Murder in Belleville (5 page)

On her way to check the front door in the hallway, she smelled an odor. Had something died between her walls? Visions of decaying, rabid creatures in death throes wafted before her. She grabbed a broom and one of her boots as weapons, gingerly stepping down the hallway. The odor grew stronger.

The ripe, sweetish tang alarmed her. A bulky envelope had been wedged through the cat door she’d installed for Miles Davis. She hadn’t noticed the envelope when she entered.

She pulled on the first thing hanging from her coat rack, a blue faux-fur coat, then opened the door. Cold and musty drafts tunneled down the hallway. Her bare-legged reflection, in the worn mirrors opposite, stared back at her. Was she this rooster-haired, skinny creature armed with a broom and high-heeled boot?

Miles Davis’s low growl amped to a high-pitched bark. With the broom she prodded the envelope, feeling around. “Back off’ was smeared in brown letters—a deep dark brown. She looked closer. Dried blood.

She stepped back.

Her poking had dislodged the contents of the unsealed envelope. Something gray slid onto the black-and-white diamond tiles. Mottled and furry. The odor, strong and rank, filled her hallway.

At first she thought a stuffed animal had emerged, but it was the biggest gray rat she’d ever seen. At least it would have been if the head had been attached to a body.

She turned cold inside. The head was as big as a kitten. She hated rodents, fat or skinny.

She scanned shadowy corners but saw only the dusty niched statues that spiraled the wall of her staircase.

No one.

She had to get rid of it. The putrid stench filled the landing. She pulled a pink TATI plastic shopping bag from her coat rack and shoved the dripping head into it with a broom. Using the broom handle, she carried the bag at arm’s length down her marble stairs.

She watched for an attacker but figured they’d gone—the “message” had been their goal. Miles Davis barked, keeping up the rear under the dim hall sconces. By the time she dropped the bag in the trash, a slow anger burned over her fear. Her thoughts skipped back over the events since Anais’s call. Did this have a link to Sylvie or Anais?

Her evenings hadn’t been this eventful in a while, she thought. A dead woman and a dead rat all in one night.

B
ACK IN
her apartment the musty smell lingered. Outside her bedroom, at the far end of her hallway, stood a small yellowed statue. Beside it lay a pile of what looked like tea-stained bandages. She froze. Voodoo … evil spirits.

The rustle behind her caused her to turn and swing.

Yves jumped aside, wearing her father’s old bathrobe and a smile. She almost beheaded the marble Napoleonic bust in the hall beside him. He leaned against the door frame, his tan body and damp hair silhouetted in the bathroom light.

“So that’s how you greet someone, after a long flight, who’s brought you priceless Egyptian artifacts?”

She took a deep breath.

“Just unannounced ones,” she said, setting the broom against the wainscoting. “Did I give you a key?”

“Your partner Rene had an extra one,” he said. “Maybe you should check your messages,” he said, coming closer. His dark sideburns snaked to his chin.

“I’ve been a little busy,” she said, realizing she was still barefoot and in a faux-fur coat.

“Something’s spoiled,” his nose crinkled.

“Rat tartare,” she said. “Someone’s trying to scare me.”

“Scare you?” he asked. “Aimee, what’s the matter?”

She almost told him right then about the explosion and the rat. But she hesitated. He was dangerous to her psyche. A soul shaker and troublemaker.

Yves searched her eyes, sniffed her breath. “Busy enough to have a drink around the corner?”

She shrugged.

“Why haven’t you come to Cairo?”

“Ecoute,
Yves,” she said, pulling her coat tighter. “Parts of Paris are Third World enough for me.”

But that wasn’t totally true. It had to do with commitment. Her inability to commit made it difficult to visit another continent.

“Et, voila.”
He pursed his mouth. “I’m just another notch on your lipstick case.”

“If I remember correctly, you moved, Yves. Not me,” she said. “Then you pop into my life and disturb my concentration.”

“Maybe I need to disturb it more.”

“I haven’t heard from you for ages,” she said, rubbing her legs in the frigid hallway. “Suddenly you appear. I don’t owe you an explanation.”

