According to Madame Figuer, Yuri had borrowed her wheelbarrow from her garden shed four days earlier to clean up his father’s cellar—that was how she knew his father had died. But when he’d returned it, he’d brought her a bottle of wine. “Soon we’ll be celebrating,” he’d said.
Saturday he’d driven his old Mercedes somewhere with Damien Perret, the young long-haired man from the printing shop on rue de Chatillon. A nice boy, she added, in spite of his radical politics, but then everyone’s young once, non? Yuri’s stepson, Oleg, visited in the afternoon.
But of last night’s accident she knew nothing, having stayed at her sister’s. She’d returned this morning to a flood in her apartment and loud voices from his open window across the courtyard wall.
Aimée thought back to earlier that morning; she’d been at the morgue when Yuri had left that message. Not much later, he called to take back his words. After contact with her mother? An acid taste filled her mouth. She took a deep breath. “Did you hear a woman’s voice?”
Madame Figuer shook her head.
“Didn’t you say Russian before?”
She shook her head again. “Thought so at first, but no, that I’d recognize,” she said. “The quartier used to be full of them. Thick with artists, too. Giacometti used to live here. He was like a stick man, the wild hair.…”
More stories of the past?
Madame Figuer gave a little sigh. “Everything’s changed. So different now.”
Aimée compiled a list of everyone Madame Figuer mentioned. Oleg—at the top of the list—wasn’t answering his phone, so she left a message. Damien’s name was next. It was time she spoke with him.
RUE DE CHTILLON, the next narrow street over, paralleled Villa d’Alésia. Earlier, climbing Yuri’s back wall, she’d noticed little of it, except the bit of hay she found clinging to the rosemary.
Now, trying to figure out how the killer escaped, she eyed the maison de ma?tre, typical bourgeois townhouse shutters framing its tall windows. Why did it strike her as familiar? It was fronted by what would have been a rose garden in the nineteenth century, now weed-choked patches of grass and wild lilac. The sign at the gate indicated the house’s current function was a youth job training center.
She found Damien’s printing shop further in, beyond an open-gated courtyard. On the cobbles under the chestnut tree, a man in blue overalls loaded the back of a camionnette. A few stacks of playbills for theaters, concert posters, and ads for a traveling circus. Posters emblazoned with STOP THE DEVELOPERS in red were bundled against the wall on wood pallets.
The pounding of the printing press competed with the chirping of birds in the bushes.
“Monsieur, I’m looking for Damien Perret.”
“Come to pick up the posters, eh? All ready, Damien made sure.”
He mistook her for someone from the demonstration.
She shook her head and smiled. “Where’s the office?”
“Inside and to the left,” he said. “But he’s with his aunt at the hospital.”
Great. “Any idea where he went Saturday?”
“You mean deliveries?” The man rubbed his neck. He was bald and overweight.
She thought quickly. “That’s it, regarding a delivery order we received Saturday.”
“I don’t think so.” His eyes narrowed.
“Can you check?”
“Don’t need to. Today’s our delivery day.”
Stupid to lie when she didn’t know the schedule.
“Damien used the camionnette that afternoon,” he said. “Helped the old man.”
Yuri.
He eyed her legs. “Maybe I can help.”
Not the help she needed.
“Florent!” A shout came from inside the glass-roofed printing works.
He dusted off his thick palms. Winked. “Don’t go away.”
Like hell she’d wait for him. But she stared at the inside of the camionnette. Stacked full to the roof. She peered through the open front window. Old newspapers on the floor, Styrofoam cups, candy wrappers, and detritus strewn below the passenger seat. She looked closer at the newspapers; something was unusual. They were copies of Le Matin, yellowed, the typeface faded. A newspaper her grandfather had read that didn’t exist anymore. She reached in, unfolded a crumpled portion. The date—February 1920—above an article about horse cart traffic dangers on Boulevard du Montparnasse.
No doubt this came from Yuri’s father’s belongings. What if there was more? She glanced around. No Florent or other workers. She opened the passenger door, went through the trash on the floor again. Nothing else of interest but a parking ticket. She dropped it, then picked it up again. A hefty one hundred francs. She looked at the date. Saturday, issued at 3 P.M.—the time Damien and Yuri had gone out. The address: 34 rue Marie Rose.
“Guess you’d like to ride on my deliveries with me, eh?”
She felt hot garlic breath in her ear. The texture of Florent’s grease-stained overalls on her arm.
“In your dreams.”
Then a knee was shoved between her legs. Rough arms shoving her onto the seat. Hands pinning her legs. Panic raced through her. The way he had eyed her should have put her on high alert. His thick fingers dug into her skin.
“You know you want it,” Florent said.
How could she be so stupid?
Monday Early Evening, Silicon Valley
RENé GRIPPED THE leather armrest as Bob backed the Cadillac into a narrow-looking spot in the gravel parking lot. “Can’t beat this place. Best burgers in the Valley, René.”
A weathered neon sign read GROVER’S above a diner off the Avenue of the Fleas.
“Millionaires eat here?”
“They weren’t always millionaires.” Bob grinned. “You wanted Americana—where real people and geeks eat. Doesn’t get greasier or more authentic than this.”
René noticed the meal portions as they walked by the booths. Gigantic. A single plate looked like it could feed a whole table.
On the wall of their plastic-upholstered booth was a jukebox. Bob slotted in quarters and hit some keys. “Green River” by Creedence Clearwater blasted from speakers overhead.
“The usual, Bob?” asked the waitress, an older woman.
Bob nodded. “And two Buds. For my friend here.…”