Murder Below Montparnasse - By Cara Black Page 0,20

wedding; now you have nothing to wear to it either?”

“That’s all you can say, Martine?” She hitched up her legging. Examined the scuff on her boot heel.

“Serb mafia, an old Russian, a painting?” Martine exhaled. “I’d say concentrate on what’s important. Sounds like that’s getting this mec off Saj’s tail.”

“You have a bead on this? Know a Serb who trades in art?”

Why hadn’t she asked the old man about the painting’s value? She didn’t even know who painted it, whether it was someone famous. Stupid.

Martine sucked in her breath. “Watch yourself, Aimée. Serbian tough men score low on finesse points. I wrote an article on them last year. We know they contract out. It’s the employer to watch out for.”

Morbier and the medic had cautioned the same thing.

“But what’s really important is that you’re not making a mistake with Melac,” Martine said. “He’s moving in with you, non?”

Typical. Only Martine could be thinking about Aimée’s love life at a time like this. “Only if Miles Davis agrees,” she said. “It’s complicated as usual.”

Melac, Aimée’s Brigade Criminelle detective boyfriend, was never around these days; he’d been seconded to an assignment he couldn’t talk about. Only his citrus scent clung to the sheets.

“But if you still need an escort to Sebastien’s wedding, let me suggest a man. He reminds me of the chocolate you like; deep, dark, and yes, somewhat decadent. I’ll introduce you.”

Always the matchmaker, Martine.

“Meanwhile, I’ll contact my seamstress,” she continued. “A perfect magician with Dior alterations.”

Serge beckoned from the lab door.

“Got to go, Martine,” she said. “Date with a cadaver.”

She hung up. A little shudder ran through her. Put yourself in René’s size twos. Was Martine implying that her selfish streak had surfaced again—the self-absorbed eye-blinkered mode? Had she driven René away, put too much pressure on him, relied on him too much? She’d made it all go wrong, as usual.

Practice your profession but also have a life, her Papa always told her. Morbier had no life—correction, even he had a woman making him morning coffee and she could imagine what else. In the end, René, her best friend and partner, had left her. The agency needed to be kept afloat. Yet dwelling on that right now would get her nowhere.

Aimée followed Serge down the stairs to the lower level, past the cold storage room and to the lab. The frigid air sent shivers up her neck.

Serge paused on the steps outside the morgue lab. The dark hairs below his knuckles were powdered with talc dust from his surgical gloves. “So you agree to help with the twins on their half-day holiday, Aimée?”

The usual price for any favors—babysitting his energetic twin boys, whom she likened to shooting balls of mercury.

“Your mother-in-law’s busy?” she said glumly.

He nodded. “Away for once at my wife’s sister’s in Sceaux.”

Jeanette, his wife’s mother, was a blue-coiffed, white-gloved ancien régime general’s widow with steel in her veins. Poor Serge. His mother-in-law ruled their life. Of course, Grandmère’s iron fist might be exactly what the twins needed in a babysitter.

At least Aimée wouldn’t have to take them to the pediatrician this time.

“There’s an exhibit at Cité Universitaire near Parc Montsouris,” he said. “My wife’s been meaning to take them.”

Fat chance. She’d bribe them with Orangina and pommes frites. As usual.

“Deal.”

In the Institut Médico-Légal corridor, a linoleum-tiled affair, Serge looked both ways and then pushed open a nondescript brown door. “Meet me at the dissection area. Second door on your left.”

She swallowed. Her mouth was dry as sand. “Why? Can’t you tell me here?” But the door closed with a whoosh behind him.

The formaldehyde fumes and the sweetish smells of decomposition met her in the long white-tiled room. Cadavers in various stages of autopsy lay naked on the trough-like aluminum tables. This was the part she’d hated about her first year of medical school. The part she couldn’t take, that compelled her to drop out.

“Is that necessary, Serge?” He had put on a mask, and was handing her one.

She avoided looking directly at the body, which lay facedown, and focused instead on the adjoining counter and the pair of rib spreaders resting on it. Serge consulted a clip chart, his brows crinkling.

“Intéressant.”

“That’s all you can say?”

“He the one?” Serge’s big eyes, behind his black-framed glasses, were wide. “Make sure, Aimée.”

She steeled herself and looked down. Flaps of the peeled-back scalp were draped over a portion of the exposed base of the skull. Beside the head, a blue bucket held the brain. The Serb’s back was white as