Yves turned away. There was a lot more she could say, but she didn’t feel like addressing his back.

“Like you, I’ve been busy,” he said, turning around and edging closer. The fresh scent of her newly laundered towels clung to him. “Civil wars and guerrilla encampments in remote outbacks don’t leave me a lot of time for chitchat.”

“Chitchat?”

She’d dealt with a dead rat and found a live one in her apartment.

“I’ve got no excuse,” he said. “Forgive me?”

“That’s all you can say?”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“How sorry?”

She couldn’t believe she’d said that.

“Let me show you,” he said, with a small smile. “After all, I have a lot to make up for.”

She ran her fingers through her hair. They came back sticky.

“I need a bath. Want to scrub the motor oil off my back?”

“Good place to start.” He took her in his arms, noticing the bloodstains and scrapes on her legs. “I suppose you’re going to tell me about it.”

“Later,” she said with a half smile. “We better catch up first.”

B
ERNARD STOOD IN FRONT
of Notre-Dame de la Croix Church. Chanting protesters in bright-patterned Mali cloth tried to block his way. The men, North African Tuaregs called “blue men,” for their traditional indigo blue veils and turbans, marched with women in black chadors and stout nuns in habits.

Arms crossed, Bernard waited as the negotiator checked off concessions for the sanctuary seekers. Last night a group holding a candlelit vigil had refused him entrance. He’d been relieved when the minister told him to postpone meeting the leader. But when the car picked him up this morning, he’d felt the same dread. Only worse.

On the way he’d heard the radio alerting the city to repercussions from the ministry’s decision finally to enforce last year’s anti-immigration laws. Had France’s recent triple-digit unemployment tipped the scales?

Tension rippled, too, across the Mediterranean, from Algeria, where an undeclared civil war still simmered after the military’s cancellation of the 1992 elections. The military’s hold over the strong fundamentalist factions was tenuous at best.

Bernard wondered again why he, and not his boss, stood in the drizzle to negotiate. Bernard’s sleep, his first in days, fitful and broken, hadn’t been restful at all. His left eye had begun to twitch, a sign of extreme fatigue.

“We know Mustafa Hamid, the Alliance Federation Liberation leader, bowed to internal pressure in taking over the church,” said the sharp-nosed negotiator, studying Bernard. “He organized the
sans’papiers,
but he’s a pacifist leader from way back.”

Notre-Dame de la Croix stood before them, an anomaly of vaulted stone and lead-paned windows in the heavily Muslim immigrant
quartier.
Around them the air was redolent with spices and Arab music.

“Future residence priority—there’s your give point,” the negotiator continued. “If you get that far.”

Now Bernard understood: Dangle the carrot of future residency before the immigrants. This disgusted him. Once the zealots agreed to leave the country, he knew they’d never be allowed back in. These people might be stubborn, but not stupid.

“Where’s
k Ministre
Guittard?” Bernard asked.

“Staying informed,” the negotiator said. In the glare of the police-car lights his crew cut glistened with tiny rain droplets.
“Monsieur le Ministre
awaits the negotiations breakthrough.”

It made sense. Guittard would watch the outcome, then either step in to claim credit or remain on the sidelines if a bloody confrontation occurred. Having been a midlevel
fonctionnaire
for years, Bernard understood how the ministry worked.

“Le
Ministre
Guittard hopes for your successful negotiations,” the man said, as if an afterthought. “The Naturalization Committee needs leadership.”

Here were the wily workings of a modern-day minister, Bernard thought. Delegate the dirty jobs and offer higher rank if the job proved well done. If the dirty job backfired, so did the
fonctionnaire.
Last year one of his ministry counterparts had been banished to the Ivory Coast in a similar fracas.

Bernard’s mother’s words played in his head as he entered the church. “These … Africains, these Arabes … they are just people,
non?….
Like us, Bernard.”

A
IMEE BANGED ON THE
cell bars, demanding to speak with the commissaire. The blue-uniformed
flic
lowered the radio volume on his desk, smoothed the red hair under his
kepi,
then took his time walking to her cell.

“Cool your heels,” the
flic
said. “Everyone’s busy right now.”

