“There’s some background in her file here.” Daniel kneaded the back of his neck. “She was only twenty-eight. So young. She was born in Paulhan, a tiny town of around two thousand residents in Southern France, went to school in the area and came to Strasbourg around twelve years ago. She had an online business—Freedom Fragrances—selling cosmetics. All her taxes were paid. No red flags.”
“Ooh, I disagree.” Francine raised both eyebrows while looking at her tablet. “This girl was good. She was never investigated for any crimes, but I will bet all my strappy sandals we’ll find loads of naughtiness when we start looking into her life. There is no way her little registered online cosmetics business did well enough to buy her a house in the Robertsau neighbourhood. Not according to the tax records I’m looking at.”
“Robertsau?” Colin tilted his head. “That area has some very expensive houses. A house? You sure it’s not an apartment?”
“Nope. A house. And we all know how expensive houses are in this ridiculous city.” Francine narrowed her eyes as she tapped and swiped her tablet screen. “Hmm. I’m looking at it on Google Maps. It’s an average-looking house. Blending in nicely with the neighbours.”
“She bought it cash.” Daniel’s eyebrows were raised. “We’ll have to look at her family’s financial history, but her father is a handyman and her mother a cleaning lady, so I doubt they could’ve bought it for her. There’s a note here that the parents showed no interest when they were notified of Adèle’s death.”
“That’s just awful.” The corners of Francine’s mouth pulled down. “So sad.”
“Or maybe they didn’t care to have a criminal daughter.” Manny looked at Vinnie. “Have you ever heard of her while visiting your lowlife friends?”
“You mean my criminal informants?” Vinnie straightened and crossed his arms. “The people who have helped us many times to solve crimes?”
“Bugger off.” Manny slumped. “So? Have you ever heard them talk about her?”
“No.” He shrugged. “I can’t even guess what she was into. Drugs, art, guns, petty stuff, hacking. No idea.”
“If she was into hacking, I might’ve come across her.” Francine tapped her tablet screen, then shook her head. “But the IP address from her house has never registered anywhere as a hacker’s. Not that it means anything. A good hacker would know how to hide.”
“Then I suggest you find out who she was and what she was into.” Manny looked at Daniel. “When and where did she die?”
“Six days ago. Her house.” He winced. “Her gardener found her in the kitchen, still bound to a chair.”
“The house still a crime scene?”
“Yup.” Daniel lifted his phone. “I’ll arrange a visit.”
“You guys go ahead.” Francine got up. “I’ll stay here and look for her online. See what I can dig up.”
“Look for connections between Adèle Maxim and Jace.” I thought about this some more. “The age difference is slight, so they might have crossed paths in different ways. She might have a sibling or cousin who has a connection to Jace.”
“Will do.” She winked at Manny as she walked to her desk and said over her shoulder, “Bring me some chocolate when you come back.”
“Why do you need more?” Vinnie pointed at her desk. “You have enough chocolate in your bottom desk drawer to feed a rugby team, Franny.”
“A girl can never have enough chocolate. Or diamonds.” She perked up and looked back into the viewing room. “Forget the chocolates. Bring back some diamonds.”
Vinnie laughed when Manny grumbled a rude response before looking at me. “You coming with us, Doc?”
“You pose it as a question, but your nonverbal cues communicate it as an order.” I closed my eyes in annoyance at my observation, then started closing all the windows on my computer. “Of course I’m coming.”
I wanted to see how this young woman lived. Jace’s flat had given me insight into his character. Seeing Adèle’s house would hopefully give me similar insight. More importantly, I hoped to find something that would connect her to Jace so we could find the murderer and stop him before anyone else died.
Chapter SIX
We drove to the Robertsau area in two SUVs. Mid-morning traffic was light and I could relax. There was more than enough space for Colin to keep a following distance that was comfortable for me. Daniel was driving the SUV in front of us and clearly didn’t mind being mere centimetres from the vehicle in front of him.
I looked out of the passenger window at the few people walking the beautiful pathways in Parc de l’Orangerie and thought about Caelan. In the three years I’d known him, he’d shown incredible determination to become as high-functioning in this neurotypical world as possible. The last two days had seen a lot of his behaviour revert, yet he was still much more in control of himself than before.
Autism was such a complex neurological disorder that it made it impossible to have a single treatment that would apply to everyone on the spectrum. Mentally writing Mozart compositions, as I was doing now, helped pull my mind away from whatever chaotic stimuli was overwhelming my senses. It calmed me. For Caelan it was reciting geological facts and more recently using the stress balls. I wondered what, if any, methods Jace had used to help him deal with being nonverbal on top of the usual autistic challenges.
Colin followed Daniel’s black SUV into a small street lined with snow-covered hedges. Daniel turned into a paved road that led to two houses hidden from the street. He parked behind a police patrol car on the driveway to the smaller of the two houses and got out. Pink joined him on the driveway, shrugging a large backpack onto his shoulders.
Colin parked behind Daniel’s SUV and leaned forward to look at the house. The trimmed hedge surrounding the house was not uncommon in this upmarket area. But the electrified fence was most uncommon. The position of the house so far off the street would make it hard for accidental passers-by to peek into the property.
I zipped up my winter coat, put on my fleece gloves and joined Daniel and Pink on the driveway. The temperature had not increased much from earlier this morning, the air cold against my exposed cheeks. Colin stopped next to me just as one of the two officers standing next to their patrol vehicle by the front gate raised his hand in greeting.
“Dan!” The officer smiled and walked to us, his hand outstretched. The two men exchanged the usual polite pleasantries. I bit the inside of my cheek to stop my impatient demand to enter the house.
Fortunately, Pink pretended to be cold and the officer pressed a remote control button to open the gate. It slid to the side to reveal a landscaped garden covered in snow.
The driveway leading to the house was oddly free of snow, most likely heated. Whatever legal or most probably illegal business Adèle had conducted, it had paid her well enough to allow for luxuries most of France’s population could never afford. The short walk to the front door was much more comfortable not having to walk through snow.
Daniel opened the unlocked front door and waved us in. “They said the crime scene technicians finished yesterday and were planning on releasing it today. We can hold this as a crime scene for as long as we need.”
The central heating in the house was set a bit higher than in my flat. I took off my outerwear and handed it to Colin when he finished hanging his coat and reached for mine. I walked deeper into the house and entered the living area. Like a lot of modern houses, the kitchen, dining and living areas were combined into a well-designed large space.
Adèle had a minimalistic sense of style. The living area looked Scandinavian in design, the wooden floor had a bleached finish, the furniture was in shades of beige and the coffee table was also bleached wood with a frosted glass top. The black grand piano stood out though. I walked to it and wondered how well Adèle had played. And how often.