Every Silent Thing

By Alan Brenham

Shy and deaf, twenty-three-year-old Claire Deveraux has worked hard to land her dream job as a foreign service officer at the US Embassy in Paris. Yet her idyllic life is shattered when she finds a woman lying on the floor dying from a gunshot wound. It is then Claire learns a secret that puts her in the crosshairs of the woman’s killer. Claire’s situation is compounded when her identical twin sister, Megan, flees Fort Worth for France after witnessing her boyfriend’s murder. He was part of a team that stole a cache of jewels from a cartel. With multiple criminal elements in dogged pursuit, Claire and Megan hurtle down a twisted path of mortal danger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alan Brenham
• Release date: Sep 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215722213

Alan Brenham

Alan Brenham is the pseudonym for Alan Behr, an author and attorney. He served as a law enforcement officer before earning a law degree and working as a prosecutor and a criminal defense attorney. He has traveled to several countries in Europe, the Middle East, Alaska, and almost every island in the Caribbean. While working with the US Military Forces, he lived in Berlin, Germany. Behr and his wife, Lillian, currently live in the Austin, Texas area.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Saturday, May 7th

It wasn’t every day Claire Deveraux saw a man enter the women’s restroom. She shivered at the thought. She’d watched him panning the crowd before he pushed through the door marked Dames. Keeping the door in view she lifted her camera to Diana of Versailles, her favorite lady in the Louvre. Either this guy made a mistake and would hurry out all red-faced, or the woman who’d entered just before him was his wife.

A few minutes later, he came out. His face was flushed but he seemed calm, as if emerging from the lady’s restroom was an everyday thing for him. He locked eyes with Claire before she looked away, startled and uneasy. He turned and melted into the crowd.

Claire let a few minutes pass, noting that the woman still hadn’t come out. Curious, she went in and found a woman lying on the tiled floor. A puddle of blood blossomed from under her shoulder.

She saw the woman’s fear when her eyes met Claire’s. She reached her arm up, so Claire squatted next to her. She had what appeared to be a gunshot wound to her chest. Claire grabbed towels from the nearby dispenser, pressing them to the woman’s chest. It didn’t do much. Blood saturated the towels.

The woman’s eyelids fluttered as her mouth formed a word Claire lipread as, "L’homme." She grabbed the corner of Claire’s jacket, then drew a labored breath. Her lips formed a second word followed by a third, which Claire understood to be champagne and "Trois." She exhaled, then her arm fell to the floor. Her eyes stayed partly open, fixed on a spot far away. Claire pressed her fingers to the woman’s neck, but there was no pulse.

She rushed out of the bathroom, searching for a police officer or a security guard. And there was the man glaring at her. She wanted to run, but then she spotted two guards standing by a wall on the other side.

Claire said, Woman dead! She pointed in the direction of the restroom. The guards looked at her blankly.

She typed out a message on her smartphone. While the guards read it, she looked for the man, but he’d disappeared. The guards sprinted to the bathroom while talking into their shoulder-mounted microphones. Minutes later, chaos hit the room as French police flooded the area.

Time passed in a blur. Finally Claire found herself in an office facing a man in a brown tweed coat and a walnut-colored tie. He handed Claire a paper towel and pointed at her hands. She wiped the woman’s blood off as he set a notebook on the desk. He introduced himself as Inspector Gagne of the Brigade criminelle, better known at the embassy as La Crim. She didn’t even try to speak, choosing to type him a short message on her phone. My name is Claire Deveraux, and I am deaf. She always tried to avoid talking. People looked at her funny or grinned when she did.

His eyes dropped to the desk in front of him as he scratched the back of his neck. His hand moved around to massage his chin. She’d learned a long time before to be patient, so she waited while he considered whatever options crossed his mind. Maybe he was trying to think of any cop close by who knew sign language. Or he was silently cursing his luck to have to communicate with a deaf person.

She tapped the screen on her cell phone. I can lipread. I write down what I saw.

He pushed his large notepad to her. When she finished her account, she signed it and pushed the notepad back to him.

He read her statement and then wrote her a question on her pad. "Was l’homme champagne Trois all she said to you?"

Claire nodded.

He pointed at her camera. Did you take a picture of him?

Claire opened the viewer on the camera and examined the shot. Yep, there he was—but it was only a partial view. He had angled himself, so the picture only caught part of his face and the side of his head.

Gagne told her he had to borrow her camera. He said she’d get it back the next day when she came in to give a formal statement.

So much for what was supposed to be a lovely day taking pictures. Claire left, still shaking over the episode. In all her life, she’d only seen dead animals on Texas roads. Never a human being. She passed by the inverted pyramid as she made her way to the Carrousel du Louvre exit, wishing she could’ve snapped a shot of it. Even if she had her camera, her heart wasn’t in it. She’d had enough for one day.

