Murder in Passy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Irati posed with a red-and-white picnic basket and rolling hills in the background. “A maroon Mercedes sedan, say two years old. Diesel.”
    “You don’t ask much, do you, Mademoiselle Aimée?” Thesset cleared his throat. “Me, here in the Commissariat with two men, two others out responding to calls. Do you think I’ve got nothing to do?”
    Thesset was approaching his mid-fifties. A career flic who’d graduated from the Police Academy with her father and Morbier, now edging toward retirement in the Commissariat, mostly preoccupied with disturbances of the peace or robbery by a disgruntled servant.
    “Looks quiet to me, Thesset.”
    “Heated up tonight,” he said. “Murder of some haute bourgeoise matron. They’re calling it a crime of passion. Shows you never can tell what’s going on behind the gilded doors.”
    Her shoulders tensed. Not good. It sounded like the crime-scene techs wanted to go home early, shelve the investigation to low priority, and discount other motives.
    But she’d worry about that later. The timing between the car pulling away and Xavierre’s murder wasn’t a coincidence. She needed Thesset to trace the car before he or the investigators finally connected the dots tomorrow.
    “Crime of passion sounds convenient,” she said.
    “More like they wanted to warm their derrières .” Thesset shrugged.
    “Any leads yet?” she asked offhand.
    “Not my call. Or my turf.”
    A twinge of guilt passed through her. Here she held a photo of the dead woman in her hand. But Thesset could search without making an official report. And if she’d jumped to conclusions, say the old couple at the party had borrowed the Mercedes, no one would be the wiser. No harm done. No record.
    “I’m not supposed to do this, you know.”
    “But you’re the pro, Thesset.”
    Thesset’s expertise lay in navigating Système D , the catchall term for getting things done. He was efficient behind the thick-lensed gray-framed glasses mounted on his beaklike nose, his misleading sallow jowls and permanent squint. “Like a pigeon,” she’d once said to her father at the Commissariat, and he’d put a finger over his mouth. “ Shhh. We call him that, but never to his face.”
    “ S’il vous plaît, Thesset. I’m asking on behalf of Morbier.”
    She heard the fax machine come to life behind the wooden partition, tried to ignore the acrid cigarette smoke spiraling from the ashtray on the counter, the empty pack of Mentos crumpled near the phone.
    “Let the old coot request this himself.”
    “ Très compliqué, Thesset.” She leaned forward as if in confidence. “A delicate situation, if you know what I mean. Morbier’s lady friend’s daughter fell in with a bad sort—a vindictive type. Now he’s her ex and out on parole. He took her Mercedes tonight. The daughter wants nothing to do with him, no accusations, just her car back. No urge to make a report and land him back in prison and deal with recriminations on his release. Compris? A small favor, Morbier said. He counted on you keeping it quiet. Unofficial.”
    “Sounds like a soap opera,” Thesset said.
    She wished it were, but figured it wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten a request to keep haut bourgeois linen clean.
    “Me, I’ve got work to do,” Thesset said. “Tell Morbier to get on it himself.”
    “ Mais, Morbier’s in Lyon.” She expelled air from her mouth. Tried to look helpless and without a clue. Not hard. “Some big investigation,” she said, playing it to the hilt. “I don’t know what, but he asked for my help.”
    Thesset squinted behind his glasses. Put down his pen.
    “Lyon? That circus?” A cough, then he cleared his throat again. “Better him than me.”
    What did that mean?
    “ Et alors , in that case,” Thesset said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
    The change in Thesset’s attitude intrigued her. “What’s happening in Lyon?”
    “Nothing I want to know about.” He shrugged.
    She left it for now and