Murder on the Champ de Mars (29 page)

Aristocrats with threadbare apartments, like the Uzes. Laughter, the slam of a door as a couple got out of a taxi.

“But getting back to murder over suicide: Roland had proximity, if not motive, since he lived upstairs,” said René. “And he could dump his brother’s lover in the moat.”

She remembered Leseur’s reaction to her questions: as if he had happy, fond memories of the sisters. On a practical level it seemed possible that he’d killed Djanka and Pascal, but she wasn’t convinced about motive.

“Wasn’t he younger? Might he have been away at school? Can you check on that?”

Silence except for clicking.

“René?”

“Hold on, I have to restart. My connection’s slowing down.”

Great.

“Give me a few minutes.” She heard René suck in his breath. “Almost forgot, a Martin called for you. He said you knew where to find him. I hope this means—”

About time.

“Call me when you’re up and running, René.”

A CURL OF
cigarette smoke rose from between the fingers Martin tented on the table at his banquette in the back of Le Drugstore. “Let me tell you a love story, Mademoiselle Aimée.”

An expensive one, considering what she’d paid Martin for information.

She nodded. Took a sip of Evian, mindful of the old framed poster opposite that showed two fishermen on a riverbank opening their
bières
. The caption read,
WATER? THAT’S FOR THE FISHES
.

“This love story,” said Martin. “It goes back to Victor Hugo and his hunchback. Remember Esmeralda, the seductive Gypsy? Well, during the war an alliance was formed in the Berry countryside.”

She nodded again. “You mean between the Gypsy King and the Leseur patriarch, who was part of the Resistance.”

“
Tiens, tiens
, you already know. Why did you ask for my help?”

“Keep going, Martin, I’ll tell you when I don’t know.”

Martin sucked on his cigarette. Tapped the ash into the Ricard ashtray. “The alliance continued long after the war, and a few alliances formed under the sheets, too. If you understand.”

“Pascal Leseur fathered Djanka Constantin’s child.” She sipped her Evian.

“Then I owe you a refund …”

“
Désolée
, Martin. I won’t interrupt your love story again.”

“For all this Pascal’s faults, and it seems there were many, he loved her. Had loved her since they were children. A
grand amour
. And he loved the boy. To prevent a scandal … well, I don’t know the details, but your father hid her sister and the child. Later she informed for him,
mais
then she disappeared again, this time to Avignon, after your father passed.”

Martin would never say “murdered.”

“She was afraid, that’s why—because she saw Papa blown up in the explosion. She told me, Martin. Told me as she was dying. She knew his murderers. Who are Fifi and Tesla?”

“Ask Radu Constantin.” Martin flicked his ash. “He’s waiting for you outside in the Mercedes. My next appointment’s here, Mademoiselle Aimée. Kiss the baby for me.”

“
Merci
, Martin.” She pecked him on both cheeks. Wished she didn’t want to suck up the smoke from his smoldering cigarette butt.

At the corner of the Champs-Élysées, Radu Constantin leaned against the hood of his brown Mercedes, smoking. Like he had at the hospital, he wore a fedora. He appeared more haggard, with deep pouches under his eyes. “
Le petit
said you found my sister before she went into a coma.”

Sounded like he had a problem with that. She pulled her bolero tighter. “We alerted you as soon as we could. Didn’t you get to the
clinique
in time …?”

“She’d departed on her journey.” He removed his fedora. Put it to his chest. Wind whistled and shook the overhead plane-tree branches. He looked up. “You broke our tradition, violated our customs.”

She shivered. A sign? For a moment she wondered if Drina stirred in their midst. But she had to get past this woo woo.

“I’m sorry, Monsieur Constantin. Truly sorry.” She shook her head. “Instead of blaming me, what about the doctor who was paid off and her abductors? Hold them accountable, not me. Demand an investigation into her case. Get to the root of this and insist on prosecuting the guilty.”

He pulled
Le Parisien
from his coat pocket. Shoved it in her face. “You think the press gives us justice? That this works?”

“
Pas du tout
. But it doesn’t hurt. What you did protesting last night was instrumental in bringing this to public attention. It makes the people responsible nervous. Makes them sweat.”

A snort. “As if that will ever happen.”

