Cara Black: AL06 - Murder in Montmartre

Alarmed, she unzipped her jacket and drew the gun she’d only fired previously on the shooting range. Her heart raced. Drugs! Was he on the take? No way in hell would she risk her badge for his dope habit. She peered out the window. No Jacques.

She climbed out onto the scaffold and navigated the slippery two-plank walkway gripping the stone building, her bare hands frigid.

“Laure . . .” Jacques’s voice, the rest of his words, were lost in the wind.

A howling gust whipped across her face as she pulled herself up from the scaffolding and reached for the gray-blue tile edge of the slippery roof. A punch knocked her to her knees. The second blow cracked her head against the scaffold with a bright flash of light.

Monday Night

AIMÉE PEERED AGAIN AT her Tintin watch. Nearly eleven o’clock. “What’s taking Laure so long?”

Morbier shrugged, taking a swig from his wineglass. “Better congratulate Ouvrier now, before he leaves.”

Ouvrier stood near them, holding an open blue velvet box containing a glinting gold watch. “Thirty-five years of service.”

She saw a wistful look on his long face.

“Congratulations, Ouvrier.” Aimée nudged him. “How will you keep out of trouble now?”

“ Ma petite , I’ve had enough trouble,” he said, giving her a little smile.

Ouvrier, widowed, and estranged from his children, subject to flare-ups in winter from a knee injury in his rookie days, had been sidelined. A new generation of flics was taking over. She felt for him, aware of his scars, inside and out. For now, he had camaraderie but not much else to show for years of service besides the gold watch.

Where was Laure? Aimée stood and pulled on her coat. There was only one way to find out.

SHE CROSSED Place Pigalle toward the mounting zinc rooftops silhouetted against the moonlike dome of Sacré Coeur. Midway, in a frame shop, the white-coated long-haired owner nodded to her as he pulled the blinds down. But not before she saw the notice of an upcoming organic market below a Warhol-style silk-screen print of Che Guevara . . . black and red all over.

Montmartre embodied the bohemian spirit. In its past it had been the home of anarchist Communards and then of artists and writers for whom absinthe provided inspiration. Now it held a mix of small cafés and theatres that hosted poetry readings or a playwright testing a first act on patrons, and dance studios occupying ateliers that once boasted students like van Gogh.

Young Parisians treasured converted studios here, trading the trudge up the steep streets and flights of stairs for the view of the sweeping panorama below, just as Utrillo, Renoir, and Picasso once made their homes in cheap ateliers. This was where the Impressionists, Cubists, and Surrealists had painted. The tradition of the village, eccentric and stubborn, still remained.

There was no sign of Laure. Aimée turned the corner and saw a new Citroën at the curb under a No Parking–Tow Zone sign. Only a flic would dare. It was a nice chrome green Citroën, too. Jacques’s? A glance through the half-frosted window revealed a crushed pill bottle on the floor by the clutch and blue gloves on the passenger seat. Laure’s gloves.

Something smelled bad, as her father would have said.

A gate stood open. Fresh footsteps in the snow trailed across to a darkened building. She entered and crossed the courtyard, her heels slipping on the ice. Strains of music from the building opposite wafted through the courtyard, and patches of light came from a window. Another party?

Snow clumped in the building’s half-opened door. Aimée walked inside into the dark foyer. A broken stained-glass window and water-stained doors met her gaze. There was a darkened concierge’s loge on the right. Once plush and exclusive, she thought, now the building looked shabby.

“Laure?”

A gust of wind rattled the metal mailboxes. Wet footprints mounted the red-carpeted stairs.

She followed them to the third floor. Piles of lumber and paint cans sat under a skylight attesting to a renovation in progress. The apartment door stood open.

“ Allô? ”

No answer. She went inside, her footsteps echoing in a hallway. Beyond lay a dark, nearly empty series of rooms swallowed by shadows. What looked like a piano stood, ghostlike, covered by a sheet.

She shivered and backed up. In this bitter cold, half-empty apartment something felt very wrong. Metal clanged from outside where a construction scaffold was visible through the open salon window. Had Jacques and Laure, the idiots, gone out there? Snow blew in through the window, dusting a large armchair and wetting the carpet as it melted.

She stepped over the window ledge to the scaffold, which was barely illuminated by the dim light of the moon. Freezing wind and gusting snow flurries met her. Gloves, she needed gloves and a snowsuit!

At the shadowy scaffold’s end, she could just make out a slanted mansard rooftop and behind it, a small flat area piled with rebar and bricks. Snow crusted the wooden slats over the windows; suffused moonlight showed a mesh of footprints.

She heard creaking and forced herself to traverse the scaffold, to look beyond the pepper-pot chimneys and zinc rooftops laced with snow stretching like steps down the hill of Montmartre. Taking small steps, Aimée edged toward the roof edge and tripped. Her arms flew out; icy slush brushed her cheeks. Then she saw Laure’s sprawled body.

“Laure!” she cried.

A groan answered her .

“Laure, can you hear me?” she said, bending down. Her fingers located a weak pulse on her friend’s neck.

She rooted in Laure’s pockets for a police radio, couldn’t find one, pulled out her cell phone, and tried to control her shaking hands to punch in 18, the emergency number for the police.

“Officer down, possibly two, 18 rue André Antoine, on the roof,” she said. “Send backup, an ambulance. Hurry.”

The Commissariat was nearby. Would they get here in time?

“Jacques,” Laure moaned.

Dull thuds came from somewhere on the roof.

“Help him . . . hh . . . have to . . . ”

Aimée tried to control her panic. Think, she had to think straight.

“Laure, backup’s on the way. . . . What’s going on?”

“Jacques . . . couldn’t wait anymore, some informer. . . . He saved me . . . I . . . owe Jacques!”

If he had saved Laure’s life . . . Aimée hesitated.

“You came up here after Jacques? Where is he?”

“Over there . . . take my gun. Help him!”

The last thing she wanted to do was deal with Jacques, or his informer. Sleet gusted and the rising wind took her breath away. Aimée felt for Laure’s holster. It was empty.

Worried, she stood, took a few steps, and climbed onto the tiled rooftop, grabbing at the chimney to steady herself. She worked her way across the slick roof, the sleet blinding her. And then her legs buckled.

She landed on something bulky, inert. A body. Her gaze locked on its staring eyes. Jacques’s eyes, his eyelashes flecked with snowflakes. Terror coursed through her as sirens wailed in the distance. She brushed the snow from her face and her hands came back covered with pink-red slush. Blood.

“Jacques!”

He blinked, the whites of his eyes showing. He was trying to tell her something. She checked his neck and found a weak pulse, the carotid artery.

She pulled herself to her knees, pinched his nose shut, checked his tongue, and started blowing air into his mouth. Her hands were so cold. None of the breath-and-pause sequences elicited a response from his blue lips.

“Can you hear me, Jacques? Can you talk?”

His mouth moved. She folded her hands, began quick, sharp thrusts to his chest. As Jacques tried to speak, a thin line of blood trailed from his mouth. She thrust harder now, counting and breathing. The air was stinging cold. Faster now, because while she panted and thrust, she felt him go limp. “Don’t leave me now, Jacques!”