All the Devils Are Here(44)
“What isn’t?”
“You were going to tell me that Mr. Horowitz gave him a JSPS card.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe it. You know what that card does? Anyone with it can get into Mr. Horowitz’s bank accounts, his safety-deposit boxes. His homes. As far as I know, Mr. Horowitz only gave that card to three people. You, me, and your grandmother.”
“Zora?”
“Yes.”
“Zora?” Armand repeated. “Are you sure?”
“I was there when he gave it to her. He made sure I saw.”
“At my parents’ funeral?”
“No. When you were going away to Cambridge. He thought she might need a friend one day. He was offering to be that friend.”
“She hated him.”
“Yes. But that didn’t mean he hated her.”
Armand thought for a moment. Could the card they found on Alex Plessner have been Zora’s? But no. She’d been dead for more than twenty years. And Mr. Plessner’s card was newer. Thick, sturdy. Zora’s would have been the much older, flimsier version.
He wondered what had become of Zora’s. It hadn’t been among her belongings when she died. Perhaps his grandmother hadn’t understood the magnitude, and significance, of what Stephen was offering, and had thrown it away.
“Would you necessarily know if Mr. Plessner used his card?”
Mrs. McGillicuddy thought. “If he used it to get into one of Mr. Horowitz’s accounts, or homes, or business, yes. But you know that card can be used for so much more. In the international business world, it’s pretty much a laissez-passer.”
That was a good way of putting it, Armand thought. The Just Some Poor Schmuck card, as silly as it might sound, was anything but. It was akin to a travel document issued by rulers and despots of old, guaranteeing safe passage.
Within the international business community, Stephen Horowitz’s JSPS card had become legendary. Mythical.
“You don’t know, then, if Mr. Plessner ever actually used it?”
“No.”
“You still have yours?”
“Of course.”
“I have a colleague, Isabelle Lacoste. She’s the acting head of homicide for the S?reté. She’s going to need to get into Stephen’s home and work. Into his safety-deposit boxes at the bank, to make sure they haven’t been searched in the last day or so, and to search them herself.”
“Tell her to call me. I’ll make sure she gets in.”
“If she needs the JSPS card, can you give her yours?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Mr. Horowitz trusted me with it. I’ll help her with whatever she wants, but I need to be there when she uses it.”
“Agreed. There is something else I need you to do,” said Armand.
“Please. Anything.”
“I found a scrap of paper in Stephen’s agenda,” said Armand. “With dates that seem to be in reference to Monsieur Plessner. I’m wondering if they’re meetings the two of them had, either in person or on the phone. If I email them to you, can you cross-check with Stephen’s old agendas? See what he was doing on those days? Some go back a number of years.”
“I can do that.”
Armand paused before speaking again. “Can you think of anyone who might want Stephen dead?”
“I can think of any number of people.”
Armand gave a small laugh. “True. Merci, Mrs. McGillicuddy.”
“You’ll let me know—”
“I will.”
“I didn’t mean to blame you, Armand. It’s just that …”
“Oui. It is … that.”
CHAPTER 15
Reine-Marie looked at her watch as she left their apartment. It was two o’clock. She had one hour to do what she needed, and then get to Daniel and Roslyn’s in time for the meeting with Commander Fontaine.
She walked rapidly down rue des Archives, stopping to drop her clothes at the dry cleaner before continuing on.
How the neighborhood had changed since Zora bought the apartment in the 1970s.
As much as Reine-Marie loved history, she had no desire to live in it. A city, a quartier, a street, a person needed to evolve. Though the fact she was walking in Zora’s footsteps always comforted her. She was retracing a route the elderly woman had taken almost every day of her life in Paris. Both before and after the war, Zora would have come along this same sidewalk, with her familiar string bag, to get to the kosher deli, the butcher, the boulangerie, the seamstress, and, finally, the Bazar de l’H?tel de Ville, or BHV. The huge department store on rue de Rivoli had been there, in one form or another, since the mid-1850s.
Reine-Marie walked up the steps and into the store.
When she came out again, she had in her purse a small blue-and-gold box. Containing a cologne.
*
Jean-Guy sat at his desk and was about to log in to his computer when he paused. Considering the options and the consequences. But not for long. It was already just after two, and he needed to meet Annie and the others in less than an hour.
Making up his mind, Beauvoir walked next door into Séverine Arbour’s office. He looked around. As far as he knew, there were no cameras here. Though he couldn’t be sure.