Murder in the Bastille

Friday Morning

“WHICH EDITOR DO YOU want?” said the man in the T-shirt to René.

René, wiping his damp forehead with a handkerchief, noticed the man’s stringy hair and the ASK ME ABOUT THE BERLIOZ OPERA button on his sleeve.

Hard sunlight beamed down from the soot-laced skylight. Men hammered and saws whined in the background of the newspaper building.

“Someone in charge of investigative reporting, please,” René said, wishing he knew how to word it better. And wishing, too, that he’d foregone his early workout at the dojo.

“All reporting’s investigating for truth . . . so you could say, they all would do,” said the man, looking down at the clutter on his reception desk.

“How about the city desk?”

“If we had one, it wouldn’t be on this floor,” he said.

Great. Forty minutes of wading through construction workers and over cables . . . for this René had tramped all over this tank of a building and had ended up in Accounting?

“What about the eleventh arrondissement?”

“It’s not cheap anymore, eh, especially around the Bastille, but my former girlfriend lives there and still has a great rent.”

Frustrated, René threw up his short arms in supplication. “I mean articles, an exposé about illegal evictions in the Bastille area, the eleventh . . . who’d edit that?”

The man’s eyebrows arched. “Check with Dossiers. Behind the Archives section, second floor. That’s if they haven’t moved.”

“Moved? Don’t you know where they are?”

“They’re installing new fiber optic lines,” he said. “My phone’s dead. I’ve tried all morning.”

By the time René reached the right desk, his hip ached more than it had yesterday. Was pain cumulative? He gave a small smile to the young woman with black cornrow braids, wearing blue lipstick and a tight, bright blue jacket.

“I need to speak with a reporter about an exposé on evictions . . .”

“I’m sorry,” she interrupted, “those articles come from stringers. Freelancers who’ve established a relationship with us. They turn in the finished work, someone copyedits it, and it’s printed.”

“No internal control?”

“Our stringers know the rules. Of course everything’s run by the head editor.”

“May I speak with him?”

“Give me your name and number. He returns the day after tomorrow.”

Frustrated, René handed her his business card and went to sit on the island on boulevard du Temple. He wedged himself up on the green slatted bench, wondering what to do next as he watched the old men play pétanque in the dust. A crowd of bystanders looked on in the dappled sunlight under the plane trees. Still leafy, but changing color to signal autumn’s approach.

His phone rang.

“René?” asked Aimée.

“No luck with Josiane’s editor, Aimée,” René said. “But I left a message, maybe he’ll get back to me the day after tomorrow.”

Pause.

“I tried the last number on her speed dial,” he said. “But I don’t know what it means.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s in Taverny, outside Paris,” he said. “A Dr. Alfort’s office at the Nuclear Commission. The receptionist says he’s out until Monday. But I left both our numbers.”

“Bon . . . good job. When you talk with the editor, René,” she said, “don’t forget to ask what else Josiane worked on. Maybe she was also writing an article about the Nuclear Commission . . . seems she was active in the Green party.”

“A real socialist-with-a-trust-fund type!”

“Or a woman with a conscience, René,” she said. “I found out that Vaduz died in a car crash near République.”

“Vaduz, the Beast of Bastille?”

“The very same.”

“When?”

“That’s what you’ve got to find out from Serge.”

“But he’s a forensic pathologist.”

“Exactement,” Aimée said. “The flics are keeping their cards close to their chests. Letting no word out. So, on the quiet, you’re going to ask Serge. And find out the cause of Josiane Dolet’s death, too. You know, what he thinks. Ask him if it differs from the serial killer’s MO.”

“Whoa . . . after my last visit to the morgue, when we came through the sewers, I decided to skip any future ones. Except maybe my last.”

“Please, René, I tried, but it’s too risky for him to give information over the phone.”

“How can I just walk into the morgue and get him to talk?”

“But you won’t have to,” she said. “He’s willing, I’ve already arranged it. He’s lecturing at the musée des Moulages.”

René drew a breath. “The Plaster Museum?”

“Part of l’hôpital Saint-Louis; it’s in the Dermatology research wing,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Boulevard du Temple.

“Bon, you’re two Métro stops away.”

“I like to drive.”

“Even closer. Park by the northeast entrance,” she said, concern in her voice. “Your legs bothering you?”

“Me? Pas de tout, not at all, doing great, I need this exercise, it’s keeping me in shape,” he said rubbing his aching hip. He lifted his swollen ankle to rest on the green wood-slatted bench, wishing he could ice it. “Don’t worry about me. Take care of yourself.”

