Murder in the Palais Royal by Cara Black Read Free Book Online Page A

16th arrondissement where even the maids wore pearls. But a job in the high-end Palais Royal bistro run by a fellow Toulousian where she could joke with clients made life bearable.
    Clémence unlocked the cellar door, closed it without a sound, and padded through the tunnel. She’d reached the staircase to the bistro when she felt a hand on her shoulder.
    A shiver went through her. Then she recognized Carco’s stocky frame and flushed face, topped by his chef’s hat. Along with crated zucchini and net bags of onions, he blocked her way in the tunnel.
    “What’s with the gloves?” he asked.
    Her shoulders tensed. She had to find a way past Carco and deliver the letter before her shift began. “Last pair, too!” she said. “I need to polish the copper pots.”
“I waited for you last night, Clémence.”
He could wait forever, as far as she was concerned.
    “I’m sorry. You know how tired I get after my shift, Carco.”
    “Why don’t I come to your place tonight after work, Clémence?”
    The last thing she wanted, in her condition. Not only that: her roommate despised him. And his temper.
    But his cousin was a flic. She’d better watch her step and keep Carco happy, for now.
    “My place?” She grinned, leaning against his white, side-buttoned chef’s jacket. “Why?”
“We’ll watch that video you have, you know. . . .”
“How about your place?”
    He lived in a closet of a room near the Gare du Nord; the smell of grease from the Turkish kebab place below, and recorded prayers on the radio from the adjoining apartment, would wake her up at dawn.
    “Promise?”
    She’d promise anything to get away; her gloved fingers clutched the envelope in her pocket. She winked. “Of course.”
Tuesday Afternoon
    G ABRIELLE DE LA Pecheray shut the Ministry of Culture Press Conference Room door with a sigh of relief. Under her private office’s high, gilded ceiling, she toyed with the idea of a massage. Her feet ached. Keeping the wolves at bay took its toll. She’d spent an hour fielding journalists’ questions over the proposal to unseal National Archives Occupation-era documents. Now she collapsed in the Louis XV chair and kicked off her heels. This week she’d noticed a fine line cornering her lip.
    Her eye fell on the envelope marked “Personal, Gabrielle de la Pecheray” lying among the correspondence on her desk. What now? She shook her head in a quick motion, her thick blond hair held back by a black bow in a coiffed ponytail.
    Gabrielle slit the envelope open to find cut-out words from a newspaper pasted on a sheet of cheap paper.
Olivier was involved. I have proof. Leave fifty thousand francs CASH in an envelope at the antiquarian bookshop in Galerie de Valois, Palais Royal by 4 P.M. today.
    Proof . . . proof of what? What did this crude blackmail attempt mean?
    She shook the envelope, and a creased newspaper article dated January 1994 fell out, along with a grainy photo of flames and a gutted building. A sinking feeling overtook her.
Suspect convicted of arson in Marais synagogue fire. The 18-year-old member of a neo-Nazi group, Les Blancs Nationaux, has been sentenced at the Tribunal for the November 1993 burning of the Marais synagogue. Trial evidence centered on the defendant’s boast on video of setting fire to the synagogue, as part of group initiation into the notorious skinhead group, and testimony from the Leduc Detective agency who obtained this video. The accused—and now convicted— Nicolas Evry, his name revealed by the authorities, remains at La Santé. Due to his age, he received the minimum sentence of four years.
    But hadn’t they taken care of this, paid Nicolas off? She’d shielded Olivier, her son, who’d flirted with Le Pen’s youth party and mixed with neo-Nazi skinheads, Les Blancs Nation-aux, but that was over.
    And why now, why threaten her four years later? Olivier’s latest occupation, apart from “student,” was party boy, according to the tabloid columns of