Murder in the Marais

Wednesday Morning

AIMÉE LEDUC FELT HIS presence before she saw him. As if ghosts floated in his wake in the once elegant hall. She paused, pulling her black leather jacket closer against the Parisian winter morning slicing through her building, and reached for her keys. The man emerged from the shadows by her frosted paned office door. A baby's cry wafted up from the floor below, then the concierge's door slammed.

"Mademoiselle, I need your help," he said. Leathery, freckled skin stretched over his skull and his ears pointed out at right angles. He wore a crumpled navy blue suit and leaned crookedly on a malacca cane.

"No missing persons, Monsieur," she said. As winter settled, the days gray and the memories vivid, old survivors revived hopes of lost ones. She slid her tongue across her teeth to check for anything stuck, smoothed her short brown hair and smiled. She stuffed the chocolate croissant back in the bag. "I don't find lost relatives. My field is corporate security." Thirty-four years old, Aimee, at five feet eight inches, loomed above him. "Je suis desolee, Monsieur, but computer forensics are my speciality."

"That's what I want." He straightened his posture slowly, his large eyes fearful. "My name is Soli Hecht. I must talk with you."

Behind his fear she saw sadness tinged by keen perception. She tried to be polite. Walk-in clients were rare. Most came through corporate connections or by word of mouth. "It's not that I don't want your business, but we're carrying a full caseload. I can refer you to someone very good."

"I knew your father, an honorable man. He told me to come to you if I needed help."

Startled, she dropped her keys and looked away. "But my father was killed five years ago."

"As always, he is in my prayers." Hecht bowed his head. When he looked up, his eyes bored into hers. "Your father and I met when he was in Le Commissariat."

She knew she had to hear him out. Still she hesitated. The cold seeped from the floorboards but it wasn't the only thing making her shiver.

"Please come inside."

She unlocked the door that read LEDUC DETECTIVE that led to the office she'd taken over after her father's death, flipped on the lights, and draped her jacket over her armchair. Nineteenth-century sepia prints of Egyptian excavations hung on the walls above digitally enhanced Parisian sewer maps.

Hecht moved his cadaverous frame across the parquet floor. Something about him struck her as familiar. As he lifted his arm onto her desk, she saw faint blue numbers tattooed on his forearm peeking out from his jacket sleeve. Did he want her to find Nazi loot in numbered Swiss bank accounts? She scooped ground coffee into the filter, poured water, and switched on the espresso machine, which grumbled to life.

"Specifically, Monsieur Hecht, what is the job?"

"Computer penetration is your field." His eyes scanned the equipment lining the walls. He thrust a folder at her. "Decipher this computer code. The Temple E'manuel is hiring you."

"Regarding?"

"We need proof that a woman's relatives avoided deportation to Buchenwald. But I don't want to raise her hopes." He looked away, as if there was more he could say, but didn't.

"I've stopped doing that kind of work, Monsieur Hecht. That was more my father's field. To be honest, if I kept his promise you'd get less than the best."

"I knew your father, I trusted him." Hecht gripped the edge of her desk.

"How did you know him?"

"A man of honor, he told me I could rely on you." Soli Hecht hung his head. "We had many dealings before the explosion. I need your expertise."

She drummed her chipped red nails on her desk and pushed the painful memories aside. Steaming muddy liquid dripped into the waiting demitasse cup. "Monsieur, un petit cafe?"

"Non, merci." He shook his head.

Aimee unwrapped a sugar cube and plopped it in her cup. "I do computer security," she repeated. "Not missing persons."

"He said you would help me…that I could always come to you."

Short of going back on her father's word, one path remained. "D'accord," she relented with inner misgivings. "I'll show you my standard contract form."

"My word must be enough." He extended his hand. "As far as you are concerned, you don't know me. Agreed?"

She shook his gnarled hand.

"This will take several days? I was told it could be slow work."

"Maybe a few hours. I type one hundred and twenty conventional words a minute."

She smiled and sat down, shoved last night's faxes to the side of her desk, and leaned towards him.

"You were in school in America when I knew your father."