“Don’t you want to make the system, however flawed, work in your sister’s favor? Like it never did during her lifetime or your nephew’s.” She couldn’t read his expression. “Hadn’t she returned because of her illness, because she needed her family?” Aimée tried her hunch, moving closer to Radu. “To say
goodbye? But it had to be on your terms,
non?
Wasn’t that why you and Nicu argued?”

“Stop.” He raised his ring-weighted hand. The thick gold band on his pinkie glinted under the streetlight.

He did blame her. No understanding shone in his face—not that she expected any. He’d lost a sister and a nephew, after all. She could feel his numb grief—but she also sensed that it was partially rooted in guilt over the past.

“What did my sister say in the
clinique
?” His voice rose, whether in fear or suspicion, she couldn’t tell. “I know she spoke to you.”

Should she hold back or tell the truth to this irrational man who resented her? Blamed her? If she walked away, like she wanted to, it would get her nowhere.

“I expect information in return, Radu. It goes both ways, or you wouldn’t be here. Martin told me.”

He hadn’t. But if Martin had gotten him here, Radu wanted something—and that “something,” whatever it was, was her bargaining chip.

He jerked his head in agreement.

“She witnessed my father’s murder years ago. Told me to ‘make it right’ and find those implicated. She gave me two names—Fifi and Tesla. Martin says you know them.”

“That’s all? You broke our traditions for that?”

She’d have understood disappointment, but where was the bite of anger in his voice coming from? What did he expect? “So I broke your traditions, some taboo,” she said. “To me, murder’s a taboo. How about you tell me how you know Fifi and Tesla.”

“That’s years ago.” He put his hat back on his curly black hair.

“I’m listening.”

He opened his car door. “Why should I tell you?”

She almost kicked the door shut. Playing hard to get and lying—well, she could play that game, too.

“Guess you don’t want to know what your sister said about you.”

Radu Constantin paused, his coat lapel bent upward in the wind. A shrug of what she took as defeat. “
Non
, that’s all scattered with the wind. Like her spirit. Gone.” He opened the car door. Paused. “She mentioned those names.”

Aimée’s breath caught. “What did she say about them?”

“That’s why she had to hide, she said. That’s all.” Radu averted his eyes. “I blamed her for mixing with
gadjo
, like always, and refused to help. Then she disappeared.”

He’d shunned her when she’d asked for help.

“But why had she recently come back to Paris?”

“To make her peace, to depart among her people. But the
gadjo
found her.” He looked up at the night sky hazed by clouds. “Me, I wanted her forgiveness.”

And she believed him.

A
IMÉE STOOD FOR
a long moment watching the Mercedes disappear into the cars on the brightly lit Champs-Élysées. Radu Constantin’s sad case was one of too little, much too late.

Her phone vibrated in her inner jacket pocket. René.

“Leseur’s on the move, Aimée.” She heard him clicking the keyboard in the background. “He’s going down rue du Bac. Now he’s turning onto … rue de Grenelle. Maybe he’s walking his dog …”

“Or maybe not, René.” She plugged in her earphones, put on her helmet, keyed the ignition and revved the engine. “Guide me from the Pont de l’Alma. I should be crossing it in three minutes.”

“Sure about this, Aimée?”

“Keep talking, René.”

René directed her remotely, keeping tabs on Leseur, who maintained a brisk pace.

“Where did you really get this little toy?”

“My real-time simulation prototype?”

“Talking geek again, René? Did some gamer friend with military contacts ask you to alpha-test this?”

“Not military,
non
. My Silicon Valley friends.” He pronounced it
Zeeleekon Vallée
.

“You got in trouble with them before, René,
n’est-ce pas?”

And had to escape the
vallée
on a drug plane. But no need to bring that up.

“Leseur must have jumped into a taxi,” said René, excited now. “He’s passing les Invalides.”

“I’m on Avenue Rapp.” Tiled Art Nouveau façades flew by.

“Take a left at Avenue de la Bourdonnais to intercept him at rue de Grenelle.”

She stretched out her arm to signal a left turn and almost got clipped by a speeding Alfa Romeo. Centimeters from losing her hand to a red bullet with Italian music blaring from the open window.

Shaken, and feeling more wary of Italians than she had before, she kept to the right.

