Murder in the Palais Royal (13 page)

“You think someone killed Nicolas?”

“It’s possible.”

Clémence averted her eyes. “Like I said, he talked big. He thought you could speed up his parole. Why would they kill him?”

Aimée had no answer.

“I don’t need your help,” Clémence said.

Odd. Aimée had thought she would welcome it.

“Stupid to think you could’ve helped him. Anyway, he’s gone. He was a
dépressif
, I told you.” Clémence sighed. “So he killed himself, who knows why. I’m quitting my job and going home.”

“But what if Nicolas was murdered?” Aimée asked. “You may be needed in the investigation.”

“I won’t raise my baby here.” She pulled her sweater around her. “Four long years, and I still have to struggle to make the rent.”

“Let me help, Clémence.” She needed Clémence to claim the notebook.

Clémence slapped a franc down next to the Badoit bottle. “And ruin your record? Forget it.”

“How can I know what Nicolas meant unless I see this notebook?”

Fear flickered in Clémence’s eyes. And then it was gone. “Nicolas liked to talk, and prison walls have ears. If I were you, I’d watch my back.”

The café door slammed behind her.

Aimée threw a few francs on the table, grabbed her bag, and stood, but an old woman with a cane blocked her way. By the time she reached the bus stop, the Number 85 bus had left. There was no sign of Clémence; she must have gotten on it.

Aimée didn’t even know Clémence’s last name or phone number. She ran to the taxi stand. A long line waited. Frantic, she ran a block and raced down the Métro steps.

* * *

“
I
’M SORRY,
M
ADEMOISELLE.” The gate guard at La Santé shook his head. “I haven’t seen the woman you describe.”

“But she came to pick up Nicolas Evry’s belongings.”

“His ex, you said? Then she’s the only one who’s certified to enter.”

She handed him her card. “If you see her, would you give this to her, please?”

“We’re not a message service, Mademoiselle.”

“I realize that, Monsieur. But she was so distraught over Nicolas’s death. I should have accompanied her. Now I feel terrible.”

“Nothing you could do, anyway,” the guard said. “Only family and relations are allowed.”

“But as a small favor, can you give her my cell phone number, ask her to ring me? I want to help.”

“In these difficult times, we do try to help the family,” he said. “I’ll do my best.”

She figured he’d throw her card in the trash as soon as she rounded the corner.

Now it was out of her hands, she thought; not that it had ever been in them.

* * *

S
HE TOOK THE Métro back to Louvre-Rivoli, back to where she’d come from.

Her feet carried her down rue du Louvre in the dusk, threading a path among the hurrying pedestrians. Past the boutiques and travel agencies whose once-wooden storefronts were now gentrified, whose courtyards contained remnants of the thirteenth-century wall enclosing the Louvre. Even the vestige of a tower, a semicircular trace left, fossil-like, indented in stone.

She tried to clear her mind. In the crisp air brown leaves rustled, a siren wailed in the distance—the usual street symphony— accompanied by the smoky smell of roasting chestnuts. She bought a few francs’ worth from the street vendor. The hot chestnuts in the paper cone warmed her hands. She split the chestnut shells, crunched the sweet nuts, and thought.

Surely Clémence would contact her again. She hadn’t heard the last from her. Clémence wasn’t telling her something.

Right now, Saj was meeting with his bank contact. There was nothing more she could do there.

Mathieu still hadn’t returned her phone calls. And unless he changed his statement, she had no alibi.

The fleeting thought that Mathieu had been in league with the shooter surfaced.

Had Nicolas’s paranoia rubbed off on her? She crumpled the empty paper cone, thrust it into her pocket, and hurried up the street.

There was only one way to find out.

* * *

A
IMÉE CHECKED MATHIEU’S business card for his address when she reached Place des Victoires. It was a glorified roundabout, she thought, with its starlike profusion of six radiating streets. Designed by Mansard, the seventeenth-century pale honey-colored stone façades were supported by high pillars capped by sloping slate mansard roofs. The circular Place lay deserted, apart from the equestrian statue of Louis XIV. His original statue was torn down in the Revolution. The saying went around that
Henri IV gave his people the Pont Neuf, Louis XIII gave his nobles the Place des Vosges, and Louis XIV gave his tax collectors the Place des Victoires.

