Interlude: Police Work

Previous Story: Short Story The Belle of the Ball  Next Story:   Eighties Europop drifted through the cool darkness of Stilette's Vault. Bastion and Bastille, sanctuary and sanctum, it was her home of homes and nerve-center, and more importantly, where she kept the Collection. Thousands of shoes, found, stolen, and purchased, arranged by color, size, and means of "acquisition". Each shoe had its own little story to tell, and Stilette knew them all by heart. Memories of adventure and passion filled her as she strode nearly nude, save for a pair of practically opaque black diamond patterned stockings, through the corridors housing the Collection.    Her lips mouthed lyrics sweetly as ...
Next Story: Short Story A Strange GirlPrevious Story:Next Story: Warning: This story contains mature situations and sexual themes.     "Paige Bonnaire!? I haven't heard that name in ages," Angelique Martin said, her voice a flustered mix of surprise and worry. Her English was perfect; her accent nearly undetectable. "Who exactly did you say you were?"     "My name is Penelope Shear. I'm with the police in the United States. I know that my authority doesn't extend across the Atlantic, but I need your help." Penny's voice betrayed a desperate tenor behind her words, something she would've kept in check were she speaking with anyone in a position of authority or making the...

    "Allô?" Inspector Clairemont repeated through the poor transatlantic connection. "Allô?"
    "Yes, inspector, hello!" He heard a woman's voice speak in English over the line.
    "Ah," Clairemont mentally mustered his English. "You are Officer Shear, yes?"
    "Yes, inspector."
    "Superbe. I must admit, your expediency is surprising. I've only finished speaking with the liaison some minutes ago." Clairemont tucked the old-fashioned phone receiver between his cheek and shoulder as he sat down.
    "I hope you don't mind, sir, but I'm not much for waiting." Penny paced behind her desk in her stockinged feet, her pumps off, one hand cupped over her free ear to drown out the din of the office pool around her.
    "An exemplary attitude for a police officer," Clairemont said as he pulled his laptop closer. "Interpol said you actually had contact with her?"
    "Yes sir. We," Penny shuddered as she paused, "exchanged words briefly before she escaped."
    "That is a rather small club as I understand it. This 'Stilette' is frustratingly evasive." Clairemont's fingers flew across the keys as he logged in.
    "That's what the liaison from Interpol said." Penny eased into her desk chair, her toes fishing around for her new work pumps till she found them and gripped the back of the heelcups with her toes.
    "Ah, here we are.  I'm sorry about this not being included with the orange notice. Bureaucracy will be the doom of the world, I'm afraid. Or at least, the efforts of the OPJ to coordinate with extra-national law enforcement." Clairemont sighed dryly as his eyes scanned Stilette's file. "Now, I suppose you have some questions?"
    "Yes. I've read everything in the issued notices, but I'm surprised by the lack of any concrete details. For someone who's been high-profile this long, there aren't any early life details, concrete identity filings, nothing. It would be impossible for a private citizen with a public identity to evade an ID for this long."
    "Indeed. When I was still with theft, I was just as mystified. Of course, I gave up the ghost after the Beaucoup Etagères robbery. Terrible business that."
    "I'm not familiar," Penny said as she leaned forward, her toes leaving her shoes again as she folded her ankles under her chair.
    "I will spare you the haranguing I received at the time, but it was the last, let us say, ugly theft that mademoiselle Stilette perpetrated in this country, and a devastating embarassment for the police judiciaire. Everything since has been higher-profile and more professional, and most fortunately with far less collateral fall-out." Clairemont cleared his mind of the unpleasantness of the fire and the devastation. "If you've noticed a count of arson in the red notice, that would be why."
    "I see." Penelope shook her head as she jotted down notes on a pad of paper, her knees bouncing rapidly under the desk.
    "But, a diversion, you've called for information Interpol didn't have, and I am happy to provide it."
    "Thank you. I wondered, inspector, about missing persons. Have there been any efforts to identify her that way? Before she turned pro, so to speak, her old life."
