Murder Below Montparnasse (23 page)

Saj never talked about his aristo background.

Aimée’s phone vibrated in her pocket. The men who had threatened her last night? Her fingers shook as she hit answer.

“You left a message for Lieutenant Michel Olivant,” said a man’s voice. “He’s
en vacances
.”

Michel, her contact in the art squad.

“You’re handling Michel’s cases?”

Pause. “I assume you have info on the Cézanne?”

Cézanne?

“I didn’t get your name,” she said, trying to stall. Come up with something.

“Raphael Dombasle.”

Her mind went back to meeting with Michel last year, the photos of him and his unit lining his office. “Of course, Michel’s partner.”

“We work on a team.” His tone was brusque.

“Monsieur Dombasle, we need to talk.”

“Concerning the Cézanne?”

Pause. The clink of silverware, the blare of a horn.

“No Cézanne, eh? Make a report, Mademoiselle,” he said, bored. “I’ve got fifty cases on my desk right now.”

“But this involves a homicide.”

“That’s
Brigade Criminelle
turf,” he said, businesslike. In a rush. Like all of them. “We’re overloaded with cases,
desolé
. I’m due at Thirty-Six in fifteen minutes.”

“Thirty-Six,” as they all referred to it, was 36 quai des Orfèvres. But across the street from 3 rue de Lutèce, where the art theft division of the BRB,
Brigade de Répression du Banditisme
, shared the building with the RG,
Renseignements Généraux
, the domestic intelligence. Not her favorite people.

Before she could say Modigliani, Dombasle had rung off.

Saj sat on his tatami mat, scrolling through files on his laptop. “The kid’s good, Aimée.” He nodded in appreciation at the neatly stacked work on her desk. “Got us up to speed. Gives me time to work on the new project.”

“René trained him,” she said. “We couldn’t hope for better.”

Saj turned his neck, stretched. “The Serb bothers me, Aimée. I feel disturbed auras.”

“More than disturbed auras, Saj,” she said. “Yet I don’t know what.”

“Then find out.”

Yes, she could do this. She wasn’t lost at sea without René anymore; the office wheels were now running with irritating efficiency thanks to Maxence. And Saj was back on board. Thank God. Now she had to get to the bottom of this so he no longer had to fear vengeance from the Serbian mafia, and so she could clear her guilty conscience about Yuri, who had needed her help and ended up dead—possibly at her mother’s hands.

In her bones she knew that, like a bloodstain, the traces of this tragedy wouldn’t disappear.

D
OWN ON RUE
du Louvre, she stopped at the newspaper kiosk. “Anything earth-shattering, Marcel?” Aimée handed Marcel, the one-armed Algerian vet, two francs. In return he handed her a morning copy of
Le Parisien
.

“
Et voilà
, in the seventh month of the Princess Diana inquiry, the lead investigator reveals … the investigation continues.” Marcel shrugged. “Rumors of the Russians reneging on aerospace contracts at the trade show.” He gestured to the line of limos parked on rue de Rivoli. “At least the oligarchs’ wives don’t renege on their shopping sprees.”

The scent of the budding plane trees mingled with diesel exhaust from the Number 75 bus on rue du Louvre.

“No strikes today, Marcel?”

“Only one, the TGV.”

Good thing she hadn’t planned a railroad trip. “Mind taking Miles Davis to the groomer’s and dog sitting tonight?”

A flicker crossed Marcel’s face. “Hot date?”

She wished. “The glam life, Marcel. Work.”

Ten minutes later, she reached the corner café on Île de la Cité frequented by
flics
and administrators. A few doors down stood 3 rue de Lutèce. An anonymous door, no sign. Nothing to indicate the nest of vipers working here.

Notre Dame’s bell chimed. Right on time, a tall man in his late twenties rose from the café table, grabbed a briefcase, and
took a few steps. She recognized him from the photo Michel kept on his desk.

“Raphael Dombasle?” she said. “I’m Aimée Leduc, Michel’s friend.”

“How did you know that …?”

“Forgive me, you’re in a hurry,” she said. “Let’s talk while we walk.”

“Try taking no for answer, Mademoiselle,” he said. “I need to brief them on the dossier for tomorrow’s hearing. The lawyer’s got thirty minutes.…”

“A Modigliani’s worth more than a Cézanne. I checked. Especially one that’s been hidden for seventy years.”