Full of hope, she'd searched for her American roots and the mother who'd disappeared when she was eight. She hadn't found either. "Briefly. I was an exchange student in New York."

"Your father articulated his casework philosophy to me and I've always remembered it."

"Things weren't usually what they seemed or he'd be out of business?"

Hecht nodded. "You're independent, no ties or affiliations to anyone." His crooked fist drummed the table. "I like that about you."

He knew a lot about her. She also had the distinct impression he was leaving something out. "Our fees are seven hundred and fifty francs a day."

Hecht nodded dismissively. Now she remembered. She'd seen his photo years ago when his evidence helped bring Klaus Barbie to trial.

"Look inside the folder," Hecht said.

Aimee opened his file, noticing the digits and slash marks, a distinctive trademark of Israeli military encryption. Her expertise was in hacking into systems, huge corporate ones. But this code spoke of the Cold War-a slippery tunneling job. She hesitated.

"Two thousand francs are in the folder. Deliver your results to 64 rue des Rosiers to Lili Stein. She's home after her shop closes. I've told her to expect a visitor."

Aimee felt she had to be honest; breaking an encrypted code had never taken her that long. "You've given me too much."

He shook his head. "Take it. She has a hard time getting around. Remember, give this only to Lili Stein."

She shrugged. "No problem."

"You must put this in Lili Stein's hands." Hecht's tone had changed, from fervent to pleading. "Swear to me on your father's grave. On his honor." His eyes locked on to hers.

What kind of Holocaust secret was this? Slowly she nodded in agreement.

"We will have no more contact, Mademoiselle."

Soli Hecht's joints cracked as he rose. His face wrinkled in pain.

"You could have faxed me this query, Monsieur Hecht. It would have saved you this trip."

"But we've neither talked nor met, Mademoiselle Leduc," he said.

Aimee bit back her reply and opened the door for him. Warped floorboards, a tarnished mirror, and scuffed plaster adorned the unheated landing. She buzzed for the turn-of-the-century wire elevator grating noisily up the shaft. Slowly and painfully he made his way to the hall.

Back in her office, she stuffed the francs into her pocket. The overdue France Telecom bill and horse meat for Miles Davis-pronounced Meels Daveez-her bichon frise puppy, would wait until she'd done the promised work.

Eurocom, the cable giant, had royally screwed up her finances by breaking Leduc's security service contract and hiring a rival Seattle firm, the only other firm that did the same work as she and her partner. She hoped there'd be enough money left to spring her suits from the dry cleaner's.

Her standard software keys enabled her to crack coded encryptions. They opened information stored in a database, in this case, she figured, a military one.

After punching in her standard key, "Access denied" flashed on the screen. She tried another software key, Reseau Militaire, an obscure military network. Still the screen flashed "Access denied." Intrigued, she tried various other keys but got nowhere.

Morning turned into afternoon, shadows lengthened, and dusk settled.

After several hours she realized she would earn her francs on this one. So far, nothing worked.

Wednesday Evening

LATER THAT EVENING, on one of her last decoding attempts, she used an old postwar retrieval key. She was surprised when the system responded, "For access enter via auditory/visual format." A rare but not unheard-of access path.

Nothing came up with audio. She opened the visual file using NATO documents decoding software. Suddenly her screen filled with black and white. After several seconds, she could clearly make out a photograph. No text appeared, only the photo. She enhanced the pixel quality, enlarging it as much as she dared without distorting the image.

The torn black-and-white snapshot with its smudged white margins showed a cafe scene next to a park full of children. People sat at the sidewalk cafe and stood in small groups. The ones standing were SS. Their backs were turned, but she recognized the lightning bolts on the sides of their collars.

No one looked at the camera. Most of the civilians wore dark shapeless clothes. A candid shot of occupied Paris. Almost half of the snapshot was torn away.

Shaken, she stared at the photo. She'd eaten at that cafe plenty of times, knew many of its habitues. But now she would always think of the Nazis who'd been there before her.

This marked the first time she'd cracked a code revealing a photo without text. How would this documentation be proof for the old woman? But that, she reminded herself, wasn't her job.