BY THE time René found the musée des Moulages in hôpital Saint-Louis, he realized this was the third hospital he’d been in this week. And a temple of dermatology, René noted, renowned for the treatment of plague victims, syphilis, psoriasis, ringworm, and leprosy.

Built by Henri IV, in rose-colored brick and stone, the walled hospital resembled a medieval internment camp. Distinctive, but less beautiful than the Place des Vosges, his other seventeenth century construction, the hospital had been built to combat epidemics. And isolate the Black Death, the plague raging at the time.

And getting around in it was hard on René’s short legs.

The Musée des Moulages, reminiscent of a nineteenth century natural history museum, would have made Jules Verne feel at home. One hundred and sixty-two glass showcases containing plaster samples illustrating various skin diseases lined the four sides of the huge rectangular room. More lighted showcases were reached by spiral staircases leading to long balconies running the length of the room. Glass-enclosed wooden cabinets held all manner of leprous fingers, limbs, ears and even faces pocked with bumps and lesions. Faded numbers in old script were tacked above each.

René cringed at the life-like portrayal of these diseased body parts. The wood floors creaked and a stale smell emanated from the showcases.

A sign informed the visitor that Baretta, a shop owner in the Passage Jouffrey, who made casts of fruit to display his produce, had been discovered by a dermatology doctor who used Baretta’s skills to document skin diseases. So helpful was Baretta that the museum still displayed more than 2000 of his casts documenting every form of skin disease on every body part imaginable.

Finally, René located Dr. Serge Leaud, full black beard over a rosy complexion, standing on a podium before a screen, pointing at slides. An audience of a hundred or so men and women sat on folding chairs surrounded by the glass showcases. Many wore white labcoats and some, René figured, were medical students.

Léaud indicated a slide on the screen, showing a purplish and yellow lesion. “Here’s an excellent example of the small ulcer, less than a centimeter, another manifestation of the various infectious complications of intravenous drug usage. In this case, an ulcer has developed as a consequence of a throm-boembolic event associated with bacterial endocarditis. Of course, I’m sure you remember the cutaneous ulceration and destruction of the underlying tissue so reminiscent of the profound heart valve damage due to the antibiotic-resistant organisms we observed this morning.”

René suppressed a groan. He pulled the laptop from his bag, averted his eyes from the screen, and did some work.

Finally, Léaud finished and the group of students surrounding him dispersed. René stood and smiled at him. Serge returned the smile, motioning toward a side chamber with a lowered ceiling and even more lighted displays. More intimate and quiet.

“Riveting stuff, Serge.”

Serge nodded. “It’s a little-known killer. In the morgue, we’ve seen only three incidents of this in the past thirty-five years. But last month, an ulcer reached a woman’s varicose vein.” He snapped his fingers. “Bled out like that.”

“Fascinating, Serge, but I’m short on time. Did Aimée tell you . . .”

“You didn’t hear this from me,” Serge interrupted, looking around and lowering his voice. “If you repeat it, I’ll deny every word.”

“Deny what?”

“The Dolet autopsy findings,” he said. “I assisted. Saw most of the preliminary examination. But the final pathology reports take time. All the other Beast of Bastille victims’ autopsy findings, according to the attached police report, were consistent. Only Dolet’s evidenced nothing of a sexual nature. But then, maybe he was interrupted.”

Serge moved toward a window facing a display of syphilitic noses and leprous, misshapen ears. René winced but followed, as Serge tamped the end of a nonfiltered Gauloise and lit up.

“That can kill you,” said René.

“So my wife tells me,” Serge said. He glanced at his wrist, a red Mickey Mouse watch with a EuroDisney strap on it. “A birthday present from my twins,” he said, in explanation.

“We know the victims ranged from twentysomething to fortysomething blondes living in the Bastille. Party types,” said René. “Vaduz waited in the passages they lived in or walked through, slipped in the door behind them, and attacked.”

Serge nodded. “Not the most innovative or original serial killer. Boring but consistent. He did it every time. The DNA was monumental.”

“So what distinguished Josiane Dolet from the Beast of Bastille’s victims? That’s what I need to know,” said René. “What made her different from the others, the serial victims.”

Serge buttoned his pea-coat, lifted his briefcase. “According to the Préfet, we don’t have serial killers in France. That’s an American phenomenon.”

