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

corduroy and glanced at the guard. “Who’s framing you, Morbier?” she whispered.
    His brown eyes flickered. In his gaze, she saw the reflection of the silver pinpricks of dripping water.
    “Stay out of this, Leduc. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He kissed her on both cheeks, took his bag. “For once in your life, listen to me.” Her last view of him was his stooped shoulders. Then he disappeared under the vaulted cell-block arch.
    * * *
     
    A IMÉE RAN FIVE flights upstairs and through the swinging doors into the Brigade Criminelle offices. Empty, apart from the cigarette smell and acrid odor of burnt coffee, not even a clerk to talk to. No one back from lunch, she figured.
    Or all hands on deck for the investigation Thesset had mentioned? The flic killer?
    Catching her breath at the far reception desk, where she’d finally found someone on duty, she asked, “When’s Inspector Melac due back?”
    “Melac’s on personal leave.” The female officer looked up. Her stiff blue cap, worn at the regulation angle, moved not a centimeter.
    Merde! The one inspector who, as far as she knew, still respected Morbier. A rising workaholic detective in the mold of Morbier—albeit younger and better-looking. She pushed aside the memory of their night together last month, the brief interlude of phone tag. After that, he hadn’t called back.
    “Please ask him to ring me.” Aimée handed her a card, knowing she needed to swallow her pride. “It’s urgent.”
    “As I said, he’s on leave. Incommunicado.” The female officer, her lips gleaming with pink gloss, stuck it in a box labeled MELAC.
    * * *
     
    S HE TRUDGED BACK down the drafty staircase, past officials with bulging files under their arms and strutting blue-uniformed flics . Everyone hurrying. Working. Like Morbier should be.
    It tore her insides apart to see him so defeated, so lost and full of despair. No one else had lifted a pinkie. She would have to be the one to help him.
    Her mind went to the blood spatters on the gravel, the figure watching from the window, the missing Mercedes. If things smelled bad last night, they stank today. Morbier’s footprints, his tiepin.… Still, how could a case be mounted against him when he’d been in Lyon? Her hand paused on the smooth stone balustrade.
    Had he gone to Lyon? But of course he had. He’d had a driver waiting.
    When she asked him why the case hadn’t folded, he’d changed the subject to the leaking robinet . A shudder went through her. So unlike him to make a trite comment like that. Not just “unlike”: he never would.
    That’s leaked for twenty years. Time someone took care of it.
    It bothered her. Was he telling her something? Knowing Morbier, there was more below the surface than he was letting on. And that protective “I don’t want you hurt.”
    Her ringing cell phone interrupted her thoughts.
    “Aimée, don’t you ever answer your phone?” René said in a peeved tone. “I thought you were monitoring the account today.”
    “All handled,” she said. “Early this morning, I set up the remote to record and store data.”
    “But you’re where? We need to talk about—”
    “At the Brigade Criminelle. Un moment ,” she interrupted, running down the stairs to the courtyard. She stopped by a pillar, took a deep breath. “Morbier’s devastated. He’s in a cell downstairs. I’m worried.”
    Pause.
    “Cell? I don’t understand.”
    “An Internal Affairs investigation. It’s not good,” she said. “No one takes my calls.”
    A sharp intake of air came over the line. “But they can’t think … Xavierre? That’s impossible. We were there. Mon Dieu, the poor man. But what happened?”
    “Like I know, René?” She leaned against the cold stone pillar.
    “Can I help?” Pause. “You don’t think … ?” René’s words dangled over the line.
    “That Morbier, who’d rediscovered the first love in his life after twenty years, strangled her?” A passing flic stared