The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “Je ne vous comprends pas, Madame,” she said helplessly and shrugged in an exaggerated way, hoping this would motivate Madame Renoir into either hunting down a translator or, even better, giving it up for the night.

  No such luck.

  Madame Renoir took a ragged breath and seemed visibly to attempt to get control of herself. Her fat little hands smoothed and clutched at her long and baggy black wool skirt, which fell to her plump ankles. Her face was lined and troubled, its usual cherubic look absent. Maggie could see the woman had few of her own teeth left and the thought of years and years of sugary, yeasty sweet buns came to mind. Maggie ran her tongue over her own teeth and tried to remember if she’d flossed last night.

  “I have bad news tonight I hear,” the woman said to Maggie, her hands trembling against her knees, her voice cracked and tremulous. “Very bad news I hear,” she said.

  Maggie took the woman’s hand in her own. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me the bad news.”

  A tear creased down Madame Renoir’s heavy cheek and she blinked two more down the same pathway―looking rather like a startled baby owl when she did so, Maggie thought.

  “I am a woman....” Madame Renoir looked up on the top of Maggie’s armoire as if to find her words among the hatboxes and summer straw hats. She looked frantically around the room for a moment and then back to Maggie. She touched a small wooden crucifix around her neck. “...religieux.”

  Maggie nodded encouragingly at the woman. Oh, God. Is Connor telling Pope jokes downstairs or something?

  “Il y a...there is un peché terrible here.”

  A sin. Oh, God, what has Connor been up to? “Madame Renoir...” Maggie began, not really knowing how she could soothe the old woman.

  Madame Renoir shook her head fiercely, still holding onto the tiny crucifix. “Un peché...in my own boulangerie. Comprenez?”

  Maggie frowned and shook her head.

  The baker took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment as if to gather strength. Then, she squeezed Maggie’s hand and spoke in low, sorrowful tones.

  “Babette is...disgraced, Madame,” she said, staring at the floral wallpaper opposite them on the bed.

  Good God, is that what all this is about? Maggie felt her body relax a bit. At least it hadn’t happened in her house. She watched the older woman, so obviously hurt by Babette’s indiscretion, and she couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

  The noise level from below seemed to increase and Maggie heard the front door open, followed by shouting. She couldn’t make out the words but she was glad the commotion seemed to be moving outward and away.

  “I’m sorry, Madame,” Maggie said.

  “I think the village will know,” the woman said miserably. “Babette’s father and mother are aussi disgraced.”

  Maggie heard footsteps coming up the staircase.

  “I’m so sorry, Madame,” Maggie repeated. “What will you do now?”

  Madame Renoir looked at Maggie.

  “Comment?” she said, her plain, chubby face streaked with tears.

  “Well, I mean...” Maggie hoped the steps were heading in her direction. “She’ll continue to work for you, yes? Oui?”

  “Mais, bien sûr, Madame!” The baker pulled out a small square of plain cotton and dabbed at her face with it. She shook her head. “Babette needs the work, you understand?”

  Maggie nodded vigorously.

  “But the disgrace...” Madame Renoir moaned.

  Just then, Elspeth poked her head in the room.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, darling! I thought you were alone.”

  “I am!” Maggie said, jumping up to pull her mother into the room. “I mean, you’re not bothering us.”

  “Well, I’m just off to bed, sweetheart,” her mother said. “The Marceaus have just left―”

  “Bed, already?”

  “Honestly, Maggie!” Her mother laughed. “Aren’t you exhausted? It’s past midnight. I think Mrs. Van Sant is talking about taking her little one home.”

  “Minuit?” Madame Renoir asked, getting uncertainly to her feet. “I must go, Madame,” she said to Maggie. Still clutching her crucifix, she turned to Elspeth. “Vous avez une fille douce et aimable,” she said. You have a sweet and kind daughter.

  “Merci,” Elspeth said, smiling fondly at her daughter. “Moi aussi, je le crois.”

