Murder in Montmartre

Tuesday Morning

AIMÉE LEANED AGAINST the slick tiled Metro wall, cell phone to her ear, and clicked off. Hôpital Bichat refused to give her any information about Laure. On top of that, the flic guarding her still hadn’t called. Burnt rubber smells from the squealing train brakes filled the close air. She punched in another number.

“Brigade Criminelle,” a voice said after ten rings.

“Last night, Officer Laure Rousseau was injured and taken to Hôpital Bichat; I’d like to know her status.”

“Let me consult,” said a brisk, no-nonsense voice.

In the background she heard footsteps slapping across the tile.

“Allô? Who’s calling?” asked the voice.

“Aimée Leduc, a private detective.”

“You’ll need to inquire via the proper channels.”

“Aren’t I? I’m concerned. As I told you, she suffered an injury.”

“She’s in garde à vue,” said the voice.

Already? It was not yet eight in the morning.

“Check with her lawyer,” the voice said.

“Who’s that?”

“A Maître Delambre is handling this case. That’s all the information I have.”

It sounded as if Laure had been given outside representation. Unusual in these circumstances. Good or bad? Surely, a good sign, Aimée thought, gaining hope. But how long would they keep Laure in a holding cell? She consulted the directory at the phone booth in the Metro, found the lawyer’s number, and called him.

“Maître Delambre is in court until noon,” said his answering machine.

“Please, have him call me, it’s urgent, concerning Laure Rousseau,” Aimée said and left her number.

Too bad she’d let René Friant, her partner in their agency, take the morning off. She could use his help now.

She pushed open the swinging doors of the Blanche Metro. All the way up the stairs crowded with winter-coated commuters she pictured Laure, disoriented, with her bloodshot eye, hunched over in a cell.

On the wide, shop-lined Boulevard de Clichy by the Moulin Rouge, its garish neon now dark, plumes of bus exhaust spiraled into the air. A straggling demonstration blocked the street as loudspeakers shouted, “Corsica for Corsicans!”

Waiting passengers stood on the pavement with that particu- lar patience of Parisians, the collective shrug of acceptance reserved for slowdowns and strikes. Newspaper banners plastered across the kiosk read STRIKE IN CORSICAN CONTRACT DIS-PUTE. Another said ASSAULT ON ARMORED CURRENCY TRUCK LINKED TO ARMATA CORSA SEPARATISTS.

She saw a peeling poster on a stone wall bearing a call to action and the Armata Corsa Separatist trademark, the tête de Maure, a black face with white bandanna, in the corner.

The strident Separatist movements in Corsica took center stage these days, elbowing out Bretons demanding school instruction in Gaelic and ETA, Basque Nationalists, car bombings.

Right now, Aimée needed to speak with the person in the apartment with geraniums in a window box to discover if he or she had seen anything.

Above her, on rue André Antoine, the overcast Montmartre sky mirrored the blue-gray roof tiles. Like her heart, with Guy gone and Laure the subject of a police investigation.

Leafless plane trees bent in the wind. Steep streets wound up the butte of Montmartre. She stepped over puddles of melted snow. Tonight they would freeze and become slick. Tomorrow there would be articles in the paper about old people who’d fallen and broken their hips.

The gate to the upscale townhouse whose roof she and Sebastian had climbed over stood open for the garbage collectors. She scanned the cobbled courtyard, looking across to the adjoining townhouse roof and skylight. Several floors of iron-shuttered windows faced the enclave.

In this building, she figured most residents flew south for the winter to Nice or Monaco. They could afford to. She found the top-floor site of the geranium window box, a shutterless oval window.

She’d question all the inhabitants of the building, working her way up. In the entry, she hit the first button. There was no answering buzz. She stared at the numbers on the digicode plate.

From her bag she took a slab of plasticine, slapped it over the set of buttons, and peeled it back. Greasy fingermarks showed which five numbers and letters were most used. In less than five minutes, after she’d tried twenty combinations, the door clicked open.

Inside the building she climbed the wide marble steps, trailing her fingers over the wrought-iron railing. On the first floor, a young woman answered the door, a toddler on her hip and another crying in the background. Aimée saw suitcases and a car seat stacked inside the door.

“Oui?” the woman asked.

“Sorry to bother you but I’m a detective,” Aimée said. “I’d like to question you about a homicide that occurred last night across the courtyard on the roof of the building undergoing renovation.”

“What? I know nothing about it.” The toddler pulled the strand of beads around the woman’s neck and she winced. “Non, chéri.”

“Did you hear or see anything unusual at eleven o’clock last night?”

“You’re kidding. My baby’s teething. I can’t keep my eyes open that late,” she said, looking harried.

The toddler clung to his mother’s neck, gnawing at her beads; the other child pounded a metal truck on the floor. “We were asleep. I put the children to bed at eight; half the time I fall asleep with them.”

“There was a party in the building, maybe your husband noticed something.”

