THE CHROME-PLATED ROBOT ROSE up out of his wrought-iron chair at the foot of the bright-lit gangway. Bowing smoothly, he reached up with his gleaming left hand and tipped his black beret to them. “Gentlemen?” he said cordially. His metallic right hand, which had swung up to waist level, had a lazgun built into the forefinger and a stungun in the thumb.
Gomez stepped closer, nodding at the large ivory-white houseboat that was anchored in the night Seine. “This would be the residence of Mrs. Bouchon, would it not?”
“Perhaps,” replied the wide robot, right forefinger casually pointing at the detective’s midsection.
“We’re from the Cosmos Agency.” Jake moved up to the foot of the gangway, putting himself between the guard and his partner. “We have an appointment with Mrs. Bouchon.”
Smoothing his beret back in place on his slick, chromed head, the robot inquired, “You perhaps have identification, gentlemen?”
Gomez fished his ID packet from the pocket of his sky-blue suit. “That’s a handsome boat Mrs. Bouchon dwells on,” he observed as he passed over his identification.
“Oui,” agreed the robot. A small rectangular panel in his chest opened and he held the ID to the gap. Lights flashed within, new whirs and hums were audible. “All in order.”
After Jake had gone through a similar ritual, the guardbot stepped aside, tipped his black beret once again, and directed them to climb the gangway to the houseboat.
The boat was ornately decorated, thick with intricate neowood trim and looking more like a nineteenth-century villa than a twenty-second-century houseboat. There were hundreds of tiny glowing beads of white light worked into the trim on all three decks.
“Reminds me of the cake we served at my second wedding,” remarked Gomez as they stepped aboard.
“It is quite gaudy, I know.” A slim blonde woman of about thirty-five stepped out of a nearby cabin. “Joseph’s tastes tended in that direction. I’m Madeleine Bouchon.” She held out her hand.
“Jake Cardigan.” He shook hands. “My partner, Sid Gomez.”
When Gomez took her hand, he clicked his heels, bent, and kissed the knuckles. “A pleasure, ma’am.”
Smiling, the widow invited, “Join me in the conservatory,” and led them along the highly polished deck into a large, glass-walled room. “One can see quite a way along the Quai Henri IV from here. If one is so inclined.”
“Nice view.” Gomez sat in a delicate wooden chair.
Jake sat opposite their client. “You don’t think your husband was killed by the Unknown Soldier,” he said.
“Ah ... right to business.”
Jake continued, “We’ve talked to the Paris police since we got here, and to someone in the IDCA office.”
“Yes, and I’m sure they all told you that Joseph, coming home intoxicated from an Xmas party, was stalked and killed by that lunatic. Yes?”
Nodding, Gomez said, “They see it as fitting the pattern, Mrs. Bouchon.”
“Do you feel then that this isn’t worth looking into further?”
“No, we’re here to investigate,” Jake told her. “Supposing you start by telling us why it is you don’t agree with everybody else?”
Madeleine Bouchon left the sofa she’d been occupying, crossed to a glasswall, and stared out into the night. “Is it the boat that unsettles you, Mr. Cardigan?”
Jake frowned. “Boat’s fine. Lovely.”
“Family money bought it. Joseph’s family. I just live here.” She turned to face him. “You may have the idea that I’m the usual spoiled rich bitch. But I’m not.”
Jake reflected for about a half minute, then grinned. “Could be it is the boat,” he said. “Excuse my churlishness.”
“Let me explain that I was never deeply in love with my late husband,” she said, returning to the sofa. “Yet I don’t wish his murder to be covered up, for whatever reasons.”
“Let’s go over the things that bother you,” Jake suggested.
“Would either of you care for a drink?”
Jake shook his head. Gomez said, “An ale maybe?”
Madeleine said, “Maurice?”
A small, tank-shaped headless robot rolled into the room. “Oui?”
“An ale for Mr. Gomez.”
“Oui.” The robot rolled over to where Gomez was sitting. Its drumlike chest popped open and it reached a mug off a shelf within. Holding its forefinger over the glass, it poured out foamy ale. “Voilà!”
“Gracias.”
Jake waited until the wheeled robot had left them. “Okay, let’s talk.”
“For one thing, as I mentioned to Mr. Bascom, there was a witness who said she saw my husband staggering along the Boulevard Vincent Auriol a short time before his death,” Madeleine said. “Joseph never drank, not at all, and he obviously never used drugs of any kind.”
“The police suggest he’d been at a party.”
“That’s merely a supposition. There were, admittedly, several Xmas gatherings that evening that he might have gone to. Parties given by colleagues and friends. There’s no evidence, however, that my husband attended a single one.”
Gomez, after sipping his ale, inquired, “Where were you that night?”
“Home, here on the boat. As I already told your agency chief.”
“You did, sí.”
Jake asked, “You think that witness is lying?”
“Perhaps. I think it more likely that Joseph was staggering, but that he’d been drugged somehow.”
Gomez said, “You also told Bascom you thought your husband was going to be visiting a colleague that night.”
“Joseph had been paying several visits over the past two or three weeks to a man who worked with him at the International Drug Control Agency office here in Paris,” she said. “His name’s Zack Rolfe.”
Nodding, Jake said, “But Rolfe, from what we’ve been able to find out, says your husband didn’t visit him that night. Or any of the other nights.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. Zack now claims that my husband has been having an affair with a young woman in the agency.”
“Yeah, but Rolfe doesn’t know who she is.”
“Yes, exactly. Zack’s story is that he was only doing my husband a favor by letting him pretend he was with him on all those nights. And obviously everyone seems to believe Zack.”
“Did you ever try to phone your husband at Rolfe’s?” asked Jake.
“No, because I never had any reason to. And Joseph didn’t especially like to be interrupted during a business meeting, not unless it was a very serious emergency.”
Jake said, “Rolfe’s lying?”
“Obviously, yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you feel about Rolfe before this?”
“Joseph seemed to like him, and trust him.” She shrugged gracefully. “To me Zack isn’t the sort of man who causes strong feelings either for or against him.”
“Perfect agency type,” commented Gomez.
“My husband had been worried about something,” said the widow. “For about the same length of time, I believe, that he’d been calling on Zack evenings. But, since Joseph had a strict rule never to discuss IDCA business with me, I have no notion what it was that was upsetting him so.”
“And he didn’t mention being worried about anything outside the agency?” Gomez finished his ale and set the glass on the floor.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “He didn’t tell me, if that’s what you have in mind, that he was fearful the sins he’d committed during the Brazil Wars were about to catch up with him.”
“Were there sins, ma’am?”
“No, there weren’t,” Madeleine replied. “At least I don’t believe so. Joseph never discussed his days as ambassador to Brazil with me. All of that took place before we were married, you understand.”
“If your husband had been seeing a woman,” asked Jake, “would you have known?”
“Joseph wasn’t interested in affairs of that sort, Mr. Cardigan,” she assured him, smiling. “The work he was doing at the agency was what excited him.”
“And, recently anyway, that was also what worried him.”
“Yes. Whatever it was, it somehow ties in with the real reason why Joseph was killed.”
“The police and his fellow IDCA agents don’t agree,” Gomez reminded her.
“And that,” said the widow quietly, “may be another part of the puzzle.”