    "Ah indeed, indeed I know that was pursued. After the Etagères, the judiciary leaned on the OPJs heavily to put an end to this Stilette's career before it could take off any further. Every avenue was pursued at the time, but this was twelve years ago. Memories fade but records do remain." Clairemont paused as Penny heard his mouse clicking and key tapping. "Ugh. It seems the relevant notes are not transcribed digitally."
    "I see. What about the hard copies?" Penny followed up half a breath after Clairemont had finished speaking.
    "Well, it is likely they exist, but I warn you, it could be a rather nightmarish task to go excavating for them."
    Penny planted her feet on top of her pumps and pulled them closer before wiggling into them. "Is there any way you could check? I hate to be insistent inspector, but," Penny was saying before Clairemont cut her off.
    "I can, officer, I can. It is a bit of a drive from my office, but I can after shift change. But please, let's use our time wisely. There are other records I can access immediately."
    "Thank you, inspector. Uhm, yes," Penny said as she flipped her pad of paper to a fresh page. "What about related petty thefts preceding her larger stunts?"
    "In the file here, I see that a number of APJs followed up on similar leads and unsolved petty crimes. Jewelry, valuables, that sort of thing. No firm connections were found."
    "What about shoes?" Penny asked enthusiastically, her hosed toes wriggling inside her pumps.
    "Oh, you mean her garment thefts? Well, it was assumed that was always secondary to other valuables. Why do you ask?"
    "I think that's the real crux of her game, inspector." Penny's eyes narrowed. She unconsciously pushed her feet deeper into her pumps.
    "An interesting theory, I suppose. From the records here, I'm not seeing any previous connections as such, but I can run that today while I work."
    "I would be grateful, sir."
    "Easily done, officer. You'll hear from me sometime later. I know it's a six-hour difference in timezones, but should I call you regardless of the hour?"
    "Absolutely." Penny gave Clairemont her cell number before letting him go. She rubbed her eyes. It was almost two in the morning local time, well past the end of her usual shift. She pushed back from her desk, cluttered as it was with everything she could find on Stilette.
    It had been four days since the incident at Armigen Manor, and her thoughts hadn't exactly cleared. A complicated tangle of feelings and motives drove Penelope as she continued her investigation off the books. Career advancement, achievement, guilt for failing to make the arrest, and an indescribable sense of attraction that left her conflicted internally; all this and more boiled inside Shear as she worked and even slept. She needed some kind of vindication, some closure with that thief. Parts of her wanted something different, but it felt foolish and embarrassing; so much so she didn't even give those feelings voice in her mind.
    Laboring under this emotional torrent, Shear headed home for the day, making sure her smartphone's ringer was as loud as possible just in case she heard from Inspector Clairemont sooner rather than later.

    Clairemont clicked on the little flashlight he carried with him as he entered the old records building under-levels. He carried his phone in his off-hand and occasionally glanced at the records reference number glowing on the screen.
    The bones of the old way of policing surrounded him, modular track shelving, some together and others spaced apart, towering about him as he followed half-visible signs in the dark. The first faint whiffs of moisture and mildew tickled at his nostrils as he made his way deeper.
    The Plan France Vert legislation was responsible for the darkness. Governmental buildings were mandated to cut their carbon footprint significantly. Now, Clairemont squinted at placards, vaguely regretting he'd voted for it or at least, that he hadn't made it here before the day's light's-off time.
    Finally arriving at the right section, Clairemont set to work. The turn handle on the track shelving held fast as he put his weight into it. "Mon Dieu," the inspector groaned. The turn handle gave way finally, and the shelves began to separate. Wiping his brow with his coat sleeve, he slid in between the shelves and began to scan for the right reference number on the many boxes.

    Penny tossed and turned in bed. Her apartment was spartan and sparsely furnished, save a few watercolors her mother had painted in college. She slung her forearm across her forehead as she rolled onto her back. She'd need to get up for work soon. A frustrated sigh left her as she glanced one more time at her phone on the nightstand.
