Murder in the Sentier

Sunday Morning

AIMÉE SURVEYED THE MIRRORED Café d’Or on busy rue d’Aboukir and tapped her chipped red nails. A fly landed on the sugar bowl tongs and she shooed it from the counter. Few patrons were inside on this sun-filled day, most sat under the awning on the terrasse. Shadows from the few clipped the trees on Place du Caire dappled the sidewalk.

Christian Figeac, the deceased author’s son, was twenty minutes late to the cafe he’d chosen for their meeting. She’d contacted him via his father’s publisher, saying it was a police matter. After her bike ride from the office, she’d ordered an espresso. And waited.

A tall man with stringy sandy hair entered. He was in his late twenties, a few years younger than she was. He wore a synthetic leather jacket, silver and tight, over a black shirt. His deep gray eyes sought her, nailed her, and she knew it was him.

“Christian Figeac,” he said simply and shook her hand. His palms were moist and warm. He looked around, warily then said, “Let’s sit down over there.” He pointed toward an old-fashioned leather banquette.

“For meeting me, merci,” she said, bringing her espresso with her. “I apologize for the bad timing….”

“I only agreed because you can help me,” he said.

Help him?

“Your father might have known my mother,” she said. “That’s why …”

“He knew lots of people,” Christian Figeac interrupted, apparently uninterested.

“Ever heard of Sydney Leduc or a woman named de Chambly?” She remembered the name B. de Chambly from the Frésnes Prison envelope.

Christian Figeac shook his head. He rubbed his nose with his sleeve.

“What about Jutta Hald?” Aimée asked. “Did she call or visit you?”

He waved his hand dismissively. A nervous twitch shook his jaw every so often. “Listen, I can’t go in there anymore.”

“Go in where?” She felt sorry for him but so far this conversation was going nowhere.

He pulled out a thick cigar, Cuban by the look of it, and proceeded to light the end. But his hands shook, a steady tremor.

“It’s Papa’s atelier, you see,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “Can’t seem to sell it. The realtor told me to spruce it up, you know, the vanilla treatment. But this is the 2nd arrondissement on the tony Right Bank. The place should sell itself.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “Now, I’m sorry to keep bringing this back to Jutta Hald, but I think she was looking for your father.”

“Now she can find him under the earth with the worms.”

He sounded bitter. And clueless.

“It’s the ghosts, you see,” he leaned forward, a stricken look on his face. “They won’t let me.”

Maybe he was insane. A dead end.

She found a ten-franc piece and slapped it onto the table.

“Look,” Aimée said, opening her backpack, “you’re going through a hard time. I wish you the best, but …”

“Wait, please.” He grabbed her arm. Perspiration beaded his upper lip. She hadn’t seen him order but a white-aproned waiter appeared with an espresso, set it on the table for Figeac, and whisked her ten francs away.

“I’ll think about those names you mentioned. What were they again? Signe? And who?”

“Tiens, I’ve got to go,” she said, trying to slide off the leather banquette. But her leather skirt stuck to the seat, making a sucking noise and riding up her thighs.

“Hear me out.” He grabbed her arm again and wouldn’t let go. His cigar smoke got in her face.

She kept her tone civil. “I came here to find out if there was some connection between your father, Jutta Hald, and my mother—”

“Papa committed suicide last week,” he interrupted. “It was ten years to the day since my mother did the same thing.” He puffed on his cigar.

Now the story came back to Aimée. In the seventies, his mother, an American actress, was rumored to be carrying a French terrorist’s baby. She miscarried and had a breakdown. Her career was over. Several years later, on the anniversary of the miscarriage, her body was found in her car in the Bois de Vincennes. Too many pills.

“Papa wanted to clear her name,” Christian Figeac said. “Reveal how Interpol targeted her.”

“Hadn’t he done that before?” Aimée remembered him being interviewed on television, delivering a tirade against the “establishment.” He had distinctive blue eyes and a long face. A potent cocktail of literary talent and liberal political blunders.