“He passes out before I do,” she said. “I’m sorry but I have to get the children ready.”

“Merci,” Aimée said. “Here’s my card just in case.”

“My husband’s picking us up in five minutes. We’re leaving for a month.”

The woman stuffed Aimée’s card in the pocket of her cardigan and closed the door. Aimée hoped the toddler wouldn’t eat it.

She knocked on the doors of the two other apartments on the floor but no one answered. No answer from the other three apartments on the next floor either. On the third floor, an aproned housekeeper answered the door at the apartment where Aimée figured the party had taken place.

“Bonjour, I’d like to speak with the owner,” she said.

“No one’s here, I’m sorry. Monsieur Conari’s at the office.”

Even this early, the rich went to work.

Aimée showed her ID. “Perhaps you served at his party last night? I’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Not me, I come to work in the morning,” the woman said. “They use caterers for parties.”

“Did you speak with Monsieur Conari this morning? Maybe he mentioned the homicide across the courtyard?”

The housekeeper dropped her dust rag. “They’re never here when I get to work. Sorry.” She picked the rag up and started to close the door.

It’s important,” Aimée said. “Can you give me a number “where I can reach Monsieur Conari?”

The housekeeper hesitated, rubbing her hands on her apron. “I never bother him at work, eh, but this—”

“Oui, it’s very important,” Aimée said.

The woman took the pen and paper Aimée handed her and wrote down a telephone number.

“Merci, I appreciate your help.”

Aimée continued up the wide stairs. Her goal, the top flat, encompassed the entire floor. Here she had to find answers.

She heard low voices, music, a radio? She knocked several times. No answer. Then knocked again until she heard footsteps.

“J’arrive,” said a voice.

The door creaked open. The middle-aged woman who opened the dark green door wore a flannel nightshirt and Nordic wool slipper socks, and was sipping something steaming and smelling of cinnamon.

“Forgive me,” Aimée said. “I don’t mean to disturb you—”

“No salespeople allowed in the building, I’m sorry,” the woman interrupted in a nasal congested voice. “They shouldn’t have let you in.”

Aimée flashed her identification card. “I’m a detective, investigating a homicide in the building opposite you.”

“Homicide?” The woman pushed her glasses onto her forehead and rubbed her eyes, which were a striking aqua blue. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ll need to excuse me, I’m sick.”

This woman must have been at home last night. Aimée couldn’t let her shut the door in her face. “Sorry to insist, but this will take just a moment. Probably you’ve answered these questions already,” she said. She wanted to see the view from this woman’s apartment. And there should be geraniums near a window facing the courtyard.

“What do you mean? No one’s spoken to me,” the woman told her. “What homicide?”

“Haven’t the police questioned you yet?”

The woman shook her head.

Aimée wondered why not.

“Let me see your identification again, Mademoiselle.”

Aimée handed over her PI license with its less than flattering photo: squinty eyes and pursed mouth.

“The pharmacy’s late.” The woman glanced at an old clock on the wall and handed the license back. “They were supposed to deliver my medicine by now.”

“A man was murdered last night,” Aimée said, wiping her wet boots on the mat. “I need to ask you some questions. May I come in?”

“It’s nothing to do with me,” the woman said, about to close the door.

“Let’s talk inside,” Aimée said.

“Non. I can’t deal with questions,” the woman replied.

“Just while you wait for the pharmacy delivery.”

“Non,” the woman said, alarmed. “I’m sick.”

“But if we talk now, Madame—”

“I don’t go out.” The woman smothered a cough. “I won’t go to the police station.”

An agoraphobic? Aimée heard something in her voice, was it the trace of an accent?

“Madame, you don’t need to go to the Commissariat,” Aimée said. “I’m a private investigator, we’ll talk right here. And I must see the view from your window.”

The woman pulled out a wad of tissues from her pocket, reconsidered, and blew her nose. “All right, but just five minutes.”

Aimée stepped inside the pale yellow hallway, eighteenth century by the look of it. A green plastic shopping cart was parked on the black-and-white diamond-patterned floor by a pair of worn snow boots. She expected a place dripping with antique chandeliers, but instead Art Deco sconces and Surrealist collages lined the walls. Several Man Ray silver-gelatin-print photographs hung over a gleaming Ruhlmann secrétaire. One appeared to be an original of Violon d’Ingres, the famous Surrealist image of Kiki, Man Ray’s lover, in a turban, musical notes drawn on her bare back down her spine.

“Such a lovely apartment,” Aimée said, aiming to get this woman to talk. “You’ve lived here a long time, Madame?”

“Zoe Tardou,” the woman admitted, showing Aimée to a room furnished with sleek blond-wood Art Deco pieces and mod-erne thirties-style rugs. Black blankets hung at the floor-to-ceiling windows. Aimée’s heart sank. How could Zoe Tardou have noticed movement on the roof with these blankets blocking the windows?

