MURDER ON THE
ILE SAINT-LOUIS
Cara Black
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
Copyright © 2007
All rights reserved
Published by
Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
In memory of the deportees on Auschwitz-Birkenau convoys 37 and 38, September, 1942, the real Stella, and all the ghosts.
Immense debts of gratitude go to Leonard Pitt; Dorothy Edwards; Max; Stephen; Grace Loh for opening my eyes; Manon Noubik; Jessie; Barbara; Jan; Maggie, midwife extraordinaire; Stacy; Lt. Bruce Fairbarn, Special Investigative Unit, SFPD; George Fong, FBI; Dr. Terri Haddix; Roland Fishman above and beyond, in Sydney.
In Paris, Chris and Colette Vanier, for their generosity; Daniele Nangeroni, who told me her story; Captaine de Police Michel Constant of Brigade Fluviale; Jacques Valluis-Avocat; Alain Dubois; Bella and John Allen; Gilles Fouquet; Jean-Damien; Anna Czarnocka of the Societe Historique et Litteraire Polonaise; Flora Pachelska; Pierre- Olivier; Madame Wattiez; Jean Caploun; Paris Historique; Cathy Etile, little Zouzou; toujours Sarah Tarille; little Madelaine; and Anne-Francoise Delbegue.
And nothing would happen without James N. Frey; Linda Allen; Laura Hruska; my son, Tate; and Jun.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
—Voltaire
AIMEE LEDUC SENSED the scent of spring in the air rising from the Seine and spilling through her open balcony doors. A church bell chimed outside; leaves fluttered in the breeze and couples ducked into a nearby
She ran her chipped gigabyte green fingernails over the laptop keyboard; she had to finish system maintenance and get her client’s network up and running online by nine-thirty. Only twenty-seven minutes to go and she was exhausted, but she knew she’d manage it. All she had to do was concentrate, but after five straight hours, her brain rebelled. She rubbed her black-stockinged calf with her foot. One more system to check, then
From somewhere under the papers piled on her desk the phone trilled. Miles Davis, her bichon frise, who was nestled at her feet, awoke with a bark.
She heard someone panting and the sound of a wailing siren in the distance.
An obscene phone call?
“You have to help me!” a strange woman said.
“Who’s this?”
“Go to the courtyard. If they catch—”
“Wrong number,
“They want to kill me.” It was a young woman’s voice, rising in panic. “They want my—” Static obscured the rest of her sentence. “Please, now!”
“What do you mean?” Aimee leaned forward, shoulders tensed.
“I can’t explain. . . . There’s no time and they’ll hear me.”
“What kind of joke . . . ?”
“Please, Aimee.”
She still didn’t recognize the voice.
“Do I know you?”
“They’ll kill—I trust you.”
Aimee gripped the phone harder. “
A car engine started. “No
“Who is this?”
“You’re . . . you’re the only person who can help me now. . . . Go to the courtyard. It’ll just be for a few hours. Please! And don’t tell anyone.”
The line went dead.
The hair on Aimee’s neck rose. She hit the callback symbol and got a recorded message saying that the public phone she’d reached couldn’t accept calls.
Twenty-four minutes to her work deadline. But the call had unnerved her; she couldn’t concentrate. It would only take a moment to reach the courtyard. She pressed
The parquet floor of the long hall in her seventeenth century town-house apartment creaked under her feet. She rooted through take-out Indian menus in the drawer of the
