AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

She handed him a Doliprane and fished a bottle of Vichy water from her bag. He hesitated, then popped the pain-killer and uncapped the water bottle.

“By law they should be in the file you received,” she said. “They can’t really refuse to acknowledge them, can they?”

He shook his head as a spasm of pain crossed his face.

“Now you can deal from an equal position, at least, for the moment.”

“I can’t accept these,” he said. “It would be unethical. I can’t afford to.”

“You can’t afford not to. After all, it was their duty to furnish you with these reports.”

He sat back against the taxi seat, closing his eyes. “Are you insinuating they left these out on purpose?”

“You’re the lawyer,” she said. “Aren’t the police required to furnish you with all pertinent documents relating to your client?”

The taxi halted in Nouvelle Athenes in front of a soot-stained hotel particulier now occupied by offices, opposite the building where George Sand and her lover, Chopin, had lived, on the slope below Montmartre. Now the eighteenth-century mansions housed government ministries, corporations, actors wealthy enough to remodel. Or they crumbled away in decayed splendor, awaiting developers.

“You’ve put me in a difficult position.”

Of course she had. However, ethics dictated he act in the interests of his client. How could he ignore the reports now that she’d thrust them in his face?

“But I can’t take these if you obtained them under false pretenses. A simple case shouldn’t turn me into the Prefecture’s enemy.”

“D’accord,” she agreed. “Who says I gave them to you? They could have just turned up on your doorstep. For all intents and purposes, they have. You present these files. They can’t very well deny them. The files contain the officers’ names, required filing date, and case number.” She went on. “Besides, they already know the information’s been copied.” She bit her tongue to stop herself from adding that he’d be a fool not to use it.

“By someone . . . like you?”

She shook her head.

“I realize these files come from the police intranet system,” he said, his eyes narrowed.

“STIC, to be precise.”

He handed the taxi driver twenty francs and opened the door to a wall of cold air. “I have to think it over.”

Rain pelted down on them as she ran after him.

THE WHIR of the dental drill drowned out most of Delambre’s moans in the next room. Aimee gave a small smile to the white-clad dental technician who held a tray of surgical instruments.

“Valerie, I need the clamps!” said a deep voice from the open office door.

Valerie disappeared into the office, accompanied by a whiff of mint fluoride, and shut the door. Aimee hated waiting. Maitre Delambre’s damp raincoat hung from the coatrack by the receptionist’s desk; his briefcase stood on the floor under it.

The receptionist sat with her head turned away, talking on the phone. To her boyfriend, from the sound of the conversation and giggles.

Aimee picked up a magazine, thumbed it open, and slid her leg toward the briefcase, hooked her foot around it, and drew it to her.

She unclasped the briefcase, found Laure’s file, and stuck it between the pages of her magazine to study.

Autopsies, as her pathologist friend Serge often said, showed the road map of death. Atherosclerosis, sky- high blood pressure, a wearied heart pumping into arteries constricted by plaque. And the path of a bullet ripping tissue, slicing organs and muscle, too. A good pathologist, like Serge, was like a detective, listening to what the body told him as he probed, weighed, and examined organs, to reveal their secrets.

The autopsy on the body of Jacques Gagnard, dated Wednesday morning, stated, “Exsanguination due to gunshot wound to left lung and heart. Entrance wound on the left side of the chest. The bullet was recovered in right pleural cavity.”

The image of Jacques on the snow-topped roof passed in front of her. She didn’t like the man or his manipulation of Laure but she’d wanted to save him. Would have . . . no, not with part of his lung and his heart impacted. His eyes. They’d widened for a brief second and his lips had moved as though he wanted to say something. She finished reading the report, disappointed at the scant findings.

There was no mention of a second bullet. She sat back on the waiting-room bench to think. Could Jacques have been working undercover? Were the police protecting their own? Would her efforts somehow compromise an ongoing investigation? She was clutching at straws and her grip was slipping.

Wednesday Evening

“BIG POUT THIS TIME , Marie-Dominique,” said the longhaired photographer, clicking the Hasselblad. “Show me big lips!”

Her mouth hurt after two hours of thrusting out her Bardot bee-stung lips. His cigarette was burning in the overflowing ashtray. The Gauloise tang hovered thick in the air. The slick-slack of hangers skeeting over the metal rack raised goose bumps on her arms.

“That’s it . . . more! Let me see those cheekbones.”

The techno beat pounded in the antiseptic whitewashed two-story studio, a former dairy reincarnated into l’Industrielle, the cow stalls now home to chrome banks of digital equipment.

“Lean more . . . good!”

Marie-Dominique did the model slouch, multiple black layers rising over her nonexistent hips, rubbing her diamond navel ring. She tried to look bored. Not hard, tottering on stiletto sneakers, the laces tied over fishnet stockings. She baked under the klieg lights in her midriff-baring black turtleneck sweater plus a jean jacket worn under a black leather biker jacket.

“Nom de Dieu . . . she’s shining . . . powder!”

The makeup artist, his hair in short blond braided tufts, rushed to daub Marie-Dominique’s forehead with matte powder.

“His girlfriend threw him out,” he said in a low voice to Marie-Dominique. “He’s camping out in back here. Me, I’d never live on the ground floor. Too dark, too noisy, too many break-ins.” He redefined Marie-Dominique’s lips with a chocolate brown pencil.

“The light’s gone. Impossible!” The photographer ground out his cigarette with his heel. Lit another. “That’s it for tonight.”

“What about the Venus de Vinyle shoot?” someone asked.

In response, the photographer turned the techno up louder.

Relieved to finish sooner than her booking time, Marie-Dominique hung up the outfit and left her makeup on. Felix would like that, get a kick out of it. Sometimes she thought all he noticed about her was whether or not she’d had a pedicure.

Back in their apartment, along with the faded gardenia scent in the dark hallway, lay a note from Felix. “Another crisis. Off to Ajaccio. Back tomorrow.”

He spent more time with hard hats, union stewards, and ministry officials than he did at home, apart from holding catered parties to entertain clients and grease his connections. No intimate dinners with friends. Their social circle consisted of his business partners and clients.

Another long winter evening alone. Thoughts of Lucien kept coming back to her, his music, the way his hair curled around his ears. His stubborn streak.

She sighed, taking off her boots and stockings, reveling in the smooth texture of the Aubusson carpet, scrunching it between her toes. Until she was six years old she hadn’t owned a pair of shoes. Hadn’t needed to.

Felix didn’t understood her loathing of the runway, the numbing club scene where models’ careers were built