Murder Below Montparnasse

Monday, 9:30 P.M.


MORGANE WATCHED HER accomplice, Flèche, peer out the half-open blue shutter. In the moonlight, tendrils of ivy curved over the potted geraniums on the window ledge. Morgane hated working with amateurs. Amateurs with hairy palms, her uncle would say, so lazy they grew hair on their palms.

Where the hell was Servier? Twenty minutes late already and they didn’t have much time to hand over the goods. Her ears perked up as the gate clicked open below.

Flèche shook his head. “Just the hipster with a new conquest, like clockwork.” He yawned, running a matchstick under his fingernail. A pigeon cooed from the low rooftop of a two-story house across the courtyard. “Bores me stiff.”

“That’s a good thing,” Morgane said. Her shirt collar, damp with perspiration, weighed on her neck. She gathered her lank brown hair in a twist and clipped it up on her head.

“Too quiet. I don’t like it.”

Wary, she checked the walkie-talkie signal. All bars lit. “Nothing from control. Nerves got you?” Was he worried about the talkative owner of the café-tabac around the corner, where he’d bought cigarettes an hour ago? Like she’d told him not to. Never leave a presence, she’d warned him. “You think there’s a spotter?”

“I mean it’s dead here,” Flèche said. “Old people, kids practicing piano after dinner, the retiree on the ground floor who never goes out. Spooks me.”

“She’s agoraphobic.” That was the one Morgane worried about. An insomniac who telephoned her brother in Marseilles every night. A watcher with eyes like a crow’s. “You’re correct. It is dead quiet. The perfect place to hide.” She’d told him time and again. The 14th arrondissement was ideal, residential, a mix of working-class and arty types. “You know, at the turn of the century, the tsar’s Okhrana had more secret agents hidden in this quartier than in Saint Petersburg.”

“Merde. Don’t start with the history lessons again.”

“Hasn’t changed much. These people mind their business. Working-class solidarity.”

He flicked his cigarette ash in the Ricard ashtray, stuck the cigarette back in his mouth and inhaled. In the dark, the redorange glow from the burning tip made his face look ethereal. “A bunch of Commies.”

She rolled her eyes. The Wall came down in 1989. “Who calls anyone Communists any more?”

Nearby lay Parc Montsouris, sloping grass hills and the reservoir, just beyond la petite ceinture—the abandoned and overgrown rail tracks edging the old Montrouge quartier. She’d grown up in the clustered lanes of small houses. Generations of her family had been dairy farmers here. Now almost all the farms were gone.

But she knew the quartier in the marrow of her bones, from the Montparnasse artist ateliers on rue Campagne Première—including famous ones, like Gaugin’s and Picasso’s—where publishing bohos now lived, to the Catacombs at Place Denfert-Rochereau, the only tourist attraction. The screams piercing the night from the psychiatric hospital of Sainte Anne. The nineteenth-century prison of La Santé hunkered scab-like on the fragrant lime-tree-lined Boulevard Arago.

A good place to lie low. Wait for the drop. And strategic. Access to the Périphérique ring road less than two kilometers away. A quick twenty minutes to the baggage handler connection at Orly Airport. Morgane could almost taste success.

The walkie-talkie squawked. “Painting arrived?”

Morgane’s lips pursed. “Not yet,” she responded. Late. Even using the van, he was late for a simple snatch-and-grab. She hit the talk button. “Complications?”

“Unclear. We’re in a holding pattern.”

But the cargo plane wasn’t. This was their only chance until next week.

“Keep me updated.” The walkie-talkie channel went yellow.

“Something’s wrong,” Morgane said.

Flèche checked his watch. “I’ll say. He’s not the type to go drinking. But I’m going to find out.”

Dumb. How in the hell did he ever get the nickname Flèche, “sharp arrow”? Slow and dull were more like it.

“Wait until—”

“My cut disappears?” Flèche shook his head. Picked up his shearling jacket.

“You’ll ruin the plan, Flèche,” she said. “Screw up the timing.”

“Since when are you my boss?”

She wished he’d shut up. Hated working with a loose cannon.

“We all want this to go smooth, perform our roles. Yours is to.…”

She paused. They both heard the click from the courtyard door below. She put her finger to her mouth. Footsteps padded on the wet pavers, mounted the staircase until they stopped outside the door.

