Murder in Clichy

Saturday Morning

THE VANILLA-HUED LIGHT, UNUSUALLY clear for November, haloed René’s head. Aimée blinked and opened her eyes wider. Everything fell into place. There was no fogginess or blurring. She breathed a sigh of relief and smelled something wonderful.

But where were they?

And then she remembered their Clichy hotel room.

“Your espresso’s getting cold,” René said.

“Merci.” She sat up, untangling her purple fishnets and Moroccan shirt.

“You mumbled something last night about running a virus check on the Olf account and duplicating log entries and emails before a meeting with de Lussigny later,” he said. “I’m printing them out now.”

“Fantastique. And good morning to you, partner.” She smiled, stirring two lumps of brown sugar into her cup. “How do you feel?”

“The mattress came with the hotel in 1830,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the bed. ”But after the hard earth in the air raid shelter, I loved it.”

“We can’t go back to the office.”

“Or my apartment,” he said. “Saj got us some new cell phones. He’s bringing my scanner later. Look at you. Nice outfit.”

She grimaced, checking the stitches on her arm. “Perfect for escaping through garbage chutes, playing in heavy metal bands, and also for attending elegant soirées.”

René swallowed his espresso the wrong way and choked. “Going to tell me about it?”

Aimée handed René a napkin and told him about Regnier’s suspension, her encounter with Blondel and Pleyet, Sophie, and the old Chinese grand-mère. She didn’t mention meeting de Lussigny.

“Blondel? How’s he involved?”

“Thadée owed Blondel; his henchman Jacky made my skin crawl,” she said. “Gassot’s hiding. Afraid. But I don’t know why. And I’m no closer to the jade. I need to discover Pleyet’s motive and what exactly the Circle Line is.”

“Aimée, if Pleyet once worked with Regnier,” René said, “stands to reason they’re in this together now.”

“But Pleyet intimated he’s surveilling Regnier,” she said. “And somehow, I buy it. He didn’t have to reveal himself last night. Or tell me about the past.”

René hit SAVE on his laptop.

“You mean about the Place Vendôme surveillance? He could be leading you on. But how is that relevant? What you need to discover is who had the jade originally. Then you can question them.”

Good point! But so far she’d run into dead ends and silence.

“I e-mailed Thadée’s files here. Can you look them over? The Drouot won’t release the name of the consignor,” she said. “It’s in data storage on the île de la Jatte. What’s important is, who wants it now? That should point to who killed for it.”

René rubbed his bandaged wrist. She noticed his right leg propped on the chair and pillows below his hip.

“Are you with me on this, René?”

He shrugged.

“No choice,” he said. “But be careful.”

She switched on her laptop.

“This might help,” she said. “I’ve got four digits of Lars’s password. If we get the rest, we can crack the Circle Line.”

And figure out why the Circle Line was looking for the jade.

She heard a knock on the door. “Who’s there?”

“Didn’t you say you needed a hacker?” someone asked.

She opened the door.

Saj stood there in flowing Indian pants and wool Nepalese sweater.

“Perfect timing,” she said. “Got a challenge for you two.”

He rubbed his hands together, taking in the three computers. “My pleasure.”

She typed in the digits she’d written on her palm.

“There’s four of the twelve numbers Lars entered,” she said. “I need the complete password. Want to try a brute force attack?”

René shook his head. “A brute force attack with every possible combination of letters, numbers, and symbols to try and duplicate a password? That could take two days. Aren’t we in a hurry?”

“What about a dictionnaire attack?” asked Saj. “Try common words found in a dictionnaire starting with pets’ names or others commonly used in passwords.”

“Most ministries use heavily encrypted passwords,” Aimée said. “Like we do. Changing them constantly.”

But in this socialist system, with the endemic work overloads, she knew little time was spent on such safety procedures.

“Lars’s system, I figure, like all the ministries, uses a stored ‘hash’ of the password in a file,” she said.

“Right,” said René. “One-way encryption uses a common algorithm which manipulates the password.”

“But breaking a twelve-digit or letter password could take a whole day,” Saj said, sitting down. “If we use two computers, it will take less time, of course.

“Bon, you’ve got this under control. I’ve got to follow someone,” Aimée said, pulling on her coat.