Dombasle’s shoulders jerked. “What’s your name again?”

“Aimée Leduc,
détective privé
.”

He glanced at his sports watch. “Give me thirty-five minutes. But it better be worth it.”

She nodded. “Back here.” She pointed to the café table he’d risen from.

“Too many people I know.” He lifted his chin. “Café du Soleil d’Or on the other corner.”

Too many ghosts for her there. But she nodded.

A
IMÉE TOOK AN
inside table at the window. Memories drenched the old bistro—the back banquette where she’d done her geography homework while her
grand-père
bantered with the owner over a bottle of wine. Her father had been denounced by a colleague at the bar, humiliated in front of off-duty officers. They’d engineered for him to be thrown off the force.

She’d vindicated him, but only years later, after his death.

“Mademoiselle Aimée?”

She smiled up at Louis, the owner and her grandfather’s drinking partner. “How’s your wife, Hélène?”

Louis’s eyes clouded. “Her funeral was last month. We held the wake here, didn’t Morbier tell you?”

“I’m sorry.” Saddened, she took Louis’s hand and squeezed it. A generation was passing. “I would have come if I’d known.” Would she have? She averted her eyes.

“Couldn’t face them, could you?”

“The old-boy network who accused Papa?” She caught her breath, wishing she’d bitten her tongue. Her father’s supposed friends, who kicked him when he fell. Yet all of them were still in power at 36 quai des Orfèvres.

“Then why come here today, Mademoiselle?” He set a carafe of water on her round marble-topped table. “Seems you can’t forgive and forget.”

“I’m investigating, Louis.”

“So you want to bend a
flic
’s ear?”

“He better bend my ear.” She winked. “Information.”

A little smile cracked his wrinkled face. “Just like your
grand-père
. You learned from the best. But a
fille
like you should be having babies. Your
grand-père
wanted.…” He paused. “Women do it all these days, they say, juggle a job, children.”

Not this again. She’d heard those words often before. “I need wider hips, Louis.”

But Louis snapped his finger at the waiter smoking on the pavement and motioned to a table with patrons waiting to order. Always hands-on. “The usual?” Louis asked.

She nodded. A few minutes later, Louis set a Perroquet on the table. She diluted the intense green mint syrup with water from the carafe, and sipped the anise-flavored Pernod. From the window she watched the sun-drenched balconies of the blackened stone
préfecture
, the mid-morning throngs in line for the Sainte-Chapelle, workers spilling from offices to smoke on the pavement or heading to the bus stop. Pulsing with energy like always.

“That seat taken?”

That deep voice shook her to the core. Surprised, she looked up to see Morbier.

He held a cigarette between his thumb and forefinger in one hand, a cell phone in the other. Today the bags under his eyes were less pronounced, his clean-shaven chin showed less pallor, and he looked almost relaxed. Morbier, relaxed?

The ironed blue shirt, the tie, the whiff of Vetiver cologne, no stains on his corduroy jacket for once—it all spoke of promotion. Had that case been closed with her help?

“Nice outfit, Morbier. Nominated for an award?”

A flicker of surprise. “Nothing like that.” He paused. “No happy face for me? I went
végétarien
and put myself on the line for Saj’s release. Why that look, Leduc?”

It broke out before she could stop herself. And she didn’t care. She needed the truth.

“She’s alive, isn’t she? The fixer?”

He blew a plume of smoke that hovered in the sunlight slanting in from the window.

“Can’t say it, Morbier?”

“Say what, Leduc?”

“My mother.”

His thick brows knit in his forehead. “Didn’t we handle that?”

What kind of jargon was that? “How about the real story, Morbier?” Her lip trembled. “The truth?”

His cell phone rang in his hand. A brief check and his eyes softened. He turned away to answer. “Jeanne, I’ll call you back.…” The rest she couldn’t hear.

“Ah,
cherchez la femme
,” she said when he turned back to her. “The woman who makes you morning coffee, irons your shirt.”

Hurt hazed his eyes, then disappeared. He stabbed his cigarette out in her Ricard ashtray.

“Jeanne’s my grief group facilitator, Leduc. Cheap shot.”

Morbier, in grief counseling?

“She’s helping me deal with Xavierre’s loss.” A shrug. “But that’s off point.”

“
Désolée
, I didn’t know.” Why did she always feel like a little girl with Morbier? That inner compulsion to throw him off balance. Hurt him, like now.