“Papa said there were documents,” he said. “I think he was working on something to do with that. The research had been his reason for living. After that he took his life.”

“Are you sure the book was about Interpol … not about the terrorists?” What if he’d been researching Haader-Rofmein, something dealing with Jutta, or with her mother? She leaned forward, interested. “Did he mention the Haader-Rofmein gang?”

“Haader-Rofmein? Maybe, I’m not sure. He’d had a dry spell,” Christian Figeac said, looking down. He knocked cigar ash into the Ricard ashtray. The ashes missed and particles floated onto his pants. “And then I heard him working.”

“Working on what?”

“He never talked about what he wrote. Taboo. A jinx, he said.”

Aimée thought she could see sadness in Christian Figeac’s eyes. And a kind of defeat. Had he felt sidelined, growing up in the shadow of famous parents who’d been obsessed by the unborn child? Aimée felt sorry for this man.

“Why would your father take his life now?”

Instead of answering her, Christian Figeac shrugged. “Late at night,” he said, his long lashes fluttering, “the time Papa used to work in the breakfast room, I think I can still hear him pounding on typewriter keys. Strange, because he wrote everything in longhand first. I open the door and it’s empty, of course, but it’s like he’s trying to tell me something.”

“Rational consideration would preclude that, Monsieur Figeac,” she said.

Christian Figeac was delusional but maybe she could turn it to her advantage. Find the link to her mother, figure out what Jutta Hald had really wanted. “If you’re the literary executor for your father’s estate,” she said, “may I go through his papers?”

Christian Figeac pulled a crumpled paper from his jacket pocket and smoothed it out on the marble-topped cafe table.

“How much?” he asked, writing her name on the check.

“For what? My field is computer security, data recovery for firms and corporations.”

“Someone’s stalking me,” he said, his eyes huge. “Twenty thousand do for a retainer?”

“A retainer for what?”

“Find out who’s stalking me.”

That got her attention. She leaned back against the banquette. If she took his check maybe she could pay the rent as well as find out about her mother.

Outside the cafe window, a Pakistani man with a pushcart full of cloth rolled his eyes at a burly man making deliveries whose truck blocked the street.

“I’ll take the job on the condition that I can have access to your father’s papers,” she said. “They may contain information about my mother or Jutta Hald.”

“Tant pis but I’ve never heard of them.”

“Think back. Didn’t an older woman, Jutta Hald, come to your …?”

“But it’s so like something my father would do,” he interrupted. “I’ve even heard their noises.”

“Noises?” Aimée felt like standing up. “Is that why you think someone’s stalking you?”

“The funny thing was, when I checked in the morning, the room had been disturbed. Discreetly, but I could tell.”

“How’s that?”

“The dust, of course.” he stared at Aimée. “Footprints in the dust.”

AIMÉE AND Christian Figeac reached the door of 107, rue de Cléry, a block away. The building occupied the corner of the narrow street where it met rue des Petits Carreaux. The inner courtyard, with ivy-covered facades and deep balconies, seemed like another world, an oasis far removed from the hookers on Saint Denis, from the Metro and the bus exhaust.

Inside the tall-ceilinged apartment, once an industrial workshop she figured, stood a few rattan café-style chairs. Apart from the formal dining room, with its long table, the place had few furnishings. In the front of the atelier were huge period windows encased in dark green iron, overlooking the rooftops across the narrow street.

Christian Figeac’s face was a mask, yet anxiety emanated from him.

“Something wrong?” Aimée asked.

He tore out of the room and rushed down the hallway.

Aimée followed.

“Idrissa, Idrissa, I’m back,” he shouted.

By the time she’d caught up with him, he was leaning against the wall of the dark-timbered kitchen.

“Weren’t you going to show me …”

“She’s gone,” he interrupted.

