"A big if. He's in his eighties, amazing that his heart is pumping at all. Round-the-clock surveillance, too," Morbier added.
Her heart raced. Something was very off here.
"Wait a minute, weren't you calling this an accident? Not even investigating when I called you…"
Morbier cut her off. "Not me. Word came down the pipe."
"Meaning what?" she asked.
"From above. Not my dominion anymore. My men and I have been ordered clear of this investigation for safety and precaution. You, too." He stared at Aimee.
"Hold on." She hated being told thirdhand. "Does this include Lili Stein's case?"
"BRI has been assigned to the 3rd and 4th arrondissement," he said.
If Solange Goutal's emergency call had been ignored but Soli Hecht was abruptly put under hospital surveillance, a lot more was happening than met the eye. Her eye, anyway. "You're no longer handling this case?"
He shook a nicotine-stained finger at her. "Stick to your computer, Leduc; that's all you need to know."
"What about getting me the phone numbers dialed from Les Blancs Nationaux's office?"
He shook his head. "I can't help you."
Typical Gallic evasion, she thought; the French had perfected the art of sitting on the fence. He cupped his palm and took a deep drag of the Gauloise stub held between his thumb and middle finger. His bushy eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.
"Talk to me, Morbier," she said. It came out more intimately than she meant it to.
"First time in twenty-six years I've had a case taken away." He regarded his desk with a sour expression and ignored the tone in her voice. "For what it's worth, I don't like it either."
She felt her temper erupting, but she thanked him and walked out.
Late-afternoon traffic had choked to a standstill on rue du Louvre as she walked to her office. Morbier's comment spun in her head and she longed for a cigarette.
Instead, she bought a baguette at the boulangerie next to her building. In the small supermarche wedged on the other side, she picked up chèvre cheese, local tapenade relish, and a bottle of Orangina. She waved to Zazie, who was doing her homework by the window in Cafe Magritte.
As she mounted the worn stairs to her office she decided she had to keep investigating, no matter what Morbier said. They might be able to push him around but no one could tell her what to do.
Inside the office Miles Davis greeted her, excitedly sniffing her bag of food. He'd spent the night with Rene. She fed him some scraps from the butcher's. The only trace of Rene was a message taped to his computer screen with one word: "later."
Miles Davis fell asleep perched near the heater and Rene's chair. Aimee poured the Orangina into a crystal Baccarat wineglass left over from her grandfather. She folded the cheese and tapenade into the crusty baguette and ate.
After she finished her meal, she carefully taped the photo image and torn snapshot piece from Lili Stein's room together. She scanned the complete image into her computer and digitally enhanced the photo and printed a copy.
Aimee placed this image among the spread-out photos from the police folder and her own archive files. Then in chronological order, she tacked them up along her wall and looked for connections to the swastika.
She peered at them though a magnifying glass. The black-and-white photos cast everything in a timeless past. Each snapshot held a different scene, but they were all views of the Marais. She recognized the cafe, Ma Bourgoyne, she often went to. A group of booted Nazis sat drinking at the corner table. Next to it, women with rolled pompadour hair wearing ankle socks and t-strap shoes stood in line holding ration books.
Another photo showed the local Kommandantur on the rue des Francs Bourgeois, with armed Nazis guarding the heavy wood entrance doors. She almost dropped her goblet of Orangina.
On flags flying above the Kommandantur, the swastikas were tilted, with rounded edges, exactly like the one carved in Lili Stein's forehead.
Miles Davis growled, then someone knocked loudly on the office door. Had Rene forgotten his keys? She slipped her unlicensed Glock 9-mm from the desk drawer into her back jeans pocket.
"Who's there?" she said.
A muffled voice came from behind the door. "Herve Vitold with BRI."
"Show me your identification."
A laminated photo identity card with Brigade de Recherches et d'Intervention flashed in front of the peephole.
"Un moment." She shuffled the photos together and slid them back into a large envelope in her drawer.
"Excuse the caution." She opened the door slowly. "I've had some threats."
Aimee had never seen a Saville Row suit before but figured the Nordic-looking man standing at her door wore one. Probably a Turnbull and Asser handmade shirt, too.
"Of course," he said. His white blond hair glinted in the hall light but his features remained hidden. "Mademoiselle Leduc?"
Aimee nodded, keeping her hand cocked on the gun's safety.
"I have no appointment, but I'd like half an hour of your time. With commensurate compensation, of course," he said.
Aimee opened the door wider and let him in. She tried to appear as professional as possible in her too tight jeans and a torn Asterix vs. Romans T-shirt. A whiff of something expensive laced with lime hit her.
"Please come in and have a seat, I'll be with you right away," she said.
"Herve Vitold." He held out his hand as she showed him into her office. "Security administrator." He had gold-green eyes and an expensive tan for November.
"Please sit down," she said, surprised he didn't wear a uniform.
He leaned forward, took out a leather checkbook, and flashed a kilowatt smile at her. "Your rates, please. I want to take care of the business first."
Aimee briefly wondered why a Gentlemen's Quarterly type from the federals at BRI would walk into her office and want to pay money to talk to her.
"Five hundred francs for a half hour," she said promptly.
Let him put his money where his mouth was. See if this handsome man in an expensive suit was real or joking.
Immediately he pulled out a Montblanc pen, filled in the amount, and slid it across the desk, briefly touching her fingertips. She could have sworn his fleshy, manicured fingers lingered a second too long. Shell-shocked at receiving such a check though she was, she didn't react. Her mind was mostly on his very curly blond eyelashes and the green in his eyes. Consciously, she ignored a danger signal in her brain flashing "Too good to be true."
"How may I help you?" she smiled.
"First, may I say I appreciate your taking the time. A business like yours…" Here he vaguely gestured around the office, not exactly a beehive of activity. "And with a busy schedule, I'm sure." He flashed his brilliant smile. "But I'll get right down to it, shall I?"
"It's your franc."
"My branch works with precautionary services, sort of a field unit, out of La Defense," he said.
Get with it, girl, and ask a question, she told herself. "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm not familiar with government security. Don't you wear uniforms?"
Again that smile. "No uniforms. We exist and we don't exist, if you get my meaning."
Talking in tongues was what it sounded like to her. "Not really. Maybe you should get to the point."
A glimmer of amusement crossed his face.
The shadows lengthened across her office walls and she stood up to switch on the office lights.
"Mais bien sûr," he said. "Special branch out of Bourget, responsible for terrorist management, has taken over the Stein case. All inquiries, surveillance, and follow-up are to be handled by us."
That fit Morbier's dictum. "Why?"
"Given the present political climate and sensitivity of the issue, Special Branch feels it must be handled with care." Vitold sat back, crossing his trousered legs precisely at a ninety-degree angle. "This is a historic moment. Finally, for the first time since the last war, the European Union delegates will sit together and sign a treaty that binds Europe. Nothing must endanger this or the covert operation we've mounted to nab terrorists intent on destroying this process."