AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

Frightened, nervous probably, needing a drink. Aimee had to reach her, to convince her. She put her arm around Isabelle’s thin shoulders. “You’re right, Isabelle, easy for me to say. You can walk away right now, go down the stairs, and leave. However, a man was murdered and you were the unlucky one who witnessed the shots. And if you don’t speak up, the killers will get away with it. They’ll probably do it again. And then someone’s looking for Paul—”

She paused. Isabelle wouldn’t meet her gaze. So close, and yet . . .

“I’ll pick Paul up,” Isabelle said. “I’ll take him to my sisters in Belleville.”

“Can you tell me this won’t go through your mind when you’re out on the quay, or taking Paul to a new school? Won’t you constantly wonder if the mec who was looking for Paul will turn up at your door? And worry that this time he’ll find him?”

Isabelle’s eyes clouded. “I did time in prison. Years ago, but still, they won’t take what I say seriously.”

“That’s past. You know how prison feels. My friend will go there if you don’t help us,” she said. “Rene’s arranged a place for you and Paul to stay. A safe place. Please.”

“Mademoiselle Leduc.” The flic cleared his throat, beckoning to them. “May I remind you, La Proc’s got a tight schedule.”

The lines at the corner of Isabelle’s mouth had relaxed a fraction. “Today?” she asked Aimee. “We can go today?”

“Right after you speak with La Proc. You’ll do fine, just tell her the truth. La Proc’s fair. Remember that.”

After a single sharp rap, a woman’s voice called, “Entrez.”

The flic opened the door and gestured them inside. Tall ceilings, windows overlooking the Seine, a framed photo of Mitterrand wearing the blue, white and red ribbon of Le President. A coveted corner office indicated Edith Mesard’s status.

La Proc wore her blond hair coiffed sleekly behind her ears. In her tailored dark green Rodier suit, holding a dossier, she looked formidable. It was the word Morbier had used to describe Mesard’s prosecutorial skills. A white-haired man sat next to her desk.

“Bon, make it good, Mademoiselle Leduc. You’ve got fifteen minutes,” La Proc said.

“Thank you for making the time, Madame La Proc,” Aimee began.

“You won’t mind if a consultant to Internal Affairs stays?” Edith Mesard asked. “He’s interested in what might transpire.”

The white-haired, ruddy complected man filled out his double-breasted navy blue suit. His eyes flicked over them, calculating. Who was he?

Aimee cleared her throat. “All the better. This is my partner, Rene Friant; Isabelle Moinier, and you are Monsieur . . . ?”

“Ludovic Jubert,” he said. His eyes locked on hers.

She felt the color drain from her face and a leaden sensation in her feet. She’d finally flushed him out. Yet she was filled with fear.

“Monsieur Jubert, you worked with my father, didn’t you?” She paused, searching for the words. “I’ve been wanting to speak with you.”

“So I gather, Mademoiselle Leduc.”

Concentrate! She had to concentrate on his reactions as well as to make sense to La Proc.

“You can catch up later, I’m sure,” Edith Mesard told her in a calm tone underlaid with steel. “You indicated urgency, Mademoiselle Leduc? I’m listening.”

“On the night of Jacques Gagnard’s murder, Mademoiselle Moinier, who lives on rue Andre Antoine in the adjacent building, saw three flashes. I think that means there were three shots fired. I believe that a high-tin- content bullet, presently undergoing tests in the police lab, was responsible for the gunshot residue on Laure Rousseau’s hands, not her Manhurin.”

“So you’re saying what?”

“Laure didn’t shoot her partner.”

“I don’t understand,” Edith Mesard said. “Where did this ‘bullet’ that’s being tested come from?”

“The rooftop. I dug the bullet out of the chimney.”

Ludovic Jubert hadn’t said a word. His eyes hadn’t even blinked. Behind him, flecks of snow fluttered outside the window, drifting over traffic moving at a snail’s pace along the quai. And disappeared into the sluggish pewter Seine below.

“Who do you suggest shot Jacques Gagnard?”

“Another apartment resident heard men speaking Corsican on the scaffold that encircles the roof.”

Edith Mesard looked at Ludovic Jubert. Aimee saw his shoulders move in a slight shrug.

“If you and your partner would wait outside, please,” Edith Mesard said.

“YOU LOOK like you saw a ghost,” Rene said.

She nodded and sat beside him on the wooden bench. The hall radiator sputtered, emitting ripples of heat. “I did. In the flesh.”

A metal trolley with several coffees stood by a potted palm.

“Tell me about it over coffee?”

She nodded.

He edged off the high bench, slipped some francs into the tin with “two francs s’il vous plait” pasted on it, filled two plastic cups with espresso, and handed her one.

“It’s about my father. And Jubert.”

“Your father?”

“And a cover-up.” She sighed, leaned back, and told him about Laure’s hint that her father had been involved in some cover-up and Jubert’s supposed connection to the Place Vendome explosion that had killed Aimee’s father.

“You could have told me before.” Rene’s large green eyes flashed in anger. “But, Aimee, Laure’s disjointed ramblings don’t prove anything.”

She rubbed her eyes. “Jubert knows I broke into STIC. That’s why he’s here. He probably found out I used his name to request an expensive ballistics test. He wants to see what I’ve discovered.”

Rene shook his head. “How can he prove it? You covered your tracks, right?”

“Jubert’s not a good adversary to box with. But if I’m going down, he’s joining me.”

Rene took her hand. “You’ve found the eyewitness you needed to clear Laure, and the lab report. Hell, you’ve even found the bullet.”

“If they’ll accept it as evidence and credit Isabelle’s account.”

“How can they not?”

“I hope so,” she said. Looking down at her wet boots, she told him, “You won’t like this, but it’s better you work at home. Don’t go to the office.”

He rolled his eyes. “Giving it to me piecemeal, eh. What else haven’t you told me?”

“I can’t pin it down but there is a thug named Petru mixed up in this, too. He’s Corsican, but he doesn’t fit in with the Separatist movement. And he—or his friends—were on my tail.”

Rene handed her a box from his briefcase. “This arrived this morning.”

The return address was Dr. Guy Lambert, Hopital Quinze-Vingts, Opthamaligie Department.

Something she’d forgotten at his office? She slit the tape with her keys.

Inside lay a six-month supply of her eye medication, a referral to an eye specialist, and several lines of Lord Byron’s poem “Fare Thee Well”:

And life is thorny; and youth is vain;

And to be wroth with one we love,

Doth work like madness in the brain.

She crumpled the paper.

Rene stared at her.

“Guy’s parting gift. Conscientious, as always.”