“Who’s gone?” Aimée asked, looking around. A blue iron La Cornue stove filled a third of the kitchen.

“My girlfriend, Idrissa. Idrissa Diaffa,” he said. “Her bags, her things, her prints gone from the walls.”

Piles of dishes, encrusted with dried food, filled the porcelain sink. A pot of turmeric-peanutty-smelling stew sat on the cook-top.

“I’m sorry, but we really need to continue talking about your father’s work.”

“After I sold the apartment, we were going to invest in Gouée, that island in Senegal,” he said, his tone wistful. “She’s from there.”

Then he sniffled and his head drooped. Like a beaten dog, Aimée thought. He wiped his runny nose with his jacket sleeve.

“Anyway, I must get rid of this museum,” Christian Figeac said. “Sell it.”

He seemed to gather himself together. Had this happened before, she wondered, or was he used to being abandoned? Aimée noticed a dark wood-paneled room off to the right. The room was sealed—protected from trespassers—with glass. Women’s clothes were strewn on the bed, leopard jumpsuits and fringed vests. He followed her gaze.

“That was my mother’s room. Le Palais de Nostalgie, I call it, like a shrine. Papa wouldn’t let it be touched.”

The ghoul factor, she thought. Someone would want this apartment just for that … not to mention the location.

She noticed the scuffed woodwork and cobwebbed corners.

“Do you live here?”

“Most of the time,” he said, scratching his arm. He kept his jacket on in the musty apartment. “But I haven’t been back since I heard the typewriter.”

“The typewriter?”

“Papa had a typewriter.”

What was this about? He knew his father was dead. It was hot and sticky and she felt cranky.

“Why don’t you show me your father’s room, tell me about his work,” she said, keeping her voice level.

“There’s nothing to see,” he said. “Take my word for it.”

Christian seemed intent on being contradictory. Something sad clung to him, like a shroud.

“Sorry, all this must be difficult,” she said. “And I understand it’s painful but I can’t help if you don’t let me see it.”

“The room hasn’t been cleaned.” He stood, hesitant.

“No problem.” Even better, but she didn’t say it.

In the front hallway, Christian Figeac took a ring of old-fashioned keys from a hook. He tried several before one grated in the lock, which opened with a loud click that echoed in the parquet-floored entrance.

The twenty-foot double doors swung back to reveal a rectangular breakfast room, spacious and light due to floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Doesn’t look used much.”

“I haven’t stepped inside since …” He paused. “The cleaners should be here soon.”

“Maybe your girlfriend …”

“Never,” he said. “She didn’t like rooms where spirits linger.”

“Lingering spirits?”

“That’s why I curse him,” Christian Figeac said. His voice had slowed. “We told the newspapers Papa took his life in bed. But he shot himself here.” He pointed to the long panel of a desk, in the middle of the room. Chocolate-looking smudges covered the wallpaper behind the chair.

Poor Christian Figeac. Why would a father let his son discover that?

“Right at his desk,” he said. “Couldn’t be bothered to do it in the park. Left his brains on the wall for me to find.”

Like Jutta Hald.

“Did he leave a suicide note?

“Just ‘Goodbye’ and a Mallarme poem on the typewriter. One my mother loved.”

Every poem has an unwritten line. In this case, Aimée thought, a tragic one.

She thought again of Jutta Hald.

“Sorry to ask, but was he holding the gun?” It would have had to be a large caliber for a bullet to cause splatter like that.

“I think so … no, it had fallen onto the floor.”

“It fell on the floor?” she said. Something didn’t add up.

“The room was dark, Papa was slumped over.”

Had shock confused Christian Figeac?

“Over his desk?”

Christian Figeac’s face contorted. “Maybe it fell when I tried to pull him up.”

The desk and chair were in the middle of the room, the wall a few feet away. “Was it a handgun?”

He nodded, adding, “Papa drank, a lot. We wiped up most of the whiskey.”

