33
Michel Cohen walked down the long hallway and crossed the third-floor landing, which boasted a bay window and security monitors. Only a few people could access this level of headquarters. Farther off, he opened a door and walked into a comfortable waiting room with white walls and a hardwood floor. A bronze lamp with five lights held aloft by sculpted Nubians lit the room. It was a Louis XV: tacky and blatantly racist, Cohen knew. But the bureaucrats kept saying it was an antique and wouldn’t change it. The waiting room opened onto his office and that of the chief of staff, who managed the records, paperwork, and statistics. From there, he entered the antechamber of his boss, Nicole Monthalet. He walked past the light well and the secondary stairwell leading to the different departments. Finally he entered office 210. The commissioner’s secretaries gave him a wave. One of them held out an ashtray. Cohen crushed out his cigar before stepping into Mrs. Monthalet’s office, the only place where he couldn’t smoke.
“Have a seat, Michel,” she said authoritatively. “How far along are we?”
“It’s almost done.”
“What did he have up his sleeve?”
“He’s getting ready for it.”
“Ah, he’s a smart one, isn’t he?” She smiled, and her eyes sparkled.
“He’s a first-rate cop. That’s for sure.”
“I had to fight to keep him, did you know that? The minister of the interior wanted to snap him up.”
“Sirsky wouldn’t have wanted the job.”
“How much longer can he stay at headquarters, though? I’m worried, Michel. We need him here.”
“To accomplish the impossible,” Cohen joked, knowing all too well that his boss used the term only when she was talking about Nico Sirsky. “You’ll have proof of it on your desk later this morning. I’m sure of it.”
Nicole Monthalet, the thorough professional who turned heads with her blonde good looks, nodded in agreement. Her expression became pensive. There had been a lot at stake in this case, which involved a famous artist, a world-renowned park, and a former minister of culture. The art world was watching, and government officials wanted the case closed quickly and efficiently.
“Mr. Mercier, we’ve looked at your digital files,” Becker said. “We’ve found pornographic photos and particularly suggestive e-mails.”
Laurent Mercier kept his head up, but he had taken a serious blow.
“We know you’ve had extramarital affairs.”
“I wasn’t aware this was a crime.”
“We’ve learned that Jean-Baptiste Cassian had a relationship with a man,” Becker continued. “And from everything we’ve gathered, we have reason to believe it was with you.”
“Do you have any proof?”
“Your wife told us,” Nico said. “She was very clear on that point. She also suspects you of murdering your friend.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Jean-Baptiste had decided to break things off with you and marry Lara,” Becker continued. “You were hurt and angry. But in your eyes, it wasn’t just his relationship with Lara that stood in the way. It was Jean-Baptiste’s fear of disappointing his father. So you murdered him and threw his body in with his father’s work. It wasn’t all that hard, after all. The tables, chairs, and implements had just been buried. All you had to do was wait until dark. The soil was still loose and easy to dig up. Once the job was done, you just smoothed over the dirt and walked away.”
“But even then, after you murdered and buried your former lover, your anger wasn’t assuaged,” Nico accused. “You married, had children, and managed to keep your anger under control, but it kept eating at you. And when you learned that Samuel Cassian’s tableau-piège was being exhumed, your feelings welled up. Jean-Baptiste had rejected you in the worst way. It was something you had never gotten over, and you needed to lash out again. And so you seduced and assaulted three young men. They were just substitutes for Jean-Baptiste Cassian.”
“Your alibis for the evenings when the attacks happened don’t check out,” Becker added. “But we have something better, Mr. Mercier. Proof, in fact.”
“Witnesses recognized your voice,” Nico said. “Especially your last victim, who survived.”
Laurent Mercier blanched. He hadn’t expected Clément Roux to live.
“In addition, you have a habit of rubbing your finger over your lower lip. Our witnesses saw you doing it. This tic has betrayed you.”
“What do you have to say for yourself?” Becker asked.
“I’d say you don’t have anything on me,” Mercier said quickly.
“We’ll see,” Nico said, giving him a knowing smile. He got up to leave the room. “We’ve saved a little surprise for you.”
In the Coquibus room, they were watching the scene on a webcam. Claire Le Marec, Jean-Marie Rost, Kriven and Maurin’s groups, and the psychologist Dominique Kreiss were all glued to the screen and hanging on every word of the interrogation.
“Shit, he’s good!” Vidal said.
“He’s going to nail that bastard,” Moumen added.
“Look!” Plassard said. He’d just come out of his office.
“This is when it happens,” Deputy Chief Rost said.
“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” Kriven said.
“Here they come…” Maurin whispered as they all watched.
There was no time to lose. Nico came in first, with the woman on his heels. When Laurent Mercier saw her, the blood drained from his face.
“Lara.” His voice trembled.
“You remember Lara Krall, Jean-Baptiste’s fiancée?” Becker asked without waiting for a response. “Ma’am, do you recognize Laurent Mercier?”
“Yes, I recognize him.”
Despite everything she’d gone through, she was calm, as Nico had advised her to be.
“Just before his disappearance, Jean-Baptiste confessed that he had cheated on you. Is that correct?” Becker asked.
“I guessed it.”
“What clued you in?”
“A bite on his shoulder that he tried to hide.”
“What explanation did he give you?”
“That it was from a one-time fling.”
Nico could see that Mercer was getting angry.
“‘An artist sometimes feels the need to stretch himself creatively,’ he told me.” Her voice was full of scorn. “That meant being open to new experiences. He begged me to forgive him. He swore that he loved me and wanted to marry me.”
“And have children with you,” Nico said. “Is that right?”
Nico could see that Mercier was getting even angrier. Lara could give Jean-Baptiste children, and Mercier could never make Jean-Baptiste happy in that way.
“He didn’t want children,” Mercier said.
“Of course he did,” Lara Krall shot back.
The dialogue played out exactly as Nico had hoped.
“Never, you slut!” Mercier shouted. He rose from his chair, his two hands planted on the table. “Jean-Baptiste would never have knocked you up, not you, not anyone else! He was mine!”
The silence was oppressive. Tears rolled down Lara Krall’s cheeks while hate blazed in Mercier’s eyes.
“You were just a fleeting whim,” Nico said to Mercier. “He didn’t need you.”
“What do you know, you schmuck?” The pitch of his voice was rising. “We loved each other. I wanted us to go to New York. We could have lived there happily. But Jean-Baptiste was too afraid to come out. He thought it would ruin his reputation.”
“You fought.”
“He dared… He dared to call me crazy. Apparently I made him want to hurl. After all those nights of lovemaking.”
“So you took a hammer and hit him.”
“I didn’t want to. I…”
“You let him rot in that pit.”
“He was so self-absorbed. And being a credit to his father was such an obsession. I didn’t count for anything.”
“Why did you assault the other young men?”
“All they wanted to do was shoot their load and leave, just like Jean-Baptiste. I made sure they wouldn’t be able to ditch anyone else.”
“Why did you bite their shoulders?”
“For Jean-Baptiste. He loved it when I did that.”
Laurent Mercier had shot his own load. He had made his confession, and now he was slumped in his chair, an anguished look on his face.
“Take him away,” Nico said.
His men came in and steered him out of the room.
“Thank you, Lara,” Nico said. “You can go home with your brother.”
“He’s free?” she said.
“Yes,” Alexandre Becker said. “Timothy may not have been entirely honest, but he didn’t kill anyone.”
The woman got up unsteadily.
“You should talk to someone about all this,” Nico said. “It’s a heavy burden, and you’ve carried it far too long.”
Lara Krall didn’t say anything. She shut the door behind her.