“What do you call Polin and his predilection for slicing up old ladies in Montmartre?” asked René.

Serge grinned. “We called him an old lady killer.”

“So how did Vaduz get released?”

“Technicality. Verges, his lawyer, knows the game. And how to play it after a flic makes a procedural error. This Verges, known as a big civil liberties crusader, moves in the lofty Lefty circles.”

René remembered what Aimée had asked. “Were the autopsy details released to the public?”

Serge shook his head, puffing away. “Never. That’s why it was so hard to nail him. The flics didn’t enlist the public’s help until the last murder. The one before Dolet’s, that is. It was only then the newspapers put it together, labeling him the Beast of Bastille, saying he killed women in the passages. The next day they found him. But no thanks to whoever routed the file to the wrong arrondissement.”

“Like Aimée says, Napoleon’s centralization of the military, police, and administration decentralized their power. But it bolstered his. They couldn’t overthrow him,” said René. “And still couldn’t today.”

“We let Waterloo and the Russian winter do that,” Serge said.

“When did Vaduz die in the car crash?” René asked, as Serge edged toward the door.

“He’s dead, what does it matter?”

“That’s just it,” René said, wishing Serge would slow down. His hip hurt again. “If Vaduz stole the car and died before Aimée and Dolet were attacked, it’s proof he couldn’t have attacked them. Even if he died later, but before Aimée was attacked in the residence, we’d know there was another culprit.”

René had followed Serge out under the colonnades, glad to escape the musty musée and its contents.

“She didn’t tell me about that.” He shrugged. “I asked around. The dossier’s been moved. Seems they found Vaduz like steak tartare, mostly raw and scattered, his edges burnt when the engine caught fire. They cremated whatever bits were left.”

René winced.

“Serge, you have to find out,” he said.

How did they do it on those TV shows? They always had some clever way to obtain information. All he could think of was mundane.

“Can’t you find out what time they delivered Vaduz to the morgue? Someone must have logged it.”

He was guessing but in a bureaucratic system one needed a signed, stamped certificate for everything, and even more so in the police.

A breeze laced with damp leaves from nearby Canal Saint Martin wafted under the stone arches to them.

“I want to help, René, but I’m late for the lab,” Serge said. “Alors, tonight’s our wedding anniversary, my mother-in-law’s coming to babysit. If I’m late they’ll both shoot me.”

René racked his brain. What could he do?

“Look, Serge, when you leave the morgue can’t you go out the back?” René said. “Through the gate used by the vans and ambulances. On your way, have a brief chat with the drivers, the men who unload bodies. Say you’re just wondering about something and check their log. It will only take a minute, then you’re on your way home. I’ll meet you outside.”

“How bad is Aimée?”

She must not have told him.

“She’s blind, Serge.”

René saw anger in Serge’s eyes.

“See you at five.”

RENÉ STOPPED at Leduc Detective to check the mail and messages. He needed to get some work done, rack up some billable hours, and honor their security contracts. Someone had to keep their income coming in. And he worried, as he had since Aimée’s attack, about how they could make things work now. Or if they could.

As he hung up his jacket, the phone rang.

“Monsieur René Friant?”

“Speaking.”

“I saw him again,” said a hesitant man’s voice.

René took a breath. “Who did you see?”

“Draz, only he’s not called Draz. These Eastern European names confuse me. He’s called Dragos.”

Now René recognized the voice of Yann Rémouze, the flutemaker who lived in the square overlooking Gymnase Japy. And Dragos was the name the architect Brault had mentioned, too.

“So tell me more, Yann.”

“You gave me your business card but I didn’t want to call you too early. They had one of those loud techno parties in the abandoned building.”

“Who’s they, Yann?”

“Those East Europeans.”

René stopped unbuttoning his coat.

“At dawn they milled around in the square,” said Yann. “This Dragos, they were calling him. He was surrounded by his comrades. Some fight broke out around the block, the flics car pulled up, then they all disappeared.”

So Yann had called to tell him of a missed opportunity. Late again. René figured getting any information about Josiane from the Romanian mecs who evicted people had to be a long shot anyway. “Next time call me when you see him, Yann. Anytime.”

“But his friend’s still here, sniffing around.”

René froze.

“Which friend?”

“One of the gang who evicted old people. Tracksuit, big shoulders.”

“I’m on my way. Try and keep him there,” René said, grabbing his keys.

“How can I do that?”

René heard the panic in Yann’s voice. But if he’d got up the courage to call him, there was hope.

