Murder in the Marais

Thursday Morning

"I'VE GOTTEN EVERYTHING CHANGED since the break-in," Rene said. "Here's your new access code and keys to the safe."

"HOPALONG?" She laughed, eagerly punching in her new access code. "Where do you get these, Rene?"

"My perverted childhood spent with pulp Westerns." He winked. "I'm CASSIDY."

"What a poet!" She frowned. "Finding the Luminol fingerprint is going to be harder than I thought. Fingerprint files have been centralized. It's all through FOMEX out of Neuilly."

"Try to interface with LanguedocZZ via Helsinki," Rene suggested. "The main menu originated with them."

"Good thinking, Cassidy," she said.

Twenty minutes later, she'd accessed FOMEX, the repository of files from the prefecture of police of every city or town in France that had its own prefecture. By the time she got to the main catalog of fingerprints, the only title that was close was FINGERPRINT, BLOODY, of which there were three subsets: Pending, Active, and Deceased, and thousands of files under each. It could fit all three. She called Morbier.

"Where did the bloody fingerprint go?" she said.

"With the experts," he said.

She heard the scrape of the wooden match on his desk. She knew the videoed fingerprint had been scanned and immediately catalogued on computer files.

"No kidding, Morbier. What's it under?"

"Pending and Interpol. What's it to you?"

She punched in Pending, then Paris, then 4th arrondissement/ 64 rue des Rosiers. Up came a giant index finger on her screen.

"Just like to be included in the twenty-eight percent of the informed population," she said. She'd like to see the expression on his face if he could see the display filling her screen.

"The higher-ups have spoken again. Seems whatever case I touch they like to take over," he said.

"Meaning that they didn't like your face on the evening news?"

"Meaning Luminol use falls under strict rules from the ministry at La Defense," he answered. "Which I didn't follow. So I'm pushed off that case."

"That doesn't make sense," she said.

"Leduc, just a word to the wise. Leave this thing alone."

"So only the big boys get to play and set up their own rules? Is that what you're saying, Morbier?" Aimee asked.

"They already have," he said. "Watch out."

The fingerprint hadn't even been classified or typed yet, but Aimee could tell by the whorls filling her computer screen that it was common to one third of the population. Such a clear readable print; the swirls over the hump of the center finger pad were unique, as everyone's were. But she could start to classify and discard two thirds of the millions of prints that were stored based on what she saw. She punched into FOMEX on Rene's terminal and scanned the known fingerprints of Nazis from Nuremberg trial files into the computer. That would give her a base to start from. On the other terminal hooked to his Minitel she downloaded the R.F. SS Sicherheits-Dienst Memorandum file emblazoned with thick black Gestapo lightning bolts she'd accessed through the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

But that turned into a dead end. She checked other memorandums from the file. Nothing. The Nuremberg trials only yielded prints of those already executed for war crimes and the R.F. SS file was limited.

At a loss as to where to go, she delved into Republic of Germany classified documents. After forty more minutes of searching, she accessed the Third Reich database, which flooded the screen with a whole plethora of Nazism. Many of the entries had come from charred remnants scanned and entered into the database from the remains left in the burned Reichstag basement smoldering as Berlin fell. Countrywide lists of Hitler Youth group members and the alliance of German Girls were catalogued alongside SA brown shirt organizations, fingerprint files of Gestapo members, and even the names of German women awarded gold crosses for having the most children.

She entered Gestapo files and searched by surname. Nothing came up that matched the ones she wanted. Then she tried locale, searching the three main headquarters in Munich, Hanover, and Berlin. A "Volpe, Reiner" aged eight years old came up but that was the closest. Then she decided to go year by year. She began in 1933, the first known year on file of an established Gestapo. After an hour and a half she'd found the fingerprints in the Gestapo file of the SS chief and underlings in Paris: Rausch, Oblath, and Volpe. She printed them, amazed at the clear imprints that existed after all this time.

After pulling up the Luminol fingerprints from the FRAPOL 1 file, she peered through her magnifying glass at the two screens full of whorls and swirls. She inputted them together, counted to ten, then pressed the command REQUEST COMPARISON. A soft whir, then a series of small clicks. REQUEST RECEIVED appeared on the screen, then a flashing signal indicating request backlog. All she could do now was wait until the match was or wasn't made.

When the flashing light disappeared from Rene's terminal and the message came up "No Match of Verified Fingerprints," Aimee wasn't too surprised. She'd eliminated Rausch, Oblath, and Volpe as Arlette's murderer. But they'd been responsible for so many other murders, it didn't mean much. Primitive elimination. She still didn't know Hartmuth Griffe's true identity. Generally, new identities had been found that were close to the person's real name for easier remembrance and to avoid mistakes. He could be Rausch or either of the underlings: Oblath or Volpe.

A configuration of jumbled letters appeared on her screen, followed by clicking noises. Alarmed, she looked up. "Rene, something weird is happening."

"Mine too," he said. "Something is either scrambling transmission or we've been hit by a virus."

"I'll check the backup server link. Did you confirm our new access codes with them?" she said.

"I haven't gotten around to it yet," Rene moaned. "We're cooked! Our whole system's down."

Aimee quickly started the automated backup retrieval system, so files wouldn't be lost or deleted. Automated backup retrieval cost them a lot, but the system was guaranteed to be fail-safe.

She breathed a sigh of relief after she'd checked the system. "The fingerprints are saved."

Rene looked worried as he climbed down from his chair. "I think you kicked off some warning device in the FOMEX system."

"I think you're right." She glanced at her screen. "That means I dug deep enough to flip off an alarm."

For the first time she admitted to herself that she might be in over her head. Way over her head.

"Go home," Rene said, as he put on his coat. "I'm going to visit a friend who deals with this kind of thing. Just stay off the system and wait until you hear from me."

"I'm going to walk home," she said.

"Stay off the phone." He looked grim. "And make sure you're not followed."

AS SHE walked along the Seine kicking pebbles into the water, she checked to see that she wasn't being followed. Uneasily, she forced herself to mentally catalog her recent discoveries.

