AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

“You again,” the concierge said, as she swept the cold hallway. Today she wore a housedress with a blue smock over it, but still had on rain boots. “The apartment’s been sealed by the police. No access is allowed.”

“You’re right,” Aimee said. She showed the concierge a work order she’d typed up. “It’s the skylight this time. Mind letting me get to work? My partner’s out sick and I’ve got three other calls to make.”

A dog barked from the concierge loge. “Let me see that.” She read the work order. “Men came yesterday for this. I had to vacuum the hall again, double my work. You’ve wasted a trip. A mistake.”

The killers back looking for the bullet? Or the true locksmiths? “Louis and Antoine?” she asked the concierge.

“Eh? I’m not on a first-name basis with all the workers who traipse through here, Mademoiselle.”

“A mec with bleached white hair?”

The concierge’s brow furrowed. She shook her head.

“Aaah, then Antoine. A black cap, down jacket, and bad teeth?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Check with your dispatch office but I tell you the work’s been done.”

The dog barked louder, its nails scratching against the closed loge door. “If you don’t mind—”

“Madame, you must have heard the skylight break that night.”

“I’ve had enough questions. Like I told the flics, there was a storm.”

For a nosy concierge she hadn’t noticed much.

“It says right here to fix the rear-hall skylight on the third floor,” Aimee said, holding out the form. “The least you can do is let me check it out.”

The concierge shushed her dog, set the broom against the wall, and put her hands on her ample hips. “Keep your hair on, Mademoiselle, I’m only doing my job.”

“Same here,” Aimee said. “I take it you have no problem with me going up to see if the rear skylight’s secured while you feed your dog, who’s jumping out of his skin with hunger?” Blame it on the dog; that might work.

A guilty look crossed the concierge’s face. “Since you insist.”

Aimee pushed past her. “Excuse me.”

She had to work fast. On the third floor she set down the tool kit. What if those guys had already found the bullet? If they were the shooters, it would be gone. But if they were just hired goons, as she hoped, she had a chance. They’d have been searching just as she was. Maybe they hadn’t been lucky. Maybe she would be.

One way to find out.

A frieze of carved rosettes and leaves framed the ceiling, thick with years of coats of paint. A table saw and planks of wood stood near the skylight. All the apartments on this floor were being remodeled. The vacant one’s door was now barred by a red-wax police seal. A perfect secret meeting place. Yet instead, Jacques had been lured up to the roof.

With both hands she dragged the table under the skylight, climbed on top, reached up, and felt for the hasp.

Downstairs, the dog barked louder. She heard the concierge’s voice speaking to someone on the telephone, then her footsteps mounting the stairs.

Aimee turned the hasp and pushed with both hands. The heavy skylight opened a few inches. Wind swirled inside, carrying gravel and grit, spitting at her face. She gave another heave and the skylight fell back, opening to the sky.

She stretched her arms up, hooked her elbows over the frame, jumped up, and wiggled her hips through the opening.

She pulled herself onto the roof, now covered in a layer of gray slush. The flat area of the roof looked much smaller in the late afternoon light. The slate tiles ascended, angled every which way like children’s blocks. The roof overlooked the street and faced the building where she figured Paul must live. He would have had a perfect view. The church’s high roof blocked visibility from all other sides. No wonder no other witnesses had come forward.

Here she was, climbing on a roof, and she’d promised herself, never again. Yet she had to find the other bullet. She must keep her gaze focused ahead of her. And not look down.

Her foot slipped and she grabbed a metal pipe. She closed her eyes, inhaled, then exhaled. Her fingers scraped against the cold rough metal and her heart felt ready to jump out of her chest. Again she inhaled, exhaled, concentrating on her breathing, imagining a white light as her sessions at the Cao Dai temple had taught her. Trying to ignore the brisk wind.

She repeated the routine ten times, until her nose tingled with cold. She opened her eyes, calmer, and tried to visualize that Monday night: the sleeting wind, drifting snow, and the flat spot where Jacques’s body lay.

She edged across the tiles to the tall chimney that she and Sebastian had climbed over, reached out, and found the spot she remembered. She ran her hands over the rough pockmarked stucco that flaked between her fingers. Wrong, the place she’d felt was smooth. She slid, leaning against the chimney, to its rear, gripping the ledge with one hand, the other tracing the smooth wall.

Aimee’s fingers found an indentation. Circular, the size of her pinkie tip. Her breath came fast as she pulled herself around. Below her feet lay the leaf-clogged gutter, and then, several floors down, the street. Perspiration beaded her forehead. She pulled out her penlight. Saw a charcoal-powder sunburst in the midst of white-gray-caked pigeon droppings.

“Mademoiselle, please come down.” The concierge’s voice whipped by her in the wind.

Had the concierge climbed up and poked her head out the skylight? Didn’t she have anything better to do?

“Un moment, my tool bag fell,” Aimee shouted back.

Her penlight revealed the copper gold stub end of an embedded bullet.

“You’ve made a mistake, Mademoiselle,” the concierge said. “What are you doing up there?”

Exasperated, Aimee blew air from her mouth and felt the perspiration dripping from her forehead.

“Madame, go back downstairs. I’ll join you in a moment.”

“The office said—”

“Madame, attention, it’s dangerous. Don’t come up here.”

Aimee heard the skylight shut. She had no time to waste. She needed to gouge out the bullet before the concierge returned with the flics. She felt her foot sliding and hugged the wall, terror stricken. Bits of gravel fell from the roof and she looked down, hearing horns and shouts.

The gravel rained over a stalled truck in the street.

Big mistake. She shouldn’t have looked down. Her stomach felt queasy. Crippling fear overwhelmed her.

Concentrate. She had to push it aside, and concentrate.

She took the miniscrewdriver from her tool kit, chipped at the stone surrounding the bullet, then with a swift turn gouged it out. She caught the bullet, scooped it into a Baggie, and put it into her pocket. Shaking, leaning against the wall, she felt her way down.

By the time she made it back to the skylight, opened it, and slid back into the hall below, her hands had steadied.

She grabbed her bag, shoved the table into its place, and met the concierge on the stairs. “Madame, everything’s taken care of here,” she said. “I’m leaving now.”

“I checked with the locksmith office; the woman has no record.”

“Schizophrenic! That new woman’s schizophrenic.” Aimee rushed past her. “I guess I have the afternoon off.”

FROM THE Metro station she called Viard at the Laboratoire Central de la Prefecture de Police and arranged to meet him. Trying to control her excitement, she ran all the way to the police lab situated near Parc Georges Brassens. At the brown-red brick building she caught her breath and showed her police ID, an updated version she’d made from her father’s.

She found Viard in the basement firing range. Shredded black figures on white paper hung from a wire. From the star-burst shots centered in the figures’ stomachs and hearts she figured he practiced every day.

“Not bad,” she said. “You know what the customs officials say?”

“Our black-figured targets differ from their white ones, which shows our priorities?”

She grinned. “You said it, not me. I’ve got a puzzle for you to solve.”