“Not one of those mecs.”

“An old Chinese grand-mère,” Aimée said. “A Cao Dai member. We should have a lot in common.”

THE OLD grand-mère dropped Michel off at the nearby école maternelle and Aimée followed her. The Asian woman, her padded silk jacket flapping in the wind, walked with a quick step across busy Place de Clichy. She paused at the Vietnamese restaurant, fronted by a flashy aquarium proclaiming CATCH OF THE DAY. Gunmetal gray storm clouds bracketed the last slice of blue sky.

Now was her chance.

“Quelle surprise, Madame!” Aimée smiled. “Why, I’m just going in for lunch. May I invite you to join me?”

The woman backed away in surprise, fear in her eyes.

“Eat at home,” she said.

But a group of black-suited Asian businessman, their voices raised in singsong Vietnamese, blocked her way. The skies opened, pelting down hail, slivers of ice, which bounced on the cracked pavement.

“Quick, you’ll get wet. Please, be my guest,” Aimée said, steering her inside. Flustered, the woman was herded forward by the smiling maître d’hôtel. With a flourish, he showed them to a table in the well-lit restaurant and proferred menus. Once this had been an old style workers’ bouillon canteen, Aimée thought, noticing balconies several floors high, all filled with tables.

A fragrant pot of jasmine tea appeared on the table with two celadon green cups.

“Please,” Aimée said, reaching for the cup and pouring the tea.

“Merci,” the old woman replied, her manners taking over. “But I must go.”

Out of the corner of Aimée’s eye, she saw people huddled in the doorways in Place de Clichy, shielding themselves from the hail with their umbrellas.

“Of course. Drink some tea and go when the hail stops. Right now, it’s too dangerous; you might slip on the pavement.”

Cornered, the woman nodded. Despite her slight build, Aimée imagined a rod of steel in her backbone. She was strong, like the bamboo which swayed in the wind but clung with tenaciousness rooted in rock.

“My name’s Aimée Leduc, I know Monsieur de Lussigny through business,” she said, desperate to establish familiarity. “He told me his father died last month. So sorry to hear that. And now, his brother-in-law is gone, too!”

The woman clasped her cup and took a single sip. Perhaps this was a good sign. From around them came the orders shouted by the waiters.

“And so sad for you, I’m sure,” she said. “Madame . . . ?”

“Madame Nguyen. I live in France long time,” she said. “Know Métro very good. I take Métro home.”

Try anything, Aimée told herself, to get this woman to stay and talk.

“Madame Ngyuen. You look too young to have a grandson! He’s just a boy you take care of, isn’t he?”

A smile escaped the woman. She displayed a full set of white-capped teeth. “My great-grandson. Michel, good boy.”

“I can’t believe that,” Aimée said, hoping she wasn’t laying it on too thick. “Impossible!”

“Possible. My granddaughter his mother,” Madame Ngyuen said, nodding.

“You help her,” Aimée said. “She’s lucky!”

“I raise her, too.” There was an enigmatic expression on her face.

“But how? Non, you have so much energy, like a young woman.”

She nodded. “More energy in my country.”

“So your granddaughter works . . . ?”

“Nadège. She stays somewhere else.”

Nadège. The other name Thadée had uttered.

“How can I find her?”

“Don’t know. I take care of Michel now.”

“Of course, but—”

“Gone,” she shook her head. “In Indochina I run big house with servants, all day, and raise five children, too. Dead, all dead now.”

“I’m so sorry,” Aimée said. “Did that happen here, or in Indochina?”

“Indochina, long time ago,” she said.

“I’m practicing meditation at the Cao Dai Temple,” Aimée said. “Trying to. The nun Linh helps me. But I’m sure you know her, non?”

Madame Nguyen’s eyes narrowed. “Eh, what you mean?”

“I mean Linh’s so helpful. Do you know the nun I’m referring to?”

“No temple. Pray at home.”

Disappointed, Aimée tried another tack. She remembered the few Vietnamese words she’d learned. “Má,” she said. She hoped it was close to the Vietnamese word for mother.

“Inflection wrong,” Madame Nguyen said, shaking her head. “Listen, ‘ma’ can mean ghost, má mother, mà because, rice seedling, tomb or horse.”

