Murder in the Latin Quarter (6 page)

“Benoît sampled two different species of pigs,” he said. “As you can see, he discovered the same epidemiology.”

Huby ran his hands through his long brown hair.

“To you, that proves . . . ?”

“Not only to me, Mademoiselle, but to the scientific community. His slides show porcine liver tissue containing residues of heavy metals in quantities sufficient to damage the central nervous system.”

Her one year in med school hadn’t covered epidemiology.

Huby continued: “He used GFAA—graphite furnace atomic absorption—spectometry, the most sensitive spectroscopic technique for measuring concentrations of metals in aqueous and solid samples.”

Huby gestured to an off-white machine resembling a micro-wave, hooked up to a computer on the corner counter.

She didn’t know what any of that meant, except that it didn’t sound good. “Of course,” she nodded.

“But I knew you’d get a better sense of his findings from viewing the actual tissue samples.”

There must be some mistake, Aimée thought. Was the corpse she’d found last night the same man as this pig professor? Had the old security guard Darquin mistaken the name?

“For the journal, I need a different angle,” she said. “Describe the professor for me.”

“Eh?”

“His physical traits, how he worked, his schedule, his students.”

“See for yourself. Look at my copy.” Huby placed a thin journal titled
Ecole Normale Supérieure Laboratoire News
by the microscope.

She glanced at the cover. PROPERTY OF ASSISTANT PROFESSEUR HUBY was stamped on it.

Then his eyes narrowed. “But you know all this. I faxed you the article yesterday.”

She thought fast. “That is so, but I’m writing several different articles right now. Would you mind refreshing my memory?”

A photo on the cover showed several figures at a banquet table raising wine glasses. All men. All
white
men. Not the victim she’d discovered last night.

No wonder this didn’t make sense. The
flics
had identified the wrong man. Never mind the professor. How did this involve Mireille?

Any moment now, the real journalist would appear. She’d have to get out of here fast. But Huby had flipped the pages open and was pointing to another photo above an article.

“There’s Professeur Benoît in happier times. Such a loss. I’m determined to continue the professor’s work.”

To her dismay, Aimée recognized the man wearing a laboratory coat, squinting in the sun as he stood behind the skeletons of what appeared to be pigs. A large man, handsome and dark-complected. The man she’d found in the gatehouse with his ear severed.

“That’s why I consented to talk with you.” A sad expression appeared on his face. “It’s only right that the scientific community knows.”

She suppressed a shudder. “Any chance you could point me to his assistant? I believe her name’s Mireille?”

“But
I
assisted Professeur Benoît.”

“What about a half-Haitian woman? Didn’t she type up his notes and keep his records?”

“
Désolé.
If she did . . . there was a young woman. . . .” He stared at Aimée.

“My height?”

“Like you,” he said, his words slower, “but a mulatto.”

“Where?”

He shrugged.

“Did you see her yesterday?”

“
Entre nous.”
He leaned forward. “The professor let her stay in the gatehouse storage room. That’s all I know. After all his research, all his trials, now when he’s poised on the brink of announcing a discovery . . . it’s a terrible loss.”

“So
you
assisted Professeur Benoît,” she said, trying to put this together. “Were you his research partner?”

“His part-time assistant. And I felt privileged to help, let me tell you,” he said. “But we’ve spoken about this.”

She stiffened, remembering the administrator mentioning “cut-throat” competition and the words “publish or perish.” All of a sudden, the possibility of an academic murder loomed.

“Would this discovery put him in danger?”

Huby blinked. ”What? This is an academic treatise. What danger could publication here pose for the professor?”

Did Huby’s ambitions extend to claiming equal credit for Benoît’s findings, Aimée wondered.

“Granted, but Professeur Benoît was murdered.”

Huby’s jaw dropped. “Murdered? But I thought, an accident. . . .”

“No accident, Monsieur. Murder.” She watched him. “Didn’t you know? Didn’t the police interview you this morning?”

“They told us. . . .” Realization dawned in his eyes. “You’re not from the school. . . .”

“Where were you this morning, Assistant Professeur Huby?”

“This morning? Why, at the dentist. I’d lost a filling.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “But why all these questions? Who are you?”

“Aimée Leduc, private detective,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should have told you the truth. I’m looking for a woman called Mireille.”

