Murder Below Montparnasse (18 page)

She passed a rain-beaded plaque that listed Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp as one-time residents on the painted geranium-fronted hotel. A former one star, the hotel had now jumped to three stars for the remodeled ambience.

She couldn’t ignore the present: two deaths, a missing Modigliani. Her mother, mysteriously returned after more than two decades? What did it all mean? But she knew in her bones finding the Modigliani would lead to her mother. She had to find it.

And to pick up her scooter. With no taxi in sight, she headed to the bus stop. She pulled on her cap and her oversize sunglasses, walking briskly past the dark cream stone enclosing the misted Montparnasse cemetery.

Five minutes later she emerged from rue Delambre by Café du Dome, where aproned men shucked oysters on ice and waiters added lemons to platters of
fruits des mer
. She crossed Boulevard du Montparnasse. Patrons grouped on rattan chairs under the red façade of Café de la Rotonde, the fat thirties-style neon letters of its marquee a beacon.

She thought of Piotr Volodya’s faded blue letter in her bag, the letter Yuri never received. Tried visualizing the ascetic Lenin huddled with Trotsky; Modigliani with a red scarf dancing on a table; his model, sloe-eyed Kiki, once dubbed “Queen of Montparnasse.”

But the black Mercedes pulling up in front of la Rotonde brought her back to the present as it ejected a shouting group of footballers onto the pavement. Though not a sports fan, she recognized the drunk soccer star swinging from the Mercedes door. His face was plastered on every sports page on the newsstand. This young man from Marseille was the star of Les Bleus, the national team, who were aiming for the World Cup, which would be held this summer at the new Stade de France.

Traffic snarled at a standstill. Her eye caught on the blonde miniskirted girlfriend and groupies behind the footballer. A dark-suited bodyguard herded them back toward the limo. One of the blondes threw her arms around the bodyguard, kissing him. Aimée’s heart jerked. She recognized this bodyguard who was now energetically returning the blonde’s long kiss.

Melac.

She stood frozen on the pavement, watching the door shut and the limo pull away down Boulevard du Montparnasse. A passerby snorted in disgust. “The team’s goalkeeper, partying … typical.”

Had her dark glasses deceived her? Melac, former
Brigade Criminelle
detective, the man she was supposedly in a relationship with, who’d taken a new assignment he couldn’t talk about? Gone incommunicado. The man who just last week had wanted to move in with her?

S
HE SAT IN
Leduc Detective alone, cocooned with memories, warming her feet at the sputtering radiator. Looking down on her from the nineteenth-century wood-paneled wall was an old photo she’d discovered of her
grand-père
and Papa as a young boy fishing on the misted quai, a haze of black and white. She was surrounded by ghosts.

She wondered how she could keep the agency afloat. If she even wanted to. First René gone on to greener pastures. Now Saj injured—if he could even return. She was reduced to counting on a teenage intern, who seemed capable of running her business well enough without her. How long could she even keep him?

And the deeper sting, this charade played by Melac. To think she’d fallen for it.

The chandelier’s light suffused her mahogany desk in a soft glow. She stared at her mocha-lacquered toenails on the radiator. Too long since they’d had a touch-up, too.

Melac kissing the blonde at la Rotonde replayed in her
mind. She turned over what she knew about his supposed promotion, which would ease his alimony payments—his hush-hush position linked to the ministry, or so he’d implied.

Lies. He worked both jobs, by day still a
flic
, moonlighting as a pimp handler for sports celebrities. It made her sick.

Nothing new. She’d witnessed men in the force with her father lose their families, gamble, remarry, and moonlight more to pay more alimony. A spiral of debt and divorce.

Useless to sit and dwell on Melac’s gray eyes, those warm arms around her, his lime scent that lingered on her sheets. The weekend in Strasbourg they’d planned. Never trust a
flic
, it never worked out.

She debated, then punched in his number, hating herself. Hated herself more when it went to voice mail. Forget leaving a message—better to tell him off in person. Or not. Expose herself to face-to-face humiliation? Forget it.

He’d found a long-legged football groupie. Every male’s dream. And she’d thought, what? That he was different?