“Tardou, like the Surrealist?” Aimée asked to keep the conversation going.

“My stepfather,” Zoe Tardou said, her mouth tightening.

No wonder she could afford this expensive apartment covering the entire floor. But from the way Zoe Tardou’s mouth had compressed, Aimée figured she hadn’t gotten along with her stepfather.

Zoe Tardou switched on the light, illuminating silver-framed black-and-white photos. Beachfront family scenes from the sixties and celebrity snapshots covered the baby grand piano. A late-model television sat in front of a damask-covered sofa. But an unlived-in feeling permeated the large room.

“You’re an artist, too?”

“My mother was a Dadaist poet and did figure modeling,” Zoe said.

One of the Surrealist muses?

Zoe Tardou took a deep swallow of her steaming drink. She beckoned Aimée to a small nook behind the sofa. “Medieval scholarship’s my field.”

Here a blond joined-wood desk piled with notebooks and books angled out from the wall. Well used. Above the desk, mounted on the wall, hung an ancient crucifix and framed manuscript pages bearing ornate gold lettering and ancient black script. Definitely at odds with the Deco-period furnishings.

The cold air in the darkened apartment began to chill Aimée. Didn’t this woman ever turn on the heat?

“Were your windows open last night?”

“Always,” she said. “The human body needs fresh air at night.”

For a woman into health, she looked miserable.

“So, you would have heard the party below despite the storm?”

”I don’t know the neighbors. I keep to myself.”

“Mind if I take a look?” Aimée walked to the window and quickly pulled the blanket aside. The older woman’s eyes blinked at the sudden light.

Directly across the courtyard lay the scaffolding under the roof of the corniced apartment where she’d discovered Jacques’s body. The skylight on the roof level opposite glittered in the weak sunbeams from a sudden break in the clouds. She saw the path she’d taken with Sebastian, aghast at the steepness of the roof they’d climbed.

“Do you keep these blankets up at night?”

Aimée didn’t remember seeing them.

“Non.” Madame Tardou blew her nose. “Look, if that’s all you need to know I’d appreciate if you left.”

But the woman might have noticed something after all, even if she didn’t realize it.

“If you’ll permit me to clarify a few things. Think back to eleven o’clock last night. Did you hear anything unusual on the roof, see any lights over there?” Aimée pointed at the apartment windows almost directly opposite.

“I did hear snippets of conversation,” Madame Tardou replied. “At first I thought they were speaking Italian.”

Italian? Excited, Aimée took a step closer. The woman reeked of eucalyptus oil.

“Do you speak Italian?”

“Non. And it must have been some drama on the télé. I was drifting in and out of sleep with this terrible cold.”

“What made you think it was Italian?”

“We used to go there on holiday,” she replied.

“What did they say?”

“Maybe it wasn’t Italian.”

“Please, it’s important. Can you place the language?”

Zoe Tardou shook her head. “I know they talked about the stars and planets.”

Had Zoe Tardou been dreaming after all?

“How could you tell?”

“Sirius, Orion, and Neptune, those names I could understand.”

“Male or female voices?”

“Male voices. Two, at least. I remember, in the village people talked about the constellations,” Zoe Tardou said, her gaze somewhere else, speaking as if to herself. “It didn’t seem so odd.” She shrugged. “Almost familiar. At least where I came from.”

Curious, Aimée wondered how this tied in. If she didn’t pursue the words of this strange woman she feared she’d regret it later.

“Where’s that?”

“Near Lamorlaye.”

Lamorlaye? Why did that sound so familiar? Her mind went back to the scratched yellow Menier chocolate tin always on her grandmother’s counter, the words fondé 1816 above the braids of the Menier girl with her basket filled with chocolate bars. And every summer afternoon her grandmother preparing her a tartine et chocolat, a thick slab of Menier chocolate laid between halves of a buttered baguette.

“Lamorlaye, that’s near the Château Menier, the family that’s famous for the chocolate.”

Zoe Tardou sniffed and blew her nose. She sat down and rubbed her red-rimmed eyes.

“So you watched the stars at night?”

“Eh?” Zoe Tardou bristled defensively. “The orphanage bordered the observatory—” She stopped, covered her mouth with her tissue. Like a little girl caught telling tales out of school.

“What do you mean?”

“The countryside’s full of glue sniffers,” she said, her voice rising in anger. “I went back last year. The young riffraff lie around in train stations sniffing glue.”

Glue sniffing? Where had that come from?

“Excuse me but—did you water your geraniums last night?” Aimée asked.

Madame Tardou started and dropped her tissue on the floor. ”What if I did?”

“We think some men escaped across the rooftops and descended through your building’s skylight. Did you see them while you were watering your plants?”

“It’s not safe anywhere any longer.”

Aimée paused. “Madame, did you hear any gunshots or see anyone?” she asked.

The woman shook her head. “The world’s full of opportunists.”

