Cara Black - AL05 - Murder in Clichy

Saturday Afternoon

AIMÉE KNEW DINARD WANTED the jade. What if he’d found it?

She approached his home in the fashionable part of the 17th where celebrated courtesans like la Belle Otero who’d counted kings and ministers as her “benefactors,” had lived, where Debussy had composed. Not Aimée’s stomping grounds. Impersonal, with deserted sidewalks where the affluent still dwelled behind steel-shuttered windows. Dinard’s street was cornered by the Banque de France in a former neo-Gothic mansion. Opposite, the Nazi Kommandantur had melted the statue that had once stood in the square, like so many monuments in the city, for the German war effort. Now, honey-colored leaves skittered across the desolate excuse for a square.

Her cell phone rang.

“Allô?”

“Aimée, Saj and I speeded the program up a bit,” René said. “But we’re knocking on the door of Interpol. Do you want to go there?”

She chewed her lip. So the Circle Line was part of Interpol. Pleyet had told her the truth. He didn’t work for the RG, he belonged to Interpol.

Interpol was the information gathering center dealing with international crime. Contrary to popular belief, there were no Interpol officers traveling around the world investigating cases. The member countries employed their own officers to operate in their own territory and in accordance with national laws.

“Aimée, did you hear me? It’s embedded in the structure; if we go in, we leave big hacker footprints,” he said. “I thought I’d check.”

“Good thinking, René,” she said. “Make a gracious exit. I know what I need to, now. But can you keep checking on Thadée’s files?”

She hung up and put in a call to the number she’d seen on Pleyet’s cell phone. An anonymous voicemail recording answered.

“Pleyet, I know who you work for,” she said when she heard the beep. “Let’s combine forces. Call me.”

She hoped she could trust him.

AIMÉE KNOCKED on Dinard’s glossy-blue door. A middle-aged woman with short dyed-blonde hair, wearing a wool houndstooth-checked suit, answered. The woman kept her hand behind the door.

“Madame Dinard?”

“ Oui? ”

Aimée showed her ID, noticing the women’s red-rimmed eyes and the alcohol smell wafting from her.

“I’d like to speak with your husband,” Aimée said.

“He’s not here,” she said, stepping back inside.

“Madame, I haven’t been able to reach him at work. May I take a moment of your time? I need your help.”

“You need my help?” she said, with a hoarse laugh. “He’s gone. Left with his twenty-something cocotte. Pfft, like that.”

“You know that for sure, Madame?”

Madame Dinard rolled her eyes.

Tessier had said that Dinard was on the way out at the museum, but she hadn’t imagined him taking off with another woman. Doubt crossed her mind.

“What do you want?” Madame Dinard asked.

“May we talk inside, please?” Aimée suggested, glimpsing a long hallway lined with paintings through the partly open door.

“Ask your questions here,” Madame Dinard said. Her hand, coming from behind the door, held a full wine glass, from which she took several sips. Aimée wondered how coherent Madame Dinard was, but she had to question her.

“Monsieur Tessier indicated he’d tried to ask Monsieur Dinard about this jade.” Aimée stood in the doorway and unfolded the page from the auction catalogue. “Have you seen these before?”

“Not again!” Madame Dinard said. There had been a flash of recognition in her eyes. “Leave me alone.”

Again? She couldn’t let this woman close the door on her.

“Forgive my persistence,” she said. “When did you see these jade figures?”

“Did I say I’d seen them?”

Aimée detected the slight slur in her voice.

“But I think you recognize them. When?”

“Persistent’s not the word. You’re annoying me,” Madame Dinard said.

“Of course, you’ve got a lot on your mind,” Aimée said. “Think back, was it at the Drouot auction, a month ago?”

Madame Dinard waved Aimée away. She downed her wine, gripping the door. Her eyes narrowed. “If you can find out which young thing went off with my old fart of a husband, and get me proof for divorce, eh, then we could talk. Isn’t that what you sleazy detectives do?”

No use explaining it wasn’t her field.

“But Madame, I’m not so sure he left you for a woman,” Aimée said. “Wasn’t he going to the hospital?”

“Hospital?”

“For a hypertension screening.”

Doubt crossed Madame Dinard’s face.

“I checked,” Aimée said. “He had an appointment for an exam but never showed up.”

Madame Dinard wavered.

“Please, we need to talk,” Aimée said.

With misgiving in her unfocused eyes, Madame Dinard let her in and showed her down the hall.

“Are you sure? He never mentioned it to me.” Madame Dinard stood in the dining room. “But then he wouldn’t if he was running away with another woman.”

Like Guy, Aimée thought.

Glass-fronted cabinets displayed Limoges china, the long dining table held piles of papers at one end and several open wine bottles. On the mantle stood framed family photographs.

“Our thirty-year wedding anniversary was today,” she said in a broken voice. Madame Dinard’s face sagged, and she looked older than the fifty-something Aimée suspected.

“Le salaud! ”

But Aimée heard no conviction in her voice.

“I’m so sorry,” Aimée said.

Quiet pervaded this room. A vase of hothouse apricot-hued roses perfumed the air: the stillness of sorrow.

“What did you mean when you said ‘again’?” Aimée asked.“Has someone been asking you about jade astrological figures?”

Madame Dinard ruffled her hair with her manicured ringed fingers. “It has nothing to do with me.”

But Aimée knew it did.

“Thadée, your godson, de Lussigny’s brother-in-law, was killed. He had this jade in his possession. Of course, you’re upset.”

Madame Dinard smoothed down her skirt and poured another glass of wine.

A dog barked from somewhere in the back.

“ Mon Dieu . Felix! I have to let him into the garden.” She stood and wobbled to the back room.

Great. A tipsy, sad woman who wouldn’t talk.

“Please, Madame, don’t you realize?”

“Thadée was always in trouble,” Madame Dinard said, her bleary eyes tearing. “But I couldn’t do anything for him.”

Madame Dinard had changed her tune. Aimée nodded, encouraging her.

“Creative people see things with different eyes, don’t they?” Aimée said. “Such a shame and so sad for you.”

“He painted so well.” She took Aimée’s arm, brought her into the next room, and pointed to an unframed canvas on the wall.

“See?”

A green-hued dragon was surrounded by the astrological figures Aimée had seen in the photograph in Derek Lau’s office. It took her breath away. With deft strokes he’d created the ensemble. A little boy peeked at the opalescent dragon from a grove of bamboo.

What did it mean?

“Did Thadée tell you anything about this painting?”

“His last work. So much talent wasted.” Madame Dinard let the sentence dangle. She paused. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Then wobbled to the back stairs and the barking dog.

Aimée pulled out her cell phone and punched in Tessier’s number. If she could get him on the phone, he might have better luck with Madame Dinard.

“ Allô, Tessier?” she said. “It’s Aimée Leduc. I’m at the Dinards’. Can you explain to his wife. . . .”

“Not a good idea,” he said.