Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black Read Free Book Online Page B

would fall asleep standing up.
    She wasn’t a child anymore. And she might not ever be all right. What if the blindness didn’t go away?
    “Got a cigarette, Morbier?”
    “Didn’t you quit?”
    “I’m always quitting,” she said. “There’s one in your pocket, isn’t there?”
    “Why do you think the Beast of Bastille attacked you?”
    “Did I say that?” She lay back and stared into the blankness, imagining what he looked like; the pouches under his alert brown eyes, his jowly cheeks, the socialist party pin worn in his lapel, a used handkerchief . . . she felt a thin stick wedged in her hand, then heard the sound of crinkling.
    “Suck.”
    “Morbier!” She smelled lemon. She aimed and hit her lip, then tasted a sour Malabar lollipop.
    “Better than coffin nails,” he said. “So talk to me.”
    “Sergeant Bellan questioned me already. I might feel like sharing, if I knew the murder victim’s name.”
    “This case belongs to the special detail for the 11ième.” That’s what Bellan had said. But Morbier must know some- thing since he’d answered the phone there. However, as always, he’d make her pay for his information. “Not my fiefdom,” he said.
    If only she could see his face!
    She’d give him an edited version.
    “Look Morbier, here’s what I know, maybe you can open your mouth after you listen to me,” she said. “In that trendy resto, Violette, I incurred the wrath of my big client, Vincent. Next to us sat a woman, wearing the same Chinese jacket I’d paid the moon for, talking on her phone.”
    She told him the rest.
    “Now tell me. Who was the woman killed on Monday night? Which passage was she found in?”
    Morbier hesitated. “Like I said, this isn’t my case.”
    “I heard the old woman who found her interviewed on the télé,” Aimée said. “The old woman gave out more details than you.”
    She heard tapping on the linoleum.
    “Keep this to yourself. The victim was found in the cour de Bel Air,” he said. “The courtyard next door to where you were attacked.”
    “Those passages and courtyards all connect somehow, don’t they?”
    “Nice theory,” he said. “But who knows?”
    Since she couldn’t see his face or body language she had to listen more closely to his words. “They’ll find Vaduz. Don’t worry,” he said.
    “What worries me, Morbier, is that it’s not him.”
    “Leduc, he’s killed five women,” said Morbier. “This case and the attack on you both fit the victim profile.”
    “Which is . . . ?“
    He yawned. She heard a slight snapping. He broke toothpicks when he was nervous or deep in thought.
    “Why not tell me, Morbier?” Frustrated, she twisted the sheets between her palms. “Early thirties, currently blond-streaked, single . . .”
    “Wrong,” interrupted Morbier. “Single like you, but all living in the Bastille area. The victims were in their late twenties, thirties, and one was a woman in her forties. Dirty blonde, tall like you. Usually a party girl. Some hung out in the Spanish tapas places, the clubs. A certain type. Showy.”
    She hesitated. “I planned on staying in Bastille, in Martine’s brother’s place, while he’s working in Shanghai.”
    “Since when?”
    “Remodeling a kitchen and bathrooms takes forever. And fixing the electric wiring will take until the next century. René’s neighbor’s taking care of Miles Davis now . . .”
    “Won the Lotto, have you?”
    Why did she always forget how quick Morbier was?
    “You could say that,” she said, wondering whether to tell him how she’d justified finally updating her apartment’s electric wiring and plumbing.
    “ Non, ” he said. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
    She visualized his thick hands held up, as she’d often seen them if she teased him.
    “Tell me, Morbier, did this latest victim match the profile?”
    Silence. What she wouldn’t give to see the expression crossing Morbier’s face right now!
    “So I take it she didn’t,”