She'd discovered that a fifty-year-old bloody fingerprint found at the murder scene of Lili's concierge hadn't matched any Si-Po officers in occupied Paris. However, she knew that these officers had been listed as dead in the Battle of Stalingrad while they were still signing deportation orders for Jews in Paris. Her office had been broken into, files about Lili and a collabo taken, and a swastika painted on her wall along with a threat. She had heard Soli's last utterance in the hospital of "Ka…za" and was almost run over. Not to mention discovering Thierry's real parentage and Javel's statement about the Jew with the bright blue eyes. More of the puzzle pieces had surfaced-fragments and images. They all fit together. Only she didn't know how.

Now she needed to stir things up. Throw her idea in the frying pan and see what happened. Test her suspicions about Hartmuth Griffe. She pulled out her cell phone and called Thierry.

"Meet me in the rear courtyard of the Picasso Museum," she said.

"What for?" His voice sounded flat.

"Has to do with your parentage," she said slowly. "We need to-"

He interrupted excitedly. "Did you find out about my…" He paused. "The Jewess?"

"Look for me by the Minotaur statue. Behind the plane trees."

"Why?"

She explained her plan to him, then hung up.

As she crossed the Place des Vosges, she kicked the fallen leaves. She made another phone call to Hartmuth Griffe. This would definitely set wheels in motion. Whether they were the right ones remained to be seen.

THIS FORMER hôtel particulier, now the Picasso Museum on rue Thorigny, still maintained quiet niches of green comfort in the rear courtyard. At this time of year, the small courtyard was deserted of museum-goers. Crisp autumn air skittled leaves over Picasso's bronze figures reclining on the lawn. Several of his voluptuous marble Boisegeloup females bordered the limestone walls.

Thierry stood next to Aimee under a spreading tree, his legs apart, his face expressionless. "Him?"

She nodded. "Keep to the plan."

Hartmuth Griffe huddled on a bench beside the gilded Minotaur, pulling his cashmere coat around him. He stared as they approached.

"Thank you for coming, Monsieur Griffe," Aimee said.

"Your offer intrigued me, Mademoiselle Leduc." He inclined his head in a half bow. "Now what is so interesting for me to come out in this cold?" he said.

Aimee noticed how Hartmuth stared at Thierry's intense blue eyes. She motioned to Thierry. Thierry's arm shot out in a Sieg heil salute from his black leather storm-trooper coat. The worn leather crackled.

Hartmuth's eyes never wavered as he stood up. "So who are you, before I leave?"

Thierry smiled sardonically. "Right now, that's a good question."

Aimee stepped forward. "I have a request to make of you. This may appear audacious, and of course it is, but indulge me, please; it will all make sense later. Please remove your shirt."

"What if I say no?" Hartmuth said, standing and backing up into an ivy-covered trellis. He started towards a rear walkway.

Aimee blocked his exit. "Cooperation is better."

Thierry reached for Hartmuth's arms, holding him from behind. Hartmuth jerked and twisted.

"Struggling isn't wise," Thierry said as he pulled Hartmuth behind leafy bushes directly under the museum windows.

Behind the dense foliage, Aimee stuck her Glock in his temple. "I've asked you nicely. Now do it."

His face a mask, Hartmuth removed his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, exposing his chest. Tan, muscular, and lean. Aimee draped the coat over Hartmuth's shoulders as she lifted his arm.

"Do you think I'm a drug addict, too? Needing a fix?" Hartmuth's eyes bored into Thierry's. "You two junkies work as a team, right? My wallet is in my pocket. Take the money and get out."

Aimee examined his arm carefully, as Thierry held him from behind. She pushed aside her disgust at discovering the telltale sign.

"What are you d-doing?" Hartmuth said. He jerked his arm back.

"That scar under your left arm comes from removing your SS tattoo, doesn't it?" she said. "Firing a pistol into your armpit so the muzzle flash would burn it-painful but better than the slow death from the Russians if they'd discovered it," she said.

Hartmuth simply stared at them.

"Please put your shirt back on; it's very cold out here," Aimee said. She had him now. Time to gamble that these men matched. But after reading Sarah's letter, she knew they would.

Thierry stared at Hartmuth.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Hartmuth asked. His eyes were cold.

"I don't know what I want," Thierry said.

She stepped forward. "He's your son."

Dumbfounded, Hartmuth's eyes became wide.

"I don't understand," Hartmuth began. "Is this a j-joke?"

"More a bizarre backfire. Tainted in the Aryan sense." Thierry emitted a brittle laugh.

"You expect me t-to…," Hartmuth said.

"Monsieur Griffe, if that is your name, I want answers," Aimee said. "Sit down."

Thierry pulled him down on the bench. His eyes never left Hartmuth's face.

Hartmuth shook his head back and forth, staring at Thierry. "What crazy idea are you trying to prove?"

"I had to be sure you were SS," she said.

"My record is clear," Hartmuth said. "This is absurd!"

Aimee thrust the faded blue sheet of paper, covered with spidery writing, at him. "Didn't I promise you interesting reading?" she said. "Read this."

Hartmuth read it slowly. His lower lip twitched once. Motionless, he reread the letter.

"Who gave this to you?" he asked Thierry.

"His stepmother left this to be read with her will."

"But why come to me?" His hands shook as he rebuttoned his cashmere coat.

"You tell us," she said.

Thierry, his arms folded, stared intently at Hartmuth. The only sound came from scraping gravel as Thierry crossed and recrossed his legs. Somewhere in the Marais, low and sonorous in the frosty air, a bell pealed. Hartmuth remained mute, almost paralyzed.

"You had to murder Lili Stein because she recognized you," Aimee said. "From the time you rounded up her family and all the Jews in the Marais!"

Hartmuth stood up. "I'm calling a guard."

Aimee held his arm. "Fifty years later, Lili sees your photo in the paper and knows you."

"You're making this up!" he said.

"Lili couldn't forget your face. You beat down the door and pulled her parents out of bed."

"I-I t-told you it wasn't like that," Hartmuth stumbled.

She noticed how he clenched and unclenched his hands.

"Coincidentally, in the alley behind your hotel, she recognized you." Aimee leaned into his face, pushing him back. "Or maybe she tracked you down. Followed you. 'Nazi butcher,' she screams, or 'Assassin.' Maybe she tries to attack you, gets scared, runs away. But you follow her and you have to keep her quiet like the concierge. Keep your past hidden."

