“WATCH OUT, AIMéE,” called Maurice, the vendor at the kiosk on rue du Louvre. He pointed to the dog dump on the pavement.
Missing it with a quick step, she grinned. “Merci.” Thought for a moment. “I need eyes on the street. Interested?”
“As in … detective work?” Maurice’s eyes widened. An Algerian War vet, he’d lost an arm but still stacked his stock of newspapers and magazines faster than someone half his age.
“If any blue van lingers or parks here,” she said, sticking a fifty-franc note in his pocket, “you let me know, d’accord?”
Maurice raised his one arm, touched his brow and saluted. “At your service.”
Inside the grilled door of the Leduc Detective building, she slipped on the wet tiled floor. Caught herself just in time. Madame Fortuna, the new Portuguese concierge, was kneeling, rag in hand, soaping the stairs.
On the elevator ride to her office she thought of her next step, where to look for missing pieces of Drina’s puzzle. Her mind went to her father’s files in the cellar, causing her to turn straight back around.
“Bonjour, Madame,” she said to the kneeling concierge. “I need the key to the cellar.”
“ ’Scuse, non comprends.”
A hard worker, this concierge, but her French left much to be desired. Aimée mimed turning a key in the lock and pointed to the cellar door.
Two minutes later she was descending into the bowels of 18 rue du Louvre, glad for the concierge’s spare set of keys. She hadn’t been down here in years and never remembered where René kept their copy.
Years ago, when her grandfather had left the S?reté, he’d formed Leduc Detective and made a name for himself as a private investigator. Later, Papa, forced out of the police, had joined him and never looked back. Their history, the legacy they had left her—a detective agency in its third generation—gave her an enormous sense of pride and a mostly empty bank account.
In the cellar she hit the old porcelain light switch. A bare bulb shone on several taped-up cardboard boxes, an old army-green metal file cabinet of her grandfather’s and two orange Plexiglas chairs circa the seventies. Not much.
She hoped to find anything at all on Drina Constantin—an informer dossier, maybe an old address. It would be a start.
The smell of old paper and tobacco from her grandfather’s cherry pipe hit her when she opened the metal file. The folders here were dated from the late thirties to the late eighties. She’d personally dated and labeled all these boxes after transcribing their contents. But if there’d ever been a file on Drina Constantin, it was gone.
Another dead end. Disappointed, she wanted to get out of the damp packed-earth cellar. She thumbed one last time through all the yellowed dossiers inked with her father’s spidery black handwriting. Wedged at the back of the drawer was a thick pile of newspapers. With one hand she pushed them to the side; with her other she felt around behind them. The brittle, yellowed newspapers, editions of Libération, crackled, the edges nibbled by silverfish. She glanced at the dates: 1978.
Shivering in the cellar’s dampness, she put the newspapers in an empty cardboard box, lugged it up the stairs and locked the arched wooden door behind her.
On the ground floor, the rez-de-chaussée, Madame Fortuna was still working away at the stairs, so Aimée took the wire-cage elevator. It was just big enough to accommodate herself and the box.
Again the elevator wheezed up to the third floor. She hit the entry code at Leduc Detective’s frosted-glass door and entered. She hung up her bag and her coat, noticing the cloth diapers stacked on the layette. Had she ordered these?
Maxence looked up from his desk, which adjoined René’s. He wore his usual attire: Beatle boots, black turtleneck and stovepipe denims. He took off his headphones and swiped his bangs from his eyes.
“Welcome back. What are you doing here?”
“This.” She plopped the box on her desk and wiped her brow; the office radiator had gone into overdrive, giving off a summery heat. It either worked overtime or not at all. The nineteenth-century woodwork on the high ceiling and the marble fireplace—the repository for their shredder—shimmered in the pale midday light.
“Thought you were working from home until your lunch meeting with René,” Maxence said. “Two minutes ago I faxed you three contracts René needs you to look at right away.”
Great.
“He’s with a client, awaiting your response.” Maxence handed her the originals.
Aimée scanned the contracts. “What’s with the diapers?” She pointed toward the corner with the crib, high chair and mobiles that now decorated René’s desk.
“René thought better safe than sorry.”
René thought of everything. Not for the first time, she wondered if his inner parent ruled their lives too much. A vase of fragrant white freesias and a welcome-back card sat on her desk.
“Sweet, Maxence. Thank you,” she said.
“René’s idea.” He winked. “I guess all your telecommuting and last night’s surveillance didn’t count.”
She sat at her desk under the framed original of her grandfather’s detective license and a photo of her father. It felt good to be home.
“How’s the vicomte’s tracker feed?”
“Incriminating. I transcribed his itinerary and bolded the juicy locations.” Maxence smiled. “Invoice updated and on your desk.”
Already? A whiz kid worth his weight in the dark chocolate he consumed—a provision of his paid internship.
She flipped through his paperwork—at this rate they’d need at least two more evenings of surveillance. Another big, fat check awaited. It never ceased to amaze her how members of the same family nipped and bit each other’s heels.