Murder in the Latin Quarter (22 page)

Her chest heaved. She couldn’t even find her sister, much less save her. Sobs erupted from deep within her. Tears dampened her cheeks.

The banner in the photo’s background read
Département de Géographie, Sorbonne,
“
Au revoir.”
A farewell party. She realized the photo was torn, like the other one. Odd. On the back, just the letters JCL and BC remained from the original inscription. One of his friends at the Sorbonne whom Morbier had mentioned? Something niggled at her, some connection. But what?

She’d think about that later.

The traffickers would kill Mireille. Self-pity wouldn’t help to find her. She wiped her face with her sleeve.

Her cell phone vibrated in her pocket.

Tissot was fast.

Eagerly she grabbed her pen, hit ANSWER. “
Allo?
You found it?”

She heard the clink of glasses, muffled conversation in the background, then an inhaled breath.

“Benoît’s ear was severed to make it look like black vodou.”

She recognized Edouard Brasseur’s voice. Edouard, the elusive rebel, the one who shared the saint’s birthday with Benoît.

“But black vodou’s not practiced anymore, Edouard.” She fingered the black and red beads on her lap. “Not since the last century.”

“You’ve done your homework,” Edouard said. “This is a ruse, to divert suspicion from the murderer.” She heard him take a breath. “Throw blame on superstitious Haitians, tie it to vodou, black rituals . . . the other thing besides poverty we’re famous for.”

“You mean the tonton macoutes could be responsible?”

“Or a copycat,” he said. She heard anguish mixed with anger in his voice. “Tonton macoutes peel their victims’ faces off to prevent their spirits from finding rest in the afterlife. You said to call you when I knew what that signified.”

She sat up. The pillar poked into her spine.

“You didn’t know this before?”

“They want the file,” he said.

She blinked. “Wait a minute. You mean the file with Benoît’s report to the World Bank? Who wants it? Hydrolis?”

“Mireille knows who.”

“Can you prove that?” she said.

“Who else? Benoît trusted her for some reason,” Edouard said. ”The old guard said as much,
non?
Mireille picked it up. . . .”

“Now he’s dead. Pushed under a car.”

Mireille had not had a clue as to the contents of the envelope. That much Aimée believed.

“You’re sure?” he asked.

“I got there too late,” she said.

What did Edouard have to do with it?

“What’s with you?” He exhaled. “I’m not the bad guy.”

“You could say anything. There’s a price on your head.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. He sighed. “My job’s investigating Duvalier’s financial assets hidden in Europe,” he said. “But that’s not the issue here. There’s more. I’ll share, but I need to meet Mireille. Before they get to her. Deal?”

He assumed she knew Mireille’s whereabouts.

“Too late.” Her voice caught.

“What do you mean?” he asked, startled.

The call-waiting signal clicked on her phone.

She couldn’t lose this call.

“Mireille’s been abducted.”

“Where are you?” he said.

The line clicked again. The vehicle bureau, with the address she needed to find Mireille?

“I’ll call you back.” She hit ANSWER.

“Check your eyesight, eh?” said Tissot. “The
carte grise
and license plate you asked about are registered to Marc-Louis Chazel, residence 14 bis, rue Saint Victor. But it’s a Citroën truck, not a Fiat Uno.”

Aimée thought back to the shuttered butcher shop, the h
otel particulier
. . . so the owners didn’t live above the shop, but behind it.

“Was the truck reported stolen?”

“Eh? That’s besides the point.”

“So the truck was stolen?”

“Not according to the bulletin issued two minutes ago.”

“Merci.”

* * *

A DEAD END. Or maybe not.

Think like the perp, her father always said. Look at it from their angle, reason it their way. Logic dictated that one of the traffickers worked at the butcher shop and had use of the truck. With the shop closed and the proprietors gone for a few weeks, their quarters and what looked like a courtyard in back would be empty. The
mecs
would have free rein. Big
mecs,
strong enough to break the plasterer’s arm and to smash car windows. Angry, arrogant, and drunk. It had been stupid to think she could break in and take them on by herself. And then it hit her . . . she wouldn’t have to.

She clicked BACK. No Edouard. She left four words on his voicemail: 14, rue Saint Victor.

