Murder on the Champ de Mars (35 page)

That done, she found the tent serving hors d’oeuvres and helped herself to a sliver of smoked salmon on endive. On the lookout for Dussollier, she caught snatches of conversations drifting in the warm air with the clink of glasses: “
Mais oui
, it’s always better to do a dull thing with style than an interesting thing without,” came from a woman wearing a large white hat. “How true, Comtesse,” nodded another guest who had several strands of pearls around her neck.

Her phone rang. René.

She found a secluded spot behind a cypress tree and answered.

“Chloé’s almost decapitated at the park and I don’t find out until now?” His voice quivered. “And you’re what, out of the country?”

“It would take too long to explain,” she said, keeping her voice low. “It’s better this way, René.”

She still hadn’t seen Dussollier. The newly engaged daughter, sporting a sea-foam silk confection and a sparkling diamond ring, was walking arm in arm with her navy blue–suited fiancé, accepting congratulations from guests on the lawn.

“What’s that music?”

“I’m at an engagement party,” she said. Suddenly, a wave
of anxiety engulfed her. After the van and the smoking man this afternoon, she wasn’t sure she should have left Martine’s hideout to come to this, no matter how vital Dussollier’s information was.

“You pick this time to attend a party?” said René in disbelief. “Who’s getting married?”

“A woman wearing Dior. You don’t know her. Neither do I. I know her father, and I’m wondering how he can afford a lavish spread like this on a
flic
’s salary.”

“He probably inherited the money on his wife’s side. Now, Aimée, look—”

She hadn’t thought of that. “Tell me you’ve found something in Drina’s notes. Figured out the Romany.”

“We’ll talk about that later, Aimée,” he said.

His voice sounded strange.

“A problem, René?”

“Nothing I can’t deal with. You’re in Paris, I can tell. And Martine will tell me where.”

“
Non
, René, it’s not safe—”

“
Attends
, you’re at Dussollier’s daughter’s big to-do,
non?
”

Why did she always forget how smart he was?

“Shhh, listen, he’s Morbier’s contact in the seventh. Says he’s found what I’m looking for.”

“And you believe him, just like that?”

She wasn’t sure anymore; there was a bad feeling gnawing at her gut. But this was the man who had attended the police academy with her papa, played cards at their kitchen table throughout her childhood, who came to Chloé’s christening and insisted she attend his daughter’s engagement reception. Right now, since Morbier had gone to ground, she needed his information. “Security’s tighter than an unshucked oyster here.”

“Where’s Chloé?”

The garden was suddenly filled with notes from a violin quartet.

Dussollier was walking beneath the lanterns on the
terrasse
with his arm around his daughter, accompanied by applause and raised champagne flutes from the guests.

“She’s safe. Got to go.”

“W
ELCOME
, A
IMÉE.
” D
USSOLLIER’S
flushed face beamed at her. He handed her a fizzing flute of champagne.

“
Félicitations
, your daughter’s lovely. A perfect evening.” She clinked his glass.
“Santé.”

“Magical,
non
?” He sipped. “Rodin’s sculptures, this garden.” Beyond the wall, the gold dome of les Invalides glinted in the last rays of twilight.

She congratulated his wife, a matronly woman in powder blue whom she’d met before. Then she made her way through the receiving line of assorted family, who had come all the way from Toulon in Provence. She smiled through the tedious introductions, burning to take Dussollier aside.

At last, they were through all the relatives. “I don’t want to take you from your guests this evening, but … you’ve got something to tell me,
non
?”

He nodded. His face turned serious. “Meet me in five minutes inside the room by the wheelchair ramp on the lower-ground floor, on the Invalides side. That’s a quiet place where we can talk.”

A
IMÉE PASSED SEVERAL
catering trucks parked discreetly under the trees against the back wall. A steady flow of white-aproned servers looped back and forth carrying service trays, their feet crunching on the gravel path. She turned the corner and descended the ramp. The door at the bottom opened at her touch, and she stepped into a hallway. Rough stone walls covered in crumbling grey stucco led to what she figured had once been the boiler room and laundry. A bare bulb illuminated the earthen floor.

