She smiled. “Would you like some help? I’m leaving, too.”
“Why, merci,” the woman said.
Aimée leaned down to the child by the stroller. “What about a ride in this, eh?” She lifted the child inside. “Voilá. Let me push the stroller; it will make it easier for you.”
“I appreciate it,” the woman said, “my bag’s heavy.”
Aimée pushed the stroller out the street door, walking with her head down next to the child’s mother until she paused to look in a shop window. Then Aimée hit the stroller brake with her toe and ran off.
Wednesday Afternoon
RENÉ LEANED FORWARD IN his orthopedic chair, staring at their computer screens. On the first, he updated and audited the database-registry settings and user-account configurations, something he could do in a half-sleep. On the other computer, he studied a display of the magnified six-groove rifling and RH twist of the bullet from a Manhurin .32 PP. He scanned the specifications text, wishing he could understand it: a 3.35 barrel length, operating as a direct blowback, double- or single-action semiautomatic pistol, it had a spring/momentum locking system that could take an eight-round box magazine with front blade and dovetailed rear sight. So, in human terms, what did that mean, René wondered. His phone rang and he jumped, knocking a batch of printouts to the floor.
“Allô?”
“Find anything interesting in the ballistics, René?” Aimée asked.
He heard something in Aimée’s voice; the words seemed to catch in her throat.
“Like I’m an expert?” he said. “Hold on a moment.” He put on a headset, hit the lever lowering his chair, and bent down to gather the papers. The pain in his hip flared and he winced.
“Didn’t you tell me you wanted to examine the ballistics report and check on something?”
The bleep of a truck backing up came over the line.
“I e-mailed the file to you,” she said.
“I got it. But the autopsy report is not in Laure’s dossier,” René said, setting the papers on his desk. “So it’s impossible to compare.”
“Compare what? You noticed something, didn’t you, René?”
Notice? More like a lurking question. Could be off the track but . . . “It’s just a question that bothered me.”
He readjusted the height of his chair and sat.
“Come on, René!”
“Haven’t you wondered why these men used Laure’s gun, if they did?” He pulled his goatee, studying the laptop screen.
“All night long,” she said.
“Well, I was thinking, too, after what you said last night. If they saw Jacques had brought backup, and lured him to the roof—”
“Alors, René,” she said, an impatient edge to her voice.
“If, as little Paul claims, he saw two flashes on the roof, what about the other bullet?” It was an obvious question, he realized. “In your diagram of the rooftop, the area seemed partially enclosed. It could be in the chimney, or the walls.”
“Good point,” she said.
“Meanwhile, I’m updating our new accounts,” he said, placing a hot-water bottle against his hip. Heat eased the pain of his hip dysplasia, which increased in the damp cold. “Someone’s got to work here.”
Pause.
“René: Zette, the bar owner.”
“The one Jacques moonlighted for?” he interrupted.
“I just found him, René, garroted. Vendetta-style, with a Sicilian necktie.”
He took a deep breath. No wonder she sounded on edge. Things were going from bad to worse.
“Then mecs chased me through Marché Saint Pierre.”
“What?” René clutched the water bottle and listened as she told him.
“What if Zette was the victim of a vendetta, Aimée? Let the flics handle it.”
“Or someone made it look like that,” she said. “Zette knew something.”
From her tone he knew she wouldn’t give up. Not yet. He shivered. “If they were on the lookout, you gave them an eyeful.”
“I’m giving Laure’s file to Maître Delambre,” she said.
“Aimée, be careful. Watch yourself.”
“I will. And you’ve got to arrange for Paul to see him.”
Wednesday Afternoon
AIMÉE PACED back and forth in Maître Delambre’s oak-paneled reception foyer, waiting. The fusty paper smell kept her company. The young receptionist, wearing a string of pearls and a blue sweater set, worked on a computer, ignoring her.
She’d taken two taxis and the Metro to the lawyer’s, to make sure no one followed her. Zette’s murder had convinced her this was part of something bigger.
Had René hit on something? René viewed things from different angles, tried odd equations. Like a good computer hacker.
Maître Delambre rushed in, his white-collared black robe trailing. “You said you had some reports? Just leave them. I’ll go over them tonight, at home.”
“We need to discuss them,” Aimée began.
“Look, I’m late and I can’t talk.” He unbuttoned his robe, hung it on a wooden coatrack. “Catherine,” he said, turning to his receptionist. “Cancel my next two appointments.”
“Maître Delambre,” Aimée said, trying to control her voice so as not to show her rising anger. “It’s vital. This can’t wait.”
“It has to,” he said. His face looked paler than usual. A strange rose pattern mottled his jowl. “The dentist has to finish the extraction and take out the tooth slivers he ‘overlooked’ last week. Otherwise it will abscess and he’ll have to lance my jawbone.”
Aimée grabbed her coat. “I’ll go with you.”
IN THE overheated taxi, she punched in the Hôtel Dieu’s number. “Please, can you identify yourself and inquire about Laure’s condition?”
Maître Delambre waved the phone away.
“They won’t talk to me,” she said. “Something’s very wrong with Laure. Please ask. That’s all; then you can sit back and—”
“She’s in a coma.”
“What?” Fear prickled her spine. Laure, comatose!
“The message reached me in court this morning,” he said. “She’s stable but nonresponsive.”
The taxi sped along the quay. Aimée eyed the rising waters of the gray-green Seine, white wavelets lapped against the weathered stone. Things had become murkier like the water below them.
“Zette, the bar owner Jacques Gagnard worked for, was murdered in Montmartre,” she told the young lawyer.
“Murdered?”
She explained finding Zette and her suspicions.
“Mademoiselle Leduc, you’re convinced of something I’m not sure even connects.”
“Convinced? The very day after I question him, Zette’s killed. I call that a connection. A big one.”
Maître Delambre clutched his jaw in pain.
“Don’t you have the autopsy report yet?” she asked him “Somewhere . . . here in my briefcase,” he said.
She wanted to yank the case from his lap and open it. Yet she realized his head would be clearer now than it would be after he was treated by the dentist, and she had to show him the files she’d printed out from the DTI disc. “These reports weren’t included in Laure’s file. You should be aware—”
“What reports?” He winced and clutched his jaw again.
“The detailed crime-scene investigators’ report, the—”
“How did you get them?”