“I agree,” Aimée said, trying to humor her before returning to her line of questioning. “But when you watered your geraniums, did you see men on the scaffold or any on the roof?

“I’m going to call the locksmith to get more chains and bolts installed.”

Did Zoe Tardou fear retribution if she gave Aimée information? She seemed to be afraid of something.

“Please, Madame Tardou,” Aimée said. “A man was murdered. We need your help in this investigation. Whatever you tell me will remain confidential.”

Now the doorbell buzzed.

“Let me get that for you,” Aimée said. Before the woman could protest, she answered the door, accepted a proffered package, and returned to find Zoe curled up in a chair.

“Here’s your medication.”

“I’ve told you all I know, I watered my geraniums, but I saw nothing. I don’t feel well.”

“Madame Tardou, your information may be important,” Aimée said. “If you don’t wish to cooperate with me, I’m sure investigators will insist on taking your statement at the Commissariat.” A threat; she hoped it would work.

Zoe Tardou clutched her flannel nightshirt, pulling it tight around her. “Why question me, why not that pute on the street?”

Aimée didn’t remember seeing a prostitute on the street. “What pute?”

“The one who hangs out around the corner. The old one, she’s in the doorway all the time. Ask her.”

“What does she look like?”

“You know the type, lots of costume jewelry. Now, if you’ll excuse me, you must leave.”

At least she had someone to look for now.

WITH RELUCTANT steps Aimée retraced the route she and Sebastian had taken. She pulled out her cheap compact Polaroid and took photos of the hall carpet, skylight, and the broken lock.

Outside, on narrow rue André Antoine, passersby scurried, late to work or school. She walked to the doorway of the building opposite. No prostitute. Disappointed, she tried Conari’s number.

“Monsieur Conari’s out of the office,” his secretary said.

All the reasons she’d hated criminal investigative work came back to her. Half the time potential witnesses were out of town, or at the doctor’s, or the hairdresser’s, and tracking them down took days. Leads turned to dust. Evidence deteriorated.

But Laure needed help. Now.

“When do you expect him?”

Aimée heard phones ringing in the background.

“Try again later.”

AIMÉE OPENED the frosted-glass-paned door of Leduc Detective, ran, and caught the phone on the second ring. Gray light worked its way through the open shutters into a zigzag pattern on the wood floor. She nodded to her partner. René’s short arms were full as he loaded paper into the printer.

“Allô?” she answered the phone, at the same time grabbing the ground coffee beans.

“Mademoiselle Leduc? Maître Delambre here, Laure Rousseau’s counsel,” a high-pitched male voice said.

Thank God. But he sounded young, as if his voice hadn’t changed yet.

“I’m between court sessions so I’ll get to the point. We have reservations concerning your involvement in Laure Rousseau’s case.”

“Who’s we?” Aimée said, catching her breath. “Laure asked for my help.”

“The police investigation has been comprehensive and thorough,” he said.

He not only sounded young, but as if he needed to show he was in control. She hit the button on the espresso machine, which grumbled to life.

“So comprehensive, Maître Delambre, that they haven’t yet questioned the inhabitants of the building opposite or investigated a broken skylight?”

“That’s the investigating unit’s responsibility,” he said. “And just how would you know this?”

“As I said, Laure asked for my help,” she said. Better to explain and try to work with him. Not alienate him. “We’re childhood friends; our fathers worked together in the police force.”

“You have admirable intentions, I’m sure, but your involvement won’t help the case or be looked on as anything but meddling.”

In other words, back off.

“I’m a private investigator,” she said, figuring it would be better not to mention that computer security was her field. “That’s what I do. You don’t even seem interested to learn that there may have been an eyewitness.”

“Of course the police questioned all the people in the area,” he said. “I’m sure they’re aware of anything pertinent and will have it in their report.”

“I’d like to see this report and discuss this further.”

“As I told you—”

“Laure hired me and it’s in her best interests that we work together,” she said, stretching the truth. “But, naturally, it’s your call.”

Thick bitter steaming coffee dripped into the small white demitasse cup next to her.

“Meaning what, Mademoiselle Leduc?”

“Would you rather I turn over my findings to you or directly to La Proc?”

Pause. “I’ll discuss this with my client,” he said.

“Look, I found her concussed and injured. That should be in the report. Jacques’s pockets were inside out, they’d been searched. Since the flics don’t reveal information to outsiders, can you find out what the police report says?”

The shuffle of papers was her only answer.

“I’d like to visit Laure.”

He took a breath. “It’s questionable whether they’d allow you to see her.”

“I’d need to get a pass and letter from you, wouldn’t I?”

“Let me check into that.”

Noncommittal, avoiding a flat no. But she wouldn’t let it rest.

“I’d appreciate that and seeing the crime-scene report,” she said. “Including the lab findings. I’m concerned about the gun residue Laure said they found on her hands. Of course, there’s some mistake.”

“Lab turnaround time is from six to eighteen hours,” he interrupted.

