Cara Black - Murder in the Marais

Loud reverberations came through the floor, the rhythmic pounding of the press. Aimee realized the Sunday edition had gone to print without Cazaux's identity. She had to make him confess, then somehow get out, get help.

"What about Arlette Mazenc, the concierge?" she said.

"You keep bringing up that harelipped harpy. What an ugly mug she had!" His tone had changed. He whined like a petulant schoolboy. "That crippled cobbler liked it, though. He would. The bitch almost conned me out of some tinned salmon. My stepmother found it, tried to make me return it. And my stupid papa, bewitched by that slut who thought she could replace my mother, backed her up. Can you imagine? I had to teach them a lesson." He looked at Aimee with a wide smile. "Seems ridiculous now, doesn't it?"

He talked as if he'd spanked a naughty child, not brutally bludgeoned a fellow collaborator and informed on his parents, causing them to be shot below his apartment window. Truly evil incarnate, just as Odile Redonnet had said.

"And Lili Stein saw you, she'd hidden in the courtyard. She escaped, only to recognize you fifty years later, so soon before the election," she said. "You carved the swastika in her forehead."

"She was a self-righteous busybody who took Nazi food," he said. "Like the rest of us. When you're that hungry you don't care. But I was smart. I made money out of them. Every one of them except Lili."

"One hundred francs for anonymous denunciations. You figured the swastika would point to skinheads," she said. "But skin-heads make them differently. You drew it slanted, like Hitler and everyone else of your era did. A signature of that time."

"Signature?" he said.

"The 1943 Nazi flag flying over the Kommandantur on rue des Francs Bourgeois had exactly the same one. You passed that every day on your way to school from rue du Plâtre."

He smiled and his eyes were evil. "Lili was the smartest in class but she stopped helping me."

"Helping you?" she said. "You mean, because she didn't let you cheat on math homework, you informed on her parents."

"We all deserve what we get."

"Arlette Mazenc cheated you on black-market tinned salmon. Furious, you bludgeoned her down in the light well, where she kept her cache. But Lili was hiding in the courtyard, afraid of the Nazi officer who'd been asking Arlette questions. She saw everything. You chased her up the stairs but she ran and escaped over the rooftop. You figured she had died. The last link to your identity erased, especially since you knew of the punishment inflicted upon Sarah, the blue-eyed Jew, Odile's deportation to Berlin and your classmates shipped to the countryside. But fifty years later Lili recognizes you in a Hebrew newspaper and tells Soli Hecht. Hecht tells her to do nothing until he has more proof, then makes overtures to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. But Lili couldn't wait, she knew how you silenced opposition. She tracked you herself-that was her mistake. You found out via your government connections that Hecht obtained a piece of an encrypted photograph with you in it. Hecht hired me to figure out the encryption. He tried to tell me your name. I don't know how you found Lili…"

He interrupted Aimee with a wave of his hand. "But Lili was the only one who could put it all together. Of course, she was where I'd expect her to be." He gave a little smile. " Alors, still on rue de Rosiers."

"You saw Lili talking with Sarah and killed her before she could spread her allegations. Killed her like you killed Arlette Mazenc."

"She deserved it," he said.

Yellow slanted light came from the half-opened door into the next room. Aimee edged towards it.

"The deal is you withdraw tonight," she said.

"But that's not in my plan," he explained calmly. "I have to take care of all the people who've helped me over the years. Many, many friends. Connections I've nourished that need to be repaid."

Aimee interrupted. "Like you repaid Sarah's parents, Lili's, and all your other classmates who didn't do what you wanted."

He shrugged. "You know I won't let you get away with this." He stood up slowly. "I learned an important lesson a long time ago." Old stone glistened wetly outside the window.

"The backup disk is in the vault." But there was no vault and she felt sick inside.

Anger blazed briefly in his eyes. "Have you done something silly requiring major damage control?" he said. He continued almost wearily. "I've learned if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself."

As he turned to face her, steel glinted in his hand, illuminated by the yellow light. His arm shot out, holding a Gestapo dagger. "Nothing can be proved. You are joining history, Mademoiselle." he grinned.

"You've got it wrong," she said. "I've got the proof-the copy of your Nansen passport and the photos showing you in Paris. Soli Hecht gave me encrypted files. You're history, Cazaux. No one nominates a collaborator and murderer."

He shrugged. "You'd be amazed at the backgrounds of some of our deputies."

She peered out the window, wishing the courtyard was lined with Morbier's men, not shiny black crows cawing loudly. But they were at the outskirts of Paris. It struck her that she was hopelessly on her own.

She darted towards the slightly open door, kicked it, and barreled into the next room. Skidding inside on her heels, she ducked under a conference table in time to avoid crashing into it. The room lay deserted except for framed sepia photographs of bearded men, their lapels dotted with medals. Piled newspapers blocked her way. Aimee backed out of this room into a stark unfurnished salon. Just beyond were the tall entry doors of more office suites.

She turned to see Cazaux, with a perverse smile, pointing her own gun at her. He snapped his fingers and motioned her towards an enclosed stairway.

"Let's get some air," Cazaux said.

He swatted her head with the butt of the pistol as he marched her up the dark curved staircase. His ropy, tensile hands pinned her arms behind her. Warm blood dripped behind her ear onto her shoulder, its cloying metallic scent making her light-headed. Or maybe it was the butt of the pistol, she couldn't tell. By the next floor she was panting and he wasn't even winded. For an old man he stayed in good shape. He noticed and smiled.

"Wonder how I do it?" he said as he forced her to kneel on the top step and kicked the side of her head.

Searing pain with hot white stars shot through her brain. He held her arms so she couldn't reel to the ground.

He slapped her face sharply. "I asked you a question-don't you wonder how I do it?"

She wanted to answer, "By drinking the blood of your victims." Instead, she concentrated on keeping her balance. She felt limitless fear at the cruelty of one human to another.

"Lamb embryo injections," he said. "Keeps me young. I can keep it up for hours, too." He smiled suggestively.

She cringed in disgust. "You're sick."

Up on the slate roof of the newspaper, the peaked roofs of the Marais spread below them. Lighted windows from l'Academie d'architecture in the building below shone and music drifted up. He shoved her onto a flat-tiled space, once a balcony. Wind whipped over her and drizzle pelted her face.

"I've warned you," he said in a long-suffering voice. "Repeatedly. Offered to give you what you want, tried to negotiate, but I'm afraid, Mademoiselle Leduc, you haven't been receptive."

He dragged her over to a parapetlike ledge. She dug her heels into the pipes crisscrossing the roof and tried twisting away.

"You're going to take the fall," he said. "For everything. I'll see to it." Cazaux had one last parting shot. "Your precious Lili sent them to the ovens, I didn't." He chuckled. "It was all her fault."

Lili's fault! And then she wasn't afraid anymore of how he would kill her. How he lied and what he did to Lili was all that mattered. She saw the jagged swastika carved in Lili's forehead as she charged into him.