AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

Aimee suddenly perked up. “Liliane’s got a babysitter, too?”

Martine nodded.

“I need one. Think she’d share?”

Martine stared at Aimee. “Don’t tell me! You’re pregnant?”

Aimee’s gaze rested on an exhibit with an explanatory placard: Circa 1870. Often the desperate parent left a bracelet, beads, or some other token with the infant being abandoned, hoping to reclaim the child in the future.

“The color’s drained from your face,” Martine said, steering her to a bench. “You’re paler than usual. Sit down. Morning sickness?”

Aimee was stuck on the phrase “or some other token . . . hoping to reclaim the child.” Had those marks on the baby’s chest been meant as identification?

Aimee shook her head.

“Tell me, Aimee.”

“It’s not that, Martine, it’s worse.” Then she told Martine everything: the phone call, finding the baby, the body in the morgue, the matching blue beads, Morbier’s demand, and finding Rene wearing an apron, buying a stuffed animal without admitting it.

“Rene’s nesting,” Martine said.

“What do you mean?”

But she knew.

Martine dug into her bag and uncapped a small brown bottle with red Oriental characters on the label, took a swig, and passed it to Aimee.

“Drink this. Oronamin-C, a Japanese energy drink full of electrolytes. You need it.”

It was dense, viscous, and tangy, with an aftertaste like a children’s liquid vitamin drink. Her cheeks puckered.

“Rene’s exhibiting the classic signs: cleaning, cooking, feathering the nest for the new baby, Aimee,” Martine said, outlining her lips with a brown pencil. “Instead of you. He’s a gem.”

“My best friend next to you, Martine.”

“A lasting relationship can be built on friendship, but it is rare in life.”

What was Martine getting at?

“Knowing what they look for in adoption court, I’d say you’ve got a good start. Rene could help—”

“What?” Aimee caught the bottle before she dropped it.

“Don’t tell me adopting this baby hasn’t crossed your mind.”

“What’s crossing my mind is what Nelie may have found in the Alstrom file, how MondeFocus is involved, and where she might be.”

“Phhft,” Martine said. “Everyone hates oil companies. You’ve got an in—hacking or whatever it is you two do on the computer—and . . .”

“Tunnel into Alstrom?” Aimee finished. “Easier said than done.”

They were working for Regnault, Alstrom’s publicity firm. There was a definite conflict of interest, as Rene had quickly pointed out. She reached in her back pocket for another stop-smoking patch, handed one to Martine, and stuck one above her hip.

“This should get you through the christening.”

Aimee saw a gift certificate inside Martine’s pocket.

“What’s this?” She looked at the name. Jacadi, a baby store carrying top-of-the-line frivolous baby clothes.

Martine shrugged. “I’m always going to a christening these days, have to keep them handy! What’s with your grunge outfit . . . infiltrating the Sorbonne?”

“Close.”

And then it hit her—Martine was going to the oil conference. “Can you e-mail me your notes on Alstrom’s participation in the oil conference?”

“I’m lead article editor, I write the overview, gluing everything together for L’Express. We’re doing a four-page supplement in this week’s issue.”

Impressive. Martine had risen above straight investigative journalism.

“A young Turk’s covering Alstrom, doing the nitty-gritty.”

Aimee stood and they walked into the next cavernous room. “You’ve got the perfect reason to request his notes. To verify sources, legality, et cetera.”

“It’s better if I introduce you. He’s a dish.”

Martine never stopped trying to set her up.

“Pass.”

Martine pulled out a parchment-paper envelope that contained an engraved invitation and dangled it in front of Aimee.

“The Institut du Monde Arabe reception for the Fourth International Oil Conference?” Aimee said. “How’d you get that?”

“Press corps,” Martine said. “Come with me. You’ll get more out of him that way.”

She had a point.

“It’s formal, Aimee. Bring a bottle of Dom Perignon, too,” she said, a shrewd twinkle in her eye. “The slush they serve’s undrinkable.”

Martine always had deluxe ideas concerning payback.

“Right now I’d appreciate an entree into MondeFocus.”

“Not again. I’ve only got my old press pass . . .”

“Brilliant idea, Martine.”

AIMEE LEANED ON Pont de la Tournelle’s stone wall, scraping Martine’s name off her old press card with her nail file. She used manicure scissors to snip her name from a business card and glued it and her photo from her Metro pass on top of Martine’s. She sealed the result with wide, clear tape. Not bad. A quick flash of credentials and with luck it would work.

She crossed the bridge and reached Ile Saint-Louis. She gazed to the right at Quai de Bethune which Marie Curie and Baudelaire had once called home and where President Pompidou’s widow still lived, and hoped the sky didn’t open up.

At the MondeFocus address on the Quai d’Orleans, she pressed the buzzer. The door clicked open. Inside the dark port cochere entryway, another door opened. A dark-curly-haired woman wearing a blue smock stuck her head out the loge door.

“MondeFocus office, please.”

“Don’t think they’re open.”

Had the MondeFocus, wary after the demonstration, instructed the concierge to vet visitors?

“I’m with the press,” Aimee said. “They must have forgotten to inform you.”

The woman looked over Aimee’s jeans, shapeless trench coat. Shrugged.

“Bon. Third floor left rear.”

The door slammed shut.

ON THE THIRD floor, a woman wearing pink capris and a striped man’s shirt opened the door. She paused in her conversation, a cell phone held to her ear, scanning Aimee up and down. “Oui?”

Aimee smiled and flashed the press card and a folded copy of Bretagne Libre. “I’m working on an article. May I talk with you?”

“Un moment.” She motioned Aimee toward a worn blue-velvet window seat. Silver rivulets of rain ran outside the window, condensation fogging the corners and a draft hit Aimee’s back. Her face looked familiar but Aimee couldn’t place her.

The office was not a hive of activity. No one sat behind the desk or worked at the computer that rested atop a narrow slat over sawhorses. An Andy Warhol silk screen of Yves Saint Laurent hung on the wall; an orange modular couch stood in the interior of the salon. It looked like a makeshift office had been set up in this woman’s