“Assistant Professeur Huby?” A smiling, petite woman wearing red-framed glasses stood at the lab door. “Elise Cadet, from the science department. Sorry I’m late.” She strode into the lab and glanced around the room. “Fantastic lab facilities. Mind showing me around?”

Aimée realized she could learn no more now. She leaned close to Huby. “Can you meet me later?”

“I’ve got to give an interview to a real journalist.”

“Here’s my card.” She put it in his hand. “It’s vital. Please.”

The microscope with its tiny brightly lit slide sat on the counter. But what could she do with a slide? “I’ll take this journal with me, if you don’t mind?” she told Huby. And then she felt a whoosh of air as he strode away to meet the real journalist.

Leaving by the back door, she followed the crumbling outer steps into a small rear courtyard. In front of her stood a two-story atelier, its glass roof half-covered by fallen leaves. The atelier’s tall windows revealed a spine of bones hanging from the ceiling. An elephant or dinosaur? She didn’t know. But she did recognize the crossbeams framing the structure. Aza-cca Benoît had stood here with his pig skeletons in the journal photo.

So far, according to Darquin, a secretive Benoît had left Mireille an envelope. The timing was right for Mireille to have had the envelope with her when she appeared at Aimée’s office. Huby had revealed that Benoît had made a discovery regarding pigs, and also that he’d let Mireille stay, on the quiet, in the gatehouse where Aimée had found his body.

She had to learn more.

The atelier was cool. Lab coats hung on a rack next to a box of disposble white net mouth masks. She donned a mask and took a lab coat embroidered with the word TECHNICIAN. She expected more state-of-the-art equipment, but found another nineteenth-century gallery filled with skeletal specimens on tables. Boxes, boxes everywhere. Where to begin?

She heard grunting, the sounds of cardboard sliding, and saw a cardboard box moving across the floor.

“
Excusez-moi,
” she said. “Someone there?”

No answer.

She edged past the skull of a rhinoceros and saw a small blonde woman heaving a large box onto a table.

“Madame?”

Still no answer. Talk about unhelpful staff! And rude.

The woman looked up, her face flushed. “
Un moment.
” She took a flesh-colored plug attached to a wire from her lab coat pocket.

She removed her face mask and adjusted the plug in her right ear. “May I help you?”

Hard of hearing? Or totally deaf. Not from old age: the woman was fairly young and attractive.

“Professeur Benoît worked here,
non?
” Aimée said, pronouncing the words with care.

“I read lips, too. Face me and you can talk at normal speed.”

Abashed, Aimée paused. She pulled the mask away from her mouth. “I’m sorry, and I can see you’re busy, Madame.”

“Wait a minute, it’s a new hearing aid. I’ll adjust the volume.”

Aimée waited while she fiddled with a knob.

“Madame, I’m looking for Professeur Benoît’s work area.” She displayed the page of the journal with Benoît’s photo.

“I’ve never seen you before.” The woman cocked her head. “Where do you work?”

Aimée thought fast. “Physical sciences division at ENS. Dr. Rady, the department head, sent me over. It’s urgent.”

“Urgent? Why?”

“All I know is that instead of cancelling Professeur Benoît’s seminar, Dr. Rady contacted a substitute,” Aimée said. “But Dr. Rady needs the notes of the professor’s lab findings. I guess he figures this will help the person who’s taking over the seminar.”

“No one told me.”

She’d keep the story vague. There was no way she could come up with details if this woman persisted. She had to hurry before the woman got more suspicious and checked.

Aimée shrugged. “They just recruited me. It’s not my job, I assist in the lab.” She shook her head. “Kind of strange. And it’s so abrupt, but Dr. Rady stressed its urgency.” She paused looking at the woman, questioning her with her eyes. “Has something happened?”

“You don’t know?” The name tag on her lab coat read “DR. SEVERAT.”

“Dr. Severat, I’m just a gofer. If you could help me, I need to get the files to Dr. Rady as soon as possible.”

“But the professor’s dead.”

Aimée could have sworn the women’s eyes welled with tears. For a moment, she sensed her relationship with Benoît had been more personal than collegial.

“I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

“The police poked around and took his things.”

Merde .
. . the
flics
had beaten her to it.