“You’ll think of something Yann. Call me on my cell phone if he leaves. 06 78 54 39 09.”

RENÉ GUNNED his Citroën down rue du Louvre. He thanked God he’d filled the tank earlier as he crossed three arrondissements. He’d passed through the Marais and lower Bastille in record time when his cell phone rang.

“He’s getting on his bicycle, this mec,” said Yann.

The cell phone reception buzzed and wavered.

“Can you speak up, Yann. What’s he wearing?”

“Navy blue tracksuit with those stripes down the side; he’s on an old battered bike,” said Yann, his voice brimming with excitement.

Not so different from many of the cyclists René passed. At least two people wore that type of gymsuit.

“Can you tell in which direction he’s headed?”

“Turned onto rue Gobert,” said Yann. “He’s either headed down Boulevard Voltaire or . . .”

“I’m on Boulevard Voltaire,” interrupted René. “Does he have a ponytail like Dragos?”

“Non, short black hair,” he said. “There’s a funny straw basket on the front with plastic flowers.”

And there he was, in the bike lane. Leafy trees canopied the wide boulevard, casting dappled shadows on cars and pedestrians.

“Got him,” René said. “He’s ahead of me, Yann. Call me if you see Dragos again. Merci.”

René slipped the phone in his pocket and edged the Citroën closer. The man, pedaling hard, wiped a brow glistening with sweat. He appeared intent on the busy traffic, turned right on rue Charenton and weaved his bicycle through the crowded one way street to Avenue Ledru Rollin.

René kept pace, glad he was behind the wheel. The only other time he’d followed anyone had been with Aimée in Belleville. At least he didn’t have to run this time.

After crossing Avenue Daumesnil, right behind l’hôpital Quinze-Vingts, the bicyclist turned into a small street leading to the pedestrian bridge crossing the Bastille’s canal. Moored on both sides of the canal were upscale boats and several péniches, remodeled barges.

René pulled over, stuck on a one-way street. He jumped out of his car, ready to pursue. But he saw the man pedal the bike across the bridge, then coast down to the long dock lining the basin of the canal that fed into the Seine.

The man propped the bike against the pitted stone wall, Henri II’s fortifications surrounding the former fourteenth century moat. The bike was below a niche in the old, worn wall. Weeds wormed their way in its crevices. He hopped onto the narrow gangplank and disappeared.

René pulled out the cell phone and called Aimée, determined to keep his tone light.

“Aimée, I followed one of Dragos’s friends to a péniche moored here in the Bastille basin.”

“Dragos?”

“Yann got the name wrong,” René said.

The churning water lapped the quai below René, as a péniche with bright red geraniums, lace curtains, and a child playing with a dog on deck, chugged by.

“What’s he doing?”

René told her. “It’s a waiting game now. Until he comes out. But I have to meet Serge at the morgue when he gets off work.”

“So tell me René, if this Romanian, Dragos, thought I was Josiane . . . why did he want to kill her?”

“How about this?” he said. “She wrote an exposé of Mirador’s illegal evictions. He tried to stop her.”

“That fits. But why make it look like an attack by the Beast of Bastille?”

“A good cover.” He wished for the thousandth time Aimée had never picked up Josiane’s phone and answered it.

“Somehow, I doubt it,” she said. “It’s not the immigrant thugs’ style. Bold as they are, they’d have to know a lot more about the serial killer to plan it. Who knows how much French they understand? Besides, they’d speak with an accent.”

She made sense.

“Whoever called on that phone knew Josiane, and was trying to lure her into the passage. He got me instead. The Romanians’ trademark isn’t subtlety.”

“So that leaves us . . . ?”

“With more questions.”

Below on the quai, the man René had followed emerged.

“He’s come out,” said René. “I’ve got to go.”

“Alors, be careful.”

The man strode at a rapid pace, mounted his bike, and was down the quai before René reached his car. By the time René arrived at the Place de la Bastille roundabout, circling the Bastille column surmounted by the gold-winged figure of the genius of Liberty, the bike had disappeared. He could have gone in any of the 11 different directions radiating from the column.

What to do now?

Only one thing. He drove on and parked along the Boulevard de la Bastille.

Fear flickered over him as he crossed the bridge on foot. The man had seemed to be in good shape and Dragos, or others like him, might be on the boat. His confidence ebbed despite his martial art practices and black belt from the taekwondo dojo.

René took a deep breath and walked up the gangplank.