Cara Black - Murder in the Bastille

Aimée repressed her smile.

“Whatever I tell you stays off the record. D’accord?”

“Of course,” said René.

“No asbestos or poison. Nothing toxic at the site, I’m sure. The code’s strict and we follow it. After all, the planning commission has to sign off on each job. But I do know that Dragos wanted lead.”

“Lead poisoning?”

“Lead.” Brault’s voice dropped and he sounded tired. “Dragos boasted a lot when he was drunk. He kept saying he could make a profit on lead.”

“What did Dragos mean?”

“Beats me.”

“How did you know Josiane?”

“Josiane wrote articles for L’événement and Libération , deploring that all eight Green seats in the European Union had been lost. She wrote pieces on human rights, not popular mainstream themes. I respected her; she wrote what she believed. And she dug for truth. But I don’t know what she found, if anything.”

“Whatever she found killed her,” said René.

“Did Dragos find any lead?”

“No clue,” said Brault. “Listen I’m running late . . .”

“But it doesn’t make sense to me,” said Aimée. “Why would you associate with Josiane if you work for Mirador?”

Brault was full of talk. Good talk. Yet, 10 minutes before he’d been about to run her over.

“I’m an architect. Not a developer,” he said. “There is a difference. My goal has been to preserve the quartier , however I can, in my own way. Keep the flavor. But in business, sometimes you work with the devil. That’s my experience. Mirador’s not much worse than the others. At least I thought so at first.

Josiane understood she had to protect her sources, that I couldn’t be quoted.”

Why was he so secretive? Couldn’t he just spill it?

“We know about the Romanians evicting old people in the middle of the night . . . What else is there?”

“That’s it,” he said, seemingly surprised. “Josiane was going to expose this practice of Mirador’s. I helped . . . in secret.”

Of course. He wanted to have the job, look good, and salve his conscience at the same time. Or was she too hard on him?

“Then what happened? What did Josiane tell you?”

“We were going to meet,” he said. “She called me. Sounded excited. But insisted we talk in person.”

“Where was that?”

“She never showed up.”

“Where and what time was your meeting supposed to be?”

Silence.

“Of course, it’s not my business,” said Aimée, wishing she could gauge his reaction. “But you were having an affair with her, weren’t you? Isn’t that what you don’t want to admit?”

But she was the one surprised.

“Vincent Csarda was. Not me.”

That came off his tongue quickly.

“What do you mean?” asked René.

“Josiane and Vincent were having an affair.”

That didn’t make sense. If it were true, wouldn’t Josiane have spoken with Vincent in the restaurant?

“How do you know this?”

“That’s my guess. Somehow in the way he talked, he left me with a sense . . .”

Silence.

“Go on,” she said.

“Vincent owed someone,” said Brault, his words measured.

“Owed who?”

“I felt from the way Vincent spoke, he was more like a conduit,” he said. “And some women like that tortured male type.”

“That’s news to me,” she said. “Weren’t you attracted to her? Were you jealous of Vincent?”

A small laugh. “Not me. I go the other way.”

Not only had she lost her eyesight, but her touch! Something didn’t feel right to her. Didn’t “smell” right, as her father used to say.

“You still haven’t told us where and when you were meeting Josiane,” said René.

“On rue du Lappe,” he said. “Number 24, in a courtyard across from the Balajo.”

“Who picked the place?”

“She’d consulted her astrologer,” he said. “She always did when she was afraid.”

Aimée remembered how she’d chain-smoked and talked nonstop on the cell phone in the restaurant. Like most Parisiens. But Aimée remembered the fear in her eyes.

A gust of air, warmed by the sun, passed by her legs. She heard René clear his throat.

“So let me understand this, Monsieur Brault,” said René. “Josiane’s writing an exposé about Mirador’s practice of hiring Romanian thugs to evict old people from historic buildings. Mirador demolishes them and constructs upmarket building s. Meanwhile, you sense she’s having an affair with Vincent, who’s somehow compromised. Dragos shoots his mouth off to you about making a profit on lead and then Josiane calls, saying she has to talk with you in person. But she’s a no-show.”

“If you put it like that . . . maybe.”

“Did she tell you she was having an affair with Vincent?”

“Not in so many words,” he said, “but I felt it.”

Maybe it was someone else.

“Does Dragos have an accent?” asked Aimée.

“I’m late,” said Brault, standing and pushing the chair back. It hit the wall with a dull thud. What sounded like keys jingled in his pocket.

“Does he?” she pressed.

“A thick accent,” he said. “Romanian’s very close to Latin.”

The man calling on Josiane’s cell phone had had no accent.

“So what’s your connection to Vincent?”

“Vincent organized our ten-year anniversary ad campaign. He’s good. The best.”

He was. And that always surprised Aimée. Maybe with his clients he sheathed his bristling manner.

“Did Josiane introduce you?”

Silence. “Let me think,” he finally said. “Must have been at that party last year. The antique dealer’s hôtel particulier with the exquisite little theatre.”

“Was Dragos there?”

“Why would he be there? As I recall, it was more the limo liberal set we’d mobilized for an Opéra fundraiser.”

The set Vincent and Martine reported on in their new magazine.

She tried a hunch.

“Was Malraux there? He’s involved with the Opéra.”

“But it was his place! He’s an Opéra patron,” said Brault. “A real aficionado! He donates furniture for the sets. That’s funny . . . now I remember. Dragos was moving furniture into the courtyard.”

The cell phone vibrated in her skirt pocket.

“ Allô? ”

“Guess I’m popular, Leduc,” said Morbier, “you’ve tried to reach me several times.”

“I found proof.”

“Proof of what?”

Footsteps walked by her and Brault muttered something that sounded like goodbye or good riddance, she wasn’t sure which.

“Vaduz didn’t kill Josiane Dolet,” she said.

“Leduc, you still stuck on that?”

“Like glue,” she said. “René will leave an envelope containing proof with Bellan, who closed the case too soon.”

Silence.

“What’s wrong, Morbier?”

“All I want to do is retire. Keep my pension intact. Stay on speaking terms with colleagues I’ve worked with for most of my life.”

“Why wouldn’t you, Morbier?” She didn’t like the way the conversation was heading. A bad taste formed in her mouth.

“Leduc, I’ve been checking into your story. On my own,” said Morbier. “But the creek’s run dry. No leads. I’m sorry.”

Another apology from Morbier? Amazing. At least he’d been trying.

“What if her lover called her,” she said, “then killed her, using the Beast of Bastille guise.”

“I like that. Shows malice and premeditation. Everything we need for the Judiciare,” said Morbier. “The department would look better, the public would forgive us. It’s nice.” He blew a gust of air into the phone. “But I’m afraid it’s too pat. You were hit on the head too many times, Leduc.”