Murder on the Champ de Mars (6 page)

Niceties over, Martin raised an eyebrow meaningfully at François, who nodded—they would not be disturbed. Martin leaned forward.

“You made an appointment, Mademoiselle Aimée?” Martin had given her fifteen minutes, his usual. And she couldn’t leave René babysitting all night.

She gathered her courage. Martin never liked speaking about her father’s death. “An informer of my father’s, Drina Constantin, a Gypsy with a small son, remember her?”

Martin’s eyes were hidden behind his thick lenses and the smoke from the Gauloise. “My memory’s not that good, Mademoiselle Aimée.”

“You’re too modest, Martin.” His knowledge of the underworld was encyclopedic. And if he didn’t know something, he knew someone who did. “Think back to 1984.”

“Let’s say I was otherwise occupied at that time.”

In prison.

“D’accord.”
Aimée bit her lip. “I think Drina Constantin knows who killed Papa.”

She watched Martin. Looked for a movement, a flicker of his eyes behind those framed glasses. But his eyes were as still as the glass they looked through.

But then Martin heard bigger secrets than that every night.

“Et alors?”
he said.

“An hour and a half ago, Drina Constantin disappeared from Hôpital Laennec. Poof, gone.” She told Martin the little she knew. “The woman can’t walk, she’s dying.”

“A Gypsy scam, Mademoiselle Aimée,” he said, relaxing against the back of the seat. Like
tout le monde
, Martin distrusted Gypsies. “These Romany scam artists have been flooding the country these last ten years. The Roma keep to themselves—they would never really bring an outsider into a family matter.”

That much she’d witnessed from Uncle Radu’s reaction. Martin had raised a sliver of doubt in her mind.

“You watch, someone is going to ask you for money—expensive medical treatments for your papa’s old informer.”

Her stomach twisted. Could Martin be right? Could that be why they’d brought her into this, exploited her vulnerability, her obsession with her father’s death? A classic scam. Could she have been so naïve? But no—she shook off the prejudice and doubt that came to her so easily. These were people, suffering people, not scammers. Her gut instinct told her to trust Nicu, that he didn’t lie about his mother’s message. She believed that the woman had been abducted by someone who wished to keep her silent. What if other lives were in danger?

“Distrust goes both ways; to them we’re the outsiders,” she said, putting down her cup. “I was skeptical at first, too. But the woman’s got terminal cancer, and someone pulled her off a hemodialysis machine. The doctor was alarmed; I heard more than concern in the staff’s voices. Whatever happened to her, it wasn’t Drina’s choice, and I need to help her.”

Martin tapped ash off his Gauloise, unimpressed. “So her son contacts you, out of the blue, after all these years, now that she’s dying?”

Aimée raised her hand to stop him. “
Arrête
, Martin. Her son’s terrified. I need to find her. Look at this picture again. Do you know anything about this woman?” She put Nicu’s photo
down by the ashtray containing his smoldering cigarette. Took a sip of her
chocolat chaud
, giving him a long moment to think.

“
Eh bien
, I remember that coat your father’s wearing.
Ça fait vraiment longtemps
. Memories.”

Something had clicked, she could tell.

“Think, Martin,” she said. “Did Papa talk about a
manouche
, using her in an operation?”

A drag on his cigarette, a puff of exhaled smoke. “You’re sure this Drina informed for him?”

She couldn’t think of any other explanation, given her father’s open offer of help on the back of his business card. And that Nicu had known her address. And that it felt like something her papa would do.

Aimée nodded and set down her cup. She scooped the lace of foam off the rim. Licked her spoon.

“There are five or six
manouche
families all the rest are related to.
Gens du voyage
clans.” Martin stared at the photo. “Do you know if she belonged to the Marseille branch, or Avignon, or Berry or those in Essonne?”

She shrugged.

“That’s important—there might be territorial rivalries, an old feud,” said Martin. “She could come from Montreuil, in the suburbs, or from the few smattered in the nineteenth arrondissement, or maybe north of Porte de Saint-Ouen. Or have ties to the Evangelical Protestant Gypsies clustered in Essonne.”

Aimée remembered Essonne, thirty minutes on the train from Paris, with its patches of farmland, horses, a medieval church she’d visited on a school trip and enclaves of
gens du voyage
.

“Does she live in an encampment? Or travel, move around?”