Her brain kept replaying the image of that poor woman lying there, like a scene repeating from a horror movie.

She picked up the pace to make it to the exit. Then she saw the killer step out from behind a corner, between her and the door.

Claire wondered if he was going to shoot her, too. Wanting to avoid a fight, she held her hands up, palms out, and tilted herself back. It was sign language telling him to back away. It was the only peaceful solution available.

He broke into a broad smile, like Wile E. Coyote did when he thought he had the Road Runner cornered. That’s when Claire knew their encounter was not going to end well. She started to back up, but he grabbed her arm and yanked her towards him. It wasn’t difficult to do, as she was only a hundred and five pounds when soaking wet.

Claire twisted her arm free, then hit him in the face with the heel of her hand. His head snapped back. She quickly followed up with two rapid strikes to his chest.

He recoiled, taking a step back. He shook it off and came at her again. Using his forward motion, Claire grabbed his arm, pulling him forward. She rammed her knee into his groin.

He folded over.

She struck him with a hammer fist to the back of his neck, dropping him to his knees.

She knew she should’ve returned to Gagne and the officers, but she didn’t. Instead, she ran for the exit, sprinted across the street. Feeling nauseous, she hunched over a curb and threw up her breakfast. Wiping her mouth on her sleeve, she looked at the Louvre exit she had just raced out of. No sign of him.

She couldn’t stop shaking even after she made it to the nearest metro station. She knew he would come hunting for her. She knew he wouldn’t make the mistake of grabbing her. He’d shoot her. After several minutes and a couple of long, deep breaths, she managed to calm herself enough to cope with boarding a crowded train. On the ride home, she kept seeing his image and that of the dead woman.

Once inside her apartment, Claire deadbolted her front door then collapsed on the sofa. Why did that man have to kill that woman? Why did it have to happen in the Louvre, of all places? What did her last words mean? For sure, she’d said l’homme. No mistake there. Claire repeated each word. "L’homme. Champagne. Trois."

One question nagged her. Could she have missed lip-reading a word when her eyes cut away to the woman’s chest wound and the soaked towels? It was only a quick second.

CHAPTER TWO

Saturday, May 7th, late afternoon

I put a round in her chest but couldn’t find the flash drive, Martin said, sipping from a bottle of water.

Shit! said the male voice on the other end. You checked her thoroughly?

Her bra. Her panties. Her pockets and her purse.

Did you check her hair? Up her sleeves if she had any?

I checked the main spots a woman hides stuff. It wasn’t like I could spend all day looking. It was the women’s restroom. I’m lucky another woman didn’t walk in on me.

Tsk. Okay, I understand. But don’t give up. Remember I paid you to recover that flash drive and the link words. Can you go back to the restroom and search for it?

I’ll try, but there was a major complication. A young woman saw me coming out of the bathroom. She went in, came out, and went straight to a guard. It wasn’t long after that the place was crawling with the cops.

Well, his employer replied. Do you think she saw enough to give your description to security?

"If she wasn’t able to give a description, she may have taken my picture. She was there photographing artwork.

She was a photographer?

Yeah. She may have taken a picture of me going into the bathroom. I don’t know. I would’ve yanked her camera away but didn’t want to attract any more attention.

A picture. What specifically can you tell me about her? Age? Height? Hair style and length? What was she wearing? Glasses, no glasses?

She’s in her early to mid-twenties. Five-foot-two to five-foot-four. No glasses.

What about hair color and style? Was she skinny? Fat? What?

Short blonde hair. Slim.

Martin rubbed his sore elbow, the result of the butt-whipping she gave him. A few had tried, but no one had ever beaten him before. Her quickness in subduing him impressed and pissed him off. There was no way he was going to admit to cornering her then getting his ass whipped.

Okay, how long was Roche in the restroom before you went in?

Guessing, I’d say two or three minutes.

"That’s enough time to hide the flash drive. Were you able to search the restroom at all?

Not as much as I wanted to. But I didn’t have much time. I didn’t want to be there when another woman or two came in and saw my face.

Maybe Roche dumped it before she got to the bathroom? That’s possible, isn’t it?

Anything’s possible. I’ll check that bathroom soon as things cool down. Meanwhile, I’ll backtrack her all the way to her apartment.

Leave no stone unturned. If anyone were to open the file on the device, my whole gig would go up in smoke.

Right now, the entire Louvre is crawling with cops and it’ll stay that way for a couple of days. Hell, they may have shut the place down. The cops are likely checking her camera for a picture. If there wasn’t a good one, they probably have that photographer sitting with an artist drawing a composite of me.

Okay. You need to find it. I don’t care how. Just don’t get caught.

I’ll do what I can. No promises.

Whatever you need to do. If it’d help, go ahead, and take a chance. There’s too much at risk.

