“How do you know?”
“I found a few of these in that file.” I pointed to the one I had just scanned. “Reading between the lines, it looks like the French police filed these reports when the Germans demanded no official record from the French. Perhaps situations in which the French got nervous, and rather than comply without question, they made unofficial notes, kind of like backup plans if there were issues later. So that means . . .” I turned another page, then back again. “Whatever happened with Arnim made the French officers on the scene uncomfortable.”
Mat crowded closer. “What does it say? Anything about Factory du Carte?”
“Stop reading ahead . . . It says here there was an explosion at twenty hundred hours in the twelfth arrondissement and that, when reporting to the scene, nearby officers found Gruppenführer Arnim and a young woman fleeing an alley.”
I looked at Mat. He wiggled a hurry up nod back to the page.
“They detained her and had decided to let her go when a German patrol surrounded them. It says here Sturmbannführer Brunel arrived, quarreled with Arnim . . . then shot him in the head.” I froze.
“What?” Mat leaned forward. “Read that again.”
“It says right here, Brunel shot Arnim in the head. Then the woman broke free in the ensuing chaos, and was shot by Brunel in the shoulder as she rounded the corner.”
Mat slumped back in a whoosh of breath. “He was executed? In an alley by a fellow German? His transfer order covered up a murder?”
I dropped against the hard back of my chair to absorb the news with him. I was speechless. Mat looked baffled.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “What happened next?”
I pushed myself forward and read on. “Another explosion then occurred at Factory du Carte, a munitions factory eight blocks north, and Brunel sent half the patrol to it.”
I glanced to Mat. His eyes were closed as he listened. “A French officer unrolled the woman’s papers and tried to take her into custody, as she was a French citizen with a Paris address—Nanette Bellefeuille, 21 rue Saint-Joseph—but Brunel refused. He stated Germans had authority as everyone present had just seen her shoot Arnim in her attempt to escape. He challenged the French to defy his explanation then ordered them to stand down. They left. End of story.”
“This is unbelievable. He was murdered by his own side.” Mat opened his eyes. “What about Rose Tremaine? That has to be the diversion Caro set. It’s eight blocks from the Clementine factory, exactly like the report.”
“She’s not here.” I turned the page and found nothing. “Maybe Nanette was part of Martine’s group that Caro mentioned? Maybe Christophe got to Caro and she passed on the assignment? She may have been nowhere near there. Christophe could have killed her the day before and we’ll never find her.”
Mat shifted to face me. “You’ve been thinking about all this.”
“It’s like a nonstop reel in my head. One with no ending.”
“Don’t race ahead of what we know.” He gestured to the page again. “Keep reading.”
Together we turned the next fifty pages, scanning for Rose Tremaine.
“How is this possible?” Mat pushed his hands from his brow to the base of his neck, ruffling his hair straight up with the motion.
I shut the file and pulled the next toward me. “You know what happened to Arnim. Hard as it is, knowing will bring his family some comfort.”
“You know . . .” Mat sighed. “I had a hard time taking this project at first, knowing he was a Nazi. But all those dresses for his wife and their stories gave him an intriguing personality so I took it. Then Caro’s letters gave him humanity . . . Now I’m not sure what to think about him. Regardless, that was an awful way to die.” Mat shifted toward me. “You’re right. Now they’ll know . . . And what about you?”
I pressed my lips together. I wanted that comfort as well, but I needed to acknowledge that it might not come. Telling myself that over the past several hours and accepting it were two very different things.
“We’ve got a couple hours left. Let’s keep going.”
I tipped into him, shoulder bumping shoulder, in thanks. It was so clear he was trying to generate optimism for me. I’d lost my own.
An hour later and halfway through arrest records for October 20, Mat’s buoyancy waned. It fizzled out completely when the proctor kicked us out.
“I can’t look at another word anyway.” I closed my eyes as we hit the sidewalk.
The natural light, though softened at the end of day, stung. We’d spent the last three hours in a small one-window room, crouched in plastic chairs, under florescent lights, frantically scanning documents and finding nothing that solved our primary problem.
I felt Mat’s hand on my back and, without intending to, I sank into him. He stepped down next to me. “Let’s get a cab to the hotel, drop our bags, and walk around. We could use a stretch.”
I tapped my phone. Mom had left a text with an address and a dinner reservation.
“Not a hotel. Friends of hers are lending us their apartment.” I showed the text to Mat. “You good with this?”
“Like I said, your mom is trying.” Mat lifted our bags and headed for the curb. “Come on, Payne. Show me your city.”
Thirty-Five
My city.
I let Mat’s words become my own as a cab drove us to the sixth arrondissement. Even though I felt frustrated and exhausted, the Paris light cast an exquisite spell over me. The sky’s bright cloudless blue was softening with evening’s shards of pink shooting to gold across the horizon.
The sights added to the glory. In one short ride, we saw the best of Paris—at least the tourist’s version. We passed parks and memorials, the Place de la Bastille, the Louvre, and Notre Dame, among much more. Notre Dame welcomed me like an old friend and surprised me as well. I’d seen pictures of the great fire and its destruction, but looking upon the two iconic towers, I commented that it appeared intact and standing strong.
“Deceiving, isn’t it?” Mat tilted his chin toward it, but said nothing more as the cab turned and pulled up to a building on Boulevard Saint-Germain. We left our bags with the doorman and walked back into the evening as neither of us wanted to be inside yet.