Free Murder in Clichy by Cara Black Page A

He remembered the acrid odor coming from the opium smokers next door.
    “What’s the matter, camarade? ”
    In the shed where tools were kept, Gassot straightened his shoulders, realizing Tran was studying him. He forced himself back to the present and took a deep breath.
    “Do you ever hear from Bao?” She had been Tran’s cousin, Bao of the pale oval face and laughing eyes. He knew that after forced marches and prison camp, the light would have gone out of them.
    “Not for several years,” said Tran.
    “Still in Indochina, is she?”
    “Seems we’re talking about the old times instead of why you came here, camarade. . . .” Tran’s voice trailed off in disappointment. His manners were more French than Gassot’s and his accent was impeccable. But then he’d lived in France almost as long as Gassot, working for a wealthy old colonial family as an indentured servant until his retirement. Though slave would have described it better.
    But he liked to keep busy, so he worked part-time now, here, as groundskeeper.
    “You’re worried. It’s Albert . . . his heart?” Tran said.
    Gassot gathered his courage. “Albert died in the hospital. But he was murdered there.”
    “What makes you think he was murdered?”
    “Who else knows, Tran?” Gassot asked.
    “ Mais, you don’t mean—”
    “Who else knows about the massacre at Lai Chau?”
    “The dead know,” Tran replied. “And your comrades.”
    And it had been their regiment’s fault. Their bombing coordinates had been off. Off by half a kilometer, sending them into the no-fly zone.
    A plain of burning flames, so intense the heat had melted the straps of Gassot’s helmet on his neck. The hidden mines planted by the Vietminh in the plain had exploded under the hail of the French bombing attack—an attack that had been meant to destroy the Vietminh forces, not ignite a incendiary vortex claiming thousands of both Indochinese and French lives. The deafening explosions cratered the red earth. Rice paddies were clogged with body parts kilometers away, destroying the ancient drainage system. The peasants starved the next season, refusing to eat a crop nourished by the blood of their ancestors.
    No one talked of their mistake; the reports were destroyed, the incident hushed up.
    “Only three of us left now,” Gassot said. “But someone could have escaped.”
    “No one escaped from that hell,” Tran said.
    “A victim in a field hospital? Or an eyewitness?” he said. “Someone who heard the stories and has come for revenge?”
    “Go ahead and torment yourself, camarade, ” Tran said. “You’re good at that. But it can’t bring them back. Nothing will. As they say, it’s all termite spit.”
    “Albert opened his big mouth; he talked about the jade. And then the man he spoke to was shot. Killed.”
    Tran’s hand shook as he lit another cigarette. “ Merde!”
    Tran, reestablish your connections,” Gassot said. “Go back “ to the house. Talk to the old buzzard about the jade. You’re the one who heard the rumor in Haiphong.”
    Tran bowed his head. “That’s so long ago,” he said.
    “The jade is here. In Paris. We know it. We’re not the only ones looking for it, Tran,” Gassot said. “Remember that.”
    “But we’re the only true believers.”
    Gassot turned away. He stooped, tried to control the quiver in his shoulders. “Tran, you have to go back to the house.”
    No one would suspect Tran. Gassot kept to himself his fear that someone was picking them off, one by one.

Wednesday Midday

    AIMÉE NUDGED HER WAY through the throng of patrons at the Drouot auction house counter, to the catalogues. Around her, in the long salle hung with paintings celebrating Drouot’s history, patrons milled in the display rooms, looking at items in glass showcases or piled in corners. Her grand-père, a habitué, had frequented the auction house. More often than not, he’d spot a frayed Savonnerie carpet or a Baccarat chandelier with missing crystals