After saving the image, Aimee printed a copy. She couldn't help wondering what this woman's reaction would be.

With the photo tucked in her Hermès bag, a flea-market find, she wound a leopard-print scarf around her neck, belted her leather jacket, and locked the office door.

Below her office, she hailed a taxi that skidded to a stop on wet rue du Louvre. Late evening crowds filled the awninged sidewalk cafes. The Seine glittered on her right as the floodlit gray stone of the Pont Neuf flashed by.

The buildings changed as the taxi entered the Marais, the Jewish district, full of sixteenth-century hôtel particuliers, once abandoned and now often restored. Figures scuttled over the glistening cobblestones. In foggy, narrow rue de Bearn the taxi bumped over the curb and let her off. Fetid air hovered from the bouches d'egouts, gutters leading to the sewers.

Her destination, 64 rue des Rosiers, stood above a dusty window lettered DÉLICES DE STEIN in faded gold, advertising kosher goods in Hebrew and French. Opposite stood a falafel stand with trays of chopped red cabbage, onions, and pickled carrots peeking out from under a striped canopy.

Dark green paint flaked off the massive arched entry doors in front of her. She made her way past a bicycle leaning against the stone wall below a peeling circus poster. The cobbled courtyard smelled of yesterday's garbage. To her left, a vacant concierge's loge guarded the entrance.

On the second-floor landing, the dark wood door of Lili Stein's apartment stood ajar. From inside, a radio program blared. She knocked loudly several times. No answer. She pushed the creaking front door open.

"Allô?"

Slowly she entered the dim hallway of a musty apartment, reluctant to invade someone's privacy. She hesitated. Still no answer.

Inside, her eyes adjusted to the darkness. From the hall, she peered into the dim living room, then walked inside. A pine sideboard held a cloth runner embroidered with the Star of David and bearing brass candlesticks. Beside that, a vintage radio stood next to a recliner, the upholstery worn and spattered with grease spots. Approaching the radio, she saw a framed sepia photo on the wall. In it a young girl, wearing an old-fashioned school uniform, stood arm in arm with a stout aproned woman before a shop window. Both wore stars embroidered with JUIF on their chests. Aimee paused, saddened. She recognized that window as the one below on rue des Rosiers belonging to Delices du Stein. Under the photo a single white rose bloomed in a vase.

Lili Stein must be deaf to play the radio so loud, she thought. Maybe the old woman had a serious hearing loss.

She approached the radio, an old crystal set with knobby dials and yellowed channel band. She turned the volume lower. Used tissues littered the floor. "Madame Stein, I'm here with your packet!"

No response.

Her neck muscles tightened. Water trickled from somewhere out in the hallway. She didn't like this. Wasn't the old lady expecting her?

She paused beneath the living-room door frame. Across from her in the bathroom, a leaky faucet dripped onto a brown stain in the basin.

Her hand brushed the dark paneled wall searching for a switch. But her fingers only came back greasy.

Her anxiety mounted. She passed the dingy bathroom and edged down the narrow hallway. At the end, what looked to be a bedroom door stood partly open. She felt for her keys in her leather bag, positioning the pointed edges between her fingers as a weapon, her first lesson from the martial-arts dojo.

Carefully, she wedged the door open wider. In the dim light an old woman was sprawled on the bed, her stockings rolled down.

"Madame, Madame?"

She switched on the light. The woman's ashen face stared vacantly at the cobwebbed ceiling. Aimee walked towards the bed, then froze. Someone had carved a swastika into the woman's forehead. She gasped, gripping the bed frame as her legs buckled. Her heart pounded. She took a breath, then forced herself to touch the cheek. Smooth and cold like marble…

What if the killer was still there?

She reached for her Phillips screwdriver, part of the mini-tool set she carried in her bag, scanning the room for the attacker. But the only other inhabitant was a bloated angelfish, its silvery bubbles rising in the tank on the old rolltop desk. Wooden slats were nailed over the room's lone window, blocking all but a ribbon of light from the light well.