She pulled Martine’s cashmere shawl tighter, wished she’d borrowed a jacket. Where was Dussollier? Uneasy, she looked back, worried someone had followed her. No one there. But an odd place to meet. Her thoughts were at war inside her. Every nerve was on alert, her instincts telling her she was in danger. But could Dussollier, the warm, avuncular man who had just introduced her to his entire extended family, have invited her here, to his daughter’s special day, just to set her up?

She stepped into the vaulted room on her left. Another bare bulb, yellowed with age, hung from a frayed wire in the curved stone ceiling, casting a dim glow over gilt and red satin-backed chairs stacked in piles.

“Mademoiselle Leduc?”

She turned to see the security guard she’d spoken to at the entrance. Her stomach knotted. What was he doing down here?

“Are you lost?” she said, stepping back, her heels sinking into the rough earth.

He shook his head and smiled.

Her hands clenched. “Take a hint and leave. I’m meeting someone.” Since he was blocking the door, she moved back toward a sink. “What do you want?”

“You.” He lunged, but she was ready, and she sidestepped him. He stumbled, knocking over a stack of chairs. Quick to recover, he gripped her arm and shoved her against the wall. Her shoulders shivered against the cold stone, and crumbling stucco trickled inside the back of her dress and down her spine.

“I like a tigress.” He grinned, pulling a roll of duct tape from inside his jacket with his free hand. She saw that he was wearing a shoulder holster.

Her insides crawled. Think. “Why didn’t you just say so? Not now, we’ll—”

“Shut up.” He pinned her to the wall, unwinding a strip of duct tape.

“The host will be here any minute. Don’t you understand? Let me go.”

The sound of footsteps came from the corridor. Dussollier at last! The guard put his thick hand over her mouth. The footsteps kept going. She bit him hard enough to draw blood.

He pulled back in pain, just far enough for her to wedge her knee up into his groin. He doubled over in a spasm. Then she pushed off from the wall with all her might, knocking him sideways against the sink. Heard the loud crack as his shiny shaved head hit the old porcelain rim. He crumpled to the ground with his eyes rolled up in his head. Knocked out cold.

Shaking, she stumbled and heard static coming from his pocket. His security monitor. “All done?” Static. “…  taken care of yet?”

The hair rose on the back of her neck. The guard had come down here to subdue her. He had to be acting on Dussollier’s orders. She reached into his shoulder holster and took the pistol, a Glock. Stuck it in her clutch.
Merde
, her bag wouldn’t snap shut.

And then her phone rang. Martine. She checked the area, saw the corridor was clear. Then edged out, keeping low, intent on finding another exit so she wouldn’t be seen leaving. Better take Martine’s call to get backup. Security.

“Martine,” she said, catching her breath. “Listen, I’m in—”

“A fax just came through from Martinique,” she interrupted. “From that Blauet. I think you should hear this.”

A bead of perspiration dripped down her neck. “Go ahead.”

“He remembers your father fondly. As you requested, he sent a list of the officers in your father’s graduating class.”

“Et …?”
She turned the corner, smack into a storage cellar full of empty boxes. Dead end. She turned and hurried back the way she’d come.

“He liked your idea for some reunion party and gives their nicknames, too, like you asked for.”

Her blood ran cold. “Don’t tell me, there’s a Thomas ‘Fifi’ Dussollier.”

“Right. But isn’t that …? Wait, are you in trouble, Aimée?”

“You’ve got to …” Her mouth went dry. The dim corridor light was blocked as Thomas Dussollier swatted the phone out of her hand. It clattered to the stone and he stomped on it. He grabbed her wrists, bent her right hand back in an iron grip. The next moment he’d shoved her forward into the room where the security guard lay. Her clutch fell on the ground.

“Trouble, always trouble, Aimée.” He sighed. Shut the door. “Ever since you were small. What your father put up with when you were a teenager,
zut!
I know, we commiserated. I had one too, but look how she turned out.”

Pain shot up her hand.
Merde
. A broken finger—if she was lucky.

The man who’d come to Chloé’s christening. Whom she’d trusted. She decided to play dumb, give him a way out. “What do you mean? You said to meet here.” Distract him, figure out a way to get by him, pray a waiter came by. Start screaming. “
Mon Dieu
, you’ve got guests upstairs. Let me get my bag and we’ll talk in the garden—”

Dussollier shoved her down against the wall, knocking her sprawling onto a broken gilt chair. She lost Martine’s left Louboutin in the dirt. He shook his head. “All this nosing around, making problems.” Another sigh. “You’ve got everything the wrong way round. Stubborn. You just haven’t wanted to see the reality. You have to know when to let things go.”