“What’s the word for dragon?”

Madame Ngyuen looked away. “You nice French lady. Not like most gweilo.”

“Gweilo?”

“ ‘White devil,’ but meant in nice way,” she said.

“Isn’t that Cantonese?”

Madame Nguyen nodded. Her black hair shone. She wore no ornament this time, just a tight bun, with small jade dots in her long lobes.

“Indochina all China once,” she said. Shrugged. “Rape and rule like all conquerors. We kick Mandarins out in tenth century. People stay.”

This could be an opening, Aimée thought.

“They looted emperor’s tombs, didn’t they?” she said, eager to keep the woman talking. She pulled out the auction catalogue page. “And stole things like this. Or was it the French?”

Aimée saw her companion shrink back against the leather banquette.

“Do you recognize this treasure? Weren’t the Cao Dai guarding it?”

No answer. Madame Nguyen still stared at the photo of the jade figures.

“Take your order now?” a waiter asked.

Madame Nguyen shook her head.

“Give us a few more minutes, please,” Aimée said.

The waiter shook his head and walked away.

“Thadée gave me this before he was murdered.” Aimée leaned closer and showed her the disk she held in the palm of her hand. “But I don’t understand why. You said the dragon symbolizes—”

“He give you this?”

Aimée nodded.

“Don’t understand.”

For a moment, Aimée thought she saw fear in the old woman’s eyes.

“Neither do I, Madame Nguyen,” she said.

“No good. Belong to Vietnam.”

“The Cao Dai nun, Linh, wants to thank the man who saved her father’s life at Dien Bien Phu.”

Madame Nguyen said something in Vietnamese.

“What’s that?” Aimée asked.

“Hiêú,” she nodded. “Filial respect. Confucian way. Not like him, the owner’s warlord uncle.” Her face crinkled in disgust. “Warlord, steal land.”

Aimée stared. “You mean the owner of this restaurant?”

“No respect for emperor.”

Aimée knew the deposed Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai had lived in French exile since the 1950s. She remembered that much from studying for the History section of the Bac. Did this relate to the looting of the emperor’s tomb?

“Could the owner’s uncle have looted a tomb in Dien Bien Phu?”

“Grave robbers never change.”

A cell phone beeped somewhere under the table.

Madame Nguyen pulled out the smallest cell phone Aimée had ever seen.

“Oui . . . allô,” she said. She blinked several times as she listened, the lines around her mouth tightening.

Bad news?

Madame Nguyen stood. “Must go. Michel have school trip earlier. Must go.”

“Let me find you a taxi,” Aimée said, rising and laying some francs on the table.

Outside, by some karma Aimée figured she or Madame Nguyen had earned, a taxi idled at the stand. She helped the old woman inside. “Take my card; I’m trying to find this jade. Perhaps you may be able to help me.”

Madame Nguyen’s face remained expressionless. But Aimée thought she’d mask her terror, having been well-schooled in concealment in Indochina. Disappointed, Aimée closed the door, and the taxi took off. She remembered her coat left inside the resto and ran back for it. The waiter handed it to her, his mouth turned down in a frown.

“I’m sorry we aren’t staying for lunch,” Aimée said.

“She never eat here,” he said. “Understand.”

“Pardon, but what do you mean,” she asked surprised. “You know Madame Nguyen?”

“Cochin Chinese have long memory. Like elephant.”

“But Madame Nguyen—”

He lapsed into what Aimée took for a Southern Chinese dialect. Several of the waiters around him laughed. Rude and disgruntled, she figured, since she’d taken up his time.

“They’re not saying nice things,” said a frowning young Asian woman, seated by the aquarium. “I’m sorry. No need to act rude, people change their minds.”

“What are they saying?”

“Forget it,” the young woman said. “They’re nervous underneath.”

“But why?” Aimée asked.

The young woman’s frown deepened. “They’re saying the health department visited last week. One man says he’s afraid the health department will close the restaurant and then he’ll be out of a job.”

A good thing they hadn’t eaten here, Aimée thought, running to the bus. She had an idea and somehow she had to get back into her office.

