Murder in the Palais Royal (6 page)

Now at twenty, Clémence refused to struggle with dead-end jobs. Her attitude had ended work cleaning offices and flats in the prestigious 16th arrondissement where even the maids wore pearls. But a job in the high-end Palais Royal bistro run by a fellow Toulousian where she could joke with clients made life bearable.

Clémence unlocked the cellar door, closed it without a sound, and padded through the tunnel. She’d reached the staircase to the bistro when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

A shiver went through her. Then she recognized Carco’s stocky frame and flushed face, topped by his chef’s hat. Along with crated zucchini and net bags of onions, he blocked her way in the tunnel.

“What’s with the gloves?” he asked.

Her shoulders tensed. She had to find a way past Carco and deliver the letter before her shift began. “Last pair, too!” she said. “I need to polish the copper pots.”

“I waited for you last night, Clémence.”

He could wait forever, as far as she was concerned.

“I’m sorry. You know how tired I get after my shift, Carco.”

“Why don’t I come to your place tonight after work, Clémence?”

The last thing she wanted, in her condition. Not only that: her roommate despised him. And his temper.

But his cousin was a
flic.
She’d better watch her step and keep Carco happy, for now.

“My place?” She grinned, leaning against his white, side-buttoned chef’s jacket. “Why?”

“We’ll watch that video you have, you know. . . .”

“How about
your
place?”

He lived in a closet of a room near the Gare du Nord; the smell of grease from the Turkish kebab place below, and recorded prayers on the radio from the adjoining apartment, would wake her up at dawn.

“Promise?”

She’d promise anything to get away; her gloved fingers clutched the envelope in her pocket. She winked. “Of course.”

G
ABRIELLE DE LA Pecheray shut the Ministry of Culture Press Conference Room door with a sigh of relief. Under her private office’s high, gilded ceiling, she toyed with the idea of a massage. Her feet ached. Keeping the wolves at bay took its toll. She’d spent an hour fielding journalists’ questions over the proposal to unseal National Archives Occupation-era documents. Now she collapsed in the Louis XV chair and kicked off her heels. This week she’d noticed a fine line cornering her lip.

Her eye fell on the envelope marked “Personal, Gabrielle de la Pecheray” lying among the correspondence on her desk. What now? She shook her head in a quick motion, her thick blond hair held back by a black bow in a coiffed ponytail.

Gabrielle slit the envelope open to find cut-out words from a newspaper pasted on a sheet of cheap paper.

Olivier was involved. I have proof. Leave fifty thousand francs CASH in an envelope at the antiquarian bookshop in Galerie de Valois, Palais Royal by 4 P.M. today.

Proof . . . proof of what? What did this crude blackmail attempt mean?

She shook the envelope, and a creased newspaper article dated January 1994 fell out, along with a grainy photo of flames and a gutted building. A sinking feeling overtook her.

Suspect convicted of arson in Marais synagogue fire. The 18-year-old member of a neo-Nazi group,
Les Blancs Nationaux,
has been sentenced at the Tribunal for the November 1993 burning of the Marais synagogue. Trial evidence centered on the defendant’s boast on video of setting fire to the synagogue, as part of group initiation into the notorious skinhead group, and testimony from the Leduc Detective agency who obtained this video. The accused—and now convicted— Nicolas Evry, his name revealed by the authorities, remains at La Santé. Due to his age, he received the minimum sentence of four years.

But hadn’t they taken care of this, paid Nicolas off? She’d shielded Olivier, her son, who’d flirted with Le Pen’s youth party and mixed with neo-Nazi skinheads,
Les Blancs Nation-aux,
but that was over.

And why now, why threaten her four years later? Olivier’s latest occupation, apart from “student,” was party boy, according to the tabloid columns of
Voici.

Her manicured hands trembled. The black marble clock on her desk showed 3:45. She reached for her cell phone. Time to make a call, squeeze her contact. Get this handled.

But the recorded voicemail message said: “Out of the country. No messages taken.”