How the hell did Roche get her hands on it?

She was my secretary.

How much is at risk? There’s no point in risking my ass for anything less than a good payday, Martin told himself.

More than you can imagine. Listen, from her description, I think that photographer is a regular at the Louvre. I’ll reach out to someone who might know her. Call me when you find the flash drive.

Martin headed back to the Louvre entrance where Roche had entered. Although going into the museum now was totally out of the question, he’d begin backtracking from there to all the places Roche had visited. If Roche wasn’t dead when the photographer went into the restroom, Roche may have told her where it was hidden. If that photographer had the device, she may have handed it over to the cops. While he was heading for Roche’s next-to-last stop, he wondered about the photographer. Was she a freelancer like his employer thought, an employee of some travel magazine, or just a plain tourist? If she was a tourist, he’d have better luck finding the proverbial needle in a haystack than a photographer in Paris.

CHAPTER THREE

Saturday, May 7th, late afternoon

Claire squeezed a slice of lemon in a glass of water and tried to push the dead woman’s image from her mind by thinking about the Louvre exhibits she didn’t get the chance to photograph. That was okay, she told herself. She’d go back another day. The Louvre opened at nine, so maybe tomorrow, after she gave her statement to Inspector Gagne. The woman’s killer wouldn’t be dumb enough to be there, knowing security would have been increased.

Claire stayed indoors for the rest of the day, enjoying one glass of Merlot in the afternoon with some Edam cheese wedges. Every so often, she parted the window curtains and peeked out. She doubted the killer followed her but still felt wary.

When she wasn’t checking for the killer, she paced the living room, sipping the wine. Why did that woman say those words? What did they mean?

At three that afternoon, and pushing aside her puzzlement over the three words, Claire drafted an email to her parents to send after she got her camera back.

Mom and Dad, I’m attaching some pictures taken at the Louvre. You guys would love touring it. I hope you will come to visit me here. There’s so much to see. I hope you’re doing well. I haven’t heard from Boyd or Megan lately. Are they okay?

Once Claire had finished the draft, she thought more about the possible meaning of the three words. Champagne man three. Man champagne three. Man buys his third champagne. Man with three champagnes. Man drinking three champagnes.

God, there had to be a hundred different ways to couple those three words. Her mind’s eye pictured the killer attacking her after she told Gagne what she saw. Those words had to be why the poor woman was shot, and now he’s after her.

Certain that Gagne would want her to describe him to an artist, Claire, using the image in her mind’s eye, picked up a pen and began making notes about the man’s face. He was tall. Of course. Everyone’s taller than her. Maybe six-one to six-three. Did he have a long face? No, he had an oval face and thin lips. No scars or tats had been visible. He appeared to be between thirty-five and forty-five without a beard, mustache, or glasses. He had a brown Caesar-style haircut and the coldest stare she’d ever seen. He wore a blue and white striped shirt and a brown tweed coat. Forget that, she said to herself. Surely, he would have burned those clothes to ashes by now.

What about his hands? They’d ask her that. He had a gold ring on his right ring finger. Claire recalled seeing it when she grabbed his arm. It had a letter or a symbol on the face of it. Whatever it was, it was black. She tried hard to focus her mind’s eye on that ring. Claire couldn’t quite nail it down no matter how hard she tried. There was one thing she did notice very well. The pinkie finger on his right hand was missing.

Claire tore the page with the list off the pad and stuck it in her purse to present to Gagne the next day. She watched a French show for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening to keep her lipreading skills finetuned. Closed captioning was a beautiful invention.

With darkness settling in, Claire double-checked the deadbolt and the window locks before heading to the shower. Later, she lay in bed and read a few chapters of Michelle Richmond’s The Year of Fog.

Catching herself drifting off to sleep, she set the page marker in place and put the book on the bedside table. Within minutes she was dreaming about being strapped to a lie detector machine. Gagne kept asking her what the woman had told her. She gave him the same answer in sign over and over, but the machine’s needles were swinging wildly up and down. He screamed at her to stop moving her hands. When she laid them in her lap, he demanded that she tell him the truth, to stop lying. All she could do was shrug. Then, from out of nowhere, the killer appeared in the room. He drew a gun from his waistband and pointed it at her. His face was contorted as he and Gagne ordered her to tell them what the woman had told her. Claire started signing. That’s when the killer cocked the gun.

Her eyes popped open. She slowly panned the bedroom before switching on the light. The bedside clock showed 1:35 AM. She slid out of bed and went to the bathroom to pee. With the dream seeming so real, she almost checked her arms for strap mark impressions.

Slipping into a robe, Claire went out on the balcony and felt the cool night air on her face. A few cars passed by on Rue du Marché Saint-Honoré, but the sidewalks were devoid of people. She wondered what it would be like to hear the sound of horns or the screech of brakes like what she had read in stories and on the TV.