    She thought about Stilette's shoe hidden under her bed. Tucked safely away inside a shoe box appropriately enough, with her own left-over work pump, its mate long gone with Stilette. She couldn't explain why she kept them. They were just things, she had already rationalized to herself. But something in her made them more than that.
    Penelope rolled onto her side and pulled her legs up. She recalled the feeling of Stilette's breath on the back of her neck as the thief hand-cuffed her. Her toes curled into one another as she bent her knees. "You have very cute toes, Penelope." She heard Stilette say in her mind, the thief's accent tickling her ears. As her ankles closed together, she remembered the feeling of Stilette's stockinged foot gliding betwixt them, right out of her shoe. The very shoe she left behind.
    Penelope buried her face back in her pillow with a groan and tried to ignore the sensations coursing through her body...

    His back sore from reaching, Clairemont rested the box he'd just pulled down on a chest high shelf as he cast the lid down. His fingers flipped over thick plastic-sealed and well taped up file folders until he found the one he was looking for. This was more than some favour to an American policewoman he'd never met. This was a chance to scratch an itch he'd had for more than a decade. He thought he was over it, but the second he'd heard from that Interpol liaison about Stilette's latest escape, his heart had lurched.
    Clairemont tucked the investigation folder under his arm after tidying up his rummaging, sealed the shelves again with less protest from the turn handle this time, and began to make his way out of the records building. Shoes, he thought again. It was true, each take leading up to the Etagères incident had included some garment theft. At the time, when the OPJ was building its profile of the thief, they simply took it for class envy or desideration for luxury. Maybe the American was on to something.
    He remembered vividly the heat on his face, the crushing sense of breathlessness. Through the flame and acrid smoke he saw her, a slip of a girl in street clothes, not at all like the daring cat burglar Interpol put on notice. Just as surprised by the intensity of the explosion and the flames as the police were, she staggered backwards, stumbling out of one of her canvas sneakers. Instead of fleeing and running in the face of the inferno, she stopped and picked up her shoe. It could have cost her her life.
    It was a little thing, but he still remembered it. In light of Officer Shear's theory, it gave him pause. Maybe that was the trick to unraveling the mysterious Stilette. With the missing persons notes and leads in the file and era appropriate petty theft records waiting on his laptop, Clairemont felt his first blush of professional excitement in years.

    Penny stood outside booking with a few other officers. A drunk-and-disorderly wasn't going quietly, and she and a few others were watching how a couple of rookies handled themselves. It was a pleasant enough diversion that even managed to push Stilette out of her mind for a few minutes. Then her phone buzzed and warbled loudly.
    Penelope ducked out of booking and headed toward her desk. "Inspector?" She asked immediately, an unfortunate hint of desperation trailing her words.
    "Yes, Officer Shear," a tired Clairemont said over the line. "I have two things for you: a name and a bill for my chiropractor."
    "Whatever you want," Penny said, a genuine smile lifting her lips.
    Clairemont chuckled at the goodwill in her voice. "Missing persons has a cold case opened in 1999 on a woman named Paige Bonnaire. Paige had a minor criminal record before her disappearance, mostly what you might call juvenile sanctions: public disturbance, possession of a controlled substance, and two counts of petty theft, neither heard in court, but both involving garment theft, though the particulars are not immediately available. And, on a final, probably irrelevant note, she did not take her Baccalauréat exam before her disappearance."
    Penny jotted things down furiously as she settled into her chair. "What about vitals? And are there any pictures?" She kicked her legs out under her desk and raked them back, letting the carpet pull her pumps off.
    "Vitals, yes. Pictures, sadly not. But what I'm seeing makes her a possible match with, well, what little we both have seen of her. I'll be forwarding this to Interpol, purely for informational purposes. I'll take pictures and email them to you first. It's not strictly legal but there is little else I can do I'm afraid. And who knows how long it will take for Interpol to reissue the relevant notices."