She stepped gingerly around the bed. After checking the armoire and peering into dust balls under the sagging mattress, she felt convinced no attacker lurked in the bedroom. A fly buzzed, circling near the unblinking eyes whose gaze was locked on the ceiling. Disgusted, she shooed it away.

Alert for an intruder, she padded down the hallway, examining each closet and scouting every room. Empty.

She hadn't come face to face with a homicide since working with her father. Her impulse was to run out of the apartment, call the flics, and return Hecht's money. But she forced herself to go back.

In the bedroom she surveyed the dead woman more carefully. Deep and bloodless, the swastika stretched from her eyebrows to the wispy gray hairs at her hairline, exposing bone and pulpy tissue. A gold chain with Hebrew letters hung twisted in the bloody ligature mark around her neck.

She swore, shooing the persistent fly, who'd alighted on the woman's wool skirt that crumpled up at her knees. Swollen ankles puffed out over scuffed shoes. Aimee noticed the scratches and bruising on the pasty legs; the hands, in half fists, lay at her side as if she'd died struggling.

"In Lili Stein's hands" was what she'd promised Soli Hecht. That no longer made sense as the woman was dead. She wasn't superstitious but…she bent down, peering at the woman's hand. Bits of wood splinters were embedded in her palms. Aimee looked around her. No marks were scratched in the wood slats nailed over the window. Crutches lay uselessly on the floor. Her fingernails were broken and jagged. Like a cornered animal, Aimee thought, she'd tried to claw her way out.

Aimee carefully put her fingers on the blue-veined wrist. She pulled out the envelope with the photo image and touched it to Lili's cold hand, not yet stiff with rigor mortis.

In that moment she felt the murderer hovering in this dank room. Foreboding washed over her. She became aware of the nasal-voiced radio announcer. In a prerecorded message yesterday to the labor unions at Lille, Cazaux, the French trade minister and expected appointee for prime minister, had promised strict foreign immigration quotas. "French industry, French workers, French products!" Cazaux's familiar voice ranted as crowds roared.

Just what France needed, she thought, more fascism.

"Maman?" A man's deep voice came from the hallway.

Startled, she stood up too quickly and knocked into the bedroom's rolltop desk. The angelfish tank swayed, and she reached out to steady it. That's when she saw the torn photo under the tank, barely visible through the black gravel. She pulled it out, quickly aligning the encrypted photo next to this torn piece. They matched. Shaken, she realized she held the missing corner of the photo that this woman might have been murdered for.

"Maman, ca va?"

She slid the photos into the envelope and stuffed it down the calf of her leather boot.

"Monsieur, don't come in here," she said loudly, summoning authority in her voice. "Call le Police."

"Eh? Who…" A middle-aged man, rail thin and tall, walked in. He stooped as if apologizing for taking up space. His forelocks were worn long in the Hasidic style under a black felt hat with an upturned brim.

She blocked his view. "Is Lili Stein your mother?"

"What's happened?" He stiffened. "Maman is ill?" He peered over Aimee's shoulder before she could stop him. "No, no," he said shaking his head.

She edged toward this man, trying to help him.

"Who are you?" Fear registered in his eyes.

"I'm working with…" She caught herself before she mentioned Hecht. "Temple E'manuel. I'm a private detective, we had an appointment." She guided him towards an alcove hung with rolled scriptures. "Sit down."

He shook her off. "How did you get in here?" His eyes grew wide in terror.

"Monsieur Stein?" She kneeled at his eye level, willing him to meet her gaze.

He nodded.

"I'm sorry. The door was ajar. I found her a few minutes ago."

He collapsed, sobbing. She pulled out her cell phone, punched in 15 for SAMU, the emergency service, and gave the address. Then she called 17, Police Centrale.

"Yisgaddal v'yiskaddash shmey rabboh." He began the Hebrew prayer for the dead. Then he broke off. She put her arm around his thin shoulders, made the sign of the cross, whispering, "May she rest in peace."