Staring into the distance, Claire thought of the dead woman. Did she have a family? A husband? Children who would miss her? Did they live in Paris or one of the outlying towns?

After a while, Claire returned to bed and read another chapter in Richmond’s book.

***

Her next recollection was waking to streams of sunlight through the slats in the blinds. The bedside clock showed 8:22. She crawled out of bed and picked up Richmond’s book off the floor.

Before dressing, Claire went straight to the front door. She looked at the deadbolt then twisted it to be sure it was still locked. She did the same for each of the windows and the balcony door.

Breakfast was her usual: two cups of coffee, a pain au chocolat. She loved the puff pastry-like texture with the dark chocolate treasure in the center. She took a second bite while re-reading her written description of the killer.

***

Claire arrived at the Palais de Justice shortly before nine on Sunday. The judicial police building was located on the Île de la Cité, the same island as the Notre-Dame Cathedral. The headquarters was a three-story building with turrets overlooking the Seine River and took up the entire block.

Inspector Gagne sat her in a room with only a table, four chairs, and four white walls. Claire wrapped her arms around herself to stop trembling and looked around the room. This was her first time in a police interview room.

A woman detective introduced herself through French sign language as Inspector Valliant. She explained through sign how the interview would proceed. First, Gagne would ask Claire a question, and Valliant would interpret it in sign to her. Claire would sign her answer back to Valliant, who would in turn translate it to Gagne.

Claire related her observation of the woman entering the bathroom. The killer hovered outside the door while she admired some artwork, then entered. A few minutes later, he walked out as if nothing had happened. Claire had expected the woman to emerge but never did. Curious, she entered the restroom and found the woman on the floor. Claire described collecting towels to try to stop the bleeding. She fished her notepad out, wrote the three words the woman spoke, and pushed it over to Valliant.

While Gagne read the three words, Claire signed to Valliant a description of her scuffle with the man as she left the Louvre. Asked why she didn’t report it to Gagne, Claire responded that she was scared and just wanted to get out. When asked what he looked like, Claire took out the sheet of paper she’d used to memorialize details about the man.

Once the hour-long interview concluded, Gagne had her sign a formal statement that contained more detail than the one she had written earlier. He returned her camera, then handed Claire his business card. He asked that she not leave Paris, as he might need her for a second interview and identification.

Valliant asked her in sign, Do you have family, perhaps siblings to stay with for safety reasons?

Claire signed back, I have plenty of siblings. I’m a triplet but the other two are in Texas. She thought of Megan and Boyd.

Claire met with the police artist and Valliant to create a likeness of the man she saw entering and leaving the lady’s restroom . . . the man who’d attacked her.

Driven home by a police officer, Claire stopped at a little food cart outside her building. It was closer to lunch so her appetite had soared. Claire treated herself to a foot-long ham and cheese baguette. The cart also had freshly made crepes, so she got one topped with Nutella. Changing her mind about a second visit to the Louvre, Claire looked up and down the street before punching in the code to unlock the main door to her apartment building. She picked up her mail and climbed the stairs to the third floor.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sunday, May 8th

Martin visited the three places—two shops and a café—where Roche had stopped.

"Bonjour, Martin said to the first shop’s worker. I misplaced a thumb drive . . . a red one, and I was wondering if one had been turned in here?"

Wait while I check.

A short time later, the worker returned, shaking his head. Not here.

"Merci."

At the second shop and at the café, Martin asked the same question and got the same answer. Empty-handed, he headed back to the Louvre. As he crossed Rue Rivoli, another question that neither he nor his boss had considered came to mind. What if the photographer was Roche’s contact? Of course, he told himself. Roche had to buy a ticket for the Louvre. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that the photographer was near the bathroom when Roche hurried in.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up. That’s it, he told himself. She was there to meet with the photographer. Roche must’ve passed the flash drive to her before she entered the restroom.

That would explain why he couldn’t find it on her person when he searched her. The question now was whether she handed the device over to the cops. If he knew what was on the drive, he’d have a better idea if the photographer had. Stopping outside the Carrousel entrance, he pulled out his cell phone and called his employer.

It’s me.

Please tell me you have the flash drive.

No, but I think I know what happened to it.

I’m all ears.

Martin explained his theory about the photographer being Roche’s contact and receiving the thumb drive before Roche went into the restroom.

I can see how that may have happened, but you don’t know for sure. For all you know, Roche could’ve concealed it in a place you couldn’t check.

That’s possible.

Another possibility is her body cavities.

"Oh yeah. That’d look great. Me having her panties down and checking her body cavities when a woman walks in.

Whatever. Anyway, we have three possibilities. If the cops have it, I’ll find out through a contact. Meanwhile, you have to check out the other two.

I’m on it. In Martin’s thinking, going back into