“He’s going straight on rue de Grenelle,” René was saying, “passing … 
non
, slow down, it’s hard following on the screen …” A few clicks. “Veer right … it’s a one-way. Make a right on Grenelle which becomes rue Belgrade.” A few moments later René shouted, “He’s stopped at the Champ de Mars! In front of it.
Non
, beside it.”

“Make up your mind, René. Tell your cursor to behave.”

“Make a sharp right on avenue Deschanel and go up to rue Marinoni. It’s a narrow street leading to the Champ de Mars.”

She caught the green light and zipped right, cutting in front of an approaching
camionnette
. Its burst of honking made her almost jump out of her skin.

“
Le voilà
. I see him getting out of a taxi,” she said. “He’s paying.” She held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t find the
centime-sized tracker as he riffled through his wallet. Then again, he might mistake it for a coin. “René, he’s going to the front door of …” She pulled over, squinting through her helmet’s visor. “One-four-three rue Marinoni.” A limestone mansion with an Art Nouveau tiled façade, its tall windows framed by iron scrollwork. “Find out who lives here. Could be an embassy, but I don’t see a plaque or flag.”

Trees blocked much of her view, so she idled the engine and checked the time. Leseur might stay an hour, several hours—who knew?

“Checking the address out, Aimée. Takes a minute. Call me back.”

But it was less than a minute before she heard the door open, footsteps on the short rise of stairs and voices. She peered between the trees, catching sight of Roland Leseur and a woman walking past the grilled fence. She couldn’t make out the woman’s face in the darkness, just a shock of white-haired ponytail. The woman held a leash with a trailing Westie following behind.

At 9
P.M.
Leseur had taken a taxi across the
quartier
to walk a dog with this woman—a friend? Not his sister, because her research had told her he didn’t have one. A liaison? Aimée killed the engine, grabbed a knit cap and thin windbreaker from under the scooter seat, stowed her helmet, the Schiaparelli and pocketed her keys. At least the oversized windbreaker covered the Chanel.

She’d lost them now.
Merde
. But with a dog they couldn’t have gotten too far. The Champ de Mars stretched from the Tour Eiffel, with its tourists and pickpockets, down this way, which was a popular family spot in the daytime: there were pony rides and a marionette theater, and tree-lined gravel pathways favored by
les joggeurs
. At night it was a different story, according to Morbier—a famous rendezvous spot for assignations in the bushes.

She followed raised voices down the gravel paths of the Champ de Mars, through a stretch of darkness; the only light came from the diffuse radiance of the Tour Eiffel, which was partially obscured by trees. The damp stones crunched and felt cold under the soles of her shoes.

Finally she spotted Leseur, seated on a bench next to the woman holding the Westie’s leash. She darted behind a tree. Heard them arguing but couldn’t catch the words. Leseur leaned forward, trying to embrace the woman. His lover?

A rhythmic
crunch, crunch
on the gravel path and the bouncing beams of a jogger’s headlamp made her duck into the bushes. Leseur was angry; he was shouting now, although she couldn’t make out the words. Through the parted leaves, as the passing jogger’s beam flashed over the scene, she recognized the 1978
Paris Match
Leseur was brandishing at the woman from the photo of the younger Johnny Hallyday on the cover. The same edition she’d found in her grandfather’s collection the night before. The
Paris Match
with the photo spread on his brother Pascal’s funeral.

She hit René’s number on her phone. “Found out who lives at that address yet?” she whispered. “René?”

“
Attends
, Aimée, my connection’s slowed,” he said. “Why the whispering?”

“I’m on the Champ de Mars, trailing them. Leseur’s arguing with the woman who came out of the house with her dog. Who is she?”

All of a sudden, the woman threw the
Paris Match
down on the bench. She stood up. For the first time, Aimée caught her face in the dim light; tears glistened on her prominent cheekbones. Then she pulled at the dog’s leash and hurried away.

Leseur sat, his shoulders sagging, dejected. Should she accost him? But what did she have to say to him? All she had now were theories.

“I’d say it’s Françoise Delavigne, widow of the former
ambassador to Venezuela. She has recently put one-four-three rue Marinoni on the market,” said René. “The Delavigne family seems to have plenty of other property—including a flat in London where she’s been living with her daughter since her husband’s death. Let’s see, that was about six months ago.” René sucked in his breath. “That help?”