One knock. The signal. He was here.





Tuesday Morning


RAPHAEL DOMBASLE’S NOSE twitched as he studied the small painting in the Montparnasse gallery’s back room. His nose hadn’t twitched like this since he recovered the stolen Renoir in 1996 from a battered suitcase in the Gare du Nord left luggage. But he kept his face blank as he turned to the art dealer Luebet.

“No provenance? Or certificate of authenticity, Luebet?” he said, his fingers running over the painting’s carved frame. “So it’s stolen?”

“That’s why I alerted you, Dombasle.” Luebet gave a tight smile. Long white hair framed his hollowed face and brushed the blue jacket collar of his tailored pinstripe suit. A little phhft escaped his pursed lips. “The seller gave me a verbal agreement to furnish the painting’s provenance, of course, like they all do. But I knew right away.”

Of course he did. Small figure studies like this rarely came on the market or through an art dealer.

“But I’m acting in good faith, Dombasle.”

Dombasle figured Luebet had only alerted him because he’d been unable to sell the painting fast, before Interpol consulted the Art Data Registry. Luebet kept hands in both pots, as the saying went. The kind of informer who delivered when it suited him. Dombasle wondered at the timing.

“You’d rather a recovery fee than prison. Come out on the right side this time.”

“I thought we had an agreement, Dombasle.” Luebet’s voice tightened. “We share information, like last time. Why insult me when I follow the law?” Luebet shook his head.

“You haven’t heard me insult you. But I could.” Dombasle pulled out his tape measure and assessed the small canvas, but it was just a formality. He recognized the painting, which had been stolen during the bold daylight heist of a Left Bank townhouse. This painting was a perfect match, even to the stained signature. An early Berthe Morisot. A jewel of delicate brushstrokes, a charcoal-and-aquarelle study of a mother and child under a garden trellis—her signature subjects. The comtesse had allowed it to be photographed for the glossy architectural magazine’s ten-page spread of her townhouse collection—stupid. When the rich advertised what they had and where they kept it, what did they expect?

Luebet shrugged. Lit a cigarette and hit the air filter machine, which erupted in a whirr. “A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure,” he said. “Exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied, to quote Oscar Wilde. What more can one want?”

Dombasle watched the dealer expel a stream of smoke. “So the comtesse’s other stolen works.…”

“Went the way of the ghost. Vanished. Or so the rumor goes.”

“Care to elucidate, Luebet?”

Luebet shrugged. “Use your imagination.”

“Any Baltic accents attached to the rumors?” Dombasle asked. Eastern Europeans exchanged stolen paintings for arms or jewels or drugs—not so picky. Last year a Serbian militant was caught pulling Chagalls from his Zagreb basement to trade for a fleet of armor-plated Land Rovers. In turf wars, art was a gold bar of exchange for such gangs, who cared nothing for it but as a commodity.

Luebet, who had been prominent in the art world for forty years, sighed. “Or they’ve gone to Moscow-on-Thames.” The Russian oligarch billionaires bought up country manors around London with irritating efficiency. Kept the UK economy afloat. Too bad that hadn’t happened here since the eighties with the Japanese château-buying frenzy. “The young breed operates pipelines outside my sources.” Luebet shrugged. “We’re old, compris? There’s a new generation.”

True. Dombasle wanted to get this over with, but sensed Luebet had another agenda. “Bon, I’ll contact the chief, he’ll inform the comtesse.” Dombasle grinned. “The usual drill. Tell your seller you’ve found a client who wants a verbal provenance. Arrange a meeting. Say you’ll bring the money. We’ll do the rest.” A cut-and-dried sting operation.

Luebet seemed to weigh his options. “D’accord,” he said finally. That hesitation in the dealer’s look indicated he had more information—a tip, a name.

“Something else on your mind, Luebet?”

“Rumors.”

“Concerning what, Luebet?”

“That’s just it, rumors,” Luebet said. “Years ago a story surfaced about a Modigliani that went missing in 1920—only shown once. Whispers only, you understand. That it’s been found in France. Worth … well, for years its existence was the stuff of dreams. Now the whispers say right after it was discovered it went missing.”

