Murder in Belleville

Wednesday Early Evening

MORBIER HAD AGREED TO meet Aimée at a small brasserie on rue Pyrenees after his therapy. He was late. She’d been ordering steadily at the bar.

“My poker game’s waiting, Leduc,” Morbier said, after the smoked trout and escalope de veau. He set his napkin on the table. “Or did you have something to say.”

She’d been debating whether to ask Morbier or not. Maybe it was the Pernod talking, but she had to know. “Why did Papa take the surveillance job? Looking back, it didn’t seem like the ordinary contract.”

Morbier exhaled, blue smoke spiraled in the close air of the brasserie. “Give it a rest, Leduc.”

“How can I?” She leaned forward, her arms resting on the crumb-littered white tablecloth. “I wake up at night thinking there was something he didn’t tell me. Something I missed… how tense he was, how he went first into the van …”

“You’re thinking you should have gone first?”

Sometimes she wondered if she should have.

“If you had, Leduc,” Morbier continued, “your papa, rest his soul, would have been right where you’re sitting, his heart bleeding. Instead of yours. He’d have been hurt more.”

“How can you say that?” She brushed the crumbs aside, forming them into small piles.

“Eh, young people!” he said simply. “Who gets over the loss of a child?”

Morbier had turned into a pocket psychologist. Maybe he’d attended too many sensitivity sessions at the commissariat.

“You know more than you’re telling me, Morbier.”

“And if I do, what would it change?”

She paused, then swept the piles of crumbs into her cupped palm below the tablecloth edge.

“I could sleep at night, Morbier.”

He looked away.

“Going to Place Vendôme brought everything up for me again,” she said. “Sorry.” With a quick motion, she flicked the crumbs onto her plate, then got the waiter’s attention.

“L’addition,” she said.

She pulled a Gitane from Morbier’s packet, scratched the kitchen matchbox he always carried, and lit it up. Raw and dense, the smoke hit her as she inhaled.

Morbier eyed her. “Didn’t you quit, Leduc?”

“I’m always quitting,” she said, savoring the jolt.

After paying the check and struggling into her damp raincoat, she and Morbier stood outside on the glistening cobblestones. The yellow foglamps of cars blurred like halos in the mist. She realized Morbier was watching her.

“You’ve got survivor’s guilt, Leduc,” he said. “I’ve seen it too many times. So have you.”

“So that’s what it’s called?” she asked, digging in her bag for her Métro pass. She held it up. Expired. “Morbier, I wasn’t searching for a label. But thanks. Now I can catalog the volume and put it on the shelf, eh?”

“You’ve had too much Pernod.”

“Not enough, Morbier,” she said.

He shook his head. “Once your papa was my partner. It doesn’t go away. But I move on. How do you think I felt?”

Stunned, she looked at him. He’d never alluded to his feelings. Not at the funeral, or the posthumous medal ceremony, or over the years. Never.

“Désolée, Morbier,” she said.

A taxi, its blue light signaling it was free, cruised up the cobblestones. Morbier stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Loud. The taxi halted in front of a large black puddle.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I feel like walking.”

She was tired. “Don’t mind if I do.”

She got in. “Seventeen quai d’Anjou, s’il vous plaît.”

Before she shut the door, Morbier leaned over.

“Come to terms with it, Leduc, or you’ll be devoured.”

THE TAXI sped along the darkened quai, punctuated by globular street lamps, their beams swallowed in a thick mist. Morbier was right. The time had come to move on. March forward.

The taxi stopped under the leafy branches in front of her apartment. Below flowed the Seine, reflecting pinpricks of light as mist forked under Pont Marie’s stone supports. She paid and tipped the driver twenty francs. Insurance for good taxi karma.

The trouble was that she didn’t feel like moving on. She felt like clinging to the memories, fading and more transparent every year, especially the image of her father’s crooked smile. Most of all she wanted to know who had killed him. Then maybe she could come to terms with it in her own way.

Her apartment lay empty. No sign of Yves. She hadn’t heard from him again. She’d tried forgetting, hard to do since her sheets and towels held a lingering scent of him.