“So you could have it by this afternoon,” she said. “I’ll call you later.”

She hung up and plopped two brown-sugar lumps into her espresso. A hot drop landed on her finger and she licked it. As she had feared, Laure had been assigned a lawyer from the bottom of the barrel.

René climbed into the orthopedic chair customized for his four-foot height. She noticed his new double-breasted suit and freshly manicured nails as he bit the glazed puff top off the religieuse, an eclairlike pastry. The shape had ancient origins and was supposed to resemble a famous convent deaconess from the fifteenth century.

“Like one?” René pushed the pastry box across the desk.

Why not? Did it matter anymore if she fit into that little black dress, a vintage Schiaparelli she’d discovered at a church sale?

“Merci,” she said, walking to his terminal and exchanging the espresso for a coffee-cream-filled eclair. “Remember my friend Laure?”

René nodded; he’d met her the year before.

“She’s in trouble.”

“So I just heard,” he said, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. “Did she really hire you? You’ll get a check?”

Aimée hesitated.

“I don’t like this already,” he said. “We do computer security, remember?”

He gestured to her desk, a pile of proposals by her laptop. “That should keep you busy.”

“I owe her, René,” she said. “She’s been set up.”

“And you know this for sure?” René stirred the espresso, his green eyes on the beige froth lining his demitasse cup. “It would be refreshing to get paid. Make for a nice change, Aimée.”

“No argument there,” she said.

If only their clients paid for their computer security on time! She perched on the edge of his desk. Walnut furniture oil, dense and heavy, stained her palms. He’d been cleaning again!

“Shooting her partner on a roof doesn’t make sense, René.”

“What do you actually know?” René’s green eyes narrowed.

She sipped her espresso and explained what had happened.

“This sounds like an accident,” René said. “Perhaps Laure tripped in the snow and her gun went off.”

“Manhurins are designed to prevent that,” she interrupted. “The sécurité de shock keeps the hammer from descending accidentally. Impossible.”

René pulled his goatee. “Internal Affairs will conclude it was an accident, won’t they?”

“René, I found her unconscious and Jacques shot. . . . His heart responded briefly, but it was too late.”

She paused, shook her head, seeing the image of Jacques’s snow-fringed eyelashes, his blood seeping onto the snow. She struggled with the feeling that he had tried to tell her something.

René stared. “I’m sorry, Aimée.”

The steam heater sputtered, sending forth waves of heat that evaporated somewhere at the level of the high ceiling. She made herself continue. “Later, on the adjoining roof, Sebastian and I discovered a broken skylight and wet footprints on the rug underneath. That spelled escape to me.”

“Escape?”

“The killer’s escape. Then flics appeared and we beat a quick retreat over the roof.”

René let out a sigh. “You promised to stop all that, didn’t you? Let the flics handle it.”

He sounded like Guy. But Guy wasn’t around to say those words anymore. She combed her chipped copper lacquered fingernails through her spiky hair.

“Laure may face prison.” She didn’t like to think of the overcrowded eighteenth-century prison La Santé; the unheated cells and the reaction of the inmates when they discovered Laure was a flic. “I feel responsible.”

“Responsible? Sorry to say it, but it sounds like Jacques brought this on himself.”

“Laure has to keep trying to prove herself, to follow in her father’s footsteps. Of course, she’d do whatever Jacques asked. Not like me.”

“No one’s like you, Aimée,” René said, rolling his eyes. “Thank the Lord.”

“René, Laure’s the closest I’ll ever have to a little sister. She’s self-conscious, sensitive about her cleft palate. I know her; she’ll break if she goes inside.”

Break into little pieces.

Aimée sniffed, aware of a floral scent from somewhere in the office. “Anyway, I caught up. I did three-quarters of the proposals last night.” And missed Guy’s reception as a result.

“Morbier left you a message,” René said, “something about keeping your paws clean. Maybe you owe him an apology.”

“What can I do?”

“You’re asking my advice?” René expressed mock horror. “It will cost you. Say you’re sorry with flowers. He’s a romantic.”

“Are we talking about the same person?”

She surveyed the office. A jam jar with sprays of paperwhite narcissus sat on the printer stand, filling the air with fragrance. A harbinger of spring.

“Celebrating spring already? Or is this a special day?” she asked, trying to find out where they’d come from without asking outright. “What’s the occasion? Good news?” She let her sentence dangle, hoping he’d say Guy had sent them.

“Pull up the Salys data,” was his only reply as his fingers raced over the keyboard. “We need to draft a proposal. By noon.”

Her heart thumped. Guy hadn’t sent them.

The way René avoided answering, his appearance . . . that twisting feeling in her gut . . . could it be jealousy? Had he met someone? How could she be jealous? Why, it was wonderful René had been bitten by the bug! She watched him. It was all over his face. She should be happy for him, ecstatic. Why wasn’t she? Just because Guy had left her didn’t mean René couldn’t find love.