"I-I only saw her once," he said.

Aimee froze. So it was true. The idea she'd thrown into the frying pan was the right one.

"In 1943. I followed her to her apartment," he said. His eyes glazed over.

"Tell me what happened," Aimee said.

"I was afraid if Lili informed," he said, "they would t-trace the food to me. But I found the concierge, beaten to a bloody pulp."

Aimee shivered. "Those were your bloody fingerprints under the sink," she said. She pointed to his hands. "Those gloves hide your prints, preventing anyone from discovering who you are. You're the Gestapo lackey who couldn't get them to the ovens fast enough for Eichmann!"

Hartmuth slowly peeled off his kidskin gloves and thrust his scarred hands in the cold air. Rippled flesh whorled in strange patterns over his shriveled palms. The last two fingers of his left hands were stumps. "These are courtesy of the Siberian oil fields, Mademoiselle."

Unable to disguise her feelings Aimee turned away. Her own seared palm was small compared to his deformity.

"But those were your boot prints!" she persisted. "You washed your boots at the sink, didn't you?"

A brief silence. He looked down. "After the fact, yes. I went back."

"You went back?" she said.

"I knew the concierge would be easy to bribe. But it was too late."

"Who murdered her?" Aimee asked.

"I saw Lili climb out the window, over the rooftop, and escape. That's it, I just protected Sarah."

"Protected Sarah…like the way you crossed her name out in the convoy sheets, then added the A to make it appear she had been sent to Auschwitz?" she said.

"Who are you?" Hartmuth demanded.

Thierry sat forward, studying this man, his eyes never leaving Hartmuth's face.

She ignored his question.

"Sarah is in danger." His voice shook. "I don't know how to help her."

"She knew Lili Stein."

A sigh. "Yes."

"Did she kill Lili in revenge because she'd been disfigured at Liberation?"

"N-no," he shouted.

"Isn't she still sympathetic to Germany after being a collaborator, sleeping with you?"

"N-no, it's n-not like that. You have to find her again. Before they do." Hartmuth raised his voice.

Aimee was surprised. "Who?"

"People in the German government.…" He put his head down.

"Why should I believe you? You were in the Gestapo. I'll never have enough proof to prosecute you for war crimes. The Werewolves erased your past, resurrected a new identity from a dead man. They were masters at that. But deep down I know rats like you live in holes all over Germany."

He rubbed his arm and spoke tonelessly. "I supervised the local French police. They rounded up the Jews from businesses and apartments in every building around here. I worked with the Direktor of the Antijudische Polizei at the Kommandantur. We ticked off sheets when the convoys were loaded. As for shipping them out…" He paused, and lowered his voice. "I didn't know what an Auschwitz or Treblinka meant. I found out later. Sarah hid from me but I found her and saved her. All the rest…I was one man in a wave that crushed generations. I didn't kill Lili. The only time I ever killed was in hand-to-hand combat at Stalingrad. A little Russian boy aimed a p-pitchfork at me and I sh-shot him. I see that every night when I try to sleep. Other things, too."

"Thierry is your son, isn't he?" Aimee said.

"I don't know. This letter is in Sarah's writing b-but she said," he stopped. "Those eyes, y-yes…those are her eyes." He choked. "Sh-she told me we had a b-baby who died as an infant! I j-just find it hard to believe…"

"That I'm alive?" Thierry stood in front of him.

Aimee saw something inside of Hartmuth shift.

"Gott im Himmel, I never knew, n-never knew," he said. His head started shaking. "Are you my s-son?"

"Lies! Everyone lied to me," said Thierry. His face contorted in hate. "I had a right to know."

Aimee saw the confusion in Hartmuth's eyes. He wondered if this really was his son. His and Sarah's, conceived in the catacombs fifty years ago.

"Sarah told me the b-baby died!" Hartmuth said.

Thierry, a stream of tears running down his own face, tentatively reached over.

"May I touch you, Father?" he asked in a whisper.

"Look at his blue eyes," Aimee said to Hartmuth. "Claude Rambuteau said Thierry had the same eyes as Sarah."

Hartmuth slowly reached out his trembling fingers, and grasped Thierry's. They held hands tightly. Aimee watched as Hartmuth's hand started to explore Thierry's face. His fingers traced Thierry's cheekbones, how his forehead curved, where his ears brushed his black hair.

Fog curled into the courtyard, dimming the spotlights highlighting Picasso's sculptures. The temperature had dropped but the two men were oblivious. As they spoke, clouds of frost in the afternoon air punctuated their words.

Softly Hartmuth spoke. "Your chin is like my grandmother's, jutting out just a little here." He sighed wistfully as he ran his fingers over Thierry's jawline. "Of course your eyes, coloring, and hair are hers," he said.

"Hers?" Thierry asked, letting the question trail in the air.

"She'll come to me, to us…" A fierce longing shone in Hartmuth's eyes. "That's why she's doing this, now I understand. Nothing matters anymore but that we're together. Some crazy coincidence and we've all found each other. I always hoped. But never in my fantasies did I dream we-"

"That we'd be reunited, like some happy family?" Thierry laughed sarcastically.

"No. I never knew you existed. But we are meant to be together," Hartmuth said.

"Father, don't forget what you lived by," Thierry said. He flashed his hand in the light so Hartmuth could see the tattoos circling his hand. "The SS motto-'My honor's name is loyalty.' Those ideals have never died."

"Where do you get this old propaganda?" Hartmuth asked, amazed.

Thierry's eyes welled with tears. "My life is a sacrifice for the Aryan way of life."

Hartmuth shook his head. "She's in danger." His voice had become urgent.

"It's good to know some things never change," Thierry said. For the first time he smiled.

"What do you mean? She's your mother," Hartmuth said.

Aimee moved closer to Hartmuth. "What does she look like?"

"Her eyes are incredibly blue," he said. "She wears a black wig. You have to find her."

"She's a Jewish sow, a defiled receptacle for Aryan seed, that's all." Thierry's eyes flashed with hate.

Aimee was alarmed. "Let's go, Thierry."

Hartmuth looked incredulous. "How can you say that? That's old talk, it never mattered."

Thierry bowed abjectly. "Can you accept me as your son, defiled as I am?"