She had to admit it, she’d scored another relationship train wreck. She should have listened to that little voice of doubt. So different from Guy, her eye surgeon ex, who’d wanted her to forgo detective work, go suburban and be a doctor’s wife in Neuilly. Giving luncheons. Not that she’d considered it. Or Yves—she’d thought he was “the one,” but his ashes lay in Père Lachaise. She still wore his Turkish puzzle ring on her finger. But here she’d fallen for a
flic
. Against her own rules. What did she expect?

She pushed the hurt aside, determined to get over him. Feeling sorry for herself would get her nowhere. As her
grand-mère
said,
spilt milk doesn’t fill the pitcher
.

She’d start on her list right now.

Damien Perret’s number was busy. She tried Oleg Volodya again. Only voice mail. People didn’t answer their phones. It made her crazy.

With a sigh she picked up the printouts Maxence had left
and started reading about Yuri Volodya. Engrossed, she didn’t notice the shadows lengthening in the window from rue du Louvre until the phone rang, startling her.

“Leduc Detective,” she said, reaching for a cigarette in her bag before remembering she’d quit. A glance at her watch told her in three more hours it would be two months.

“Aimée Leduc? It’s Damien Perret. I’ve been trying to reach you since you came to my.…”

“Printing works?”
And your worker Florent attacked me?
But she left that out. She popped a stick of cassis gum in her mouth. “Let’s meet at a café. Say fifteen minutes?”

A breath of expelled air came over the line. “I’ve been gone all day, we’re still running orders. I can’t leave.”

“Your deliveryman Florent around?”

“Florent? I fired him tonight. Why?”

Good.

“See you in twenty minutes,” she said and hung up before he could put her off.

At this time of night the Métro would be faster. She’d finish her reading later. She laced her red high-tops and headed for the door.

Until the bulge in her coat pocket reminded her to return her unlicensed Beretta to the desk drawer, and leave the old papers in the safe. She felt for her Swiss Army knife stowed in her bag’s makeup kit. Just in case. She double knotted a green leopard-print scarf around her neck and she was off.

A
IMÉE SNEEZED AT
the tang of hot oil and ink permeating the printing workshop. Two large presses pounded out colored sheets. With the loud chopping noises of industrial paper cutters, she couldn’t hear herself think.

“Damien around?” she shouted.

An older man in grease-stained overalls looked up and hit a lever. He gestured to another white-haired codger to take
over the press. She followed him past a stairway leading up to a storeroom, then through a dark wood hallway. He pointed to an open door with a sign:
CHEF DU BUREAU
.

Harsh white light illuminated a scuffed wood desk, file cabinets, and streaked glass windows that looked unchanged since the fifties. Banners and posters she recognized from this morning’s demonstration were piled in the corner. The only concessions to the nineties were the desktop computer, fax machine, and laser printer.

She knocked on the open door. Damien, whom she recognized from after the accident, looked up from his desktop. Bags under his eyes, swollen red lids. He’d aged overnight. She contained her shock at this twenty-something’s haggard appearance.

“So you’re the one Madame Figuer called about. The art
flic?
”

Madame Figuer couldn’t keep a secret. The busybody. On top of that, Aimée had an awkward feeling she’d intruded on his tears.

“Then you know about Yuri,” she said.

“I can’t … believe it.”

Aimée sat on a wooden plank chair and watched him blow his nose with a blue bandanna. He reached for a water bottle and poured two glasses full, his hands shaking. She noticed the La Coalition armband by his computer.

Shaken over Yuri’s murder?

“Been gone all day and we’ve got to fill this order tonight before I.…” He took a breath. “
Un moment
, I’m sorry,” he said, scanning an invoice on his laptop.

Shaken all right. She reached for the glass and drank.

Done, he shut down the desktop. “Can we make this short? I need to handle an order.”

Having come all this way, she wouldn’t let him off before he answered her questions. “This won’t take long, Damien. It’s
important we talk,” she said. “You know about what happened on Villa d’Alésia?”

He nodded.

“Did Yuri seem worried?”

Damien rubbed his cheek. “My aunt’s in the hospital, maybe I didn’t pay attention. I don’t know.” He was lean and muscular with wavy black hair that went down the nape of his neck. Handsome, wounded—her type. Well, maybe not bad boy enough.

Then she thought of Melac. Look what bad boy had gotten her.

She decided to test her hunch. “Did you not return my call because you’re scared of the Serb?”

