AL07 - Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis

Aimee pulled out Vavin’s key ring and studied it. Two Fichet house keys and a third, a smaller one, which might be to his desk drawer.

She inserted the key into the lock on the side drawer. The key didn’t turn. She tried all the drawers. None of them opened. She scanned the minimalist-style office. No more furniture, not even a closet. The only place she hadn’t tried was the top drawer, which opened without a key. She slid it open. Pencils, pens, stapler, and Regnault stationery. A dead end.

“Nothing, Rene,” she reported.

A duplicate of the photo of Vavin’s smiling daughter on the rocking horse stared at Aimee from his desk. She imagined the knock at the door, the excited little girl running to answer it, her mother’s white face, and the girl tugging her sleeve, asking, “Where’s Papa?”

Then she succumbed to thoughts of Stella and warmth filled her. At least Stella was safe.

Vavin wouldn’t have hidden the key ring if it hadn’t been vital. Think. She took out the stationery from the wide drawer and felt around the interior. Smooth plywood. Cheap for this type of high-end desk. Then in the back her fingers found a clasp. She tugged it, heard a snap, and the plywood panel loosened. She slid it out and saw another panel with a lock. The drawer had a second level.

She inserted the key; it turned and the hidden compartment opened.

“Look, Rene.” Inside lay a laptop PC.

Rene consulted his notes. “His Mac’s on the systems inventory you made but not this one Let me check something.”

He lifted it out and whistled. “Alstrom gave Vavin a new toy. See,” he said, lifting the laptop up to show the asset tag near the serial number embossed with Alstrom on the underside of the machine.

Aimee’s cell phone vibrated.

“Oui?”

“Stella’s restless,” said Mathilde, the young babysitter. “I can’t get her to sleep.”

Aimee gripped the phone. A fever?

“Please take her temperature,” she said.

Stella’s cries sounded in the background.

Rene looked up, concerned.

“Loosen her shirt and the blankets, Mathilde,” Aimee said, thinking of what she’d read in the baby-care manual. “Try a cold compress on her forehead. And give her a bottle with sterilized water. I’ll wait.”

“I only have two hands,” Mathilde said, sounding flustered.

“Bien sur, I’ll call you back. If nothing helps, I’ll take her to the doctor,” Aimee said and hung up.

Her mind jumped ahead. According to the manual, fever in a newborn could mean meningitis. Nom de Dieu . . . she couldn’t stay here and work if Stella’s life hung in the balance.

“Aimee . . . you with me?”

Rene was staring at her.

“Wait five minutes, eh? You gave Mathilde the right instructions,” he said, pulling out his car keys. “Wait a bit, but if Stella has a fever, take my car.”

She nodded. Rene was right. She had to focus. She had to get a grip; nothing else would make it up to Vavin.

“Vavin had access to Alstrom’s internal system via this PC,” she said. “Can you get into their system on his machine, Rene?”

“More important, can I access it in time?”

She’d given Rene a quick overview in the hallway.

“Whoever murdered Vavin did a sloppy job. But I bet it was for this—something on his computer involving his colleague’s e-mail.”

“Aren’t you jumping to conclusions?”

She didn’t have anything else to go on.

“Well, it’s a place to start, Rene,” she said. “But I’d feel better working in another office.”

BY THE TIME NADIA had opened the conference room, crowded with a suite of modern walnut furniture, Rene was right behind her, rolling in both computers on a wheeled trolley. Nadia paused at the door, a worried look on her face. “A flic just called. He wanted to visit concerning some incident having to do with one of our employees.”

Aimee’s shoulders tensed. Not standard procedure and they couldn’t have obtained a warrant so soon. “Did he identify himself?”

“I didn’t catch the name.”

Rene looked up and met Aimee’s eyes.

“I told him it’s impossible,” Nadia said. “He’ll have to visit during business hours with Monsieur Vavin in attendance.”

Aimee willed her hand to remain steady. “Bon, we’ll work on the system, nail the glitches.” She paused as if she’d just had an afterthought. “Did he mention any details? Or refer to a search warrant?”

Nadia’s thin eyebrows shot up and she shook her head. “I told him no one’s here; I was on the way out. Monsieur Vavin drops his daughter at her school on his way in, in the mornings, and arrives a bit late.” She shrugged. “The flic can wait.”

Aimee looked away. She couldn’t face Nadia. Or lie anymore.

“Thanks for letting us know,” Rene said, glancing at Aimee. “Have a good evening.”

Nadia shut the door behind her.

Either Nadia’s words had bought them time or whoever had called would arrive soon.

Aimee’s fingers ran over the smooth conference-table surface, planks in shades of light to dark walnut. Disparate yet fitting together in one piece. Like Vavin with Nelie? She’d seen MondeFocus pamphlets here, found an empty Alstrom folder in Nelie’s room, and the antiques dealer had seen them together. But she didn’t know how these pieces fit together.

“I failed Vavin, Rene. If only I’d talked to him . . .”

“Right now, do you know what’s the best thing you can do?” he said. “Help me find the password for this PC. Otherwise, I’ll have to use a brute force attack,” he said. “We can’t count on dumb luck; he may not have used the same password on this laptop. And what we’d need is back at the office.”

“Let me scout around.”

On Vavin’s Mac she accessed his user account with her sysadmin password. She scrolled through his activities and the functions he used on the computer. Why hadn’t she thought of this before? But then Vavin had been the boss. Why would she?

Rene tugged his goatee. “As I thought, he used another password. Found it?”

Appointments, meetings were noted on his calendar. All routine. Business lunches. No breakfast meetings, apart from one with de Laumain. No cache of passwords.

She shook her head. A big stumbling block and one they didn’t have time to chip away at. “If it’s buried in here, it could take hours to find.”

Her mind kept going back to his early morning call, claiming to be concerned about the firewall protection, as a pretext for accessing de Laumain’s e-mail. It all tied together.

She looked at her watch. Six minutes had passed. She hit the call-back button on her cell phone.

“Mathilde?”

“Stella’s a thirsty girl,” Mathilde said. “She drank a whole bottle.”

“No fever?”

“Her temperature’s normal,” Mathilde said.

“You’re sure?”

“Of course, I took it twice, Aimee,” Mathilde said.

Aimee let out a slow breath of relief. “Merci, Mathilde. She likes to be held and