Hartmuth slapped him. "Your brain is defiled!"

Thierry nodded. "True." He knelt down. "I will purify myself, cleanse her presence from me," he begged. "I will find the Jewish sow. Purge our line for the master race."

Aimee pulled him up, grabbing his arm. She had to get him out of the dank, chill courtyard before he did anything else. She shoved him past the Minotaur, almost tripping over the bench.

"You warped, sick…!" Hartmuth yelled.

"I will prove myself," Thierry said as Aimee dragged him towards the back door of the museum.

"Wait…" Hartmuth cried but they were gone.

THIERRY JERKED Aimee against the wall outside the Picasso Museum.

"Find her!" he said and was gone.

Cold and tired, she trudged over the Seine to her apartment. Miles Davis sprung on her as she entered her unheated flat. She jiggled the light switch until the chandelier shone dimly, then kicked the hall radiator, which sputtered to life and died.

Chilled to the bone, she went to the bathroom and turned on the chrome faucets full blast in her black porcelain tub. Her father's old Turkish robe, frayed and blue, hung over the heated towel rack. When her apartment's heat failed, she'd warm up in her claw-footed tub; there, her thoughts were released and she could order the compartments of her mind. Put ideas together, make sense of what she knew. She sank into the welcome warmth as her mirror fogged with steam and the sweet aroma of lavender Provencal soap filled the room.

She'd proved Thierry was Hartmuth's and Sarah's son. After Hartmuth accepted that, he'd revealed Sarah had survived and was in danger. Not only did Hartmuth want to find her, a crazed Thierry did, too. Thierry's anger frightened her and she still wasn't any closer to knowing who killed Lili. On top of that, Rene hadn't gotten back to her and she was worried about him.

She heard the click of her answering machine.

"Leduc, answer, I know you're there," came Morbier's voice on her machine.

She got out of the now lukewarm tub, intending not to answer. As she dried her hair, she heard the insistence in his voice. Finally she picked up the phone in her bedroom.

"You don't have to yell, I just got out of the bath," she said.

"Meet me in the Place des Vosges, at Ma Bourgoyne, the cafe with the good apple tarte tatin," he growled.

"Give me one good reason, Morbier," Aimee said in a tired voice.

"Intuition, gut feeling, whatever you want to call it, just that feeling I get that's kept me in this business this long. Get dressed, I'll be waiting." He hung up.

She whistled to Miles Davis who scampered off her bed. "Time for you to stay with Uncle Maurice. I want you safe."

Thursday Afternoon

AIMÉE WALKED THROUGH THE long shadows cast across the courtyard of Hôtel Sully. Dark green hedgerows manicured thinly into fleur-de-lys shapes broke up the wide gravel expanse. This tall mansion, another restored hôtel particulier, gave access to Place des Vosges via a narrow passageway.

She'd left Rene a message telling him where she was meeting Morbier. Rene's cautionary tone pulsed in her brain and she felt open to attack. Threatening faxes, graffitied threats, and hostile cars forcing her off her moped hadn't disturbed her as much as the virus attack on their computer system. Computers were their meal ticket. Her Glock, loaded and ready in her jeans pocket, was molded to her hip.

A buttery caramel aroma drifted across the courtyard. Her mind darted to the warm, upside-down apple tart for which Ma Bourgoyne was famous. The restaurant lay past this narrow passage, under the shadowy arcade of Place des Vosges. She pulled out her cell phone and punched in Rene's number again. No answer.

As she turned to open her backpack, a hot burning stung her ear. Powdery plaster spit from the stone arch as a neat row of bullets peppered the wall.

She dove over the damp cobblestones and hugged a thick pillar, quickly grabbing the Glock from her pocket. If she hadn't turned, her brains would be splashed on the cobblestones right now.

She touched her ear, grazed by a bullet. Her shaking fingers came back sticky red and metallic-smelling. It hadn't even hurt. She was scared and didn't know where to go. Bullets that seemed to be coming from above her systematically blasted the pillar's edges. She was an easy target. Already the column had been shaved to a quarter of its size.

She gripped her pistol with two hands to steady her aim, took a deep breath, and fired a round at the roof. Counting her shots before she finished them, she sprang and somersaulted, still firing. Her left arm banged into the arched passage entrance and sharp pain shot through her back. She prayed her shoulder wouldn't go out on her now.

It had to be Morbier! He'd called to meet her at the cafe around the corner. Consistently he'd warned her off Lili Stein's investigation. He'd set her up. Rene was the only person, if he'd gotten her message, who'd know she'd be here.

Ahead, the dark passage lay deserted. Keeping under cover behind the crumbling colonnade, she reloaded the Glock. Was he shooting at her himself or had he gotten a B.R.I. marksman? Crouched in the shadow, she took aim at the courtyard in front of her. Her hand shook. She didn't know why he would betray her.

He'd strung her along and she hadn't even suspected him. What a traître! She'd trusted him, felt sorry for him. A colleague of her father's!

A puff of air whizzed by her cheek and plaster fell into her eyes. The sand and pebbly grit blinded her. She squirmed over the gravel towards the exit, trying not to go in a straight line. At least towards where she thought it was. Her tearing eyes finally blinked the sandy granules out. She realized she'd crawled to the opposite side of the wormholed doors that led to the Place des Vosges. Further from escape. A short figure pushing a baby stroller appeared near the door, about to enter the passage. Someone innocent was about to be killed; she had to warn them.

"Get out!" Aimee screamed at the figure with the stroller as she scooted backwards, propelling herself against the limestone wall. "Go! Run!"

She twisted back on her stomach and aimed below a dark-paned window. More puffs of ivory dust splattered in a row as her shots hit the colonnade. No thud, grunt, or low-lying shuffle. Nothing. Where were the shots coming from?

And almost too late, she looked up. To her left on another roof, a glinting barrel of a ground-sensor rifle poked over a gargoyle's ugly snout. Pointing at her.

Suddenly, the baby stroller reappeared, sliding into the courtyard. The stroller's wheels popped and hissed, deflating from rifle shots as it sagged into the courtyard hedge. The short figure in the shadow opened a coat revealing a semiautomatic, shooting at the roof.