After walking Miles Davis along the quai, she took him upstairs. But she couldn’t face her dark apartment and walked over to her office. Work always put her back on track.

The phone was ringing as she opened her glass-paned office door.

“A1lô?”

“You call yourself my friend, promise to help my sister?” Martine asked angrily as she answered. “But you get her hauled to the commissariat?”

Aimée froze. “The commissariat?”

“Philippe said it’s your fault!” Martine said, her husky voice rising.

“He’s lying, Martine,” she said, startled. She wondered what tale Philippe had spun. But in a way it was true—if she had made Anaïs go to the flics—but then those men following them had diverted her. “I’ve been trying to reach Philippe and Anaïs for two days. They don’t return my calls!”

“The only favor I’ve ever asked you, Aimée,” Martine said, disappointment in her voice. “Couldn’t you have helped me once?”

“Mais, Martine, I helped Anaïs escape,” she said, exasperated.

“Escape?”

Aimée set down her bag and hit the light switch in her dark office.

“Sounds like Philippe neglected to mention the car bomb that exploded in front of Ana’ts and me,” Aimée said, sitting down at her desk, logging on to her computer. “The victim was his ‘former’ mistress.”

Martine sucked in her breath.

“Or so Anaïs said, but there’s more to it than that,” she said, checking her answering machine. “Things are smellier than the rat’s head delivered to my door on Monday. Are you sitting down?”

“I guess I better,” Martine said, her voice sounding worried but calmer.

Aimée told her what happened since Anaïs had called her: Sylvie’s possible red-haired alias as Eugénie, the Lake Biwa pearl, the Duplo plastique, and Sylvie’s lack of positive ID.

“Look, Philippe’s never been my favorite,” Martine said. “He loves Anaïs, granted, in his own way. But I know he wouldn’t put her or anyone else in danger. He’s the original aristocrat turned bleeding heart liberal. Since Simone was born—well—Anaïs says, he’s taken stock of his life, made changes.”

Aimée remembered Anaïs in the taxi speeding through Belleville. Her bloody leg and her calm acceptance of Philippe’s former infidelity.

“What charges did the flics pull her in on?” Aimée asked.

“I don’t know, but you’ve got to help her,” Martine said. “Please! We Sitbon sisters pick such winners, eh?” Her voice had grown wistful.

Was Martine thinking about Gilles, her former boss and lover at Le Figaro whose job she now held?

“My track record doesn’t rate any better,” Aimée said. “Yves returned unannounced, I let him spend the night, and then he disappears.”

“He’s in Marseilles, Aimée,” Martine said. “Covering Mustafa Hamid’s AFL branch in case of repercussions.”

Mustafa Hamid—Aimée remembered seeing that name from the AFL posters plastered around Belleville.

She heard Martine take a deep breath. Instead of reassuring words, Martine warned her. “Yves’s ex-wife’s back in the picture,” she said. “Seems she’s making big noises about their apartment.”

This surprised her. Yves had never mentioned it, but then again she’d never asked.

“How do you keep so informed?”

“Because he complained that going to Marseilles was going to get him into trouble with all the women in his life,” Martine said. “Eh, if that’s blunt, sorry. But I know you can take it. You don’t rely on men.”

Yves could have told her.

Next time he showed up she’d ask for her key back.

“Which commissariat’s holding Anaïs?” Aimée said, hoping her tone sounded matter-of-fact.

“In the quartier Charonne, rue des Orteaux,” Martine said.

“Good. I know someone there,” she said. “At least I used to.”

But she wondered why Anaïs was being held. Was this some kind of cover-up?

JOUVENAL, AN old colleague of Morbier and her father’s, manned the night-desk phone at the commissariat in Charonne. Had done so for twenty years. Too bad he hadn’t been on duty when Martaud had brought her in to the other station: She’d have called him instead of Morbier.

Jouvenal always kept anise pastilles from Flavigny Abbey, near his hometown of Dijon, in his desk. On the nights she’d done homework in her papa’s office, he’d fill her palm with them.

She called him at the commissariat.

“Philippe de Froissart, c’est lui” Jouvenal said, his voice raspier than ever over the phone. He coughed and hacked, still a pack-a-day man, she could tell. She visualized his kind blue eyes.

