Murder in the Palais Royal (27 page)

“What do you mean?”

“What if she buried her past and doesn’t want to be found, Leduc?”

But I’m her daughter, Aimée wanted to shout. And she was again eight years old on that rainy March afternoon after school in an empty apartment.

The voice she repressed that never went away murmured doubts. Had her mother left to protect her? The phrase from her little brother’s letter—“I think people follow us”—came to her mind. Years later had her mother been with another child on the run? The horrible thought that her mother might not have succeeded in hiding her little brother came to her. Lies or the truth? Her thoughts swirled. She didn’t know what to believe. Already Waller, whom Morbier trusted, turned out not to be who he purported to be.

In the course of a few days René had been shot; Nicolas had died before his parole, a suicide or a murder victim; Clémence had been strangled; and Tracfin had been set on her tail. It all linked somehow. Only she didn’t know how.

“Remember, after the Berlin Wall collapsed and the Stasi files were opened? The radicals, the terrorists with new identities, who’d made new lives, had jobs, families. All shot to hell. Think about that.”

What made him mention that? “You referred me to Waller. Now are you saying to leave it alone?”

Morbier stubbed out his cigarette and slid an envelope under his plate. “This consumed you. Night and day you hounded me for a contact in New York. Remember? Sometimes it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie, but you wouldn’t let go. I thought,
bon
,” he shrugged, “you’d try, get tired, give up. Then you’d finally move on. But your partner’s been shot, your business is in trouble, and now you’re blaming Jacques. Is that the thanks I get, Leduc?”

She started. Was she paranoid? Yet the more she told Morbier, the more she stood to lose.

“I’m late.” Morbier stood, wrapping his scarf around his neck. “But think about this, Leduc. The business your grandfather founded, the place your father put his heart and soul into running to provide for you . . . think about what he’d say.”

“Papa?” Her heart sank. “Say to what?”

“Risking it all for a mother who abandoned you. That’s a slap in his face. To his memory.”

Stunned, she grabbed his hand. “How can you think . . . you knew her.”

“A long time ago.”

“People buckle under pressure, Leduc.” He spoke slowly. And he almost sounded sympathetic. “Nets tighten; and to survive, people do things they’re not proud of later.”

“But it’s not that at all.”

Morbier’s eyes narrowed. “Eh, then what?”

“I don’t know.”

He invoked her father’s memory to get her to turn her mother in. Morbier assumed a money-laundering network ran through her; they all did. The only reason they let her walk free on the street was as bait.

“Let’s hope it’s not too late when you decide to come clean.”

“Too late?”

“That you’re not in a cell at La Santé.”

Her blood ran cold. “You’re threatening me, Morbier.”

“Right now, it’s cooperate or face prison.”

With that, he shuffled ahead.

“Monsieur, you forgot something.” The waitress pointed to the envelope Morbier had left.

“An incentive for my friend.” Morbier shot a glance over at Jerzy, now red-faced and perspiring.

A payment for his informer. “And keep the roses.”

In life, one always paid. And even when you paid, she thought, you were on your own.

Whoever had wired that money was linked to Nicolas, not her mother. She was almost certain. But she couldn’t prove that or anything else.

All the way to Leduc Detective, she wondered if her father would want her to turn in her mother to save herself. She doubted she could.

“
O
LIVIER’S HIDING THINGS , Roland.” Gabrielle paced back and forth in Roland’s book-lined study.

After Olivier’s enigmatic message about a ghost, he hadn’t answered his phone. Or come home last night.

“What twenty-three-year-old doesn’t keep things from his parents?”

“And there’s a prison inquiry into Nicolas’s suicide.”

“Another inquiry like all the others?” He sighed. “But I’ll talk to him.” Roland caught her around the waist. “Slim and elegant, Gabrielle, you still have the body of the young woman I took against the armoire in your father’s house.”

In 1968, after a protest at the Sorbonne; she remembered her bell bottoms on the library floor. That scorching September, the geraniums wilting in the heat on the balcony. The way he made her feel. The way he still made her feel. She felt a stirring in her chest. She pushed it aside.

“Roland . . . it’s serious.”

“Very serious.” He pulled her back, licked behind her ear. “I agree.”

