Murder at the Lanterne Rouge (9 page)

“About time,” René said, looking up from one of the three terminal screens on his desk. Beside him, Saj, their permanent part-time hacker and analyst, sat on a tatami mat with his laptop—his preferred mode of working. Despite the season, Saj was barefoot.

Aimée bit her lip, adrift on a sea of conflicting emotions. She was not eager to voice more suspicions of Meizi, fracture her crumbling image, or hurt René. Every part of her wanted to protect him.

“Those came for you,” Saj said, unfolding from his lotus position and gesturing to her desk, where a bouquet of lush rose-blushed hibiscus sat. Who in the world sent hothouse hibiscus in January? She opened the card, which came from the florist on rue du Louvre.

Her heart jumped. Melac, Martinique, and sun. All in one?

Guilt worked wonders. The card fell from her hand.

Saj caught it. Grinned. Flashed the card for René to see.

“Road trip, Aimée?” René asked, his eyes narrowing.

Could she afford to take time off?

“We’ve got two projects for the end of the month,” René said, his voice strained, “and a possible third if we land the Sofitel security contract.”

Routine computer security surveillance. Nothing he and Saj couldn’t handle for a week. Had Meizi’s disappearance,
compounded by his hip pain, made him irritable? Or did she detect a note of jealousy? For a moment guilt invaded her.

She couldn’t worry about that.

“Time to deal with that later, René,” she said, slipping the card in her bag. “We’ve got more pressing things to discuss. Let me get you two up to speed. First, the Wus are not who we thought they were.”

René’s face reddened. “Lies.” He slammed his fist on the desk. “You can’t prove that.”

She pulled out the copies of the fingerprint cards from her bag, spread them on René’s desk. “Matter of fact, I can.”

René leafed through the cards. Shook his head. “Who the hell are these people?”

“Illegal émigrés, I don’t know,” Aimée said. “Meizi could be part of something larger.”

A hurt look wrinkled René’s brow.

“Think back to the map in Ching Wao’s office, the circles around cities,” she said.

“Maybe they’re part of a smuggling ring,” Saj said, lifting up a newspaper. “The front page today in
Le Monde
has an article on rhinoceros horn pirated from China. It’s prized for increasing virility.”

Saj and his daydreams. “Meizi cleaned toilets, for God’s sake,” Aimée said. “Who knows what else. Didn’t you notice her calloused hands, her bitten nails?”

A ping came from Saj’s computer.

“Got a hit.” Saj pointed to his terminal. “This Ching Wao seems to be a man of many talents.”

Maybe many faces. She brightened. From the keystroke recovery program he ran, she could see the telltale sniffing in the network. “Sniffing keystrokes, Saj? Nice high?”

Saj gave a sideways grin, pushed his dirty-blond dreadlocks behind his ears. “Network eavesdropping’s a nicer term, Aimée.
Here’s Ching Wao’s wholesale prêt-à-porter business on rue de Saintonge.”

Interested, Aimée leaned over Saj’s laptop. She remembered the frightened girl stacking cartons of hoodies. A connection?

“That’s all?”

“The beginning, Aimée.”

“Pascal Samour bought his great-aunt the exact green bag they carried at the luggage shop,” she said. “That’s the second connection between Meizi and the murder.” She set down the recommendation letter. “Now the third: Pascal Samour recommended her for a job at the museum where he volunteered.”

René snapped, “You’re implying Meizi was his girlfriend, that she led me on, two-timed me,
non
?”

Aimée averted her gaze. “Non, you’ve said it René.”

“How could Meizi, not much taller than me, murder a man? Or wrap him to a heavy wood palette with industrial plastic?” René’s voice trembled in anger. “
Et puis
, make it to the
resto
in time to order and be ready to serve us soup when we arrived without breaking a sweat?”

“I’m saying we find her, René,” Aimée said, keeping her voice even. “Find out why she ran away after receiving that phone call. But don’t you wonder why no one is who they say they are, why people’s identities change like cards?”

“You’re neglecting the dead man’s phone, assuming he carried one.” Saj pulled his dreadlocks back and tied them with a bandanna. “What if he called her for help? It’s close, you said. So she gets there and he’s being attacked.”