Dombasle knew the art dealer was fishing for something. Teasing the story out to find what Dombasle knew. But he wouldn’t play.

“Luebet, is there a point to you spreading rumors?”

“Word goes a fixer, une Américaine, runs a network transporting certain objets d’art.”

Dombasle’s nose twitched in full gear now. “The Modigliani?”

“Just rumors, as I said.”

“I need more than rumors, Luebet,” he said.

“Alors, I told you everything.…”

“Cut the act,” Dombasle said. “You owe me, remember?”





Monday Morning, San Francisco International Airport


RENÉ FRIANT’S HIP ached after the eleven-hour flight and the long line at US immigration. Four feet tall, he stood on tiptoe at the glass booth to pass over his French passport.

He smiled at the immigration officer. “Bonjour.”

“You’re a tourist, Mr. Friant?”

His promised work visa hadn’t come through. Perspiration dampened his shirt. Nervous, his mind went back to Tradelert’s last fax, which he’d memorized on the plane: No problem, H-1B visa’s in the works. Soon as the green light comes, we whisk you over the border at Mexicali, you come back in legal to work. Meanwhile say you’re consulting on a project for the week from Paris, no visa required.

René preferred to follow the rules and laws, at least more than Aimée did. But the less said the better.

“For now, Monsieur.”

A loud thump and TOURIST stamped on his passport. “Enjoy your vacation.”

Then an endless walk through the terminal with his bags, goading the hip dysplasia pain. But currents of excitement ran through him as he waited at the airport curb. The air felt different, the colors—the newness of everything struck him. Fog settled over the taxis, the huge American cars.

“Over here, Tattoo,” Kobo, Tradelert’s rep, yelled from a battered Volkswagen.

René grinned. “Where’s the sun, Kobo?”

“You’re thinking of LA.” Kobo, tall and gangling, bent to give René a high five. A matchstick of a man, René thought, smelling of onions. Kobo tossed his bags in the backseat.

“But Zeelakon Vallaaay.…”

“We call it ‘The Valley,’ Tattoo,” Kobo interrupted.

“What’s with ‘Tattoo’?”

“De plane, de plane!” Kobo laughed. “From the TV show Fantasy Island. Get it? You’re wearing the same suit, too.”

Wasn’t Kobo too young to have seen that eighties show? Strange, but René recalled that Americans watched the télé all the time. René’s aunt in the countryside stayed up late watching old reruns and made the same joke. Not that he found it funny. “Suit? Oui, but the weather doesn’t cooperate.” René smoothed down his beige linen jacket, wishing he’d packed his wool pinstripe.

The cramped VW was littered with food wrappers. “Andy’s meeting with our investor angels.” Kobo ground into first gear. “So I’ll drop you off at the car rental and meet you at Tradelert later, okay?”

René needed to fire his brain cells for the meeting. Hit the ground running. There had to be a café somewhere.

The drive-through, as Kobo called it, served brown piss for coffee. Back on the highway, everything spread out before him was giant—the quadruple lanes, the cars, the sprawling flat buildings, the signs and billboards advertising lawyers to call if you’ve been in an accident. It all felt more foreign now than it had on his brief weekend trip for the interview.

He’d made the jump to a new life in a new country: a job—writing code, designing mainframes, running security—his métier—and a mission: to meet a woman, preferably a tan, leggy Californian who would sit with him under the palm trees and eat hamburgers. He felt the thrill of possibility. Time to leave the ghost of Meizi, that heartbreak.

“Everyone’s so glad you’re on board, part of the team.”

“Me, too.” René felt a flutter of pride.

“You’re our distinguished French connection!” Another laugh as Kobo nudged him. He pulled into the parking lot of a car rental agency, let René out, waved, and took off in his battered VW.

Excited, René imagined the awaiting Jeep Cherokee he’d reserved. The job recruiter had raved about company bonding powwows in the countryside, “off-road”—wasn’t that the term?

“Your reservation’s confirmed for tomorrow,” said the car rental agent, “not today, Mister Free-ant.” René peered up at the Formica rental-car counter. The voice continued to boom like a loudspeaker above him. The gist of it was that the car with adaptations for his height hadn’t arrived. He needed to clear his jetlag-fogged brain and think. He had a meeting with Tradelert’s CEO in an hour. Thank God he’d gotten the international cell phone.

