Murder in Clichy

Saturday Afternoon

AIMÉE KNEW DINARD WANTED the jade. What if he’d found it?

She approached his home in the fashionable part of the 17th where celebrated courtesans like la Belle Otero who’d counted kings and ministers as her “benefactors,” had lived, where Debussy had composed. Not Aimée’s stomping grounds. Impersonal, with deserted sidewalks where the affluent still dwelled behind steel-shuttered windows. Dinard’s street was cornered by the Banque de France in a former neo-Gothic mansion. Opposite, the Nazi Kommandantur had melted the statue that had once stood in the square, like so many monuments in the city, for the German war effort. Now, honey-colored leaves skittered across the desolate excuse for a square.

Her cell phone rang.

“Allô?”

“Aimée, Saj and I speeded the program up a bit,” René said. “But we’re knocking on the door of Interpol. Do you want to go there?”

She chewed her lip. So the Circle Line was part of Interpol. Pleyet had told her the truth. He didn’t work for the RG, he belonged to Interpol.

Interpol was the information gathering center dealing with international crime. Contrary to popular belief, there were no Interpol officers traveling around the world investigating cases. The member countries employed their own officers to operate in their own territory and in accordance with national laws.

“Aimée, did you hear me? It’s embedded in the structure; if we go in, we leave big hacker footprints,” he said. “I thought I’d check.”

“Good thinking, René,” she said. “Make a gracious exit. I know what I need to, now. But can you keep checking on Thadée’s files?”

She hung up and put in a call to the number she’d seen on Pleyet’s cell phone. An anonymous voicemail recording answered.

“Pleyet, I know who you work for,” she said when she heard the beep. “Let’s combine forces. Call me.”

She hoped she could trust him.

AIMÉE KNOCKED on Dinard’s glossy-blue door. A middle-aged woman with short dyed-blonde hair, wearing a wool houndstooth-checked suit, answered. The woman kept her hand behind the door.

“Madame Dinard?”

“Oui?”

Aimée showed her ID, noticing the women’s red-rimmed eyes and the alcohol smell wafting from her.

“I’d like to speak with your husband,” Aimée said.

“He’s not here,” she said, stepping back inside.

“Madame, I haven’t been able to reach him at work. May I take a moment of your time? I need your help.”

“You need my help?” she said, with a hoarse laugh. “He’s gone. Left with his twenty-something cocotte. Pfft, like that.”

“You know that for sure, Madame?”

Madame Dinard rolled her eyes.

Tessier had said that Dinard was on the way out at the museum, but she hadn’t imagined him taking off with another woman. Doubt crossed her mind.

“What do you want?” Madame Dinard asked.

“May we talk inside, please?” Aimée suggested, glimpsing a long hallway lined with paintings through the partly open door.

“Ask your questions here,” Madame Dinard said. Her hand, coming from behind the door, held a full wine glass, from which she took several sips. Aimée wondered how coherent Madame Dinard was, but she had to question her.

“Monsieur Tessier indicated he’d tried to ask Monsieur Dinard about this jade.” Aimée stood in the doorway and unfolded the page from the auction catalogue. “Have you seen these before?”

“Not again!” Madame Dinard said. There had been a flash of recognition in her eyes. “Leave me alone.”

Again? She couldn’t let this woman close the door on her.

“Forgive my persistence,” she said. “When did you see these jade figures?”

“Did I say I’d seen them?”

Aimée detected the slight slur in her voice.

“But I think you recognize them. When?”

“Persistent’s not the word. You’re annoying me,” Madame Dinard said.

“Of course, you’ve got a lot on your mind,” Aimée said. “Think back, was it at the Drouot auction, a month ago?”

Madame Dinard waved Aimée away. She downed her wine, gripping the door. Her eyes narrowed. “If you can find out which young thing went off with my old fart of a husband, and get me proof for divorce, eh, then we could talk. Isn’t that what you sleazy detectives do?”

No use explaining it wasn’t her field.

“But Madame, I’m not so sure he left you for a woman,” Aimée said. “Wasn’t he going to the hospital?”

“Hospital?”

“For a hypertension screening.”

Doubt crossed Madame Dinard’s face.

“I checked,” Aimée said. “He had an appointment for an exam but never showed up.”

Madame Dinard wavered.

“Please, we need to talk,” Aimée said.

With misgiving in her unfocused eyes, Madame Dinard let her in and showed her down the hall.

“Are you sure? He never mentioned it to me.” Madame Dinard stood in the dining room. “But then he wouldn’t if he was running away with another woman.”

Like Guy, Aimée thought.