    "How do you mean? I thought your people would want to be all over this? This could be a huge break." Penny leaned forward, planting the balls of her feet on the struts of her office chair.
    "Frankly, the current regime in the judiciary is happy to forget all about Stilette." Clairemont, his phone on speaker, sighed and poured a splash of cream into a glass of dessert liqueur. "The investigation and its lack of results are largely seen as an embarrassment as I said. And, when her thefts do happen these days, they are now so precise, narrowly focused and out of the public eye, that most consider the 'price' of her take fair trade for the lack of public outcry or newspaper screeds about police incompetence."
    "What about other countries? The notice listed something like a third of EU nations plus China, Japan, and the Emirates." Penny looked shocked.
    "And it will be Interpol's job to reissue the relevant information to member states for the pursuit of their investigations. I'll report this to my superiors, have no doubt, but I do not expect anything to come from it here. Unless she should do something to force the judiciary out of its complacency on the matter." Clairemont snorted sardonically after a sip of his drink.
    Penny furrowed her brow. "I understand, inspector. I'll wait for the copies you're sending me."
    "Officer Shear, I sympathize. I do. I nearly lost my life at Beaucoup Etagères. And I would, were I in the position, see this woman brought to French justice. I even let myself hope that she will be one day. Until then, we can but do our duty. Mine is here. Yours is there. Perhaps she shall pass through our respective nets again, eh?"
    "I hope so," Penny heard herself say in a more emotional way than she'd intended. She cleared her throat. "If I should piece anything together, I'll let you know. I'll let the whole damn world know." Penny said sternly if a bit exasperatedly.
    "That is the spirit. Au revoir, Officer Shear."
    "Goodbye, Inspector Clairemont." Penny ended the call and dropped her phone to her desk. She blew a loose fly-away out of her face and gripped the edge of her desk in frustration.

    Stilette wondered just how Clairemont had such a nice home. A townhouse in this particular arrondissement, this side of the Seine, should be a bit above his station. The small garden in the rear gave ready access to the requisite trellis that allowed a clear means of egress for her.
    Slipping inside required little effort on her part. She was kitted for light work tonight, so her bodysuit was adorned with a minimum of accessories. She'd dressed for movement though and wore tight black savate shoes instead of her more signature boots.
    It was nicely appointed inside. The inspector either had rare taste or had the benefit of someone who did. She crept quietly downstairs to where she'd observed Clairemont with the files. As soon as her foot touched the ground floor, Clairemont clicked on a lamp.
    "Bonjour," he said gamely. The glock in his hand casually drifted in Stilette's direction.
    "I suppose I am to commend you for your vigilance?" Stilette said, her form still, but tense and ready to move. She had faith in the impossible fibers and composites of her bodysuit, but she knew first-hand the lethality of a stray round here or there.
    "I know when I am being followed, madame." The gray of Clairemont's moustache twisted into a vague smile. "You have developed since the last I saw of you." His voice was nostalgic. Stilette's narrowing brow and slight pout told him all he needed. "I was at Etagères when it burned," he said, letting the words space and trickle out like verse.
    Stilette shrugged. "We all make mistakes," she said, a hint of shame nowhere to be found.
    "Clearly," Clairemont said dryly, his glock never wavering. "I must applaud you on your expediency." Clairemont chuckled. "Much like Officer Shear. You seem to waste no time."
    Stilette hid any inkling of recognition in her features as she heard Penelope's surname. "When police judiciare gets a call from Interpol about me, I find it's in my best interest to investigate."
    "Ah, insider information. I should not be surprised."
    "Interpol's based in Lyon after all. It pays to keep a loyal flip on the inside." Stilette remained semi-crouched, her profile not nearly narrow enough to her liking while she remained in the line of fire.
    "I would wager you are not yet privy to the files' contents?"
    "Not at present," Stilette gestured toward the coffee table were they all lay.
    "Regardless of what you think you'll accomplish by stealing them, I've already dispatched copies to Officer Shear. For an American, she seems to have a good head on her shoulders."
