Free Murder Below Montparnasse by Cara Black Page A

entertain the twins. Or take them to Martine’s.
    Serge set the autopsy report down near the bucket containing the liver. “Make it quick. You were pre-med—figure it out yourself. And I never did this,
compris?
”
    After the door closed, she picked up the clipboard and concentrated on trying to decipher the autopsy-ese:
    1. Right forearm fracture, with relatively little hemorrhage
.
    2. Abrasions on front and back torso, arms, face consistent with scraping on street cobbles, again relatively bloodless
.
    3. In terms of the head, no hemorrhages beneath the scalp, skull fractures, or collections of blood around the brain—epidural, subdural and subarachnoid hemorrhages, or contusions of the brain itself. No lacerations in the ponto-medullary junction where one might expect
.
    She looked up as Serge entered.
    “
Zut alors
, we ran over a dead man?”
    Serge gave a small nod.
    What the hell had happened? What had they gotten into? Between this news and the nauseating smells, her knees went weak. She grabbed at the table. Felt the corpse’s leather-cold flesh, gasped and let go.
    Serge cleaned his glasses with the edge of his lab coat. “The medic reports the victim was still warm upon resuscitation attempts, no rigor mortis or lividity until later. His heart could have stopped anywhere from five minutes to an hour before.”
    He turned the corpse over.
    Aimée stared down at those half-lidded eyes. They looked exactly as they had when pressed against the windshield in front of her. Dead. “That accounts for his expression. No look of pain. No blood from the cuts on his face.”
    Serge pointed his ballpoint pen at the pale bruise on the Serb’s shoulder. “I’d say he bounced off the windshield here. After he landed, his arm was run over, as the fracture indicates.”
    “But if Feliks the Serb was already dead, how could he fall in front of the car?”
    “Good question. The whole thing bothers me. Let’s look at the prelim crime scene photos.” Serge rustled through a folder. “This one shows the angle. Do you recall any parked cars, a tree, a motorcycle—anything he could have fallen off of?”
    “It happened so fast, although it felt like slow motion at the time.” She studied the photos. The position of René’s Citroën. “A white van pulled ahead of us.…” Her index finger stabbed at the photo. “Here. If the Serb was standing between this parked truck and this motorcycle.…” She paused to think for a moment. “He could have caught his sleeve on the truck’s side mirror. For reasons unknown, his heart stopped. Then the car’s vibrations on the cobbles caused him.…”
    “To fall.” Serge nodded. “His accumulated weight could have torn his jacket pocket, and he landed as you drove by.”
    Serge pointed to the photo of the body on the cobbles. The ripped jean jacket pocket.
    “Brilliant. No one dies twice. At least not as far as I know.” Aimée grinned. “This puts Saj in the clear.”
    Serge didn’t share her excitement. He tapped his pen. “Still doesn’t give me his cause of death.” His other gloved finger probed the Serb’s jawline. “He presents no wounds apart from the crushing attributed to the injuries sustained after death from René’s Citroën,” Serge said. “No bullet holes, knife marks, or concussion or injury to the brain.” He checked the autopsy clipboard. Turned some pages. “His organs, brain came out normal. No distinguishable cause of death.”
    Not her problem.
    “Aimée, I’ve never issued an inconclusive autopsy report in my career.”
    “Perfectionist” was Serge’s other middle name, after Pierre. He was thorough, a recognized expert in the medical pathology field.
    “
C’est bizarre
. But before I throw my hands up, I’ll do a microscopic examination of the organs for what could have caused sudden death. Inflammation in the heart, maybe, like myocarditis, or inflammation in the brain. Never obvious.”
    “What if he was using a new designer