Let things go?

“All you had to do was keep your nose out of it,” he said. “Take a hint once things got difficult. The notebook’s been burned. All the proof’s gone.”

Her eyes darted around, looking for a way out. But Dussollier was blocking the door, and there was no window in this
frigid stone cell of a room. Her clutch was just out of her reach on the floor. She had to keep him talking, divert his attention until she could get her hands on the gun.

“Why did this guard appear?” she said, wincing.
Get him explaining
.

Dussollier glanced at the security guard. Shook his head. “I think you’ve dealt him a permanent blow.”

“But he attacked me,” she said.
Think. “Alors
, I don’t understand any of this. Look, if I’ve gotten things wrong, tell me.”

“We’re the good guys, remember? We take care of our own.”

Anger flared in her. “Like you took care of Papa?”

“Don’t you see? Your father was always one of us, Aimée,” he said. “Nothing changed. We’re family. I’ve always shown that, haven’t I? When others didn’t? Sent you gifts every year on Christmas? Always in my thoughts.”

Cold seeped into her bare foot from the earth.
Keep this going. Grovel. “Mais bien sûr
, I remember. And those Friday night poker games at our kitchen table.” Her left hand scrambled, searching in the dirt for her clutch.

He smiled. “The good times, eh?”

Her skin tingled. “What happened, Dussollier?”

“Happened?” He shrugged. “Every so often, word came down the ministerial pipe for your father and me to ignore evidence, to look the other way and back shelve reports.” He sighed. “Call us little cogs in the machine. That’s all.”

That’s how he rationalized corruption? By dragging her father into it too?

“My papa in league with you? Never.”

“Morbier may have been his first partner, but your father and I went to the police academy together. That’s a tie that binds, you know that.” A half smile on his face. Wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. He looked old. “Just one more day until I retire. Then this old guy’s getting kicked out.”

She had to ignore the burning pain in her fingers. Appeal
to his vanity and pride. Swallow the bile rising up in her throat.

“She’s lovely, your daughter. They make a handsome couple.”

“You know, it meant a lot to my wife that you came today. She wants to see the baby.” He adjusted his crooked tuxedo collar. “So, are you ready to hear my proposition?”

Nicu. Roland Leseur. He hadn’t given them any propositions. Or Djanka Constantin, or Pascal Leseur. She bit her lip, then had to spit out the sour taste of the guard’s dirty hand.

“Why me?”

“Pwahh.” A lopsided smile. “You’re special, Aimée.”

Like she believed that.

“I know you’ll be reasonable, Aimée. Let’s work this out, as I’ve done with half the crowd upstairs. Let things ride, like your papa did.”

He unbuttoned his tuxedo-shirt collar. The hairs on her arms rose. He’d blown her father up in the van in Place Vendôme.

“How many times do I have to prove Papa wasn’t on the take?”

“Choose your battles, Aimée. We all did.” Dussollier sighed. Rationalizing murder? But it seemed important to him that she see it his way. “With that wild mother of yours, eh? A kid to raise. He made choices. Choices you benefitted from. You kids always need something. Teenagers, well, you’ll find out. That high-school year abroad in the US, how do you think he paid for that? Eh, those Texas cowboy boots you couldn’t live without?”

Those boots. She’d begged her papa for them.

“So you’re saying it’s my fault he …?” She couldn’t say it.
Non, non
. “You’re twisting everything around, Dussollier.”

“Kids. Never changes. We do everything for you and it’s not enough.”

Like this lavish party for his daughter? More like to impress people, stoke his prestige, his craving for power. Hypocrite.

The damp cold crawled up her legs. Dussollier checked his phone. Waiting, she realized, he was waiting for a call—his cohort to back him up? Her finger throbbed. She had to get him to admit it. “So this started twenty years ago with the murders of Pascal Leseur and Djanka Constantin?”

“We didn’t kill that blackmailer in the ministry. Or his Gypsy slut …” His words trailed off, and after a moment he said, “A real botched job, that one. We just covered it up.”

The bare bulb flickered into darkness for a moment, then lit the ground. She inched forward. Her clutch bag was almost in reach. “What do you mean?”