“Monsieur, please let me talk with the commissaire.”

“He’s dealing with the immigrants taking sanctuary in the church,” the
flic
said. “Too busy to take much interest in you right now.”

“A bizarre mistake has been made,” she interrupted.

“You’re a troublemaker,” the
flic
said, pushing the brim of his
kepi
back. His eyes were bloodshot. “We like things calm in here. Peaceful. And if you don’t shut up, there’s a a cell where types like you can meditate and reflect. It’s our
premiere
accommodation with no telephone privileges.” He grinned. “Come to think of it, no privileges at all.”

“My father was a
flic,”
she said. “Those ‘meditation’ cells disappeared after the big reform.”

“Care to find out?” he said.

She’d like to report this tyrant. Flics like him gave the force a bad name; ones who enjoyed having suspects in pretrial detention and making them sweat before being charged. Procedure-wise, she knew that she could be held up to seventy-two hours, like suspected druggies or terrorists, with only the prosecuter’s signature. He seemed the type who’d take advantage of the penal code.

Worried, she drummed her fingers on the bars. Why hadn’t Morbier come?

“My godfather’s a commissaire in the Fourth,” she said. “He’s en route.”

The
flic
stared at her, his eyes like hard green stones. “If you’re asking for special treatment, I told you, the ‘meditation’ cell can be arranged.”

She shut her mouth.

The
flic
grinned, “If you change your mind, let me know. We like to accommodate all our clients.” He strutted back to his radio. Only two cells in this criminal-holding commissariat, but he acted as if he presided over a private prison.

Aimee tried to piece it all together: the explosion, Anais’s story, the moped escape, and the rat. She sat down on the wooden cot hanging from the brick wall by metal chains. A coarse institutional brown blanket was folded in a neat square in the middle. Not even a
pissoir,
Aimee thought. Sticky, smudged steel bars three centimeters apart were bolted into the stained concrete floor that angled into a drain. Her feet were wet, and her stomach growled. Her teenage cellmate wasn’t much of a conversationalist; she crouched in the corner, in black overalls and with needle tracks visible on her bony ankles, drooling and nodding off.

How had she ended up in a vomit-laced cell with a junkie who couldn’t be more than sixteen?

“Couldn’t you at least have waited until I finished my poker game?” Morbier grumbled, grinding out his Gauloise with his foot. “I’m on medical leave.”

He nodded his salt-and-pepper-haired head to the
flic,
who got out his keys. The
flic
examined Morbier’s ID, then unlocked Aimee’s shared cell.

“What’s the uproar about?” Morbier demanded.

The
flic
handed Morbier a clipboard, and he scanned it.

“Et
alors?”
Morbier asked. “Suspected robbery, telesurveillance photos, obstruction of RATP personnel, neighbors’grievance. You can’t hold her with this.”

“The commissaire issued holding instructions,” the
flic
said, standing his ground.

Morbier passed the clipboard to Aimee. She read it quickly.

“Circumstantial evidence! My business card and smudged fingerprints won’t cut it with the
police judiciare,”
Aimee said, handing back the clipboard. “And you know it.”

The
flic
squared his shoulders, his gaze rigid.

“My commissaire’s instructions were specific,” he said.

“The report indicates two women and a man,” Aimee said. “Where are they? Not only that, Sergeant Martaud failed to note I’m a licensed detective.”

“Your commissaire might have misunderstood the report,” Morbier said, riffling through an empty pack of Gauloises. He shrugged. “Happens all the time with field reports—clarity issues.”

The
flic’s
gaze wavered. Morbier was giving him a way out.

“Let me talk with him,” Morbier grinned. “We handled a case last year, very confusing. I’m sure he’ll remember my cooperation in the Marais.”

There it was—the old network—scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. Now the
flic
had to give in or saddle his commissaire with a bad name.

“Confusing, that’s the word I was searching for,” he said. “A confusing report.”

“Put her on my tab,” Morbier said. “And lose the paperwork. Next time your commissaire’s on my manor, I’ll reciprocate.
Comprendsl”

“Oui, Monsieur le Commissaire!”
The
flic
nodded and kept his eyes averted from Aimee’s.

