This was not how Remi expected to return to Paris. She had imagined a little crowd of friends and colleagues giving her a party after a productive year at Georgetown and a triumphant return to the Sorbonne. Instead, she had told no one, and was red-eyed and sleepless after an overnight flight that got them into Paris early in the morning.
She was not headed to the Sorbonne, and she was not headed to an apartment of her own. Remi had ended her lease and put her things in storage before she had set off for the United States, and thus had no home in Paris to go to. Instead, she was headed to a cheap hotel in the company of an FBI agent. It all made her feel like a foreign visitor to her own country.
Sleepy, she stared blankly out the window of the taxi taking them from the airport, the familiar landmarks seeming distant and strange. The ornate buildings, wide boulevards, and familiar shops should have felt like a homecoming, but she was not here to see friends and family. Somewhere in this city lurked a murderer.
Assuming he hadn’t left for some other country. They still didn’t know where the other two paintings were.
Daniel looked with interest as the taxi drove into central Paris and past the Eiffel Tower. He seemed far more accustomed to long flights.
Remi checked her phone and sat bolt upright. A missed call from Cyril, made in late evening, D.C. time, while Remi had still been in the air. He did not leave a voice message or text.
Finally, he was coming out of his sulk.
On instinct she started to dial, then stopped herself. Not now, not with Daniel sitting beside her. Besides, it was too late in the United States. Cyril would be fast asleep. Waking him up would be a bad start to the conversation. Better to have this talk when they were both rested.
They reached the hotel and Remi noted that while the FBI had done well on location, getting them a hotel in the city center, as usual they had skimped on price. It was a two-star place with a grim little lobby, small rooms, and no view. They went to their separate rooms and Remi unpacked and had a quick shower. Long flights with that recirculated air and Styrofoam food always made her feel dirty.
Her mind felt slow and confused. Jetlag threatened to pull her down to sleep. The narrow bed with second-rate linen beckoned.
No, she needed to focus on the case. She had fallen behind enough already. She would also have to call Cyril this evening once it was daytime on the American east coast.
She put Cyril from her mind. The quicker she got through this case, the quicker she could sort things out with him.
She left the hotel room and knocked on Daniel’s door. He opened up, talking on the phone, and motioned for her to come in.
Even though he had been there only half an hour, Daniel’s hotel room had turned into a disaster zone. His shoes lay on their side in the middle of the floor, a couple of shirts were draped over a chair, and the other contents of his suitcase spread over the bed, the desk, and the bathroom. As Daniel continued to talk on the phone, Remi looked about in wonder. How could a man so meticulous in his work be so slovenly in his personal life?
Daniel got off the phone. “That was Interpol. They’re sending a man over in half an hour. He’ll be working with us the whole way. After that, we’ll head to the crime scene.”
“We should go there now.”
Daniel shook his head. “The local police don’t want us there until Interpol shows.”
Remi grunted. French bureaucracy and xenophobia. They trusted a local representative from Interpol far more than a visit from the FBI. As far as French officialdom was concerned, anybody was better than the Americans.
“At least that gives us time to get a coffee,” Remi said.
“Excellent idea. Wouldn’t want to yawn in this guy’s face. Bad for international relations. I saw a Starbucks not far from here as we came in.”
Remi clicked her tongue. “Barbarian. You’re in one of the greatest cultural centers of the world and you want to go to an American chain? Come. I’ll take you to a proper café.”
Daniel gave a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am. What’s the word for barbarian in French?”
“Barbare.”
“Barbare,” Daniel said in a deliberately bad French accent. “Je suis barbare. I am an uncouth American barbare, come here to save you from ze Germans a third time.”
“Careful,” Remi warned as they left the room.
“Mon Dieu! She will kill ze American barbare with ze guillotine!”
“You need some sleep.”
“No time. Let’s get some of ze café au lait.”
“Oh, and we don’t use the guillotine anymore. It was banned in 1981.”
“Such a civilized nation.”
“Says the representative of the country with the highest incarceration and execution rate in the developed world.”
“Touché, mon ami. Yeah, the States is a mess.”
“I’ve never understood why. You have so many resources. So much wealth and industry and great universities. It really is the land of opportunity.”