Glass-fronted cabinets displayed Limoges china, the long dining table held piles of papers at one end and several open wine bottles. On the mantle stood framed family photographs.

“Our thirty-year wedding anniversary was today,” she said in a broken voice. Madame Dinard’s face sagged, and she looked older than the fifty-something Aimée suspected.

“Le salaud!”

But Aimée heard no conviction in her voice.

“I’m so sorry,” Aimée said.

Quiet pervaded this room. A vase of hothouse apricot-hued roses perfumed the air: the stillness of sorrow.

“What did you mean when you said ‘again’?” Aimée asked.“Has someone been asking you about jade astrological figures?”

Madame Dinard ruffled her hair with her manicured ringed fingers. “It has nothing to do with me.”

But Aimée knew it did.

“Thadée, your godson, de Lussigny’s brother-in-law, was killed. He had this jade in his possession. Of course, you’re upset.”

Madame Dinard smoothed down her skirt and poured another glass of wine.

A dog barked from somewhere in the back.

“Mon Dieu. Felix! I have to let him into the garden.” She stood and wobbled to the back room.

Great. A tipsy, sad woman who wouldn’t talk.

“Please, Madame, don’t you realize?”

“Thadée was always in trouble,” Madame Dinard said, her bleary eyes tearing. “But I couldn’t do anything for him.”

Madame Dinard had changed her tune. Aimée nodded, encouraging her.

“Creative people see things with different eyes, don’t they?” Aimée said. “Such a shame and so sad for you.”

“He painted so well.” She took Aimée’s arm, brought her into the next room, and pointed to an unframed canvas on the wall.

“See?”

A green-hued dragon was surrounded by the astrological figures Aimée had seen in the photograph in Derek Lau’s office. It took her breath away. With deft strokes he’d created the ensemble. A little boy peeked at the opalescent dragon from a grove of bamboo.

What did it mean?

“Did Thadée tell you anything about this painting?”

“His last work. So much talent wasted.” Madame Dinard let the sentence dangle. She paused. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Then wobbled to the back stairs and the barking dog.

Aimée pulled out her cell phone and punched in Tessier’s number. If she could get him on the phone, he might have better luck with Madame Dinard.

“Allô, Tessier?” she said. “It’s Aimée Leduc. I’m at the Dinards’. Can you explain to his wife. . . .”

“Not a good idea,” he said.

In the background Aimée heard the revving of engines and insistent beep of a truck backing up.

“What do you mean?” Aimée asked.

“I’m in the Parc Monceau.”

She heard a nervous edge in his voice.

“Has something happened?”

“Dinard left a strange message on my cell phone. To meet—” the rest of the sentence was lost in the backfire of a bus.

“Where?”

“Boulevard de Courcelles, the men’s bathroom,” he said.

Aimée knew the Chartres Pavillon, a rotunda housing lavatories at the entrance to the park, the remnant of the old toll house.

“I’m just two blocks away,” Aimée said.

She would have to hurry, to catch Dinard. This could be the break she needed. Tessier had hung up.

Madame Dinard sat in the twilight-filled back garden, rocking a small springer spaniel who growled at Aimée.

“I’ll say goodbye,” she said, handing the woman a glass of water. “Your husband just left a message with his assistant.”

Instead of the hope she expected to see on Madame Dinard’s face, the woman waved her away. “If he cared, he’d be here.”

ANXIOUSLY, AIMÉE hurried down rue de Phalsbourg. The red Métro sign, like a beacon in the dusk, reflected in the puddles and off the gilt-tipped wrought-iron gates of the Parc Monceau. Guards in dark blue uniforms walked the gravel paths, informing strollers the park was closing.

No sign of Dinard.

The worn stone lavatory was at the gate of the Chartres Pavillon rotunda. From the distance came the muted quack of the ducks in the park’s pond. She remembered feeding ducks stale baguettes on a hot summer’s day long ago. Remembered her mother’s strong hands gripping her small ones, and how with deft twists they’d fashioned twigs and leaves into a duck.

Now rain clouds threatened once more. She thrust the memory aside.

The smell of wet grass and Tessier’s gaze met her over the hood of a small Renault. His glasses had fogged in the chill air and he brushed at them with the sleeve of his raincoat.

“When did you get Dinard’s message, Tessier?” she asked.

“I just found it,” he said. “I’d forgotten my cell phone in the pocket of my other coat. When I took it from the rack there was this message. I hurried over.”

Raincoated commuters spilled from the Métro. Tessier’s eyes darted over the crowd. “He’s not here.”

“Let’s check inside,” she said. “You might have missed him.”

