Murder On The Quai - Murder on the Quai Part 35
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Murder on the Quai Part 35

"Oh, I will, ma puce."

The door shut and she was alone.

Aimee reread the bookstore accountings page by page, comparing transaction sums with the account numbers Rene had red-penciled. It was mind-numbingly tedious. But she found all the links she could have hoped to find. She was sure now-or as sure as she figured she could be-there was a dormant account, like a reserve, which had gone for review prior to a sell transaction. It must hold several million francs.

As she was about to call Elise's apartment, a rumbling came from the fax on the desk in her room.

Plans changed. Now meet me at the apartment, I'm waiting.

Bring your report so I can pay you. Elise What could Elise mean? She'd already given Elise her report, gotten her retainer. Odd. She tried calling the apartment number. Busy.

A trap? Still, she needed to ask Elise about this huge transaction.

Her father's old adage about flics working in pairs to cover each other's back sounded in her head. With her grand-pere and father out of the picture, she needed backup if she'd even consider going to Elise's.

Better tell someone, just in case. She paged Rene. Waited. No answering call. Was she overreacting? She felt silly. Did she really think Elise might be dangerous? In league with the gypsy cab driver? Her instincts told her no, but her instincts had been wrong about so many things.

She changed, pulling on stovepipe jeans, her nautical navy-and-white-striped mariniere, her Roger Vivier ankle boots-a last-season bargain from rue Saint Honore, just waterproofed at the cobbler's-and topped it all off with her motorcycle jacket. Wool cap and gloves for the raw November wind. She stuffed the papers in her big leather sac.

She heard the phone, ran and caught it on the sixth ring.

"Aimee?" Rene's voice wavered, horns blared in the background. Sounded like a pay phone on the street. She pictured him straining on his tiptoes to reach the receiver. How high a public phone must be to someone his size.

"Sorry, Rene. Listen, I'm going to thirty-four rue Lavoisier to get answers from Elise . . ."

"Quoi?"

Poor Rene. "Thirty-four rue Lavoisier. Remember that if I don't . . . "

The phone cut off.

She tried Elise again, just in case. Busy.

In the courtyard the rain had left puddles among the cobbles, the veins of rain pooling in the cracks reflecting the overcast sky. Pigeons cooed as she biked along and she almost hit a slow-moving seagull who'd swooped over the quai on Ile Saint-Louis.

All the way she wondered why Elise had faxed instead of paging her. The fiscals she'd been looking at bothered her. Why had the bookstore requested the new review prior to the sell transaction? Most of all, she wondered if Elise had even ordered this transaction. Was Elise part of an elaborate money-laundering conspiracy, one that had escalated to murder? Or was she someone else's pawn, or future victim? What exactly did she need Aimee for? What was Aimee riding toward?

Back again now for the second time today by the park enclosing Chapelle Expiatoire. An overalled worker swept leaves in the running gutter. Behind him lay an open manhole with a sign: Attention-travaux des egouts. She chained her bike to the rain-wet metal fence under a gold fleur-de-lis.

The massive blue door of Elise's building opened to her buzz. She stepped inside the black-and-white-tiled foyer.

A taped sign on the elevator read out of service and below it a handwritten note: Aimee, I'm down in the garage packing the car. Level 1.

Didn't she have a housekeeper for that?

Aimee listened at the door leading to the underground garage. Quiet apart from the ticking of the timed light. She reached in her bag for her Swiss Army knife. Palmed it and felt along the stucco walls as she wound her way down. As she reached the bottom, the light went out.

Merde. Only the lit exit sign from above the metal fire door. She pulled the handle, hit by a wave of cold, concrete-scented air. Several cars were parked under the dim lighting.

A Mercedes had its trunk open, a carryall bag on the ground. About to call out for Elise, Aimee noticed the car parked next to it. A taxi.

She stifled a gasp, ducked down and crab-walked around the Mercedes. LA VILLE written on the side-the gypsy taxi?

Scraping sounds and voices came from the cellar adjoining the garage. Horrific thoughts filled her mind-Elise abducted by the gypsy taxi driver, tortured? Worse?

Should she run back upstairs and get help?

An older man wearing a work smock-the concierge, she figured-appeared at the stairs of the cave, stooped under something heavy he was carrying.

"Monsieur, where's Elise Peltier?"

"Eh, who are you? Why did you come down here?"

"I'm her cousin," she said. "There was a note on the elevator to meet her-"

"Vraiment? I'm loading up her car."

None of this made sense.

"So she's upstairs?"

"Took a taxi," he said.

Aimee's blood froze. "How long ago?"

"Half an hour?"

"Did you see the taxi?"

He shrugged. "Didn't pay attention. She and the monsieur, that nice one, said they'd be back."

"You mean her fiance?"

He shrugged again. Her thoughts raced. What about the impending bank transaction? Now that all the old men were dead, was Elise making a run for it with all their money? Moving a secret stash of cash and jetting back to Canada, maybe?

It all fell into place-Peltier's daughter had been out of the country for years, far away from any whiff of conspiracy; she'd studied economics, bided her time until . . .

Could Elise really have murdered her own father and come to the Leducs for help in covering up her crime?

Only one place where Elise could be-a place with an online connection to the bank.

Back on her bike, Aimee pedaled as fast as she could toward Saint Philippe du Roule Church. Eight blocks and two traffic jams later, she chained her bike in the narrow passage hugging the old soot-grimed church. The place where the gypsy taxi driver had trapped her and pulled her inside his cab. She was shaking. She didn't know how she'd do this, how she'd confront Elise on her family's turf.