“Who is she, partner?”

“Did I say that?”

She grinned. “You don’t have to.”

“There’s work to check, lots of it.”

“Better tell me,” she said, adding more water to the narcissus. “Or I’ll nag you until you do.” She pulled out her chair and thumbed through the mail.

“I had a drink with someone after a full-moon party,” he said.

“You mean you went to a rave?”

“That’s for tonight,” he said. “Eh, voilà.”

René was full of surprises.

“What’s her name?”

He mumbled something.

“Couldn’t catch that.”

“Magali. Now pull up the Salys account.”

“I finished that proposal last night.”

He stared at her.

“While you were out dancing. Makes a change, eh?”

Chastened, René sighed. “We just met. Now don’t start with you and Guy wanting to—”

“Meet her? Don’t worry.”

She’d keep it to herself about Guy. No reason to burden René when he was so happy. Outside, melting ice spattered in silver droplets on the window overlooking rue du Louvre.

“René, I need help with a surveillance. I questioned a woman in an upper apartment overlooking the site where Jacques was shot. But there’s a prostitute on the street across from her building whom I couldn’t find.”

His eyebrows shot up. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m meeting with the Salys account in half an hour. At least they pay on time.”

And a nice fat account it was, too. “After that, please go on an assignment for Laure.”

“Me?” René snorted. “Like I don’t stand out in a crowd?”

“Find the pute. It’s a village there. Those Montmartroise don’t regard themselves as part of Paris. Besides, you’re perfect.”

“Reincarnate Toulouse-Lautrec and walk around with a palette of paints for the tourists?”

She smiled. “That’s an idea.”

“In this field, you use what you have, don’t you?” he said half-seriously and paused, his fingers on the keyboard.

She leaned forward. “The building’s under renovation; someone knew an upper-floor apartment was empty. Say the killer lured Jacques from this empty apartment, then took advantage of Laure’s appearance to frame her. He knew the layout and escaped over the connecting roof. It’s a theory.”

“I’ve said it before: you have an overactive imagination. Put it to work on our new account with Salys.”

He was right, of course. “I already have.” She clicked on the keys and pulled up the Salys file on her laptop. “I submitted the proposal last night; they’ll be ready for you.”

She spread the rough diagram of the buildings and courtyard she’d made at the Commissariat across her desk. “I saw lights and heard music from a party there,” she said, pointing to an apartment. “I’m trying to get ahold of the owner, a Monsieur Conari.”

“The flics will question him.”

“You can look for the prostitute after your meeting with Salys. Question her and whoever else you see go into any of the buildings next to or opposite the one where Jacques was shot. The clock’s ticking. I’ll concentrate on the one where the party was held.”

“You really want me to go undercover?”

Was there a scintilla of interest in his voice?

“Haven’t you always wanted to, partner?”

AIMÉE WORKED on some computer virus checks. Two hours later, her impatience took over and she called Maître Delambre again.

“I expect him any minute,” his secretary told her.

She had to catch him before he left for another court session. She grabbed her leather coat. Without the police report, she was pedaling without wheels.

“Please tell him Aimée Leduc’s en route to talk with him.”

MAÎTRE DELAMBRE’S chambers were more impressive than his appearance. Wan, pale faced under wire-rimmed glasses and mouse brown hair, in his long black robes and white collar he looked barely twenty-five.

The vaulted wood ceiling and bookshelves lined with legal briefs and thick volumes of the penal code did little to allay her fears. The firm’s letterhead on thick vellum sheets read Delambre et Fils. A family concern. Maybe Laure should request his father’s help.

“Maître Delambre, I’m worried about Laure Rousseau,” Aimée said.

“I haven’t managed to speak with my client yet,” he told her as she sat on a wingback chair. “How can I be certain that she hired you?”

Semantics, Aimée thought. She ignored the dubious ring of his words. “Have you received the crime-scene report?”

“I just reached the office,” he said, annoyed. “I need to deal with a pile of messages. She’s just one of several clients.”

“And how many are facing possible imprisonment for shooting their partner?” Aimée asked. “Please, it’s important. I’d appreciate it if you would check.”

“Just a moment.” He sorted a pile of papers, cleared his throat. “Let’s see here.” A pause, more shuffling of papers.

Outside on the quay, sleet battered the roof of a bus stuck in traffic. She heard his sharp intake of breath and turned.

“They’ve moved her. To the Hôtel Dieu, the CUSCO ward.”

She gripped the arms of the chair. That was the public hospital’s intensive-care criminal ward on Ile de la Cité!

“Has she been charged?”

“No charges have been filed yet. However, in such cases, that’s the next step.”

“Has her condition deteriorated?”

“Figure it out, Mademoiselle Leduc,” he said. “You’re the detective.”

Aimée stifled a groan. “What information do you have?”

“She suffered a severe concussion,” he said, consulting a message pad. “According to this, she’s stable but they’re monitoring her condition. That’s all I know.”