She gritted her teeth, rolled over, and fired more rounds at the roof. She heard a scraping noise above her as a black-clad body thumped over the gargoyle's pointed ears, then the crunch of breaking bones as the body landed. Some vital organ burst, splattering matter over cobblestones and gravel.

"Aimee, get the hell out of here," Rene's muffled voice came from inside the coat. "Now!"

She ran over to him, trying to ignore the bloody mess in front of them. She looked long enough to see that it wasn't Morbier. Had her phone been tapped?

"Rene, my God what's happening?"

His arm was soaked dark red and he gasped, "They're following you." His hand covered his arm but she tried to pull it off to see. "Don't. Pressure to stop the bleeding." He smiled thinly and his green eyes closed. He opened them again with effort. "Don't go back." He moaned, then whispered, "Don't trust anyone, it's too big."

"Rene, I'll get you to the hospital. Sssh, be quiet until-"

"No, a bullet just grazed my arm." He tried to sit up. "Go quickly before they come. Take my keys, hide." The wailing drone of a siren came from rue St. Antoine. He pulled keys out of his vest pocket. Panic flashed in his eyes.

"Why the paranoia? Morbier will-"

"It's a setup; don't"-Rene gulped-"go."

She hesitated. "But, Rene…"

"Goddamn it, got to stop them." His eyes closed as he passed out.

Aimee backed slowly out of the courtyard as she heard the ambulance screech to a halt. From behind a moldy pillar she heard attendants running with a stretcher crunching over gravel. How did they know so quickly, she wondered. She peered from behind the fluted pillars and saw a Kevlar-suited swat team striding up to the huddled corpse. They leaned into their collars and she realized they were talking into small radios. She heard the static crackle as one of them stopped in front of her pillar and responded in a low voice.

"Negative. No sign of her."

She recognized the dead shooter sprawled in his own bloody entrails; the swastikas tattooed across his knuckles looked familiar. She flashed on Mr. Lederhosen, Leif, as Thierry had identified him. The one who'd almost knifed her in the van, had chased her through the Marais, and was in the crowd when Cazaux appeared.

Turning towards the back exit, she broke into a run just beyond the last pillar and stopped abruptly, ready to sprint down the arched Place des Vosges through strolling passersby. A police riot van swayed out of narrow rue Birague and careened to a stop directly in front of her.

The burnt smell of roasted chestnuts wafted down the ancient arcade to where she stood, paralyzed. As the swat team streamed out of the van, she grabbed the elbow of a man next to her. Putting her arms around him, she burrowed into his wrinkled neck. His astounded elderly wife seemed about to bat her with a large handbag when Aimee feigned horror.

"I'm so sorry. Why, you look exactly like Grandpapa!" she exclaimed, keeping her head down.

Most of the swat team entered the Hôtel Sully courtyard but a few had fanned out along the Place des Vosges. Aimee kept pace with the old couple as the indignant wife tried to move away from her.

"You greet your grandfather in that manner, young lady?" she inquired sarcastically.

The old man's eyes twinkled as his wife pulled at him. Ahead of Aimee, an accordion wheezed something familiar, echoing off the vaulted brick. At the east corner of Place des Vosges stood an Issey Miyake shop. Aimee swerved through the stainless-steel doors into a stark white interior as the old man winked goodbye.

Bleached white walls, floors, and ceilings provided a minimalist backdrop with nowhere to hide. Black clothing hung from ropes draped from the ceiling like so many dead bodies. Unless you wore black or white you were sure to stick out here, and Aimee's dusty and gravel-pitted blue jeans definitely stuck out. Behind the deserted counter were white smocks worn by the salespeople. She grabbed one and buttoned it over her jeans and denim jacket. She heard the whir of sewing machines from the back and slipped through white metal-mesh curtains before a salesperson came out.

The row of Asian seamstresses busy at their sewing machines didn't even look up as she entered. Many of them kept up low conversations while they guided the material under the punching needles. From the shop exterior she heard voices-loud, officious ones. If she took off the smock, her dirty jeans and scruffy denim jacket would be picked out in a minute. Bins of black and white items of clothing were overflowing and the seamstresses kept adding more finished pieces. Aimee bent over and picked up the bin nearest her. A seamstress looked up questioningly at her.

"Display sent me for floor samples," Aimee smiled. "The requisition order is in my van."

"Inform the floor supervisor," the seamstress said. Her thin black eyebrows arched as she looked Aimee over. "Bring it on your way back."

"D'accord," Aimee agreed. She grunted, hefting the heavy bin into her arms. Slogging to the back of the busy work area, she kept her face hidden and set it down with all the others. Piled high, they made an odd-shaped mound.

Aimee slid a few black pieces out before she closed up the bin and stepped behind the pile. She took off her jean jacket, slipped on a tailored, well-cut black wool jacket, then stepped out of her jeans into a form-fitting tight black skirt. She rifled through a hosiery bin and grabbed thin black-ribbed tights. Sample shoes and boots in assorted sizes were strewn helter-skelter on shelves. She tried several pairs of boots on but the only pair that remotely fit her were sexy suede high-heeled pumps. Not exactly what she'd pick for a great escape. She looked like this season's fashion victim but she'd blend in more than she ever had before. The challenge would be, could she run in such a tight skirt and heels?

She bunched her jeans into a ball. The workers' backpacks and handbags hung from hooks behind her. Quickly she emptied the contents of a stylish black leather bag onto the floor and scooped her cell phone, wallet, cards, tube of mascara and Glock, with one remaining bullet cartridge, into the bag. Next to the contents of the bag on the floor she slipped some hundred-franc notes with a scribbled "Sorry, hope this covers it" in red lipstick on one of them. She unlatched the back workers' entrance as she heard a loud voice above the clicking sewing machines.

"Please give your attention to this officer. Have any of you seen…"

Not waiting to hear more, she slipped out into the night and the darkened Places des Vosges.

AIMÉE'S HEEL S tapped a rhythm on the cobblestones as she searched for Rene's Citroën. Finally she found it on the rue du Pas de la Mule, which meant "in the donkey's footsteps." She and Rene always joked about that, but no smile came to her lips as she saw two policemen examining his vehicle. They weren't just giving it a ticket either.

