Hugo smiled. “That’s what Garcia said. And he may be right. My guess is he’s using the bones to make a skeleton, and took that poor girl’s skin because of the tattoo.”
“Which leaves us where?”
“There’s meaning behind his choice of those bones. Jane Avril and La Goulue. Elaine Fournier, though, she wasn’t a dancer.”
“She was chosen because of that tattoo?” Tom asked.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he kill the roommate? He must have known she’d be able to identify him. Why did he leave fingerprints, for that matter?”
“Because it’s almost over.”
“What is?”
“Whatever he’s doing. And I have the distinct impression it’s not going to end well. This guy has operated too long in the shadows, literally. He’s going to go out with a bang.”
“Then you better figure out what kind of bang. And where. And make sure I’m nowhere near.” Tom sat up straight, his hand on his chest. “Do you even have a plan?”
“I do,” Hugo said. “I’m going down there.”
“Where?”
“To Castet. It’s where this all started and it’s the best chance I have of figuring out who this guy really is.”
“Well,” Tom said, stroking his chin, “now that we killed our nonterrorist I’m out of the chain of command. But I bet I can rustle up a plane to fly you down there. Tomorrow morning?”
“Sure. Can it carry two passengers?”
“Thanks, but I’m in no shape to travel.”
Hugo grinned. “I figured that out all by myself. I had someone else in mind.”
Claudia arrived at the apartment just as Dimitrios was making off with his stash of booze. She held the door for him and looked at Hugo with an eyebrow raised.
“Tom’s cut me off,” he said.
“Just from alcohol?” she said, then smiled. “I hope we can still get hookers around here.”
“Damn right,” Tom said, now lying flat out on the couch. “In fact, if we’re not drinking we can get even more of them.”
She went to him, and said, “Now you know how it feels.” The previous year she’d been hit in the shoulder, the bullet intended for Hugo.
“You going to stay and nurse me while handsome is gone?” Tom asked, nodding at Hugo.
“And where is handsome going?” She gave Hugo a quizzical look and the hands-on-the-hips stance told Hugo she wasn’t looking to be left out.
“Boys’ trip,” he said. “I’m borrowing a CIA plane and heading down to Castet, where our Scarab is from.”
“Haven’t the French police poked through the village?” she asked.
“Not yet. I just spoke to Garcia, he’s asking the locals to hold off.”
“I’m coming,” she said.
Hugo smiled. This wasn’t the first time they’d done this dance, and the last time she got her way. “I’d love for you to come,” he said. “But like I said, it’s a CIA plane and they don’t let foreigners on board.”
She looked at Tom, but he was Hugo’s best friend and more than happy to have the beautiful Claudia nursemaid him in Paris for a day or two. “What he said. They’re just a bunch of bureaucrats with guns.”
“What if I follow you?” she asked.
“What if I handcuff you to the chair?” Hugo replied, then saw the look on Tom’s face. “You’re enjoying this conversation too much.”
“I just started to,” he grinned. “Please continue. Something about Claudia and handcuffs.”
“This is the man you intend to leave me with?” Claudia said, unable to hide her smile.
“I’m rethinking that,” Hugo said. His phone rang and he moved to the kitchen to answer. “Raul, comment ça va?”
“Bien,” said Garcia. “I got your message.”
“Any word on the Scarab’s mother?”
“Nothing specifically on her. But the Villier family home is still sitting there. Never sold and, according to the local police, not occupied. You think he’s living there, under the radar?”
Hugo thought for a moment. “I doubt it. For one thing it’s a small village and any kind of activity would be noticed immediately. Second, he’s operating in Paris, which tells me he almost certainly lives here. But the house will tell us something, I’m sure of that.”
“Us?”
“Right,” said Hugo. “I called you earlier because I want to take a trip down there, and I figured I’d need a policeman with me. Especially after what you’ve just told me.”
“Definitely. When do we leave?”
Chapter Thirty-three
Hugo picked up Garcia just before five in the morning at his home in Belleville, northeast of the city center. The air was cold, as if a front had drifted over Paris while they were sleeping, and Garcia had dressed for it. He wore a bow tie, as ever, but more casual khaki pants and a windbreaker. The capitaine’s wife stood in the doorway and watched them leave.
“Last time I went on an adventure with you, I came back with a bullet hole,” Garcia said. “She remembers that.”
“You’re safe today,” Hugo smiled. “Although we’ll be turning his house upside down, so I suppose there’s always the danger of a paper cut.”
“Alors, I’ll wear gloves.”
Garcia fell silent as Hugo headed to the airstrip fifteen miles farther east. After a few minutes, Hugo glanced over. “Are you feeling OK? You look pale.”
“I get car sick. I’ll be fine.”
“Car sick?”
“Yes, and it’s not funny. Do you know why they used to put in those little side windows on cars?”
“I imagine to help the driver see out.”
“No, it was so capitaines with delicate stomachs could puke without impeding the progress of an investigation. Too bad modern cars don’t have them.”
“Yes,” Hugo smiled, “a great shame. So how are you on small planes?”
“Worse. But you will just need to worry about yourself.”
“Why is that?”
“Because,” Garcia smiled weakly, “on planes they also don’t have the small windows. Which means you will suffer as much as I will.”
They took off with the rising sun leaking into the cockpit window of the six-seat Piper Meridian. A summer storm that was pounding central France took them a hundred miles east of Paris, toward Châlons. The pilot, more garrulous than most CIA employees, with perhaps the exception of Tom Green, took them low once they’d cleared the city.
“There’s something you should see,” he said through the microphone. “History.”
Hugo noticed that Garcia was already focused on the window, but more for self-hypnosis than for the view.
“There,” the pilot said. “You see that?”
Hugo looked out, his eyes roaming over the squares of green pasture below. “I do.”
The spring rains had kept the area lush, and from that height, the ground looked like someone’s manicured lawn. The smoothness of the land was disturbed by folds in the grass, a squiggly line snaking for half a mile, disappearing, then appearing once more as far as he could see.
“World War I trenches,” the pilot said. “Farther east is Verdun, where some of the heaviest fighting was.”
“I think we just flew over where my grandfather fought,” Hugo said. “Belleau Wood.”
“That so?”
“He lied about his age, but managed to stay alive,” Hugo said.
“That was pretty common, in Europe and back home.” The pilot grinned. “The lying, not the staying alive. I’m an amateur historian; the First World War is my pet subject. You know how many people died on the Western Front?”
“Millions,” Hugo said, surprised that was the best answer he could give.
“They’ve broken it down into categories, including military and civilian deaths. But to give you an idea, the good guys lost almost six million soldiers. That’s us, the Limeys, the French, all the way down to a few thousand Portuguese.”