The Place des Victoires was
the
address for fashion houses and designer-label shops. And the best shoe shop, Aimée had found, for discards from the runway fashion shows. But she wasn’t here to shop.

She entered a corner building and climbed a flight to the couture house of Soutien, where Mathieu worked. Occupying the whole floor, the decor harkened to Louis XIV with huge crystal chandeliers floating in the entrance and low bergère chairs covered in a pastel brocade in the waiting room. Already, Aimée wished she’d worn a better jacket.

The designer, she read on the framed two-page
Vogue
article above the reception desk, was the son of a shoemaker, had graduated from the École des Beaux-Arts and introduced his own collection in 1987, proclaiming that his inspiration came from the wind blowing through the hair of a woman on a motorcycle, the smell of a ripe pear, and the old dancehalls where dancers only wore feathers and heels.

As pretentious as Mathieu, who was employed in their media department. Clumps of blue hydrangea, dozens of them, stood in clear glass vases everywhere in the white-carpeted salon. The vegetal scent mingled with the sweat of stylists hovering under heat lamps, draping models in scraps of lime-colored fur. A low techno beat thudded from large speakers. She picked Mathieu out of the huddle of mediatheques and business types bent over an oval wood-inlaid table.

“No press yet,” said a breathless, flush-cheeked woman with black bobbed hair. “For pre-show invites, give us an hour.” The woman waved Aimée to one of the chairs. She held multicolored wool samples in her hand and wore a three-quarter-length frock coat cut from an eighteenth-century floral tapestry. Trim, tapered, and unique. Aimée figured that with several more zeros in her bank account, she could have one too.

“Just give me your press card,” the woman said, in her breathless way. “I’ll put your name on the
défilé
list tomorrow. Save you time and spare you the rush.”

Fashion Week, of course. She’d forgotten.

“I’m here to see Mathieu Albret,” she said.

The woman’s gaze traveled to Aimée’s boots, the cut of her little black Chanel under her denim jacket, the cashmere scarf. All courtesy of the flea market.

Did she pass inspection? Aimée wondered.

“Retro and classic, you put yourself together well,” the woman said, her voice soft like the purr of a cat. “But he’s busy.”

Like a cat with claws outstretched.

“Sabine! We need the Milan color swatches.”

Mathieu stood with his back to her, riffling through fabrics on the glass table.

“Sabine, don’t tell me you didn’t find the swatches!” Mathieu looked up and his gaze locked with Aimée’s. His eyes widened in fear.

“
Voilà,
you wanted to talk with my husband?” the woman asked.

Mathieu’s mouth pursed, and he walked over and put his arm around Sabine’s shoulder, pulling her close.

Given the body language, she’d forgo confronting them united as a couple. Sabine would lie. She would have to get Mathieu alone.

“You know her, Mathieu?” Sabine moved a fraction of an inch away from his embrace.

“Of course,” he said, a weak smile at the corners of his mouth.

Sabine’s eyes narrowed into slits. Aimée doubted she’d been the first woman to appear here with a story.

“But I thought you’d come earlier, Mademoiselle,” he said, recovering. “With the collection tomorrow, I’m swamped, but I still need the textile list. You have it,
non
?”

She could lie too.

“Bien sûr
,” Aimée said. “I’ve got the list and corrections. Over there?”

She pointed to the door.

“
Bon. Chérie
, bring the swatches to the team, please.” He kissed Sabine.

Aimée wanted to sink into the carpet.

“Join you in a moment,” Mathieu said.

Sabine rolled her eyes and walked away.

He grabbed Aimée’s elbow and steered her toward the bergères.

“Never come to my work,” he hissed.

“I’m not interested in your marital situation, Mathieu,” she said. “Rescind your statement to the police. Tell them the truth.”

“Forget it. I love my wife.”

His hostile look flickered with something else—guilt or shame.

“Admirable,” she said. “Hard to tell from the way you act, but that’s your problem. Mine is that I’m under investigation. I’m a suspect, and you could clear me.”

