Murder in Montmartre by Cara Black Read Free Book Online Page A

bronze stair rods. The wrought-iron banister, an intricate pattern of acorns and leaves, spiraled up several floors. Once it had been exquisite, the latest style.
    “Talk about a hike! What the hell can we find after all this time, Aimée?”
    Sebastian’s words mirrored her own doubts. Yet new evidence was vital. “If one listens, the scene will speak,” she remembered her father saying. If there was any chance to prove Laure’s innocence she had to find it.
    “Put on your surgical gloves,” she said, panting, wishing she hadn’t gained that kilo over the holidays. She left the key in the door. “Rooftop first.”
    The snow flurries had subsided, melting onto the floor of the scaffolding. She and Sebastian pulled on woolen ski masks. Sebastian followed Aimée’s lead and dropped to his knees. With luck, they might find something the police had missed.
    “What are we looking for?” Sebastian asked.
    “Wood splinters, blackened metal on the scaffold, a discarded lighter, cigarette butt, scraped tile . . . anything.”
    “Like in those shows on the télé ?”
    She nodded. She was doubtful but one never knew. The concierge had said the apartment had been vacant for a month. Was that why Jacques had arranged to meet his informer there?
    The spires and roof of the church blocked the view of all but the adjoining roof and a dark neigboring building across the street. Witnesses, if any, would be few.
    They crouched, moving silently to avoid detection from the adjoining apartments connected by the roof. One tall lighted window shone from across the courtyard. Below, from the construction site, came a pinprick glow like the tip of a lit cigarette. And then it disappeared. Into a hole in the earth? The remains of old quarries underlaid all of Montmartre. Gritting her teeth, she turned her gaze back to the roof.
    For forty minutes, they crawled. They covered every centimeter of the scaffold, inspected chimney pots, stones, the windows and sills let into the mansard roof, and the small flat area of the zinc roof on top. Aimée’s hands were wet with snow, sore from abrasion by pebbles and rough stucco. Disheartened, she leaned against the chimney.
    “Find anything?” she said to Sebastian, who was leaning over the edge and combing the rain gutter.
    He held up a fistful of sodden brown leaves. “Toss it or . . .?”
    “Wait.” She edged her way toward him, opening a plastic Baggie. “In here. What’s that?”
    “Just a twig, like these,” he said indicating others clogging the gutter. “They need to clean this or . . .”
    She pulled out a green stem. Smelled it. “Freshly broken, a geranium stem.”
    “My cousin, the botanist!” he said.
    She gave him a wry smile. “A Calvados says there’s a deck or window ledge nearby with pots of geraniums.”
    “Proving what?” he asked.
    A few stars glittered under the thinning clouds, just over the dark line of roofs.
    “I’m guessing. What if someone leaned out their window and saw the shooting.”
    “But, Aimée, people keep geraniums inside in this weather.”
    He made sense. A dead end?
    Right now, it was all they had to go on.
    “Give me a boost, I want to check.”
    Sebastian reached up the wall and tied the rope around the chimney bracer. Aimée tied the other end in a slip knot around her waist.
    “Ready?” he asked, knitting his hands together and planting himself against the concrete. “On three.”
    “One-two-three.”
    Chill air and a dirt-encrusted skylight greeted Aimée as she reached the adjoining roof. She grabbed the roof edge, hoisted herself up further, and came face to face with a dormer window. Several pots of geraniums were visible within.
    Now she knew where to start asking questions in the morning. But she’d found no evidence to indicate that anyone other than Laure had shot Jacques. Yet something . . . something had to exist.
    “I’m coming down,” she said, gripping the ledge caked with pigeon droppings by one hand, the other