  “Merci pour tout, Madame,” Madame Renoir said to Maggie.

  “Je vous en prie,” Maggie said. They shook hands. “Appellez-moi Maggie, s’il vous plaît.” Maggie looked at her mother to see if she’d said it right. Elspeth merely smiled as Madame Renoir said goodnight and walked out of the room.

  “Is everything all right, darling?” Elspeth asked.

  Maggie sank back onto the bed. “She’s unhappy about Babette being pregnant. Babette works for her.”

  “I see.”

  “She’s practically the last person in the village to hear the news.” Maggie massaged the bridge of her nose. “Does it look like things are thinning out down there?”

  “Well, yes and no,” Elspeth said, removing a comb from her hair and allowing a mass of auburn curls to fall gently to her shoulders. “I’m afraid your father and Laurent are still going strong―”

  “Is Connor with them?”

  “Connor?” Her mother frowned. “He was talking with one of the little girls from the village earlier but he’s not downstairs now,” she said, walking to the hallway. “I’m off to bed, dear...”

  “That creep better not have left without saying good-bye.” Maggie followed her mother to the hallway and they kissed. “Goodnight, Mother,” she said. “It was a terrific Thanksgiving.”

  “The best. Goodnight, dear. Tell your father to be careful on those stairs when he comes to bed.”

  As she descended the stairs, Maggie tried to gauge from the noise the number of people still left in her living room. She was relieved to find that most of the guests had departed. Grace and Windsor were sprawled out on the couch, smoking and staring up at the ceiling.

  “So, it’s come to this, has it?” Maggie flopped down on a soft chair and examined the ruin of the room. Overturned ashtrays, broken wine glasses, crusts of bread and globs of tapenade on the once-glistening hardwood floors. Not too bad. Considering everything.

  “We’re leaving,” Windsor croaked from a supine position. “Next time Laurent throws a dégustation, wait until we’ve had our shots and have certifiable, institutional bedrest first.”

  “You had fun.”

  “We had fun.” Grace groaned as she stretched her limbs against the couch. “Ratbag retrieval time, dear,” she said to Windsor. “You carry her and I’ll open doors for you.”

  “Funny, that’s what your father said to me when I married you.”

  “Hold on, I feel a laugh welling up.”

  Maggie looked around the room. She could hear voices in the kitchen. “Where’s Connor?” she asked.

  Grace stood up and massaged her back.

  “He’s left us,” she said.

  “Without saying good-bye?” Again, Maggie strained to hear whose voices were coming from the kitchen. “That pisses me off.”

  “It should, darling.” Grace leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “This charming bad-boy schtick is getting old for all of us. Ready, Winnie-lambkins?”

  Windsor pulled himself slowly to his feet, shuffled over to Maggie and kissed her good-bye, then silently trudged upstairs to collect his daughter.

  “It was a great Thanksgiving, Maggie. Truly.” Grace said as she walked to the foyer to pick up her full-length cashmere coat.

  “I’m glad,” Maggie said absently, positive now that she could pick out Babette’s voice from among those in the kitchen. “I enjoyed it too.”

  “Don’t worry, chérie,” Grace said as she watched her husband and child come down the staircase. “Your father’s in there with them.”

  “It’s sort of annoying,” Maggie admitted.

  “I know, pet. Cal
l me tomorrow?”

  They hugged.

  “Maggie! There you are!” Her father extended a long arm to bring her closer into the group. The kitchen was a disaster, strewn with sauce-encrusted pots, spilled wine and a very unattractive turkey carcass hunched over a plate of congealed gravy and drippings. Maggie glanced down at the cardboard box under the kitchen table and was rewarded with a faint thumping sound.

  Babette lounged casually against the kitchen counter, looking up adoringly at Laurent as he spoke to John Newberry. A large balloon glass of blood-red wine swished jerkily in her small, pale hands.

  As she joined them, she could see that all three of them were drunk.

  “Everyone’s left,” Maggie said, shaking her head at Laurent’s offered glass of wine. “Mother’s in bed.”