They walked through the gate into the park. Bare sycamore branches and oriental plane trees shuddered in the evening wind.

Aimée saw the orange plastic barriers used by the toilet cleaning brigade and a sign reading FERMÉ on the men’s lavatory door. No sign of Dinard. Just the scrape of wet gravel as a mother pushed a stroller toward the gate.

“Tessier, may I hear the phone message?”

He handed her his cell phone and Aimée listened. “Tessier, don’t answer the office phone,” said Dinard. “Meet me at the men’s room at the Parc Monceau gate. No questions . . . now!”

She took out her mini-flashlight and scanned the phone’s display.

“Alors, Tessier, look at the date. He called yesterday.”

“My mistake. He wasn’t in the office today.”

She didn’t want to let it go. “Come with me.”

“But the park’s closing.”

Guards shooed people toward the gate.

“Hurry,” she said, grabbing his arm and running up the three steps to the WC. She shoved the orange plastic stanchion aside and pushed. But the door held. She tried the handle and it turned.

“Help me. Push hard.”

“What are you doing? You’re not supposed to—” Tessier said.

The door was blocked by something. Mops and buckets, she assumed. She pushed again and it opened partway.

Aimée stumbled forward, shining her flashlight over the simple porcelain sink, then over the tiled floor to the open stalls. A man’s shoe stuck up from the metal drainpipe grill centered in the tile.

Dread filled her.

She traveled the light up a twisted trousered leg and gasped. Then further, to Dinard’s bulging eyes and to a line of dark red congealed blood across his throat. They hadn’t bothered to string him up by the toilet pipes.

“We’re too late, Tessier.” The smell of putrefaction and the iron tang of blood permeated the air of the cold lavatory.

Tessier peered in and gasped. “But who . . . mon Dieu . . . it’s my fault!”

And then she noticed what the killer wouldn’t have seen. Dinard’s swollen fingers, nails caked with blood, and the character he’d scrawled on the tile.

“You read Chinese, right?”

He gagged. “I’m going to be sick.”

“Not in here, it’s a crime scene now,” she said.

“What’s going on? You’re not allowed in there,” said the guard’s hoarse voice behind them.

“My boyfriend’s sick and then we saw this man,” she shouted.

She edged out, but not before grabbing her pen and copying the Chinese character onto her palm. Tessier heaved into the bushes and the guard muttered “Nom de Dieu!” and made the sign of the cross.

“Quick,” she said to Tessier as he straightened up. She took his arm again and left through the gate.

“Attendez, wait,” the guardian raised his voice. “You’re witnesses.”

“We should cooperate, poor Monsieur Dinard,” Tessier said.

“Not on your life,” Aimée interrupted. “Trust me.” The last thing she wanted was another encounter with the flics. They’d lock her up this time. Ronsard would throw away the key and Morbier would say, I told you so.

She led Tessier down the Métro steps, battling the onrush of the exiting crowds. They rode one stop, Tessier pale-faced, to exit at Villiers, then doubled-back two blocks to the dark Musée Cernuschi.

“We have to get into Dinard’s office.”

“But—”

“Quick. Before they identify him.” Aimée saw the horror on Tessier’s face.

“What kind of cold creature are you!” Tessier backed away.

“It horrifies me, too, but we have to find out who killed him.” And what Dinard had known, but she didn’t say that.

“Do it on your own, I don’t have the stomach for this,” he said.

“Yes, you do. Or else, you could be next,” she said. “Didn’t someone follow you the other day?”

“What? It’s related?”

She wished he wouldn’t argue. The shadows moved, night sounds rustled in the bushes. She wanted to get inside.

“You’re his assistant. He’s told you things, or they’ll assume he did. Odds are they’re still following you.”

The African night security guard at the museum’s back entrance gave them a big smile, showing several gold teeth. Tessier signed in; a fevered discussion on Radio Liberia raged in the background.

“I forgot my files,” Tessier told him.

“No problem, Monsieur, cleaners going to offices much later,” the guard said.

By the time they’d rushed up the back stairs and reached Dinard’s office, Aimée had broken out in a cold sweat.

She pulled down the blinds, drew the cloth curtains, and turned on the desk light, then worked plastic gloves over her fingers.

“I’m going to call the flics,” Tessier said, lifting up the phone.

“Put that down,” Aimée said.

“Non, it’s my duty, I have to give them information,” he said.

Great! Tessier wanted to assuage his guilt. And get them in trouble.

“It’s important to tell them about Dinard’s call, and how—”

“The phone’s tapped,” she said.

“What?”

Using her Swiss Army knife, she pried open the black phone case.

