“And right after the fromager’s daughter was murdered by the rapist,” Rigaud went on, tuning his guitar. “What’s the world coming to, I ask you? Shooting a pregnant woman!”
Intent, Zacharié stepped past the Fender amplifiers and closer to the screen to process what he was seeing on the télé: the yellow crime-scene tape on the cobbled street, the flashing red lights. It couldn’t be, it would be too much of a coincidence … Damn. Had she been shot? Had Jules gotten to her first?
Tuesday, 11 P.M.
AIMéE WOKE UP to the rustle of fabric as the curtains parted. A honey-complected boy with hazel eyes took her hand.
Was she dreaming? Could this be her baby, born and grown? Confused for a second, she squeezed his hand. Warm. Tried to speak but nothing came out. Her tongue was thick, mouth dry like sandpaper.
“Grand-père got a call,” he said. “He’s your emergency contact on your medical card. We got off the train and came back.”
Finally she recognized Marc, Morbier’s half-Moroccan grandson. He had shot up like a wild sprout. Only nine or ten, but he reached his grandfather’s shoulder.
Morbier, in a crumpled seersucker jacket and loosened shirt collar, looked none too pleased to see her. “Careless and downright stupid, Leduc. Getting shot again? Consider your pregnant heels curbed.” He turned to the arriving flic. “Make sure there’s a uniform at her door as soon as she’s moved to a room,” he said, gruff. “Meanwhile I’ll take her statement.”
The flic’s eyes widened. “The Brigade Criminelle chief sent me, but … is that an order, Commissaire?”
“We called it that when I graduated from the Police Academy,” said Morbier. “Has anything changed?”
The flic pulled out his cell phone. “à votre service, Commissaire.”
Morbier palmed some francs into Marc’s hand. “Why don’t you find some chocolate in the cafeteria?”
As Marc left, Morbier sat down with a sigh. Fanned himself with a train ticket. “Another fine mess,” he said. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Leduc? You’ve got a baby to think of.”
She swallowed. Found her voice. “They knocked me out with an injection. Don’t let them give me more drugs.” She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Promise me, Morbier.”
A nurse with flyaway blonde hair loomed at the bedside with a chart. “No drugs?” She snorted. “Does topical antiseptic bother you? I’d call you lucky.”
“Getting shot’s … lucky?”
Morbier stood and moved to the side as the doctor entered.
“Your companion, the other victim, bled out.” The doctor’s bald head shone under the white cubicle lights as he checked her chart. “But good news. We halted your contractions with a shot of Terbutaline. The Kleihauer–Betke blood test showed no fetal blood cells in your circulation. The sonogram shows a healthy heartbeat. Your cervix hasn’t elongated.”
She blinked. “So my baby’s okay?”
A nod. “We’re monitoring you for concussion, shock, fetal disturbance, anything that could affect the baby. We’ll err on the side of caution.”
She shivered, remembering. The gunshots, Mélanie’s mother crumpled on the cobblestones, the blood, the shock. How close to losing the baby she’d been.
“You’re sure my baby’s not injured?”
“We’re going to watch out for pain in your womb, chills, fever, dizziness, fainting, headache, swelling in your fingers, vomiting, bleeding.” The doctor ticked off a checklist. “So far you’re strong as an ox. The baby too. But we still have to remove the bullet, treat your gunshot wound, get you some stitches and prevent infection. You’ll stay here tonight under observation.” He swabbed more gel on her stinging shoulder. “Ready?”
“For what?”
“Breathe.” She felt a sharp poke, digging, then fire erupted in her shoulder. She gritted her teeth, determined not to cry out. But she did.
“Voilà.” The doctor held a bullet between surgical tweezers.
He dropped it in a kidney-shaped metal pan with a ping. With a deft motion, the nurse reswabbed the bullet wound and stitched it closed. “We’ll check on you later.” A whoosh of antiseptic air, padding on their soft, rubber-soled shoes, and they’d left.
Morbier took a latex glove and baggie from his inside jacket pocket. Dropped the bullet inside and examined it. He whistled. “Don’t see many like this anymore.”
“Like what? Explain, Morbier.”
“Nine millimeter. Can’t read the casing number without a magnifier. Vintage, I’d say. A Luger?”
“From the war? You mean a German Luger?”
“So you’re ticking off Nazis again.” Shook his head. “Don’t you ever learn, Leduc?”
She ignored his taunt. Wondered how this fit in. And how the hell Morbier could identify it like that. But ripe pickings for Serge, her medical pathologist friend, to analyze.
“Morbier, get this to Ballistics, priority. And copy Serge at the morgue.”
“Telling me how to do my job?” But he’d gone to the door, had a word with the flic guarding her room. By the time he returned and sat down heavily on the plastic chair, he’d taken off his jacket and dabbed his perspiring brow with a wrinkled handkerchief.
“Why not tell me you were going on leave, Morbier?” she said, that little girl inside her bursting out. Why did she always feel like a child with him, craving his attention? Stupid. “Zut! It worried me,” she said, attempting to recover. “Couldn’t reach you. Why disconnect your phone?”
“There goes my keeping it on the quiet, Leduc,” he said. “I took a week’s leave. Wanted to keep it from the pencil pushers who calculate retirement.”
Since when did Morbier, a senior commissaire divisionaire, take leave on the sly? Didn’t add up. She sensed there was more to the story. Hadn’t he moaned about the roadblocks in his ongoing investigation last week, the upper echelon’s pressure to shelve it?