She’d provoked a citywide police alert that had netted this address. Go for the gold, she thought: involve emergency services. From a public phone near Maison de la Mutualité, a thir-ties deco conference hall noted for leftist political party meetings and Communist rallies, she punched in 18.

“Brigade de pompier,
” said a voice.

“Help! The smoke alarm’s gone off in Boucheries Chazel. They’re away, and I smell smoke.”

“
Calmez-vous,
Mademoiselle. . . .”

“14 bis, rue Saint Victor. There’s smoke’s coming from the warehouse in the courtyard!”

She hung up and walked, counting in her head. Forty-three seconds later, a siren wailed from the direction of the fire station at Cardinal Lemoine, a Metro stop away. Distant, but coming closer. Two minutes and fifty seconds later, a long hook-and-ladder fire truck turned the corner. Bravo: faster than the Metro.

Wind rustled the leaves. She shivered under the dappled shadows cast by the moonlight filtering through the few remaining plane trees by the old Collège de Bernardins. The dilapidated medieval stone abbey and refectory had been many things, a plaque in front of it noted: a police station, a center for lost dogs, and until recently a fire station.

From the corner near the sagging stairs she heard the screech of the fire truck’s brakes. Saw the lime-green coats of the firemen at the
hôtel particulier’s
massive arched green double door, which they opened with their key. A master key to all locks was used in such situations when a whole block could ignite in minutes. Matter of fact, a fireman had told her once, they
always
used the key, since it took too long to wake tenants to gain entry.

Motors rumbled. The fire truck’s searchlight scanned the stone façade and grillework balconies. Motorized ladders extended into the dark sky, hoses stretched out over the cobbles connected to hydrants. A car pulled up; the occupant got out, pulled on a fire chief’s helmet, and ran ahead.

If anyone could roust human traffickers and their cargo within minutes, the
pompiers
could. Aimée waited. Lights ap-peared in windows.

In the courtyard, she saw inhabitants assembling in assorted nightgowns. “What the hell . . . in the middle of the night?” said a woman, pulling a robe over a bustier and garters. Others demanded to know what was going on.

Aimée stepped over the hoses to enter a sandblasted lime-stone seventeenth century-style courtyard. She scanned the tenant list quickly. In the arcade to the left there was a small glass-roofed warehouse built into the wall of the crumbling Collège des Bernardins bearing the sign DELIVERIES BOUCHERIE CHAZEL. Several men with hatchets herded figures through a wooden door.

A hand caught her arm. “No sightseeing, Mademoiselle. Time to leave.”

She turned. “I live here. There.” She pointed to a dark window on the second floor. “What’s going on? A fire . . . another arson attack?”

“Wait over there with the others, Mademoiselle.”

She saw no traffickers. No Mireille.

“False alarm.” The Fire Chief stalked from the warehouse. “Someone’s going to pay for this. You’ve traced the call?”

Thank God she’d called from a public phone.

She couldn’t hear the rest. The men were rolling up the hoses. Incensed tenants were demanding the right to return to their domiciles. Firemen moved, and then she saw the Boucheries Chazel truck.

She couldn’t let them leave.

“Monsieur . . . a word.” She edged close to the Fire Chief. “The butcher shop staff sleeps in the warehouse. They’re disgruntled at the Chazels. . . .”

“Eh . . . where’s your apartment?”

“Souchet.
Deuxième étage.
Left.” Luckily, she’d glanced at the roster of tenants on her way in.

“How do you know this?”

“They threatened Monsieur Chazel. But I don’t see them here.”

He hadn’t moved. Desperate to get him to investigate, to find Mireille and the traffickers, she continued: “I heard them threatening to ruin his equipment. Is it arson?” She gasped, put her hand over her mouth, as if catching herself. “I don’t mean to suggest . . . but flammable chemicals . . . well, it’s a hazard to the building. The whole street could go up.”

Small or large, every butcher shop had at least minimal slaughtering facilities. Sanitation and safety guidelines governed the procedures under strict Ministry of Health requirements. To clean saws, knives, and the cutting and skinning instruments, flammable liquids were used. And nowadays, she knew, butchers used small propane torches to burn off the fluff and small feathers that remained after a chicken was plucked. She’d seen the blue propane gas tanks when she passed the local butchers’ back doors.