Kobo didn’t answer. Time to call another friend.

“WELCOME TO THE Valley, René,” said Bob, one hand on the baby-blue steering wheel of his big, finned 1974 Cadillac, the other draped over the passenger seat’s shoulder rest. René had met Bob, a fellow programmer, last year when he’d come to Paris to work on a Netscape project. They had discovered a shared passion for vintage cars.

“Smart to snap you up,” Bob said. “But why the hurry?”

“Seems everybody’s gone into overdrive,” René said. “New venture capital interest, so the agenda’s on warp speed. We’ve got to get the security system up now. Such a challenge and thrill to get in on the ground floor.”

“They’re offering you stock options, right?” Bob turned down the radio, which was blasting Creedence Clearwater Revival.

René nodded. “I’m more interested in the work visa. I came in on a tourist—”

“Whoa, René, look out the window. See that temple?”

A gated block, the peaks of a tiled Japanese roof hinting at the wooden temple.

“No time for the scenic tour, Bob.”

“A twenty-four-year-old owns that. Took it apart, brought it over piece by piece from Japan and reassembled it.”

René nodded. “It’s a gold rush, eh, Bob?”

“More like a bubble. Make your millions and get out. That’s the smart thing.”

As they drove south, the fog evaporated into piercing blue sky. To the west, clouds like tufts of cotton hovered over the range of coastal blue-purple mountains. Again he was hit by the immensity of everything.

“All this feels like CinemaScope. The colors like Technicolor. But I thought California would be hot.”

“We’re in the land of microclimates, René.” Bob pulled into the motel off Alameda de las Pulgas. “Translates to ‘Avenue of the Fleas.’ ”

A bilingual country—would he need to learn Spanish?

Bob grinned. “The fleas thrived here, sucking the conquistador’s blood. But anyone can thrive here, René.” Bob flicked the transmission into park. “No matter who you are, where you’re from, or where your daddy went to school. Parlay your concept into money—that’s what talks here. That’s the Valley—never forget.”

René checked into the motel. The receptionist shook his head. “We have your reservation booked for tomorrow.”

Again?

“Alors, there’s some mistake. I reserved one room.”

“Mister Free-ant, right now the honeymoon suite’s all that’s available.”

Complete with pink Jacuzzi.

René shrugged and passed over his credit card.

Ten minutes later, Bob dropped him off at Tradelert. “How about dinner where Steve and Larry eat sometimes?”

Bob spoke fast and René had trouble keeping up. Half the time he didn’t catch what Bob meant and had to pretend otherwise. Had Bob mentioned these mecs before? “Your friends, Steve and Larry?”

“When anyone mentions Steve and Larry.…”

René caught himself before he gasped. Swallowed. “You mean Jobs and Ellison.”

“As in Apple and Oracle, René. You need to pick up Valley lingo.”

A different language all right.

Full of excitement at the vista opening up before him, René adjusted his new silk tie, the cuffs on his handmade Charvet shirt, and walked into the former Buick showroom, now Tradelert’s new suite of offices. Bob had told him start-ups scrambled for space, often operating out of warehouses, attics, and garages until funded by venture capitalists; after they hit it big, they bought the building. Like Tradelert had.

The ceiling loomed over him, lost in popcorn stucco and fluorescent lighting. Everything was so high up. The office directory loomed several feet above his head on the wall. He bit his lip, wondering how he’d find his office and the meeting room. Of course, he was supposed to have been there five minutes ago. What about that special-needs accommodation, or whatever they called it, that he’d read about?

Feeling self-conscious, he grabbed an orange plastic chair and climbed up to read the office directory sign. But his name wasn’t there. His nerves overtook him. Had he made a mistake, or had they changed their mind and hired someone else? Here he’d left Aimée and flown thousands of miles from his home and life.

To the left, on a corridor wall, in bright brass shone SECURITY DIVISION MEETING ROOMS 101–106. ROOM 104—RENÉ FRIANT, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER. Pride coursed through him. He stepped off the plastic chair and ran down the corridor.

My new life’s beginning, René thought. Forget the old, the past. Forget that momentary tug for Aimée, wondering if she was all right.

