Cara Black - Murder in the Bastille

Aimée thought of the burgeoning cheap second phone business for people who’d lost theirs. “Say the woman lost hers a lot. What if she wanted a cheap phone for work,” she said. “Like I did until I got this one. Still, everyone has to show ID to activate a phone.”

“Show ID?” asked René. “Now that makes it simple.”

“How?”

“My RAM’s revved up. I crack into a few databanks,” he said. “Run a program to check lists of purchases of cell phones by cash or charge. Takes about twenty minutes.”

He was a master of his métier.

“You’re a genius, René!”

Aimée briefly struggled with the idea of calling Morbier to tell him her bag had been found. But first she needed to find out the victim’s identity. Find out if she was the woman from the resto.

She had to make sure. Get concrete proof.

“Try 12 on my phone.”

René dialed and thrust it into her hand.

“Allô? ” said Martine, her voice low and out of breath.

“Martine, don’t tell me you’re exercising?”

“Feels like it,” she said. “Climbing in heels on this spiral metal staircase seems like my own personal Stair-master hell.”

“Where are you?”

“About to meet Vincent for Diva ’s cocktail preview, our biggest night. Cherie , you were invited, too. Aren’t you coming?”

Of course, with everything that had happened, she’d forgotten.

“Alas, no. I’m in l’hôpital des Quinze-Vingts.”

“Visiting someone sick?” She heard Martine’s sharp intake of breath. “ Ça va? ”

“You could say that.”

“What’s wrong?”

Should she tell her best friend? On her biggest night? Ruin it for her? Not now, not when Martine was about to launch her new venture. She could tell her tomorrow.

“I’d feel better if you persuade Vincent to turn over his hard-drive,” she said. “Besides, how could I come, I’ve got nothing to wear.”

“All you think about is work, Aimée,” she said. “Can’t this wait until . . .”

“Please Martine, la Procuratrice will subpoena Vincent’s firm.”

“For what? He’s not guilty. It’s the salopes he did business with!”

“So tell him to cooperate, Martine.”

Again, doubt assailed her about Vincent. An unease floated over her.

Aimée heard a low hum of conversation, strains of a chamber orchestra in the background. She visualized the fashionable crowd, smelled the wax dripping from the candles and tasted the bubbling champagne. And it came home to her that she was talking to her best friend since the lycée , as she’d done so many times, but it felt different. Like she was speaking in a vacuum.

“Aimée, right now, it’s impossible . . . tiens, there’s Catherine Deneuve . . .”

Aimée heard the smack of lips near cheeks as bisous were exchanged. In the background she overheard part of a conversation, “. . . she’s chic, she’s fierce and there’s something fresh about her. A Belle de Jour punk.”

“Big night here,” Martine said.

The background conversation continued, “. . . a facility for accents and for sliding up and down the social scale to play classy or crass, posh or punk. A little glam. A little raw.”

“If Vincent doesn’t act voluntarily,” Aimée said, raising her voice, “that makes him look bad.”

“I’ll try, got to go,” she said, and hung up.

“What did Martine say?”

“Besides gushing over Deneuve? She’s rushing to interview fashionistas, do profiles on glamour queens not afraid to get dirt under their fingernails, get sidebar tidbits on hot new authors. If only I could see or . . .”

She reached for his hand and found his arm.

“René, remember the article we read in the Japanese software magazine about technology for the blind?”

Silence. She heard René take a deep breath. “You mean the screen reader software that converts text into speech?”

“Exactly,” she said. “And the speech recognition software that converts speech into text for the laptop?”

“We make a deal,” he said. “You let me help find who attacked you, and I’ll get you these software programs. Even if I have go to Japan to do it.”

“Deal.”

But René didn’t have to go that far. A few phone calls and he found several programs via a hacker friend in the Sentier.

“He’s leaving,” said René. “If I don’t go now, I won’t get it installed . . .”

“But first I have to make sure the victim was the woman in the resto,” she interrupted, “and check the speed dial numbers on this woman’s phone.”

“There’s time for that,” René said. “The Judiciare problem can’t wait and I need your help.”

And with that, René left.

She must have drifted off. Aimée heard the metal rings on the top of the curtain beside her slide across the rod. Footsteps hurried across the linoleum.

“Mademoiselle Leduc, we’re evacuating the ward,” said the nurse from Burgundy, the nice one. She broke Aimée’s reverie of a gloom-filled future: her apartment sold to pay debts, creditors hounding René at Leduc Detective.

“Evacuating? There’s a fire . . . ?”

No smell of smoke.

“A train disaster . . . the TGV crashed coming into Gare de Lyon,” the nurse said, her words rushed, breathing hard. “Two hundred people have been injured. We’re the closest facility, so we’re taking the overflow. L’hôpital Saint Antoine, too.”

Aimée felt her blanket pulled back.

“All the area hospitals are Code Red,” the nurse from Burgundy continued. “Your condition’s stabilized so we’ll move you to the résidence Saint Louis around the corner. A place for the unsighted to learn how to function.”

So they were moving her to a blind people’s home.

“You don’t understand, I have a home. . . .” She wanted to shout “I’m not like them!”

But she was.

“Before you return to your own home, it’s best to learn to navigate in the world of the sighted, mademoiselle,” she was told. “Chantal, our volunteer, will guide you. She’s a resident there.”

A musty lilac scent accompanied the click of heels on linoleum. “Don’t worry,” said a quavering voice, “You can take care of yourself. I did.”

“But how can you help me if you can’t see?”

A cackle of dry laughter. “You’ve got a lot to learn.”

Aimée felt the nurse tying her hospital gown and draping a robe over her. Her bag was thrust in her arms. But how would René find her?

“I have to tell my friend . . .”

“Don’t worry, there’s time for that. Chantal’s a pro,” the nurse said. “Stand up.”

Aimée fought the dizzying sensation as she slid her feet to the floor. Sirens hee-hawed outside her window.

“Now, stretch out your arm and find my shoulder.”

Aimée gingerly extended her arm, felt smooth material, and gripped Chantal’s bony shoulder.

“ Parfait! Let yourself see shapes with your fingers, read textures and angles. We will teach you tricks. Vite , eh . . . let’s make way for the real unfortunates!”

Aimée hesitated.

“ Allons-y!”

Aimée shuffled forward, a baby step at a time.

“I’m only legally blind, you know,” Chantal said, her tone confiding. Her shoulder moved forward. “I distinguish light and dark, large shapes. That’s our little secret, eh? The doctor said you had spirit, he recommended you for the résidence. Not everyone gets sent there . . . God forbid, you could be shipped off to St. Nazaire or some provincial backwater! Saint Louis only takes the quick learners, don’t forget that.”

Wednesday