tell.
“Desolée, but if you could answer a few more questions?”
“My uncle left me this printing business tottering on its last legs.” Damien sighed. “Yuri mentored me. Now I’ve built up a clientele and have more orders than we can keep up with. I can keep the staff on. Support what I believe in.” She saw a hint of pride in the way he gestured to the posters.
Political, like Madame Figuer said. She needed to lead this back to Yuri. But a file with Florent’s ugly mug sat on his desk. She remembered Florent’s knee between her legs, his garlic breath on her neck, his strong arms.
“Your employee Florent.…”
“Him? Gone,” Damien said, his mouth pursed. “Turns out Florent was robbing the till. Yuri had suspected him all along. Turns out he was right.”
She sat up. Florent, the murderer. A straightforward revenge?
“So Florent held a grudge against Yuri?”
“Against me, bien sûr.” Damien expelled air.
“Why’s that? Aren’t you his boss? The one who gave him a job?”
“Called me a Commie. Jeered at our goals in La Coalition. Complained that I print the posters and banners for free to support the cause. But he liked Yuri.”
“Or until he found out Yuri suspected him,” Aimée said. “They argue, it turns nasty, and to stop him Florent—”
“I told the flics,” he interrupted. “Florent made deliveries in Levallois all morning.”
“You’re sure?”
Damien stood, a file tucked under his arm. “Believe me, the shop owner called complaining. The flics checked.” Damien’s fingers played with the file. “Florent’s father and grandfather worked here. No matter our differences, it made me sick to fire him.”
Aimée slammed down her empty water glass. “You’re naive. Florent attacked and almost raped me.”
“What?” Damien’s voice rose in shock.
“Open your eyes,” she said. “No one told you he was the type, eh?”
He shook his head. “Florent’s always caused trouble, but attacking you.…” He ran his ink-stained fingers through his hair. “I had no idea. That’s terrible. Désolé.”
She believed him.
“In 1900 this was a Russian press employing deaf mutes,” Damien said, his brow creased. “Yuri never let me forget. He insisted we had to continue, stay loyal to the quartier, the workshops. Hire locals. But now commerce has dwindled down to us, Dupont the chauffage manufacturer across the street, and Yuri’s bookbindery.”
A leftover nineteenth-century industrial Paris full of artists, publishers, bric-a-brac traders and craftspeople who saw themselves as the memory keepers of a time now forgotten. Underneath the peaceful and almost timeless look of the place, however, ran dark currents.
But she didn’t need a small business lecture.
“Granted, you’re not selling chocolates,” she said. She had to draw him out. “But the quartier’s still bohemian, cheaper but with a certain Montparnasse cachet.”
“Yuri said that too.” His lip quivered. “I just don’t want to believe Yuri’s gone.”
She needed to connect the dots. If she didn’t press for information, this would go nowhere. Time to appeal to his bond with Yuri. “Damien, this is important. Someone tortured Yuri to find the painting.”
“Tortured?” Damien’s mouth dropped open in horror.
“Madame Figuer didn’t tell you? We found him tied to his sink—beaten, tortured, then drowned.”
Shame, guilt, and something else crossed his face. “Who would have … hurt him like that?”
“Damien, I’d say you’re in danger, too.”
“Me?”
“Do the math,” she said. “Two of the three people who saw the painting are dead. You’re the third, non? You took this Polaroid.”
His intercom rang. Instead of answering he headed to the door. “Look, I’ve got orders to fill.”
“You helped Yuri clean out his father’s cellar, and he found this painting. Then you brought him to the art dealer to see if it was genuine.”
Damien turned. The printing presses chomped in the background. “Not me.”
“Then who did?”
“Why does it matter now?” He shook his head. His shoulders sagged as if in defeat.
“Someone shoved the art dealer in front of the Métro this afternoon.”
She couldn’t prove that.
“You should talk to Oleg,” Damien said. “He took Yuri to see the art dealer.”
Oleg. Her next stop. “Don’t you want to help me? Wasn’t Yuri your friend? Tell me everything you know.”
Damien rubbed his eyes. Hurt and bewildered, he looked out the window into the courtyard. Loaders filled stacks of posters into a camionnette.
He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Saturday Yuri asked to borrow our camionnette. That one. To clean out his father’s cellar. I offered to help. You know, given his medications and all the times he’s helped me.”
Damien paused.
Aimée reined in her impatience. She knew all this. But maybe there was more.
“All full of garbage, old newspapers,” he