Of course she was.





Tuesday Morning, Paris


THE MIST CURLING on the Seine furred dawn’s silver glow. Rain pattered on the grilled balcony outside Aimée’s bedroom window. Miles Davis, her bichon frise, nestled on the silk duvet beside her while she monitored security reports on her laptop. Sleep eluded her. Images of the Serb on the windshield, the horrible thump, and that prison tattoo spun through her head.

Down on the quai a car’s engine whined, a door slammed, and she heard a loud curse. Just the reaction René would have over his damaged car. The repairs would consume a big chunk of their bank account, but she had little choice. Volodya’s refusal to report the robbery and his connection to her mother played in her head. A lie? If not, what was his debt to her? Had he been a snitch or some criminal involved in her past?

It smelled like ripe, three-day-old cheese. When it smells, Aimée’s father always used to say, sniff it out.

Her phone rang. So early—but it was nine hours earlier in California. René calling to let her know he’d landed?

“Satisfied you’ve made me the laughingstock of the department, Leduc?” Morbier growled. “Count your favors used up.”

Aimée cringed. So soon? She had to whip up a counterpoint defense for using his name last night. Deflect him. “Bonjour to you too, Morbier. Meaning what, exactly?”

“Moi, un végétarien?”

That’s all? Miles Davis’s wet nose nuzzled her elbow.

“Morbier, you’re in desperate need of a healthy lifestyle to lower your cholesterol. Just listen to your doctor.”

A snort. “Doctor? But I haven’t seen him in.…”

“Two years. You keep putting off that appointment. But that’s what he’d tell you.”

“Seems you killed someone last night and involved me.”

She chewed her lip. Word traveled fast. “Quite the way with words, Morbier,” she said. “But you don’t understand.”

“Giving up meat, that’s … that’s so.…” Morbier’s words failed him for once. “I’ve got a meeting in two minutes,” he said. “Start talking, Leduc.”

She hit SAVE on her laptop, pulled the duvet closer, took a breath and told him.

“Wait une petite seconde.” Morbier sighed on the other end of the line. “You discover a Russian’s sent you a retainer, c’est ça?”

“It’s not like I planned this, Morbier.…”

“Then in front of this Russian’s place Saj plows over a Serb with prison tattoos, damages René’s car and the Russian’s Mercedes. The Russian insists his painting was ’stolen.’ Now he wants you to recover it.” Another sigh. “That sum it up?”

Almost. She’d left out the part about her mother. Ever since the GIGN intelligence service had tried using her to find out whether her mother was alive, she trusted no one.

“The old man, Volodya, refused to report the robbery,” she said. “Yet we hit a Serb in front of his place fleeing the scene. Strange, non?”

“You’re implying a snatch-and-grab gone wrong? Easy to find Serbs for hire, a franc a dozen,” Morbier said. “But not my call.”

She didn’t care for his brush-off, but it made her think. “Serbs working for a big cheese, you mean? If the Serbian mafia wants vengeance, that puts Saj in trouble.”

“Manslaughter’s what I call trouble, Leduc.”

He had a point.

“What’s the matter? It’s not the first time you’ve knocked someone off, Leduc.”

She wanted to hit him. “You call an accident knocking people off, Morbier?”

“Shaken a chink loose in your couture armor?”

Last night had rattled her more than she cared to admit. Why couldn’t Morbier show sympathy? She jumped out of bed and hit the ancient steam radiator. For once it responded with a cranking noise and a welcome dribble of heat.

“I’d appreciate a flicker of sensitivity for once, Morbier.” If only René hadn’t left, if only the knot in her stomach would go away. Somehow her heart wasn’t into toughing it out as usual. “The man fell on the windshield, we didn’t run him over. Saj is injured and is being held in garde à vue. It’s wrong.”

“Traffic’s not my territory, Leduc.”

She wouldn’t let him off. He owed her. “Who’s the lord of the traffic division?”

“Mais you know him, Leduc, the officer who thinks I’m végétarien.”

She groaned inside. “Put in a good word for Saj, eh?”

“Over lunch while I watch him consume a bifteck?”

“Amaze him with your power salad, Morbier. It’s the new lunch. Get Saj released.”