But she knew why. All the secrets he’d kept from her. She needed his help again.

“Last night someone broke into my office, drugged me, and almost drowned me in a water bucket,” she said. She chewed her lip. “They called my mother ‘the fixer.’ Demanded I contact her.”

“Who did this?”

“I don’t know,” Aimée said. “She’s in danger. I need to reach her.”

“Let the past go, Leduc.”

That’s all he could say?

“Leave it alone for once. It’s over, you know that. She’s gone.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard,” she said. “I’m in over my head. They almost killed me, Morbier. They gave me twenty-four hours.”

“For what, Leduc?”

She told him what happened. Finished up with his voice message on the machine. “
Zut alors
, your irritated message saved my skin.”

An unreadable look crossed Morbier’s face. “How?”

“Your name carries weight. It’s not like last time. No one’s using me to get to her. She’s involved.”

“How can you be sure of that, Leduc?”

“Yuri was an old Trotskyist.” She thought quick, putting her assumptions together. “They knew each other from the raid in the seventies, when she got caught. My father kept a file—”

Just then, Raphael Dombasle entered and waved to her at the café door. What timing.

“What do you know, Morbier?” she said.

“Never kept tabs on her history,” he said. “Take a vacation, Leduc. Sun, sand, and surf.”

“That’s all you can say?”

He shrugged. “
Cherchez l’homme?
Melac not bad boy enough for you?”

“You know him, Morbier?”

“I wish I didn’t.”

What did that mean?

“Don’t think you can suck me in, Leduc.” Morbier chewed his cheek.

And then he stood up, nodded at Dombasle, and went out the door to be swallowed up in the crowd. Just like that.

“You’re well connected, Mademoiselle Leduc.” Raphael Dombasle hung his coat on the rack, sat down.

“Morbier’s my godfather,” she said.

Dombasle pointed to the Perroquet and called, “I’ll have the same, Louis.”

Louis winked. “You two make a nice pair.”

Aimée’s cheeks reddened.

Dombasle tucked his briefcase under the round table. “Word goes you’re an investigator with a knack for manipulation.”

“You say it like that’s a bad thing,” she said, determined to concentrate, to forget the sting of Morbier’s abandonment. He hadn’t even blinked when she’d told him her life was in danger. Why did she keep trying to bridge the distance between them when he cared this little about her? “But my job’s computer security, Monsieur Dombasle.”

“Michel vouched for you, or I wouldn’t be here,” he said. He’d checked her credentials.

She studied him. Slim. Intense dark eyes, tousled russet hair curling over his collar. Not the typical
flic
. More of an art historian, a tad
intello
. An interesting mix of
flic
and bobo.

“What do you have to tell me?”

Right now she had no way to find the painting unless the art cop gave her a lead—she’d parse the details, avoiding her mother. She gave him an edited version.

“Please, call me Raphael.” Dombasle loosened his tie. “But we’re talking about an unknown Modigliani, which I imagine has no authentication or provenance?”

“Hypothetically, if the painting had authentication, documentation and all that, what’s the value?”

“Why do I feel I’m missing something?” Dombasle sipped his drink.

“Michel I trust. You I don’t. Yet,” Aimée said. “But I’m sure you’d like to find it. So would I. And so would some Serbs.”

Dombasle grinned. For a moment he relaxed. “
Et alors
, you don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

“I don’t have the time.”

“In our field, it’s word of mouth, trust, relations built up over the years. The art dealers’ world is hermetically sealed, apart from small fissures from time to time.”

“When greed takes over?”

He nodded. “Usually. If our department recovers ten percent of the art stolen in a year, we consider that good. The number of thefts, private and national, is immense. But the profit’s enormous too.”

Only 10 percent? Her heart fell.

“But people don’t fence a Modigliani on the corner,” she said. “This painting warrants an elite type of buyer,
non?
”

“You want Interpol statistics? Three quarters of stolen art end up transited through a minimum of three countries, exchanged for goods including arms and gold. Recently, someone traded art for a restaurant chain in Slovakia.”

A means to an end. A kind of currency.

“Collectors comprise less than one percent of art theft. A focused hit is rare.” He paused. Angled his fingers toward hers. “A Modigliani—say one of the several he painted of Jeanne Hébuterne, his last lover—would go for seven or eight figures.”