The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “Stupid girl!” she heard him say in French. “Stupid American.” Instead of rushing off, he remained standing near her as she slowly regained her breath.

  Maggie looked around for her bag of bread. The smell of urine and things rotting came flooding up to her from the gutter. To her surprise, Gaston suddenly reached down and grabbed her under the arms. In one swift jerk, he pulled her to her feet, cupping her left breast firmly in his hand. Maggie staggered away from him and fell against the fender of her car. Her eyes darted wildly to the streets for any passersby. The post office was closed. The streets of St-Buvard were vacant.

  “Stupid girl,” the young Frenchman said again, his eyes flashing over her in a way that made Maggie want to be sick all over his dirty leather boots.

  “Get away from me,” she croaked hoarsely, catapulting herself off the car with her hands and away from him. She stopped to pick up her undamaged bread, and watched him over her shoulder as he began walking away.

  Quickly, Maggie got into her car. Her hand was shaking as she turned the key in the ignition box. Before she pulled away from the curb, she leaned over and slammed down the lock on the passenger side door. As she did, she caught sight of Babette standing in the doorway of the boulangerie.

  Babette was smiling.

  Chapter Four

  1

  “No! I hate you! I won’t! No! No!” The child pulled herself to her full height of just over three feet and flung the opened medicine bottle at Windsor who, for some reason unknown to Grace, dodged it instead of catching it. Grace stood behind him and watched in dismay as the bottle fell to the floor and the murky pink liquid seeped into the original coral Isfahan rug beneath their feet.

  “You’re really good with kids, Win. Anyone ever tell you that before?”

  “Shut up!” he yelled, turning towards her. “Just shut the eff up.”

  “How wonderful.” Grace lit another cigarette―her third this morning―and it wasn’t yet eight. “He doesn’t swear around children,” she said to no one in particular. “He just alphabets them.”

  Windsor pushed past her to stand in front of Taylor who was oozing snot down the front of her face and wiping what she could on her clean, pressed school uniform.

  “Taylor, stop that!” he barked, knowing she would ignore him.

  The child began to sob, a whiny, aggressive sort of sobbing that tended to enrage its listeners rather than solicit their sympathy.

  “I don’t want it,” she sobbed, still clutching and smearing at her short little blue tablier.

  “Darling, it’s all right,” Grace said softly to the child.

  “Mommy, I don’t want the medicine.”

  “Yes, yes, Taylor. You don’t have to have it.”

  Windsor whirled on Grace. “What?” he exploded. “And what child care book is that out of?”

  “Look, Windsor, she―”

  “Is that the chapter that says wait until they’ve gone completely haywire before you give in because anything less and you won’t be respected by them? Thanks a lot, Grace...”

  “How can we give her medicine now? First, she’s a total mess―”

  “We can’t now because her mother has validated her insistence that she not have it. After all this,” Windsor waved both arms angrily around the room. “You caved in, Grace.”

  “I did, Windsor, I admit it.” Grace eyed her child with resignation and took another long drag off her cigarette. “Can we clean up the pink goo now?”

  “Touch that bottle and I’ll break your arm,” Windsor said, his body tensed toward her.

  Grace looked at him in frank astonishment. "What?" she said.

  “Mommy, I don’t want to go to school today. I want to stay home with you, Mommy.”

  Taylor edged away from her father and closer to her mother. Taylor’s long, golden mass of curls tumbled into her eyes and down her shoulders. Even at four years of age, the child was intensely vain about her hair, and could be found staring at her image in the mirror for hours, fluffing and tossing and winking at herself. Grace didn’t stop her― although she knew Windsor would have―because they were practically the only times the child wasn’t sneering or whining.

  “Taylor made the mess,” Windsor said, straightening his back and pointing a shaking finger at his first-born. “Taylor will clean it up.”

  “She’s four years―”

  “She can lick, can’t she?”

