AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

Persuade him to play something after dinner.”

Lucien knew he should thank Felix for his hospitality and leave before he made the biggest mistake of his life. But Marie-Dominique’s scent and his memories paralyzed him.

Amusement glimmered in Felix’s eyes as he said, “Lucien, you’ll let me help you?”

Lucien nodded, tongue-tied.

“As long as you’re not involved in Corsican political causes or these Separatist groups. Are you?” Felix asked.

Should he reveal his past? But how could he tell the truth? He was an unknown; he played in Corsican restaurants to eat. SOUNDWERX would make him.

“Felix, I’m just a musician!”

“Good. Monsieur Kouros of SOUNDWERX wants to meet you. He’s a personal friend, Lucien,” Felix said. “Connections are what count in this world. Forgive me if I assumed too much, but I’ve already given him my word that you’d sign an exclusive contract.”

Lucien’s mouth felt dry. Should he ask to read the contract, he wondered. Seeing Marie-Dominique while listening to Felix’s proposal had his mind reeling.

Felix rubbed his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “You look unsure. After you meet Kouros you’ll understand.”

Out in the salon, Lucien’s collar felt damp. He’d been perspiring. All about him, couples chatted, and everyone seemed to know one another. His awkwardness increased as he observed the well-dressed strangers surrounding him.

A waiter in a white coat stared at him. He had black eyes and an olive complexion that were at odds with his bleached-blond curly hair. A Corse, like himself, Lucien figured, trying to get by.

Lucien summoned a smile. “What village do you come from?” he asked, the question Corsicans always put to a fellow countryman. It was a way to pinpoint their place on the social map, to discover who their friends were, what power they had access to, or even if they were by chance related. Or, worst scenario, if they were involved in a complex vendetta against his clan, one that might have arisen from the defense of the honor of a twice-removed murdered cousin from the last century. These things had to be explored.

“Monsieur?” The waiter addressed him as if Lucien hadn’t spoken. “Monsieur Conari said to tell you that dinner’s served in the other salon.” Then he edged closer and responded, “I’m from Bastia.”

An Italian, as people from his rock-perched village would say. To them, all coastal people were descended from Italian fisherman. Even if their ancestors had reached Corsica five centuries earlier.

“And you?”

“Vescovatis,” Lucien said.

A look of recognition flashed in the waiter’s eye. Already Lucien was one up, hailing from a mountainous inland valley. A more pure Corsican.

Felix came up behind him, clapping him on the back, and flashed a big smile. “Listen, we’ll sign the contract after dinner. You’re going places, young man, I’ll see to it.”

Loud footsteps pounded across the parquet floor. And then Marie-Dominique’s dress rustled, brushing his hand as she turned, searing his fingers with a touch as light as a leaf.

“Monsieur Conari,” the waiter said. “The commissaire wants to speak with you.”

“The commissaire? About what? We’re having a party.”

Several blue-uniformed policemen entered the crowded room.

Had the flics seen him, Lucien wondered, had someone identified him? The old man with the dog? Nom de Dieu, what if they connected him with the shooting! Or with the Corsican Separatists?

Foreboding flooded him. It felt like when he’d been little and the mazzera, the village shaman, had seen the spell cast on him by the evil eye. But no, this was not scientific; he was scientific and didn’t believe in those things any longer.

“Monsieur Conari, you’re the host?” said a brittle voice. Not waiting for a reply, it continued, “We’re sorry for the inconvenience but a homicide’s been committed across the courtyard. We need to speak with all your guests to find out if they noticed anything suspicious. We must check their papers. It’s just a formality, of course.”

Monday Night

AIMEE TWISTED GUY’S RING back and forth on her middle finger. The cloudy moonstone in an antique setting reflected the sky’s changing weather. Perfect for her, he’d said. She tried to think of something else. The Commissariat cubicle in which she sat being questioned felt glacial. Several overhead fluorescent panels had burned out, casting uneven stripes of light on the pitted linoleum.

Opposite her at the metal desk, a twenty-something flic with a razor-sharp jaw pecked with two fingers at the keys of a black typewriter. Didn’t he have a computer?

“Voila, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said, pulling the paper out of the roller. His cigarette smoldered in a filled ashtray. He leaned back in his swivel chair and eyed his large sports watch. “Read over your statement to see that it’s correct. Then sign at the bottom.”

She read the five-page statement twice, then nodded and signed. “Please attach this, too.”

“What’s that?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

“A diagram illustrating my statement,” she said. So far she hadn’t seen a computer. “I presume you will scan my statement and this diagram into a computer?”

“Curious type, aren’t you?”

She heard the monotonous thrum of a printer from a back office. “Will you?”

“We know our job, Mademoiselle,” he said. “Now if you’ll come with me.”

She shuddered. Good thing she’d made a copy of her diagram.

He escorted her across the foyer of the deserted Commissariat to a holding cell adjoining the dispatcher’s room. It was more like a cage, she thought, with its steel bars, furnished only with a wooden slat of a bench. The flic unlocked her handcuffs and gestured her inside.

“Wait a minute, you haven’t charged me. How long until—?”

“Sit back and relax,” he interrupted and left.

The corners stank of old socks and other things she didn’t want to think about. Across from her, flyers for a police-sponsored community marathon walk and bike security tips sat piled on the counter by the glass-paned reception cubicle.

She rubbed her hands, coarse from the lab soap they’d given her after the gunpowder residue test, and paced three steps across the small cage and back, hoping she wouldn’t really have to stay here all night. So far she hadn’t seen Laure.

She pictured the scaffold skirting the building’s blue-tiled roof. The cape of snow, the angle of Jacques’s body, his turned-out pockets, Laure’s obvious concussion . . . but her mind kept going back to Jacques’s gunshot wound. Had his killer been lying in wait? On a night like this, why had Jacques left a warm cafe and persuaded Laure to accompany him? Why had he ended up dead on the slanted zinc roof in a storm?

To play devil’s advocate, if in fact Laure and Jacques had continued their argument, and Laure wanted to kill Jacques, easier and less damning ways existed. A blow rendering him unconscious, then a whack of his skull against stone bollards was one method. She’d read about it only last week in the daily Le Parisien. Or she could have tripped Jacques on the stairway leading up to Sacre Coeur. There were so many ways to stage an “accident.”

Yet she’d found Laure unconscious from a blow! Surely, the lack of gunpowder residue on Laure’s hands would establish her innocence. She hoped the flics had questioned the mec standing at the building gate. He might have seen something.

. . .

A female officer, wearing a blue jumpsuit unlocked the cage, shaking Aimee out of her reverie.

“You’re free to go,” she said, handing Aimee a plastic bag containing her things.

Just like that? Morbier had put in a word, she figured. She hoped he’d done the same for Laure.