Murder on the Champ de Mars by Black Cara

Author:Black, Cara [Black, Cara]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781616952877
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2015-03-03T08:00:00+00:00

Monday Evening

ROSE UZES’S VOICE mail recording instructed Aimée to leave a callback number. Frustrated, she did. As she checked her own phone for messages afterward, she heard the receptionist call the doctor by name. There he was. Dr. Estienne. She reached for the clipboard to go back in and try to catch him.

“Has that hemodialysis adapter arrived?” she heard Dr. Estienne ask as he passed through reception.

Her antenna up, she paused in the doorway.

“Check on why the delay … the patient needs …”

Aimée couldn’t hear the rest.

Doctor Estienne was hurrying toward the next corridor. “I’m late.”

The receptionist called out, “You’ve got an eight forty-five P.M. walk-in after your meeting, Doctor.”

But Dr. Estienne had disappeared through the swing doors.

If it itches, scratch it, her father used to say. Madame Uzes’s phrase “it doesn’t make sense” rang in her head. If he was doing hemodialysis work here, why wouldn’t Dr. Estienne treat Drina at this private clinic, especially since the foundation would pay the supplemental fees? Drina hated hospitals, she’d said.

In the darkness she headed over the gravel path bordering the lawn that faced Dr. Estienne’s clinic. She paused before she reached the flower beds and peered through the lit windows. Four of the patient rooms she surveyed contained older men in wheelchairs eating their dinners from trays.

Halfway down the garden stood an old stone pigeonnier fashioned into a shrine with a statue of Saint Jean. Beside the last window she found the loosely replanted peonies where the corporal had dug his trench. Her eye caught on a glint in the clumps of dirt. A coin?

She took out her penlight, shone it. Something that looked like a small disk with a metal band around it caught the light. Did the corporal keep treasures, like a child, in his trenches?

Her curiosity piqued, she picked it up: a tiny wheel carved in wood. She felt her heart contract. She dug through the fresh clumps, getting dirt under her fingernails. And then she felt it, pulled it out with a slow, careful motion.

A small wooden wagon, one wheel broken off. One of the wooden Gypsy wagons Nicu had carved for Drina.

Drina had been here. Maybe she still was. That meant Doctor Estienne had been lying. Who else? Doctor Estienne’s colleagues from Hôpital Laennec? Madame Uzes?

Her phone rang—Morbier. He could wait. She silenced the call. Time to scratch that itch. Aimée had to follow her gut. And not get caught by the staff.

From the jasmine-trellised gravel walkway, a ramp led to the rear of the white-walled wing. The corridor was narrow, with small rooms for patients off both sides. Antiseptic-smelling and basic—unlike the great-uncle’s room. The ventilation system thrummed. She padded past open doors on both sides—most of the beds were empty; one contained an old man on a respirator—then a larger common room on the right occupied by old people nodding off in wheelchairs, where a muted télé was playing the news.

A door opened and shut down the hall. She ducked into the common room. She heard murmured voices, but the footsteps continued past.

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