By the time the SAMU van screeched to a halt in the courtyard, waves of the Brigade Criminelle then the Brigade Territoriale had already tramped through. The Police from the 4th arrondissement came next. A rotund figure puffed up the stairs, a droopy mustache above the half smile on his face. Aimee blinked in surprise. "Inspecteur Morbier!"

She hadn't seen this old friend of her father's for several years. Not since the day of the explosion. Everything came flooding back to her: the reek of cordite and TNT, the hiss and pop of cold rain falling on twisted hot metal, her palm burning on the surveillance van's door handle. She had watched as the force blew her father into a smoking hulk.

"Aimee…!" Then Morbier quickly corrected himself in the presence of the Brigade members. "Mademoiselle Leduc."

He'd changed little. His blue suspenders strained over his wide belly. He flicked a kitchen match, lit up a Gauloise, and inhaled deeply. She could almost taste the tobacco in the stuffy hallway.

"Smoking at a murder scene, Morbier?"

"I'm supposed to ask the questions." He flicked ash into his cupped palm.

Crime-scene technicians, their lab coats drooping under short yellow rain jackets, glided efficiently amid muffled conversations up and down the stairs.

"Don't tell me you're involved in this dog and pony show," he said.

"I'm not involved." She wasn't really lying. She looked away, unable to meet his gaze. When she was little he'd always caught her out faster than her father.

The threadbare Turkish carpet in the hall was already tracked with mud. Stein rocked back and forth on a chair, dazedly shaking his head.

Aimee and Morbier sidestepped the crime photographer loaded with camera equipment, heading for the kitchen down the hall.

Stein sputtered to life. "I'm Abraham Stein. This woman was here when I found Maman."

Morbier's eyes narrowed. "Explain how you happened to find the body."

She shook her head, indicating she wouldn't speak in front of Stein and tugged Morbier's sleeve, nodding her head towards the kitchen. He rolled his eyes, then lumbered after her.

"Temple E'manuel hired me to trail her." She kept her voice low, remembering that the best defense is a good offense. "Explain to me why Brigade Criminelle arrived and secured the scene before"-loud banging erupted in the hallway as the stretcher hit the door frame and she stared at him-"you did."

"Inspecteur Morbier!" A hoarse-voiced detective beckoned to him. "Forensics needs you. Now."

Morbier growled and left.

She turned away to hide her relief.

He stopped a few steps away and jerked his thumb at the nearby pockmark-faced sergeant. "Investigating officer, check the contents of her bag."

Her shoulders sagged. "Why?"

He blustered, "A possible suspect at a homicide should cooperate."

She attempted to check her anger, keep her tone even. "I have nothing to hide."

She dumped her cell phone, expired Metro pass, extra modem cable, two tubes of ultrablack mascara, business cards, pack of Nicorette stop-smoking gum, mini-tool set, and a well-thumbed manual on software encryption smudged with red nail polish.

At Lili Stein's bedroom door Morbier turned to her, his expression masked. "I want you at the Commissariat. First thing in the morning." He nodded to the sergeant. "Escort her home."

Wednesday Evening

AS THE PILOT ANNOUNCED descent into Charles de Gaulle Airport, Hartmuth Griffe, the German trade advisor, felt an acid taste, drier than the cabin atmosphere, fill his mouth.

Fifty years and now he was back. His heart raced. Despite the surgery, he feared recognition even after all these years. And the past. What if somehow she'd survived?

Suddenly, below the mist, tiny pinpricks of light twinkled in the dusk. The landing gear ground heavily below his feet and his stomach lurched. He fought nausea as the wheels hit the runway squealing and the plane taxied along the blue-green lighted lines. He'd promised himself he'd never come back. The plane braked with a jolt.

"Wie geht's?, mein Herr?" Ilse Häckl, his bureau administrator, greeted him at the gate, with a wide dimpled smile.

Hartmuth caught himself and compressed his lips in a quick grin. What was she doing here?

Plump, rosy cheeked, her snow white hair in a bun, Ilse was often mistaken by newcomers to his office for someone's grandmother. However, she supervised one arm of the trade ministry and newcomers either caught on quickly or left.

