AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

“Like a coffee?”

Grateful, Aimee nodded, accepting a cup of espresso. “Merci. What I’d really like now is to find Laure Rousseau.”

The flic grinned. “And I’d like to find the man of my dreams. We can all hope, right? Try Hopital Bichat.”

THE SCUFFED walls and peeling linoleum of Hopital Bichat needed refurbishing. Laure, her head bandaged, sat on gurney in the hall outside the triage area, accompanied by a tired-looking flic. “. . . speak with an attorney,” Laure was saying. Her words were slurred.

“Officer, may I have a few words with Mademoiselle Rousseau?” Aimee asked.

“You’re family?”

“She’s my friend. Please!”

The flic adjusted his tie and then tapped his fingers against the metal gurney.

“Bon. I’ll check with the Prefecture concerning the charge against her.”

“What do you mean, charge? Check with La Proc. There’s some mistake.”

She saw his noncommittal expression. Then a flush rose from his neck to his cheeks. At least he had the decency to feel shame. After all, Laure was one of his own.

“Let me find out what’s going on,” he said.

“Where’s the physician on call? Look at her. She needs immediate attention!”

“Bad timing. Several trucks collided on the Peripherique. She’s next for intake.”

Aimee saw the caked blood on Laure’s temple, heard her labored breathing, and noted her dilated pupils. The classic symptoms of shock. The officer moved down the corridor, trying to find reception for his cell phone.

“This is all a formality, Laure,” Aimee assured her. “There’s a mix-up.”

“Mix-up?” Laure’s shoulders shook. Tears brimmed in her eyes. “The technicians found gunshot residue on my hands. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Gunshot residue? Aimee was startled. “I don’t understand.” She had assumed Laure, too, would be cleared by the test. “There’s got to be an explanation. When did you last fire your gun?”

“Maybe a month ago, bibiche, at the firing range, I think. I can’t really remember,” Laure said, her eyes glazing.

It didn’t make sense. Then how could she have residue on her hands now?

“Tell me what happened after you left the bar.” Aimee put her hand on Laure’s shoulder. “Take it nice and slow.”

Laure shook her head. “Jacques was acting strange. . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Aimee smelled the tang of the chemical used in GSR testing and saw Laure’s fingertips, black from the fingerprint test. They hadn’t even wiped her hands off.

“So you went along with him,” she prompted.

“But I wondered . . .”

“What?” Aimee asked.

“His informer . . . Why would he meet an informer there?”

A meeting on a slippery roof on a frigid, snowy evening? Made no sense, Aimee concurred.

“It must have been a setup.” Laure leaned against the wall and rubbed her temples, leaving black streaks. “My head, it hurts to think.”

Aimee’s eyes narrowed. “A set-up. How do you know?” Aimee asked.

“All I know is I didn’t kill him.” Laure’s shoulders shook. “Jacques was the only one who gave me a chance. He took me under his wing. You can never return to the force if your partner’s killed and you’re . . . you’re th-the suspect.”

“We’ll straighten this out, Laure, reste tranquille,” Aimee said, even as she wondered what she could do.

A door slammed somewhere. The fluorescent lights flickered. Drunken voices shouted in the hall. An orderly ran down the green-tiled corridor, his footsteps echoing.

“You’ve got to help me,” Laure said. “Everything’s hazy, it’s hard to remember.”

Aimee feared they’d saddle Laure with an appointed attorney and conduct a minimal investigation. Or, more likely, just forward the inquiry to Internal Affairs, where police-appointed judges presided.

“They relish making an example of flics like me,” Laure said.

The sad thing was, it was true.

But she had to reassure Laure. “It won’t come to that, Laure. Like I said, there’s been some mistake.”

Laure stared at Aimee, her lip quivering. “Remember, we promised we’d always help each other out, bibiche,” she said. Laure leaned against Aimee’s shoulders, sobbing.

Aimee held her, remembering how Laure had always had to play catch-up, had been the butt of playground jokes before her cleft palate surgery, yet had dreamed of a career like that of her heroic, much decorated father. Unlike Aimee, who kept the flics at arm’s length.

“I swear on Papa’s grave, I didn’t kill Jacques.” Laure gripped Aimee’s arm, then closed her eyes. “I’m dizzy, everything’s spinning.”

“Laure Rousseau, we’re ready for you now,” said a nurse.

About time, Aimee thought. “Looks like shock, a concussion,” she said.

“Diagnosis is our job, Mademoiselle.” The nurse wheeled the gurney toward a pair of white plastic curtains.

“How long will it take?”

“Intake and observation will take several hours.”

The same flic walked past her. Aimee caught his arm. “I’ll come back then to pick her up and take her home.”

She recognized a “don’t count on it look” in his eyes as he shook his head.

“Why not?”

“I don’t have time to explain.”

“Take my number, call me.” She put her card in his hand.

He disappeared behind the curtains.

AIMEE STOOD on the gray slush-filled pavement in front of the hospital. She had to do something. She couldn’t stand the idea that Laure, still injured and in shock, would be arraigned at the Prefecture. There had to be evidence to clear her on the scaffold or the roof. There had to be some way out of this nightmare for Laure. She pulled out her cell phone with shaking hands and called her cousin Sebastian.

“Allo Sebastian,” she said, eyeing the deserted taxi stop. “Can you pick me up in ten minutes?”

“For the pleasure of your company?” he said. “Desole, but Stephanie’s making a cassoulet.”

Stephanie was his new girlfriend, he’d met her at a rave.

“Remember, you owe me?” Aimee replied.

Pause.

“It’s payback time, Sebastian.”

“Again?” She heard music in the background. “What do I need?”

“Gloves, climbing boots, the usual. Make sure the tool set’s in your van.”

“Breaking in like last time?”

“And you love it. Don’t forget an extra set of gloves.”

Sometimes you just had to help out a friend.

SEBASTIAN, WEARING tight orange jeans, an oversize Breton sweater, and a black knit hat pulled low but with the glint of his earring still showing, gunned his van up rue Custine. His over-six-foot frame was squeezed into the beat-up van he used for deliveries. Beside him, Aimee sat scanning the shuttered cheese shops, florists, and darkened cafes dotting the steep, twisting street. Once this had been a village high outside the walls of Paris. Parisians had flocked to the butte, “the mound,” to dance at the bal musettes, to enjoy la vie boheme and to drink wine not subject to city taxes. Artists such as Modigliani and Seurat had followed, establishing ateliers in washhouses, before their