Aimee picked up her personal effects: her Hermes bag, a flea-market find, leather coat, and damp ankle boots.

The other small holding cell around the next corridor was full of working girls from a roundup.

“Your souteneur?” one of the girls said, adjusting her black garter belt and bustier for all to see. “Let me introduce you to mine. He’s younger, much better looking. Yours seems kind of long in the tooth, eh?”

“Merci,”
Aimee grinned. “Maybe next time.”

She stopped to lace her boots and Morbier went ahead.

Morbier’s flesh-colored body brace was visible under the raincoat draped over his shoulders.

“How’s the
bebe?
he said to a honey-skinned prostitute in the opposite cell combing out her blond wig.

“Merci
bien, Commissaire,”
she smiled. “He’s making his first communion soon! I’ll send you an invitation.”

“Norn de Dieu
—how time flies,” Morbier said wistfully as he walked stiffly to the foyer.

“Haven’t seen you since Mouna,” the discharge
flic
said to Morbier.

Aimee didn’t hear his reply.

“Who’s Mouna?” she asked, standing near the discharge desk.

Morbier didn’t answer.

Aimee stared at him, “What’s the matter?”

“Mouna helped me out,” he said, wincing and looked away. “You can handle yourself from here. I’m late for physical therapy.”

By the look she’d caught, she realized he’d known her quite well. “You’re still friends with Mouna?” she asked.

“Mouna’s gone.” His face reddened.

Surprised, Aimee paused. She’d never seen Morbier react this way before.

“What happened, Morbier?”

“She happened into crossfire during the 1992 riots.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, watching his expression.

“Mouna wasn’t the only one,” he said. “Events got messy.”

For Morbier to even mention it, things must have been bad.

She and Morbier stood filling the scuffed wood-paneled entrance of the
Commissariat de Quartier
on narrow rue Rampo-neau.

Aimee hesitated, unsure how to respond to this new facet of Morbier.

“You’ve never talked about her,” Aimee said, her voice tentative.

“That’s not the only thing I keep to myself,” he said, irritation in his voice. “Don’t let me catch you behind bars again. What would—” he stopped the words catching in his throat.

“Papa say?” she finished for him. “He’d say getting me from behind bars is my godfather’s duty.”

“Leduc, stay out of Belleville. The Twentieth Arrondissement isn’t your turf,” he said. “And since when have you taken to riding a moped through the Metto, using it to rob people at the ATM, and ditching it around the corner?”

She kicked a loose cobble on the curb. It wasn’t her fault the homeless guy used the bike to steal.

“Morbier, the Metro was unavoidable but I never robbed—”

“Stop. I don’t want to hear this,” Morbier said, covering his ears. “Heavy hitters play dirty here. They have their own rules.”

“This concerns a minister’s wife.”

“Tiens!”
Morbier said, rolling his eyes. “With you, everything has to do with politics. Let the big boys handle it, Leduc,” he said. “Stick to your computer. Go home.”

“It’s not that easy,” she said.

“Consider this what I owe you,” he said. “Since I didn’t make it when you played footsies on that Marais rooftop.” He referred to her case last November, when an old Jewish woman was murdered in the Marais. Morbier glanced at his watch, an old Heublin from the Police Nationale graduation. Her father had kept his in the drawer. “We’re even.”

“Morbier, let me explain—”

“Leduc, you’re a big girl,” he interrupted, “I want a full pension when I retire.
Comprends?”

Arguing with him would get her nowhere.

“Merci, Morbier,” she said, pecking him on both cheeks.

She joined the crowd on boulevard de Belleville. At the Metro entrance, the cold spring rain pelted her black velvet pants and beaded her eyelashes. She debated, standing in the drizzle, while commuters veered around her, a wet island in a sea of umbrellas.

The smart course of action would be to leave Belleville, escort Anais to a lawyer, and follow up on the Electricite de France job proposal. And she was smart. She had a business to run and a brilliant partner who more than helped shoulder responsibilties.

