The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “And the stems?” he asked Bernard. “How do they get the stems off?”

  The older man shrugged, his grimy shirt and vest jerking with his motion. He jabbed a hand downward as if a bomber airplane were diving.

  “Into the crusher, bien sûr," he said. “It will spit out the stems...” He demonstrated this, neatly avoiding Laurent’s shirtfront. “...and squeeze the juice from the grape.” To illustrate, he clapped his hands together to form a vice.

  Laurent nodded and plopped the grapes back into their basket. It was a good haul. He’d harvested the hundred and fifty baskets for Cortier for a neat little profit, with enough grapes left over to press his own wine under his own label. He glanced out to his fields and watched the variations of blue shirts and overalls of the pickers. How much was left? Another hundred baskets? He felt very good. His own wine. He would be making his own label. After all, how difficult can it be? The hard part is done: the months of sun and rain and careful pruning. The wine he bottled would be as good as the grapes. And the grapes were good.

  In the distance, Laurent could hear the slow rumbling of a large truck as it approached. He clapped Bernard on the shoulder and got an amiable grunt from the man in reply.

  “You did well, Monsieur,” Bernard said, shifting his filthy cloth cap from his filthy head to his no less filthy hands.

  “You mean, my uncle did well. I did nothing to grow these grapes.” Laurent spread his hands in the direction of the grape baskets.

  “You did well by him,” Bernard said again. Delacort wasn’t the kind of man to soften a truth by lying or restructuring it.

  Laurent moved a step toward the sound of the truck as it began its slow, lumbering assault up his winding driveway.

  And next year, Laurent thought, as he gestured to the driver and began directing the truck’s approach with his hands, the credit for the wine―good or bad, drinkable or merde, will be mine and mine alone.

  3

  “She’s pregnant, you know...Babette. The girl that Lydie was going on about last night?” Grace waited for the point to register as she sipped her café au laît and pushed her sunglasses back onto her nose. Even in early November, the glare from the morning Provençal sun was brutal.

  “The girl who works in the boulangerie," Maggie said, helping herself to another croissant and then daintily wiped the buttery flakes from her fingers with her napkin.

  “The one, yes.” Grace smiled. “Pretty little thing if you’ve seen her.”

  “Just a glance. Why was Lydie busting a gut over Babette being the niece of Madame and Monsieur Marceau?”

  Grace laughed, her merriment like a little bell ringing pleasantly in the quiet café. It had been Maggie on the phone during her morning shower and the answering machine had been on. Arrangements for coffee that same day were as easy as pulling on respectable clothes. No need to ask where― there was only Le Canard, no need to ask how to get there ―they were both within biking distance―even walking distance, if one had to. For Grace, the sheer pleasure of having a new friend so close, so accessible, had taken the sting out of this morning’s parting with Taylor, had helped muffle the memory of the harsh words with Windsor the night before.

  “Maggie,” Grace said. “Lydie doesn’t care who Babette is related to.”

  “But she―”

  “No, she was rubbing Connor’s nose in something.”

  “Well, that Connor had slept with this Babette-person, right?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Are Lydie and Connor, like, a match? Engaged?”

  Grace shook her head, her soft blonde curls bouncing gently. “No, no, nothing like that.” Grace grinned and stirred more sugar into her coffee, “But see, Lydie isn’t from around here. She’s from Marseille. So to have Connor take up―even briefly―with a village girl, well...it’s embarrassing, you see.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud.”

  Grace laughed again. “I never said she was brilliant.”

  “She sounds like an idiot.”

  “Ahh, but her winning personality makes up for her lack of brain cells, don’t you think?”

  This time, they both laughed.

  “And so, I guess, the baby’s Connor’s, right?” Maggie said, more seriously.

  “That’s the general consensus,” Grace said, stirring more sugar into her coffee. “I’ve not actually approached him on the subject.”

  “Do you intend to?”

  Grace stopped stirring her coffee cup. “Poor little peasant girl victimized by big, bad Yank, you mean?”

  “Something like that.”

