She punched in Yuri Volodya’s number. Busy. She counted to sixty, tried again. Still busy. She pondered his logic of leaving her an envelope of cash with an urgent note about a priceless painting that needed protection, then going out for dinner, trusting a broom closet for security. Some elaborate ruse? But his anguish and fear had seemed genuine.
Tense, she glanced at the time. At Maxence, working at René’s desk. Wondered if she should chance leaving him alone and visiting Yuri.
Her cell phone trilled, startling her.
“Oui?”
“Since when do you run over Serbs, Aimée?” said Serge, her pathologist friend from the morgue.
“And live to tell?” She put Yuri’s information in her bag, switched gears and grabbed her ankle boots from the floor. “At first I thought he had a death wish, attempted suicide, or that he was drunk and confused, but.…”
“It didn’t feel right?” said Serge.
“All wrong. Tell me you’ve gotten results. His ID?”
“Besides the little Eastern European dental work he had?”
“That’s rhetorical, I assume.”
“Can’t talk, I’m finishing the autopsy.” In the background came the unmistakable whirring of a bone-cutting saw.
She grimaced. But with Saj facing a prospective manslaughter charge, his future teetered in the balance. Serge just loved to bargain; she would have to humor him. “S’il te pla?t, Serge. I’ll babysit the twins.”
Pause. She heard the pumping spray of water pressure hoses. She cringed, unable to stop herself from picturing how the hoses were being used.
“Bon, twenty minutes. The usual place.”
SHE’D BEEN SLEEPWALKING since René’s departure yesterday, numb with the shock of hitting the Serb, Saj’s injuries. But now she needed to wake up and take action, figure out the dead Serb’s story and get Saj out of hot water. René would have warned her against getting involved and given valid reasons—a business to run, rent to pay.
Too late for that. Saj was in trouble. And there was no nagging finger to stop her.
But she also needed to figure out this Yuri Volodya. She’d checked Leduc Detective’s answering machine. Empty.
“Ever used Xincus database for a person search, Maxence?”
“Cut my teeth on Xincus,” he said.
“So dazzle me.” She wrote down Yuri Volodya’s name and address. “Find everything you can about him: birth, schooling, family, organizations he belonged to, politics, his bookbinding business, something with Salvador Dalí.”
“The works, Aimée?”
She nodded, rummaging in her drawer for a fresh cell phone. Thank God René kept them charged. She found a midnight-blue one and inserted her SIM card.
“Can you handle things?”
“I’m on it, Aimée.”
“Keep in contact with me at this number. Check with me on the hour. Don’t forget to monitor the reports.” She double-looped her scarf, grabbed her metallic ballet flats and stuck them in her bag. It was time to test Maxence’s efficiency and get to what needed doing. To where Leduc started. Grass roots.
“Good luck holding down”—she paused—how did they say it across the pond?—“le fort.”
A shrug. “If the Indians attack?”
“Arrows in the back,” she said over her shoulder.
AIMéE KEYED THE ignition, popped into first gear, and wove her faded pink scooter through the congested traffic on Quai de la Mégisserie. Ten minutes later, she parked on the rain-dampened cobbles near the redbrick Institut Médico-Légal entrance. In the morgue’s waiting hall, busts of medical pioneers looked down on her, impassive and marble-eyed.
Last night’s incidents replayed in her mind with slow clarity: arguing with Saj, that white van pulling out, the terrible thump and those dull eyes of the Serb, his splayed palms pressed on the windshield for what seemed like forever but was only a few seconds.
The image was burned onto the backs of her eyelids.
Her trilling cell phone interrupted her thoughts. Yuri? But her caller ID showed Martine, her best friend since lycée.
“My publisher commissioned me to write a book, Aimée,” Martine said, excited. “A guide to looking chic.”
The last thing she wanted to hear about right now. “Congratulations, Martine.”
“I think I’ve got the main theme down. Alors, fashion sense involves mix and match,” Martine said. “Like you—it’s never just one look.”
“Moi?”
“But you’re the one who taught me to assemble outfits, make magic with two scarves. How to stock the definitive armoire. Zut, you schooled me in all the must-haves: a man’s jacket, le trenchcoat, a black sweater,” Martine rattled on. “A simple tank top, white silk blouse, a little black dress, jeans and, of course, a leather jacket. And Converse sneakers.”
“You know my feelings about tank tops,” Aimée said, shaking her head. “But you’re a serious journalist, Martine.”
“So I should refuse an outrageous advance?” Aimée heard the flick of a lighter. “I can write this in my sleep,” Martine said. A short intake of breath. “Not to mention I can use you, Aimée. Your mix of classic styles, déconstruit, that thrown-together look with a whiff of vintage. A touch of whimsy.”
“We share clothes, Martine. C’est tout.”
“But it’s how you throw them together, Aimée,” Martine said. “Tell me you’ll give me tidbits, help me do the tie-in spread for ELLE. Okay?”
Now, of all times.
“Martine, René took the job in Silicon Valley. Phfft—gone. Just like that,” Aimée said. “Compris? I’ve got a business to run.”
Not to mention saving her colleague from manslaughter charges. Or from the dead tattooed Serb’s partner.
“But René told you about his interview,” said Martine. Aimée heard a long exhale. Imagined the gray spiral of smoke, the taste of nicotine, the jolt. “Alors, they recruited him, those Silicon Valley … quoi?” Martine searched for the word. “ ‘ead’unters.”
“Headhunters, you mean?”
“Open your eyes once in a while, Aimée, before it’s too late,” Martine said. “Are you coping okay?”