Gabrielle heard the long buzz of the apartment door. Olivier had forgotten his key again. She kissed Roland, then grabbed her briefcase. “Must be Olivier. Don’t forget.”

He returned her kiss and breathed in her ear. “Later,
ma chére.
” She ran, briefcase in hand, to the apartment front door.

No Olivier. Disappointment washed over her. Instead, she saw a lithe woman in heels, black leather pants, and denim coat, wearing oversized earrings. There was an inquiring look in her large kohl-rimmed eyes. The new neighbor, she wondered. They’d heard that a model had moved into the building.

“May I help you?”

“Madame de la Pecheray? I’d like to speak with Olivier, please.”

One of Olivier’s conquests?

As the woman handed her a card, Gabrielle noticed the copper puzzle ring on one of her fingers.

“Aimée Leduc,” she read,
“Detective Privée.
What’s this concerning?”

“May I come in, Madame?”

“But why, Mademoiselle Leduc?”

Gabrielle glanced around the hallway. The concierge was dusting the stained-glass windows, no doubt listening.

“It’s a private matter.”

Gabrielle’s gut wrenched. The blackmailer?

“This concerns a police investigation,” Aimée explained.

The concierge continued dusting the same spot on the window.

“I’m busy, Mademoiselle.” This Leduc woman bothered her. The tousled unstudied chic, the raw energy vibrating from her, and the determination in her eyes.

“Maybe you’d prefer to hear via official channels first?” Aimée shrugged.

Gabrielle stood aside and let her in.

“Entrez.
I’m listening, Mademoiselle.” Should she disturb Roland in his study? Better to keep this short, stay on the defensive, and deny whatever popped up.

“On November third, 1993, a synagogue in the Marais was torched.”

Gabrielle willed down her fear and managed to keep her face expressionless. “I fail to see how this involves me.”

“A witness says your son participated with Nicolas Evry, who took full responsibility for the incident and was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned.”

Gabrielle’s spine stiffened. The woman had some pieces but nothing to link them together.

“There’s a mistake,” she said.

“Olivier denied it too,” Aimée said.

Gabrielle tried to remember to keep breathing.

“If you’ve already spoken with Olivier, then what’s the point of this?”

The Leduc woman shook her head. “My client believes Olivier’s covering up,” she said. “If he doesn’t come forward, he’s in trouble. He may be charged as an accomplice in a vehicular manslaughter and fleeing the scene of an accident.”

Shaken, Gabrielle grabbed the foyer’s fluted pillar to restore her balance.

“You’re still here, Gabrielle?” Roland strode into the foyer. “The Minister’s dropping by in ten minutes to finalize last minute arrangements for my investiture.”

Even though the Leduc woman was still right there, she felt him draw her close. She leaned into him. Trying to draw strength. What was that look in his eyes?

A
IMÉE RECOGNIZED HIM. His graying temples, clear blue eyes, and Lobb shoes. The man in the Palais Royal who’d held her penlight as she tried to resuscitate Clémence.

Olivier’s father.

“But I know you, don’t I?” he said, smiling. “I’m Roland de la Pecheray.” He extended his hand and shook hers. His grip was warm and firm. “We met at the ministry reception,
non?
Or after?” His smile faded. “Oh, now I remember. That poor young woman in the Palais Royal was your friend.”

“Olivier’s friend, too, Monsieur,” Aimée said. Feeling awkward, nevertheless she made herself go on. “And Nicolas Evry’s ex.”

“Olivier knew her? I don’t understand.” An expression of concern appeared on his handsome face. He was dressed in a navy blue blazer over an open-necked striped shirt. He ran a hand through his hair, his brow furrowed. “That’s why you’re here?”

Miniature topiary trees were aligned across the marble claw-footed table in the hall. A tarnished silver bowl filled with deep orange-red persimmons stood in the middle. Several eighteenth-century oil landscapes hung in gilt frames. The place breathed old money.

They might be aristos, with
de la
before their name, but they were worried parents, and here she was, lying to them.

“Olivier refuses to understand the implications,” Aimée said. “I tried to explain. He needs to tell the truth and quit shielding whoever burned the synagogue.”

“Who says this?” Gabrielle interrupted.

“My client’s requesting that the police re-open the investigation,” she said. “New evidence has come to light.”

