Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

Sunday, 7 P.M.

AIMÉE STOOD AT Café des Puys, running her chipped rouge-noir pinkie over the zinc counter. What she wouldn’t give for that cigarette in her bag.

One drag. That’s all.

Anxiety settled over her mind as she wondered about the DST’s agenda, their claim to Pascal, de Voule’s firm’s financial trouble, Jean-Luc’s intimation that Pascal stole his fiber-optics report. They each had different reasons for lying. Who to believe?

Just as she was about to reach for the pack the blonde had given her, the waiter slid an espresso in front of her. So instead, she took sugar cubes from the bowl. No chocolate on the demitasse saucer this time. No instructions either.

“Monsieur, un chocolat?”

“All out,” he said, without looking up.

Alors, she’d appeared as instructed. Done her part. Foolish to think the DST could lead to her mother. Secret meetings, games, all smoke and mirrors. She’d promised Mademoiselle Samoukashian she’d find Pascal’s murderer. But she still hadn’t connected the pieces, or found out who murdered him. Or why.

Tired, she downed the espresso, slapped five francs on the counter. The next time the DST made contact, she’d tell them where to go. About to leave, she glanced up. In the café mirror her gaze caught that of the man sitting in the back.

Sacault. Same brown suit. A matching brown wool muffler. Color coordinated as usual. She sat down across from him. “Glad you’re here. Makes it easy to say adieu.”

“Don’t you have news for me?”

She set down the tiny GPS tracker she’d found under her scooter’s headlamp. “Your surveillance techniques don’t impress or protect me. Nor do your old recycled surveillance reports,” she said. “After meeting the blonde last night, I was attacked. Consider me done.”

Sacault slid a gift-wrapped box with a blue bow across the marble-topped table. “Open it.”

Presents, a three-star resto tomorrow … bizarre goings-on. “But it’s not my birthday.”

“Pretend.”

“You’re good at that.” She stared at him. “Like that supposed five-year-old surveillance report on my mother. Posted on a website that disappeared before I could track it. Or how you altered the date.” She shook her head, shoved the gift back at him. “Quit gaming me.”

“You’ll like this. Guaranteed.”

Reluctant yet intrigued, she untied the bow, tore the paper, opened the small box. A small mirrored ball with pink strands shooting out of it. Sacault reached and hit a button. The strands lit up, glowing dark pink at the tips.

“A Barbie gift. How thoughtful.”

“Give me the customary thank-you bises.”

Surprised, she felt Sacault’s cheek near hers. She pecked both of his cheeks. “Look familiar?” he whispered. “Samour worked on micro fiber optics. Much smaller than these.”

Similar to the one she’d found in his atelier tower. “So?”

“Take out the card in the box and smile.”

She opened the card. A postcard-sized black-and-white photo of a woman, slightly out of focus, her arms folded, standing on Pont Neuf. Aimée’s hand quivered.

“Approximate date on that’s within the last six months.” He shrugged. “From a freelancer. No time-date on his camera. We assume it’s your mother.”

Her heart thudded. “But you’ve no proof. A freelancer?”

“Surveillance paparazzi who sell to the highest bidder,” Sacault said. “They photograph known hot spots, people of interest, the works. I found this in a file last night. We sift for anything useful. Make a purchase. He’s in prison now.”

Sacault didn’t often say so many sentences together. She believed him.

She swallowed hard, her gaze unable to leave the photo. The woman leaning on the Pont Neuf, across from her apartment on Île Saint-Louis. Did it explain that sense she felt in the street, coming out of a shop, or running to the bus—that feeling of being watched? But it didn’t explain why her mother hadn’t come forward, made contact. If this was her.

“That’s it?”

“The most current. Make of it what you will. We’d be interested in talking with her, if she ever contacts you.”

Startled, she sat back. “So you can put her in prison?”

“To keep her from prison. She’s more valuable outside. Trust me.” He tapped his spoon on the demitasse. “Now what did you find about Samour?”

Trust him? She trusted him as far as she could spit. No reason for him to know they’d discovered a strand of fiber optics in Samour’s tower atelier.

Yet.

Clodo’s phone burned a hole in her bag—her trump card with Prévost. She wanted to copy the numbers and listen to it.

But she had to give Sacault something to keep him off her tail.