Laure in intensive care? Looming complications and the possibility of permanent damage raced through Aimée’s mind. And representing her was a young lawyer who appeared to have just gotten his diploma.

“Please show me the dossier,” she said.

With some reluctance, he slid it over the mahagony desk. At least he’s trying to be accommodating, she thought.

Inside she saw the procès verbal consisting of Laure’s statement, brief reports describing the crime scene, the weather conditions, and a description of the body, and a cursory pencil diagram of the roof. Even the statement she had made was included.

“Didn’t a lab report accompany this?”

Maître Delambre shook his head.

“Odd. Laure told me the lab test had found gunpowder residue on her hands, although she hadn’t fired her gun in a month.”

She looked more closely. The scene-of-crime diagrammer had missed the angle of the roof at the scaffold, an aspect she’d only viewed from the chimney top. There was no mention of the broken skylight in the adjacent building. The police photos, clipped to the back of the report, showed only the immediate area around Jacques’s corpse. “You have to demand a more thorough investigation of the roof.”

“You’re telling me how to do my job?”

She took a deep breath. How could she get him to act without revealing their rooftop exploits last night? “Not at all, Maître Delambre, but there was a Level 3 storm going on when the crime took place, impossible conditions. No doubt they missed something.”

“See for yourself,” he said.

She flipped through the addendum of partygoers interviewed in the courtyard building opposite. No one had seen, heard, or noticed anything. Had they interviewed that man she’d seen at the gate?

Was it due to time constraints that the crime-scene report for La Proc was so cursory? Laure was their only suspect; no other line of questioning had been pursued.

“I spoke with a woman on the upper floor of the building that adjoins the murder site,” she said. “Last night she heard the voices of men on the roof, but no one had questioned her. And the skylight was broken in the hall of her building.”

She handed him the Polaroids she’d taken. “You can see the broken glass in this hallway. Keep them.”

“Merci. If it’s relevant I’m sure the police will discover it,” he said, hesitating for the first time. “Listen, there’s another problem.”

She looked up from the report. “What do you mean?”

“A Nathalie Gagnard has filed a civil suit against Laure,” he said.

Aimée remembered Jacques’s last name. “His wife?”

“Ex-wife. Charging Laure with murder.”

Great.

“She’s also complaining in an interview in tomorrow’s edition of Le Parisien.”

“Can’t you stop the interview from appearing?”

She heard a clock chime in the background, measured and slow.

“Too late.”

AIMÉE SHOWED her pass and authorization to the two young police guards at Hôtel Dieu. Instead of the trouble she expected, they waved her on to the hospital’s criminal ward. Nurses scurried, their footsteps slapping on the chipped Art Nouveau tiles pleated by strips of the light coming through the window blinds. She usually avoided hospitals yet here she stood, in the second one in as many days.

And then she froze, confronted by a white-faced Laure who lay hooked up to machines dripping fluids through clear tubes. Monitors beeped. Rubbing alcohol and pine disinfectant smells clung in the corners.

Aimée’s mind traveled back to an afternoon in the Jardin du Luxembourg under the sun-dappled trees, shadows dancing over the gravel. Her father and Georges, Laure’s father, were reading the paper as they sat on the green slatted benches, partners who depended on each other when their lives were on the line, sharing a joke. The gurgle and spray of the fountain, so welcome in the humid heat. It had been two summers after her American mother had left them. Ten-year-old Laure had confided, in the playground, that she intended to follow her papa into police work.

The beep and click of the bedside machines brought Aimée back to the present. She made her legs move. Could Laure talk? Was she well enough?

“Ça va? How do you feel?” she asked, rubbing Laure’s chilled fingers, careful to avoid the intravenous lines taped to her wrist and the top of her hand.

Laure’s eyes fluttered open. Her pupils were dilated. Recognition slowly dawned in her face. “The report . . . you’ve read the report . . . that’s why you’re here, bibiche?”

“Laure, which report?”

“It’s so cold. Where am I?” Laure asked, bewildered.

“In the hospital.” Aimée pulled the blanket up to Laure’s chin.

Laure’s eyes wandered. “Why?”

Had the concussion wiped out her memory?

“Take it easy, Laure,” she said. “Don’t worry. Can you remember what happened?”

Laure tried to put her finger to her lips but missed. “It’s . . . it’s a secret.”

Aimée’s spine prickled. “Secret?”

“Non, I’m not supposed . . .” Laure tried to prop herself up on her elbow and slipped. With an exhausted sigh, she gave up and fell back, her matted brown hair fanning out on the pillow. “No . . . not right . . . the report.”

“Jacques’s report?”

Laure blinked, shook her head, and then grimaced in pain.

“You asked for my help, remember,” said Aimée. “If you keep things from me, I can’t help you. Even if you promised him to keep quiet, now it’s all right to speak. You won’t help him by keeping it inside.”