AIMÉE KNEW Leduc Detective was being watched. Yet everything she needed was inside the office. She walked up rue Bailleul, entered an apartment building foyer, and kept going to the rear garages she knew corresponded to the back hall window of their rue du Louvre office.

The garage and back alley were deserted. She pulled down the fire escape, hiked up her skirt, and climbed. On the landing, she took the fire extinguisher from the wall—just in case—and unlocked Leduc’s frosted-paned door.

No one.

She had to make this quick. In their storeroom she found the Health Inspector badge from the Direction de la Protection du Public. She changed into a navy blue wool suit, grabbed some underwear and her black heels. The answering machine light blinked.

Two messages. Both hangups.

In the mail stacked on her desk, she found a letter addressed to her in Guy’s writing. She took a deep breath and opened it. A court summons for damage to his office?

Flyers from Neuilly real estate agents and several full page ads describing apartments for rent fell out. Guy had circled one of them in red.

Neuilly sur Seine—four rooms, light and with southern exposure, near Métro, 150 m^2* facing park.

Below it he’d written: Perfect for my photo lab and your home office. Even a guest bedroom, and the park nearby for Miles Davis!

She looked at the postmark. The day before yesterday. Was this all a misunderstanding? Should she swallow her pride and call him?

Never.

Yet after a moment, she punched in his office number. Four rings later his secretary, Marie, answered.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Lambert left an hour ago,” she said.

“Left. When does he return?”

“Let’s see,” she said. Papers rustled in the background. “I purchased return train tickets for him and Madame Bélise.”

“Madame Bélise?”

“Can you hold on, please?”

She put Aimée on hold.

“Returning tomorrow,” she said in a businesslike voice when she came back on the line. “Any message?”

“Non, merci.”

Gone with his new woman.

And for a moment she had thought it could work out. Wanted to make it work out, even if she’d have to live in the suburbs. She tore the real estate flyer into little pieces.

She switched on their remaining computer and quickly consulted the Direction de la Protection du Public online site. The Vietnamese restaurant’s several infractions were listed. She switched the computer off, locked the office door, and climbed back down the rear fire escape.

A half-hour later, she stood at the service entrance of the resto, behind Place de Clichy, having been careful to avoid the rue de Clichy and Académie de Billard. Steam billowed from the resto back door.

She stepped inside and saw pots of boiling water and colanders draining translucent rice noodles, and heard the hiss of frying sesame oil filling the kitchen. Piles of limp bean sprouts and broccoli sat in aluminum bowls. A radio blared Chinese pop songs.

“I’m looking for Derek Lau, the owner. Where’s his office?” she asked, holding a file folder in front of her.

A cook, his face beaded with perspiration, took one look at her badge and pointed toward an open door.

Aimée knocked and peered into the cluttered, low-ceilinged fluorescent-lit office. Derek Lau, facing several phone books on his desk, was scratching his head. His eyes protruded, a classic thyroid condition symptom, and he had a crossover parting of his black hair to cover his bald spot.

“Monsieur Lau?”

“Oui,” he nodded, taking in her outfit and setting the phone books aside. “You people weren’t supposed to come until next week. We have one week to comply.”

“Monsieur Lau, we use our own discretion in timing our visits.”

“Eh, what does that mean? Where’s the usual inspector? Let me see some credentials.”

Aimée pulled out the form she’d printed out from the site. Areas of hygiene were checked off.

“It means, Monsieur Lau, if I see compliance, we won’t make a formal visit next week. We have plainclothes staff checking up often. Catch my drift?”

A dawn of understanding crossed his worried eyes.

He reached in his drawer, pulled out an envelope, and stuffed franc notes inside.

“This should take care of it,” he said.

She waved aside the profferred envelope.

“So far we’ve noted meat stored and transported without containers, dirty ceilings, bacteria festering in the tile cracks, and inadequate freezers.”

He snapped his fingers and the cook entered bearing a tray with tea. Had he stood at the door waiting?

“Look, let’s smooth this out, eh,” he said, pushing the envelope toward her again. “I run a little business, struggle to make ends meet.”

Let him think she was going along with him.

“I’m referring to the farm-raised sea bass you serve,” she said, thinking back to the regulations. “A flagrant health violation, as you know. Your dossier’s full.”

