Cara Black - AL05 - Murder in Clichy

Open-mouthed, Tessier stared at the small black knob Aimée pried out of it. “Don’t use the phone! There might be others, and I don’t have time to dismantle them.”

“You mean, someone has heard our conversations?”

She put a finger to her lips and scanned the room’s elegant boiserie . Plenty of hiding places and no time to hunt for bugs.

“Did Dinard keep a safe in here?” she whispered.

“A lock-up, downstairs,” he whispered back.

She nodded, turned off the light, and motioned for Tessier to lead.

The underground level, the museum’s basement, could use restoration, Aimée thought, noticing the dank watermarks and chipped stone. Rank humid air hovered. She took off her coat and tied it around her waist. Weren’t works of art supposed to be kept in climate-controlled storerooms?

“We don’t have room to store much here. We have an agreement with the Musée Henner,” Tessier told her, taking off his glasses and wiping off the condensation. His voice trembled.

Tessier led her through a warren of coved passages with doors leading off them. “This used to be a mansion. These were storerooms.”

Tessier paused at the what looked like a meat locker.

Hurry , she wanted to say, seeing him hesitate. “Tessier, continue, it’s vital.”

He wiped his brow and hit some numbers on what resembled a digicode. The metal door clicked and he pushed it open. Inside the antiseptic stark-white painted room, file cabinets and shelving held a Tang dynasty painting on silk, ritual bronzes, and statues on the shelves.

“Part of our collection is on loan in Düsseldorf,” he said. “These funerary statues and Buddhist sculptures are part of our permanent collection.”

She showed him the character she’d copied onto her palm.

“Look familiar?”

Her hands shook and she held her wrist so Tessier wouldn’t notice.

“ Wu,” he said, looking at the character .

“That’s the character you showed me before,” she said, excited. “The character for Shaman.” She pulled out the jade disk, with its primitive etched dragon. “Dinard tried to tell me it’s the disks that are valuable. Rare.” She stared at Tessier as she thought of the images Dinard had mentioned. “If the other disks bore motifs like the sun, a phoenix, clouds, how old might they be?”

“Such a thing’s impossible to date correctly, even with carbon techniques.”

“Ballpark, Tessier?”

He shrugged. “Pre-bronze age? It’s difficult to prove. But why kill Monsieur Dinard?”

“What was Dinard doing yesterday afternoon? Think back.”

“I had a dentist appointment,” he said. “I left after lunch and didn’t return.”

Frustrated, she didn’t know what to look for. She lifted up some papers. Underneath lay files and museum correspon-dance.

“Roll up your sleeves,” she said. “We have to check everything.”

“These shelves deal with maintenance and building codes,” he said.

“Let’s try those.” She pointed to shelves filled with bulging folders and binders and sat down to tackle the first shelf. In a binder labeled Miscellaneous, what she read made her bolt upright. A Drouot photocopied receipt, made out to Monsieur D. Inard, for “Heavenly Jade Astrological Pieces.” D. Inard . . . of course, Dinard.

Dinard had put the pieces up for auction!

Dinard, then Thadée. Had Thadée stolen them from Dinard? If so, where had Dinard gotten them? Where were they now?

“Did your museum handle ancient jade pieces like these?”

“Never.” Tessier shook his head. “These types of objects show up every so often: No record of excavation, or history of ownership. No pedigree. Like I told you. Some have sat in a collector’s home for years, accumulating dust in their crates, forgotten.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Without provenance there’s no verification, no history,” Tessier said. “The subtext is, they’ve been looted. Stolen. With all the scrutiny these days, and the international agreements, we’re too wary to buy such objects.”

“Did Dinard tell you where the jade figures came from?”

Tessier shook his head. “I never even knew of their existence, until he told me to ask you about them.”

She sat down. Studied the Drouot receipt.

“If the Drouot staff had done some research, and concluded items had been looted would they just note ‘withdrawn’ in the catalogue?”

Tessier nodded. “If they were smart.”

AIMÉE FELT apprehensive as she approached l’hôtel Ampère for the Olf meeting. Did de Lussigny know about his godfather’s murder? She didn’t relish being the first to tell him that Dinard had been killed.

The four-star hotel was a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe, situated in the prestigious part of the 17th. Too bad she and René couldn’t afford to hide out here.

De Lussigny greeted her at the door, his shirtsleeves rolled up. The meeting had ended, or so she surmised from the cigarette butts in the ashtray, several used glass tumblers, and a half-empty bottle of vodka in the suite. Stacks of yellow legal pads and charts sat on the table. A fire crackled in the fireplace.

“They made it an early night,” he said. “Sorry, but I hope you brought the reports.”

Odd. Why hadn’t he called and asked her to come sooner?

“Of course, right here,” she said opening her bag.

De Lussigny reached over and turned on music. Soft jazz.

“Sit down. Have a drink.”

What was all this about? But she sat down, took the tumbler he’d splashed with vodka, and drank for courage. Nice, with a citrus punch. He sat down next to her and ruffled his hair.

“Your godfather. . . .” She hesitated, trying to read his expression before voicing the bald truth. Did he already know?

“The investigating inspector called me,” he said. “First Thadée, now my godfather, Jacques.” He shook his head. “Jacques played around. . . .”

“Played around? We found him dead in the Parc Monceau lavatory and he’d written this in his blood.”

She saw the horrified look on his face. “But . . . what do you mean . . . you found him?”

She wrote the character on a yellow legal pad:

“Know what it means?”

He shook his head. “I’ve grown up here. My father read Chinese; in some ways he never left Indochina. . . .” His voice trailed off.

“It’s the character wu, for shaman,” she said.

Did he know about the disks? All she saw on his face was concern.

“Your godfather, Dinard, put a set of jade figures up for auction,” she said. “Then withdrew them. But it was Thadée that gave them to me to deliver to a Cao Dai nun. They were stolen from me. What does it mean?”

“You surprise me all the time,” he said, taking a big gulp of vodka. “But I’m sorry you had to find my godfather’s body.”

Sorry?

“It’s his poor wife I feel sorry for. And Thadée.”

De Lussigny raked his fingers through his hair. “She loved him. What about you, Aimée. Why don’t you trust me enough to explain to me how you’re involved?”

“I don’t know you,” she said.

Or anything.

She felt his hand on her thigh, surprised that such a suave man would make such a move at a time like this.

“We can change that,” said de Lussigny.

He kissed her. Warm, moist lips. Startled, she pulled back.

He kissed her again. Just right, lips a bit open. Nice kisses.

“ Non ,” she said, pulling away.

“Why?”

“It’s complicated.”

A barge pole wouldn’t be long enough to keep him at a safe distance.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he said. “The only way to react to death is with life.”