“Serb?” Surprise filled his face. “
Zut!
Three hours ago I returned from my aunt’s hospital bed and found
flics
waiting to question me over Yuri’s murder.” His shaking hands spilled the glass of water. He wiped at the puddle with his bandanna. “Then they quizzed me over a painting.”

Aimée had no concrete reason to suspect him of anything, just his proximity to Yuri and the uneasiness in her gut. But he must know something, even if he wasn’t aware. She practiced her concerned look.

“Talk about a bad time,” she said. “I know it’s difficult for you now. But the police investigation is focused on a Serb, the man we ran over, in connection with the stolen painting.”

A lie, but they
should
be focusing on that.

“That Serb? The dead man in the street?” he said, trying to piece this together. “But how could he murder Yuri this morning? That makes no sense … unless you’re saying he was working with others?”

“I’m saying nothing,” she said. “Tell me about the portrait Yuri recovered from the rue Marie Rose cellar.”

Sadness filled his eyes. “Yuri told you, didn’t he?”

If he’d lived he would have. She nodded.

“Yuri’s the only one who believed in me,” he said, his voice choking. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

Alert to the different tone in his voice, she looked up. “What shouldn’t have happened?”

“If only I had.…” His voice trailed off.

Again that fear in his face. Then it was gone. Blaming himself?

“Done what, Damien?”

“Yuri called me this morning. Left a short message on my phone saying he didn’t need a ride to the art appraiser. But my aunt is dying, and I didn’t.…”

Aimée gripped her glass of water. “Did he say why he didn’t need a ride anymore?”

“He told me not to worry. That’s all.”

Odd. “But his painting was stolen last night.”

“That’s what he told me, too.” Damien shook his head. “So I just stayed at the hospital with my aunt all day. What an idiot I was. I should have gone to his studio.”

She understood his feelings of guilt. If only she’d arrived earlier herself. Those damn detours on the Left Bank. The protesters blocking rue d’Alésia.

Damien’s knuckles whitened on the edge of his desk. “The doctors gave my aunt days to live. That was a month ago.” A look of pain crossed his face. Genuine, as far as she could tell.

“
Desolée
, but if you could answer a few more questions?”

“My uncle left me this printing business tottering on its last legs.” Damien sighed. “Yuri mentored me. Now I’ve built up a clientele and have more orders than we can keep up with. I can keep the staff on. Support what I believe in.” She saw a hint of pride in the way he gestured to the posters.

Political, like Madame Figuer said. She needed to lead this back to Yuri. But a file with Florent’s ugly mug sat on his desk. She remembered Florent’s knee between her legs, his garlic breath on her neck, his strong arms.

“Your employee Florent.…”

“Him? Gone,” Damien said, his mouth pursed. “Turns out Florent was robbing the till. Yuri had suspected him all along. Turns out he was right.”

She sat up. Florent, the murderer. A straightforward revenge?

“So Florent held a grudge against Yuri?”

“Against me,
bien sûr
.” Damien expelled air.

“Why’s that? Aren’t you his boss? The one who gave him a job?”

“Called me a Commie. Jeered at our goals in La Coalition. Complained that I print the posters and banners for free to support the cause. But he liked Yuri.”

“Or until he found out Yuri suspected him,” Aimée said. “They argue, it turns nasty, and to stop him Florent—”

“I told the
flics
,” he interrupted. “Florent made deliveries in Levallois all morning.”

“You’re sure?”

Damien stood, a file tucked under his arm. “Believe me, the shop owner called complaining. The
flics
checked.” Damien’s fingers played with the file. “Florent’s father and grandfather worked here. No matter our differences, it made me sick to fire him.”

Aimée slammed down her empty water glass. “You’re naive. Florent attacked and almost raped me.”

“What?” Damien’s voice rose in shock.

“Open your eyes,” she said. “No one told you he was the type, eh?”

He shook his head. “Florent’s always caused trouble, but attacking you.…” He ran his ink-stained fingers through his hair. “I had no idea. That’s terrible.
Désolé
.”

She believed him.

“In 1900 this was a Russian press employing deaf mutes,” Damien said, his brow creased. “Yuri never let me forget. He insisted we had to continue, stay loyal to the quartier, the workshops. Hire locals. But now commerce has dwindled down
to us, Dupont the
chauffage
manufacturer across the street, and Yuri’s bookbindery.”