Murder at the Lanterne Rouge (15 page)

Aimée was impressed, and wondered what memories this musty
salle
brought back to her. “Mademoiselle, it sounds like you’re connected to the quartier’s history.”

A small sigh. “Not that I care to remember those days.” She shook her head. “All the hotels requisitioned for the Wehrmacht’s telegraphists, their drivers, the Luftwaffe pilots, bordellos for the soldiers. Even took over the Conservatoire.” A shrug. “Odette and I printed false identification papers in the printing press below my family’s apartment. We targeted disruptions at the Centre Téléphonique et Télégraphique, their communications headquarters on rue des Archives. A ‘nest of saboteurs’ was what the Gestapo called the quartier.” Her eyes were far away. “We rendezvoused at the pharmacy on Boulevard de Sébastopol, next to the German recruiters. Who’d know it now?”

Mademoiselle Samoukashian shrugged. “But some of us paid.”

Was another old war story coming? Aimée crossed her legs on the small, creaking chair.

“My cousin Manouchian, a poet. And the man I loved, a Jew. Others. But I missed the bus and was too late to warn them,” she said, her voice trailing off. “
Alors
, all that’s left now is the plaque on the building, a mass grave.”

An almost palpable sadness radiated from this little woman.

She pointed to a sealed manila envelope on the table with the words: “to be opened in case of my death only by one whom my great-aunt trusts.” “I’m late again,” she said. “But please read what’s inside, Mademoiselle. I haven’t opened it.”

Aimée’s brow lifted. She was intrigued. “Why?”

“Pascal made me promise,” she said. “If you don’t help me, no one will. His project will be ruined.”

Aimée stiffened. “A project? You think it connects to his murder?”

“I want you to find out.”

Pause.

“The museum fascinated him,” the old woman said. “I told you. He’d volunteered the past two years, cataloging their holdings during their renovation. He was so excited last week about some discovery there.
Alors
, won’t you respect his wishes?”

Aimée stalled, uneasy. “First tell me why he gave Meizi a recommendation for a job there.”

“This Chinese girl?” Madame Samoukashian shrugged. “
Bien sûr
, the Chinese are immigrants like us. I raised Pascal to think of others, not just himself. But look what it got him.”

What did that mean? “I don’t understand, Mademoiselle.”

“
Non
, I shouldn’t say that. Who knows? Find this girl and ask her.”

“I did.”

“And?” Mademoiselle Samoukashian leaned forward, expectant.

“She heard noises and ran away. At least, that’s what I’ve learned so far.” And she believed Meizi.

“Of course, she had no papers,” Mademoiselle Samoukashian said. “I told you. Who’d stick around?”

Aimée took the manila envelope off the table. “Shouldn’t you give this to the
flics?
”

“Like I trust them?” A bitter laugh. “Now it’s the Chinese. Before it was the Jews, Eastern Europeans, and us Armenians.
But it hasn’t changed. They don’t like people to know they held deportees here, downstairs at the old
commissariat
. My father and mother were in a cell until they had enough to fill a train for Drancy. Next stop the ovens.” The anguish hardened in Mademoiselle Samoukashian’s brown eyes. “But we’re not here to talk about that.”

Aimée slit the sealed flap open. Inside she found a note, dated two weeks earlier:

Aimée’s hand shook. Under the envelope lay a check for five thousand francs made out to Leduc Detective.

“You know what to do?” Mademoiselle Samoukashian’s voice quavered. “But you can’t tell me,
n’est-ce pas?
”

Aimée nodded. “For your safety, Mademoiselle.” She averted her eyes. “Who’s Becquerel?”

Mademoiselle Samoukashian shook her head. “Professor Becquerel? But he passed away last week. He was ninety. Pascal’s last professor.”

Too late. Aimée felt a cold pit in her stomach. Becquerel led nowhere.

She leaned down to hug the old woman, again felt her thin shoulders. “Pascal said he meant to fix the loose tiles in the kitchen,” she said, trying to smile. “May I take you home?”

Mademoiselle Samoukashian shook her head. And when she spoke, Aimée heard the grit in her voice. “You’ve got more important things to do, Mademoiselle.”