    Stilette smirked. "Yes she does." A moment of silence washed between them. "What happens now?"
    "I am going to try to arrest you. Having read the purple notice, I'm not confident in my chances, but we can but do our duty."
    "You are quite the policeman, inspector." Stilette whispered.
    "Thank you, Ms. Bonnaire," Clairemont said as he stood. Stilette hadn't heard that name in a long time. It didn't shake her as Clairemont crossed to the stairs and produced a zip tie from his pocket, already knocked and looped.
    The first kick came from nowhere. Clairemont, through the stars in his eyes and blood rushing in his ears, faintly heard the pistol hit wall then floor. The second kick dropped him soundly. His last fleeting images of consciousness were of Stilette stepping over him, her lithe arm waving a small canister over his face. Then the feeling of aerosol hissing over his face, the smell of lilac, and finally darkness.
    Stilette briefly scanned the documents as she gathered them up. There it was. Paige Bonnaire. Again and again. A missing person report her father had filed. No pictures, she let relief shudder down her back.
    Still, a faint pang of embarrassment rang within her as she thought of Penelope reading all this. The image and the persona she'd cultivated for herself was very much who she was as Stilette. Paige was someone else. Someone much younger, much dumber, and someone Stilette had spent years unraveling.
    Before leaving, Stilette fished around until she found Clairemont's phone. She noted Penny's cell number, then replaced the phone. She might have to put things in better context for Officer Penelope Shear...

    Penny worked the bag hard in the precinct gym. Jab, right knee, cross, left knee. She grunted rhythmically as time vanished. Sweat glistened on her shoulders and brow as she tried to work out her frustrations, but they weren't easing up.
    After several hours of varied exercises, Penny headed back to the locker room, her shoulder sore. She'd definitely pushed herself too hard. She opened her locker, grabbed her bag, and sat down on the bench. As she dug around inside, she toed her trainers off her heels and slid her socked feet half-way out, letting them crush the backs of her shoes. The feeling of Stilette removing her shoe welled up inside her. She tried to ignore it as she cleared her head and grabbed her phone.
    Her features lit up. It looks like Clairemont did come through. Nice high resolution shots of notes and case files were waiting for her in her inbox. "Thanks, inspector," she said aloud. Buoyed, she hit the showers. Unlike when she bathed at home, her mind didn't wander to her current preoccupation and she finished shortly.
    Penny looked at her phone quizzically after her shower. There was a new message from an unknown number. Her heart skipped a beat as she checked it. A still picture of a much more youthful Stilette greeted her; obviously on film and then captured again with a phone. She was maybe eighteen or nineteen, but it was definitely her. A little small for her age perhaps, clad in 90s fashion and purple fishnets under knee high pink socks, chunky mud-covered untied Doc Martens, and topped with a tousled mop of punky hair a brighter blue than it was now, it was definitely her. She was smoking a cigarette and rolling her eyes at the camera. The caption with the image simply read "Paige, Rue de Prony, 21-12-98."
    Penny, barefoot and half-dressed, sat back down on the bench in puzzlement as she opened the next message from the unknown sender. There was a name, Angelique Martin, and a phone number. Squinting, her nose wrinkled cutely in confusion, Penny swiped back and typed a reply to the new mystery sender.
    "I know this isn't Clairemont. Who is this," she texted. Penny waited, the feeling of moisture evaporating slowly from her body the only stimulus of the outside world she processed.
    A reply chirped. "Someone who likes to play 'hard-to-get'," the response read. Then the message scrolled as multi-media rolled in the conversation. A picture of a lithe hand with well-manicured purple nails possessively clutching Penny's stolen work pump blinked into being on the screen. The imprint of a glossy purple lipstick kiss was visible on the vamp. Penny's cheeks flushed and she shifted anxiously. A final message came after the picture. "But not too hard. Ciao, Penelope." Penelope looked at her phone in stunned silence.