Nothing could help Jacques now. Aimée hated pressing Laure while she was disoriented, but, with any luck, she might mention a sound, a detail, that would identify her attacker.

Aimée placed a small pot of hothouse violets next to the water carafe on Laure’s bedside table. Say it with flowers—hadn’t René recommended that for Morbier? “Too bad they don’t have any fragrance.”

“Violets in winter! Merci.”

En route, Aimée had spent an off-season fortune at the Marché aux Fleurs behind Hôtel Dieu. She’d asked the red-cheeked flower seller, a stout woman wearing layers of sweaters under her smock, how the flowers survived in such cold. “But the flowers like it here, Mademoiselle!” she’d answered.

Laure gave a weak smile. “So thoughtful. You always watch out for me.”

“Laure, what do you remember?”

Pain crossed Laure’s face. The thin white scar creasing her upper lip caught the light.

“My head’s throbbing. It feels like it’s full of cotton.”

“Please try, Laure. Try to picture going up on the scaffolding and tell me what you heard.”

Laure’s hands balled into fists. But her eyes widened as though she remembered something.

“Stay calm, Laure,” Aimée said, unfurling Laure’s clenched fingers.

“So hard . . . yes, Jacques called me. Screaming. The men . . .”

Hadn’t Zoe Tardou said she’d heard male voices? “You said he was meeting an informer.”

Laure’s eyes brightened. “He needed my back-up. Now I remember but . . . my head’s throbbing.”

“You saw these men?” Aimée leaned forward, gripped the metal bed rail. “You were set up! What did they look like?”

“I heard men’s voices. That’s all I remember.”

“Raised in anger?”

Laure rubbed her head. “Can’t they give me something to stop the pain?”

“Like an argument? Low or deep voices?”

“Not speaking French,” she said. “I didn’t understand them.”

Zoe Tardou had said the same thing.

“What did it sound like?”

Laure closed her eyes.

“Try to think, Laure,” she said. “What language did they speak?”

“I just remember the stale smell of sweat, a quick whiff from the rooftop,” she said, her voice fading. “And thinking it was Jacques and he had to be scared. Maybe . . . I don’t know . . . the way he called out.”

A scared man because a deal had fallen through? Or was there something else?

“Were you afraid for Jacques? Did you feel that he needed help? Why did you enter the apartment, Laure?”

Tears streaked down her pale cheeks. “What else could I do? I couldn’t even pass the exam . . . Jacques fixed it for me. . . .”

Her police exam, the one Laure had spent nights studying for? “Don’t worry about that,” Aimée said, wiping away the tears with a cloth, stroking Laure’s arm.

If Laure had surprised the men meeting Jacques, they could have attacked her, taken her gun, and used it to shoot Jacques. But Aimée didn’t see how to account for the gun residue on Laure’s hands.

“Papa made me promise . . . not to tell you. . . .” Laure’s voice trailed off.

“Not to tell me what?” Aimée demanded.

Georges had passed away several years earlier. Had the concussion returned her to the past, so she was reliving a memory? A feeling of foreboding filled Aimée.

“What do you mean, Laure?” She tried to avoid the exasperated tone she’d used with the younger Laure when she had tagged after Aimée and dogged her movements.

Laure’s eyelids fluttered.

“That pile of Carambar, remember? I didn’t tell you. I took them from the concierge.”

Carambar, the candy caramels Aimée loved. Still did.

“He didn’t mean to, Aimée. Neither of them did,” Laure gasped in pain.

Aimée’s spine stiffened. The way Laure spoke indicated that something more than stolen candy was on her mind.

“Who didn’t mean to?”

“When we came home from school . . . that day I stole the Carambar . . . the envelope . . . on the concierge’s table. Remember, I imitated her?”

The high-pitched beeps from one of the monitors alarmed Aimée.

“Laure, I don’t understand.”

“Your papa, the report saying your papa . . . non, I’m so confused. That happened much later. Some cover-up.” She lay back. “With Ludovic . . . too tired.”

Aimée felt a sickening lurch in her stomach. Laure’s words indicated her father had gotten involved in something shady. A cover-up? With “Ludovic”?

“Mademoiselle, stand aside, please.” Aimée felt arms pushing her out of the way and from the corner of her eye saw a team of white-coated staff rushing past her.

“Oxygen! Monitor her blood pressure,” a doctor said. “Her pupils are blown.”

“Sixty over forty,” said the nurse.

“Looks like increased intercranial pressure—”

Aimée stumbled toward the nurses’ station. The staff pulled a white curtain, its hooks jingling, around Laure’s bed.

“Please, tell me what’s happening.”

“Complications,” said a brisk nurse, grabbing a chart.

Complications. Did the nurse mean permanent damage? “Why has her condition worsened?”

“Only medical personnel are permitted here now. You must leave the ward.”

“But my friend—”

“We’ll handle this, call back later,” the nurse said peremptorily, steering Aimée out.