  “Honestly, Windsor, you’ve come unstrung.” Grace stabbed out her cigarette in a crystal ashtray and marched into the kitchen to get a sponge.

  “Don’t do this, Grace,” Windsor shouted after her.

  “Mommy,” Taylor whimpered, keeping an eye on her irate father.

  Grace returned to the room with a handful of paper towels and a soapy sponge. She looked straight at Windsor.

  “This rug is over ten thousand dollars,” she said to Windsor as she clapped the sponge into little Taylor’s unwilling hand. “But if making a point to a four-year old is more important than saving―”

  “It is,” Windsor said firmly, crossing his arms.

  “This is going to be more trouble than it’s worth, I promise you.” Grace knelt down and smiled at Taylor. “Go on, Taylor, darling. We clean up the messes we make―”

  “No! I don’t want to!” And with that the child pushed past her parents, ran through the globbing pink medicine and fled upstairs. Grace and Windsor could hear the loud bang of the child’s bedroom door slamming shut.

  Grace looked at the little sneaker tracks of pink that now ran the full length of the rug and onto the parquet flooring beyond it.

  “Well,” Grace said, slowly standing from her crouched position. “I’d say that went about as well as could be expected.”

  “The child’s totally out of control, Grace,” Windsor said.

  “I know.”

  “All the shrinks say there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s intelligent, well-adjusted... “

  “Just incredibly bad-tempered.” Grace looked up at him and smiled wanly.

  Windsor grabbed his hair with his hands and pulled. “God,” he said looking at the pink trail. “She’s such a little shit, you know?”

  They both laughed briefly and Grace walked over and put her arms around him. Instantly, he held her in a tight hug. Then, looking into her eyes, he smiled and touched her chin with his finger.

  “We’re not trying to have a baby to replace Taylor, are we?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Grace nuzzled his neck. “It’s nothing like that. If anything, a baby brother or sister will probably settle her down a bit.”

  “You mean like teach her humility or something? Because I gotta tell you, I quake to imagine Taylor jealous.” He gently kissed his wife’s cheek and brushed his fingers against her perfect skin. “You had the last ultrasound yesterday, right? in Aix? How’d it look?”

  “All systems go. Two follicles ready to pop. One last shot tonight to spur ovulation.”

  “And when are we due to do the dirty deed, as it were?”

  They could hear the slow but insistent howl of their daughter from her bedroom upstairs. Grace pulled away from him and laughed.

  “God, do we know what we’re doing?”

  “Probably not.”

  A crashing sound came from the room upstairs directly above their heads.

  “Most assuredly not,” Grace said, sighing, as she moved away from her husband and bent to pick up the sponge that Taylor had dropped. Her head swam just a bit and she righted herself by touching the floor with a hand until the moment passed. Windsor began wadding up paper towels to sop up the worst of it.

  “Two follicles, huh?” he said, without looking up.

  She pointed the sponge at him. “Don’t even think about twins,” she said, and this time they didn’t laugh.

  2

  The grapes were nearly all picked now. One more morning should do it, and for that only half the usual pickers would show up. Today’s workers had departed an hour
ago. Maggie stood in the late afternoon sun with Laurent and enjoyed the strong aroma of lavender and roasted chestnuts in the air. The paths between the vines were lightly stained with red where the too-ripe grapes had fallen and then been trodden.

  The Provence sky seemed higher and broader to Maggie than the Georgia or Florida skies she was used to. She had the sensation of standing on the edge of the world while the intense blueness of the sky reached down to the horizon.

  “Good harvest?” Maggie held Laurent’s hand as they walked. They’d taken to enjoying early evening walks around their house and the surrounding little wood. But because of the activity in the vineyard up to now, this was their first joint survey of the vines.

  Laurent nodded. “Not bad,” he said. "Pas mal." His eyes were also on the horizon as if calculating how many more hectares of land he might need to have an even bigger, more impressive harvest next year.

  “Hard part ahead, I guess,” she said, following his gaze.

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Best part, chérie, “ he said.

