Murder at the Lanterne Rouge by Cara Black Read Free Book Online Page A

teeth? She ran her tongue over her teeth to check. But she’d speak with this Aram, the hotel proprietor, later.
    In her heeled boots, she picked her way over the melted slush and puddles, avoiding the cobble cracks. She felt eyes on her back. Visiting the luggage store had set off her sensors. The awareness that she was being watched sent a frisson up her spine.
    She noticed the quick looks from shop merchants. Everyone here had something to hide. How would she ever find Meizi when she couldn’t even find anyone willing to talk?
    The address listed on the dead man’s library card was only a block away. She didn’t know if he lived alone or had a family, but she’d find out. She’d discover his connection to Meizi.
    Diesel fumes lingered like a fog in the narrow canyon of street between the blackened stone facades. Aimée walked along the medieval gutter, a worn groove puddled with melted slush, down a passage to the next street. Here, roll-down aluminum shuttered the shop fronts. The old, faded sign of a printing press appeared above a wall plaque commemorating a member of the French Resistance, Henri Chevessier, shot by the Germans in 1943. A lone pigeon pecked at soggy bread crumbs near a drain. A forgotten islet of quiet.
    Rusted metal filagree covered the dusty glass in the water-stained door. Aimée located No. 14 and read the nameplate. Samour/Samoukashian lived on the third floor. A married couple? Dread filled her as she thought of a grieving widow.
    She kept her leather gloves on as she climbed the steep, unheated steps. Chipped plaster, scuffed baseboards, and sagging landings in between floors in the old tenement testified to the passing of centuries. Her breath frosted in the air. She needed to swim more laps in the pool and forego macaroons, she realized, breathless.
    The third-floor door stood ajar. Alarm bells sounded in her head. She wished she had her Beretta, but it was home in her spoon drawer. Then smells of frying garlic reached her. Her stomach growled.
    “
Allô?
”
    “
Entrez
,” a woman’s quavering voice answered. Polished honey-wood floors gleamed under the high, dark-beamed ceiling. Oil portraits and landscapes hung on the whitewashed walls over fragrant pots of paperwhite narcissus. Not what she’d expected. The man had an exquisite apartment. Like a page out of
Elle Déco
in the “Makeover—what you can do to a historic flat” section.
    “M ADAME ,
excusez-moi
.”
    “It’s Mademoiselle,” said the quavering voice. “Come to the kitchen.”
    Aimée followed the paprika and garlic smells down the hall. Warmth emanated from the toasty floor. She wanted to take off her wet boots and go barefoot.
    A tiny, trim woman, with hair as white as the blooming narcissus, chopped carrots and swept perfect orange circles into a bowl. Leeks and greens tumbled from a string shopping bag on the wooden table.
    “My knees.” The woman looked up. Sharp brown eyes in an unlined face, a small scar running under her chin. She set down the knife and rubbed her hands on an apron with what looked like scientific equations printed on it. “At eighty, I only do the stairs twice a day now—not like before.”
    Aimée blinked. She felt winded at one go.
    “I’ve told you
flics
, I’m tired of questions,” the old woman said. “So if you don’t have answers, quit wasting my time.”
    “I’m sorry, but you don’t understand, Mademoiselle Samour …”
    “It’s Mademoiselle Samoukashian, can’t you people remember?”
    Aimée handed the woman a card. “But I’m not a
flic
. I’m a private detective.”
    Interest sparked in the woman’s brown eyes.
    “Then sit down.
Café turc
?”
    Turkish coffee? Aimée nodded. “
Merci
. Please accept my condolences.”
    The woman turned her back on her.
    “That doesn’t bring my great-nephew back.”
    Nothing would. At a loss, Aimée hesitated. She needed to plow on and find out what she could.
    The little woman slipped the chopped carrots into a