Whatever this “proof ” consisted of, she couldn’t risk having it made public. Not now. Gabrielle stared from window overlooking the flowering Palais Royal garden, the fountain, the alley of trees and shops under the colonnade. Peaceful, almost bucolic. But her insides churned. It smelled like the threat of an amateur. Then again, this could mask more sophisticated forces at work.

She took our her wallet, found five thousand francs. In her desk drawer was another five thousand. She took a sheet of paper and started to write. Her hands shook so much that the ink blotted. She tore it up, tried again, and wrote “The rest when I have the proof.”

Her cell phone rang. The minister’s number appeared. Of all times, she thought.

“Oui,
Minister Ney
.

”

The minister cleared his throat. An ominous sign.

“Gabrielle,” he began, “I’m concerned that your staff cocked it up over the junior deputy’s little indiscretion.”

Cocked it up? “I think your junior deputy already did that, Monsieur le Ministre,” she said. “The
flics
caught him with a fifteen-year-old hooker.”

She couldn’t deal with this now. She had to hurry to the antiquarian bookseller, to question him herself.

A small expulsion of air came over the line. “But how can one tell these days?” said the minister. “I mean, they don’t provide birth certificates, do they?”

Gabrielle wondered if Minister Ney spoke from personal experience. But that wasn’t anything she wanted to know.

Gabrielle stuffed the money into the envelope and shut her drawer.

“Fix this the usual way, Gabrielle.”

Did the whole bureau depend on her for damage control? For once, couldn’t the minister invoke national security and cover up the old-fashioned way?

“But Monsieur le Ministre, he not only ran a red light but resisted arrest with an underage illegal Romanian hooker in the car.”

“Gabrielle,” Minister Ney said, “it’s important that he interviews well on
Opinions
tomorrow. We must bolster public support against the delegation’s proposal. It’s in no one’s interest to unseal those documents in the National Archives.”

No need to remind her. More than a few government officials feared that their past would appear in the media if certain documents were made available. Especially now, given the upcoming wartime collaboration trial in Bordeaux of the former Vichy official Papon.

She reached for her bag. “I can’t make this go away, Monsieur le Ministre.”

Opinions
was the highest-rated political-commentary show on the
télé
. And she’d scheduled the junior deputy’s interview more than a month ago. Unfortunate, since—despite the junior deputy’s underage proclivities—he influenced a significant delegation in the Ministry.

She glanced at the time. 3:55 P.M.

“I don’t care what you do, Gabrielle,” he said. “Or how you do it. Make the moderator sympathetic.”

“But Cédric’s a well-respected political analyst.”

“And he’s got a little file he’d like kept quiet, as I recall.”

Cédric led a discreet life, apart from his fondness for cocaine. An old charge of possession had been swept under the carpet, standard procedure for influential celebrities, but ready for activation as needed. Cédric was her old classmate from ENA, witty and intelligent. The thought of smearing him sickened her.

“Minister, he’s been in rehab. That chapter’s closed. I can’t do that to my friend,” she said. “Couldn’t we find some other way?”

But for all her damage-control expertise, what it might be escaped her.

“Can’t, or won’t, Gabrielle?”

His words dangled over the line.

“Your husband Roland’s up for a ministry position, isn’t he? I wouldn’t want your lack of cooperation to affect that. This is not the time for you to grow a conscience.”

What else could she do but agree?

“D’accord,
Minister. I’ll take care of it tonight.”

She’d never figured her years spent at ENA and
Hautes Etudes Politiques
would lead her to a career of bleaching the dirty linen of Ministry officials.

“I’ll expect a list of questions prepared for the moderator in an hour.”

More than the usual
crise de jour
for a Tuesday.

“But first come to my office. I’ll expect you momentarily.” And with that the minister hung up.

Cornered, she heard the clock chime four o’clock.

A
IMÉE LEANED ON the taxi dispatch counter. “Impossible,” she said in disbelief. She checked the dispatch log again. “Yesterday, René and I shared sushi at lunch, going over my upcoming testimony for the Nadillac trial next week.”

Melac watched her, expressionless.