“Just jealous restaurateurs complaining I’m sure. I told my uncle we should have stayed in the 13th.” He shrugged. “The old coot wanted ‘prestige’ but this was the closest we could get to the bon 17th.”

“This form indicates that a Ming Lau owns this. . . .”

“My uncle, oui,” he interrupted. “He retired to Hong Kong, but I manage his investments here.”

Derek Lau closed a tall metal file cabinet and what Aimée saw framed on the wall made her blink. She suppressed a gasp, stood, and edged toward the piled account books. How could she find out what she wanted without looking too obvious?

“Bon, show me your vendor receipts,” she said, shooting for a businesslike tone. “We’re doing a full-scale investigation this time. You know that means a temporary shutdown.”

“Ecoutez, eh, don’t get so serious,” he said, his words conciliatory, but alarm in his eyes. “It’s all here, nothing out of line.”

He rummaged through his files.

“We’ll have to close your business unless you provide immediate proof of compliance and proper documents.”

Sweat beaded his brow. He pressed a buzzer on his desk. “Bring the Crédit Lyonnais files.” He turned to Aimée. “Drink your tea, it will only take a moment.”

She pointed to the sepia-tinted photo on Lau’s office wall. Under the title ‘Lai Chau,’ the twelve jade zodiac figures were pictured. “Your family treasure?”

Instead of the fear she expected, Derek Lau shrugged.

“Just an old photo,” he said.

“Of stolen treasure.”

Surprise turned to amusement. Then he sneered. “You’ve been talking to that crazy old lady. She has no right to complain!”

She said, “Maybe you had to sell it to pay your debts?”

“Debts?”

“According to the records, this restaurant’s heavily mortgaged.”

“Ridiculous. We have a line of credit,” he said. He looked at the photo on the wall. “You should be talking to the French soldiers who stole it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like I told the old cow, according to my uncle, the French took everything, even what was hidden in the ground.”

“The Sixth Battalion?” Aimée asked.

“I don’t know details,” he said. Derek Lau smoothed the hair combed over his head. “Anyway, black crude’s more valuable now.”

“What about your emperor? Doesn’t this jade belong to him?”

“To some branch of the Imperial family, but it’s hard to say which, since they intermarried. All of them trace their lineage back to the first Emperor. Now Bao Dai’s ill and penniless after a life of Monte Carlo gambling and many wives, but the French government keeps him,” Derek Lau said. “His old mother in Saigon sold the Imperial porcelain to pay for his child support. Spoiled to the end.”

“But isn’t this jade more important than its price in money? Doesn’t it mean something?”

“It guarantees the patrimony. The possessor is the ruler ordained by heaven, according to my uncle.”

“Patrimony?”

Derek Lau patted his thin strand of hair into place. “The right to the land, promised by the first Chinese emperor. We’ve had many emperors, but what the first emperor ordained remains law.”

She stood, put the health violation list on his desk and shoved the cash-filled envelope back to him.

“I don’t take bribes.”

His calculating eyes took in her interest in the photos of the jade.

“But ancient treasures interest you, eh?”

She grabbed her clipboard.

“I’m sure I’m not the only one who appreciates beautiful objects, Monsieur Lau,” she said.

He shrugged. He wanted to make a deal, it was in his eyes.

“Who else is interested, Monsieur Lau?”

“My memory’s not what it used to be,” he said.

It seemed fine to her.

“I could delay this report,” she offered. “If I sense your cooperation.”

He paused, weighing his answer. From the kitchen she heard the crackle of oil in a hot wok.

“A man from a museum,” Derek Lau said. “He’d been talking to the old lady, too.”

“Did you catch his name?”

“I run a business, not an information service,” he said.

“Tall and thin?”

Derek Lau combed his hair with his fingers. “Plump, round glasses.”

“Did he wear a bow tie?”

“Bow tie? Is that how you call it? On his neck. Yes.”

Dinard.

“It’s yours,” he said, unhooking a picture frame from the wall. “Take it.”

Aimée shook her head, she’d seen and heard what she needed. “Merci, Monsieur Lau, we’ll be in touch.”

“What about the credit reports?”

“Next time,” she said.