Daniel shrugged. “I think that’s what makes it worse. People think there’s a shortcut to wealth, so they deal or steal. Others feel like if they aren’t making it, they’re total failures, and start taking drugs. That doesn’t explain it all, though. You know, I was kind of sheltered in the Behavioral Affairs Unit. Serial killers are sick. You get them in every culture. It’s easy to explain away the actions of someone who’s mentally ill. But the regular cops I talk to …” Daniel shook his head and continued in a bitter tone. “They dealing with regular people every day, people who don’t have mental problems. And they see more and more despair and violence among those people every year. We’re slipping. We’re really slipping.”
The mock French accent had disappeared, as had the rest of the joking around. Remi could see that Daniel was seriously concerned about the fate of his nation. Among Europeans, cheering the decline of the United States was a favorite topic of conversation. She had done it herself. That boorish, arrogant people who tried to dictate to other countries how to run their affairs. And that nation’s representatives in Paris—the hordes of potbellied, crass tourists—had not helped Remi’s impression.
But now that she had spent a few months in the United States, and was in a deep relationship with an American, she had begun to see things in a different light. Yes, there was boorishness and insularity—Remi couldn’t count the number of times she had to explain where France was—but there was also a great deal of good. Neighbors were generally friendly and did not put on airs like in France. And she had seen so much giving, so much volunteerism. Like Cyril, a leading intellectual who gave his time to teach high school dropouts how to read.
Cyril. She needed to call Cyril.
Later. He was asleep. It was a relief that she couldn’t call him now, she’d prefer to put it off, but by putting it off it remained hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles.
Tonight. I’ll call him tonight after we’ve put in a good day’s work, and I get some rest.
The café made her feel better. It was a little place with a glass front and an open door out of which wafted the smells of freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked bread. They sat outside at a little wrought iron table, watching the passersby. All around her she heard French in that beautiful Parisian dialect, the highest form of her language ever developed.
Just like home, she thought.
Wait, I am home.
Or is home Georgetown University?
“I’ll order for you,” she told Daniel to get her mind off that awkward topic. “What would you like?”
“The strongest coffee they have and a croissant.”
“A croissant?” Remi asked with a smile. “You’re becoming French already.”
“Actually the croissant was invented in Vienna after they pushed back the Turks in 1683. The local bakers made their pastries into the crescent shape after the crescent moon on the Ottoman flag. Sort of one-upping the enemy by eating him.”
“You and your historical facts. It doesn’t matter who invented it. We perfected it.”
Daniel only smiled and called the man from Interpol to tell him their new location.
She summoned a waiter, who ignored her for a good five minutes until he actually came. Remi had forgotten that European waiters made salaries and didn’t rely on tips like American waiters. It made them much more relaxed about their duties.
That gave Daniel a chance to bring up the police report the Paris gendarmerie had sent. It was in French, a casual snub to Daniel, so Remi started reading it.
The waiter was forgiven when he brought the coffee and croissants, brewed and baked to perfection. The partners descended into silence as they enjoyed their breakfast. Remi’s fatigue and tension eased. It was enjoyable sitting with this interesting, multifaceted American, so unlike the academics she usually socialized with.
It was also interesting to read a police report. It reminded her of her father, who had written so many. That made her feel a bit sad. That poor man had been so dedicated to his job that he had worked himself into an early grave. He had really cared about making the streets safe. So did Daniel. He worked too much too.
Says the woman reading a murder report on jetlag.
She kept reading, hoping to find a clue. There had to be something to help in the mass of facts and photos.
They were on their second much-needed coffee, and Daniel was on his third chocolate croissant, when a tall, thin Scandinavian man walked up to their table. He looked in his early forties with angular features and a shock of blonde hair.
Remi sat upright, studying him, all senses alert.
“Agents Walker and Laurent?” he asked in French.
“I’m Daniel Walker,” her partner said, understanding the question enough to answer.
“And I’m Professor Remi Laurent. I’m not an agent,” she replied in French, feeling a bit embarrassed to admit this. “I’m a civilian consultant.”
“Ah yes, my mistake. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Professor Laurent. I’m agent Nels Torsson, your liaison with Interpol.”
He said this in the correct, careful, and somewhat slow diction of a man approaching fluency. Remi relaxed. For a moment she had had visions of getting attacked by the killer they were hunting.