A stretch.

“What client?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” she said. “But the evidence suggests that your son’s implicated in an old Jewish couple’s death later that same night.”

“Impossible,” Gabrielle said, leaning against her husband’s shoulder for support. “How can you accuse Olivier?”

“A hit-and-run driver left the old couple dead in the street, their three-year-old grandson looking on.”

“Terrible,” Gabrielle said, shaking her head.

“My son didn’t have a license; he didn’t even drive in 1993,” Roland said. “We bought him a motorcycle just last year.”

Aimée shifted her feet on parquet floor.

“My client discovered evidence suggesting that Nicolas Evry received payment to take the blame,” Aimée said, “and go to prison.”

She paused to let that sink in. How would Olivier, a nineteen-year-old, obtain that kind of money unless from his parents?

“You’re making this up,” Gabrielle said.

“On November third, 1993, a witness described your inebriated son Olivier making a scene in the corner shop on rue Bergère just meters away from the subsequent hit-and-run incident.”

Shock painted Gabrielle’s face. “But that’s not proof.”

Roland stared at Aimée.

“You’re asking us to turn our son in? For something he didn’t do?” he said.

Aimée pulled out the newspaper clippings faxed from Paco. The black-and-white photo of the charred synagogue, the bouquets of flowers as if at a shrine in the gutter where the old couple had died.

“I’m asking your son to tell the truth,” she said. “And I’m seeking your help in persuading him to speak with the authorities. Much better—”

“‘Better’? You’re making unsupported allegations—”

“My client’s allegations,” she interrupted. “Did Olivier prevent Clémence from furnishing proof of his complicity? She was strangled not five minutes away from here.”

Roland’s mouth dropped open. “Five minutes away?
Mon Dieu,
a whole quartier lives five minutes from that spot. Why, we both work in the Palais Royal, I cross it every day, but that doesn’t mean I strangled that young woman.”

“Don’t say any more, Roland.” Gabrielle disengaged herself and opened the front door. “Allegations, rumors, will be dealt with by our attorney, Mademoiselle.”

The door shut in Aimée’s face. At the stained-glass window, the concierge straightened, rubbing her rag with vigor. Intelligent people summoned their attorney, Aimée thought, especially ones with something to hide.

“
Q
UELLE HORREUR!
”
N
ANA, the young uniformed nurse, halted behind the clinic’s meal-tray cart. “Monsieur Friant, what’s all this?”

Caught, René’s fingers froze, poised on his laptop. The hum of working printers filled his clinic room.

“You’re in therapy, not supposed to be doing anything but your exercises,” Nana said. “That’s doctor’s orders.”

Tell that to the furtive instigator of the bank wire deposits to Leduc Detective, whom he was tracking.

René smiled. “I’m exercising my mind, Nana. Part of mind– body wholeness. Crucial to recovery; my therapist insists.”

He’d trailed hackers, good ones, geniuses who redesigned software games while they played them. But this one displayed more savvy, more flair, almost arrogance. Mocking him.

“Got these for you, Nana.” René pointed to the blue cornflowers next to his bed. “The blue matches your eyes. We’ll keep this between us, eh?”

Nana wagged her finger. “Naughty boy.”

She left with the cornflowers and a grin.

René knew that Tracfin’s legal jurisdiction extended only so far. It had been granted limited access by several EU member countries, but only relating to banks with reciprocal relationships in other EU countries. Even if Tracfin suspected money-laundering, its investigation could only proceed to a certain point if the bank was located inside a non-reciprocal country. However, he and Saj, in hacking mode, observed no such restrictions. He wasn’t going to stop to count the number of laws they’d broken already.

René operated on the principle that no system was safe. He’d seen it proven time and again. It took a few clicks to wire money; a fax with a forged signature as in Aimée’s case was easy to obtain from a bank file; and the transfers zipped just beyond Tracfin’s reach.

René hit Saj’s number.

“You seeing what I’m thinking, Saj?” René said.

“I’ll need to get back to you.” Saj’s voice sounded strained. Stiff. “In the meantime please note, of course, we’ll honor the account, but at present we’ve suspended our operations.”

René’s skin crawled. “What’s happened? Who’s there, Saj?”