T
HE FIRST FORTY-EIGHT
hours of an investigation were crucial. After that the trail iced up, the odds lowered for tracking down a witness, a name, an accurate memory. As time passed, leads dropped to zero. Almost twenty-four hours had passed since Pascal’s murder.

Aimée pulled out her cell phone and made two calls. Both went to voice mail. Frustrated, she left messages as she skirted past the old covered market, the Carreau du Temple.

A homeless man—or SDF,
sans domicile fixe
, the politically correct term—camped on a ventilation grate. Most people still referred to the homeless as
clochards
. This man held a cracked transistor radio to his ear. The radio weather report cackled in the afternoon air.

“Clear afternoon skies, crisp, and ten degrees warmer tomorrow,
ma chère
.” He winked at Aimée. “Plan ahead.”

She was trying to. “I’ll get out my beach umbrella,” she said, reaching in her pocket and handing him change.

“Me too.
Merci, ma chère
.” He grinned, a weathered look on a youngish face. Fallen on rough times, as so many had these days.

And then she got an idea.

“Haven’t I seen you over there?” Aimée asked, gesturing back across the park of Square du Temple.

“Dry and warmer here,” he said.

“And no problems, eh, like last night? The murder.”

He shrugged. Turned the radio volume down. After all, she’d paid—the unspoken rule—and it was time to deliver. “I heard about it.”

She crouched down, careful to keep her stilettos out of the grate holes. “What did you hear?”

“The regulars scattered. Won’t go back.”

“Like Clodo?”

“Clodo? We’re all Clodo to the
flics
.” His mouth turned down in a frown. “Tell me you’re not a
flic, ma chère
.”

“
Moi?
You’re joking.” She took more change from her pocket. “I mean the
mec
sleeping on the steps behind the building near rue au Maire. Fur coat, pink scarf.”

“The crazy one?”

Weren’t half the ragged men on the street crazy? Shuffling and mumbling to themselves? But then sometimes she did too.

“Angels worried about devils?”

“
C’est lui
,” she said. “I’d like to talk to him.”

“Usually goes underground at the Fantôme. Most do.”

Some code? “Where’s that?”

“Métro at Saint-Martin.”

She thought. “But there’s no station there.”

“Closed in 1939. A shelter in the war. Abandoned now, but they know ways in.” He shook his head. “Not your type of place,
ma chère
.”

She grinned. “But I’m a Parisian rat.”

He shrugged. “Up to you.”

“So how can I talk to Clodo?”

“The Métro opens at five thirty
A.M.”

“But why don’t you go to the Fantôme?”

The crow’s feet in his weather-beaten face deepened. He pointed to a window of the third-floor apartment building
across from the Carreau, rose-colored curtains. “My daughter lives there. I don’t like to be far away.”

“Could this help?” Aimée said, laying fifty francs on his sleeping bag. He gestured with a grimy hand for her to come closer. Welcome heat from the grill vent toasted her face.

“I heard Clodo’s in a bad way,” he said. “In the hospital.”

Startled, she leaned closer, trying not to breathe in his unwashed smell. “After last night?”

“Clodo sidelines in cell phones. Where he gets them …” A shrug.

So that was where Samour’s cell phone went.

“Word says a dealer confused Clodo’s stash niche for his powder,
ma chère
,” he said. “A misunderstanding.”

News via the homeless grapevine traveled fast. “That put him in the hospital?”

“Got him pushed on the Métro tracks today.”

“A bit harsh for a misunderstanding,” she said, interested. “Sounds like retribution.”

“That’s life on the street.”

“More like under.” She didn’t buy it. “Sounds to me like someone wanted to silence him after he witnessed the murder.”

“Tell me,
ma chère
, would you believe Clodo, who talks to angels and devils?”

More than she’d believe the
flics
.

The man peered around her shoulder, his attention on the window. His face crinkled in a smile. For a moment he looked almost lordly, as if surveying his territory from his rumpled sleeping bag. “Light’s on. My daughter’s doing her homework, nice and early. Good, she looked tired today.”

His voice was like that of any father. And it saddened her. But she sensed he knew more. “Could we trade a new radio for that phone Clodo found?”

He shrugged. “Not my thing, but I’ll check into it. No promises.”