She remembered René in his orthopedic chair coaching her on points and answering techniques for the trial. René was worried that she’d forget to charge her cell phone. As usual. Funny, the little details she remembered. She’d give anything to go back to yesterday.

She grew aware of Melac’s scrutiny. He was speaking.

“Often, in cases of mental illness, it’s hereditary. The hidden disease was the old term for schizophrenia.”

That snapped her to attention.

“Some pyschobabble from a Brigade Criminelle training session, Melac?”

“Patients often want to be caught,” Melac continued, “to be stopped. They feel helpless to stop themselves.”

“I’ve been framed.” She re-checked the log for the third time. “Monsieur, was this a check or charge transaction?”

“Cash.”

“Did the driver report a tip?”

“Not according to this. But then they don’t always, eh?”

“See, Melac? Cash, no trace.” She summoned what little bravado she could muster. “I tip big. It earns me good taxi karma on rainy nights. Drivers remember me.”

“You’re digging a hole for yourself, Mademoiselle.”

“
Non,
though it looks that way,” she said, exasperated. “I don’t know who disguised themself as me. Or took a taxi to my place. Why would I go to all this trouble, get this tape and show you, if that woman was me?”

“We’ll continue this at the Brigade.” Melac flipped his notepad closed. “I’d suggest you revise your statement, Mademoiselle.”

“What are you talking about?” Fear coursed through her veins. “René? Has his condition worsened? Is he . . . he’s—”

“Stable.”

In the few blocks to the Brigade Criminelle, Melac was busy on his cell phone. Frustrated, her fingers worked at the worn car upholstery. “What’s this about, Melac?” she asked as he pulled past the gates.

“You’ll find out.”

On the third floor, occupied by the Brigade Criminelle, he showed her to a dark space like an old film projection booth. Through a rectangular slit of a window, she saw a man seated at a wooden table with only his shoulders and the back of his head visible.

“He can’t see or hear you,” Melac said.

Not a standard lineup. Odd, she thought. “If you want me to identify him, he’ll need to turn around.”

Melac gave her a look she couldn’t fathom.

“Your job’s to listen.”

Melac closed the door. A key scraped in the lock. And she felt like a baited rat without any cheese. Stupid. She’d walked right into it, shown Melac the evidence, played by the “rules.” And look where it got her. No one to blame but herself. No René to count on. No one to extricate her from her predicament. She twisted the copper puzzle ring Yves had given her more than a year earlier, the night before he was murdered, then pushed aside her thoughts of him. This was no time to wallow in reflections on what might have been.

Whoever shot René had planned it to a T. Knew where she lived, her schedule, movements, even her clothing. The thought made her shiver.

The shooter had counted on the
flics
tracing the helmet. Instead, she’d beat the
flics
to it, and dug herself deeper into the pit. Now he thought she was schizophrenic.

She took out her cell phone and punched in Morbier’s number. No answer.

Melac entered the room below and sat. The sound system crackled and voices became audible.

“Thanks for making the time to give your statement,” he said. “I understand you have a busy schedule, Monsieur.”

“Busy? It’s the fall collection! Our preview and runway show is this week.”

She knew that voice. Those shoulders, that earring. Mathieu.

Finally! At last, with her alibi corroborated, Melac would concentrate on finding the woman who had impersonated her.

“Please read your statement aloud.”

“Again?” Mathieu shrugged. “Monday night, my wife and I attended our daughter’s preschool play at the crêche near Place Vendôme. The performance lasted an hour. At 8 P.M. we ate dinner at Léon de Bruxelles on the Boulevard Beaumar-chais, then returned home by 11 P.M., where I spent the rest of the night.”

Aimée’s mouth dropped open. Mathieu was married? And had a child? And she prided herself on spotting a married man a kilometer away: the walk, the furtive look. But this time her radar had failed her. Even after consulting Chloë’s
Elle
article, she’d scored zero. So much for this “bad boy.” The liar.

“Your wife will corroborate this?”

“
Bien sûr,
” he said. “But she’s in Milan now. Talk to her when she returns.”