Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Zazie set the dishtowel down on her school cahier and winked. “This way.”

Aimee followed her through the narrow passageway by crates of Orangina. She nodded to Virginie, who was sitting in the cluttered office with Zazie’s toddler sister on her lap, and headed to the back service door.

“Plan B, n’est-ce pas, Aimee?”

“Good memory, Zazie. A detective always needs a Plan B.”

And plans X, Y, and Z.

“Those two men who just came in are following you?” Zazie said.

Sharp, too. “Let’s hope it’s only two.” Aimee pulled out her LeClerc compact, touched up her lips with Chanel Red. “When you take their order, count to ten and keep them busy. Eyes away from the window, okay?”

Zazie nodded, serious. “This goes on my recommendation, non? I’m ready to go undercover, pass messages anytime.”

Aimee blinked.

“For my internship in your office next summer.”

Didn’t she want to be a dancer? Or was that yesterday?

Sunday, 9 A.M.

“PROFESSOR BECQUEREL?”

The pale-faced twenty-something shook his head. He ground his cigarette under his heel in the Ecole Nationale Superieure d’Arts et Metiers laboratory courtyard and stuck the butt in the pocket of his smudged, gray lab coat. “He died in the nursing home. No family. Sad, they said.”

Aimee hoped she hadn’t made a trip to the grande ecole in the 13th arrondissement for nothing. And so early on a Sunday morning.

“Didn’t he maintain an office?”

“Here we’re all third-year Gadz’Arts,” he said. “There’s no space for old, retired professors, even legends.”

“Whom could I speak with who knew him?”

“Only the laboratory’s open today. Just students.” The young man shrugged. “The school held a memorial for him a few days ago.”

That gave her an idea. “Where do they keep the remembrance book?”

“Quoi?”

She noticed the ink stains on his lapel pocket. A slide rule sticking out of his pants. A textbook geek.

“People who attended the memorial would sign a remembrance book, non?”

He shrugged. “Check with the office.” His wristwatch beeped. “Excusez-moi.”

But the offices were closed. Five minutes of directions from the concierge and a long corridor later, she found her goal. A high-ceilinged foyer led to a musty nineteenth-century salon dominated by the bronze statue of Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, who founded the school before the Revolution. Later, at Napoleon’s request, he focused on a trained military-style corps of engineers. Or so the inscription read.

The busts, portraits, and names on the wall spoke of the expertise of the celebrated Gadz’Arts. And the power and prestige. She stood back to note the graduates, from the designer of First World War fighter planes to the engineers of the Suez Canal, and get a sense of Samour’s connections.

Another wall listed more recent graduates. On supervisory boards, heading engineering firms, or captains of industry with firms like Renault. Impressive and all over the map.

Below she found a photo of a hollow-cheeked, bespectacled man with the handwritten Gothic script: Alphonse Becquerel, a pioneer who knew no boundaries in the field of optics and technology.

She opened the slim leather remembrance volume sitting on the podium. Inside were pasted articles from Becquerel’s long engineering and teaching career. Memorials from past students listed by graduating year—all in the stilted Gothic black-ink script. A curious familial feel to the notes, but hadn’t Jean-Luc called it a fraternity, a family?

Yet not Pascal’s name. Odd not to attend the memorial of a man he revered and trusted. She filed that away for later.

Determined to come away with something besides the sneeze building in her nose from the dust, she stuck the remembrance volume in her bag. In the first office she found, she smiled at the cleaning woman. “I’m in a hurry for the professor. Any copier available on this floor?”

The cleaner, a smiling middle-aged woman wearing a head scarf, gestured across the hall. Twenty francs poorer, Aimee left the remembrance memorial and walked out of the Conservatoire with the copied contents in her bag.

The cold gray outside made her think of the approaching gray monochrome of February. A month of beating rain and the highest rate of suicides. Around the corner she passed Le Monde diplomatique, the leftist intello monthly lodged in an old dairy. A remnant of the village the quartier was until the seventies demolition and tower blocks.

But the zinc counter at the cafe hadn’t changed in years. The milk steamer whooshed, the steam radiator hissed. She hung her coat up on the rack.

“Un express, s’il vous plait.”

The girl with thick black eyeliner behind the counter put down her Marie Claire magazine and nodded.

From the side alcove the news blared on the tele—World Cup fever for the national team, Les Bleus, overtaking the ongoing five-month-old Princess Di investigation. Then, a brief bulletin concerning the street closures that would clog northeast Paris on Monday, and the hospital workers protest in the morning. What else was new?

No mention of the Pascal Samour homicide.

Aimee studied the remembrance book pages and picked out the name of the one graduate in Pascal’s year. Tristan de Voule of Solas Energie. More approachable, she figured, than the older directors of megaconglomerates. She’d start with him.

The girl served Aimee’s espresso and went back to reading Marie Claire.

After some dialing, she found no Tristan de Voule listed, but directory assistance connected her to Solas Energie.

Then a twenty-four, seven answering service. After being routed through two receptionists, she reached his administrative assistant.

“Monsieur de Voule’s in the field,” said the assistant. “His schedule is booked all week.”

Great. A busy engineer or head honcho working on the weekend. She thought fast.

“A pity. I’m calling on behalf of the tribute we’re setting up in Professor Becquerel’s name. He attended the memorial and expressed interest in contributing.”

“I’ll relay the message, Mademoiselle.”

“Of course, but he told me how he looked up to the professor.” She scrambled for something more convincing. “Wanted to do a more personal tribute. But I’ve misplaced his cell phone number.”

Pause.

“Last Wednesday at the memorial here at the Conservatoire,” Aimee continued. “You know how close the Gadz’Arts grow to their mentors.”

“I’m not allowed to give out his number. Company policy.”

No doubt the admin fielded calls for donations all the time.

“I understand.” She had to persist. “But you could take mine. It’s close to his heart, he told me. 06 38 35 15 78. Before tonight, if possible.”

A little sigh. “Bon. I’ll pass on your number, Mademoiselle.”

She stirred her espresso and read. Alphonse Becquerel, a descendent of Henri, the physicist who shared the Nobel Prize with Marie and Pierre Curie. Devoted himself to light and optics, mostly in corporate research labs connected with technology. A pioneer in communications systems.

She got little from this bare-bones description. More emphasis seemed placed on his leadership of student