Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Money. Did it all come down to money?

She tried a hunch. “So how was your classmate Samour connected to fiber optics?”

“I’m confused. Weren’t you concerned with a fourteenth-century document? Some pie-in-the-sky dream of Pascal’s?”

He’d avoided her question.

“He was murdered, Monsieur de Voule. I’m looking at all angles.”

“You’re implying what?”

“I found pieces, but not how they fit into the puzzle,” she said. “Weren’t you just away on a work site?”

He nodded. “Going back tomorrow. But I need to meet with staff at this event. And if you’ll excuse me …”

She couldn’t let him leave like that. “Hear me out for one minute, please.”

“You’re trying to tie in Pascal’s murder somehow, aren’t you?” De Voule said, his tone exasperated.

“If Samour discovered an economically feasible fiber optic and manufactured it cheaply, who’d want it?”

“Apart from corrupt governments, the military, and politicians who pocket UN subsidies for grain and health services?”

Hmm, not so much money there after all, she thought. “So you think his murder’s personal?”

“I don’t know.”

“He confided in Becquerel,” she said. “But with his death, that leads nowhere.”

He looked stricken. “That led you to me.” A small sigh. Rimmel’s tapping foot echoed in the corridor, and de Voule looked up. “Desole, Pascal and I were close in school, but it’s been several years. I’ve got an appointment.”

“His great-aunt said that Becquerel mentored him.”

De Voule paused. “Petite Madame Samoukashian?”

“She hired me. You know her?”

“Best soup in the world.” Memories flooded his eyes. “They presented her with the Legion d’honneur for her work in the Resistance, you know. But she refused it.”

“She was a resistante?” Aimee knew but wanted to draw him out.

“A hero,” he said. “She ran a clandestine safehouse network in the Arts et Metiers.”

Aimee thought back to her feisty nut-brown eyes, the determination in her thin shoulders.

De Voule shrugged. “But she said she wouldn’t accept until the government acknowledged the role her cousin Manouchian, the Armenian poet in the Affiche Rouge, played during the Occupation. And until they reburied the group with honors, since the Germans executed them and dumped them in a mass grave.”

Surprised, Aimee took de Voule’s sleeve. “Pascal meant everything to her. She believes his murder is due to a project he was working on. We found material relating to fiber optics. Can’t you think back? Anything would help.”

He shrugged.

“Your classmate Jean-Luc thinks otherwise.”

He shook his head. “Jean-Luc and Pascal didn’t get along. Well, except when Pascal could help Jean- Luc.”

Before she could press him, Rimmel took his arm and they left. She pondered his last comment. Spite? But he seemed honest and revered Pascal’s aunt.

The rooms in the cloister had emptied. Feeling chilled, she wanted to warm up and go over Pascal’s laptop with Rene. She paused to pull her coat around her, then tried Jean-Luc’s number.

A phone trilled somewhere. The ring tone, a techno beat, escalated, echoing in the vaulted stone corridor. Pleasantly surprised, she followed it to the sacristy.

“Desole, Aimee, I’m late,” Jean-Luc said. “Where are you?”

“Right here.” She smiled, waved to him and headed to the sacristy bar. “I could use a drink right now instead of dinner.”

“I apologize.” She noticed his flushed cheeks, the rapid rising of his chest under his suit jacket. “But how did you find me?” His eyebrows rose on his forehead.

“No apology necessary,” she said, uncorking a dense red Burgundy and pouring two glasses. She glanced at the label. Not cheap. “We couldn’t talk at a crowded bistro, anyway. They suggested I’d find you here.”

She handed him a glass, determined to relax him. Probe for information and check it against de Voule’s words. She clinked his glass. “Salut.” She let him take a sip. Then another. “Symposium overload or work issues?”

“Department miscommunication,” he said, a tired edge to his voice. “Nothing I can’t handle. But I’m still new at this.”

“You’re not trying to avoid me?” She gave a little laugh. “Look, I wouldn’t want you to feel I’m hounding you. You’re so busy …”

“Not at all.” A crease worried Jean-Luc’s brow. “Now that I’ve listened to Pascal’s message, it’s adding up. But not in a good way.”

Alert, she poured more Burgundy in his glass.

“I feel terrible,” he said.

Aimee tried to look understanding. “Something bothered you in Pascal’s message, didn’t it?”

“That’s just it, it’s my fault. He needed my help.”

“Needed your help?”

De Voule said it had been the other way around. Which one told the truth? Which should she believe?

Jean-Luc sipped. Pushed his blond hair back. “A month, non, six weeks ago, they promoted me to division head. A new division concerned with logistics. In telecommunications that translates to nuts and bolts, infrastructure, systems placement …” He took a breath. “I’m boring you, desole. Here I am still talking work after the all-day symposium.”

“A fiber-optics division, that’s what you’re getting to, non?” Aimee took a linen napkin and set the bottle on it.

Jean-Luc blinked. “How did you know?”

She pointed to the fiber-optics symposium banner.

“Alors, I’ll cut to the chase,” he said. “Added responsibility, and one I qualified for, but of course I’m learning as I go. My team’s brilliant.”

“Composed of fellow Gadz’Arts?”

He gave a brief nod. “That’s where Pascal came in,” Jean-Luc said. “He visited me at my office several weeks ago. Turns out he worked on a fiber-optic formula and wanted my advice.”

The connection. Aimee willed her fingers to remain steady on her glass.

“Anything specific you can tell me?”

Jean-Luc shook his head. “Pascal caught me between meetings. A five-minute conversation.” He shrugged. “To play fair, I couldn’t reveal the company’s plans. I can’t say I understood all the projects we’d undertaken. That’s why I attend these symposiums, to get up to speed.”

“That’s it?” Aimee felt hope slipping away.

“Three days ago, he begged me to meet at his office,” Jean-Luc said. “But I’d just gotten back from our new lab in Strasbourg. Then Friday night he left the message, excited, saying he’d found something, a fourteenth-century technique that could be the missing fiber-optic link. He needed to show me, show me before …” His lip trembled.

“Please go on, if you can,” she said, hating to push him. “Before what?”

He nodded. “He said, ‘before they find out what I’ve done,’ almost as if he’d stolen something.”

“You’re sure?” Yet according to the DST, Pascal worked for the security of the country.

“But I don’t know who or what.” He squeezed her hand, then let go. Large, tapered fingers, worn fingernails. Even as department head he’d said he still did the dirty work. “Then this afternoon.” He downed his wine, his brow furrowing. “I couldn’t find reports in my briefcase for today’s presentation. Gone. My secretary checked, but I hadn’t left them at the office.”

He shot her a troubled look.

“Vital reports?” Aimee asked.