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| Erling Mandelman, (Wiki.) |
Louis Shalako
“Hello?” It was police sergeant Christiane Allard, a
bit of a hard-bitten battle-ax, but thoroughly competent at her specialty,
which was fingerprint analysis.
“Maintenon. Are you getting anything?”
“Sir. We have prints and partials from at least six
individuals. One of them is clearly a child, perhaps others. Some people’s
hands are quite small. It’s impossible to say without locating the actual
person.”
“Very well. And use your heads. Who else is there?”
“Sargent and Oliver.” There was a pause. “And a
driver—a gendarme.”
“Good.” They were competent enough. “Keep an eye for
anything unusual, any clue to personality. Anything that might help to identify
his guests and his friends around the park.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hung up with a vengeance.
Merde.
He’d almost forgotten—
Quickly, he dialed again. People brushed past, people
coming in and people going out.
“Operator. Get me the Surete—Paris. Qaui des
Orfevres.” He gave the lady the number.
There was a short wait.
“Gilles. What can I do for you?” It was Andre Levain.
“How are things in the nudist colony?”
There were undoubtedly giggles in the background,
barely audible and Gilles chose to ignore it.
“Our victim. He lived in Paris.” He read the
information to Levain. “Get a warrant. Get in there as quick as you can. We
need to know about our victim. A lot more—”
A word to the wise was often sufficient, besides,
Levain had plenty of experience and had some intuitive qualities of his own.
“Yes, sir.” He cleared his throat. “What shall we tell
the examining magistrate?”
“Take a copy of Dubzek’s record with you. Tell him
about the child brothel—alleged. Tell him we’re looking for evidence related to
a homicide. Tell him whatever you want. But get into that apartment and take it
down to the floorboards if you have to.”
“Ah, yes, sir.”
Maintenon rang off.
Opening the door, stepping out into the hot and breathless
silence of midday, nothing but a cicada buzzing away in the distance. Tailler
was behind the wheel and Detective Larue with the microphone up to his mouth.
If anything, the parking lot was even fuller than
before.
***
Maintenon settled in, glad to be out of the sun. While
junior officers cursed their uniforms, hot in summer and not very good in
winter, senior men and undercover officers were burdened with suits, ties,
waistcoats and the inevitable hard, clunky, stinking shoes.
Maybe the naturists had it right after all—
Larue was just hanging up the microphone.
“We have the film developed, sir.”
“Good. Take me to the station.”
Tailler put it in gear, and Larue gave him directions.
It was less than a half a kilometre away. On the short
drive his impressions were reinforced.
The station, across the corner from the church,
exquisitely mediaeval and the grounds beautifully-kept, was tiny by modern
standards, not air-conditioned although ceiling fans stirred the air in a
half-hearted manner.
The village was the sort of place where nothing ever
really happened, staid, placid and perhaps just a little bit smug.
Maintenon wondered, before getting out of the car,
what the locals might have thought about their nudist neighbours, just a short
drive down the road.
***
Arnaud Granger was a regular patrol officer, but one
with some training in forensics. More importantly, he had made a hobby of
photography.
He also had a brain in his head, which wasn’t always
the same thing.
“So here we are, Inspector.” Larue, Tailler, an
un-named gendarme and Inspector Bernard stepped in close, mouths open, waiting
to pounce on the offending strips of film, barely dry.
“Someone also had the brilliant notion of checking
with the local chemist’s shop.”
“Ah. Good—”
“Monsieur Dubzek had recently brought in three rolls
of film. They’re expected back from the lab tomorrow morning. But, in the
meantime…”
Handing Maintenon a loupe of eight-power, he snapped a
switch and a light-table lit up, the strips of film illuminated from below by a
strong white light.
Bending, Gilles put the loupe down on one end of the
first roll, scanning them quickly and remembering that the loupe could scratch
the film and that his skin contained oils that would leave a mark that could
never be removed...
There were seven rolls in all.
“Hmn.”
“What? What, Inspector?”
Maintenon straightened up, handing the loupe to a
rather quiet Inspector Bernard.
“Well. There’s nudity there, even nude children. So
far—nothing sexual, nothing exploitive. The pictures of innocence, perhaps.”
Lots of happy people holding hands.
Bernard, after a quick look, straightened up.
“What are the odds…the film he turned over to the
chemist?”
“Probably not very good. Chemists have consciences after
all, and the labs are usually most professional. Monsieur Dubzek would appear
to be a talented photographer. This ties in with what we know about him from
before.” All they could do was to wait, and see what the films revealed, but in
his opinion, probably nothing…
“You mean, like pornography?” It was Larue, with
Tailler nodding along beside him.
“Possibly. It all has to come from somewhere, after
all…” Just one more problem for police, pornography.
Some of it was legal enough, and some of it was not.
And yet the pictures showed no signs of prurience. If
anything, they were pictures of happy people, playing volleyball, posing with a
dog, mugging for the camera and the usual vacation shots of people drinking,
laughing, smiling into the camera. And yes, one or two children, including a
baby of about eighteen months, sucking his thumb and eyes twinkling up at the
viewer.
