Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

A moment later Prevost shot out the doorway again, keys in hand. He unlocked the door of an unmarked Peugeot, started the engine.

The gods had stopped smiling.

She ran back to her scooter, wedged it out, and prayed Prevost hadn’t made the traffic light. She gunned the scooter down the quai until she saw the Peugeot ahead. A bus cut in front of her. By the time she reached the next intersection, the Peugeot had pulled ahead. She punched the handlebars in frustration. As the light turned green, she popped into first gear and caught up with Prevost.

The threatening clouds chose this moment to open up. Rain pelted the canal’s surface. Blinking rain away, she followed Prevost for fifteen wet minutes until he parked on narrow rue du Pont au Choux.

Next to the maroon storefront of Tartaix Metaux Outillage, the commercial metal shop, Prevost pushed open a wormholed faded-green door. She parked her scooter on the pavement, propped it up on the kickstand. Rain dripped from her shoulders. She shivered and ran across the street.

But the door shut behind him. Did he live here?

Instead of waiting in the deserted street for Prevost to emerge, she entered Tartaix Metaux’s glass-paned doors. The shop’s interior appeared unchanged from how she remembered it from childhood visits with her grandfather: the floor-to-ceiling drawers, long wooden counters reminding her of a bistro, a sales wicket resembling the old Metro ticket booths piled with catalogs.

“We’re closed, Mademoiselle.”

She noted the blue-coated assistants stocking items from stepladders. “But I didn’t see a sign, Monsieur.”

“We’re doing inventory,” said a man, wiping his hands on a rag. “Come back tomorrow.”

A side door opened, bringing with it a wet rush of air. Prevost stood under the dripping eaves, huddled with an Asian man.

Her grandfather had known the owner; they’d been old drinking buddies. She could use that.

“Does Monsieur Colles still work in the back?” She flashed a smile and her card.

“Some problem, Mademoiselle?” The stooped, graying man eyed her.

“Not at all, Monsieur,” she said, peering over the workman’s shoulder. From Prevost’s gestures, rigid body stance, and raised voice, she figured they were arguing. The Asian man stepped back, shaking his head. He wore a rain-spattered blue workcoat, and round, silver-framed glasses that gave him an academic air.

A brief glimpse before the courtyard door slammed shut.

“Routine, Monsieur,” Aimee said, emitting a bored sigh. “An insurance scam hit several firms on the street. My firm’s making inquiries.”

He nodded. “Second door to the left.”

She stepped to the rear amid rows of aluminum tubing, copper wire, and chrome and bronze strips on shelves reaching to the slanted glass ceiling. The reek of soldering metal and the whining grate of an electric saw assaulted her senses. Familiar, so familiar. She thought of her grandfather’s watchmaker friend, who would come to scour these shelves for bronze.

Inside the open office door she saw a thirtyish man, shiny bald head, black turtleneck, and readers perched on his nose. He looked like a film director. She remembered the massive walnut desk he stood at.

“But I’m looking for Monsieur Colles?”

He gave her the once-over. “My father.” Glanced at her card. “Leduc Detective. But I knew old Leduc …”

“My grandfather. I’m Aimee Leduc.” She smiled. “Forgive me, I came here on false pretenses.”

“Followed in his footsteps, eh?” He grinned. “Sit down.”

“Non, merci.” She pointed out the window to the courtyard. “That man the flic’s talking to, he’s your employee?”

Colles Junior’s eyebrows shot up in his forehead.

“Cho? Three years now.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What’s this about?”

“He’s not in trouble. Please understand. But I’d like to talk with him.”

“Why?”

She looked around the office. Little had changed. “My client doesn’t trust the flics. In this case, I don’t trust the one who’s talking to your employee.”

He sat down in the heavy wooden chair. “Big eyes. Yes, I remember you visiting with old Leduc and the watchmaker from rue Chapon. My father, like Riboux the watchmaker, is long gone.”

She nodded. “My grandfather, too.” It took her back to her childhood, visiting here one afternoon during a sudden hailstorm in May. “Aimee, we call it les saints de glace if it hails in May,” her grandfather had said. “That means the farmers harvest crops later.”

Colles sat down, indicated she do the same.

“But you’ve followed in your family’s footsteps, too,” she said, hoping to warm him up. Enlist his aid.

“At the end of the nineteenth century, seven hundred and fifty thousand artisans and craftsmen lived and worked in Paris,” he said. “Many lived in ateliers, like my great-grandfather did upstairs. Raised families. Now it’s diminished to ninety thousand, and fewer each year.” He shrugged. “But my father loved his friends and a good excuse to open one of his bottles of Montrachet.”

The soft wooden floor creaked under her feet as she remembered. She noticed the bronze coils and intricate inner springs of the blond-wood clock that Riboux had touched with his work-worn hands. “But I can still see the watchmaker repairing this.” She gestured to the tall seventeenth-century longcase clock. “I sat crosslegged on this floor, fascinated, just watching him with his old repair diagrams.”

Diagrams.

Samour’s chalk diagrams jumped out at her. She caught herself, looked out the window. Prevost was nowhere in sight. “Look, forgive me for barging in and being abrupt about this, but what do you know about Cho?”

“Determined, too. Like your old grandfather.” Colles Junior leaned back in the chair. “Cho was a metallurgist back in China. Highly educated. A shame we can only offer him technical work beneath his skills. He’s legal. I sponsored him.”

She paused. “Then why …?”

Colles Junior snorted. “He hawked faux designer bags on the quai. Had a brush with the law. How he got here from China, I don’t know. He was living with ten in a room, they took turns sleeping.”

She nodded. No doubt Cho owed the snakeheads. And Prevost used Cho’s brush with the law to turn him into his indicateur. An informer.

That’s how it worked.

Now she knew she needed to speak with him, to get on the playing field with Prevost. Find out his investigative path in Samour’s murder.

“You owe me nothing, but seeing as we have a past,” she said, and grinned, trying on the charm, “would you mind asking Cho into the office so I could talk to him without others around?”

“Why don’t we have a drink first?”

Aimee groaned inside. Not too hard on the eyes, but not her bad-boy type. And she needed to find out Cho’s connection.

She edged closer to the desk. “Desolee, but I’m investigating my client’s murder. If Cho knows anything, it’s imperative we talk. And that he trust me.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m already late for the autopsy.” A little lie she figured didn’t matter. She counted on that to put him off for now.

And it did. He’d averted his eyes. “But how can you think Cho knows anything about that?”

She shrugged. “The flics do.” At least she hoped Prevost did.

She noticed the wedding ring on his finger before he covered his hand. But he caught her look, and she saw a slump of defeat in his shoulders.

“Alors, just five minutes,” she said. “Please.”

He buzzed the intercom.

“Ask Monsieur Cho to step into my office.”

Not a moment later, Cho walked inside smiling. She noticed scarred flesh on his wrist that his work coat didn’t cover. “Monsieur Colles, we’re still working on the custom order …”

Colles Junior rose and waved his hand. “Pas de probleme. Talk to the mademoiselle