“Flammable? You mean attempted arson? That’s a serious accusation, Mademoiselle Souchet.”

“Accusation? I know what I heard. Monsieur Chazel’s unwell; it shocked me. But those men—”

A scuffle erupted among figures near the warehouse. “Chief, we found two men in the back!”

“Can you identify these men?”

If they wore gold chains and could break arms, she could.

She nodded.

The small warehouse contained the remnants of Gothic pillars, sprouting tulip-like but crumbling with age. In one room, sides of glistening marbled beef hung from hooks in an open white-tiled refrigerated locker. Chill blasts of air hit her knees. Two men, African or Caribbean, wearing assorted gold chains, stood against the clear plastic strips that hung there to keep the cold in.

“Nothing out of order, Chief. Except these
mecs
were hiding in here.”

“I work here,” said one. A lilt in his accent. Ivory Coast? Or another part of Africa? She couldn’t tell. “Screw you,” he continued. Muscular, in his twenties, angular face and jutting chin. He spit in the tiled trough running the length of the floor. Liquor was on his breath.

“He the one?”

Before Aimée could answer, the arson inspector tugged at the Chief’s arm.

“Might want to call Immigration, Chief. Look at these.” In his hand were passports and identity cards. Romanian, Serbian, and Haitian, from what Aimée could make out.

“Eh? May I remind you that we’re looking for evidence of arson?”

She had to move fast.

“Him and his friend.” She edged forward, sniffed. “Drunk as usual.”

The other man, in dirty jeans and shirt stained with red splatters, leered.

“That’s blood on your shirt.” She stepped closer. “Tell them where it came from.”

“Who’s this bitch?”

But she’d seen recognition on his face.

His arm shot out. Aimée ducked and his fist slapped into a side of beef.

“Get her out of here,” the Chief ordered.

The arson inspector guided her to the front of the ware-house. She stopped at an aluminum counter under the hooks that held the saws. “They bring girls in the back,” she said. “All the time. I heard screams.”

“The
flics
will question these men. We searched, but there’s no one else here.”

And she had a sinking feeling he was right.

“We’ll take your statement,” he said. “Wait in the courtyard.”

How long would it take before Immigration questioned the
mecs?
And how much longer before they broke and revealed Mireille’s whereabouts? If they ever did.

She stood in the
hôtel particulier
courtyard, alone. The ten-ants had gone back to their apartments, the firemen were packing up their hoses. What good had she done?

“You just make trouble, don’t you?”

Startled, she turned. A figure stood under the damp stone arcade. In the dim glow she made out a denim jacket, black jeans. She looked twice before she recognized him. Edouard, with his beard shaved off. Another persona.

“Not enough,” she said.

“I can’t figure you out,” Edouard said.

“Don’t even try.”

“So you didn’t find Mireille?”

She stepped closer to him. Again breathed that lime scent, the scent Yves had worn.

“Not yet.”

“Do you always wear couture to false alarms?”

She shrugged. “Amazing how designer wear holds up.”

“Leduc Detective computer forensics has an impressive client list.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “I’ve checked you out. You did criminal investigations until six years ago. I’d say searching for Mireille’s out of your line.”

His hands on her shoulders tightened. Suspicion and anger shone in his eyes, those odd amber eyes.

“You’re working for
them,
aren’t you?” he asked.

She tried to step back, to loosen his hands. “Who?”

“Admit it.”

He drew her into the shadows, leaned her against the stone arch. His hands gripped hers and pulled them behind her back, tightly. Fear prickled up her spine.

“Nice expense account from the World Bank, too.” He breathed hard. “Or do the Duvalierists pay you, eh? They go for style . . . just like you.”

He reached into his jacket pocket. A handgun? With one arm he pinned her against the wall.

“I think Mireille’s my sister,” she said. “My father knew her mother in Paris long ago. She asked for my help. . . .” Her voice faltered. She panted, took a breath. “Just who the hell are you?”

He stared at her. His grip loosened. Light from a window played over his slanted cheekbones.

“Eurodad.”

Was that some kind of eurocop? It sounded like a cognate of eurotrash.

“That’s supposed to mean something to me?”