She wanted a cigarette. In the background she heard voices raised in heated discussion and the scraping of metal chairs over the floor.

“I need to talk with his wife, get her released,” she said.

“De Froissart’s attempting to get her out,” Jouvenal said. “Monsieur bigwig says his own recognizance should be enough even though she hasn’t been charged yet. The night is young, eh? His status will work in his wife’s favor.”

“She’s not involved, Jouvenal,” she said. “I ought to know.”

“How’s that?”

“She almost got blown up as well,” Aimée said.

“I know your old man trained you,” he said slowly. Aimée could almost see Jouvenal’s broad shoulders. When she was little, they’d seemed like blue mountains when he’d shrugged. “But even if that’s true, what can I do?”

“Let me speak with Philippe.”

“He’s busy. Looks like he’s going to smack the judiciaire in a minute if I don’t curtail matters.” Shouts erupted in the background.

“Jouvenal, I always liked you,” she said. “Please, get Philippe on the phone.”

“You only liked me for my candy,” he said.

“That too,” she said. “But after you explained long division to me, I finally got it.”

“Attends, Aimée,” he said. The phone scraped and she heard Jouvenal’s calming voice.

She had to meet Philippe, ferret out what he was hiding.

Finally, Jouvenal got Philippe on the line.

“Oui,” he said curtly.

“It’s Aimée Leduc,” she said. “I need to talk with you.”

“You! Were you born an imbécile or did you grow that way?” he shouted. “What did you get my wife involved in?”

“Me?” she asked surprised. “Sylvie Coudray blew up in front of us! Anaïs involved me, not the other way around.”

Muffled noises like a hand held over the phone interrupted her.

“Come to my office tomorrow.” he said. “We’ll talk.”

“Today. Now,” Aimée said. “You’re in the Twentieth Arron-dissement; so am I.”

She lied but she didn’t want to be put off any longer. A pause. She heard a woman crying in the background.

Was that Anaïs?

“What’s going on?” Aimée asked him.

“78 Place de Guignier in thirty minutes.”

He hung up.

AIMÉE KNOCKED on the gate of number 78, a two-story house set back from the square surrounded by ivy-covered walls. Through the mail slot she glimpsed yellow roses and greenery bordering a path to the glossy dark green door. Bright lights shone on her.

“Who’s there?” asked a loud voice.

“Le Ministre de Froissart, please,” she said, blinking in the harsh beams.

A long-faced woman opened the gate. She looked Aimée up and down. “Tradespeople use the back door.” She jerked her head toward the side brick entrance, dripping with ivy.

“I’ll remember that,” she said. “Meanwhile, his wife might be framed for murder.”

The woman stiffened and let out a gasp. “He’s at the ministry.”

“He said to meet him here,” Aimée said. She looked around but didn’t see a mailbox. “Who lives here?”

“Come this way,” the woman said and led her inside toward the side door.

More yellow roses climbed trellises in the manicured garden. A Renault pulled in at the small side drive. The chauffeur, blue cap cocked back on his head, stepped out scratching his temple. The backseat was empty.

“Where’s de Froissart?” Aimée asked.

The chauffeur looked askance at the maid, who shrugged.

“Who wants to know?” he said.

“Aimée Leduc,” she said.

“You can prove that, I suppose?” He pulled the cap down over his forehead and leaned against the car.

She handed him her card.

“Get in,” he said, buttoning up his jacket and opening the Renault’s back door.

“Wait a minute,” she said, suspicious. “Le Ministre de Froissart agreed to meet me here.”

“Plans change,” he said, holding the door open for her. “Life offers chances for flexibility. One must take advantage.”

She didn’t like the turn of events or his attitude. But she got in, secure in the knowledge that her Beretta was strapped to her shoulder.

He sped out of the courtyard into sparse traffic. They passed the small darkened shops: a coiffeur, a Turc-Grec kabob restaurant, and a shuttered agence immobilier advertising apartments along tree-lined Place de Guignier.

Soon the chauffeur merged into teeming rue des Pyrenees. He wove the Renault, downshifting among small trucks and latenight taxis.

