Murder on the Champ de Mars by Cara Black Read Free Book Online

have been flooding the country these last ten years. The Roma keep to themselves—they would never really bring an outsider into a family matter.”
    That much she’d witnessed from Uncle Radu’s reaction. Martin had raised a sliver of doubt in her mind.
    “You watch, someone is going to ask you for money—expensive medical treatments for your papa’s old informer.”
    Her stomach twisted. Could Martin be right? Could that be why they’d brought her into this, exploited her vulnerability, her obsession with her father’s death? A classic scam. Could she have been so naïve? But no—she shook off the prejudice and doubt that came to her so easily. These were people, suffering people, not scammers. Her gut instinct told her to trust Nicu, that he didn’t lie about his mother’s message. She believed that the woman had been abducted by someone who wished to keep her silent. What if other lives were in danger?
    “Distrust goes both ways; to them we’re the outsiders,” she said, putting down her cup. “I was skeptical at first, too. But the woman’s got terminal cancer, and someone pulled her off a hemodialysis machine. The doctor was alarmed; I heard more than concern in the staff’s voices. Whatever happened to her, it wasn’t Drina’s choice, and I need to help her.”
    Martin tapped ash off his Gauloise, unimpressed. “So her son contacts you, out of the blue, after all these years, now that she’s dying?”
    Aimée raised her hand to stop him. “
Arrête
, Martin. Her son’s terrified. I need to find her. Look at this picture again. Do you know anything about this woman?” She put Nicu’s photodown by the ashtray containing his smoldering cigarette. Took a sip of her
chocolat chaud
, giving him a long moment to think.
    “
Eh bien
, I remember that coat your father’s wearing.
Ça fait vraiment longtemps
. Memories.”
    Something had clicked, she could tell.
    “Think, Martin,” she said. “Did Papa talk about a
manouche
, using her in an operation?”
    A drag on his cigarette, a puff of exhaled smoke. “You’re sure this Drina informed for him?”
    She couldn’t think of any other explanation, given her father’s open offer of help on the back of his business card. And that Nicu had known her address. And that it felt like something her papa would do.
    Aimée nodded and set down her cup. She scooped the lace of foam off the rim. Licked her spoon.
    “There are five or six
manouche
families all the rest are related to.
Gens du voyage
clans.” Martin stared at the photo. “Do you know if she belonged to the Marseille branch, or Avignon, or Berry or those in Essonne?”
    She shrugged.
    “That’s important—there might be territorial rivalries, an old feud,” said Martin. “She could come from Montreuil, in the suburbs, or from the few smattered in the nineteenth arrondissement, or maybe north of Porte de Saint-Ouen. Or have ties to the Evangelical Protestant Gypsies clustered in Essonne.”
    Aimée remembered Essonne, thirty minutes on the train from Paris, with its patches of farmland, horses, a medieval church she’d visited on a school trip and enclaves of
gens du voyage
.
    “Does she live in an encampment? Or travel, move around?”
    “I don’t know.” She wanted to kick herself for not asking Nicu more—insisting he tell her where they lived, how they survived. Then she remembered Drina’s ID. “She worked in themarkets. That’s all I know. Can you help me find her, Martin?” she said. “Where do I look next?”
    His face was still impassive, but she knew she had engaged him. “Who steals a dying Gypsy from a hospital other than her own clan?”
    Under the table she pressed the envelope containing the francs she’d withdrawn from the ATM into his lap. “A
gadjo
who wants to keep a secret and cover up the past.”
    S HE EXITED THE Métro at Pont Marie, her collar up against the wind blowing off the Seine, and crossed the bridge to Île Saint-Louis. Lights gleamed in her