“I’ve digitized a century of holdings at the Musée. Documents, machines,” she said. “Two more centuries to go. So far, Samour’s Internet fingerprints are all over what I’ve cataloged and probably what I haven’t. He was searching.” She flicked the pink fiber-optic strands of her gift. “For something to do with this?”

Sacault said nothing.

“Didn’t you just say he worked on fiber optics? I don’t get it.”

“It’s not for you to get.”

“First you hint this relates to fiber optics, now you backpedal. Wouldn’t it make more sense to clue me in on what I’m looking for?”

“So you found his laptop?”

“Did I say that?”

“How can you verify his ‘fingerprints’?”

She thought quickly. “I traced it back to his office computer account at the Conservatoire. Spill, Sacault, make my hunting effective.”

“Ministry sources are interested in a developing fiber-optic project Samour worked on. It’s gone. With him.”

She sat up. Had Samour stolen Jean-Luc’s info at Bouygues to further his project? “Isn’t that in private firm domain? Or do you all cozy up together?”

“Something like that,” Sacault said. “All you need to remember is he worked for us. Died doing duty for his country.”

“But how …”

Sacault stood. “See you here tomorrow night. Bring something concrete.”

AIMÉE HUDDLED BY the medieval well in the old wall under the café tabac awning. Her knees trembled.

If her mother was alive …

Her cell phone trilled. Jolted out of her reverie, she recognized René’s number.

“Aimée, Meizi called,” he said, worried. “She’s frightened. You promised to help her.”

Damn Prévost. He hadn’t called, hadn’t alerted her to the raid. It could be going down tonight.

She had to find him. “Order her room service at the hotel,” she said. “Keep her occupied.”

“She’s threatening to meet with Tso.”

Meet him? “But she can’t, René. Not in person. She’s to call him, once I’ve found out the time of the raid. Tell her everything will work if she stays patient.”

She scanned the street. Stepped into a puddle in the gutter. Cursed and hailed a taxi.

“No need to swear, Aimée,” René said.

“Any joy from the laptop?” she said, opening the taxi door. “And any way you could tell if this formula’s stolen?”

“Stolen? Anyone’s guess. But I’d say Pascal fabricated a tool that conducts light like the ancient guild’s window.”

And he hung up.

Now it was all making sense.

“The commissariat at Château-Landon, s’il vous plaît,” she told the taxi driver.

She hit Prévost’s number again.

“I’m en route to your office, Prévost.”

Blaring horns sounded in the background. “Count that a wasted trip.”

“Where are you?”

More blaring horns. “Libération. On the rooftop. But give me ten minutes, I’m in a meeting …”

She clicked off.

“Change of plans, Monsieur,” she said, touching the taxi driver’s shoulder. “Libération on rue Béranger. Fast as you can.”

He nodded, shifted into fourth gear. “Once a good newspaper, when it was Sartre and the sixty-eighters. But now …” A shrug. “Too conservative for me.”

She let his patter drift over her, not paying attention.

“You’re a reporter, eh?” They passed Samour’s building. “Working on a story?” he asked as he pulled up.

“You could say that,” she said, reaching in her worn Vuitton wallet for a tip.

“Tell the story of the little guy, the ordinary mec,” he said. “You know, that’s what your paper was all about. Back when writing meant something.”

He declined the tip. “Buy yourself a coffee, write something meaningful. Change things for people who need it, eh?”

“I’ll do my best.” She squeezed his shoulder, thought of Martine’s idea for an exposé on Chinatown sweatshops. “It won’t be for lack of trying, Monsieur. Merci.”

Libération took up eight floors of a former parking garage. She showed Martine’s old press pass and the guard waved her on.

Instead of waiting for the elevator, she spiraled up the ramp, passing offices, photo archives, various news desks. She was dizzy by the time she reached the top. A few scattered reporters worked at computers. “I’m looking for Officer Prévost.”

“The flic?” a head popped up from a terminal. “He’s enjoying our view. Best in Paris.”

She had to hurry. At the nearest empty news desk, she took a memo pad, dusted off the cigarette ash from it, scrolled Clodo’s cell phone and copied the numbers. Two messages on it, the voices fuzzy, indistinct. Merde! She rifled through the desk drawers for a tape recorder. Martine always carried one, didn’t every reporter? No luck. Just a phone console with an answering machine. But that could work.

She punched in the console number from her cell, waited until it went to the answering machine, hit the cell phone’s message replay and held it close to the console to record the messages. Murky, but René’s software could isolate the voice from the noises, from the whining siren in the background.