  Grace sipped her coffee and grimaced. “Why do they all make it industrial strength?” She smoothed out her napkin and eyed the plate of croissants. “I don’t know, Maggie. I kind of thought it was none of my business, I guess.”

  Maggie thought about this for a moment and drank her own café au laît from a bright blue bowl. She and Grace Van Sant sat outside, their wicker-backed chairs making wonderful woven-basket designs of shadow against the flagstone terrace. A clot of dead leaves scuttled across the café floor as a cool breeze softened the sun’s glare.

  “Will she have it?” Maggie asked, pushing her unopened copy of Nice-Matin away from her plate. “Do you know?”

  Grace shook her head and looked at Maggie.

  “Look, don’t think too badly of Connor...”

  “No, no, I don’t.” Maggie smiled. “I like Connor. He’s funny and I get a sense from him that he’s authentic, you know? That he’s not a fake.”

  “It’s true.” Grace nodded. “He really is. This Babette thing included, you know? I mean, I can’t imagine our Connor having a go at the local talent under false pretenses, you know? I mean, why should he bother? He’s rich.”

  “Is he?” Maggie noticed a couple of the village workmen in their dark blue caps, shirts and baggy trousers, settling down at one of the other tables. The café had belonged only to the American women up until now. Each of the men had a large meat pie―their morning casse-croûte―and a small jar of pastis. “He mentioned he had a trust...” Maggie said absently.

  “Yeah, no kidding. He not only has a trust, he has access to heap-biggum investment funds for just about whatever kind of project he’d like to involve himself with. Millions at his disposal, I take it.”

  “Is he into that sort of thing? Investing and commerce and stuff?

  Grace made a face, as if the thought of Connor and business intertwined was too ludicrous to imagine. “Right now he’s into being the biggest, most charming goof-off in the northern hemisphere, you know?”

  They both laughed.

  “He’s eating and screwing and laughing his way through the latter part of his thirties.”

  “So, he’s not really an artist.”

  “Oh, he is! He is!” Grace said quickly. “He’s very talented. You’ll have to see his studio. He’s done lots of really neat pieces. It’s mostly found art, you know.”

  “‘Found art.’ You mean, like, garbage?”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly. Garbage.” Grace laughed. “And he’s really good at it. I tell him all the time.”

  “But...” Maggie began.

  “But, no, he’s not going to make a living at it. It’s a hobby.” Grace shrugged. “You know, like having a thing you do to help you think you do something that matters in the world?”

  Maggie winced inwardly, thinking of her own current career confusion. “You mean a project to do in between all the eating and screwing?” she said lightly.

  “Exactly!”

  They both burst out laughing again. Grace placed her cool, perfectly manicured hand on top of Maggie’s smaller one. “God, I’m glad you’re here! I’ve been desperate for a real, honest to God girlfriend. You know?”

  As Maggie smiled back at Grace, it occurred to her that she’d been a little desperate for the same thing.

  4

  Connor eyed the gaggle of nuns and their giggling herd of schoolchildren from the corner of the taxi
cab. His driver had just slammed to a stop to avoid broadsiding the little picture postcard scene of post-war France, and the position of Connor’s internal organs was returning to their original places. To top it off, the man was drenched in aftershave and smelled like a bowl of gardenias flung into a sewer.

  A French sewer.

  Arles was an unpleasant place, Connor decided, as he dragged his eyes from the back of his driver’s large greasy head. Surely there’s a sanitarium somewhere that has a missing persons bulletin out on this lunatic. He stared out the window at the now-stationary road-side setting of ugly, rust-brown patio furniture that called itself a café, abutting a nasty stoma of a store front, its awning stretched out like green-vined tendrils, the fringe fluttering like so many languid, dirty fingers wagging at him. He sat in the back of the taxi as the merry little group passed, the skipping children dressed identically in dark blue capes and stockings and caps, herded by the smiling nuns in their stark black headdresses and sweeping gowns. None of this calf-length stuff for French nuns, Connor noted, as the group disappeared down an alleyway.

  He braced his arms against the back of the front seat in anticipation of his driver’s urgency to hurry to the next near-miss. Nuns that smile, he thought, as he shook his head. The ancient façade of the Roman amphitheater rushed by. And French cab drivers that actually attempt to avoid hitting them. Quel pays mysterieux!