“I don’t know.” She wanted to kick herself for not asking Nicu more—insisting he tell her where they lived, how they survived. Then she remembered Drina’s ID. “She worked in the
markets. That’s all I know. Can you help me find her, Martin?” she said. “Where do I look next?”

His face was still impassive, but she knew she had engaged him. “Who steals a dying Gypsy from a hospital other than her own clan?”

Under the table she pressed the envelope containing the francs she’d withdrawn from the ATM into his lap. “A
gadjo
who wants to keep a secret and cover up the past.”

S
HE EXITED THE
Métro at Pont Marie, her collar up against the wind blowing off the Seine, and crossed the bridge to Île Saint-Louis. Lights gleamed in her third-floor window on quai d’Anjou. Had Chloé woken up? Was she hungry?

By the time Aimée’d run up the worn marble stairs two at a time and unlocked the tall, carved door, all she could think about was that sneeze of Chloé’s this morning. A full-blown cold now? Or worse?

She tossed her jacket and bag on the hall escritoire. “Is Chloé all right, René?”

But instead of René, it was Morbier who stood at the kitchen stove by the boiling kettle. Steam fogged the window overlooking the quai.

“Shhh. She’s asleep.” He wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “René enjoyed a little too much champagne, so when I came back to see you, I sent him home in a taxi. Shame about the celebration.” Morbier pointed to a cup. “Join me for a tisane?”

Her jaw dropped. “Since when do you drink herbal tea?”

“Jeanne sticks the tea bags in my pocket,” he said, pulling one out. Miles Davis looked up hopefully from beside his water dish, wagging his tail.

Morbier had trimmed down, visited the barber, even wore matching socks these days. His new squeeze had accomplished miracles. He handed Aimée a cup.

“Your hands feel like ice, Morbier,” she said.

“Cold hands, warm heart,” he said, not missing a beat.

She was braced for an onslaught, but she felt too tired to deal with his disapproval after the church scene. It all streamed back: the shock of Melac’s arrival; the flicker of joy she’d felt turning into humiliation when she realized he’d brought his new woman; the creeping fear of watching that woman hold her daughter; Melac’s talk of custody and lawyers—it all swirled in her head. How dare he threaten her? Why couldn’t he … but she didn’t even know what she wanted from him anymore. Once she’d hoped he could be a father for the occasional weekend, but he’d disappeared from her life, and she’d shut the door on him. He hadn’t come knocking until now. Her outrage bubbled up again; she wanted to kick something.

“Don’t start on me about Melac,” she warned Morbier. “Not you. Not now.”

“Who said I would?” He jutted out his chin. “Dig your own hole, Leduc.”

Helpful as usual.

The tisane burnt her tongue, and she set down the cup. “I’m finding a lawyer,” she said.

“Good,” he said. She’d expected recriminations, arguments about the benefits of shared custody and how much the baby needed a father figure, but instead Morbier said, “I’ve been hearing things about his new woman.”

Aimée blinked. Melac wasn’t on the up-and-up.

“Make sure you hire a family-law specialist,” said Morbier. “Like this one.”

He pulled out his notebook, tore out a page with the name Annick Benosh written above a phone number and an address in the 8th.

Aimée stared at the paper on the counter. “Can I afford her?”

“I’d say you can’t afford not to hire her.”

Touched, she noticed the look on his face. One she hadn’t seen in a long time. His guard was down; emotion welled in his eyes.

“Get smart, Leduc. For once. My great-goddaughter’s involved.” He dipped his steaming teabag several times. “And if anything happens to me,
alors
, there’s something set aside for Chloé.”

“Happens to you, Morbier? You’re not threatening retirement again?”

But she knew that wasn’t what he meant. If only they got along better. If only she didn’t always feel like a child with him. He had been the only constant in her life since her father died.

She hugged him. Hadn’t hugged him like that since she couldn’t remember when. Inhaled that Morbier muskiness, so familiar from her childhood: the smell of wool, a trace of unfiltered Gauloise and
—mon Dieu
—something new. She sniffed.

“Is that Eau Sauvage, by Dior?” She sniffed again. “Another gift from Jeanne?”

He shrugged. “
Ce n’est rien
, just some experimentation with my fragrance palate.”

“Fragrance palate?” Did he even know what that meant?