Going to her office or flat would be stupid, she realized, and hiding at Rene's would be idiotic. Where could she find a place to hide that contained a computer? She ducked into the patisserie on the corner, bought a bag of warm chocolate croissants, and exited out the rear back to the Place des Vosges. She walked in her Issey Miyake designer suit, munching and looking in boutique windows, slowly working her way under the arcade towards the busy rue St. Antoine. In the children's playground, plainclothes police blocked her way by the side of the square, talking to the mothers, nannies, and assorted caregivers. Where could she go?

A group of tourists clustered in the doorway of the Victor Hugo Museum, which, Aimee noticed, the security forces ignored. All French national museums contained state-of-the-art computers, hooked on-line with government and educational ministries. This would be perfect-that is, if she could play tourist and sneak in the door.

She slipped among a trio of elderly ladies, greeting them like old acquaintances. She smiled and immediately began chitchat about the weather.

"Of course, being from Rouen," Aimee said, "I savor these ancient parts of the Marais."

"But the Cathedral of Rouen," one of the trio exclaimed, "is such a gem! A perfect example of the best in medieval architecture! How could one compare this Bourbon king's imitation to that!" The old woman spoke passionately. She pointed at the seventeenth-century colonnades above them. Aimee knew little about architecture and nothing of Rouen. She wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

"Are you just joining the architectural tour then, dear?" an almost hunchbacked old woman asked. "You've missed significant parts of the Marais, the hôtel particuliers on rue de Sevigne especially."

"I'll catch them next time," Aimee said.

She edged closer to the old lady, who smelled of musty violets. Two policemen walked by and she pressed herself against the rose-colored bricks of the building.

They filed into the foyer and she realized she was the youngest member of this group. The tour leader, a round-faced young man with circular tortoiseshell glasses, spread his arms as if enjoining the spirit of Victor Hugo himself to guide them, and began in a sonorous, droning voice.

"From 1832 to 1848 perhaps the greatest of all men of letters lived on the second floor of this building." He nodded officiously to several older men leaning on walkers. "Those unable to navigate the stairs may follow our journey through the museum on our computer access."

Despite her predicament, she almost laughed out loud as she saw the look of amusement the old men gave their guide. Most eighty-year-olds ignored computers and these didn't seem any different.

The museum, laid out as it had been in his time, showed the daily life of Victor Hugo. Hugo's bedroom, taken up with a canopied bed, overlooked Place des Vosges through leaded bubbled glass. Worn dark wood paneling covered the walls. A showcase held various colored locks of his hair tied with ribbon, labeled and dated. In the study was his escritoire and a sheet of half-written yellowed foolscap with a quill pen in a crystal inkwell beside it. Almost as if Hugo had paused to take a pee, which she herself desperately needed to do. Aimee stared longingly at a porcelain eighteenth-century bidet with exquisite floral rosettes. Lining the dining-room walls were portraits of his wife, mistresses, and other prominent writers of his day. The room captured his essence, dark and narcissistic. The only touch that could be called socialist was the heavy peasant glassware on a mahogany sideboard.

The guide continued. "This being the last tour of the day in this historic building, the option of resting is of course available." His arms waved dismissively toward a vestibule.

Aimee sat down, rubbing her heel, and joined several old men. The smell of tobacco floated in the air. She'd already cheated death once today. Tomorrow could be another story. Gratefully, she accepted a cigarette from the old man next to her. She inhaled the smoke greedily, savoring the jolt when it hit her lungs.

After the buzzer clanged, signifying closing time, the men rose and drifted towards the entrance. While no one was looking, she melted into the folds of a faded tapestry near the cloakroom door.

There could be worse places to spend the night than the Victor Hugo Museum, she decided. She backed up against the damp stone wall, and crouched down behind some tapestries while museum workers rang up the day's receipts and tallied ticket sales. All the time she worried about Rene, hoping he hadn't been badly wounded. And then there was the LBN-since she'd escaped, would they abduct Rene? And that questionable SWAT team-were they real B.R.I? But there wasn't much she could do until the museum closed and the workers left for the day.

The staff grumbled about the drafts and chill coming from the stone walls. She smiled to herself. They probably went home to warm, cozy apartments with every modern convenience. But she lived in a place like this, never mind that she couldn't go back there! She felt sure her apartment and office were under surveillance.

Morbier, whom she'd known since childhood, had succumbed to pressure in his department, betraying her. Yves, the neo-Nazi hunk, alerted by her listening device, had told Leif that she was undercover. But Leif missed and shot Rene in the crossfire. And she'd taken care of Leif-so far, the only thing she didn't regret.

She was all alone now. No one to trust.

She pressed closer to the wall as the museum staff took their time about closing up. Finally she heard a voice. "Check the floor and restroom, then I'll activate the alarm." Thank God, Aimee thought, a working restroom. Her legs had been squeezed, holding it in for a long time.

"Oui, monsieur le directeur," she heard. That's it, they had been waiting for him.

As she peered through moth holes in the tapestry, she saw the tungsten-colored computer, furnished by the French Ministry of Culture, on the director's desk. The French government was obsessed with computer access, letting the taxpayers foot the bill. Right now, that seemed fine with her if only she could get her fingers on that keyboard. The director, his back turned to her, clicked something on the wall and then she heard a staff member shout, "Ça marche."

Probably a Troisus security system, activated by two settings. Pretty standard for government buildings with an indoor switch and one outside. She'd worry about the alarm later or use a skylight since they were rarely wired. She waited a good five minutes, in case anyone forgot something and came back, almost peeing on herself before searching for a restroom.

After she had gratefully relieved herself in Victor Hugo's bidet, which was closer than the toilet, she sat down in the director's chair, clicking on an electric heater to take away the bone-chilling cold.

Familiar with this state-of-the-art system, she tried several versions of the director's initials until she hit the right one that logged her onto his terminal. She slid off her high-heeled pumps and chewed the last chocolate croissant. She tried several generic access codes. On her third try, she accessed the Archives of France.

She rang Martine on her cell phone. "Martine, don't trust the flics anymore."

"What do you mean?" Martine sounded more tired than usual.

"They took Rene out."

"Your partner?" Martine said.

"Listen, I need two things, d'accord?"

"Where's my story? You promised me," Martine said.