“But I’ll depend on you for the weather forecast so I know what to wear.” She winked. Slipped him her card. “Why don’t you use that and let me know.”

He winked back.

This smelled like it went somewhere.

A
IMÉE PICKED OUT
Coulade, surrounded by students, in the office at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, adult division. The narrow two-person office he’d shared with Pascal—she recognized it from the photo. She sat down to wait in the anteroom, a high-ceilinged affair painted a faded institution green. A welcome warmth radiated from the chipped heater. She took off her coat and rolled up her sweater sleeves. A few minutes later, the students left, papers in hand.

“
Oui
, Mademoiselle?” Standing at the office door, Coulade gave a quick glance at the card she handed him. He was in his late twenties, black hair sprouting from a widow’s peak, stocky of frame under a dark sweater and tweed jacket. A typical academic. He looked rattled. “I’m sorry, nothing to do with me.”

“But I think it does,” she said.

Coulade took in her stovepipe suede leggings, his gaze resting a moment on the low V-neck of her black cashmere sweater.

“Since Pascal Samour’s murder—”

He stiffened and put his finger over his mouth. “Inside.”

Mock drama, a chance to grope her? She didn’t like him already. But she stepped inside the office. She needed answers and access to Pascal’s work computer.

Coulade’s face blanched in the hanging fluorescent office light. “We kept this terrible news from the students. I took
over his symposium today. There are thirty-five students finishing their exams. And my notes …” He scrambled around amongst the papers on his desk. “…  somewhere …”

Overwhelmed, she saw that. Nervous? Or guilty?

“This won’t take long,” she said, scanning the two cluttered desks. “Where’s the green dossier?”

“Eh?” His eyes gravitated again toward her neckline.

Her dislike for Coulade grew by the minute. “Pascal said you had the green dossier.”

“He told you that?”

Why couldn’t Coulade answer a question?

Coulade grabbed a pile of notebooks. Checked his watch. “Listen, I’m late. There are waiting students.”

“But Samour—”

“
Zut!
We share this office, but I’m only here part-time. My day job’s teaching at the lycée. I don’t know of any green dossier.”

“Two weeks ago there was one,” she said.

He expelled air from his mouth. “
Et voilà
.” He gestured to the files. All blue. “I’ve got no clue what Samour meant.”

Her stomach turned. “You really don’t know?”

“No idea,” Coulade said. “He was an absentminded type. Half the time, his head spun with ideas and he’d forget to write anything down. A dreamer.”

But it still didn’t explain Samour’s letter. “When did you last see Pascal Samour?”

Coulade hurried to the door and beckoned her to follow. “Last week,
non
, Monday. We were supposed to meet here yesterday, but …” His face fell. “I couldn’t.”

Coulade had to know more. Even if he didn’t realize it. She wouldn’t give up. “Meet regarding what, Coulade?”

“He didn’t tell me.” Coulade shrugged, eyed the door.

“Think back to the green folder.”

“Green folder?” Coulade shook his head, his face blank.
“Color-blind, Pascal. All our folders are blue.” He waved toward the file cabinets. “But these folders, all they have are student grades. No way you’re allowed to look at them.
Compris?
”

Another bump in the road. A road going nowhere. She wanted to get Coulade’s eyes off her chest and nail his feet to the floor.

“
Alors
, Coulade, last night my partner and I discovered Samour’s body chewed by rats in the snow.” She stepped closer and pointed out the thick bubbled-glass window. “
Juste à côté
, not far from here. I think you know more than you’re letting on.”

“Eh?” Coulade ran his hand nervously over his neck.

“He told me to talk to you.”

Coulade reached for the door handle. “But I don’t—”

“
Bon
,” she said. “I’ll let the
flics
know you’ve got something to tell them. Let you sweat it out at the
commissariat
.”

Coulade stiffened. “Nothing to do with me, I tell you.”

“Too bad. I’m surprised they haven’t questioned you.” She shrugged. “I play fair, but they don’t.”

Coulade blinked, hesitating. “Half the time I didn’t know whether to take him seriously or not. He’d found this document misfiled in the Musée’s holdings. Or so he said. Ranted about how he’d found a link. But he needed more.”