AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

He’d make it short so the flics couldn’t trace it. He took a deep breath and dialed Hotel Dieu, the public hospital. A nurse asked him to wait.

Several departments and clicks later, a sleepy voice came over the phone.

“Gaelle?”

“Oui . . . ?”

“I’m sorry. It should have been me,” he said in a rush of words.

“Did you . . . ?”

Was someone there in the hospital room, listening?

“Non, the bombs were planted. But Brigitte accused me.”

“They missed my skull, if you can believe it.” He heard a lisp. “I just lost some teeth.”

Machines beeped and wheels rolled over the floor in the background.

“I’d never set off bombs; you have to know me better than that. We’re going to do this by peaceful means, but . . .” He paused. “The pollution reports, everything, all our evidence was stolen from MondeFocus.”

“Tell Nelie. She’ll know how to compile it again.”

“I can’t find her.”

“There’s a certain doctor’s report. I don’t know details. She went to her uncle’s to get the proof.”

He almost dropped the phone. “You didn’t tell me . . . but she’s disappeared.”

“No time. Remember at the demonstration how she was trying to get our attention?”

He just remembered Orla shouting.

“Krzysztof . . . find Nelie.”

Did she know that Orla was dead?

“Mademoiselle,” a voice said. “Who’s on the phone?”

The line went dead.

“You disappoint me, young man.” Jadwiga stood next to him with two shot glasses of a cloudy drink smelling of licorice. “Your cause can only succeed if you make a big bang. A quiet protest is no use at all.”

He took the glass. Sniffed.

“You like absinthe?” she asked.

Absinthe had been outlawed for years.

“The wormwood inside rots your brain,” Krzysztof said.

“Na zdrowie.” She toasted and downed the shot glass, a gleam in her eye. “Delicious. Gives one courage.”

“And hallucinations,” he said.

She tugged at her yellowing string of pearls. “Only if one drinks enough.”

He had no intention of doing that. But courage, that he needed, and he drank it. His throat burned; his eyes watered and smarted.

“You’ve had too much of this,” he said, setting the glass down. “A thug’s taken pipe bombs to the oil conference reception at Hotel Lambert—”

“Aaah, but you know, it’s just as they say,” she interrupted, “there are only three ways to get into society: feed it, amuse it, or shock it.”

She poured herself another shot of absinthe, raising her painted eyebrows at his expression of disgust. “Not my words, Oscar Wilde’s.”

“With your anarchist background, you can help me,” he said, scanning her bookshelves for The Anarchist’s Cookbook. He trusted the Internet only so far. “You can explain how to defuse a pipe bomb!”

“Now why would I do that, young man?” Instead of the excitement he expected, she seemed disappointed.

“Adventure,” he said.

She shook her head. “And miss the best catered affair in Paris?”

The old woman wanted to crash the reception.

“Bibo’s hungry, aren’t you, mon cheri?” She picked up the bulging-eyed Chihuahua.

Ridiculous, this old woman and her foul-smelling dog wouldn’t get near the door while he might be able to blend with the catering crew and get inside.

“There’s no time,” Krzysztof said. “Look, I know the caterer, I can talk my way in. If you could diagram how to disconnect the fuses—”

“So naive, young man,” she interrupted in a bored tone. “I can get in the side door unobserved. But I need an escort.”

“Wait a minute.”

“The concierge consults me. She comes for readings every week,” she said, gesturing toward her crystal. “She swears by me.” Jadwiga pulled out a compact, checked her face, and powdered her nose. “Everything’s in my head, young man. We never wrote anything down about explosifs. Too dangerous, you know. We’ll talk on the way.”

She grinned, reminding him of a cat who’d swallowed a mouse. Sated for the moment but ready for more.

No time to argue. He shrugged. “Let’s go.”

“Not like that, you’re not.”

She took his hand, led him to an armoire, opened the creaking door that smelled of mothballs, and displayed a hanging tuxedo.

From an old lover of hers?

“A little loose in the hips, perhaps,” she said, eyeing his waist with a smile. “But it should do.”

Wednesday, Early Evening

AIMEE PULLED RENE’S raincoat tighter around her. The hem hit her at mid thigh but fit across the shoulders. She and Rene stood under halogen recessed lighting in front of the reception desk to the beige office suite. Vavin’s wing lay dark and deserted. She thought it unlikely that the flics had obtained a search warrant yet: even in high-profile murder cases it took hours. But she was afraid that Vavin’s killer might have bypassed security down below and preceded her even though she had Vavin’s keys. The sound of splashing and a muttered “Zut” interrupted her thoughts. She stopped in her tracks, put her hand on Rene’s shoulder, mouthed “Shh.”

The secretary was watering a potted palm. Why hadn’t she left for the day? Aimee racked her brain for the secretary’s name. Naomi?

“Bonsoir, your terminals seem to be malfunctioning again,” Aimee said. She noticed the secretary’s name on a memo pad. She had been close. “Nadia, meet Rene Friant, my sysadmin partner. You’re working late tonight.”

Nadia, in stylish narrow black-framed glasses, blinked. She took in Rene’s stature as she shook his hand. “But, Aimee, my computer’s working fine.”

“It’s always like that,” Rene said. “You won’t notice any problem until you access the server database.” He rolled his eyes. “By then, what a mess.”

Nadia set down the watering can, confused. “Go ahead.”

“We’ll start with Monsieur Vavin’s machine and tackle yours later.”

Aimee paused, as if she’d had an afterthought. “Hasn’t our tech associate called or stopped in yet?”

Nadia shook her head. “I’ve been here all day. Nobody called. Should they have?”

Rene said, “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.” They walked rapidly to Vavin’s office.

“Smooth, Rene,” Aimee said. “Still taking your PI courses?”

“If I had the time, I would,” he said.

“Let’s make this quick. Before whoever murdered Vavin pays his office a visit.”

Vavin’s subdued office overlooked the dark trees on the boulevard facing the Faculte des Sciences. Aimee’s damp high-tops sank into the plush carpet. Nothing appeared to be out of place.