Dr. Severat wiped the corner of her eye. “The professor assembled specimens here. Like that one.” She dusted her hands on her lab coat and pointed to a pig skeleton. “He examined bones, as well as tissue and organ specimens.”

“Did you work with him?”

“Me? I’m in paleontology research; ‘in the next barn,’ as we say.”

“But I can’t go back empty-handed,” Aimée pleaded. “I don’t know what to do.”

Dr. Severat looked at her watch. “
Zut!
The university van’s arriving any minute to pick this up. I wish I could help you, but I’ve got to move this box next door.” She expelled a breath of air.

“Two can do more than one,” Aimée said. “Let me help.”

“You’re sure?”

She’d get more information if she stuck with this woman. “Glad to.”

By the time they’d lugged the box across the gravel path, a sheen of perspiration dampened her brow. “This feels like it contains rocks.”

“Actually, it’s paleolithic-era volcanic stone embedded with shells and early marine fossils,” said Dr. Severat.

Aimée felt new respect for scientific staff who had to lug their own prehistoric samples.

“I know your work’s important,” Aimée said, wondering how to turn the conversation back to Benoît.

“All scientists regard their work as important, as vital to society.” A look of amusement flitted across her features. “Here we investigate fossils, bones, to find out what happened thousands, millions of years ago,” she said. “This helps us discover things like how continents were formed and why the Ice Age ended, and shows prehistoric links to contemporary species. But Professeur Benoît’s work was different. It was directly related to the present day. He lived for his work. It was all that mattered to him. It consumed him.” She gave a shrug. “But in the grand scheme of life, well, I don’t know.”

How did pigs matter, Aimée wanted to ask. How could research into pig anatomy “consume” a scientist?

“You know, he came from Haiti, a poor country,” Dr. Severat said.

The poorest, Aimée thought. And she remembered Edouard saying the same thing.

“He tried to make a difference.” Dr. Severat’s face clouded. “And now. . . .”

The waiting van backed up with a beeping sound.

Dr. Severat paused in the shade, took the clipboard from the truck driver, and signed.

“Dr. Severat, one more thing, if you don’t mind?” Aimée said.

Dr. Severat adjusted the small knob behind her ear. “Sorry. That’s better.”

”I have a name. Mireille. Does that sound familiar? His assistant, perhaps? Anything you know would help me.”

Dr. Severat gave a brittle laugh. “That one, an assistant?”

Aimée’s ears perked up. “I’m not sure, but. . . .”

“A hanger-on.”

Aimée detected jealousy in her voice.

“He felt responsible for people from his country; he was sorry for them. She had no papers and, like so many, she took advantage of him.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know exactly. Any way she could.”

“Since Dr. Rady wrote her name down, I should try and find her.” Aimée hoped that sounded plausible.

“Good luck. She disappeared after the fight.”

“Fight?” Aimée hoped the shock didn’t show in her voice.

“I’ve told you what I know.” Dr. Severat stuck her pen back in her lab coat pocket.

“I know it’s not your problem, but my job’s on the line. I’m only on probation. I mean, after. . . .” She searched for what to say, how to engage this woman woman’s sympathy and enlist her aid. “My boyfriend kicked me out. But I stopped drinking, got in a program. Started a new life. I need to prove to Dr. Rady that I can do the job. I’ll do menial things, any-thing he asks me.”

The chirp of birds came from the bushes.

“He sent me here for Dr. Benoît’s notes. Dr. Severat, I’m just running to try and stay in place.”

And those were the truest words she’d spoken so far.

No answer. She didn’t know what else to do.

“I’m sorry,” Aimée said. “You’re busy.”

Aimée turned to leave.

“That Mireille can’t help you,” Dr. Severat said. She stepped forward. “The
flics
questioned me. I’ll tell you what I told them.” Her eyes flashed now. “She’s a little schemer. They had a heated discussion. Right there.” She pointed back to the lab they’d come from. “But they spoke . . . some patois,
Kreyòl,
I think. I didn’t understand, I couldn’t read their lips. But they were arguing, I could tell that much from their body language.”

So Mireille had argued with the professor. And later, Aimée had discovered his body in the storeroom where, according to Huby, he’d let Mireille stay. It didn’t look good.