The baby boy, at least, had a thin swaddling blanket
cast over it, shadowed by the rim of the bassinette or basket it was laying in.
So far, they had nothing.
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| "Nothing, gentlemen." Flamenc, (Wiki.) |
Nothing at all.
“You know what I would like? Names. Names for all of
these faces.”
It was Tailler’s turn with the loupe.
He straightened up, finger pointing at one frame in
particular.
“We can ask Monsieur Delorme. Some of the neighbours.
This girl here looks familiar.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ah…I don’t know. It’s just that she looks familiar.”
“Where from, Tailler?”
“I—I don’t know, maybe the newspaper or something. I
can’t say, not for sure—”
This was a willowy blonde, early twenties.
Tailler cleared his throat.
“Some of the names on that list, too.” Tailler read
the tabloids, picked up for his mother at the grocery store.
Maintenon preferred the more serious papers and he
might not have seen it.
***
It was another evening in Paris, made somehow more
relevant, more poignant, by their temporary sojourn in the countryside.
In Maintenon’s theory, the first clue to the identity
of a killer was the victim.
For that reason, they had obtained a warrant to enter
the victim’s premises, which practically terrified the proprietor, a Monsieur
Charles Laurent.
“Come this way, gentlemen.” He was already standing,
anxious to serve when several well-dressed potential customers had entered.
Keys jangling on a ring clipped to his belt, he led
them up three flights of stairs to apartment six.
As was usual in such a tall, narrow building, there
were two flats per floor, the more expensive one on the back.
Dubzek’s apartment looked out over a small, tidy
little garden, with tall Lombardy poplars obscuring the back of the buildings
on the other side of the block.
Keys rattled and the lock snapped open.
The gentleman handed over a spare key.
Before going in, Maintenon put his hand on the man’s
elbow.
“We’ll try not to cause any more disruption than we
have to.”
With beads of sweat on his forehead, the man nodded.
“Thank you.”
Tailler and their two technicians entered carefully,
looking around, sniffing the air.
Maintenon stayed in the hall.
“How long have you known Monsieur Dubzek?”
“Ah. I didn’t really know him, but he’s been here
about three years.”
“Did he fill out an application?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Would that list his previous address?”
“Yes, of course. I’m fairly thorough in my screening
of applicants.” Monsieur Laurent only had the one building, five floors.
The garrets up under the eaves were smaller,
bed-sitting rooms, with a small bath and there were four of those, he
explained.
“If someone absconds with their rent in arrears, which
has happened once or twice, it leaves me in a bad position.” Especially if he
already had a vacant unit or two.
“Do you work anywhere else?”
“Ah, no, sir.”
“Married?”
He shook his head.
“Yes, well. We will be speaking to the neighbours. At
some point you will be able to clean all this out. We are trying to locate next of
kin. Would you have that information?”
“I might, but I’d have to go digging through my
files…which aren’t always properly organized.”
“I see. Could you do that for us, please? Also, did he
have a lot of company?” With his little office in the lobby, Laurent would see
who came and went—at least during daylight hours.
“Not too many people. He kept to himself. There was a
priest, though.”
“A priest?”
“Yes. He came and went. Two, maybe three times a
month.”
“What time of day?”
“Weekdays. Mostly in the morning. I would assume they
were friends. A cousin or a brother, perhaps.”
“Did Monsieur Dubzek attend Church regularly?”
“Er…not so far as I know. I can’t say that he didn’t,
either. He wasn’t a member of our parish, that’s for sure.”
“Got a name? For the priest, I mean?”
Laurent winced.
“No, not really.”
“So he didn’t have too many friends?”
“I can’t really say. Once I’ve retired for the day,
any number of people might have been buzzed in. Look, after a while, I
recognize regular visitors—Monique has a brother, and he stops in during the
day. She’s on the second floor. Madame Brienne has a regular Thursday luncheon,
not always the same ladies. No males! We get kids in here, too. The boys on the
fourth floor have all kinds of friends, and after a while, I sort of know who’s
who. And who’s what.”
With a bit of prompting from Maintenon, he quickly
rattled off a list of tenants. There were two empty garrets, but otherwise all
units were occupied.
“So you own the building, sir?”
“Yes. My father died when I was young. I have no brothers
and sisters, so in the end, I inherited it from my sainted mother…” He’d been
running the place for years, doing most if not all of the work even when she
was still alive.
“Okay. Anyways, thank you, and it is possible that you
may have been of very great help to us.”
Monsieur Laurent nodded, eyes on the figures moving
around inside the unit.
“…and if we need anything else, we’ll pop our heads in
and ask. Do you live in the building?”
“Yes. In the basement. It’s warm in winter and cool in
summer, although the view leaves a bit to be desired…”
One more clap on the arm and fellow reluctantly tore
himself away, his shoes thumping quietly on the hollow boards of the stairwell.
(End of excerpt.)
I can see where a bit of editing might put things in better order, clarify things a bit, but the story is coming along. >>> ed.
Thank you for reading.