And the evidence of foul play if any had existed.

“Were the flics suspicious?”

“They weren’t involved. It was a suicide. Papa always said true writers die for their art.”

“How’s that?”

“Molière, for example—he died in his chair onstage at the Comédie-Française.”

She walked past the desk. “Where was the manuscript he was working on and his research notes?”

Figeac’s eyes welled with tears. “Idrissa said there were things in boxes. I don’t know.”

He sniffled, rubbing his dirty sleeve across his eyes.

Aimée bent, then stopped. Footprints trailed across the dust.

Either someone had walked backward in his own footsteps, or he had floated up to the ceiling. She wasn’t so certain it hadn’t been the latter. Stale dead air filled the space. The calendar on the wall was opened to July….

“Where’s the gun now?” she asked.

Christian Figeac looked stricken, as if his memory had blanked. “So much happened at once …” he trailed off.

“What kind of gun was it?”

“Papa’s prized possession was a fancy-handled one, a gift from Hemingway, his favorite author. They drank in the Ritz bar after the war. He kept it over there.”

Aimée looked. A plaque beneath empty glass read .25-CALIBER DESIGNED BY TOCHER FOR HEMINGWAY. The outline where a small pistol had rested was visible against the yellowed background.

“The autopsy results?”

“No flics, no autopsy. Our family’s tired of public circuses.”

She knew, in cases of suicide, families had the right to refuse an autopsy and insist on immediate burial. The police would be happy to declare it a suicide if the corpse was that of an old geezer who drank. Even more so if he’d left a note. Or if he was a depressed writer suffering from writer’s block.

But Romain Figeac, according to his son, didn’t fit the latter category. And the wall smudges bothered her.

Still, she was here to find out about her mother. And Christian Figeac wasn’t asking her to investigate his father’s death. Just his ghosts.

“Papa’s big fear was when he died someone would take photos and sell them.” He looked away. “Like they did of my mother.”

Not only bad taste, Aimée thought, but sick.

“Where would your father have kept his files?”

No answer.

Aimée turned around.

Christian Figeac had disappeared.

Aimée walked toward the kitchen. She wanted to go through Romain Figeac’s papers, search for connections to her mother, Jutta, or Haader-Rofmein. The similarity of Jutta’s and Figeac’s deaths was inescapable.

“Monsieur Figeac?”

No answer.

She edged down the hall, peering into the dining room. The Prix Goncourt plaque, tarnished, and a médaille d’honneur sat in a dusty glass case. A framed yellowed newspaper clipping about his mother’s Cannes Film Festival nomination occupied one wall.

She agreed with Christian Figeac—the place felt like a museum. A frisson of apprehension went through her. For a split second she wondered if he would follow the route of his parents … with his girlfriend gone, in a bout of panic, he might be capable of it. She would be the only witness.

Maybe the aura of these strong personalities was getting to her. She brushed the thought aside and stepped into the high-ceilinged room.

Piles of heavy metal CDs along with those of the Senegalese singer Youssou D’Nour cluttered a heavy-legged Spanish-style table. Bank statements, along with letters headed by a Tallimard Presse logo, were scattered among the CDs.

Water flushed in the background. Christian Figeac emerged from a floral-stenciled door in the hallway, his pupils dilated, his face flushed.

Aimée shook her head. Dealing with druggies spelled trouble.

“Does your father’s editor know what you’re doing?”

“He’s welcome to,” Christian Figeac said, craning his neck forward like an awkward bird. He spread his arms expansively. Now he exuded an aura of confidence.

“You know what I mean,” Aimée said. The man was a mess. “Getting your courage from a needle?”

“Xanax,” he said. “I’m working on my equilibrium.”

Great.

Maybe she’d given him too much credence. His hallucinations probably came from dope, and his girlfriend had wised up.

Aimée felt something crackle under her sandaled foot. A bright yellow feather. She picked it up. The sharp quill was beaded, a broken bit of mirror tied to it.

