The Golem of Paris

Chapter forty-four

Pelletier’s car, a blue Peugeot, sat in the embassy parking lot.

“Get in,” she said.

“Where we going?”

“Just get in.”

Jacob glanced at the mob of security guards that had escorted them from the elevator. He glanced at Schott.

They got in the back.

“Nice of them to call you,” Jacob said.

Pelletier said, “Safety belt, please.”

The two police vans had backed up to block the driveway. They parted, staying behind as Pelletier made a right, another, headed toward Boulevard Lannes.

“You can just drop us at the corner,” Jacob said, feeling for the door handle. It moved easily but failed to catch. He glanced at Schott, who shook his head: the same.

“Are we under arrest?” Jacob said.

She drove south down the boulevard, downshifting as traffic backed up. “You were to wait for my call. You are a tourist, here at the pleasure of the French government.”

She stomped the brake to avoid a wayward bicyclist.

Schott said, “You mind telling us where we’re headed?”

Jacob could guess: the station on Avenue Mozart.

Instead, Pelletier worked her way over into the right turn lane, shifting into a higher gear and rocketing over the Boulevard Périphérique overpass, bound for the interior of the Bois de Boulogne.

The sun had fallen, leaving bruised spaces between the trees. Jacob became aware of her perfume, light and grassy, saturating the Peugeot’s confined space. In the front foot well, a lipstick case strobed bars of streetlight.

“In my view, this is the killer’s likeliest route,” she said, dodging a man-sized branch felled by wind. “In terms of distance, it would be shorter to have turned at Porte de la Muette. Given the location of the bodies, I consider it more logical that he came from this direction, so that the car was oriented northeast along Allée de Longchamp. It’s a busy street. You don’t want to be shepherding captives across four lanes of traffic.”

She downshifted. “I suppose it’s possible he made a U-turn.”

Jacob said, “You think Lidiya and Valko were still alive at that point.”

“I imagine so. Easier to march them into the woods under their own power.”

They wound along for a few minutes. At the next major intersection, Pelletier hung a right, slowing to allow Jacob and Schott a look at the pucker-mouthed women haunting the shadows, dotting the walking paths, shivering in fishnets and boots. A few bold enough to openly solicit passing cars.

“As you can see, it’s an active area for the sex trade. I tracked down every prostitute I could find. They all claim to have seen nothing.”

A barrier of wooden stumps pounded into the earth prevented vehicles from straying onto the path. Roughly every fifty yards, one had been pried loose, the curb ground down to nonexistence by thousands of tires and front bumpers.

Pelletier said, “You find these turnouts at various places along the allée.”

Jacob made out the fuzzy mounds of parked cars, the flash of reflective plastic.

A prostitute materialized at the tree line, picking at her sleeve. Stumbling after her came a middle-aged man in a flaccid raincoat.

Pelletier had switched on her hazards and was crawling along, hunting for a particular spot. A quarter mile on, she said, “Voilà.”

She eased the Peugeot up onto the path, threading between a pair of oaks. A park bench sat directly in front of them. She steered around it to access a nook of sorts, partially hidden from the road by saplings and hardened vines.

She brought the car to a halt and yanked up the parking brake. “God knows what they imagine the three of us are doing back here.”

She killed the motor. The Peugeot fell still.

Jacob could hear distant, fractured laughter, the sonic froth of the road.

Pelletier said, “The important thing, from an investigative standpoint, is that you could leave a car parked here for quite a while without anyone noticing it.”

“Long enough for him to get them to the clearing, kill them, come back.”

“More than enough.” She pointed through the windshield. “It’s straight that way, about a hundred twenty meters.”

She turned, propped an elbow on the armrest. “I can take you there. As I said, mud and trees. Your shoes will suffer.”

He wondered how sincere the offer was, given her heels. “We’ve already been.”

“I see.” Not asking how.

She faced front. “I’ve been thinking about the mechanics of the abduction. My assumption is he held a gun to the child’s head to motivate the mother’s compliance.”

Jacob said, “I need to talk to Tremsin.”

“Yes, you’ve said that. I don’t suppose you’ve come up with a better reason.”

“There’s this.”

He opened the photo of the Gerhardt fob and set his phone on the armrest.

She stared at it impassively. “A key chain.”