“We’re spinning theories until the autopsy reveals the cause and time of his death.” Aimée set her bag down on her desk and scrolled through her cell phone contacts for Serge, her pathologist friend at the morgue. But his voice mail answered. “Taking a personal day. If you need immediate consultation, contact admin affairs at 01 55 34 78 29.”

Great. Up the river without a paddle, until she got a hold of him. Unless …

Thoughts spun in her mind.

Saj reached for a steaming cup of green tea. “But what if the killer picked up the victim’s phone and called the last number he’d dialed—Meizi’s?”

“That’s assuming he had a phone, Saj,” René said, shaking his head.

“Say that call alerted her,” Aimée said, sitting down to think. Saj was just supposing, but his ideas weren’t completely wild. “Before she left the
resto
, Meizi looked back, worried. I don’t know how to explain it.” Aimée shrugged. “Say she ran by, saw or heard the murderer, then called it in?”

“But Meizi trusts me.” The hurt in René’s tone stung her. “She knows I’d do anything for her. Why wouldn’t she tell me?”

Trusted him to a point.

Maybe the man Aimée had seen on the corner was her pimp. But she kept that to herself. René’s Glock bulged in his jacket pocket. He was ready to blast his competition.

Meizi lied about where she lived, what she did. Aimée had no doubt she’d strung him along. And her unsmiling parents?

René shook his head, adamant. “The
flics
found her photo, they suspect her. Of course she’s hiding.”

“But like you said, wouldn’t she call you for help? Try to explain?”

“There’s only one reason why she hasn’t called—she can’t.”

No work would get done until they found Meizi. Part of Aimée dreaded knowing; the other wanted to resolve this for René. Stand by him when it hit the fan.

The opening strains of something by Mozart trilled from René’s pocket. Hope filled his face as he clicked open his cell phone.

“
Oui?
” He turned away. “Now?” He edged off his orthopedic
chair. Flipped his phone closed. “Prévost wants me to sign my statement.”

Aimée stood up and reached for her coat. “Let me drive.”

“No need.” René gave a grim smile. “New developments, he said.”

“You think he’d share them after he treated us like suspects?” Aimée asked. How many times had she heard the same tired technique? “It’s a ploy.”

“He needs to know about the Wus.”

“Taken care of, René,” she said. She explained what she’d gleaned from the hurried look at Prévost’s reports in Demontellan’s in-box; Prévost, as
chef de groupe
, had convinced le Proc that his investigative unit of the Police Judiciaire knew the quartier, had language skills and informers for a more efficient investigation than
la Crim
. “In other words, Prévost talked his way into control of the investigation.”

“So?” René bristled.

“Even the tofu seller lied to Prévost, from the report I saw.” Aimée shook her head. “Doesn’t bode well. By now, after years in the quartier, he should have established rapport—run small investigations, know the prostitutes, the gamblers, the bartenders. If any were arrested, he’d have made deals with the prosecutor and turned them into informants.”

“But Meizi’s in danger.” René buttoned his Burberry overcoat. “This is his job.”

His job to protect a suspect who fled?

“Don’t count on it, René.”

But a cold blast of air came from the hallway as René slammed the door behind him.

“One must have a clear mind to discover the true path,” Saj said, a dreamy look appearing in his eyes. Not this again. “Disturbed auras cloud this room. Divisive forces,” he said. “We’ll channel clarity, meditate on the white light.” Saj unrolled his meditation mat.

“Like I’ve got time for that now?”

“René’s pulled by forces of samsara.” Saj nodded to himself. “You need it, Aimée.”

It couldn’t hurt. Right now she’d try anything. She pulled off her boots and sat down cross-legged. “The abridged version, Saj.” More her style to discover facts, links, and let them percolate.

“Lift your diaphragm,” Saj said. “Take a deep, cleansing asana breath.”

She took a breath. Another. Centered on the air filling her lungs.

“Focus on your pulse, the in and out, the area above your middle chakra.”

She closed her eyes. Saj’s exhortations on breathing, along with the whine of a siren outside on the street, faded.

Another breath. A humming resounded in the recesses of her mind, growing louder, pervasive. Sewing machines. The terrified girl folding hoodies. Mademoiselle Samoukashian’s words came to her:
but there are always places to hide, to meld into the woodwork
 … Now it was the Chinese—blending in, working, hiding in plain sight. Just part of the daily bustle of the quartier.

