"But why?" Aimee said.
"Monsieur Barrault wanted to tell you; unfortunately, he is in conference. He'll call you later this afternoon."
"Probate?" Aimee raised her eyebrows.
"I apologize if this seems unexpected…," the secretary began.
"Unprofessional is what it seems to me." Aimee stood up, adjusted her silk scarf, then made for the lawyer's door. "I need an explanation."
The secretary barred the way but her eyes were evasive. "Monsieur Barrault is meeting with a vice president of the Bank of France. As soon as he's finished he'll call and explain."
Aimee was about to make a scene and barge through the tall oak doors but she stopped herself. The reason a will went to probate clicked in her brain.
"My uncle is dead, isn't he?"
The woman's eyes shifted nervously, then she nodded. "I'm sorry. Monsieur Rambuteau suffered a heart attack after the funeral. Now the reading of the will is blocked until your uncle's estate goes through probate."
Aimee sat back down, shaken.
"I'm sorry you heard it from me." The secretary bent down, patting Aimee's arm. Her eyes were kind. "Truly sorry." The woman took Aimee's shocked behavior for grief.
"A heart attack?" Aimee shook her head.
"Right after the funeral, on the way back to his apartment. And you have just seen him at the cemetery! What a shock for you."
"And my poor cousin, Thierry…I have to go to him!" More than ever, she had to discover Thierry's identity.
The secretary threw her hands up. "Please don't let Monsieur Barrault know I've told you. My job would be…"
"Of course." Aimee nodded and stood up. "I'll find my cousin. We'll keep this between us."
ENTERING HER office, Aimee was immediately alarmed by the look on Rene's face. He avoided her eyes and concentrated on his computer screen.
"Rene, what happened?"
He sucked in his breath, bowing his large head and pointing to the fax machine.
Miles Davis scampered noisily into her arms as she bent down to pick him up. He licked and nuzzled her wetly with his nose.
A long fax feed had come in from Martine, curling all the way down to the floor. Martine had scribbled at the top, "I've lost my appetite…let's do dinner another time."
Enlarged from microfiche records were one-page cheat sheets titled, in crudely set print, CITOYEN-CITIZEN. Full of vindictive articles and accusations about collaborators, a starved and widowed France vented its spleen. J'ACCUSE headed each of the articles.
There were photos of collaborators hung garroted from streetlights with swastikas painted on their grotesque figures, village squares filled with contorted bodies shot by vigilante firing squads, and groups of women with their heads shaved, being stoned by crowds. The rest was a hideous description. No wonder Martine was sick.
Aimee looked sadly at these photos of women, herded like sheep before a people's street tribunal at Liberation. Just like Claude Rambuteau had said. The line under one photo read:
Not only did French whores take the Germans' food while their neighbors starved but Jewesses slept with the Nazis as their families burned under Gestapo orders!
In the motley-dressed group of women with shaved heads, one carried a baby. She looked young, her expression stony, her head held high. Aimee pulled a magnifying glass from her drawer to see the details more clearly.
The next scene caught by the photographer preserved the ugly truth forever. A swastika had been tarred into her forehead. The young mother had sagged to the ground in pain, still holding the baby and keeping it away from the crowd. Could that be Thierry in the young woman's arms? Was this the Jewess who'd slept with a Nazi?
In the crowd she noticed a leering adolescent girl. Around the girl's neck hung a gold chain with odd symbols. Peering closer through the lens she remembered seeing those same distinctive symbols before, twisted into the ligature marks. She recognized that face. A young Lili Stein stood in the crowd.
"I LIKE your theory," Rene said. His fingers raced over his laptop. "Les Blancs Nationaux works as a front, financing Aryan hit squads, operating from DFU money via the Rambuteaus' joint bank account."
"Makes sense," Aimee said. "The German funds provide perfect cover for the final solution Thierry earnestly believes in. Now we just have to prove it."
Rene had already started accessing the Rambuteau's bank account on his computer. "For Thierry to murder Soli Hecht because he was an interfering Nazi hunter and Lili Stein for an initiation rite would fit," he said.
Aimee opened the oval window facing rue du Louvre. The November chill did nothing to disguise the four coats of paint needed to cover the swastika. Maybe it was her imagination, but she could still make out the curved edges.
"Look at this," she said, handing the blue envelope to Rene. "I stole it off Nathalie Rambuteau's will. Here's confirmation from his real mother."
"His real mother?" Rene said. He hit "save" on his laptop. "Who's that?"
"A woman named Sarah. The irony is, he's part Jew," she said. "Like they say Hitler was."
She would leverage the truth out of Thierry. Not only would she display his incriminating bank account, she would show him the contents of the envelope.
"Then who is his father?" Rene said after he read the letter. "Or do you have ideas about that?"
"A Si-Po officer who deported Jews from the Marais," she said. "But there's only one way to find out for sure. And Thierry will help me do that."
Wednesday Evening
AIMÉE WRAPPED HER FINGERS around the cold plastic of her 9-mm Glock and knocked on the door with her gloved hand. A white-faced Thierry Rambuteau appeared. He stared at her. A glimmer of recognition passed over his face.
"You! What do you want?" he said.
"We need to talk," she said.
"Who are you, anyway?" He didn't seem to want to know the answer because he started to close the door.
She stuck her boot in the door, still keeping her hand balanced on the gun handle in her pocket. "I have something you should see."
He shook his head.
"And I'm not going away."
He stood aside. "Since you insist."
She strode down the hallway. The breakfast room, formerly so bright and meticulous, appeared dull and gloomy. Papers were scattered over the sofa. Nathalie Rambuteau's framed photo watched her from the mantel.
"Tell me why you tried to kill me," Aimee said evenly, her finger poised on the trigger in her pocket.
"Me? Not me," he said. His wild bloodshot eyes darted around the room. Abruptly he shook his head, then ran his hands across his stubble.
"Who else would?" she said, still not relaxing her grip.
"I thought you were a flic but I certainly wouldn't pull a knife. Leif's the vicious one. I tried to stop him, but you got away."
"Leif, the one in lederhosen, chased me?" she said.
"Leif was right about you." He stood up and began mumbling to himself, pacing distractedly back and forth.
"They are all amateurs! I must work harder so they understand." He ignored her and shuffled old newspaper clippings together. His blue eyes shone fiercely. "My obligation, my commitment is to the white race. I work for Les Blancs Nationaux out of love and sacrifice. Who else will keep the world pure if we don't?"
She was appalled. "Was Lili Stein killed to keep the world pure?" she said. "Did you engineer both Lili Stein's and Soli Hecht's murders, then have your minions execute them? Tell me the truth."
"The truth?" He laughed. "My father warned me. You're searching for who cut the old lady, eh? That's LBN turf. But murder is not our style."
"Why should I believe that? You have a motive," Aimee said. "And no real alibi."
"Motive? The flics questioned me," he interrupted, irritated. "I was in Istanbul, flew into Antwerp, picked up new videotapes, then drove back. It's stamped on my passport."