The Courbet Connection (Book 5) (Genevieve Lenard) (33 page)

“When did he die?”

“It was Christmas Eve 1992. It was the saddest day in our lives, but it was so much worse for Emile. You see, Adam and Emile became each other’s family. And in a way Robert and I were also part of that family, but they were each other’s nucleus. Even when they took that child in, they were the strongest unit I’d seen.”

“What child?” Manny was leaning forward again.

“I can never remember how that boy came to live on his own when he wasn’t even eighteen. I do remember Emile and Adam having a seventeenth birthday party for him in 1975. It was three days before the birth of my youngest. You see, Robert and I never planned that youngest. She was quite a surprise to us, but what a delight she is. Today she is a neurosurgeon. Would you like to see photos?”

“Maybe later, Opal.” Manny had difficulty remaining passive in his interest. I wondered if he felt half the excitement I did. My mind was racing with all the new connections. “Tell us more about this young boy. Do you remember his name?”

“Of course I do. Renzo was a huge part of Adam and Emile’s lives. When he moved into the flat next to theirs, they took him in as if he was their own son. You see, they helped him get back to school and graduate. When he joined the military, they were as proud and as worried as if they were his biological fathers. Renzo was devastated when Adam died. He made sure Emile was well taken care of.”

She sighed sadly. “But I think a big part of Emile died when Adam died. That was when he started hoarding. He refused to
throw any of Adam’s things out and wouldn’t let Renzo even throw out newspapers.”

“Do you know Renzo’s surname?”

She tilted her head to the side, her eyes shifting up and to the left. “Oh, my. For the life of me. Oh dear. I think that might be a sign of aging. But he really loved Emile and Adam. He would visit with Emile for hours until his death. That was another sad day for us all.”

I thought of the video we had watched earlier. “Can you describe him?”

“Of course, honey.” She waved one hand in the air. “A really strapping tall man. He must be in his fifties now, but the last time I saw him, he was still as tall as a tree. What always got me was his eyes though. You see, there is something very interesting about people with one blue and one green eye.”

“Oh, my God!” The shock on Francine’s face resembled Manny’s when Opal had told us about the heterochromia. He had rushed out of the small conference room and had come back with a screenshot of the interview video with Gasquet. She had positively identified him as Renzo, a name he’d used when he had been younger.

We were in the team room and Manny had just finished briefing everyone on the meeting with Opal Luedke. Francine was the only one sitting. I saw the same restlessness in Manny, Vinnie and Colin that I was feeling.

My mind was still reeling with all the smaller bits of information we’d collected thus far falling into place. I mentally played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor and allowed the subdued sounds to soothe my mind as it sifted through everything we’d learned so far.

“So, Laurence Gasquet is kinda like Emile’s godson?” Francine asked.

“Yes, and we had the bastard here.”

“Aren’t you going to arrest him?” Vinnie asked. “We should send Daniel’s team out to find him.”

“And on what grounds are we going to arrest him? Being a narcissist? We need concrete evidence to send out the troops.” Manny rubbed his hand over his face. “Doc, we need more proof. We need paper trails, we need clear connections between Gasquet and this.”

I looked at the large screen in the team room when he shook his index finger at it. On the screen was the clock counting
down the minutes to the auction. There were two hours, seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds left. I swallowed at the tightness around my throat.

“What happened to all those paintings?” Colin asked. “I’ve seen three—no, four, if we’re including the one from the day I was arrested. And Caelan saw fifteen at auction. That makes nineteen paintings. Madame Luedke said she saw more than fifty, right?”

“Apart from the one you saw in his apartment, the other paintings were put up for sale only after Monsieur Rimbaud died.” I rubbed my temples. “Zana22Dactor3178 was the one putting those paintings up for sale. Can it be that Gasquet is ZD?”

“Of course!” Francine sat up and started working on her computer. “If I have more specific parameters, I can get much better search results.”

Even though this was a logical inference, I knew there was something missing. What exactly it was, I could not point out. I settled back into the Piano Concerto playing in my mind. There were still so many links to clarify.

“You didn’t answer my question, Millard,” Colin said. “Where are the other paintings?”

“Opal doesn’t know.” Manny had asked her four times to try harder to remember if Adam had had a studio and if so where it had been. She had been telling the truth when she’d said she didn’t know.

“She did say that Monsieur Rimbaud used to have different paintings hanging in his apartment at various times.” I’d found that interesting. “It sounded like he would hang new paintings every few months. She also said he had his favourites, and the one he liked the least was
Courbet’s
Nude Reclining Woman
.”

Colin’s eyes widened. “The painting he wanted Maurice to sell, the one in his apartment.”

“Doc here doesn’t like to speculate, but I’m thinking that when he became desperate for money, he decided to sell the painting he liked least.”

“Why would he be desperate for money?” Vinnie asked.

“Opal said that she only found out about this after he had died.” I’d observed true sorrow when she’d told us that. “Apparently, the old man had cancer that had spread all through his body. If that heart attack hadn’t killed him, he would have died within a year. She also thought that he didn’t want to tell Gasquet how sick he was because Gasquet took Adam’s death so hard.”

“Yeah, and he took Monsieur Rimbaud’s death so hard that he started selling those paintings. What a big heart.” Vinnie’s tone and facial expression revealed his sarcasm.

“I also consider selling Adam’s paintings so soon after Monsieur Rimbaud’s death quite callous. But it fits in with the typical self-interest of a narcissist.” The more I learned about Laurence Gasquet, the less I respected him as a human.

“So what are you doing about Gasquet, old man?” Vinnie got up. He looked ready to leave.