His voice changed. “Can’t you see this is the worst time? The collection previews tomorrow, a year’s work.”

“Funny, you had time to come to my place.”

He shrugged. “I’m attracted to you.”

“And that explains it? Call the Brigade Criminelle. Here’s the number.”

She passed over Melac’s card.

The techno beat volume increased. Reverberations pounded in her stomach. Aimée could have sworn the hydrangea vibrated in their vases.

“I can’t. We’re in couples’ counseling. I won’t ruin my marriage or hurt my child.”

“Shouldn’t you have thought about that before?” She shook her head. “It’s not my problem. But the
flics
don’t care about that. None of it pertains to your wife or your marriage. Your wife doesn’t even have to know.”

“Sabine . . . well, she’s sensitive. . . .”

Sensitive like an attack dog.

“You’ve done this before, it’s obvious. She’s wise to you, Mathieu.”

“That’s why I can’t endanger our relationship further. I want to save our marriage.” He folded his arms across his chest. “You know the way out.”

She planted her feet.

“Cut the clichés, Mathieu. Want me to tell Sabine about the birthmark on your hip?”

Taken aback, he shook his head. Then shrugged. “I love women. It complicates my life.”

“The video surveillance camera at my apartment building doesn’t lie.”

“What?” His eyes batted in fear.

“You’re caught on tape visiting my building.”

Too bad the video camera, just installed, hadn’t been hooked up yet. But he didn’t have to know that.

“So, shall I show the tape to Sabine?”

“How can you threaten me? After how I made you feel, don’t you care?”

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” she said. “I give you credit. I haven’t fallen for a married man in years; I thought I could tell.”

“The collection sales depend on this show. It will make or break our fashion house. I can’t leave.”

“Up to you, Mathieu.”

He stepped back in alarm. Then something in his face changed. “But you have the tape; you don’t need me to talk to this
flic
.”

He was calling her bluff. Shafting her again. She had to get him to cooperate. What more could she do?

“Let me put it this way. I can’t change your statement. But you can,” she said. “And I’m sure you will. The
flics
will check whether your wife was in Milan Monday night. Once you lie, it spins out of control.”

Mathieu backed away. “Leave us alone.”

Now a man in a velvet-collared smoking jacket and slim black trousers beckoned to him. And he left.

Mathieu loved his wife, no doubt the classic case of a husband fooling around on the side to obtain the spice and excitement he felt entitled to. Typically Gallic.

A good lover. But like everything else, too good to be true. Time she forgot bad boys; they never worked out.

Inside the shop on Place des Victoires, the shoes were displayed on low tables and in display cabinets along the back wall. Like a museum. These were shoes that had been worn once, on the runway. A pair of bronze leather strappy sandals with their glossy nail-varnish-red soles beckoned, a trademark of Louboutin. And half-price.

Even with all those fantasy new zeroes in the office’s account, she couldn’t afford these. Her spirits dampened, she tightened her grip on her bag.

Her phone beeped in her jacket pocket. A strange number was displayed on it.

René? Her hopes were high.

“Allô?
”

“Look, lady!” A male voice with a strong New York accent came through the buzz of static. “What’s with the no-show?”

Jack Waller, the retired NYPD detective turned missing-persons hunter. She’d arranged to meet him at JFK.

“
Désolée
.” How did you say that in English? “I mean so sorry, Monsieur,” she said. “But I tried to reach you. Your voicemail’s full.”

“I waited for the next flight as well,” he said angrily. “Then another, when I heard some Air France flights were delayed. Do you operate under different standards over there?”

“There was an emergency with my partner.
Alors,
please understand. I still need your help to find my brother.”

“Lady, I’m busy. I wedged you in as a favor,” said Jack Waller. “You’re getting a bill for my time.” His voice sputtered. “Plus the time I spent in traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge, and then circling at JFK.”

“Bien sûr,
I mean, of course. My plans changed and I called but you didn’t pick up, your voicemail was full.”

“Try another one, lady.”

“Monsieur, please investigate as planned. Check out that address for me.”