Aaron Elkins - Old Scores

"Moury wants to see me now? This minute? Doesn't he realize how much we have to do?"

The man shrugged. The toothpick wagged. "He has some instructions for you."

I have since learned a little about the French criminal justice system, in which police inspectors are subject to the wishes, not of police superiors, but of public prosecutors. The police, as might be expected, often resent these intrusions.

Lefevre was no exception. "Mon dieu, " he murmured fervently. (I leave it in French to provide the authentic Gallic flavor.) His eyes rolled skyward and stayed there for a long time before he brought them down. His cigarette was flung onto the cobblestones and viciously ground out.

"All right, Huvet," he said. "Go inside and tell them it will be half an hour before we start."

Huvet grinned. "You're going to get Moury to shut up in half an hour?"

Lefevre sighed. "I know, but tell them anyway." Huvet nodded, and went back in.

"I'm sorry," Lefevre said to me. "There was something you wanted to say to me? I have a moment."

"It's going to take more than a moment."

"Nevertheless."

"Well, it's, uh, about something that, uh, happened last night," I began. "Urn…"

Talk about misadventures. Lefevre was going to love this. I sighed, cleared my throat and went nervously ahead. "It concerns an occurrence that… that occurred last night. It may be pertinent to, ah, that is to say, relevant to the matter of which-"

"You can speak English if you prefer," he said bluntly. A perceptive man. No wonder he was a chief inspector.

"Someone pushed me out of Vachey's study window," I said. In English.

He looked at me without comment for a long moment, squeezing his nose between thumb and forefinger. Then he turned, squinting into the sunlight and looked up at the window.

"Someone tried to push you out of that window last night," he said as if he were trying out the words for himself and not much liking them.

"Someone did push me out of it."

He looked back up at the window. He looked at the rough cobblestone paving-there were no cars there now-then up again, taking his time. Then at me.

"I, uh, landed on a car," I said. "It's not there now."

"Ah. And am I to know who it was that pushed you out of that window and onto the car that is no longer there?"

He had, I was beginning to see, that distressing knack for making you feel-making me feel-that, whatever I said, I was in the wrong, or at least that my foot was in my mouth. Handy for dealing with miscreants, I supposed.

"Now look, Inspector-" I began through clenched teeth, but then thought better of it. I couldn't really blame the guy. As far as he was concerned, flushed with my recent success with the carabinieri I was now embarked on complicating matters for the Police Nationale.

I swallowed my irritation and told him the whole thing: about my discomfort with Vachey's conditions on the Rembrandt, about Gisele Gremonde's pointing out the blue scrapbook, about my sneaking into Vachey's study later on to look at it, about my subsequent exit through the window, and about the book's disappearance.

By the time I finished, he seemed resigned, as if deep in his heart he'd known, from the moment he'd recognized my name, that I was going to screw things up for him too.

He took a pack of Gauloises from his pocket and lit another cigarette. "I would be interested in knowing," he said, "exactly what you hoped to find in that book."

"I'm not sure. A record of where that Rembrandt really came from. Some clues to its history."

"You don't believe his story about the flea market?"

"Junk shop. It was the Leger that came from a flea market. Let's say neither story is highly likely. The book would have had information on the rest of his affairs during the Occupation too- he started it in 1942. I'd like to ask Madame Gremonde-"

"I," he said, "will ask Madame Gremonde. You will be so kind-"

Huvet reappeared. "Sorry, Inspector. Moury called again. He's having one of his fits. I think it might be best if-"

"I'm going, dammit," Lefevre snapped. "Mr. Norgren, I'll want to talk with you again. I assume you'll be available for the next few days?"

My heart sank. Anne would be in Seattle tonight. I had started to hope that I might be there tomorrow. "Actually, I was hoping to get back to the States. There are some things…" His look was hardening. "Well, of course," I said, "if I can help, I'll stay."

"Good," he said. "Tell Sergeant Huvet how to reach you. I must go now." He shook hands formally, as the French do at every opportunity, sighed deeply, squared his shoulders, and marched off for his meeting with the public prosecutor with all the joy of a man heading for the guillotine.

"Well, you know, he has a hard life," Huvet told me matter-of-factly, as we watched him go.

Huvet seemed like a more easygoing man than his boss, and I wondered if he might be less likely to bite if I dared to ask a question. "Sergeant," I said, "can you tell me anything at all about Rene Vachey's death? I don't know any of the details."

"Details? He was killed at approximately five-thirty this morning," he said. "A single, small-caliber bullet behind the right ear, not self-inflicted. His body was found in the pond of the Place Darcy at seven. Blood spatters and tissue fragments indicate that he was shot while sitting on a bench a few feet away. Is that what you wished to know?"

It was more than I wished to know. "What was he doing in the Place Darcy at five-thirty in the morning?"

"Walking. He was an insomniac. He walked most mornings at five if the weather was all right. At six-thirty he would have coffee in one of the brasseries."

"But that must narrow things down for you," I said. "How many people would know he'd be out then?"

"No more than a few million," Huvet said, shifting the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. "He was the subject of several magazine pieces. These solitary before-dawn walks were featured. One had a photograph of him against a cloudy sunrise. Taken in the Place Darcy. Sitting on the same bench."

"So much for that," I said.

"Indeed," he said sadly.

When I came back in, Calvin was waiting for me in the lower hallway, outside Pepin's office. "What now, chief?"

"Well, we ought to have the gallery all to ourselves right now. Let's go see if I can tell a Flinck from a Rembrandt."

He looked at me, head cocked. "What for? I thought you didn't want anything to do with it."

"That was then. It's different now."

"Yeah, how is it different?"

"Vachey's dead," I said.

"What's that got to do with anything? That guy in Saint-Denis is still claiming it's his."

"I know, Calvin, but… I'm not sure I can explain what I mean, but Vachey's being killed changes everything. He wanted us to have the painting, he went to a lot of trouble to see that we'd get it, and now somebody's killed him." I shrugged. "I don't want to drop it now; I feel as if I owe him more than that."

He nodded. "I understand what you're saying." Good, I thought; I wasn't sure I did.

"Let's go on up," he said. "Who knows, maybe I'll learn something."

I laughed. "So you can impress your new girlfriend some more, right?"

"Sure," Calvin said, "what else?"

We went up to the second floor, but the movable walls at the head of the stairs had been shoved together and locked, so we had to go back down and get Pepin to let us in. Convincing him took some doing; the time lock would have to be disengaged, he groused, the alarm systems would have to be disarmed, there were many other demands on his attention at this moment, etc., etc. But we insisted, and he finally went unwillingly along with the idea, probably figuring that it would take less time to just let us in, than it would to keep arguing with us about it.