Free Murder in the Bastille by Cara Black Page B

frequented by the victims. This commonality had led them to Vaduz, a seasonal prop mover at the new Opéra.
    Bellan reread the file notes. Vaduz picked the same type, over and over again. All the women resembled his cousin: blonde, curvaceous, glamorous. The cousin had ignored the introverted Vaduz since childhood, refusing to introduce him to her friends. But he’d fixated on her, covered his walls with obsessive poems and drawings reflecting the fantasies he’d had about her. On weekends when he’d visited the family, she’d had boys with her in her room . Though she belittled and rebuffed him, he claimed he loved her.
    But Josiane Dolet was rail-thin, stylish, and reserved in appearance. Wealthy and left-leaning, she’d followed her family’s tradition and joined the family newspaper. When the paper merged with Libération, she went freelance, writing investigative exposés and garnering respect for solid reporting.
    Josiane Dolet seemed an unusual choice of victim for Vaduz. She was the most intellectual of them all. Had that made her the most threatening? But when he attacked women, they had no time for discussion.
    Yet, Bellan reasoned, his selection of victims showed premeditation and a pattern. Methodical, though sick, he’d taken his time. His victims either lived in a passage or walked through one to their apartments. But Josiane Dolet’s apartment overlooked the glass-roofed market in Place d’Aligré; she would walk through the open square to reach it.
    The Préfet was breathing down his neck; the report had to be submitted by noon. How did Aimée figure in this? Loïc couldn’t put his finger on it, but something troubled him.
    “Bellan! Line 3,” shouted the sergeant from the front desk.
    He picked up the wall phone. “Oui. ”
    “Loïc,” Marie said, her voice faint. “Guillaume’s sick.”
    And the world stopped. All he heard was a heavy silence on the other end, then the whine of a scooter by the window.
    “What is it?”
    “Strep throat,” she said.
    Poor Marie, she must be overwhelmed to call him.
    “Marie, the girls had that last year, it wasn’t so serious.”
    “They’re worried about his kidneys.”
    “Why?”
    “For babies like him, it’s serious. We’re at the hospital in Vannes,” she said. “He’s in intensive care. As his father, I thought you should know.”
    The phone went dead.
    He couldn’t leave Marie to face this alone. Something caved inside him. And all he could think of were those little pink pearllike toes.
    He closed the files, pulled on his jacket, and hailed a taxi for Gare Montparnasse.

Wednesday Afternoon
    MATHIEU FINGERED THE DRIED orange skin pocked with cloves, shrunken hard . . . wrinkled like a pecan. A Provençal custom, drying oranges to scent cupboards. The bittersweet remnant of the old Comte de Breuve. Mathieu’s mind went back to his last visit in early September when the Comte had summoned him to the chateau outside Paris.
    This visit was different from those on which he’d accompanied his father. The Comte, gaunt, wearing worn corduroys and an ascot tucked into his old wool Shetland vest, had aged. His nose seemed more prominent and the broken capillaries in his face more pronounced.
    “Let’s hurry, there’s not much time,” the Comte had said, his look furtive. Then he commenced complaining that he couldn’t afford to heat the château, much less dwell in it. So he lived in the Orangerie, a stone and glass construction nestled among the outbuildings housing rusted farm equipment.
    The catering firm that had rented out the château for parties and weddings had vacated, as evidenced by the dry fountains and overgrown gardens. Wild hyacinths peeked from between the columns. Now, only the municipality rented the ground floor and ballroom for adult evening classes.
    The Comte shuffled down the musty stone cellar steps of the Orangerie, which was dug into the slope below the château. Flanked by steep staircases, it anchored the slope