“Where are we going?”

“The minister will inform me soon,” he said, casting a glance in the rear-view mirror at her. His car phone trilled. “That should be him.”

She studied the black-coated throng crossing the street. A rain shower sprinkled the windshield and stopped before the chauffeur could switch on his wipers.

De Froissart dictated the rules and remained in the shadows. She didn’t like that.

The chauffeur murmured, then hung up the phone. He turned on rue des Couronnes. Aimée had forgotten the panoramic view afforded from the heights of Belleville on a damp April night. In the distance the lighted Eiffel Tower poked a few centimeters above the building horizon. Diminished and distant, just the way she felt at the whim of Philippe de Froissart’s agenda.

“We’ll meet the minister shortly,” he said.

The Renault glided down the steep, narrow streets of Belleville.

A larger car with smoked windows pulled alongside, then took the lead. She noticed the government plates. The car turned onto quai Jenmapes, which fronted dark Canal Saint Martin.

This cat-and-mouse game made her uneasy. Why couldn’t Philippe just meet her? The chauffeur braked, jolting her forward. Frightened, she threw her hands out to avoid smashing into the seat.

Suddenly a heavy-set man opened her door. He cast a glance over the area, then jerked his thumb toward the canal. His manner, neither polite nor comforting, gave her little choice but to comply.

He returned to the other car, leaned against the Renault’s hood, and studied his fingernails. The car that brought her took off toward Republique.

A raw wind sliced through Aimée’s raincoat as she walked down the embankment. She pulled it around her leather-clad legs. She was cold, damp, and fed up with Philippe’s close-mouthed attitude—his mistress had been blown up, his wife and Aimée chased by big ugly thugs through the Métro, and that was just the top of the list. She needed him to illuminate what the hell was going on and where Anaïs was.

Algae smells, mingled with the odor of refuse, wafted from the canal. Raindrops pebbled the water’s surface, then stopped. Quaiside lights reflected the metal of the locks on the narrow waterway.

Aimée wished she could change what happened, rewind life—take it apart frame by frame as if editing a film, and stop Sylvie from entering that Mercedes. She also wished she was stretched in front of a roaring fire with Yves. But she wouldn’t hold her breath on that one. Yves couldn’t be counted on to be there, and besides, her fireplace had been bricked in after the war. So she had to get on with investigating.

Shadows from the skeletal trees not yet dressed for spring waved above her. She crunched over the gravel toward a figure seated on a bench.

Philippe sat, his eyes bloodshot, staring at the water.

“Why all the secrecy, Philippe?”

“Aimée, take my word,” he said. “Things are better this way.”

“Where’s Anaïs?”

“I’ve taken care of things,” Philippe said.

“You seem very take-charge, Philippe” she said, sitting down next to him. “So take me with you—what the hell’s going on?”

“She’s safe,” he said, standing up. He nodded to the chauffeur by the car. Immediately the engine started and the wheels moved, spraying gravel. “You don’t need to worry.”

Men who condescended bothered her. A lot. She stood up and moved near him.

“Anaïs hired me to find Sylvie’s killer,” she said. “I took the job.”

Aimée saw Philippe’s half smile in the dim lights.

“Only Anaïs would do that, but it’s so typical of her,” he said. “And I love her for it.”

Maybe it was how the shadows angled his face or how he leaned forward expectantly, but for a fleeting instant she saw Philippe’s vulnerability. She saw how it could appeal to women. Some women—not her.

“Sylvie was trying to protect you, wasn’t she, Philippe?” Aimée continued, not waiting for an answer. “She used another identity, Eugénie, didn’t she?”

His face darkened. “I’m late for ministry negotiations.”

“Philippe, I’m not bothered by the fact that you don’t acknowledge me rescuing Anaïs,” she said. “I’m bothered by how you avoid telling me who got to Sylvie and why.”

He walked away from her, his raincoat flapping in the wind.

She followed him.

Acacia wisps from the budding trees fluttered past in the wind. Philippe paused by the canal edge, staring at the eddying surface scum, dotted by furry blossoms and leaves.

