“René said you were a romantic,” she said, pouring from the pichet of rosé, already on the table, into his wineglass. “And to thank you.”
“If I didn’t know you better,” he said, his eyebrows knitting together, “I’d believe it, Leduc.”
“Believe that Laure’s in the Hôtel Dieu in intensive care,” she said, spreading the napkin on her lap.
Morbier shook his head.
Should she tell him the rest?
“Laure heard men’s voices from the roof,” she said. “Speaking another language.”
“You interrogated her, Leduc?”
“There’s so little to go on, I had to ask questions,” she said. “But I made her worse.”
“Blaming yourself won’t make her better. Look, we do it all the time.”
“After I saw the police dossier at her lawyer’s, nothing else looks good either.”
She poured herself a glass of rosé.
Morbier touched the rim of his glass to hers. “À la santé. Clearing her is the lawyer’s job, Leduc. Not yours.”
He caught the owner’s attention and pointed to the blackboard with the prix fixe menu chalked on it. “Two of those, s’il vous plaît.”
“Of course, Commissaire,” the man said, heading to the kitchen behind the small Dutch door, whose top half was open. From inside Aimée could hear chopping noises and the hiss of frying oil.
“You’re a regular here, I see.”
He gave a small smile, the jowly cheeks and bags under his eyes making him look more tired than ever.
“There’s nothing more you can do, Leduc,” he said, taking the rolled paper napkin and tucking the corner into his collar.
Aimée leaned forward. “Morbier, she didn’t kill her partner. The techs made a mistake with respect to the gunshot residue. The lab report’s not even prepared yet!”
“That’s for the police to investigate.”
“See what you can find out,” she said. “When the report’s filed, tell me.”
“You know I don’t have access to those investigations.”
Didn’t he?
She looked down, summoning her courage.
“At the hospital, Laure rambled a bit, obsessing about the past. She mentioned a report about Papa, hinting at some cover-up.”
Morbier choked on his wine. Wiped his mouth with the napkin.
“Do you know anything about it, Morbier?”
“Live in the present, Leduc.”
But in the brief unguarded look she’d seen on Morbier’s face, she sensed he knew something.
“Does it have to do with when Papa and Georges were partners?”
“Laure’s father?”
She nodded, took a piece of bread from the basket, tore off the crust, and chewed it.
“You were Papa’s first partner, weren’t you? What can you tell me about Georges?”
“Beats me.”
“Your memory going, Morbier?” She leaned forward and brushed the crumbs aside.
“That and everything else. My retirement’s around the corner.”
For a man approaching retirement, he kept a tight schedule, working at the Commissariat and part-time at Brigade Criminelle as well. He’d never confided in her about his assignments.
“You know how Laure put her father on a pedestal. Help me understand what she meant by a report, some cover-up involving my father. There is some secret that’s worrying her.”
The owner set down two plates of fisherman’s salad—potato and white fish and a sliced saucisson sec that she’d seen him unhook from its hanging place above the counter.
“That’s in the past,” he said. “Leave it alone.”
There was something.
He cut the sausage into small pieces with his knife.
“Aaah, the owner’s mother cures these herself,” he said.
“Tell me, Morbier.”
He sighed. “There’s no secret. We all graduated from the academy together. You know that.” He took a bite, then washed it down with rosé. “Then, like now, we worked in fours, two pairs. Beat the cobblestones together—”
“You, Georges, Papa, and who?” she interrupted.
Morbier set down his knife, rubbed his finger over his thumb, and looked at Aimée, an unreadable expression on his face.
She pulled out the old card. “Was it this man, Ludovic Jubert? A few months ago, an Interpol agent told me Jubert knew about the surveillance we did in Place Vendôme. If so, I want to talk to him.”
He scratched a wooden kitchen match on the table leg and lit a Montecristo cigarillo. He took several deep puffs and leaned back, silent.
“Where is Jubert?” she asked.
“How do I know?”
“But you can find out.”
The owner stood by the table and asked. “The sausage, it’s not good?”
“Lost my appetite, Philippe,” Morbier said. “Bring us an espresso and the check, please.”
She wouldn’t let Morbier off so easily. Plumes of acrid smoke rose from his cigarillo. She tried not to inhale them. Yesterday she’d thrown away the pack of Gauloises she’d hidden from Guy.
“Would you find him for me?” She took another sip of wine, thinking. “When you and Papa worked in the Marais together, where was Georges?”
“Kicked upstairs. Driven, he was.”
“And Jubert?”
Pause. “Retired now, most likely.”
“Retired? Then what did Laure mean?” She took a deep breath.
“She’s injured, isn’t she? Making no sense. Listen, I’ll say it again, I live in the here and now. So should you.” He ground out his cigarillo. “And some more words of advice.”
Morbier was good at that.
“Let Laure’s lawyer handle the matter. Don’t step on the investigators’ toes. They don’t like it.”
“How can I find Ludovic Jubert?” Aimée repeated.
Morbier stood and took his scarf and overcoat from the rack. He picked up the espresso cup, drank from it, and threw some francs on the tablecloth. “Tried the phone book?”
He took a step toward the door.
She reached for Morbier’s hand and gripped his thick fingers with their nicotine-stained, ridged nails. He tried to pull his hand away but she held tight.
“Morbier, there’s a saying ‘To continue a journey one must put the ghosts to rest.’”
A faraway look came into Morbier’s eyes. “That’s a hard order to fill, Leduc,” he said, in a voice so low she almost didn’t catch it. “One can spend a lifetime trying.”
He wrapped his muffler around his neck and was gone. A cold draft of air hit her as the door slammed. His newspaper had fallen to the floor. She picked it up, glancing at it while pulling out her wallet. Morbier’s distinctive slanted handwriting caught her eye. “The Corsican arms investigation report six years ago that traced links to the Paris Préfecture, which caused furor in the Ministry of Interior, has resurfaced. Spokesmen for the Ministry decline comment,” she read. He’d written the letters JC beside the article, in the margin, heavily underlined.
“He’s like that these days,” the owner said, bringing her change and retying the apron around his waist. He shot Aimée a knowing look. “You should try to make him happy, Mademoiselle.”
J C . . . JEAN-CLAUDE . . . Jean-Claude Leduc, her father? Or was she reading too much into Morbier’s doodles? Six years ago he’d run Leduc Detective while she was in her first year of medical school, helping him out occasionally. Then, on a weekend surveillance at the Place Vendôme, there had been an explo- sion and her father had been killed. She still didn’t know who to blame but she had to keep trying to find out who as responsible, even if putting the ghosts to rest, as Morbier said, was hard to do. She folded the newspaper and put it in her bag.