Yet every time she closed her eyes she saw the burning ball of white-yellow heat, felt the clumps of flesh raining down on her, heard blood sizzling on a car door. Her hands trembled, though not as badly as last night. And she couldn’t get Simone’s voice or Anais’s white-faced horror out of her head.

A
IMEE STEPPED
into a phone cubicle on avenue du Pere Lachaise to save her cell phone battery. On her left a florist’s sign above baskets of violets promised tasteful funeral arrangements.

“Residence de Froissart,” a woman’s voice answered.

“Madame, please,” Aimee said. “Is this Vivienne?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Aimee Leduc,” she said. “I helped Madame last night.”

A pause. Pots clanged in the background. The voice sounded different, unlike Vivienne.

“How’s Madame feeling?”

“Madame’s unavailable,” she said.

She could understand Anais not feeling well, but she wouldn’t give up that easily.

“Unavailable?”

“I can take a message.”

“Did the doctor visit?”

“You’d have to speak with
k Ministre
about that,” she said.

Most likely Anais had slept and recuperated. But the guarded tone bothered her. She heard a loud buzzing.

“May I speak with
Monsieur le Ministre?”

“Not here,” the woman said.
“Pardonnez-moi
—someone’s at the door.”

Before Aimee could ask her to have Anais call her, the woman hung up. She stared out into gray rue Pere Lachaise where rain pattered over shop awnings. She noticed a cat peering from a window. The cat looked dry and well fed. She tried calling again but the line was busy.

Frustrated, Aimee punched in Martine’s number at Le Figaro.

“Mais Martine’s at a board meeting,” said Roxanne, Martine’s assistant.

“Please, it’s important,” Aimee said, “1 must talk with her.”

“Martine left you a message,” Roxanne said.

“What’s that?”

“I wrote it down,” Roxanne said, her tone apologetic. “I’m sorry to be cryptic, but Martine made me repeat this: ‘Start where Anais told you; there’s a lot more in the
pot-au-feu
besides vegetables.’ She said you’d understand.”

Understand?

Aimee thanked Roxanne and hung up.

She didn’t like this. Any of this. She felt torn after vowing to stick to corporate work and build her computer security firm.

The plastic surgeon who’d pieced her together after the Marais case told her to be careful—next time might not find her so lucky. Her stitches had healed nicely. He’d done a good job, she had to admit; no one could tell. He’d offered to enhance her lips gratis. “Like the German models,” he’d said. But she was born with thin lips, and figured she’d exit with them.

Someone once told her the Buddhists believe if you helped someone you were responsible for them. But she wasn’t a Buddhist. She just hated the fact that someone could blow a woman up and get away with it, and put a little girl’s mother in peril. And for what or why she didn’t know.

At the shop next to the florist, she bought an umbrella and then entered a nearby cafe. She used the rest room, washing her face and hands, to try to get rid of the jail cell odor—a mix of sweat, fear, and mildew. Refreshed after a steaming bowl of
cafe au hit,
Aimee boarded the bus for the apartment on rue Jean Moinon.

The cold wind slicing across lower Belleville didn’t feel welcoming. Nor did the gray mesh of sky.

Through the bus window Aimee saw the store with a hand of Fat’ma talisman in the window. She stood, gripped by the image of the small metal hand with turquoise stones and Arabic sayings to ward off evil words.

Just like Sylvie’s—the one Anais gave her.

Hopeful, Aimee got off the bus and went into the store. Maybe she would find an answer about Sylvie’s Fat’ma.

The crammed store was lit by flickering fluorescent light strips.

Her heart sank.

Hundreds of Fat’mas lined the back wall. They hung like icons, mocking her.

The owner sat on the floor. He ate his lunch off a couscous platter shared with several other men, who appeared disturbed at her entrance.

Aimee pulled the hand of Fat’ma from her bag.

The owner stood up, wiped his hands on a wet towel, and slid behind the counter.

“Sorry to interrupt you, Monsieur,” Aimee said. “Do you recognize this Fat’ma?”

He shrugged.

“Looks like the ones I carry,” he said.

“Perhaps this one is distinctive. Could you look?”

He turned it over in his palm, then gestured toward the wall.