Murder in the Rue De Paradis Read Online Free PDF

Orangina?”
    Paul’s eyes gleamed. A favorite, forbidden by the dentist.
    “Let’s wash your hands first.”
    In one restroom cubicle, with Paul in the next, she unzipped the Lego backpack and unscrewed the thermos top, looking for instructions. Inside she found a ticket for a symposium on Women in the Arab World to be held at the Kurdish Center, featuring Jalenka Malat, member of the Turkish parliament, as a speaker. The first Muslim woman, and a Kurd, the ticket read, to be elected to parliament. From under the thermos in the backpack, she pulled out the dull gray metal barrel, forearm, scope, mount, and silencer of a disassembled high-powered rifle. The model she’d been trained on. But she figured her assignment would be like her last job, which had been to drop the rifle off in her local café’s cleaning closet.
    “I can’t reach the paper,” Paul said.
    “Okay, Paul,” she said, about to screw the thermos top on. Her fingers froze. A message in Farsi was glued to the underside. It read “This is your target. Prove yourself worthy of Allah.”

Tuesday Afternoon

    AIMÉE LEFT THE taxi at Passage du Desir. This part of the passage, straddling two boulevards, narrowed into a lane lined with three-story brick and cut-stone buildings, now damp and dripping with rain. Two centuries earlier, the passage had been the haunt of prostitutes. Later, artisans had filled the small shopfronts. Now gentrification had brought upscale trendy designers.
    She stood in the high arched entry to the alley until she grew aware of René, beckoning from his vintage DS Citroën, pulling up at the curb.
    “You’re sopping wet,” he said. “Get in.” He leaned over and opened the door, his engine idling. His car radio was tuned to a scratchy Mozart concerto to which the windshield wipers kept time. “A bus skidded, big accident, sorry. Why didn’t you wait inside?” He paused. “ Mon Dieu, you’re white . . . what’s the matter?”
    “I just identified Yves’s body at the morgue.”
    “What?” René’s mouth dropped open. “Yves . . . but he’s in Cairo.”
    “Not any more.”
    “I’m sorry, Aimée.”
    Her wet hand shook as she pulled his phone from her pocket.
    “But what happened?”
    “Un moment , René.”
    Information connected her to the Commissariat.
    “Maillol,” he answered.
    “Commandant, who’s this homicide suspect in Yves . . . the case—”
    René blinked and reached for Aimée’s other hand.
    “Why?” Maillol asked.
    “I need to speak with him.”
    She heard a sigh.
    “He’s in custody, of course,” said Maillol. “According to procedure, we can’t have the public involved.”
    “I’m not the public,” she said. His attitude spurred her on. “For starters, did this suspect admit slitting Yves’s throat?”
    She felt René shift on the damp leather upholstery.
    “Maillol, please, it’s important. Give me five minutes to talk to him.”
    “A suspect in custody charged with a homicide and you ’re asking to interrogate him?” She heard him suck in a breath. “May I remind you, it’s the Brigade Criminelle’s business now.”
    “But you know me . . . can’t you tell me something?” For God’s sake, he’d bounced her on his knee when she was little. Lightning was just visible now over the arch. Condensation formed on the windows. She felt too hot in the stifling, steamed-up car. She would grovel, pull any threads in the old-boy network. She had to do this.
    “You worked with Papa . . . my father. Bend the regulations a little, for his sake.”
    “I wanted to spare you the more sordid details,” he said. “ Bon. The suspect’s a known junkie and male hustler with numerous convictions, one of the men who cruise the area at night,” he said. “Seems your boyfriend went both ways.”
    “But I told you, Yves was an investigative journalist. Maybe he was working undercover, interviewing a source. No doubt this mec attacked him.” And then she looked at her fingers,