She scanned the news desks. Then bent down, popped the tiny cassette out, and put it in her pocket.

She wended her way among partitions reeking of day-old coffee to a wall of glass sliding doors. She slid one open and stepped out on the rooftop terrace. Paris spread out below her as far as she could see, glittering pricks of light floating in the cotton-like mist. The wind knocked her off her feet.

She grabbed the railing. Held on and righted herself.

“What’s so important? What are you doing here?” Prévost ground out his cigarette with his heel. His muffler whipped his face.

“You didn’t know my father in the force,” she said. “He was before your time. Liar, you didn’t owe him.”

The words came out before she could stop them. Before she could ask why he’d avoided her.

“So you came to accuse me?” He shook his head. “That’s what this is about? But true, oui, your father was before my time. He left the force disgraced.”

“Cleared years later, Prévost, due to me,” she said, the wind catching her words. “No thanks to the department.”

“I would have left in disgrace, too,” he said, “without a way to support my family. But I didn’t have a father with a detective agency to slide into.”

She held up her hand. “So you’re vindictive against my father?” Her jaw trembled. “My dead father? And for some strange reason—”

“He helped me,” Prévost interrupted. “We never met. Never even talked. But your father consented, years after his discharge, to return and verify to Internal Affairs that I wrote a report routed to his department. Crucial to his investigation.” Prévost shrugged. “He could have refused. But as one officer to another he did a hard thing. He did the right thing.”

Aimée’s jaw dropped.

“I kept my job thanks to him. You probably don’t understand,” Prévost said. “Or want to understand. I detailed men to watch you. For your safety.”

Her shoulders stiffened. She doubted that. Where were they when Samour’s killer stretched plastic over her head?

“Too convoluted for me,” she said. “I don’t understand.”

“The DST’s tailing you,” he said. “But I couldn’t be seen to be involved with you.”

Tell me what I don’t know, she almost said.

“I don’t know what in hell’s going on, but for your father’s sake I’ve tried to keep minders on you. To give the DST notice that other eyes watched. To keep their toes clean.”

That’s what all this was about, why she felt watched all the time—the DST and the flics? Yet she’d still been attacked.

“Wait a minute. If the RG’s involved, it’s a pretty crowded field …”

“Let me finish. The RG set up the Chinatown surveillance six weeks ago. Six weeks of their ass in my face. Then the DST horn in.”

“Like your turf war’s my business, Prévost?”

Prévost’s coat whipped in the wind. He grabbed at his wool hat. “Look, I quit the cards, what you heard was a sting,” he said. “But your father would never let me repay him. Just passed on the word that he had to do the right thing. So I wanted to do the right thing, to help you.”

Prévost’s jaw shook. It meant a lot for him to say it.

“But the DST want me to lead them to Samour’s murderer,” she said. “It’s what Samour worked on, don’t you see?”

But this triggered a new thought. She shut her mouth. What if it flipped the other way around, in a ploy to lead them to her mother?

“Samour was a adult trade school teacher, for God’s sake.” Prévost shook his head. He was shaking. He’d felt an obligation, tried to help her. Even if he’d barked up the wrong tree.

“If it means so much, you knowing my father was a good man,” she said, “pay it back by protecting Meizi Wu. Can you do that for me?”

“A person of interest? She’s a homicide suspect.”

“More like a witness who ran away scared,” Aimée said. “You think she could shrink-wrap a man taller than herself?”

Prévost shrugged. “The investigation’s widened. I can’t talk about that. But no guarantee I’ll find her before the raid at nine P.M.”

Less than two hours. Right now she didn’t know how else to make good her promise to Meizi and protect her family in China.

“Play it so the snakehead Tso and Ching Wao hear Meizi’s in custody. On the deportation list back to China. You give me your word?”

“Then consider your father repaid.”

“Deal.” She smiled. “I promised you Clodo’s cell phone in return, didn’t I? Rumor goes he picked this up near Samour’s body. That’s why he was pushed in front of the Métro.”

She put the phone into a surprised Prévost’s gloved hand.

Prévost’s hat flew off in the wind. Like a fluttering black crow dancing over the slanted rooftops. They both watched it until it disappeared.

“Clodo didn’t make it.”

Sad. “That’s why you need this to find the killer, Prévost. This should help.”

“So you just happened to tap into the homeless network?”

“Mais non, I just asked my weatherman for help.”