By the time Saj sounded his gong, her mind had cleared. And she had a plan.

“
B
ONJOUR
.” A
IMÉE SMILED
at the stocky man puffing on a hookah in the reception cubicle in the hotel around the corner from the luggage store. “You’re Aram?”

He nodded and inhaled, the water bubbling. He exhaled a long plume of smoke, scrutinizing her with his close-set brown eyes through the haze. Fruit notes laced the thick tobacco aroma. Not unpleasant, but it would cling to her skin, her clothes.

Aram smiled back, his teeth gleaming. “May I help you, Mademoiselle?” About five-foot-eight. Brown, wavy hair; a sparse beard and thick jowls. Familiar, but from where?

“He’s expensive, your
dentiste
?”

“Not when his cousin eats my couscous every night on his security guard break.”

Her ears perked up. Nice gig. “And that’s where?”

Aram scratched his beard. “
Vous êtes du type curieux, non?
Lots of your kind sniffing around here.”

She threw up her hands. “Can’t hide anything from you, Aram.” She pushed her
détective privé
card across the gouged counter. “Like it says, I work privately.”

Aimée had a business to run, and a missing Chinese woman to find before her partner went off the deep end. Worse, she was now caught up in helping the little old woman, Pascal’s great-aunt, to find justice. Those eyes. She shouldn’t have looked at his eyes.

“I shouldn’t say this, client privilege, et cetera,” she said, “but I think you’ve noticed him, Monsieur Friant. He favors velvet-collared Burberry overcoats. About this tall.” She raised her arm to her waist.

“A lot of people walk by here,” he said, pushing the hookah to the back of the office. “And if I have?”

“Confidential, of course, but a matter of the heart.” She gave a little sigh. “His girlfriend worked in the nearby luggage shop. She’s disappeared.”

He’d understand that.

“But that didn’t come from me,” she said. “
Alors
, I’m knocking on doors here. No one talks to me. Word is you’re connected. I’m prepared to pay.”

Aram grinned a white smile. He’d taken the bait. She reached for her wallet.

“This? You think I believe your little card? Cheap trick.”

Her hand froze in her bag.

“See, I have nice cards, too, like three-star hotels.
Un mec
prints them for me around the corner.” He fluttered his ringed hand, a dismissive wave. “Good luck knocking on doors, Mademoiselle.”

But she remembered now where she’d seen him before—the stark hospital emergency room, her cousin Sebastien’s faint pulse when he almost OD’d, the small-time dealers who informed for immunity. Aram. Only his teeth hadn’t been so white then.

“Now I wouldn’t like to crimp your drug trade,” she said, pulling out her wallet, “by ruining your evening delivery schedule and alerting the
flics
. Or tell my RG contact how you finance your cheap couscous.” She stared hard into his face. “But I could.”

He returned her stare, his dark eyes never leaving hers. The wall clock above the counter ticked. The sizzle of something frying came from the back window, which overlooked a shoebox courtyard and kitchen.

“Big talk, Mademoiselle. You’ve got nothing.”

“Want to chance it?” She leaned forward.

“I run a hotel,” he said.

“Once a dealer, always a dealer. But I should thank you,” she said. “No hard feelings. Best thing that could have happened to my cousin Sebastien, your old client. You ended him up in rehab. Six years now and he’s straight, runs his own business. He’s getting married, too.” She shrugged. “
Zut
, Aram, your sideline doesn’t interest me. It’s better we help each other.”

“Go bother someone else, Mademoiselle.”

“My client doesn’t trust the
flics
,” she said. “I don’t blame him. But the
flics
won’t leave Chinatown alone after last night’s murder.” She watched his eyelids flicker. “You know how set in their ways they get. One-track focus. Don’t you want them out of your soup?”

“So you think I know who killed him?”

“Do you?”

He shook his head. “Might have, as I told the
flics
, if I’d been working that day. Instead I had front-row seats.” He pointed to the Palais des Sports boxing match poster on the wall: The Mad Moroccan vs. Steel Punk. “Bought my tickets six months ago.”

“And who won?” She would check.

“The Mad Moroccan delivered.”

“I need to find Meizi Wu,” Aimée said. “I think she knows what happened.”

“Who?” His gaze strayed to her wallet.

Don’t play with me, she wanted to say. She hoped she’d hooked him and just needed to reel him in.