She got closer, stared into his face.

“Did Sylvie get involved with the Maghrébins? Were you embarrassed your name would come up?”

“Now I remember—you were a flic’s kid, a pain in the ass,” he said, shaking his head. “You haven’t changed.”

And you’re still a rich kid, she thought, with socialist leanings and a ministry job. Didn’t he have a vineyard?

“I know people,” he said. He looked at his watch, an expensive sports type, then gave her a meaningful look. “Leave this to me.”

“Do you think calling the interministériel hot line and pulling in favors will work?” Aimée asked, kicking a loose stone into the murky water. “You act as if this was some piece of legislation or trade bill.” The stone skipped wavelets midcanal, then sank.

“You don’t understand how things work do you, Aimée?” Philippe asked, turning away, his tone even more condescending.

“Have you ever seen a car explode, Philippe?” she asked, trying to stay calm. She didn’t wait for an answer but turned to him. “Have you felt clumps of tissue rain down on you, slipped on the bloody pavement, seen an arm fried crisp when it…” she stopped.

He bent his head and had the grace to look ashamed.

She hated bringing all this up, seeing those awful images again in her mind. But she had to prod him, make him tell her why.

Silence, except for the slow gurgling of water.

“So I knew,” Aimée said, letting her sentence dangle.

“Eh, knew what?” he said, looking up. In the brisk night air, he removed his hands from his pockets and rubbed his thumbs together. “Look, before you speculate, you should know that Sylvie and I parted months ago,” he said. He waved his hands dismissively. “Anaïs knew everything was over.”

“Sylvie’s murder could make sense if she’d got you by the privates.”

She figured blackmail would give Philippe a motive to murder his ex-mistress.

“Go back and do whatever it is you do.” Philippe scanned the apartments across the canal, he chewed his lip. “Leave your ideas for fantasyland.”

“What if Sylvie felt spurned, maybe hurt and angry?” Aimée continued as if he’d never spoken. She knew she was pushing his buttons; if she tried hard enough he’d reveal something. Sylvie had cared for him and he for her. She stepped closer to him. “So when she finally realizes the affair is over, she blackmails you with pillow talk.”

“That’s not very nice, Aimée,” he said, snapping his fingers. His mood changed. Instead of revealing anything he looked angry.

Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind her. She turned to see a man, his head shaved, wearing rimless glasses and the distinctive bulges of a bulletproof vest under his dark blue sweater. The man’s eyes, glassy and emotionless, reminded her of a dead fish. His gaze focused on her. She returned his look, hoping he didn’t notice her shiver.

“Meet Claude,” Philippe said.

Claude’s gaze never wavered.

Aimée shifted her boots on the gravel. Her throat tightened. She should have met Philippe on her own terms. Insisted on it.

“Claude pays great attention to detail,” he said. “And he’s turning his attention on you. I wouldn’t want him to find something irregular and close down your business,” he said. His eyes hardened. “Stay out of things you know nothing about.”

Aimée heard the two-way radio squawking from the car. Philippe looked over, his attention taken by a police dispatcher announcing, “Fracas at the sans-papiers hunger strike at Notre-Dame de la Croix.”

“Merde!” he muttered.

“Does Sylvie have something to do with that?” she asked.

She saw shock in Philippe’s eyes. “I’m not the bad guy,” he said.

“Prove it,” she said.

But Philippe had turned, hurrying to the car, Claude behind him. The car sped off, popping gravel before the passenger door had even shut.

She didn’t realize how much Claude’s eyes bothered her until she climbed the humpbacked bridge over Canal Saint Martin, and calmed down enough to think.

If Philippe killed his mistress, pinned the murder on his wife, then tried to cover it up—that made no sense. He would bring disgrace on himself.

Whatever deal Philippe de Froissart had cut, and with whom, had to be dirty. She could smell it.

She thought back to Philippe’s reaction at the car radio announcement of Mustafa Hamid and the AFL. Aimée paused on the metal bridge, above the swirling canal. She remembered seeing Hamid’s hunger strike posters blanketing Belleville. Plastered over walls near Sylvie’s/Eugénie’s apartment. Coincidence or connection, she had to find out. Gaston, she figured, could be a mine of information.

