Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

“My rainy-day money? What good’s it to me now? You’re already on the case.” She squeezed Aimee’s hand. “Find who murdered him.”

Aimee looked away, torn. How could she investigate the murder for this old woman when her best friend’s girlfriend might be the culprit? A bad feeling seeped in her bones. She was fraught with worry that she’d find Meizi involved.

“I can’t guarantee you satisfaction. Or that we’ll find his murderer. These cases … you don’t want to know.”

“Pascal was murdered behind a building, and I don’t want to know?” The old woman leaned toward her, her eyes sharp. “I want justice.”

“I’m truly sorry, but …” She paused. Pascal could have had a double life. Better to save his great-aunt from knowing. “Unless there’s something pointing to—”

“But he was afraid.”

Aimee blinked. “Afraid? You must tell the flics.”

“You think I didn’t? Did they want to listen to an old woman, clouded by grief, ranting about his project?”

“What project?”

“I don’t know, but he kept a safety deposit box. In the Credit Mutuel on rue Reaumur.”

“I don’t understand.”

“A month ago, he told me if anything happened to him—his words—to open the safety deposit box.” Mademoiselle Samoukashian rose. “Of course, this Meizi’s hiding and scared. You find her, discover what she knows. I’ve got an appointment with the bank manager to open the safety deposit box today. Then I’ll show you.”

Aimee’s heart tugged. She felt for this old woman.

“Don’t do this for me, please. Do it for my Pascal.”

Aimee’s mind went back to the plastic-wrapped body dotted with snowflakes. That mouth opened in a silent scream. Those eyes frozen in terror.

She nodded. “No promises, Mademoiselle, but …” She hesitated. “Call me and we’ll meet.”

In the hallway, Aimee paused, loath to leave this grieving woman, her warm and inviting apartment.

Mademoiselle Samoukashian took her black purse from the coat rack by the door. She opened her wallet, a Fendi knockoff, and rifled through photos. “Here’s Pascal in the school play. Oh, here’s a science project based on a Knights Templar gadget. This one was taken at graduation.”

Saddened, Aimee glanced at the thumbed and faded schoolboy photos, the progression as Pascal grew up.

“The Arts et Metiers campus at Cluny,” Mademoiselle Samoukashian said, flashing a photo of a group of young men on the ramparts of a castle. “Horrible place, in a medieval abbey. He hated it there,” she said. “Let me give you one. So much better to remember him by than …” Her voice trailed off and she handed Aimee a photo of Pascal, wearing glasses, standing in what appeared to be his office. The Pascal Aimee preferred to visualize: big eyes, wild red hair, smiling.

“Oui, merci.”

A green carry-all bag hung under a jacket from the coat rack. Faux reptile, just like one she’d seen in the luggage shop. Her heart skipped. Here was a connection to Meizi.

“Pascal’s bag?” Aimee asked.

Mademoiselle Samoukashian gave a tired shake of her head. “Force of habit.” Her gaze looked faraway.

What did that mean? But if this belonged to Pascal, she wanted to examine it.

“May I look?” she said, not waiting for a reply.

Aimee’s hand came back with a carnet of Metro tickets, a Eurostar ticket to London, a wad of francs. This put a new spin on Pascal’s murder, only she didn’t know how.

“Pascal planned a trip?” Maybe escape with Meizi?

Mademoiselle Samoukashian shrugged. “That’s my middle-of-the-night bag,” she said. “Pascal bought it for me. The ticket’s got my name on it, if you notice. Also shoes, a change of clothes. We always kept a bag ready. You never knew when they would come. If we’d be warned in time.”

Aimee stared at this little woman. “You prepared for roundups? But the Occupation’s over, Mademoiselle.”

“Not for some of us.”

Aimee’s heart churned. And it made sense.

Aimee kissed the woman’s paper-thin cheeks, a smell of Papier d’Armenie clinging to her. “No wonder Pascal loved you so much.”

Saturday, 8 A.M.

“YOU’RE POPULAR, CLODO,” said the volunteer at the Salvation Army shelter desk. “A flic left you a message. Someone else, too.”

Clodo stiffened. Already? January bit with cold teeth if the flics wanted to talk to him. He needed to get the hell out of here.

Clodo waved his blistered hand. “I’ll let my agent handle them.” His lungs burned, his eyes teared. He needed something warmer to wear.

He rooted in the clothes donations pile, grabbing a scarf. Pink and thick cashmere. He wrapped it around his neck.

“Hot enough water in the showers today, Clodo?”

Always a new volunteer. Kids who knew nothing about the streets. Or life.

“Not bad,” said Clodo.

Time to move. Once a week he came to this shelter in the east exit of the closed old Metro station. A shower, a meal, clothes, a warm place. But he hated the questions, the checking up. A few years ago, the city let the homeless sleep in alcoves on the platforms when the thermometer hit four degrees centigrade. Not anymore.

The volunteer refused to be put off. “The flic said it’s important, Clodo.”

As if he wanted to talk to a flic, after last night.

The salauds kicked him out from his spot on the stairs, which had been covered and dry. They’d questioned him about the mec the rats feasted on. Clodo, he minded his own business. Had to survive, didn’t he? He learned that in the war.

A racking cough overtook him. Damn lungs.

The kid pointed to the nursing station. “Get your cough checked out, Clodo.”

Like hell he would. He needed a drink. “Lend me some fric, eh. My cough syrup’s ready at the pharmacy.”

“You know we can’t do that.” The kid looked away. “But I can check on beds tonight in the Bastille shelter.”

Damn do-gooder. He needed a drink. He snorted and mounted the stairs to Boulevard Saint-Martin.

Later he’d sleep in the old ghost station. He knew the subterranean web of tunnels like the holes in his shoes. Had slept there during the air raids in the war, while the British bombed the train supply depots. People forgot that. They forgot how once neighbors, shopkeepers, postmen, and bourgeois families all huddled together in the deep stations—Republique, Temple, Arts et Metiers, and Saint-Martin, the ghost station. They forgot how the aerial bombing reverberations rained powder over their faces. The terror.

But he didn’t forget. He didn’t forget his parents, either. Communists, rounded up the day his Aunt Marguerite took him to the doctor for his seven-year-old checkup. They’ll come back, she’d said. But they didn’t. She worked nights playing the accordion and singing at the dance hall on the Grands Boulevards. He’d go to the shelter with Madame Tulette, the concierge.

“Watch where you’re walking, old man.” In the sea of passersby, a man in a suit jostled Clodo into a half- frozen puddle. The pavement rumbled and warm gusts shot up through the grill from the Metro running below. He leaned against the kiosk to catch his breath. Horns blared.