“What’s this?”

“Some ju-ju crap from Senegal,” Christian Figeac said, sighing. “I told Idrissa to stop it. She gets it from her kora player, Ousmane. He’s so superstitious.”

Aimée turned it over. What looked like dried, crusted blood coated the feathers. Gingerly, she set it on a chair.

She decided she’d better leave the dead air of the apartment, the ju-ju, and Christian Figeac.

The doorbell rang.

“Idrissa?” he asked, lurching toward the door.

Aimée couldn’t see the look on his face, but his shoulders stiffened. A cool breeze entered from the hall, smelling of wax wood polish.

“Monsieur Christian Figeac, son of Romain Figeac?” she heard from the hallway.

He nodded, bracing himself against the doorjamb.

And then she heard the metal clink … something so familiar it was like slicing bread. The sound of handcuffs. Like the pair her father had.

“We’d like you to answer some questions,” a voice said. “It’s regarding your father’s account at the Credit Industriel et Commercial in Place des Victoires.”

“But I’m busy right now.”

“Down at the Commissariat.”

Aimée walked up and stood by the door. She recognized the flic, Loïc Bellan.

She froze.

Bellan had been one of the new breed before her father retired, recruited to combat corruption.

Her feet felt rooted to the ground. She wanted to hide but she was stuck. A sitting duck. Running away from a murder scene wasn’t looked on with favor. What if the police had circulated her description in connection with Jutta Hald’s murder? But would Bellan put it together?

“Monsieur Figeac, we’d like you to cooperate with us,” Bellan said, taking her in with a quick glance.

“You’ve made a mistake.” Christian Figeac shook his head dismissively. “My father had no account there.”

Bellan nodded. He’d changed. His dark hair had grayed, his once thin frame had settled into a stocky middle age. If he recognized her, he didn’t let on. But flics were trained for that, she knew. Let a perp sweat, then play with him. Like a cat with a mouse.

“We’ll just have a talk and clear all this up,” Bellan said. “After you, Monsieur Figeac.”

He lunged past Bellan. Too bad he tripped over the flic’s foot and landed hard on the floor. Scuffling and kicking sounds came from the landing, then a metallic snap as the cuffs closed.

“If you haven’t charged Monsieur Figeac, you need an interpellation to demand his attendance,” Aimée said, stepping forward reluctantly. “The handcuffs are unnecessary. In fact, illegal.”

“We’ll leave the niceties to the police judiciaire, eh, Mademoiselle Leduc?” Bellan said. He nodded to his partner, another flic with a long, sallow face who stood in the foyer.

Her heart thumped in her chest. Bellan didn’t miss a trick; he had recognized her. But if he had found evidence of a crime he would have searched the premises.

“Monsieur Figeac and I know each other …” Bellan let his words dangle in the air. “Let’s say, quite well. I really wouldn’t want to charge him with possession of illegal substances.” Bellan smiled. “But I could.”

Christian Figeac’s jacket sleeve had ripped. Aimée saw needle tracks on his wrists. Purplish brown and old.

“Call this number,” Christian Figeac said, his manacled fingers fishing a card from his front pants pocket. “Tell him to meet me at the Commissariat. I’ll be out in an hour.”

The card read, “Etienne Mabry, 28 Boulevard de Sébastopol.” There was also an office in the Bourse, the Paris stock exchange.

“He’s your attorney?” she said.

“My financial advisor on stocks.”

On the stairs, two older women paused, speaking in a Slavic dialect. Mops and buckets were in their hands. “Agence Immobilière sent us. The agent wants the apartment cleaned for a showing.”

Downstairs, the flics took Figeac to a waiting Peugeot. Aimée didn’t know whether to be relieved that Bellan hadn’t asked her to accompany him, or suspicious.

Bellan drove away without so much as another glance. As soon as the car turned the corner, she ran back to Christian Figeac’s apartment.