  “It means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” She dropped his hand and instead moved closer to him, snuggling under his arm as they walked. “That next year’s harvest is the best.”

  He kissed her on the top of her dark head.

  “But, you know, Laurent, anything can go wrong. If the weather’s bad, or the mistral rips up vines or―”

  “Maggie, Maggie,” Laurent said. “You are not to be worrying.”

  “Because it’s just the experience, right? That’s what’s important. Not the results. Right?” She looked up at him and then out to the stark, blackened vine stakes as they dotted the slowly sloping hillside.

  “Bien sûr,” he said, giving her shoulder a brief squeeze with his hand.

  They walked in silence to the end of the field and then turned to see their farmhouse. It looked very impressive from this distance, Maggie thought. Big and sturdy and wistful somehow. She turned and surveyed the vineyard and wondered where the cypress tree had been that Laurent’s uncle had taken down.

  “You are ready for the dinner tonight?” Laurent asked as he knelt to handle yet another grapeless vine.

  Maggie nodded absently. Two evenings of entertainment in two nights would normally have been grounds for a serious disagreement between them. But she so enjoyed Connor and Grace that she wasn’t looking at the evening as a chance to impress anyone or show off Laurent’s cooking or even worry about whether her guests would see dust-elephants where she thought she had just dusted. Besides, she didn’t feel she knew Windsor very well and this would give her a chance to get better acquainted. Most pleasantly of all, Connor had said that, regretfully, the lovely Lydie would not be able to attend.

  “I am thinking the Marceaus were un peu tense last night, didn’t you think so?” Laurent was still squatting in the dust, examining the vine he held in his hand.

  Maggie watched him closely. She enjoyed seeing his pleasure in their new adventure, even if the whole thing did make her a little uneasy. He stood up and shook loose a Gitane from a compact blue package. He had long ago stopped offering her cigarettes, but habit must have made him feel like he ought to do something, so he always gave her a quick smile before lighting up.

  Maggie turned and looked back toward the house. “Laurent, does it feel creepy to you that a whole family died in our house?”

  Her lover sucked in the tobacco smoke and then exhaled before answering. He shook his head. “The story is that it happened on the...la terrasse..."

  “What do you mean, ‘story’?” Maggie touched one of the vines. It felt cool and hard. “Don’t you believe it happened? You think the whole town made it up and are handing it around as a sort of perverted tourism marketing approach?”

  “I believe that four people are being killed on our front steps...”

  “God, I wish you’d work on your tenses.”

  “...but hanging gypsies? A brave but fallen Resistance hero? And a whole town’s shame?” He smiled mischievously at Maggie. “It makes a very good story, though, no?”

  “Oh, what am I asking you for?” She grinned at him and gave him a gentle slap on the arm. “You don’t know the real story. Even Danielle Marceau said the Englishwoman was seen many times rendezvousing with the handsome and brave Patrick. She told me last night. During one of the few respites from grape lore and logic you and Eduard treated us to.”

  “Ah, yes, and I would trust Madame Marceau’s idea of the facts at any time.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, forget it, dearest darling one.” Maggie waved a hand at him. “I choose to believe it as it was told to me. Spooky, romantic, and tragic.”

  “As you wish.” Laurent took another long drag on his cigarette.

  By the time she arrived home after her run-in with Gaston, Maggie had decided that the man’s liberties were milder than she’d originally thought and certainly not worth upsetting Laurent. She watched him now, smoking and surveying his vineyards―as proud as if he’d pressed every seed into the dark, unyielding earth himself―and tried to envision what he was capable of doing if angered. His past life as a con artist had prompted more guile and lying than any actual physical brutality. And he’d given all that up when he met Maggie. For her part, she’d never known Laurent to be anything but tender and kind.

  Maggie shook the thoughts away, and grabbed his hand again, almost palming his cigarette as she did so. “Oops, sorry, I forgot you had that thing,” she said.