Manny lifted one eyebrow. “Stand down, criminal. I’ve already spoken to your pal, Daniel. He’s got his GIPN team on standby. The moment we have something that would get us a warrant for Gasquet’s arrest, they’re on it.”

I pointed at Manny’s face. “You’re being calculating. What are you planning?”

“Being smart, Doc. I plan to be smart about this. Let’s assume Gasquet is ZD and we arrest him now. The auctions won’t take place. The problem is that he’s been working in and with law enforcement his whole life. I don’t think he’ll tell us where the kids are. Our priority should be to find the kids.”

“Michael and Steve,” Francine said softly, not looking up from her computer.

“Assuming that they were taken, yes. I would prefer to stop this thing before the organ auction starts in”—Manny looked at the screen—“an hour and fifty-five minutes. But we do have some leeway.”

“An extra four hours.” The relief I felt was not enough to lessen the tightness around my throat. “If they stay true to form, the hunting auction will take place four hours after the organ auctions.”

“And if we have enough to take them down, we can do this right and save the students’ lives.” Manny took a deep breath. “We need to get this right. I want to make sure these bastards are locked up and the key is thrown away.”

“Francine?” I waited until she looked up. “Did you find any more information on Gasquet?”

“I’m looking for it now. What I have so far is an elaboration of what we already know, but nothing new.”

“Look in his financials. See if you can find any connections between Gasquet, Breton and Hugo, other than what we already have. Look in their financials as well.” People didn’t realise how much their financial data revealed about their personal lives. I was hoping one or more of them had been negligent at some point, giving us something that could lead to a breakthrough.

“I’ll send you what I get as I get it. I’ve already emailed you Dukwicz’s financials. I got that two hours ago, but haven’t been able to go through it yet.”

“I’ll analyse that.”

“I’ll look in on the girls, then I’ll join you.” Colin walked to the door, stopped, turned around and pointed his finger at me. “And don’t you dare feel guilty about being focussed on this case. If Michael and Steve are out there, Nikki would prefer you ignored her and helped them.”

I gave him a smile that I knew didn’t reach my eyes. Rationally, I agreed with him, but it didn’t erase the discomfort I felt. Nor the illogical personal responsibility I felt towards Michael and Steve. Without another word I went to my viewing room.

When Colin joined me fifteen minutes later, I was going through Dukwicz’s financial history of four months ago. Colin placed a mug of coffee on the coaster next to my keyboard and sat down. “What have you got?”

“Weekly payments from some company that I can’t trace.” I highlighted a transfer. “The amounts differ every time, but they are paid two days after the auctions. Hmm. Give me a minute.”

Francine had uploaded the entirety of Dukwicz’s computer content into a cloud folder. She’d found more videos and had placed them in an individual folder. I opened it and clicked on a chosen video. I had no interest in watching another young person being auctioned. It was too difficult to observe the terror in their eyes during the second auction when the sedative I assumed they had been given had worked through their system.

I took the video to the very end and left it on the first monitor. I repeated this process with three more videos until I’d confirmed my suspicion. I sank deeper into my chair with a sigh. “These are payments for the hunting auctions. On the seventh of February this young man was sold to some hunter for forty thousand euros. On the ninth, Dukwicz received a payment of twenty thousand euro.”

“Shit. He’s getting fifty percent commission for this?” Disgust was thick in Colin’s voice.

The next three cases confirmed it. Two days after each auction, Dukwicz received a payment of half the value of the final bid. Violence, torture, brutality were not new to the human race. From the beginning of recorded history, humans had proved themselves to be inventive in ways to make each other
suffer. Knowing this didn’t soften the horror I felt working on this case.

We spent the next forty minutes working through Dukwicz’s financial history, looking for ways to connect him to Gasquet, or even Breton and Hugo. If there was a connection, it wasn’t obvious. I would need more information.

“Where are we, Doc?” Manny asked from the door separating my room from the team room.

I frowned. “We are in Rousseau & Rousseau.”

“Oh, hell.” Manny pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. When he looked at me, I noticed extreme fatigue and worry lining his eyes. “What I meant was, where are we on this case?”

“Dukwicz started receiving regular payments from an untraceable source five months ago.”

“Before that I think all his money came from his hits.” Colin knew I wasn’t comfortable with the assumption. I did, however, think it had merit. “Taking into consideration that SSS and the apparent hunting and organ auctions only started six months ago, this makes sense. He must have hooked up with Gasquet and taken this side of the business.”

“Have you found any evidence linking Dukwicz to Gasquet?”

My shoulders slumped. “No. Not yet.”

“Well, we’ve run out of time.” Manny looked behind him to the screen in the team room. I saw in Manny the same helplessness I felt. I hated that feeling and wished there was more I could do, more information I could find. “They’ve put up the details about the auctions.”

I got up and walked into the team room, my eyes locked on the screen. It was divided into four, and each quarter was filled with numbers—the crude code. I walked back to my room, grabbed my notepad and a pencil and returned. Sitting at the round table, I deciphered the information about the four young people within ten minutes.

“Doc?” Manny was standing behind Francine, his hand resting on the back of her chair. “What have you got?”

“Three males, one female.” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. “From the description of two of the males, I deduce they are Michael and Steve.”

“Holy hell.” Manny looked at Colin. “Do we tell them?”

“Tell who?” I asked.

“Nikki and Rebecca.”

“Tell us what?” Nikki asked. She was standing in the doorway, holding a tray with coffee and cookies. She walked into the room, put the tray on the table and turned to me. “Tell me what, Doc?”

Colin shook his head as he came to sit next to me. When I looked at Nikki, I focussed on the intelligence and toughness I knew she possessed. “Are you going to be wise and strong?”