Murder Below Montparnasse Read Online Free PDF Page A

her now? “Search the car? I tell you, the man ran into us. Not our fault.” She hoped to God that René hadn’t left his unlicensed Glock under the seat.
    “If you’re in such a hurry, better give me the details at the
commissariat
, Mademoiselle.”
    A “midnight special” in a wire-frame holding pen? Forget it. Weren’t they supposed to offer her a trauma counselor?
    “You call that procedure?” She flashed her
détective privé
license at him. Time to pull out the big guns. “I’m sure my godfather Commissaire Morbier will be interested, since that’s his dinner all over the floor.” A little lie, as Morbier’s appetite ran to
bifteck-frites
. But a way to take the focus away from her—and maybe divert it to Yuri. She gestured to the spilled takeout. “Care to explain to him why you think picking up takeout somehow involves me in the robbery of an old Russian man’s atelier?”
    The
flic
’s mouth tightened. “Morbier’s into couscous
végétarien
now?”
    So he knew Morbier better than she’d guessed. Oh well, she had to roll with it now. “Part of his new healthier lifestyle.” One could always hope.
    “Robbery of the old Russian, you said, Mademoiselle?” The
flic
didn’t miss a thing.
    She nodded. Let him draw his own conclusions when he saw the blood behind the old man’s armoire. “Too bad you can’t ask the Serb about the robbery. Right place, right time for him to know something.” She shivered, pulling her jacket tighter. “Don’t you find it strange the victim didn’t bleed? There’s no blood here on the street. Do you understand it?”
    “No, I don’t.” He shrugged. “Maybe there was internal bleeding. We’ll know after the autopsy.”
    The tow-truck driver’s horn shrieked a blasting echo off the stone walls. “Finished?” he yelled out the window to a crime scene tech. “Last run tonight. I need to hook up the cars and process them at the yard before it closes.”
    “Take your things, Mademoiselle.” The
flic
waved to the crime scene tech and hurried ahead. “Open them up, show the officer.” He paused and turned back, his shoe squeaking on the stone. “And the trunk.”
    A FTER FINALLY GIVING her statement, Aimée hurried down the cobbled lane. In the brisk chill, she searched her old address book for the fifth-floor criminal ward phone number in Hôtel-Dieu. She hoped her contact, Nora, a nurse, was working the night shift.
    “Nora’s off,” said an older female voice laced with irritation. “Who’s this?”
    She needed to know Saj’s condition and hated dealing with the notoriously close-mouthed police medical unit. She thought quick. “Traffic division in the fourteenth arrondissement. Any status update on the man injured in the collision fatality on Villa d’Alésia?”
    “But I don’t even have your report yet. Why so eager?”
    “Make my life easy tonight, eh? The medics checked his vitals and took him for observation. Didn’t even list suspected concussion, head injury, whiplash, or superficial injuries. I need a possible diagnosis for my report.”
    Yells and shouts came over the line.
    “We’re busy tonight,” she said, “must be a full moon. I’ll get back to you later.”
    “New regulations,” Aimée said. “We need to fill in all the boxes and I’ve got a few empty. Please.”
    Sigh. “Just a moment. The patient’s here. I’ll ask his doctor.”
    “Parfait.”
She had an idea. “I know you’ve got other patients. Put me on speakerphone with the doctor, it’s faster.”
    Another sigh. The click of a button. A rush of background noise. “Doctor Robler speaking,” said a crackling speakerphone voice. “The patient shows possible shoulder muscle and neck injury.”
    Poor Saj. “The patient’s with you? You’re taking him for X-rays?”
    “Bien sûr,”
said Doctor Robler, “but after his questioning.”
    Alarm spread over her. “Saj, only give your statement,” she said, hoping he was in earshot.
    “Aimée?” It