“Nothing happens until the autopsy report. You know that, Leduc,” he said. “Like I haven’t got enough on my plate without you restricting my diet. Compris?”

Over the phone came the familiar whistling of his old kettle in the background. How many times had she heard it in his kitchen as a child? The little girl inside her ached to question him about her mother’s past, how Volodya might have known her. To throw away caution and endanger their rocky new reconciliation.

“The old Russian says he knew my—”

A woman’s voice—“Coffee’s ready”—interrupted her in the background.

She almost dropped her phone. Morbier with a woman? Only a few months after his lady friend Xavierre’s death? “Did you get lucky last night, Morbier?”

He hung up.

Tactless again. She should be happy for him. Not let it jar her.

This conversation had done little to further Saj’s cause. Yet despite Morbier’s usual gruffness, she’d learned he had a new girlfriend, and that the Serb had probably worked for hire. That wouldn’t help much with Saj’s defense.

She speed-dialed her pathologist friend Serge’s extension at the morgue. Voice mail. Frustrated, she left a detailed message asking for his assistance. Saj needed her help right now.

She scouted for something clean to wear in her armoire, settled on a Lurex metallic T-shirt under a ribbed oversize black cashmere cardigan, threw it on over leggings and ankle boots, and added her flea market Hermès scarf. At the porcelain sink in her bathroom, she scrubbed her face with a new bar of black clay soap guaranteed to ward off wrinkles, rimmed her eyes with kohl and smudged the lids, then accentuated them with mascara. She shoved the laptop in her leather bag and grabbed her agnès b. leather coat. With Miles Davis in tow, she hurried down the deep grooved steps of the marble staircase into the puddled courtyard. Patches of azure among the clouds promised a respite from the rain. She deposited Miles Davis with Madame Cachou, her concierge. From the courtyard’s garage, once the carriage house, she walked her scooter across the cobbles. A jump on the kick-start pedal and her Vespa roared onto the quai.

“SAJ DE ROSNAY? He’s in stable condition. No visitors,” said the nurse at the criminal ward of Hôtel-Dieu. The ward, which was guarded by police, smelled of antiseptic and despair. What if the flics pressed manslaughter charges? Saj needed to keep his mouth shut. Not say anything the flics would use against him.

“So I’ll leave a message.” She glanced around the reception area. The scuffed green walls, the grilled metal gate. “It’s urgent.”

“Much as I’d like to help.…” The nurse glanced at the blue-uniformed police by the doors. Shrugged. “We’re not allowed.”

Panic flamed in her gut. “Nora still working nights?” She hoped she could leave a message for her friend.

“Nora switched to the day shift.”

A spark of hope. “We’re friends. Any chance you could let her know I’m here?”

“Not a good time.” The nurse gave a harried glance down the green-tiled corridor.

The phone rang at reception. Aimée hated to press her, but she had to get somewhere. “Desolée, I know you’re busy, but when’s Nora’s break?”

The nurse expelled air. “Who knows? The X-ray technicians went on strike. We’re run off our feet.” She hurried off to answer a doctor’s call from the corridor.

Great. The season of grèves. Spring must be coming.

She recognized the flic near the elevator from Morbier’s team a few years back. A quick glance at his name badge—Delisle—and she rustled up her courage, determined to give it her best shot.

“Officer Delisle?”

He was olive skinned, dark-haired, and muscular. He snapped his notebook shut, favoring his left wrist, which was covered with a brace. Irritation and indifference suffused his expression. “The public’s not allowed here, Mademoiselle. Follow the signs to the patient wards, if you don’t mind.”

“But we met a while ago. I’m Aimée, Commissaire Morbier’s goddaughter.” She gestured to his brace. “Carpal tunnel? Awful, I know the feeling.”

A snort of laughter. “I wish. Scuffle on the ward this morning.”

She wondered at that, and at why, as a seasoned officer, he was on a rookie posting at the criminal ward. Demoted? Injury? “Inmate patients, you mean?”

He rocked back on his thick-soled shoes. “Big eyes. Now I remember you. How’s Commissaire Morbier?”

Too much gray in his hair and a shuffle to his gait, but she kept that back. “Mismatched socks and a brain like a laser, as usual.”

Delisle smiled. His upright stance relaxed—he’d thawed. She’d said the right thing for once.