Open-mouthed, Tessier stared at the small black knob Aimée pried out of it. “Don’t use the phone! There might be others, and I don’t have time to dismantle them.”

“You mean, someone has heard our conversations?”

She put a finger to her lips and scanned the room’s elegant boiserie. Plenty of hiding places and no time to hunt for bugs.

“Did Dinard keep a safe in here?” she whispered.

“A lock-up, downstairs,” he whispered back.

She nodded, turned off the light, and motioned for Tessier to lead.

The underground level, the museum’s basement, could use restoration, Aimée thought, noticing the dank watermarks and chipped stone. Rank humid air hovered. She took off her coat and tied it around her waist. Weren’t works of art supposed to be kept in climate-controlled storerooms?

“We don’t have room to store much here. We have an agreement with the Musée Henner,” Tessier told her, taking off his glasses and wiping off the condensation. His voice trembled.

Tessier led her through a warren of coved passages with doors leading off them. “This used to be a mansion. These were storerooms.”

Tessier paused at the what looked like a meat locker.

Hurry, she wanted to say, seeing him hesitate. “Tessier, continue, it’s vital.”

He wiped his brow and hit some numbers on what resembled a digicode. The metal door clicked and he pushed it open. Inside the antiseptic stark-white painted room, file cabinets and shelving held a Tang dynasty painting on silk, ritual bronzes, and statues on the shelves.

“Part of our collection is on loan in Düsseldorf,” he said. “These funerary statues and Buddhist sculptures are part of our permanent collection.”

She showed him the character she’d copied onto her palm.

“Look familiar?”

Her hands shook and she held her wrist so Tessier wouldn’t notice.

“Wu,” he said, looking at the character .

“That’s the character you showed me before,” she said, excited. “The character for Shaman.” She pulled out the jade disk, with its primitive etched dragon. “Dinard tried to tell me it’s the disks that are valuable. Rare.” She stared at Tessier as she thought of the images Dinard had mentioned. “If the other disks bore motifs like the sun, a phoenix, clouds, how old might they be?”

“Such a thing’s impossible to date correctly, even with carbon techniques.”

“Ballpark, Tessier?”

He shrugged. “Pre-bronze age? It’s difficult to prove. But why kill Monsieur Dinard?”

“What was Dinard doing yesterday afternoon? Think back.”

“I had a dentist appointment,” he said. “I left after lunch and didn’t return.”

Frustrated, she didn’t know what to look for. She lifted up some papers. Underneath lay files and museum correspon-dance.

“Roll up your sleeves,” she said. “We have to check everything.”

“These shelves deal with maintenance and building codes,” he said.

“Let’s try those.” She pointed to shelves filled with bulging folders and binders and sat down to tackle the first shelf. In a binder labeled Miscellaneous, what she read made her bolt upright. A Drouot photocopied receipt, made out to Monsieur D. Inard, for “Heavenly Jade Astrological Pieces.” D. Inard . . . of course, Dinard.

Dinard had put the pieces up for auction!

Dinard, then Thadée. Had Thadée stolen them from Dinard? If so, where had Dinard gotten them? Where were they now?

“Did your museum handle ancient jade pieces like these?”

“Never.” Tessier shook his head. “These types of objects show up every so often: No record of excavation, or history of ownership. No pedigree. Like I told you. Some have sat in a collector’s home for years, accumulating dust in their crates, forgotten.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Without provenance there’s no verification, no history,” Tessier said. “The subtext is, they’ve been looted. Stolen. With all the scrutiny these days, and the international agreements, we’re too wary to buy such objects.”

“Did Dinard tell you where the jade figures came from?”

Tessier shook his head. “I never even knew of their existence, until he told me to ask you about them.”

She sat down. Studied the Drouot receipt.

“If the Drouot staff had done some research, and concluded items had been looted would they just note ‘withdrawn’ in the catalogue?”

Tessier nodded. “If they were smart.”

AIMÉE FELT apprehensive as she approached l’hôtel Ampère for the Olf meeting. Did de Lussigny know about his godfather’s murder? She didn’t relish being the first to tell him that Dinard had been killed.

The four-star hotel was a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe, situated in the prestigious part of the 17th. Too bad she and René couldn’t afford to hide out here.

De Lussigny greeted her at the door, his shirtsleeves rolled up. The meeting had ended, or so she surmised from the cigarette butts in the ashtray, several used glass tumblers, and a half-empty bottle of vodka in the suite. Stacks of yellow legal pads and charts sat on the table. A fire crackled in the fireplace.

“They made it an early night,” he said. “Sorry, but I hope you brought the reports.”

Odd. Why hadn’t he called and asked her to come sooner?