Aimee pushed the director's chair back and peered out the tall window. Shadows lengthened in Place des Vosges. Figures moved back and forth. They could be passersby or B.R.I., she couldn't tell.

"Send a reporter to check on Rene in the hospital. I can't go because they're looking for me. Break a story like 'Mysterious Shooting, Neo-Nazi Assassin with Swastika Tattoos.' Blow it up big on the front page. Right now, fax me that last cheat sheet."

"What kind of trouble are you in?" There was concern in Martine's voice. "Who is after you?"

"Take a number, who isn't? Here's the fax where I am." Aimee read it off the machine near the director's computer. "Check on Rene first, please! Do it right now, OK? And I promise you this whole thing is yours." She didn't add if I make it.

On the alert for a night cleaner, she wandered the rooms. Prosperous writers in Hugo's time couldn't be said to have lived in a sumptuous mode. In his bedroom she looked out and saw the dusk settling over the plane trees in the square. If there was a police presence she didn't see it, only parents attempting to round up their children from the playground.

She noticed a placard next to the folds of a brocade canopy that cascaded heavily to the floorboards announcing that the great writer had expired in this bed. Uneasiness washed over her. Did Victor Hugo haunt these rooms? Ghosts, ghosts everywhere.

The fax feed groaned. Startled, she bumped into a wooden armoire, which creaked, sending the mice under it scurrying down the hall. Rodents. She hated rodents. Dust puffed over the wooden floor. From somewhere deep in her shoulder bag, her cell phone tinkled and she choked back a cough.

"Look at this," Martine's voice crackled over the phone. "Can you find her with this photo?"

Aimee ran to the fax machine. She gasped when she saw the face, clear and unmistakable.

"I already have," she said.

Thursday Evening

"T HIS IS AIMÉE LEDUC," she said into her cell phone. "I need to see you."

A long silence.

"You're in danger. Go out the back of your building, there's a courtyard in the rear, right?" Aimee didn't wait for an answer. "Bring a hammer or chisel. Find the door to the alley, there's always one. It's where the horses were stabled; break it open. Do you understand so far?" Aimee waited but all she heard was a sharp intake of breath over the phone.

She continued, "Go to the button factory Mon Bouton, around the corner from Place des Vosges on rue de Turenne. Tonight it's open late. Go inside, but nowhere near a window. Leave now and I should get there just when you do." Still silence at the other end. "Whatever happened between you and Lili Stein is in the past. I'm doing this because she didn't deserve to be murdered. They're after you now. Leave immediately." Aimee hung up.

Aimee's brightly lit goal, the button factory, twinkled from over the rooftops and through the trees. One street over from the Place des Vosges, Mon Bouton inhabited a small courtyard.

Victor Hugo's canopied bed bordered on comfortable and apart from the scurrying noises, she felt safe. But now Aimee had to leave the museum without setting off the alarm. She tied assorted cleaning smocks and rags from a utility closet together with sheets she'd found under the bed of the great writer. She grabbed the guard's chair and slung it over the toilet. Few museums bothered to include skylights more than three stories high in their alarm systems. Here, two metal bars were strung across the thick, webbed glass. She swung the roped rags over the bars and hoisted herself onto the chair. Hunched below the rectangular skylight, she aimed her right foot and kicked one of the bars.

She wished she wore boots instead of several-hundred-franc high heels. After several attempts, the bar loosened enough for her to slowly wedge it out. But it was still too narrow for her to slide through. She kicked again and again. Finally she kicked the second bar loose and pulled herself up slowly. As she released the handle, the skylight popped open. The night air was clear and crisp amid the chimney pots and slanted roofs.

She had to reach the button factory on rue de Turenne across the roofs of Place des Vosges. With her skirt hiked up over her thighs she climbed the peaked eaves and straddled corbels. The spiky ears and tails of gargoyles perched below her on the right. She made her way across the rooftops sliding over ancient slate tiles, her high heels scrabbling for purchase on the sleek surface. Open windows and skylights exhaled vestiges of classical music, the clatter of cooking pots, the scattered moans of lovemaking. She gripped a moldering brick exhaust cone and felt a wet mushy turd under her palm. Rodents.

Steamy, greasy vapor shot out of the cone as Aimee grabbed at rusty iron rungs leading over a high bricked abutment. Climbing, breathing hard, she pulled herself up each rung slowly. The smell of frying onions from a lighted kitchen below assailed her nostrils as a little boy cried out, "I'm hungry, Maman!"

At another series of roofs she stopped, kneeling high above the Marais, to catch her breath. More rungs led to a sloping roof over the button factory courtyard. Spread-eagled, she worked her way along the chipped shingles, using her toes to find niches when the rungs twisted or came loose. Slipping along, clutching at oily slate shingles broken off in places, she reached a metal overhang above the courtyard. Probably a twenty-foot drop. If she could clamp on to the rusty fire-escape ladder and slide down, it might just be a ten-foot drop.

She aimed for the tin gutter next to it. Lying facedown, she scooted herself forward a few feet at a time until she finally grasped the chute leading to the rain gutter.

She had to say one thing for this designer wear, it held up under tough conditions. If the chute couldn't bear her weight she'd have to reach out, push off the gutter, and grab the fire escape quickly. Which happened as soon as she'd thought it. She grabbed at the tin gutter which squealed as her fingernails raked over it.

She tried desperately to hold on to the narrow ridge of the gutter as her legs swung wildly in the air. Cold air rushed around her as she reached for the fire-escape rail with her other hand. This is it, I'm done for, she thought. A wild circus act before I splatter on the cobblestones in an Issey Miyake suit hiked over my thighs. Her father's grinning face next to a faded sepia likeness of her mother flashed through her mind. Her only chance was a dumpster below her filled with God knew what.

She screamed as the gutter broke and she dove towards the dumpster.

And plunged, somersaulting, into the cold night air.

She landed sitting upright in a dumpster full of buttons that cushioned her fall. Red, green, and yellow ones. Glossy and shining in the moonlight that peeked over the trees. The buttons ground against each other as she reached up to the dumpster rim. Her hand slipped and she was buried under mounds of buttons. Jesus, would she be suffocated by these colored disks after she'd survived a twenty-foot fall from the roof?