He shot her a meaningful glance. “You’re not allowed here, you know. I need to escort you out.”

What else could she try to get him to bend the rules? She could go with the truth and get nowhere. Or lie and try to worm out info. Stall and hope that Nora would … what, go on a break? With a strike going on?

“I just visited my neighbor, a stroke victim,” she said. “Thought I’d see if my old roommate Nora could have coffee on her break.” She tried for her most sympathetic look. “But what happened to you?”

A quick shake of his head. “Doing my job.”

“Hazard pay, that’s what I’m always saying to Morbier,” she said. “You men on the front lines deserve it.”

Delisle shrugged. But she could tell he liked that. He thawed more and grew talkative, revealed that a slick operator had taken advantage of the normal chaos of a shift change to talk his way in.

He’d be on his guard, then. She had a feeling that with this one her best bet was laying it on thick. “But how?” she said. “I mean, you’re so on top of it. The floor’s a locked facility.”

She hoped she hadn’t overdone it.

Delisle’s pager beeped. Eager to answer his page, he hit the elevator button. The door swooshed open. He gestured her inside.

So far her attempt at charm had gotten her nowhere. Aimée got off on the next floor and hiked back up the concrete stairs to an EXIT sign. She figured Nora still hit the coffin nails. On the fire escape outside the EXIT door, several nurses stood smoking. The Seine, khaki green below, crested with waves from the gliding bateaux-mouches.

Good luck, for once. Nora, a petite brunette, was crushing out a cigarette on the metal slat. Thank God.

“Nora?”

Nora looked up, grinned. “Didn’t you quit smoking, Aimée?”

“Three days short of two months,” she said. “But who’s counting?” Aimée wished she didn’t want to snatch a drag so much. “Nora, can you do me a favor?”

“Now?” Nora said. “We’re short-staffed, there’s a strike. I’m not even supposed to take a break.” Nora opened the EXIT door to the back stairway. “I’ve got to get back or there’ll be trouble.”

Aimée needed to probe, and quick. “My colleague’s a patient, Saj de Rosnay. Know of him?”

Nora thought a moment. “The blond with dreads, like a Rasta? Indian clothes?”

Aimée nodded.

“Not hard on the eyes, either,” she said. “His vitals look good, X-rays normal, no fractures, under normal observation for his neck injury, took his pain meds.”

Nora’s pager vibrated.

“Alors, forgive me, Nora, but they’re trying to nail Saj for manslaughter. Now robbery’s involved. This Serb—”

“Serb?” Nora interrupted, frowning. “A Serb showed up demanding to see the accident victim—your colleague.”

The hairs on Aimée’s neck rose. The Serb’s partner? “That’s what the scuffle was this morning?”

“That’s not half of it,” Nora said as Aimée followed her up the stone back stairs. “The angry Serb was trying to visit his brother. Or so he said. Then claimed there was some family emergency. Lied through his set of whites.”

All kinds of fear spun in her mind. “The Serb got Saj’s name?”

“Who knows? Change of shift’s always chaotic,” Nora said. “Still, even if he did, no one gets in the ward unless they’re part of the medical staff or law enforcement. Tant pis.” She glanced at her watch. “Gotta go.”

“What did he look like?”

“Never saw him.”

“If he caused a scene, someone would remember. Markings, accent, his clothing?”

“Smelled like a barnyard, they said.” Nora shrugged. “That’s all I know.”

Aimée wrote down a message on the back of her card. “Can you get this to Saj, please?”

“I’m not supposed to, Aimée.”

“Please, Nora. If this Serb’s looking for him, he needs to be warned. Moved to another ward.”

“Why?”

“Saj ran over his brother last night.”

“ ‘Ran over’ as in the brother’s dead?”

“As in an accident,” Aimée said. She had to enlist Nora’s aid. “It was like he was dropped on the windshield. His ashen face, white hand … I can’t stop seeing him in my mind. But the odd thing, Nora—no blood. But one Serb is dead, and now another is asking for Saj.…”

Alarm crossed Nora’s face. She nodded and slipped the paper in her pocket. Her clogs clipped over the stone and then she was gone. Aimée’s insides churned. Even under police supervision, Saj wasn’t safe.