  He hated Arles. It was ugly, mired in dog shit and choked with tourists. Its good restaurants were few and too expensive (thanks to the tourists). But Marseille was even worst―riddled with crime, grime and too many false bouillabaisse. But he loved Marseille. He loved its dangers, its tackiness, its ignobility and shame. He’d found the sweet, demented Lydie there, hadn’t he? The taxi took another sharp swerve and Connor groped for a handle to secure himself. He needn’t have bothered. Within a microsecond of the two-wheeled turn, the driver had slammed to a stop and was now twisted around to face his passenger. “Deux cent francs,” the driver said, his throat rattling with the phlegm caused by too many Gauloises.

  Connor peeled off the franc notes and handed them over. These French are clever, he decided, as he slammed the taxi door and glanced up at the gaily welcoming restaurant façade of Le Vacarres. They know you wouldn’t pay two hundred francs for a measly taxi ride...but for your life? For the chance to cheat death and live to enjoy another meal? Perhaps father children? Plant a vegetable garden? Write a book? Ahh! This was worth two hundred francs.

  He saw his man immediately on the eastern portion of the elegant café, not hidden, but hardly front and center either. He could see he’d already ordered a large Pernod. No local pastis for him, Connor thought as he picked his way toward the table. Connor had been curious when Monsieur had called last night to arrange the meeting. After all, they’d not even been on nodding terms after their last...discussion. He called to mind, briefly, the accusations, the insinuations. Yes, he thought as he approached the table, squinting against the late morning sun, today’s meeting would prove to be very interesting.

  The older man turned as Connor reached him and pulled out the other chair for himself. Neither man offered to shake hands. The seated man looked at Connor grimly, his face set in a visage of determination and controlled hatred.

  Connor seated himself.

  “Good afternoon, Monsieur Marceau,” he said, almost tauntingly.

  5

  Maggie eased herself into the driver’s seat of the car, her head aching slightly from the effects of nearly five cups of coffee. Grace had left their coffee-into-lunch rendez-vous to do some shopping in Aix. Funny, she doesn’t talk about her daughter very much, Maggie thought as she started up the little car. Thank goodness. Few things were more excruciatingly boring to Maggie than hearing in minute detail the cutenesses wrought by other people’s children. She thought of her niece, Nicole. With her picture-perfect politeness, Nicole was the quintessential French girl. Her little-girl English was still tinged with charming spots of French, her eyes were bright and lively. She was always ready to jump up and fetch you another cup of this, to shut the window, answer the door, evacuate her yapping terrier from a social group. Where had she learned all that? Maggie wondered. Where had she learned to be a perfect child? So French, so pleasingly ingratiating that not even American TV could destroy her sense of style and spirit. Nicole had been an abused child before she came to live with Maggie’s parents. But she was making a remarkable comeback at seven years of age.

  Maggie drove to the edge of the village, its narrow streets lapping up onto the curbs with the dust of the streets. There was a light violet stain to all the narrow roads of St-Buvard these days, the residue of the grapes that currently obsessed the village, from the landowners to the pickers to the negociateurs to the tradespeople to the eventual drinkers.

  She had to shop for the evening meal to which Laurent had―without consulting her―invited the Marceaus. It was annoying. Not only was she relegated to the position of fetcher and carrier of the groceries (Laurent would prepare the meal), but she would have to sit through what she was sure was going to be an endless documentary this evening, narrated by Eduard and Laurent, on grapes: the growing of, the picking of, the crushing of, the eventual drinking of. Danielle seemed an unlikely candidate for introducing any other topic into the mix, or for doing anything, for that matter, except nodding vigorously at the wine-facts of her husband.

  Maggie parked the car in front of the boulangerie. It was going to be a long evening.

  Madame Renoir sang a happy greeting to her from behind the counter when Maggie entered the little shop. The shop owner’s ruddy cheeks were spanked white with flour and Maggie could just imagine the gesture that produced the marks: two chubby hands flying to even chubbier cheeks with a Mon Dieu! over some burnt cupcakes or a too-runny icing. Maggie bonjour-ed back and took in a deep breath of the wonderful, yeasty smells emanating from the ovens behind the woman.