His thick eyebrows drew down in irritation. “It’s all to do with the body’s chemistry. Olfactory stimulation.”

Her jaw dropped again. “Next you’ll be taking vitamins, mixing protein shakes and doing yoga.” And the world would spin off its axis.

He stretched both hands in the air, reached for the ceiling. “They call this the
talasana
, or palm tree pose.”

“Really? Yoga?” She caught herself before she said, “At your age?”

“No age limit, according to the instructor.” Why did she always forget his uncanny skill for reading her mind at the most awkward moments?

“Tisane, Dior
eau de cologne
and now yoga. Wonders never
cease.” Or maybe he was just getting in shape to impress the sexy grandmothers at Chloé’s playground. She grinned but quickly hid it. Time to be serious. She needed to find out if he knew anything that might help her find Drina Constantin. “Who do you know at the
commissariat central
in the seventh, Morbier? Does Jojo still man the desk on rue Peronnet?”

“What trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Leduc? Does this have anything to do with the Gypsy-looking boy you were talking to after the christening?” He looked at her and shook his head. “Does it?”

She nodded.

“Go on, what happened, Leduc?” He sighed and sipped his tisane.

Standing next to him at the counter, she told him about Nicu and Drina. Held back the meeting with Martin. After all, Morbier was a
commissaire divisionaire
and Martin an ex-con and private informer.

“Leave it alone. What’s the point of bringing all this up again, Leduc?”

“A dying woman’s abducted from a hospital and new information about Papa is hitting me in the face. What am I supposed to do, ignore it? Let Papa’s murderer go unpunished?” she said. She slammed her hands on the counter. “Let the murderer evade justice again?”

Morbier put his cup down and shrugged. His profile was dark against the window overlooking the Seine and the quai’s globe streetlamps.

“Morbier, you were Papa’s first partner on the beat. Did you know this woman? Have you heard of Drina Constantin?”

“
Putain
, Leduc. Say this woman did inform for him. We had tons of informers,” he said. “Why connect her to him years later? Doesn’t make sense.”

“She’s the one who made the connection—maybe a secret
she needs to get off her chest before she dies?” she said. “Some Gypsy code of honor—I don’t know.”

“She thinks of you while she’s lying on her deathbed, Leduc?” Skepticism filled Morbier’s voice.

“But someone else thought it was important, too. Someone else cares enough to try to shut her up.”

“Gypsy culture’s a law unto itself,” said Morbier. He squeezed the teabag with his spoon. “We’re talking professional thieves here. You can’t believe they wouldn’t steal a person if they wanted to.”

Typical. The easy way out. Aimée remembered
Le Parisien
’s article the week before about police crackdowns on Gypsy enclaves.

She’d seen the encampments of
gens du voyage
off the RER B line, tin shacks hugging the rail lines, the laundry hanging from trees, the lean-tos on the other side of the
périphérique
near the Stade de France—mostly refugee Roma, the Eastern European Gypsies. Sad.

“I know the prefecture mandates workshops on the dangers of discrimination, how to avoid racial profiling,” she said. “Have you been skipping those seminars again?”

“Missing the point as usual, Leduc. There’s a time to realize when things are best left alone,” he said, his voice thick. “There’s nothing you can do for this woman, or for your father. Move on. You’ve got Chloé now. That’s what he would want, you know that.”

She knew. “But Papa offered her his help. My help. Look.” She thrust her father’s card in his palm. “Papa always said a person’s only as good as their word.” Over his wine glass, standing on this exact spot in the kitchen, a week before the explosion.

Morbier averted his eyes. “A promise made years ago? Grow up, Leduc.”

Aimée winced. Why couldn’t Morbier understand?

“Were you at the bombing? Did you find his melted glasses,
his charred—” Her throat caught. She rubbed the burn mark on her palm, the scar had been imprinted from the smoldering van’s door handle. “
Mais non
, you were … you were …” She couldn’t finish the sentence. A no-show at the morgue, at the pitiful funeral. “Where were you, Morbier?”

He leaned on the counter, his fists clenched, the knuckles white. “I don’t want you to get hurt. It’s complicated …”

“Complicated how, Morbier? Isn’t it about time you told me?”

But Morbier’s chest heaved. He grabbed at his cup on the counter, missing and sending it clattering on the wood parquet.