Murder in Montmartre by Cara Black Read Free Book Online

bal musettes , to enjoy la vie bohème and to drink wine not subject to city taxes. Artists such as Modigliani and Seurat had followed, establishing ateliers in washhouses, before their paintings commanded higher prices. Then Montparnasse had beckoned.
    “ Voilà ,” she said, pointing to the gated building with leafless trees silhouetted against the lights of distant Pigalle.
    The crime-scene unit and police vans were gone. Jacques’s car,too. Sebastian parked by a fire hydrant Parisian style, which meant wedged into whatever space was open on the pavement.
    “Bring the equipment, little cousin,” she said. “Let’s go.”
    Eighteen rue André Antoine, a white stone nineteenth-century building, faced others like it on a serpentine street. Gray netting camouflaged the upper floor and scaffolding of the roof, which adjoined the other buildings in the courtyard. A red-brown brick church wall partially occupied the rear of the courtyard, cutting off the view. She’d hoped to question the man who’d stood on the steps but he had not lingered. Only a crust of snow crisscrossed with footprints remained.
    The wind had died down. From somewhere came the muted squeak of a creaking swing. The crime-scene unit must have left not long after she’d been evicted, evidenced by the light dusting of snow on the cars now parked where the police vans had been. Thank God, the architect Haussmann had been unable to swing the wrecking ball here. No one could tear these buildings down or the ground underneath would collapse. The earth was riddled with spaces and tunnels . . . like a Gruyère cheese, as the saying went. Aimée could never figure that out; Emmenthaler was the cheese with the holes. You received a certificate that the building was sound when you bought a place. But, as a friend had informed her, the latest geological calculations had been made circa 1876.
    She rang the concierge’s bell, unzipping her jacket to reveal the blue jumpsuit Sebastian had brought for her, and noted that there were no names inscribed above the upper floor’s metal mailboxes. Several moments later, a sharp-eyed woman answered. She wore a man’s large camel coat belted by a Dior chain, black rain boots, and had a cigarillo clamped between her thumb and forefinger.
    “Don’t tell me you forgot the body?” she said, exhaling acrid smoke in Aimée’s direction.
    Startled, Aimée clutched a workbag labeled Serrurie and leaned away from the smoke.
    “I’m here to change the locks,” Aimée said.
    “But the locksmiths were already here.”
    Aimée stamped the ice from her boots on the mat. “To secure the windows and skylight access?”
    “Far as I know.”
    “But we’re doing the rear windows. They didn’t finish.” She jerked her hand toward Sebastian. “We had the parts back at the shop.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Aimée thought fast, wishing the concierge would quit questioning her.
    “Tiens . . . they didn’t tell you . . . the rear windows need special locks?”
    The concierge sighed. “The apartment’s vacant. The upper floors are being remodeled.”
    “ Bon, we’ll go home,” Aimée said, turning toward Sebastian. “You can explain to the commissaire why snow blew in through the windows to blanket the apartment like a rug. Squatters will love it then.”
    The woman glanced at her thumb, pushed the cuticle back. “The top floors have been empty for a month already.” She shrugged. Another sign of the gentrification that was invading the area. “Be sure not to disturb the old coot on the first floor. He’s furious as it is what with all the commotion,” the concierge said. Her mouth turned down and she stabbed the cigarillo out in an empty flowerpot. Then she thrust a small key ring at Aimée. “That’s the door key. I won’t wait up for you.”
    “We’ll see ourselves out,” Aimée said, nodding to Sebastian, who shouldered the tool kit.
    He followed her up the staircase, its worn red carpet held in place by