“Of course, right here,” she said opening her bag.

De Lussigny reached over and turned on music. Soft jazz.

“Sit down. Have a drink.”

What was all this about? But she sat down, took the tumbler he’d splashed with vodka, and drank for courage. Nice, with a citrus punch. He sat down next to her and ruffled his hair.

“Your godfather. . . .” She hesitated, trying to read his expression before voicing the bald truth. Did he already know?

“The investigating inspector called me,” he said. “First Thadée, now my godfather, Jacques.” He shook his head. “Jacques played around. . . .”

“Played around? We found him dead in the Parc Monceau lavatory and he’d written this in his blood.”

She saw the horrified look on his face. “But . . . what do you mean . . . you found him?”

She wrote the character on a yellow legal pad:

“Know what it means?”

He shook his head. “I’ve grown up here. My father read Chinese; in some ways he never left Indochina. . . .” His voice trailed off.

“It’s the character wu, for shaman,” she said.

Did he know about the disks? All she saw on his face was concern.

“Your godfather, Dinard, put a set of jade figures up for auction,” she said. “Then withdrew them. But it was Thadée that gave them to me to deliver to a Cao Dai nun. They were stolen from me. What does it mean?”

“You surprise me all the time,” he said, taking a big gulp of vodka. “But I’m sorry you had to find my godfather’s body.”

Sorry?

“It’s his poor wife I feel sorry for. And Thadée.”

De Lussigny raked his fingers through his hair. “She loved him. What about you, Aimée. Why don’t you trust me enough to explain to me how you’re involved?”

“I don’t know you,” she said.

Or anything.

She felt his hand on her thigh, surprised that such a suave man would make such a move at a time like this.

“We can change that,” said de Lussigny.

He kissed her. Warm, moist lips. Startled, she pulled back.

He kissed her again. Just right, lips a bit open. Nice kisses.

“Non,” she said, pulling away.

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

A barge pole wouldn’t be long enough to keep him at a safe distance.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “The only way to react to death is with life.”

His eyes searched hers.

“But I had no idea you felt this way,” she said, uncomfort- able. His godfather had been murdered, yet all he wanted was to get into her pants!

She wondered at the connection he’d made to her, that she knew nothing about. His fantasy? The soft jazz in the background, the dim lighting, the half-full glasses of vodka and white Egyptian cotton duvet of the bed conspired against her. She’d better turn to business, then leave, before she did something she’d regret.

“Lena and I are in the midst of divorce proceedings,” he said. “And, believe it or not, I don’t do this often.”

She doubted him, determined to ignore the way his lips had softened on hers, the aura of power and trace of vulnerability that textured his voice. She must keep in mind that he was a powerful and devious insider. Not her usual bad-boy.

“I can’t,” she said.

He pulled his hand back. Irritation shone on his face as he combed his hair back with his hands. “So what do we do?”

“We talk business,” she said, reaching for her vodka glass. Trying to keep her hand steady.

“Bon,” he said, checking his watch, stifling a yawn. “You already gave me the reports.”

She stiffened at his dismissive gesture.

“I want to know about PetroVietnam.”

“Aren’t you the one supposed to give me information?”

Arrogant bastard.

“I want to know why you asked me to monitor the Chinese bids. And why the various bids have disappeared.”

Surprised, he sat forward. “Who says that?”

“I checked, and they’re not here. All records of the bids disappeared from the file and that means—”

“It’s on someone’s desk under a pile or it’s in intra-corporate mail,” he interrupted. “And a camel walks faster than that.”

Or someone had gotten a hidden kickback. But how to word it with tact?

“Convince me. Put a trace on it.”

“You’re on a fishing expedition,” he said.

“Whoever has the bids, wants to keep them secret. Private. Not to point fingers, but what if someone got a payoff? I can help you more if I know the truth.”

He sat back on the couch. “You really do want to talk about business.”

“Find the bids. If they’re in intra-corporate mail, then you’re right. Otherwise, I am.”

“D’accord,” he said, his look pensive. “I will. But I still want you to monitor the Chinese.”

“You still haven’t given me a reason.”

“Haven’t you figured it out? We want to match their bids for drilling rights in the Tonkin Gulf.”

She stood.

He treated her as he’d treated her before. Like a professional. As she reached for the hotel room doorknob, she met his hand reaching for it at the same time.

“Excusez-moi.” His hand recoiled.

“Au revoir,” she said. They were standing so close.

He kissed her again. That soft warm mouth. His hands cupped her face, stroked her hair.

She pulled away, opened the door, and left. Outside in the hushed carpeted hallway, she ran, her knees shaking.