Murder in Clichy

Saturday Night

IN THE REAR BOOTH of the cafe below Leduc Detective, Aimée pulled off her Nicorette patch and lit a Gauloise. Her smudged red lipstick was all over the small espresso cup. She slumped, kept her head down, and took a deep drag.

“Why the long face, mon américaine?” Zazie, the ten-year-old daughter of the owner asked. Juliette was nicknamed Zazie because she’d begun using strong language at an early age. Her mother complained to Aimée that she’d inherited her grandmother’s mouth. Zazie scratched her red curls, set her magazine on the counter, and steamed herself a cup of warm milk. “Can I sit with you? I like your lipstick.”

“It’s Stop Traffic Red. But isn’t it past your bedtime, Zazie?”

Zazie’s family lived above the café. “I had a bad dream,” Zazie said, rubbing her eyes. “I want to show you something.”

“Fine. And then to bed.”

She thought about de Lussigny. Lust wasn’t love. And it didn’t work when you wanted to forget about someone—someone like Guy.

“Look at this,” Zazie said. “That man in the big car who gave you a lift, Aimée, remember? When your eyes were bad that day?”

Aimée nodded. De Lussigny. She’d like to forget.

“He came in for a Perrier. He’s in the magazine maman buys. Regardes-toi-même?” she said, with an admiring gaze. “I didn’t know you knew famous people, I’ve been waiting to show you. Look Aimée!”

Zazie turned the pages of Voilà, the tabloid magazine that featured celebrities and photos of aristocrats’ parties. And there he was, tuxedo-clad, hair brushed back, both arms around young women. Julien de Lussigny.

“Good memory, Zazie.”

Well, no surprise there. He hadn’t gotten lucky with her but . . . She studied the caption more closely.

Last Year’s Happiness: Julien de Lussigny with his wife Lena, now separated, and Nadège de Lussigny, his daughter from a previous marriage, at a benefit for land mine victims at their mansion on Parc Monceau where it was held again this year.

The young half-Asian woman, her long black hair entwined in purple braids, was stunning. She looked familiar. That smile! Her mind traveled back to Thadée’s words, remembered seeing the woman who’d climbed on the Vespa when she first found Sophie, what Madame Nguyen had said. Could this be her, de Lussigny’s daughter, Michel’s mother?

Had she been staying with her uncle Thadée? And most important, where was she now?

“Aimée. Aimée!” Zazie was saying. ”Yoo-hoo, you there?”

She’d been lost in thought. She stared at Zazie.

“You’re a little detective in the making, Zazie,” she said, stabbing out her cigarette.

Zazie’s eyes shone with pride.

And for a brief flash Aimée wondered what it would it be like to have a child. Would she be like Zazie, and never go to bed?

“Is that a photo of you over the espresso machine, from when you were five?”

Zazie grinned. “It’s from the école primaire, but I was six.”

Close enough. Little Michel was five and had the same smile as his mother, Nadège. Aimée had to find her.

She pulled out her lipstick and slid it into Zazie’s hand. Zazie’s eyes sparkled.

“For me?”

“Don’t tell your maman,” she grinned. “Someday you’ll follow me into the business, Zazie. Until then, get some sleep.”

OUTSIDE, ON dark Avenue de Clichy, a lone streetsweeper dealt with the detritus of the local Armistice Day Veterans’ Parade. Each year the number of marchers got smaller. With the driver’s assistance, an old man alighted from a taxi onto the wet pavement. His wool suit hung from his shrunken frame. A blue, white, and red tricolor ribbon was draped over his caved-in chest; several medals glinted on his lapel.

Aimée guessed he was one of the few remaining veterans from the First World War. His limbs trembled as he hobbled to a door on rue Sauffroy. The taxi driver lit a cigarette and drove away.

Peeling posters of the Nigerian footballer Okocha glistened with rain on the stucco walls. Aimée heard the metal clink as the old man’s keys hit the ground. She stooped to pick them up.

“Monsieur, your keys,” she smiled. “May I help?”

“I always forget the code,” he said, his rheumy eyes tearing. “It’s in my pocket somewhere. My hands shake so.”

“Permit me?” She stuck her hand in his pocket, found a card with his name, address, and digicode.

“Caporal Mollard, that’s you, eh?” she said.

He nodded.

She punched in his code. The green door clicked open.

“Merci,” he said.

“Did you enjoy the parade?”

A lost look painted his hollow-cheekboned face. “That farce?”

Shocked, she saw that he picked at the ribbon as if trying to pull it off. But the effort seemed too much for him.

“Most of me died in the trenches. The mustard gas took one of my lungs. The rest, well. . . .”

“Caporal, you must be tired,” she said, not knowing what else to say.

“We were supposed to save the world for peace, mon enfant. Fight the war to end all wars,” he said. “Did it do any good?”

She shook her head. What had happened in 1914–18 on French fields had just been the beginning. “I don’t know. Can I help you inside, does someone wait for you?”

“Everyone I knew is dead,” he said. “It’s my turn.”

RENÉ HAD left a note on the laptop in the hotel room.

“Dining downstairs on Cameroun manioc, fish and rice aloko. Join us.”

She put her head in her hands, rocked back and forth. Her hands came back sticky with tears and black mascara. She’d lost her man, been tempted to sleep with a chiseled-cheekbone charmer, and still hadn’t found Gassot or the jade. She curled up on the lumpy settee by the window, overlooking wind- and rain-blasted rue Sauffroy, feeling as alone as the old vet.