Thierry snorted. "Loving parents? Nathalie Rambuteau loved the bottle."
"I'm sorry. So sorry."
"No matter how she promised," he said, "when I came home from school, she'd be drunk and passed out, stuck to the floor in her own vomit." He slammed his fist into the caked dirt wall. "That was on a good day. I thought it was because I was adopted."
"Adopted?" Sarah picked at the duct tape. "Did she tell you. . .?"
He interrupted, stooping down to bind her wrists with strips of duct tape, "To make my bed and clean behind my ears?" He grinned. "'Maternal' doesn't describe Nathalie."
"You survived!" she said.
He took her arm, peering at her as if she were a laboratory specimen.
"You show no pronounced Semitic features." His eyes narrowed. "Must be some ancestor raped by Aryan invaders back in the steppes and you carried the recessive genes."
"Killing me won't make you less Jewish." She raked her taped hand like a claw in the dirt. "Or change that I'm your mother."
"Proven inferiority." He pulled out a Gestapo dagger, which gleamed dully in the candlelight. "We've talked enough."
Saturday Evening
AFTER TEN MINUTE S, AIMÉE still hadn't picked the Zeitz lock on the medical examiner's office door. Her hand ached.
"This is taking too long," she said.
Rene crouched near her on the scuffed linoleum and pulled out a Glock automatic.
"Not a finesse approach," he said. "But it will save time."
She hesitated, but kept winching the tumbler. A minute later, the huge metal lock clicked, then dropped open with a metallic sigh. Aimee rubbed her wrist as Rene reached on tiptoes to remove the lock and open the door.
"After you," he said.
Settling into an alcove office desk, he quickly plugged his code breaker into a surge protector under the reception desk, then hooked it to his laptop.
Aimee knew she hadn't wasted her money as she pulled the yellow stop-smoking gum out of her mouth. Even though she'd kill for a cigarette. She stuck two wads on opposite sides of the inner door jamb, then affixed the cheap alarm sensor Sebastian had purchased at the hobby store. The medical examiner's office area, painted institutional green like the rest of the morgue, lay quiet except for the sound of Rene's fingers clicking on a keyboard.
"Spooky," Rene said, accessing Soli Hecht's disk. "I know the clientele won't bother us but I'd feel better with the door closed."
"Air needs to circulate." She nodded towards the broken air vent in the wall. "Otherwise the formaldehyde reeks. Besides, if anyone trips my alarm sensor, we'll hear."
Aimee tried to hide the doubt in her voice. She plopped into the ME's chair.
"Bingo!" Rene said.
"That's his access word?"
"Take a guess what the ME's code is." Rene rolled his eyes.
Aimee looked at the framed photo on the desk: a paunchy, middle-aged man, tufts of gray hair poking out from a beret, cocked a hunting rifle under one arm and held a limp-necked goose in the other.
"1Stud," Rene said.
"He's a legend-in-his-own-eyes type." Aimee shook her head. "After opening bodies all day, how could he want to kill any living thing?"
Working in a morgue would make her want to celebrate life—not hunt it down and shoot it. France's obsession with la chasse had always offended her. But was she doing that? Doubt nagged briefly. No, hunting down a killer and bringing a murderer to justice wasn't sport, like bagging an innocent creature.
She refocused and typed in 1Stud, which immediately accessed the system. Once inside, she tapped into EDF, Électricite de France, which connected to Greater Paris municipal branches. She navigated on-line to the 4th arrondissement.
Once inside the utility system, she pulled up the listing for the meters of number 23 rue du Plâtre, Laurent's old address. Extra energy points had been awarded to the building due to moderate use and conservation of energy. Nothing more. Another dead end. Disappointed, she logged into FRAPOL 1 and requested the bloody fingerprint found with the Luminol at rue des Rosiers.
As the fingerprint came up, she typed in "de Saux," then ran the standard search program.
"Rene, this high-speed modem is like power steering after driving a tractor!" she purred.
"Don't get ideas, Aimee," he said. "They're too expensive and you're spoiled as it is."
Ten seconds later, a single phrase popped on to the screen: Unknown, no records found.
Of course, she thought. He's too smart to have left any trace. That's why he killed Lili. She'd recognized him and he thinks Sarah will, too. Is it just because Lili identified him or is something happening now, she wondered. He must have more at stake.
All collaborators had good enough reason to hide. Especially from the families of victims whom they'd informed on and sent to the ovens. How could she trace him? Little if any information from the forties had been entered into the government database.
"I've got it! La Double Morte," Aimee said to Rene. "Someone had to pay tax on that building, either inheritance or capital gains. It always comes down to that, eh? Death and taxes, the only two sure things in life."
The screen blipped while Aimee accessed the tax records of number 23 rue du Plâtre. Records stated that the property stood free and clear of lien, was zoned for three units, and that ownership resided with Bank d'Agricole real estate division. OK, she thought to herself, let's scroll back in time. The Bank d'Agricole had paid all taxes since 1983, when they'd purchased it in lieu of payment in a bankruptcy proceeding of a Jean Rigoulot of Dijon. This Rigoulot of Dijon had faithfully paid taxes on the property since 1971. A 1945 probate tax had been billed and never paid. She skipped back to 1940 when the property tax had been paid by a Lisette de Saux. Must be Laurent's mother, she reasoned. However, the next owner, a Paul LeClerc, had paid the lien and probate tax in 1946 as part of the purchase agreement. She scrolled back into 1940 again and discovered an addendum. Lisette de Saux had changed the title into her husband's name. That's when she saw Laurent's new name and Soli Hecht's dying syllables made sense. "Lo. . ."
Lo. . .! Laurent Cazaux. She almost fell off her chair. If she didn't hurry up, the collaborator, Lili's murderer, was about to become the next prime minister.
THE FLUORESCENT lights fizzled and the warning light on the surge protector blinked. Rene frowned. "Not enough juice. Let me fiddle with the fuses, this ancient wiring can be amped up with a little work."
"We don't have time, Rene," Aimee said, joining him in the alcove.
"If the power goes, the computers crash. We lose everything," he said.
She knew it was true. He waddled past the sensor that obligingly beeped an alarm. She punched the hallway light switch for him, since he barely reached it.
"I do this all the time," he said and grinned. "Everyone loves me in my building."
She reset the alarm and phoned Martine at home. After ten rings, a sleepy voice croaked, "Âllo?"
"Martine, I'm going to send you a file at your office," Aimee said. "Download it and make copies right away."
"Aimee, I just got to sleep after being up two days with the riots," Martine said.