She reached in her drawer for a knife to peel a kiwi, selected a Laguiole with the signature bee on the handle.
His eyes widened. “You keep a Beretta by your spoons?”
She nodded. “Handy. I don’t forget where I put it.”
“You might need to work on baby-proofing,” he said, stirring the sugar.
That and a million other things.
“True,” she said. “But you could ask around the squad, mention Zazie.”
“Chérie, I could do a lot of things,” he said, stifling a yawn. “The suspect came too easy, that’s what you’re thinking?”
So he had doubts, too.
“I’m asking where’s Zazie?” she said. “All the energy’s focused on this suspect, yet she’s still missing. I promised Zazie’s mother I’d find her. Can’t you sniff around, please?”
“Your promise, your problem. You figure out your own case, chérie.”
She peeled the kiwi, clammy hands gripping the bee handle. At least her stomach had quieted down.
“I know this,” Aimée said, watching as the peeled brown skin revealed a dark emerald. “With ten francs and a Métro pass in her pocket and a school report to turn in today, she didn’t run away.”
He nodded. “Chérie, I just got off an all-nighter. I need my beauty sleep.” Hadn’t she reached him at all? But she had, because he went on, “Right place, wrong time, you’re thinking? Zazie saw him, and he’s keeping her quiet?” he asked. “Any ransom demand?”
Virginie would have told her. She shook her head.
“I’ve furnished you with what I’ve heard. C’est tout. Now I’ve paid my debt, chérie.”
But she’d known most of that, except for the unconscious man’s priors. And then he’d left her kitchen, headed down the hall.
She called after him. “Do you have children?”
Beto paused at the double doors. “Don’t go there. I owed Suzanne a favor.”
“You do.” She heard the turn of her doorknob. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Let’s say he hasn’t killed before, so he’s got a dilemma,” he said. “How to keep her quiet and what to do with her. That’s supposing he hasn’t …”
Her mind spun. Cellars, attics, abandoned warehouses in the banlieue. Anywhere.
“If you’re right—not saying you are—there’s something else to consider, chérie. If the rapist is really still out there. School ends soon, so before his victims go en vacances he might strike again.” He paused. “So if I sniff around—not saying I can—you’ll feel up to brioches next time?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. Nodded. She’d just realized there was one lycée he hadn’t struck yet.
Tuesday, 6 A.M.
RENé YAWNED AS dawn haloed the mansard rooftops. The street cleaner’s broom scraped the wet cobbles, and water trickled in the gutters. He put down the binoculars and rubbed his chin. He needed a shave, a double café crème and a trip to the doctor—his damn hip was acting up again. Instead all he had were leg cramps and an estimated tax bill Leduc Detective couldn’t pay. Plus a full day ahead of him after an all-night surveillance. And still no sign of Zazie.
Next to him on the leather car seat lay his open copy of Noir: The Real Cases of Paris Crime. Not only l’Amérique had serial killers, like he’d been trying to tell Aimée, although she hadn’t seemed to be listening to him. But serial attackers had a specific MO for cornering their victims. He’d been telling Aimée about Henri Désiré Landru, the serial killer who preyed on World War I widows via the personal ads. Later, during the Occupation, Dr. Marcel Petiot kept an office down the hill by Printemps. He’d promised wealthy Jews papers for Argentina from his office above La Chope, the Auvergne bistro, and given them “vaccinations.” Afterwards he emulated the Nazis and burned their bodies in his building’s furnace. Petiot, like Landru, took advantage of the wartime chaos, knowing his victims wouldn’t be missed. And Thierry Paulin, known for his bleached blond Afro in the ’80s—a nice piece of work who specialized in robbing, torturing and murdering old ladies.
René shut the book. The history lesson hadn’t led him to Zazie.
Frustrated, he glanced at the time. Almost sixteen hours since her disappearance.
Time for le petit déjeuner, to stretch his legs and question people he hadn’t questioned last night.
The blonde waitress served him on the terrasse outside the café on Place Gustave Toudouze. Petite, but legs to forever, like Aimée’s, under a denim miniskirt. Her face was fresh, unlined, with a pink lip-glossed mouth like a rosebud. She winked. “Long night?”
He smiled. “Too long.” A grinding came from inside the café as the juicer pulped oranges.
He’d spent the night parked here watching the building on rue Chaptal, photographing everyone who went in and out. All of six people.
Just then, a young woman came out of the double doors of the building next door and waved to the waitress. “Madie, I left the laundry to dry. Your turn next batch.”
Madie waved back to her. “When I take a break. Pas de problème.”
So Madie lived here on Place Toudouze. René didn’t need coffee to suss out that she’d know the quartier, have a view of rue Chaptal.
He pulled out his camera. Flicked through the digital photos. “May I buy you a coffee?”
“Non, merci.”
“I’m a detective,” René said, hoping she’d bite. “Wondered if you’d look at some photos to help in my investigation.”
Madie’s eyes popped. She glanced at the empty terrasse, the deserted café. “But I’d love a jus d’orange.”
Tuesday, 7:30 A.M.