  “Comme ça va, Madame?" the stout baker asked, her eyebrows shooting up like two inverted commas. She held a huge tray of bread loaves in her hands as she spoke, and Maggie guessed that a good deal of the baker’s apparent blubber must be pure muscle.

  “Bien, bien," Maggie answered, hoping the woman wouldn’t decide to launch into a long conversation without a translator handy. Maggie didn’t see the infamous Babette in the shop today. “Je voudrais du pain," Maggie said, pointing to one of the large baguettes in the display case. Better make it two, she thought. We can eat what’s left over for breakfast. “Deux pains," she said, holding up two fingers. "S’il vous plaît."

  The baker put down her tray of bread loaves and immediately began to chatter in French. Maggie shrugged, held her hands up in a broad gesture of incomprehension and continued to point to the long, flour-dusted torpedoes of bread.

  “She wants you to tell her ahead of time when you will be coming for your bread.”

  Maggie turned to see Babette standing quietly behind her, a dustpan in one hand. The girl wore a flat, disinterested look and stared directly into Maggie’s eyes. Her coarse blonde hair was plaited in dozens of swinging braids, her face was dramatically made up with blue eyeshadow. Mascara clotted her lashes but whether by design or as the result of having been slept in the night before, Maggie couldn’t tell.

  Immediately, Madame Renoir spoke to Babette, and raised the volume on her babbling. The girl snarled something back at her and then turned to Maggie as if the ordeal of living was being made compoundedly more difficult by each moment that passed.

  “You tell her,” Babette said wearily, “and she holds it back for you. These are extras.” She jerked her head at the bread loaves that Madame Renoir was now stuffing into a bag for Maggie. “You were lucky today. Most people reserve. Comprenez-vous?"

  Maggie nodded, grateful for the girl’s English, if not her attitude. She thanked her but didn’t really want to invite further conversation. She found herself embarrassed by what she knew about the girl. Embarrassed to be Connor’s countrywoman.r />
  To Maggie’s dismay, the girl leaned against the glass pastry display counter and continued.

  “I am seeing your husband,” she said, glancing down at Maggie’s dark, straight skirt and dark hose. “He comes for brioche. You do not bake brioche for him at home?”

  Maggie took the bread from Madame Renoir and dug out the correct change from her purse.

  “Not yet, anyway,” she said pleasantly.

  “Your husband is a very handsome man,” Babette continued. “Rich, too, I am thinking.”

  Maggie nearly laughed in the girl’s face.

  Was she trying to make her jealous?

  “Well, thanks, anyway, Mademoiselle, for all your help,” she said as she paid Madame Renoir.

  "Il n’y’a pas de quoi," the girl answered with a shrug.

  Before she could leave, Madame Renoir spoke rapidly to Babette who then turned to Maggie.

  “Madame is making many special gâteaux tomorrow,” she said in a bored voice. “Will she reserve one for you?”

  Maggie nodded at Madame Renoir. "Oui, merci," Maggie said. “Deux, peut-être?"

  The little baker beamed broadly and jerked her head down in a single, affirming movement.

  Maggie gave a farewell nod to the decidedly snotty Babette, now standing with arms crossed in front of her chest and leaning against the counter.

  “Au revoir, Mademoiselle," Maggie said.

  "Et vous, aussi, Madame," Babette said. “Or should I also say ‘Mademoiselle’?”

  Maggie turned and walked briskly back to the car. She shifted the long, awkward loaves in her arms, her head bent down intently. Before she reached her waiting car, Maggie collided with the running form of Gaston Lasalle.

  The air knocked out of her in an agonizing whoosh that she heard even as she made it, Maggie sat gasping and holding her scratched knee on the cracked and dirty curb in front of the village post office. Gaston had only stumbled when he hit her. Now he stood over her uncertainly, clenching and unclenching his hands. His dark hair was wild about his face in startled layers, like a black dogwood tree, Maggie thought in her daze.