"Ilse, aren't you supposed to be on holiday in…" He paused, racking his brains. Where had she been going?

"The Tyrol." She shrugged and smoothed down her shapeless dress. "Ja. My orders, I mean my job, Herr Griffe, is to assist you in any way possible." She stood at attention as much as an older woman in flesh-colored orthopedic hose could.

"Danke schoen, Ilse. I appreciate it," he said, disturbed but determined to take it in stride.

At the curb, she whisked Hartmuth into a black Mercedes. As they glided into Paris on Autoroute 1, flat streams of light hinted at the monotonous strips of housing projects along the highway. On the right after the interchange, the cathedral of Sacre Coeur emerged like an elliptical pearl bathed in lunar light.

The skyline of Paris shone, but not as he remembered it. It was bigger, brighter, a jagged vista ready to swallow him. Already he was desperate to escape.

"These came this afternoon," Ilse said, as she sat beside him in the back seat. She cleared her throat and thrust a pile of stapled faxes at him. "And this just now, a memo from Bonn."

Surprised at this direct approach from the ministry, he leaned forward. Why all of a sudden, he wondered.

"You've read this, Ilse?" Hartmuth's eyes narrowed as he scanned the Bonn printout.

"Mein Herr…," she began.

"Ja, ja," Hartmuth said, looking straight at her. "But you are here to make sure I lobby for this trade treaty." He punched the paper. "Is that correct?"

Ilse shifted slightly but kept her head high. She pinned a stray white hair back into her thick bun. "Unter den Linden, mein Herr," she murmured.

Hartmuth shuddered. Mein Gott, she was one of them.

Now he understood why, without warning, he'd been sent to Paris. The Werewolves, descendants of the old SS, still operated in blitzkrieg style.

The Mercedes pulled into the cobblestoned courtyard of the seventeenth century Hôtel Pavillion de la Reine, tucked unobtrusively in a corner of the Marais. This part of the quartier, residence of nobility until the court moved to Versailles, once filled with rundown mansions, decrepit hôtel particuliers, had become a Jewish ghetto until Malraux saved most of the area from the wrecking ball. Gentrification had made it the trendiest address in Paris.

Hartmuth could imagine a liveried footman in powdered wig running out to greet him. But the door sprang open courtesy of a bland-faced man wearing a headset with a microphone cupped under his chin.

"Willkommen et bienvenu, Monsieur," he said.

Upstairs, Ilse disappeared into the room next door to Hartmuth's. In his suite, he stared at his luggage without unpacking and his fingers trembled as they raked through his still thick white hair. He barely felt the old scars but knew they still webbed his scalp.

Sixty-eight years old, lean, tan, with a craggy face etched in a permanent squint, Griffe was too vain to wear glasses. Alone among the antique armoires and gilt-framed paintings, he felt empty. He opened the glass balcony doors, stepping out into the frosty chill air. The vacant playground and fountains of the fenced Place des Vosges spread below him.

Why hadn't he ignored the minister? But he knew the reason why. As the silent architect of previous trade agreements and treaties, only his lobbying glued the EU delegates together. But did the trade summit have to be here?

Under the pigeon-spattered statue of Louis XIII straddling his horse, he'd said goodbye so many, many years ago to the only woman he'd loved. A Frenchwoman. A Jew.

Sarah.

The cooing of pigeons and soggy chill of an early November evening floated past his open balcony doors. His hands shook as he grasped the door handle. What if someone recognized him and screamed his past out loud?

Unter den Linden; that was an order. Also the Werewolves' codeword meaning: one day we will meet under the flowering linden trees in Berlin under a new Reich. The Third Reich reborn.

Unable to work, he gazed at the restored rose stone facades of the square opposite the window. I'm just an old man with memories, he thought. Everyone else had been ground into dust long ago.

Fifty years ago he'd been young, and the City of Light had spread before him, ripe for the plucking. Very ripe, for Hartmuth Griffe had been an officer with the SiPo-SD Sicherheitspolizei und Sicherheitsdienst Security Police and Gestapo, responsible for sweeping the Jews from the Marais.