  Laurent took another long drag and then crushed the cigarette out on the ground with his shoe. He held her hand and they began the walk back to the house.

  “You don’t worry about a brush fire taking down all these lovely vines and nasty scrub?” Maggie asked.

  “It would not be that hard to do,” he admitted. “When the mistral shows itself, a little flame anywhere in the area could be very dangereux."

  “Mmmm. You know the people in the village think we are married.”

  “What is this to do with fires?”

  “Nothing. I’m changing the subject. I’ve sated myself on the subject of fires, okay? Now I want to talk about this. Okay?”

  “So, they think we are married. So?”

  “I’m not...I’m not doing anything to disabuse them of the notion, is all.”

  “‘Disabuse’?”

  “Laurent, I’m pretending I’m your wife.” There, it was said. She didn’t look at him but hurried on. “It seemed easier than...It’s what they want to hear and it seems like a harmless thing to―”

  “Maggie.” Laurent stopped walking and pulled Maggie around to face him. He stood, holding her shoulders and watching her. He sighed and looked over her shoulder to the row after row of spiny-topped grapevines, as they stretched up and around to the other side of his beautiful house.

  “Maggie,” he said again, this time speaking to the fields. “You are ma femme today as much as you ever can be. You understand?” He lifted her chin and looked directly into her clear blue eyes. “You are my wife. I believe it, I feel it. The town, pftt!” He made a gesture of disdain in the direction of St-Buvard. “I don’t care what they think. I only care what you think. Okay?”

  She nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

  “You want to marry?” he asked. “Then we will marry. Today! Maintenant!"

  She looked up at him and watched as a grin spread across his face.

  "Je t’aime, chérie," he said softly, then kissed her on the mouth. “When you are ready, Laurent is ready. D’accord?"

  ggie nodded and smiled, wrapping her arms around his neck in a brief but serious hug.

  “Je t’aime you too,” she said.

  3

  November was probably too cool for dining al fresco, but Maggie had wanted to so much that she just heaped extra jackets and some blankets on surrounding outdoor tables next to their main dining table. Laurent, busy with his sauces and filets had left the setting of the stage to her. And she was enjoying it thoroughly. Back home in Atlanta
, she would just set the table, plop down a floral centerpiece of some kind, and make sure the candles weren’t multi-colored waxy nubs. Not much of a stage for Laurent’s always delectable culinary creations.

  At Domaine St-Buvard, things were different.

  In a brick terraced alcove off the back of the house, Maggie had placed (with Laurent’s help) their large oaken dining table. The terrace was bordered by rockroses, plumbago, Bluebeard, Russian sage and wild rosemary. Two olive trees formed a canopy over the table, the fragrance of their long-gone fruit still lingering on their leaves. A row of apple trees kept guard over the less hardy olive trees, protecting them and the little garden terrace for many years from the fierce southern wind. Fringing the bricked terrace was a fragrant bed of lavender.

  Maggie set the table with mismatched china, some of which she had found in the basement of old Uncle Nicolas (she was sure they were worth a fortune, probably the illicit booty of Nazi war criminals). Some she had picked up in town. She set stark white plates beside plates of dancing wildflowers and the faded blue plates of peasant dishware. She created a centerpiece of flowers with twisted grapevines through it. She liked the effect―soft flowers intertwined with the hard, wiry vines. She felt sure Connor would comment on it.

  The breeze that had played gently with her tablecloth arrangements an hour earlier had turned suddenly more aggressive. A few napkins blew off the table onto the dark brick steps leading to the house. She heard the slam of the first set of car doors while she was trying to light the candles. Tossing the matches down, Maggie smoothed a hand down her long hair, cupping the ends where they reached her waist to give them some form, and went to greet her guests.

  Windsor stood by the fender of his black Mercedes, shifting wine bottles and lanterns in his hands as Connor helped Grace out of the car.

  “You brought light!” Maggie clapped her hands together as she emerged from the overgrown garden path that connected the back terrace with the front drive.