Cara Black: AL05 - Murder in Clichy

“I thought you drank green tea now,” he said. “Part of your ‘regimen’ ”.

He meant for her condition; she was still recovering from loss of vision caused by injuries inflicted in the vicious attack she’d suffered in the Bastille district.

“I drink that, too, René.”

Homeopaths and Western medicine . . . she tried them all with an impatient wish for a miracle pill to strengthen her optic nerve. Time and tranquility—Guy’s prescription—were what she didn’t have.

Invoices were piled high on her mahogany desk. The office, apart from computers, scanners, and fax, had changed little since her father and grandfather’s time. On the wall, old maps portrayed Paris divided by arrondissement, one showing the ancient walls, the other the sewer tunnels webbing the foundations. The armoire containing her father’s old uniform and her disguises stood by her grandfather’s desk, his auction find, which had belonged to Vidocq, the former thief who had become Paris’s first Police Inspector. The room was full of memories, the only history she had.

What had she gotten into now? She didn’t want to lose all this. Or her livelihood.

“Things smell, René. Bad.”

“How’s that?”

“Sit down, René.”

“But I am sitting,” he said.

The yellow glow of the streetlight slanted across the parquet floor as René leaned back in his customized orthopedic chair. She sank into the Louis XV chair in need of re-upholstering, put her feet up on the lit à la polonaise, a Second Empire daybed, another auction find of her grandfather.

“Thadée Baret was shot. He died in my arms,” she said.

René’s large eyes bulged. “Were you hurt?”

“Just a graze. Guy stitched me up,” she said. “I’m fine.”

“Let me see,” he said.

She flashed her bandage and told him the rest.

“Take that jade to the temple tomorrow, Aimée.”

“I intend to,” she said.

“I had no idea . . .” René’s voice trailed off. He shook his head. “But we’re in a crunch, I need help with the stats to clear this report by tomorrow’s deadline.”

“Bien sûr ,” she said. “Don’t forget you encouraged me to do this favor for Linh.”

“Aimée, I thought it would be simple. Don’t forget your promise to stay away from this kind of thing,” he said. “The promise to yourself. And me. Your new regimen and meditation.”

She bit back a retort and stared at the statistics pile on her desk. Better make a dent in it. She worked silently for a half hour, preoccupied. Then she stopped.

Should she confide in René? She’d always dumped her love problems on him and asked his advice. “Guy wants us to move in together. In the suburbs!”

“You . . . living a doctor’s wife’s life, doing lunch?”

René turned away but not before she saw an odd expression on his face.

“What’s the matter René? Are you afraid it spells disaster for our relationship?”

“Do you think it’s your style, Aimée?”

She rubbed her eyes. Funny, he’d encouraged her to see Guy, her one-time eye surgeon, until their relationship grew intimate.

“The truth? I always thought. . . .” His words trailed off.

“Thought what, René?”

But he’d shut his laptop case and pulled on his custom-tailored raincoat. He avoided her gaze.

“I’m late,” he said. “My Firewall Protection class at the Hacktaviste Academy starts in twenty minutes.” He supplemented Leduc Detective’s income by teaching hacking safeguards. Her guilt increased, knowing how the damp air aggravated his hip dysplasia, something he never mentioned.

“Saj will help us fine-tune the Olf project,” he said. René had raved about his student Saj, the encryption genius. With work mounting, they needed help. And Saj, according to René, was a find. “Will you be all right, Aimée?”

“Look, René,” she said, holding up the smallest jade disk, which she’d put in her pocket. Its milky-hued translucence shimmered in the light, mirroring René’s green eyes.

René shook his head again. “I don’t feel good about this.”

“There’s more, René. Linh said men were watching her and the temple.”

“Call the flics. ”

“And say I ran away from a murder scene?” she interrupted. “That I may have been a target? And someone chased me?” She sat down, wishing her arm didn’t still sting.

He paused at her desk, his laptop in his bag. Hurt, and something else, showed in his eyes. “You have to make up your own mind. Think of your future, your health, a relationship . . .”

“You’re part of that, René.”

But she spoke to the closed office door.

Why had she blurted out her dilemma about Guy? Was René afraid she’d give up Leduc Detective? She began to wonder . . . was he preparing to move on, to form an alliance with his friend who had a computer shop, or to go corporate? Tears welled in her eyes.

He’d get bored in a week. He’d hate corporate life. She imagined the snide remarks he’d endure about his size, told herself he wouldn’t really do it, and buried her head in her hands.

The office, quiet for once, echoed with memories; her father’s old typewriter in the corner and Leduc’s first detective license, circa 1944, framed on the wall bearing her grandfather’s prisonlike photo, the one where he looked like he had sucked a lemon.

All of her life was here.

Tears wet the Post-its on her desk. Could she walk away from all this, consult from a home office as Guy suggested? Could she run Leduc Detective by herself?

And what about René, who’d saved her life, and fought at her side when her world had fallen apart and she couldn’t see? Taken up the slack, kept the agency running. And fed Miles Davis.

Why hadn’t she seen it coming? Made him talk about it, listened to him?

So unlike René . . . he’d hesitate to tell her but . . . she couldn’t imagine not talking with him or sharing sushi take-out when they worked late at the office.

She wiped her eyes, downed her pills. Took a deep breath and switched on the computer. She couldn’t lose René. Besides her godfather Morbier and her dog, he was all the family she had. But she had to put that aside; she’d call him later.

She booted up her computer and searched. Twenty minutes later she found one entry specific to Cao Dai temple lands. A 1958 article, posted on an obscure mining website, by a Frenchman named Gassot of the Mining Engineer Corps affiliated with the Sixth Battalion. This article, on geologic excavations in Indochina, briefly mentioned a Cao Dai Temple and nearby emperor’s tomb that had been looted of national treasures. Chinese underground forces claimed that the missing hoard, objects from the fourth century, belonged to them. But Ho Chi-Minh and the French colonials laid claim to them, too.

The Vietnamese government blamed the Cao Dai, who were safeguarding it—as Linh had said. The theft had occurred as the 1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the death knell for French colonial rule in Indochina, raged. Aimée read between the lines and figured the French had wanted the treasures for the Louvre.

She found a Nicorette patch and stuck it under her clothes, near her hip. Her mind spun. Jade, and a junkie dying in her arms . . . what was it really about? Was the jade she had hidden part of the looted treasure she’d just read about?

Her hands trembled. Time to go home.

“WORKING LATE again, Aimée?” asked Nico, the balding owner of her local café.

She kissed him on both cheeks. “How else can I keep Miles Davis in dog food?”

He wiped the zinc counter as he set a glass down in front of her. Worn stools and warmth from a working heater accompanied by the pings of an old pinball machine in the corner gave the café a comfortable feeling.