Cara Black: AL05 - Murder in Clichy

“May I keep the autopsy report?” she asked.

Aimée nodded, wondering if it would wind up on the shelf next to Bernadette of Lourdes. She thanked Madame Daudet and left. But now she’d learned of the old men’s connection to Thadée and where Gassot lived.

Outside on the street, she ducked into a doorway and checked her cell phone. Two messages.

The first was from Pleyet, finally returning her call.

“We need to talk,” he said. “Call me back.”

She’d call him after she found Gassot. If she worked it right, she’d have information to barter with Pleyet.

The next was from Martine.

“ Allô, Martine. How’s Sophie?”

She heard Martine inhale on her cigarette.

“Safe in her room. The valium helped,” Martine said. Her husky voice rose. “Interesting news, Aimée,” she said. “The Brits dropped out of the oil rights bidding. And seems the Chinese have transported impressive drilling rigs to the bay off Dingfang, on Hainan Island. They’re raising territorial issues. But right now it looks like Olf and the Chinese are neck in neck.”

“Great, keep going, Martine.”

“There’s a rumor of fat ‘commissions’ for the inside track to the oil rights. I’m still on it.”

AIMÉE ENTERED the narrow corridor of Gassot’s hotel, her shoulders brushing against the peeling, fawn-colored walls. A single bulb lit the hall. But she imagined that the pensioners who lived here appreciated it. Better than a cardboard box over their heads in an abandoned lot.

The smell of grease from a nearby kitchen hovered. Chirping came from the reception booth, a particle board structure, under a Art Deco sign advising NO EVENING VISI-TORS ALLOWED AFTER DARK. FULL AND DEMI-PENSION WITH CAFÉ MEALS AVAILABLE.

Judging by the grease smell, she doubted the inhabitants chose full pension if they could afford to dine elsewhere. A tall man wearing a raincoat and holding a watering can stood in the doorway leading to a concrete rear yard.

“Looking for someone?” he asked, in a hoarse voice, the guttural roll of consonants betraying his Russian origin. His eyes took in her legs and he grinned. “I’m available.”

A stab at Slavic humor?

She gave him a big smile.

“Which room is Monsieur Gassot’s?”

“Eh? What’s that?” he said, blocking the doorframe in a swift movement.

“You heard me,” she said, keeping the smile on her face.

“Which room does he stay in, Monsieur?”

“Spell that name for me, eh. My hearing’s gone. Everything else works fine.”

She reached for the cell phone in her pocket. As he set down the watering can, she punched in the hotel’s number. Seconds later the phone rang in the small reception area.

He glanced at the phone, his eyes unsure.

“Go ahead, I’ll wait,” she said, still keeping the smile on her face with effort.

“Please sit. Wait over there,” he said, entering the reception cubicle to answer the telephone.

Fat chance. She ran past him and into the back yard, skidding on the wet concrete in time to see a white-haired man slipping into a dilapidated lean-to shed. Rabbit hutches covered with wire-mesh lined the old wall, celery stalks peeking through the holes. She slammed the hotel door shut with her booted heel, found her Swiss Army knife, and wedged it between the door jamb and door handle. The Russian gorilla would have to kick the door down to open it. She had no intention of losing Gassot now.

“Monsieur Gassot, I’m not a flic ,” she called. “I know you’ve been avoiding me. You were an engineer at Dien Bien Phu. I read your article about the looting of the Emperor’s tomb.”

The shed door scraped open. A knife blade glinted.

All she had in her bag was a can of pepper spray and Chanel No. 5.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She had to get him to listen to her. “Aimée Leduc. Your friend Albert was murdered. You could be next.”

What if he’d been responsible? But whatever he’d done she needed to gain his confidence. Convince him to talk to her.

He edged out of the shed. Even under the 1960s-era gray twill raincoat she saw his well-built frame and muscular arms. And his limp.

“What’s that to you?”

“I was hired by a Cao Dai nun to find a set of jade astrological figures. Let me do my job. Talk to me.”

The Russian kicked at the door.

“Call this mec off,” she said. “Or I’ll treat him to pepper spray.”

“Where’s your gun?” Gassot asked.

She shook her head. The gutter dripped. Big splats of water landed on her boots. “I’m a private detective. No gun.”

Too bad it sat in the hall drawer of her apartment.

Gassot stood, rain glistening in his white hair, holding the knife with an unreadable expression.

“Why was Daudet killed? Why are they after you?” she asked.

And by his eyes, she knew she’d said the wrong thing. She’d lost him.

“I’ve lived this long, so you should know I’m not stupid enough to fall for your approach. I know you were hired to avenge the past.”

“Avenge? Wait a minute, you’re confusing me with someone else.”

Gassot’s mouth twisted. “It was a mistake. We never meant to do it.”

Do what? She had to reel Gassot in. Get him to trust her. She remembered what Linh had said.

“War’s a series of mistakes,” she said. “But you couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty years old. What did you know? The important thing was you saved a Vietnamese man’s life. The life of this nun’s father.”

“What nun?”

“A Cao Dai nun named Linh asked me to bring her the jade figures.”

“She wasn’t a nun then.” Gassot flexed his knuckles but he still held the knife. “Not when we fought at Dien Bien Phu.”

“His grandchildren are in need of the jade hoard. One’s in a Vietnamese prison for protesting the régime and his sister’s this nun who is petitioning the International Court of Justice to bring about his release,” she said, embellishing. “And you were in the Sixth Battalion, one of the men who looted the jade treasure after the battle.”

Gassot’s mouth trembled.

Aimée lifted the absinthe-green disk into the dull gray light. It glowed.

“Didn’t you find this?”

Gassot’s mouth trembled. He stepped closer and let out a deep breath. “And a lot more. We were surveying, digging trenches, but we hit an old ammunition box. There were twelve figures inside. The next day they were gone.”

She’d been right. She placed the jade disk on the rabbit hutch ledge, staying far away from Gassot’s knife.

“There’s another, isn’t there? It’s called the Dragon. The most sacred.”

Gassot turned over the small jade disk in his hands, then punched the rabbit hutch, his shoulders beaded with rain.

“You have it, don’t you?” she said. “And the dragon makes the set complete.”

“By rights they’re all ours. But I never saw them again.”

“A museum director put the figures up for auction here in Paris a month ago,” she told him. “Then they were withdrawn. He was murdered in the men’s bathroom of Parc Monceau. You know that, Gassot, don’t you?”

Silence. She saw defiance in his eyes.

“If the jade is stolen from its true owner, bad luck follows the thief,” he said.

“So you killed Thadée, then Albert, because he wanted a bigger share. Demanded it.” She was guessing. “Did you arrange to meet Dinard and murder him, too?”

Gassot shook his head. “Think what you want.” He turned the jade piece in his hand again.

“You’re not the only ones who want the jade,” Aimée said. “Albert’s wife said you and the others concocted some scheme.”