms grated forward, and she shoved her way out.

“Merci! I have to hurry, hope the taxi hasn’t taken off.”

“Mademoiselle, wait—”

He reached for the phone as she ran past the sign-out log and through the glass doors. She didn’t stop running until she’d made it into the dimly lit bistro restroom across the street. Her lungs heaved and she couldn’t stop shaking. Ten minutes later she’d wiped off her red lipstick, applied an orange bisque, turned the reversible black coat inside out to its tan side, pulled black tights over her stockings, and changed her boots to Christian Louboutin red-soled pumps, a flea-market find.

Thank God the bistro was crowded. She sidled her way to the counter, more relieved than she’d felt in hours, and ordered a perroquet, pastis with mint syrup, named for the colors of a parrot, and watched the front of the DTI building.

A car pulled up, an unmarked flic car by the look of it. Mon Dieu! Several men joined the two men who’d stepped out onto the wet pavement. The guard appeared. He was probably telling them about her supposed taxi. With trembling fingers she punched in Rene’s number on her cell phone.

“Allo, Rene,” she said. “I need a ride.”

“No taxis around?” he asked.

One of the officers looked around and jerked his thumb across the street toward the bistro. Her shoulders tensed. They’d question the man behind the counter.

“You could say that,” she whispered into the phone. “I’ll be waiting at the Vel d’Hiv.”

She placed ten francs on the counter and made it out of the bistro door before the flics crossed the street. At a brisk pace, her head lowered, she walked down rue Nelaton and turned right down the next cobbled street. Breaking into a run, she made it to quay de Grenelle. Panting, she faced the needle-shaped tree-lined island allee des Cygnes, at one end of which was the original, but smaller Statue of Liberty. At the other was the Metro, rumbling over metal-strutted Bir-Hakeim Bridge. Double swaths of planted shrubs bordered the Seine here.

She didn’t stop until she reached a small grove bathed in the glow from a yellow streetlight. Kneeling under the bushes, she caught her breath. Sirens wailed on her right. She saw the blue flash of a police car’s light against the stone buildings. Why couldn’t Rene hurry up?

Damp red rose petals and the smell of earth stuck to her hand. Flat stones embedded in the ground, gravelike, held scattered bunches of flowers. She shuddered. This was once a bicycle-racing velodrome where Jews, rounded up in July 1942, were held. Now the Vel d’Hiver was a memorial garden adjoining the DST.

Messages had been placed under the stones: “For Maman, I never had the chance to say goodbye and tell you how I love you. I pray you are in the stars shining above.”

Her own mother, an American radical activist, had left them when she was eight, without saying goodbye. The pain never went away, but she’d tried to move on. Sadness vied with her apprehension that Rene would be too late.

Her cell phone vibrated.

“Rene?”

“What have you done now? There are flics crawling everywhere; foot patrols, cars. They’re stopping taxis.”

“Well—”

“Non. Don’t tell me. Where are you?”

She looked through the bushes. “I can see your car. Park on quay Branly facing the monument. Open the trunk like you’re looking for something. Be sure you get your brake lights even with the chestnut tree, the big one. See it?”

Rene’s Citroen edged along the street and parked by the tree. He got out, wearing a painter’s smock, and