She finally managed to pull herself up, crunching scores of buttons. The courtyard seemed amazingly quiet. Pulling her skirt down, she shook herself, and a myriad red, green, and yellow pellets rained on the cobblestones. She'd landed in a batch of defective button rejects. She tramped into the side door of Mon Bouton.

"Ça va, Leah?" Aimee kissed her.

Leah's eyes opened in wonder at her appearance. "Such a nice suit!" She came closer, being myopically shortsighted from sorting buttons for so many years. "Is it…?"

"Murder." Aimee nodded, feeling guilty for abusing Leah's trust.

At that moment the door opened slightly and Aimee turned.

"I'm here." Albertine Clouzot's housekeeper, Florence, hesitated. "I almost didn't come."

Aimee gently took her arm. "You're safe here, Sarah."

The former Sarah Strauss wore a black pageboy wig framing her startling blue eyes. Gaunt and tall, her beauty still glowed. She stuck her trembling hands in the pockets of her raincoat.

She stared at Aimee. "But I noticed the same man who'd been out front when I returned from shopping. He was still there after you called."

"We need to talk. Coffee?"

The only other noise came from the hissing espresso maker on the gas stove top. Leah turned off the workroom lights, leaving only a dim spotlight on the cooktop. She nodded conspiratorially and left the room.

Aimee guided Sarah to a long wooden refectory table, gouged and scarred, alongside galvanized metal tubes and cylinders that sorted buttons. She poured steamy black espresso into two chipped demitasse cups and slid the bowl of brown sugar cubes across the table.

"Someone's out to kill you." Aimee sipped her espresso. "They're after me, too."

Sarah looked up from the demitasse cup, startled.

"What does the swastika carved into Lili Stein's forehead mean?" Aimee said, rubbing her hand on the wooden table.

Sarah shook her head.

Aimee had to get her to talk. "Sarah, this is all about the past. You know it!"

Fear and mostly sadness shone in Sarah's eyes. She whimpered, "A curse, that's what it is. Following me all my life. Why does God allow this? I read the Torah, trying to understand, but…" And she collapsed, crying.

Aimee felt guilty for her outburst. "Look, I'm sorry." She leaned over and put her arm around the woman. "Sarah-do you mind if I call you that?" She lifted Sarah's chin up. "I never would judge your actions fifty years ago. I wasn't alive then. Just tell me what happened." Aimee paused. "Tell me about you and Lili."

"You found her body, didn't you?" Sarah said.

Aimee's stomach tightened.

Sarah looked down, unable to meet Aimee's eyes. "She'd changed."

Aimee's curiosity had been colored by fear. Ever since she saw the photo of Lili in the crowd when Sarah was tarred with the swastika.

Sarah spoke slowly. "That's all so long ago. Some of us spend our lives making up for the past," she sighed.

"Did she…" Aimee couldn't finish.

Sarah pulled off her black wig. "Do this?"

The scarred swastika across her forehead showed even in the dim light. Sarah nodded. "If Lili hadn't, someone else in the mob would have."

Aimee was amazed at the weary forgiveness in her voice.

Sarah read her eyes. "But she stopped them from hurting my baby. She persuaded the crowd to leave us alone. Helped me find shelter." Sarah sighed. "After fifty years, I saw her again, it must have been just before…"

Aimee bolted to attention. "Before she was murdered?"

"I recently moved back to Paris." Sarah nodded. "As you know, I'd only just begun working at Albertine's. Lili still lived on rue des Rosiers. I followed her. But I couldn't deal with the past."

Aimee asked, "You followed her?"

"She'd been terrified during the Occupation. Filled with jealousy and loathing toward me. Being young, I didn't realize that; I believed Lili abandoned me when she escaped Paris."

She shook her head. "But that day we bumped into each other at the cobbler's. Somehow I got the courage and told her who I was. Jew to Jew, for the first time, we talked. Then she told me about Laurent."

"Laurent?" Aimee said. She felt confused.

"She was afraid of Laurent," Sarah said.

Aimee shook her head. "Who's Laurent?"

"That troublemaker from Madame Pagnol's class so many years ago!" Sarah said. "Rumor had it he informed on parents of children he didn't like. A vicious type. Lili said she'd recognized him and had gone to talk with Soli Hecht."

Aimee stood up and started pacing, her high-heeled pumps crunching loose plastic chips and partial button forms on the floor. "You mean, Lili had recognized Laurent. Now…in the present day?"

Sarah rubbed her tired eyes. "Soli Hecht advised her to keep it quiet," she said. "Until he could come up with evidence. Documentation or something to do with her concierge. Help her prove that he wasn't who he said he was. Expose his identity."

"Wait a minute. Who is he?" Aimee said. She thought back to Soli's dying words. Lo…l'eau. "Who are we talking about?"

Sarah shrugged. "I don't know."

"Let me understand this," Aimee said and stood up. "Lili, using Soli Hecht's help, was about to expose Laurent, a former collaborator, who had hidden his identity. But why wouldn't she tell you who he is?" Aimee began pacing back and forth.

"Lili was getting nervous, then acting almost as if she didn't know me," Sarah said. "That's when she turned abruptly, said she was being followed. Later, after I picked up the dry cleaning, I saw her. She grabbed me, I don't know why, then ran away before I could talk to her."

"That's when the button came off the Chanel suit and got tangled in her bag," Aimee said, pacing faster now. "Did your conversation occur at the cobbler's?"

"No, outside, near the corner of the alley," Sarah said.

"What time?"

"Just before six, I think."

"You're in greater danger than I thought," Aimee said, unable to stop pacing. She had the pieces now to fit in the puzzle.

"Why?" Sarah mumbled. "Is it my son?"

"That's a separate issue. He abhors the fact that you are Jewish because it means he is too."

"Is Helmut after me?"

Of course, now it all made sense. Hartmuth was Helmut Volpe.

"No, he told me you were in trouble. He's trying to save you. And Lili tried to save you too," Aimee said.

"What do you mean?"

"From Laurent. Can't you see?" Aimee said, trying to control her excitement but her words spilled out. "Think about how, as you talked with Lili, she changed. How she pretended not to know you and edge away. He was there, somewhere. She did it so he wouldn't know who you were." Aimee sat down close to Sarah. "I promise, he's not going to get you!"