AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

He nodded.

Aimee knew the place around the corner from her apartment that sheltered students and troubled young women.

Aimee set some francs on the counter. “Merci.”

SHE LEFT THE cafe and walked down the narrow street thinking. Unease filled her.

Had she looked at this all wrong? She stared at the photo, concentrating on the dark-haired girl, Nelie. Momo had let her use the phone in the garage. Bernard, Sabine, and Janou had recognized her.

Had Nelie, though limping and injured, met Orla after the demonstration at the cafe? But then why hadn’t she used the telephone downstairs in the cafe rather than the one at the garage? On top of that, why hadn’t Nelie explained the situation calmly and clearly to her over the phone? Instead, she’d spoken frantically, almost incoherently. She had seemed desperate, sure that someone was after her. And now Orla was dead.

There was still no clue as to why Nelie had chosen to telephone Aimee. Nor any explanation of the writing on Stella’s skin. Questions swirled in Aimee’s mind as she tried to fathom a frightened woman’s thought processes. But now at least she knew whom she was looking for. She had to find Nelie, get answers, and resolve the baby issue without involving the authorities. She turned into rue Poulletier, feeling a frisson in her bones as she passed the words carved in worn limestone—SAINT-VINCENT DE PAUL ETABLIT LES FILLES DE LA CHARITE 1652. A reminder of the time when priests found babies abandoned on church steps and the parish provided social services that the king didn’t. A newer sign, hanging near the ancient metal S-shaped hinge, which compressed the inner beams and held the floors together, read WATCH OUT.

In a few minutes, she imagined, she might be handing Stella over to Nelie. Stella stirred and Aimee felt a pang of regret.

Get on with it! she told herself. Resolutely, she pressed the digicode at the entrance to the soot stained stone building. The door buzzed open. Now she’d find out why Nelie had entrusted Stella to her.

“NO BABIES ALLOWED, MADAME.” A honeyed voice belied the sharp expression of the stout woman at the window of the reception area.

In the crowded alcove behind the woman, faxes hummed and a phone console lit up with red lights.

“I’m meeting Nelie,” Aimee smiled, determined not to let this dragon of a sentry put her off. “Can you ring her room?”

“We’re a busy office. You’ll have to call her yourself.”

“Her room number, please?”

“We don’t give out that information,” the receptionist said warily. “You should know that.”

Had the flics sniffed her out and come for Nelie already? She doubted that.

“I’d appreciate your help, Madame.”

“You’ll have to excuse me, it’s our busiest time. If you’re meeting her, she’ll come down,” said the woman. A red light was blinking on the switchboard. Several young women entered the vestibule, crowding around the window asking for mail.

A brunette with a long braid down her back leaned down and cooed at the baby. “What’s her name?”

“Her name . . . Stella.” Aimee seized the opportunity. “You don’t know Nelie, do you? We’re supposed to meet and I forgot her cell phone number.”

“I’m sorry.” The brunette shook her head.

Aimee showed her the photo. “Maybe you’re on the same floor.”

The girl shook her head. “I’m in the exchange section, just here short term.” She smiled, a milk-fed provincial girl. “Sorbonne students occupy the second floor, that’s all I know.”

Aimee found a seat near a table bearing old magazines. Another group of girls in tracksuits carrying soccer balls in a net assembled by the desk. On the back wall Aimee saw room numbers next to linen assignments on a blackboard. She stood and scanned the numbers until she came to one for Nelie Landrou on Staircase C. Finally! That had to be her.

She edged through the glass doors to the courtyard while the receptionist was busy. Charcoal gray tiles formed the slanted rooftop overlooking the grass-covered rectangular courtyard. There were no blue zinc roofs on this island; that would have been too modern.

Stella nestled closer in her arms, radiating warmth. “Such a good girl,” Aimee whispered. If only she’d stay that way.

Staircase C lay at the back. Aimee mounted a flight of covered stone steps. She faced a line of planked doors. There was a name holder outside each room, next to the door.

Nelie’s resembled the others. At least no police crime-scene tape was visible. She took a breath before she knocked. “Nelie, it’s Aimee Leduc. I can help you.” There was no answer even after she knocked repeatedly.

She’d never picked a medieval lock before. Certainly never picked a lock of any sort with a baby in her arms. She didn’t think her credit card would work so she inserted her miniscrewdriver into the lock, swiveled it around, and then heard the tip snap. Great! Propping a gurgling Stella on her hip, she reached in her bag for her key ring, found the long old-fashioned keys to her cave, and used one as a lever to prise out the broken screwdriver shank. That done, she slid in the narrow lock-picking tool with a quick twist and upward shove.

She heard laughter from down the hall; she had to hurry. She jiggled the lock-picking tool, heard scraping metal and a click. She pushed the door open.

“Allo?”

No Nelie. Empty and like a monastic cell, spartan; narrow, white-washed stone walls, a small coved window filled with old blue bubbled glass with bars across it. She saw a poster of a munitions site with the legend: One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day on the wall, a textbook on the floor, and an Indian cotton print bedspread on the single bed, which gave the room a student feeling. But it was an unlived-in feeling.

Her hopes dashed, she debated what to do. She picked up some notices left on a chair. The one on top was for a mandatory house meeting dated a month ago. A brief message in an opened envelope read: Madame needs to meet with you regarding the balance owing on end-of-term rent. It was dated three weeks before.

She’d been here, opened this envelope. Or someone had. Aimee wondered if she’d left when she couldn’t hide her pregnancy anymore.

Aimee didn’t have much time. Clutching Stella in the baby sling, she searched under the bed. Nothing. She examined the sheets, the pillow, and the gray sweater tossed down on an orange crate. This girl had left little more than a textbook and that sweater.

She hadn’t just moved out, she had fled. Aimee felt it in the pit of her stomach.

She opened the window. In the courtyard, several uniformed flics stood talking to the woman from reception. The woman pointed up at the window. Nelie’s window.

Her pulse raced. She had only minutes. Forget searching, she had to get out. Her foot slipped on a rag rug and she cushioned Stella with one arm, grabbing the metal bed frame with the other hand. It was a cheap tubular frame, typical of dormitories. Hollow tubed! And the screw where the tubes joined was loose. A good place to hide something, Aimee realized. After two turns, the screw came off and she wrenched the tubes apart. Inside, her index finger found a rolled-up plastic folder. Empty. The name Alstrom was embossed on the cover.

Their client, Regnault, ran Alstrom’s publicity campaign. The protesters she’d seen from Regnault’s window, the blue lights that had illuminated the demonstration last night just across Pont de Sully . . . somehow they were related to the victim Orla, Nelie, and the baby.

She rerolled the folder, stuck it back in the bed frame, scrabbled to her feet, and draped her jacket over her shoulder. By the time she’d closed the door behind her, the jacket covered Stella as well. She heard footsteps and the murmur of voices from across the courtyard.

A single file of flics tramped up Staircase C on her right. She ducked behind a pillar. But not before she’d seen the leader point to Nelie’s door. The other officers fell back, in position. A keening cry came from her arms. Aimee wiped her finger, stuck it in Stella’s mouth, praying it would pacify the baby until she