Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

“Mais non, it’s on my way to work.”

WITH THE WRAPPED indigo boxes in her bag, a perfect wedding present for Sebastien, she caught a taxi.

Her cell phone rang in her pocket. Rene’s number showed on her caller ID.

“Has Saj found Pascal’s file on Coulade’s computer, Rene?”

He sighed. “Not yet.”

Too bad. Impatient, she rolled and unrolled the encrypted page in her hands.

“Meizi keeps asking when you’ll help her,” he said, worry in his voice.

“As soon as I reach Prevost and find out the timing of the police raid. Tell Meizi to trust me, Rene.”

“You’re popular,” he said, sounding anxious now.

Her throat constricted. The men she’d lost in Zazie’s cafe?

“Two men?”

“I got rid of them.”

But for how long?

“Hold on, there’s another call,” Rene said.

She checked from the taxi window. If they were following her by car, they were stuck in traffic. But it bothered her.

“Pull over, Monsieur,” she told the driver.

“Ici?”

She paid, took her bag, and slammed the taxi door. Horns blared.

“Where are you, Aimee?” Rene asked.

“A block from the museum.”

She was around the corner from the church. But she didn’t have time.

“Right now you need to go to church,” she lowered her voice into her cell phone. Huddled in a doorway from the wind.

“Church?”

“Saint Nicholas des Champs. In the ninth chapel transept you’ll see a star-shaped stained-glass window,” she said. “Crafted by the same guild in Pascal’s encryption.”

“But what does that mean?”

“The glass guild disbanded with the Templars, but the formula connects somehow. The star, remember, in the formula?” She heard the rapid keystrokes over the line. It sounded like Rene was running searches. She tried to put this together. “If Pascal discovered properties in this alchemical recipe that could be used in something significant now …”

“Like you said, that would explain the DST’s interest.”

“Let me know as soon as you find it, Rene.”

She knew it existed. She was certain.

Pause. “Zazie called from the cafe,” Rene said. “Told me to tell you two men are sitting watching our door.”

Damned irritating. Aimee sucked in her breath. She needed a cigarette.

“You know what to do, Rene,” she said. “Go out the back.”

Sunday, Noon

RENE LOOKED BOTH ways before stepping into rue Bailleul. The thwack and scrape of the street sweeper’s green plastic-pronged broom provided counterpoint to the shouts of the man unloading crates of wine from a truck into the cafe’s rear.

All clear. At least his hip was cooperating today. He needed sun, heat, and the last installment for his Citroen. What he had was the DST on Aimee’s tail, the uneasy feeling Meizi was keeping things from him, and a crazy errand in a church.

He shut the Citroen’s door, keyed the ignition, and blasted the heater. His leather-upholstered seats heated up within a minute. One out of three wasn’t bad. He shifted into first and turned right into rue de l’Arbre-Sec.

“STAND HERE, MONSIEUR.” The young, black-frocked priest gestured Rene toward Chapelle Saint-Sauveur, the ninth of the twenty-seven side chapels. “Few visit our petit jewel. Or ask about it.” The priest, who had sideburns, let out an appreciative sigh. “Beautiful, non?”

From his vantage point, all Rene could see was a dance of silver-white light shivering on the worn stone-slab floor.

“Look higher in the apse, Monsieur, past the left chancel columns.”

Not for the first time, Rene cursed his short legs. He leaned back, staring upward at the vaulted Gothic arcs of stone. He saw only soaring light framed and half blocked by the damned columns.

Rows of votive candles flickered in this cold south-wall chapel. The musky drafts of incense, fading floral scents from sprays of drooping winter lilies—all smells he remembered from childhood. And his mother’s whispered novenas in the chapel of the count’s chateau, where she prayed his legs would grow.

Rene gestured to the prayer kneeler. “Do you mind if I try a better look, Monsieur le cure? ”

“Pas du tout, Monsieur. Please call me Pere Andre, we’re modern these days.”

Rene untied the laces of his handmade Lobb shoes. Using the prayer kneeler’s straw seat for a step, he climbed onto the ledge of the recessed niche below a statue of Mary. He balanced on the ledge below her blue robe and craned his neck.

He saw a cluster of grisaille glass panels. But crowning it was a blossom-like luminescence of white emanating from a star shape high in the church nave. An intense shimmering.

“All of God’s children should gaze on this,” said the priest. “The unwavering radiance speaks of strength. It lifts the soul.”

Rene wondered why this small, glittering star shone unlike the other panels.

The priest crossed himself and waved at a few teenagers near the baptismal font. One held a guitar. “Time for our folk music practice,” he said. “We strive to involve our young community. We sing and celebrate the early Sunday Mass. You should come.”

Priests never changed. Always recruiting a new flock.

“Do you know the window’s history, Pere Andre?” Saying that felt foreign to him.

“I’m new to the parish. We’ve run out of guides.” He paused. “Ask Evangeline.”

The priest gestured toward a room labeled Saint Nicolas des Champs Altar Society and joined his teenagers.

Evangeline, a lace mantilla over her gray pageboy coif, wore a chic purple wool suit. Rene found her reaching on tiptoes into the altar linen cabinet. Only a head taller than Rene, she was short-statured like others of the generation that grew up during the war. She gave him a lopsided smile. “I’d ask for your help, mais alors, you’d have the same problem.”

Rene pulled a wooden chair to the cabinet, undid his laces again, and climbed on the chair. “Pas de probleme.” She handed him the ironed altar linens. One by one he organized them in the old bleach-scented cabinet. “I’ll have to ask for something in return, you know,” he said, wishing the room had heat.

“Name your price,” Evangeline said.

“Know the history of the star in the stained-glass window?”

Evangeline handed Rene another stack of linen. “Early fourteenth century. An anomaly, considering the surrounding sixteenth-century chapel. The records from that time … phfft, gone.” She shrugged. “We know the church’s foundations date from the eleventh century, then a hodgepodge of Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and the bell tower later. Why?”

“I’m researching fourteenth-century glassmaking guilds.” That much was true. “That star window is so