AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

could give her a bottle.

She padded down Staircase B, keeping close to the wall of the arcade. Stella’s mouth gummed her finger. She reached in the bag, found the bottle, and shook it. Thank God, the formula line reached the top.

Head down, she threaded her way through the soccer team crowd, made it to the covered entryway, and opened the vestibule door.

“Excuse me, Madame?” said a blue-uniformed flic.

She froze.

He smiled, and handed her a diaper. “This fell from your bag.”

“Merci,” she said. “Excuse me.” She edged past him, eager to get away.

Rain pattered on the warm stone buildings turning to steam in the unseasonable heat. She shielded Stella with the baby bag, quickened her step, and turned the corner onto Quai d’Anjou. Mist curled under the supports of Pont Marie. Then the spring-like drizzle turned into a downpour before she could take shelter in a vaulted doorway. Drops beaded her eyelashes. She took a few more steps, then caught her breath. An unmarked police car blocked her building entrance.

Tuesday Afternoon

Rene, holding a dripping umbrella, paced over the gravel by the statue in Place Bayre as he debated what to do.

He reached for his phone and the stuffed toy in his pocket squeaked. The unmarked police car parked in front of Aimee’s door indicated that she’d given in and called the authorities. Guilt racked him.

The way she looked at the baby, the way the baby turned toward her voice. All she noticed was the baby. Now it had infected him. He’d found himself noticing babies in the bank that morning, comparing stroller prices in the window of a shop in Fontainebleau. Ridiculous.

He’d insisted she call social services, demanded she do what he thought was right. Then why the queasiness in the pit of his stomach?

He pulled out his cell phone. “Aimee, do you have company or shall I come up?” He tried to keep concern out of his voice. She might be in real trouble with the authorities.

“Hurry,” she said. “Come in through the back, you know the way. I have to tell you something.”

AIMEE PACED BY the sputtering radiator. Nothing seemed to add up. She’d sneaked back the way she’d left, via the back passage. Stella was sleeping in the hammock she’d fashioned from an Afghan throw, suspended between the eighteenth-century recamier and the protruding window hasp.

By the time Rene draped his damp Burberry raincoat by the fireplace she couldn’t wait any longer. She thrust the photo in front him. “See, Rene.”

Rene tore his gaze away from the baby.

“Notice the woman wearing a jean jacket?”

“Who is she?”

“Orla. She’s on a slab in the morgue.”

Rene stepped back in alarm. “What have you gotten yourself into now?”

“Her body was found in the Seine by Pont de Sully. I think either she left the baby, or it was Nelie, her friend. I don’t know which one is the mother.” She took him by the arm and led him to her laptop.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Start from the beginning.”

“I won’t know more until I can get hold of the autopsy report. But I can’t figure out why either of them trusted me.” She rolled up the sleeves of her silk shirt. “There’s no way I’m going to contact social services until I know.”

“Know what, Aimee?” he asked. “This gets more complicated every minute.”

She showed him the newspaper article and described her visit to the morgue and Krzysztof’s reaction— despite his denial that he knew the dead woman. Then she told him that later she’d found this photo of both Krzysztof and the blonde, Orla, with some others, in his room.

“Don’t tell me he handed it to you after denying he knew her?” Rene tapped his stubby fingers on the chair.

“OK, I ‘visited’ his room and he happened not to be there,” she said. “He’s gone.”

“Breaking and entering, some would call it.”

Now Rene would know she was crazy if he didn’t already. “His roommate let me in.”

“You’re guessing there’s a connection. You have no facts to go on, Aimee.”

“Guessing? Janou at the corner cafe recognized Nelie from the photo.” She pointed to the dark-haired one. “The two women were seen together last night with the baby.”

“Let the flics handle this.”

“Not only that, Nelie lives around the corner—literally—in the student hostel. But she wasn’t there when I went there just now. Somehow she looks familiar, but I can’t place her. She must know me, otherwise . . .”

Apprehension filled her. This felt all wrong. “If the dead girl is Stella’s mother, why hasn’t Nelie come back or tried to reach me?”

Pedestrians scurried below on Quai d’Anjou. Every other woman seemed to be pushing a stroller or holding a toddler’s hand. Had there been a baby explosion that she hadn’t noticed before? Wind chased the silver puffs of cloud across the sky, leaving pewter puddles on the pavement. Aimee felt more confused than ever and weighed down by responsibility. She couldn’t call social services and abandon the baby, like her own mother had abandoned her. At least not until she knew who Stella’s mother was and why the baby had been entrusted to her.

Rene tugged his goatee. “Why must you be involved? What’s it got to do with you?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “But for some reason Nelie didn’t trust the flics.”

“The baby’s not your responsibility. Under the circumstances, you’ve done more than enough.”

“If only it were that simple! Say Orla was murdered, Rene, as she was trying to hide something . . . and Stella . . .”

“Stella?” Rene looked at her quizzically.

“Well . . .” She searched for the words. “She’s not an inanimate object. I can’t keep calling her ‘it.’”

“None of this is your job. Turn the baby—Stella—over to people who can take care of her. Let the flics find the mother.”

Aimee’s gaze rested on the pink bundle swaying in the hammock.

Rene slumped and put his head in his hands. “Tant pis!Don’t tell me you want to run the office with a crib in the corner? Be realistic, Aimee.”

“Realistic?” She realized that she did possess some facts. Maybe when she laid them out, they would lead to a conclusion. “Nelie, the dark-haired one, had information on Alstrom, the oil company,” she began.

“Did I miss something here?”

His words jarred her. Miss . . . missing . . . what if Nelie couldn’t contact her?

If Nelie knew that Orla was dead . . . again Aimee came back to Krzysztof.

A vital piece was missing from the puzzle.

She started over. “Nelie hid an Alstrom file in her room at the women’s hostel around the corner. I found the cover of the file. The contents were gone.”

Rene stood openmouthed. “How? Breaking and entering again?”

“The flics will have found it by now. They were right behind me.” She pulled out her checkbook. “Look, Rene.” She showed him the marks she’d copied from the baby’s body. “Doesn’t it look like an equation?”

He turned away.

“It doesn’t hurt to look; it won’t bite you.”

“It’s bitten you already.” He rolled his green eyes. “I don’t know. Where did you find this?” He pulled out his handkerchief, monogrammed RF, and wiped his forehead.

“This was written under Stella’s arm, Rene,” Aimee said. “The mother’s protecting not only her baby but this, too. Whatever it may mean. Stella’s the key.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to have anything more to do with this. Neither should you.”