She found the number for Café Tlemcen and called from her cell phone.

“Bonsoir, Gaston,” she said. “Have you got some time for conversation about Mustafa Hamid and the sans-papiers?”

She heard Gaston suck in his breath. The hum of voices filled the background.

“Full house right now,” Gaston said. “Where are you?”

“Canal Saint Martin,” she said.

“Be careful,” he said. “Not a nice place at night.”

The whir of the espresso machine competed with the loud voices speaking guttural Arabic. She heard what sounded like a chair scraping back then hitting the floor.

“Tempers rising, a bit of turmoil here,” he said. “I can’t talk. Come tomorrow. Early.”

Returning home, Aimée crossed Pont Marie, her frosty breath punctuating the night. Her apartment lay dark, no windows lit, no rooms warm or Yves waiting. Face it, she thought, she had been convenient, a pit stop for him coming from Cairo.

Her head down, intent on hurrying to walk Miles Davis before the rain started, she barreled into a figure.

“Pardon!” she said, looking up.

“In a hurry?” Yves said, standing on the quaiside wall opposite her apartment. He brushed her cheek with his fingers, traced her eyes. Below them, the Seine gurgled. “Where were you?” he asked, his coat bundled around him.

Her delight melted. Hadn’t he been to Marseilles and neglected to tell her?

“You don’t want to know,” she said, her mind back on the Canal Saint Martin, Philippe’s threat, and Claude’s dead eyes.

His feet shuffled the wet leaves.

“Someone else, Aimée?”

She wanted to laugh. However, the benefits of keeping a straight face outweighed the truth. There were a lot of other things she wanted to talk about.

“Where have you been, Yves?”

“Editorial meetings,” he said, his eyes not leaving hers. “Lots of dissension, jockeying for position. The usual.”

Her face felt warm. She liked his fingers on her cheek. “Aren’t you getting along with Martine at Le Figaro?.”

He shrugged.

For a moment the streetlight on the quai haloed his head, throwing him into shadow. She couldn’t read his face.

“We’re two different sides of the coin, Aimée,” he said, “but that makes it interesting.”

“You’re undercover again, aren’t you?” Her uneasiness warred with a desire to burrow inside his coat.

He put his finger over her lips. “Let’s say Martine and I agree to disagree.”

“So she wouldn’t like—” she said.

“Work’s over,” he said, tapping his watch. “I already took Miles Davis for his walk. Why don’t we warm up together with this?” He pulled a bottle from a paper bag, then a champagne glass from his overcoat pocket. Slants of light angled across his face. “I only found one glass.”

“We can share,” she said, hooking her arm in his. “A sommelier taught me the secret of popping corks. May I demonstrate?”

“Your talents never cease to amaze me.” He grinned.

They walked down the stone steps to the embankment. Yves spread his coat for them to sit on under the arched bridge. A lone family of ducks swam in silent formation before them, rippling Vs in the smooth water.

“Veuve Cliquot eighty-nine, nice year!” She used her thumbs and with two twists uncorked the champagne.

“To the ducks!” Yves said. He hooked his arm around her shoulder and they drank soldier style, sipping together. The champagne slid down her throat, giggly and velvet. Yves’s body heat warmed her.

As they stared into the water, he told her about Cairo. His face changed recounting a motorcycle trip into the desert on an archaeological dig.

“You like it there, don’t you?” Aimée asked, huddling closer.

“You would too, Aimée,” he said. “The play of light on the dunes, the stillness …” his voice trailed off.

She poured more champagne into their glass.

“I’m not very good at relationships,” she said.

“Makes two of us,” he said. “Let’s drink to that.”

And they did.

She stood up, gripping the bottle. “Last one upstairs—”

“Opens the next bottle,” Yves interrupted, “but first things first.” He leaned against the arch and pulled her close. “I can’t get you out of my mind.”

They kissed for a long time under the bridge. Not even the toot of a barge or an old chchard straggling by disturbed them. They were laughing together as he gave her a piggyback ride all the way up to her apartment. And they spent an even longer time in a hot bath with the next bottle.