“So the ghosts of the famous roam these little streets by night?” Hugo tried not to sound mocking.
“Non, mon ami, I don’t mean ghosts. I mean the essence of these people, all who are gathered here, can exert a powerful influence on those who visit. Ask yourself, why else would so many come? As you point out, there is nothing to see, just stone graves. So perhaps they come here to feel.”
“Perhaps,” Hugo said. “And you?”
Garcia shrugged. “I like the quiet. It is a place where no one hurries, a place where no one tries to talk to you or sell you something. In my humble opinion, it is a place where everyone can find peace and solitude. A few minutes for the living, an eternity for the dead.”
They stopped, Garcia directing Hugo’s attention to a monument on their right. It was a concrete square, head-high and topped with the reclining sculpture of a man lying on his side and holding a paintbrush. His legs extended across the tomb languidly as if he were watching over the cemetery, keeping an eye out for someone to paint, his palette at the ready. Set into the front of the block was a low-relief panel of a picture that Hugo recognized.
“The Raft of the Medusa,” he said. “So the gentleman up there must be Theodor Géricault.”
“I’m impressed,” Garcia said.
“Don’t be. I told you I’ve been to all the other tourist places in the city. This one’s in the Louvre, right?”
“Oui.” Garcia studied the bronze form for a moment. “I like it because it’s less formal than most of the statutes and busts you see on top of crypts here. He looks like he’s enjoying himself a little.”
“He does.” Hugo nodded, and for that same reason he liked it, too.
They walked on in silence, Hugo more interested in watching the couples and small groups winding their way through the cemetery, his curiosity in the dead aroused only when their tombs attracted the gazes of others.
In the shadow of a plane tree, Garcia stopped and turned to Hugo. “Tell me something.”
“Sure.”
“Is there anything else I should know?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is there more to this than meets the eye?”
Hugo hesitated. “I don’t think so. I really don’t.”
“But others do?”
Hugo shrugged. “He’s the son of a senior US senator. She’s a foreigner. Others are concerned, yes.”
Garcia nodded, then said: “Here. Follow me.” The Frenchman stepped off the path at a gap between two head-high, white crypts. Hugo followed and they found themselves standing on a patch of worn ground, with half a dozen other people, all in their twenties or thirties, half of them smoking and all of them silent.
Hugo followed Garcia’s gaze to a row of four low tombs, one of which had drawn these people to Père Lachaise, maybe even to Paris. He looked past two women who stood arm-in-arm, their attention focused on what looked to be a small patch of earth framed by a rectangle of stone and headed by a block that bore a weathered plaque that he couldn’t read from here. A dozen bouquets and the gaggle of tourists were all that set this site apart from the most ordinary gravesite in the cemetery.
“That’s it?” Hugo said, his voice louder than he’d intended.
Garcia smirked and the two women in front of him looked over their shoulders and glared for a moment, before returning to their quiet admiration of Jim Morrison’s final resting place.
After a moment, they moved back to the main path. Hugo walked slowly up and down, eyes glued to the worn bricks and cobbles. Garcia appeared at his shoulder and handed him two crime scene photos showing the precise location of the bodies when they were found. Hugo took a couple of steps to his right and looked down at the spot where Maxwell Holmes had fallen. There was nothing left to see. Much of the spilled blood had soaked into the earth and the rest was impossible to discern; the path itself was stained and discolored from a hundred years of tramping feet. New blood meant nothing here.
A tall, gaunt man in a Doors T-shirt, his long hair pulled into a ponytail, stopped next to Hugo. “American?” he asked.
“Yes,” Hugo said.
“Cool. Which site you looking for, man? I got a better map than—” He looked over Hugo’s shoulder and recoiled at the picture. “Jesus man, what the hell is that?”
“A dead man in a cemetery,” Hugo said, clutching the photo to his chest. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Yeah, but … shit, not like that.” The man wandered off, shaking his head, glancing over his shoulder at Hugo.
“A friend of yours?” Garcia asked.
“No. Just some guy who likes his dead a little more seasoned.”
“Ah.” Garcia waved a hand at the scene. “Bien, there is not much to see here.”
“Non. Do they not have security cameras in here?”
“Normally they do. In fact, especially for Jim Morrison’s grave. But those were vandalized a week ago and weren’t working that night.”
“Of course not. So either our man got very lucky or he’s sounding more and more organized. How did he get into the cemetery, can we tell?”
“Non.” Garcia held up a finger. “And there is another mystery. There are cameras at every entrance and covering almost every square inch of the walls. We have looked at those, twice in fact, and do not see anyone coming in. Except Monsieur Holmes and his lady friend, they hopped a wall. We found their rope ladder, too, if you want to see it.”
“Not really. Is it possible he came in during the day and hid somewhere until the gates closed?”
“They try to make sure it’s empty before they lock up every evening, but anything is possible.”
“And the murder was discovered at night.”
“There is a night watchman, he’s the one looking at all the video cameras.”
“Why did it take him so long to get in here?”
Garcia grimaced. “We asked him the same thing. We wondered about some sort of conspiracy, if maybe the couple had paid him to look the other way.”
“And?”
“And it was nothing more than good old fashioned laziness. He told us he would take a long nap while on duty, then rewind the video tapes and watch them on fast forward, to catch up. Then take another nap.”
“Nice system.”
“If you’re not a watchman,” Garcia said.
“Anyway, I assume the cemetery was still closed when the police got here?”
“Oh yes. And I know what you are thinking. But the cameras didn’t catch anyone leaving, and we did a very thorough sweep of the cemetery as soon as we could. That included checking for open crypts he might have been hiding in. Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“So we have no idea how he got in or out?”
“That is correct,” Garcia said. His eyes twinkled. “You don’t suppose …”
“No, I don’t,” Hugo smiled. “I don’t think we need to consider the possibility that the killer rose from one of these tombs to seek mortal flesh, and then tucked himself back into bed.”
“A zombie,” Garcia said, raising his eyebrows. “Now that would be something.”
“It would.” Hugo patted his pockets at the buzz of his phone. “Excuse me a moment, Capitaine.” He answered as Garcia drifted a polite distance away. It was Tom, and Hugo listened closely. There was no need for follow-up questions, Tom was too thorough for that. When his friend had finished, Hugo asked: “Have you told the ambassador? Or Senator Holmes?”