“Your French is quite good, Agent Torsson. Have you lived in France long?” she asked.
“Only a year. I’m Swedish but my grandmother was French. I sued to spend summers on her farm in Bordeaux.”
“Oh, really? My grandmother had a farm in Provence. I loved those days.”
Daniel cut in. “Um, could we speak in English, maybe?”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Agent Torsson said, his pale face going red as he switched to near-perfect English. “I thought you spoke French since you were on this assignment.”
“No, I’m on this assignment because of my charming nature and predilection for beating suspects.”
Torsson looked like he wasn’t sure if that was a joke or not. Remi wasn’t sure either.
“Sit down, Agent Torsson,” Daniel said. “And let’s plan strategy. Want a chocolate croissant? They’re awesome. Not as good as Dunkin’ Donuts, but when in Rome, eh? Well, Paris. Whatever.”
Torsson gave Remi’s partner an unreadable look and sat down.
“I’ve spoken with my superiors at Interpol, and we have their full support,” Torsson said. “They understand the gravity of this crime and that there will, in all likelihood, be two more. Have you tracked down the ownership of the other two paintings?”
“Not yet,” Daniel said. “Remi here was hoping to find some more information in the Paris archives.”
“And I think I better get to work,” she said. “What will you gentlemen be doing this afternoon?”
Torsson and Daniel exchanged glances.
“I can show you the crime scene and what the investigators have discovered,” the Swede offered.
“Sounds good. Remi, give me a call if you’re done by lunch time. If your restaurant recommendations are as good as your café tips, I’m sticking with you for every meal.”
* * *
It turned out Remi did not meet Daniel and Torsson for lunch. She found far too much of value sitting in a little cubicle in the Louvre archives. It was a part of the famous museum few people ever saw, an annex filled with books, exhibition catalogs, and the personal papers of thousands of people associated with the art world. It took a few hours of digging, and another coffee to stave off creeping jetlag, but she finally struck gold.
It was in the catalog of an auction house that had sold a couple of minor 17th century Flemish works from the Louvre’s collection forty years ago. It wasn’t uncommon for museums to sell parts of their collection in order to raise funds, although they generally limited it to works of secondary importance that weren’t vital to the nation’s culture. The Louvre would never sell the Mona Lisa, for example.
The paintings the Louvre sold at that auction did not interest her; it was what else had been sold that was vital—Pestilence by Geert Janssens.
Remi sat for a moment, stunned.
The image was a full page in color and showed the painting in perfect detail.
Pestilence rode a black horse and was depicted as a gaunt man with pustules all over his face, arms, and hia bare, sunken chest. Unlike the other paintings, only the front half of the horse and its rider could be seen. The rest of the frame was taken up by a large crowd falling down to the ground and dying of the same horrible disease that Pestilence carried with him.
The scene was outside a tavern, a popular theme for paintings of the day. Usually they showed merry peasants drinking, dancing, and flirting. This painting was a mockery of the genre. Beautiful young women lay on the green lawn, their faces ravaged by disease. Red-nosed drinkers slumped over tables, their steins knocked over and the beer spattering to the ground. One man, near the door to the tavern, cried out in pain, raising one suppurating hand to point to the tavern’s sign, a wooden board that showed a set of yellow stars on a blue background.
Remi stared. In another of the paintings, Death by Jacob van der Veer, the figure rode through a night sky that emphasized the pattern of the stars.
She pulled out the old photo of War and Pestilence hanging side by side in an exhibition from a century ago and looked more closely at the painting of War by Jan Mertens. That painting appeared to be set in the daytime, although the photo was of such poor quality it was hard to tell. One odd detail was that everyone was looking at War except for a man dressed as a scholar, who had his back to War and looked at a book.
Remi squinted, pulled out a magnifying glass and squinted again. Were those stars on the page of the scholar’s book, or simply the graininess of the old photo?
She needed to follow up on that. Two paintings emphasized stars. If a third did, then most certainly the fourth did since they were commissioned by the same patron and painted by four colleagues. The stars might be significant.
But first, she needed to follow up this sale and find out who ended up with the painting of Pestilence.
Because that would be the killer’s next victim.