“I found it at the scene. You know what car it goes with?”

She shook her head.

“A very, very expensive one. That very, very few people own. Eighty in the entire world. I’ll bet you can think of someone we know whose name’s on that list.”

It was a bluff. A decent one. He couldn’t tell if it was working.

She picked up the phone to look at the fob. “How did we miss it?”

“It was under ice,” he said. “It came up with this year’s mushrooms.”

She set the phone back down. “I’d like you to hand it over, please.”

He said nothing.

“It’s evidence,” she said. “I am investigating a murder.”

“It’s in a safe place,” he said.

“That’s a crime,” she said. “Tampering.”

“It’s safe,” he said again.

“Did you give it to Vallot?”

“All I did,” he said, “was take a walk in the park.”

“What else did he tell you? I saw him making photocopies. Were those for you?”

Jacob didn’t want to sell Vallot out. But his hesitation seemed to confirm it for her.

“Give them back, please,” she said. “Now.”

Jacob said, “He told me about your time in Russia.”

Pelletier’s mouth opened. She began to laugh. “Dédé told you that? Well. Good for him. He’s cleverer than I thought.”

Jacob said nothing.

“Your little stunt at the embassy,” she said. “It was clumsy.”

“I was getting the feeling you weren’t going to call.”

“I would have. I’m busy.”

“Investigating a murder.”

“Several, in fact.”

“Does your boss know what you do on the side?”

She wrenched around. “Do you?”

“I have a couple of ideas,” he said. “It was you the embassy decided to call.”

“I work with them. Not for them. That’s a critical distinction.”

“With them, including Tremsin.”

She tapped the steering wheel.

“All that stuff about him falling out with Moscow is bullshit,” he said. “He goes to their parties. You protect him.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I can’t, obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Don’t pout,” she said. “What I can tell you is that it’s not in anyone’s interest to draw attention to Arkady Tremsin. Ours, yours, the Russians, whomever.”

“So he gets a pass.”

“The greater good needs to be considered.”

“That’s not my job,” he said. “If you really are a cop, it’s not yours, either.”

“My job, Detective, is to keep him calm. In order to preserve various relationships. He trusts very few people. I happen to be one of them. You think it’s been easy to cultivate that? He’s a paranoid man. He’s hardly left his house in four years.”

“And when he does? You watch him?”

“Often, yes.”

“What about the night of the party?”

She regarded him without malice. “Have you given any thought to your endgame? I know it isn’t what you told me, that you just want to look him in the eye.”

“That’d be a start.”

“What do you expect? He’ll wither in the face of your righteousness?”

“I want him to know,” he said, taking back his phone, “that it won’t be forgotten.”

Silence.

“At least two innocent people died,” Jacob said. “More will die. That’ll be on you. You want to keep him calm? You don’t want noise? Let me promise you this: I’m going to make as much noise as humanly possible.”

She sighed. “You’re not giving me much choice.”

“Guess not.”

“You really won’t shut up, will you.”

“Nope.”

She nodded. “Wait here.”

She got out of the car, taking her keys with her, and walked off, dialing on her phone. Jacob strained to hear to what she was saying but she was too far away, shielding her mouth with her hand.

“We should get out of here,” Schott said. “Now.”

“And go where?”

“She could deport us.”

“Then we’ve lost nothing.”

Pelletier clicked off her call, began dialing again.

“She could bust us,” Schott said.

“Go, then,” Jacob said. “Feel free.”

Outside, Pelletier was returning. D’accord. D’accord.

Schott squirmed, gauging the space between the front seats to determine if he could squeeze through and get to the door.

“Forget it,” Jacob said. “You’ll get stuck.”

Pelletier hung up. She got in the car, started the engine, and backed out cautiously, waiting for a break in traffic before lurching onto the road.

She did not speak, heading south and west, out of the park. Recognizing their general direction, Jacob settled in for the brief ride to the police station.

But again, she upended his expectations, reversing a route they had walked the day before.

She said, “I doubt you’ll have more than a few minutes, so I suggest you start preparing your questions in advance. Keep them brief.”

She pulled into the driveway of Arkady Tremsin’s house.

She lowered her window, leaned out, pressed the call box button.

A beep, a clipped allo.

She held up her ID to the camera eye. “C’est moi.”

A moment later, the gates swung open.