She ran her fingers over the smooth blue tiles on the basin counter. Was what Jutta Hald told her the truth … any of it?
Aimée wondered if the address book Jutta had waved by her had really been her mother’s.
She turned on the tap and stuck her head under the cold water. Squeezing her lavender soap, she washed the tattoo parlor smell out of her hair, then shook her wet locks like a dog. But it didn’t clear her head. Her mind was spinning.
Jutta Hald’s words kept coming back. She had asked if Aimée’s mother had sent her something. And then Aimée realized a bathroom drawer had been left half open, her towels hastily folded, and the medicine cabinet ajar. Nothing was missing but what had Jutta been searching for?
Then the realization hit her. Someone had killed Jutta. She could be next!
Nothing made sense, yet it connected to her mother.
Since the day her mother left, Aimée had been desperate to know what happened to her. Now she had a chance to find out. Slim at best. But more than before. She had to pursue it.
She went to the kitchen and plugged in the small refrigerator. It was empty and emitted the hiss of slow-leaking Freon. She filled Miles Davis’s chipped Limoges bowl with steak tartare left from the train trip. He sniffed, then cocked his head as if to say, “What’s this?”
“Sorry, furball,” she said. “I’ll pop into the charcuterie later.”
Her seventeenth-century apartment needed an overhauclass="underline" central heating instead of feeble steam radiators for bone-chilling winters; plumbing more current than the nineteenth century; enough juice to keep a chandelier, computer, fax, scanner, DSL line, and hair dryer on concurrently; and access to her basement cave for storage. Too bad the cave had been declared a historical treasure because it had provided an underground escape route to the Seine for nobility during the Revolution, and had been closed for repairs. Closed for as long as she could remember.
She kept buying lottery tickets. Someday, she told herself, Architectural Digest would visit. But maybe not in her lifetime.
She remembered her mother calling her Aamée in a flat American monotone, unlike her father’s French A-yemay, his syllables dipping at the beginning. Had he refused to speak of her mother, because of shame that he, a flic, had a wife in prison?
Aimée consulted the Minitel. No listing for Romain Figeac. She tried his publisher, Tallimard.
“Can you help me reach Romain Figeac?”
“Tiens, this is a joke, right?” the receptionist said.
Taken aback, Aimée paused. “If you can’t give his number, his address …?”
“Such bad taste,” the receptionist interrupted.
“Look I need to talk with him,” said Aimée.
“Don’t you know?” the receptionist said.
“Enlighten me.”
“His funeral was yesterday.”
SUNDAY
Sunday Morning
AIMÉE SURVEYED THE MIRRORED Café d’Or on busy rue d’Aboukir and tapped her chipped red nails. A fly landed on the sugar bowl tongs and she shooed it from the counter. Few patrons were inside on this sun-filled day, most sat under the awning on the terrasse. Shadows from the few clipped the trees on Place du Caire dappled the sidewalk.
Christian Figeac, the deceased author’s son, was twenty minutes late to the cafe he’d chosen for their meeting. She’d contacted him via his father’s publisher, saying it was a police matter. After her bike ride from the office, she’d ordered an espresso. And waited.
A tall man with stringy sandy hair entered. He was in his late twenties, a few years younger than she was. He wore a synthetic leather jacket, silver and tight, over a black shirt. His deep gray eyes sought her, nailed her, and she knew it was him.
“Christian Figeac,” he said simply and shook her hand. His palms were moist and warm. He looked around, warily then said, “Let’s sit down over there.” He pointed toward an old-fashioned leather banquette.
“For meeting me, merci,” she said, bringing her espresso with her. “I apologize for the bad timing….”
“I only agreed because you can help me,” he said.
Help him?
“Your father might have known my mother,” she said. “That’s why …”
“He knew lots of people,” Christian Figeac interrupted, apparently uninterested.
“Ever heard of Sydney Leduc or a woman named de Chambly?” She remembered the name B. de Chambly from the Frésnes Prison envelope.
Christian Figeac shook his head. He rubbed his nose with his sleeve.
“What about Jutta Hald?” Aimée asked. “Did she call or visit you?”
He waved his hand dismissively. A nervous twitch shook his jaw every so often. “Listen, I can’t go in there anymore.”
“Go in where?” She felt sorry for him but so far this conversation was going nowhere.
He pulled out a thick cigar, Cuban by the look of it, and proceeded to light the end. But his hands shook, a steady tremor.
“It’s Papa’s atelier, you see,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “Can’t seem to sell it. The realtor told me to spruce it up, you know, the vanilla treatment. But this is the 2nd arrondissement on the tony Right Bank. The place should sell itself.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “Now, I’m sorry to keep bringing this back to Jutta Hald, but I think she was looking for your father.”
“Now she can find him under the earth with the worms.”
He sounded bitter. And clueless.
“It’s the ghosts, you see,” he leaned forward, a stricken look on his face. “They won’t let me.”
Maybe he was insane. A dead end.
She found a ten-franc piece and slapped it onto the table.
“Look,” Aimée said, opening her backpack, “you’re going through a hard time. I wish you the best, but …”
“Wait, please.” He grabbed her arm. Perspiration beaded his upper lip. She hadn’t seen him order but a white-aproned waiter appeared with an espresso, set it on the table for Figeac, and whisked her ten francs away.
“I’ll think about those names you mentioned. What were they again? Signe? And who?”
“Tiens, I’ve got to go,” she said, trying to slide off the leather banquette. But her leather skirt stuck to the seat, making a sucking noise and riding up her thighs.
“Hear me out.” He grabbed her arm again and wouldn’t let go. His cigar smoke got in her face.
She kept her tone civil. “I came here to find out if there was some connection between your father, Jutta Hald, and my mother—”
“Papa committed suicide last week,” he interrupted. “It was ten years to the day since my mother did the same thing.” He puffed on his cigar.
Now the story came back to Aimée. In the seventies, his mother, an American actress, was rumored to be carrying a French terrorist’s baby. She miscarried and had a breakdown. Her career was over. Several years later, on the anniversary of the miscarriage, her body was found in her car in the Bois de Vincennes. Too many pills.
“Papa wanted to clear her name,” Christian Figeac said. “Reveal how Interpol targeted her.”
“Hadn’t he done that before?” Aimée remembered him being interviewed on television, delivering a tirade against the “establishment.” He had distinctive blue eyes and a long face. A potent cocktail of literary talent and liberal political blunders.