Cara Black - AL05 - Murder in Clichy

She looked around the trashed office, sick. Patients arrived and Marie ushered them into the hallway.

“Of course, I’ll pay you for all the damage,” she said. “Guy, I’m so sorry.”

“What hurts, Aimée, is that you didn’t tell me.” He shook his head. “Even after. . . .” He stared at the examining table. “Why didn’t you go to the police ? ”

“Guy, I knew you wouldn’t want me to keep it, and I couldn’t turn it over to them. . . .”

“Why not?”

Guy had never broken a law in his life. She doubted he’d even gotten a traffic ticket: A rare Frenchman who never parked illegally, drove too fast, or cheated on his taxes. He didn’t know the other side, the world outside the law, where things didn’t work like that.

“Last night, the RG were waiting outside my apartment,” she said. “They threatened me that I’d never work again if I didn’t turn the bag over to them. They had ransacked my place, too. There’s a lot more behind this than I suspected.”

He shook his head. “I thought you had changed, that you wanted a new start, not a job that endangered your eyesight and your life,” he said, his gray eyes hard. “But you haven’t changed. You never will.”

“Please, Guy, it’s not like that. Try to understand!”

“Dr. Lambert, we’ll take your statement now,” the flic said, as he entered the examining room. “If you’ll come with me, please.”

“Of course,” he said.

The policeman’s back was turned and she put her finger over her lips, then mouthed “Please” to Guy. But she couldn’t read his expression.

Out in the reception area, she heard Marie. “Dr. Lambert, the adjuster’s here to estimate damages.”

Aimée edged past the policemen to Marie’s desk. “Please tell Dr. Lambert I’ll call him later.”

She left the office, emerging into rue de Chazelles. What had she done? She called the temple, left a message for Linh that she was en route, and took the Métro to the Cao Dai temple.

By the temple’s storefront window, Linh came into view, her eyes bright under a hooded burnt orange shawl, her hands placed together in greeting. Aimée’s heart sank. There was no way around it; she had to tell Linh the truth. She took a deep breath and even though she wanted to run in the opposite direction, said, “Linh, I’m sorry. There’s no other way to say it,” she said. “The jade’s been stolen.”

“What do you mean?” Linh stepped back, shocked.

“Forgive me. I hid the pieces of jade, and someone broke in . . .”

“But Thadée gave them to you, non ?”

Aimée nodded.

“Everything’s gone?”

Aimée reached in her pocket. “Here’s the envelope you gave me for him.”

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Someone must have followed me and stolen the jade after I hid it in my doctor’s office.”

“Why hide it there?”

“I needed stitches. I knew the doctor. I’m sorry, I thought it would be a good hiding place.”

“Stitches . . . why?”

“From a bullet’s ricochet,” she said. “Linh, I’m all right, but Thadée Baret . . . was shot and killed.”

Linh closed her eyes, fingering her amber beads.

Aimée felt sick with guilt. “My mistake.” Then she remembered. The jade disk! She reached into her coat pocket.

“I do have this.”

Hope, then sadness, filled Linh’s eyes. “So you did have the jade.” She nodded. “You must find the rest and get them back for me.”

“Forgive me,” Aimée said. “But . . . why didn’t you warn me? Why did you entrust such things to me, almost a stranger?”

“I had no choice.” Linh’s eyelids fluttered in the nervous mannerism Aimée remembered. “The Communists’ grip has loosened. Next year or the one after, the country will open up to foreign trade. We should be able to return too. But to legitimize and rebuild our congregation, we must have the jade.”

“Legitimize in what way?”

The wind rose and whipped around them. “If we want to return, we must give the jade to the government. It’s a national treasure that was in our care. The Cao Dai safeguarded it. Then just before the French left, it was stolen from us. It must be returned to my country.”

“This jade was looted during the battle of Dien Bien Phu?”

Linh nodded.

“But how did Baret come to have it in his possession?”

“We’ve searched for a long time. We don’t know how he ended up with the jade. All I know was that he needed money, quickly, and promised to deliver the jade in return.”

“We should go somewhere and talk,” Aimée said.

Cockleburs fallen from the row of chestnut trees littered the wet pavement. Ahead, steam billowed from the Métro grill vents. Passersby pulled their collars up and fastened their winter coats tighter.

Linh looked behind her. “It’s not safe,” she said. “Keep walking while I explain. There’s a whole culture of jade,” Linh told Aimée. “The ancients revered jade’s durability and luminous quality. Jade was believed to be a sacred embodiment of essential vital forces; it was used for ritual objects with cosmological and religious meaning.”

“Used how?” Aimée asked.

“To channel supernatural powers, to communicate between the mortal and celestial worlds.”

Aimée recalled the aura she’d felt radiating from the pieces.

Buses shot past on the wide boulevard. A siren resounded in the distance. In front of them, two women with wheeled shopping carts met and exchanged bisous on each cheek.

Linh pulled Aimée closer. “The vital force, the power of jade to channel the spirits of the other world, still exists.”

She gave the envelope containing the cashier’s check back to Aimée. “You’re my only hope. Keep this and the disk you still have. Find the rest for me.”

“But I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Gassot, a French engineer, saved my father’s life at Dien Bien Phu. I never was able to thank him. He knew about the jade.”

Gassot . . . that name. He’d written the article she’d found online, about jade looted from the Emperor’s Tomb.

“Do you know if he’s still alive?”

“I have no idea.”

“How did you meet Baret?”

“I didn’t,” Linh said, pulling her robe’s hood closer about her head. “He contacted the temple. He knew we’d been searching. We’d heard a rumor that the jade was in Paris.”

“What rumor?”

“Something about an auction catalogue?” Linh asked, shaking her head. “I don’t know about these things. I understand your country less and less every day. Bloodshed. . . that’s not our way. We don’t believe in taking life, not even an animal’s.”

Yet, Linh came from a country that had been at war almost continuously for the past hundred years. Aimée had to keep her on track. “Linh, what about Baret?”

“He telephoned and said it had to be arranged quickly, but as we were the rightful owners, we could have the jade for a small payment. Somehow, I felt that he had a good heart.”

A good heart?

“Bad luck curses those who have evil intentions,” Linh said. “You will find the jade. I count on you.”

Guilt warred with Aimée’s promise to steer clear of this kind of thing.

Linh paused at the temple door. “Follow where this disk leads you.”

And Aimée knew she would. Not only to restore the jade to Linh and subvert the RG’s agenda, but also because, somehow, the trail might lead back to her father.

AIMÉE STOOD in yet another café- tabac in the Clichy quartier , drumming her chipped boa-blue nails on the zinc counter. So far, in the six she’d visited, no one had seen or remembered Baret. If she had to drink yet another espresso she’d sprint down Avenue de Clichy and never fall asleep again.