Free The French Detective's Woman by Nina Bruhns Page A

big-time, Rousselot ,” Pierre read. “ I’m thinking San Tropez. After the files are returned in good order. Hugs, Nicole .” He looked up. “O la la. I’ve hit the jackpot.”
    “It’s a scam,” Jean-Marc assured him. “She just wants her damn files back.”
    Pierre chuckled. “Then she shall have them. And the sooner the better, in my view. Let’s get to it,” he said, and grabbed the top container, which happened to be Saville’s box of files on le Revenant .
    After going over the two dozen or so robberies attributed with fair certainty to the Ghost, they made a list of the things those cases told them about the thief. The list was topped by the time of month the thefts had been committed.
    “I’ll bet he’s paying his mortgage with the proceeds,” Pierre declared when Jean-Marc pointed out that nearly all of the thefts had occurred within the week before the first of the month.
    “Or his rent,” Jean-Marc agreed.
    “Pretty high for the suburbs,” Pierre said, studying the figures. “About right for a fancy place downtown, though.”
    “Or, he’s living modestly but paying all his bills with his robbery proceeds, and just gets it over with all at once, with one heist.”
    “Makes sense.”
    “What would either of those options tell us?”
    “That he’s lazy?”
    Jean-Marc picked up the neat list of columned statistics he’d written, and pondered the bigger picture: motive. “Or that he’s not doing it for the thrill. If he’s waiting until the last minute, I’d say stealing is not a lifestyle for him, but a necessity. And not one he particularly enjoys.”
    Pierre nodded. “I see what you mean. Thieving obviously doesn’t scare him, but it doesn’t turn him on, either, or he’d be doing it a lot more.”
    “And yet, he’s very good at it. So why doesn’t he go for bigger things? Knock over a store, rather than take one bracelet or necklace at a time? Pay the bills for a whole year in one fell swoop?”
    “Because he’s smart,” Pierre said, with a shade of respect. “Staying small-time kept him low-profile and low-priority with the police for a long time.”
    “Exactly,” Jean-Marc said, tapping his pencil on the list. “Very smart.” He got the distinct feeling they’d all been underestimating this guy. “Which makes me wonder...”
    “What’s that?”
    “If he’s been working in other countries besides France. Maybe he only steals during the last week of the month here because he’s working the other weeks in Germany, or Belgium, or Spain.”
    Pierre’s eyes widened. “ Mon dieu .” He sat up straight. “You mean like that serial killer who was murdering women for years all along the E50. Different months for different countries.”
    “Well, not quite that grim, but yes, like that.” Jean-Marc lifted his phone. “Think I’ll put in a few calls and check it out.”
    By ten o’clock he’d gotten promises from his contacts in the Dutch, Spanish, German, Belgian and Swiss authorities to look into things and call him back.
    By lunchtime Jean-Marc had made his next major discovery.
    “It’s not just jewelry. He’s stealing other things, too.”
    Pierre looked up from his fourth box of files and frowned. “How do you figure?”
    “There aren’t many, but—” Jean-Marc held up several pages of notes he’d made on unsolved cases from the past two years “—these robberies fit his pattern to a T.”
    “And they’re not jewelry?”
    Jean-Marc shook his head. “Paintings and silver. Plus...” He pointed to their master list of le Revenant ’s known robberies. “The other thefts took place in months when his jewelry takes were lower than normal.”
    Pierre leaned back in his chair and whistled. “Paintings and silver. A lot harder to conceal than jewelry. Sounds like Plan B.”
    “He’s stuck to small pieces, and he cut the paintings out of the frames. Even so, they’re harder to get away with and probably tougher to fence than jewelry. So yeah.