The Ferme sign hung on the bookstore door.

No doubt Pinel, the obstructive directeur financier, was in on it with her.

Dusk fell early in November and few people waited at the bus stop facing the church. A choir practiced and melodious voices drifted from the open church doors. She remembered the bookstore's back door, the yard and trash bins she'd glimpsed behind it. It gave her an idea. Baret's apartment was several doors down. Would the concierge remember her?

She was about to buzz the door of Baret's building when it opened and a young man with a toddler rushed out. "Excusez-moi," he said. Smiled and held the door for her.

A piece of cake. So far. She stepped inside and held her breath. No one. The concierge's loge was dark.

She hurried through the courtyard to the old stables, now garages. Now what? Climb atop the shed roof and shimmy over the stone wall? She suspected Baret had used a back entrance connecting the yard to the rear of the bookstore for discreet access. Like her father always said, master crooks keep it simple.

She delved into the ivy cascading over the wall, pulling apart the strands, and then she found it. A door.

A shove and it scraped open to a dirt walkway behind the shed in the next back courtyard. A minute later she'd skirted the mulberry bushes and was looking in on the back of the hunting bookstore. Lighted and empty.

Disembodied voices singing in Latin from the church drifted and disappeared. She shivered-not from the chill.

Had she read this wrong, jumped to conclusions? Would she be caught at any moment for breaking and entering?

A figure flashed by the window, disappeared into the office. Aimee crept closer, moving behind the door. Tried the handle. Locked.

But the moisture-warped side window yielded to her nudge, centimeter by centimeter, until she could slide her forefinger in to shove the handle up. As she did, she popped her blood blister. Pinched it to stop the bleeding. Great.

A moment later she'd squeezed through the window and shut it. Logs smoldered in the fireplace of the back reading room. A few charred sheets of paper curled. Burning more evidence?

Warm, the place was so damn warm. Perspiration trickled down her neck. Her motorcycle jacket was stifling. Her nose was runny from the cold.

The ringing of a phone from the interior office. She edged closer.

". . . don't you see . . . ?" Elise's voice.

See what? She sucked on her damn finger and crouched to peer around the bookcase. One hunched step closer and she'd get a view . . . The wooden floor creaked.

"Finally," said Renaud, turning to her and beckoning. "Join us."

Caught. She straightened up, stepped inside the bright, halogen-lit high-tech office.

"What's going on, Elise?"

Elise sat on a swivel chair at the desk before a computer. Her mascara was smudged around her red-rimmed eyes. Her hair was flat, and she wore the same pantsuit she'd worn yesterday.

"Why did you fax me to meet at the apartment, Elise?"

Elise looked up at Renaud. "Tell her."

"That you set me up, Elise? Used me to lead Royant and Dufard to their murder?"

Elise's wide-set eyes teared. "No, you're wrong."

"They're out of the picture, so you'll control this financial empire," said Aimee, scanning the humming machines. "This empire your father built on Nazi gold."

From the smile on his face, Renaud approved. He applauded.

"Bravo," he said. "See, Elise, the med student's got part of it right."

Her heart thudded.

"I won't sign, Renaud. I don't believe it. You'll have assets-"

"When we're married?" he interrupted, harsh. "Poor Elise, you don't understand. That's not the point." His face hardened. "Sign."

Elise reached for the phone, her hands quivering. A sob. "I can't."

And then Renaud had grabbed Aimee's arm, yanked her around, and put her in a choke hold. She felt the cold metal of a pistol in her temple.

"I won't miss this time," he said.

Aimee's knees wobbled. Idiot, she'd put it together wrong. He'd been after the old men's money, picked them off, and planned to marry Elise for the empire.

"Non!" Elise screamed.

Aimee's tongue stuck in her dry throat. Renaud's grip tightened. She sucked air. It felt like forever, but it must have lasted only seconds before he shoved her into a swivel chair, keeping the gun trained on her.

"So what's the point, Renaud?" she gasped.

"For someone so smart, you don't get it, do you, med student?"

"Put the gun down, Renaud." Elise's voice quavered. "What universe have I lived in the past few months? This whirlwind affair, your proposal . . . Where's that sweet man I met, Renaud?"

"You saw that man because that was the man I wanted you to see." Renaud's black eyes stared like the pit of a dark soul.

Always the actor.

"Now get signing the final trust assets into my account."

Aimee knew there was more to it than that.

"Why now, Renaud?" she managed. "Why kill the old men? Why not just wait for them to die, take over gradually, legally?" Her neck stung, her mouth as dry as cardboard.

"What's your connection to the Chambly-sur-Cher mayor, the man in the photo? His name was Gaubert. He was shot as a traitor by the Resistance."

"He wasn't a traitor."

"That's right." Aimee nodded. "An honorable man, Madame Jagametti said. He was your father, non? And it's you in this photo, hiding behind his leg? You're taking revenge."

Elise's face drained to a chalk white.

"Your papa killed mine like a dog." Renaud's voice changed to that of a young boy. A sad, high pitch. "It's only right he and the bad men got back what they deserved." He bobbed his head up and down. "That's right, don't you think, Elise?"

His childish voice-how he changed like a chameleon-sent shivers up her spine.

Elise's mouth quivered. "You're Gaubert's son? How can that be? I don't understand you, Renaud."

"Pretend," said Renaud, in the little boy voice. "That's what I'm good at, Maman said. Always pretend, she said, so I'd survive."