  “Is it that late?” John Newberry fumbled for the sleeve hiding the watch on his wrist.

  “Ce n’est pas trop tard,” Laurent said, shrugging. It is not very late. Instantly, Maggie was vexed. His not bothering to speak English―whether from the alcohol or in deference to Babette―seemed to Maggie to be a gesture of uncoupling.

  “It is very ‘trop tard’,” she said pointedly to him. “Does Babette need a ride home? Where are her parents?”

  “They had a fight, I’m afraid,” her father said. “And left about an hour ago.”

  “They just left her here?” Maggie couldn’t imagine that meek wisp of a woman, Paulette Delacort, emitting even a muffled “boo” at her husband, let alone rowing with him to the point of leaving a party without the pregnant teenager with whom they had arrived. “I don’t believe it,” she said.

  Babette said nothing, but Maggie could detect a definite smirk across her blonde, bland face.

  “Well, it’s true, darling,” her father said, laughing. “Laurent, here, offered to give her a lift home―”

  “Oh, yes?” Maggie turned and looked at her lover.

  “Babette did not want to leave with her parents,” Laurent said, trying to sound sober. “And so, she will stay.”

  God, she hated this grammatical tense problem of theirs. “Do you mean, and so she stayed?” Maggie asked, a little shocked to find her hands finding their way to her hips in an akimbo stance strikingly like that of a strident fishwife. “Or and so she will be staying the night?”

  Laurent’s eyes were glazed by the alcohol he’d consumed. “It is late...” he began.

  “And so you’d best get started,” Maggie said.

  “I do not want to be any trouble to you,” Babette said to Laurent.

  “Good,” Maggie said. “Then why don’t you walk home?”

  “Maggie!” Laurent looked at her with surprise. So surprised, in fact, that Maggie was immediately aware of how ridiculous her jealousy must be. “You are being rude to our guest,” he said, frowning.

  He hasn’t a clue that he’s been flirted with all night. She looked at Babette and felt her shoulders relax. So much for your charms and wiles, my dear. The big guy didn’t even notice.

  “Look, I’m sorry,” Maggie said to Babette. “I’m really tired and I’m afraid I don’t think either of these two are in much shape to escort you home.”

  Babette looked up at Laurent with startled concern. “But Laurent,” she said in an attempt at an appealing voice. “I was hoping you would take me home. You told my father you would.”

  Laurent nodded and put his wine glass down. “Of course,” he said. “I will get the car keys.” He leaned over and kissed Maggie on the mouth, surprising everyone. “And Maggie will drive.” He looked at John. “Join us, John? We have a sober chauffeur and I have something below that will go very well with our drive.”

  Babette poured her wine into the sink, her hand hesitating as if she were debating whether or not to dash the glass into it as well. She controlled herself and set the long-stemmed wineglass on the counter. She gave Maggie a look of intense hatred.

  Goodness. Quelle poor loser, Maggie thought.

  “I will get my coat,” Babette said, pushing past Maggie to the living room.

  “What is this you have for the ride?” John drained the last of his Grenache. “Is it from your own grapes?”

  “Bien sûr,” Laurent said, smacking his hands together. “It is something very special. For the three of us, yes?” He put a heavy arm around Maggie’s shoulders and drew her to him. “To say good-bye to Thanksgiving Day en Provence, hein?”

  “I’m ready,” Babette said icily from the living room. She stood glaring at the three of them, her coat draping off her like a cape on a slump-shouldered mannequin.

  “Bon.” Laurent said and indicated for John to follow him below.

  “We won’t be a tick, dear,” her father said gaily over his shoulder as they descended into the cellar.

  Ignoring Babette, who continued to stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room, Maggie filled the sink with hot, sudsy water, and began placing dirty wine glasses into it. She chopped a few pieces of turkey from the carcass and slipped them to Petit-Four, then gathered up an armful of empty bottles and placed them in a wooden crate at the end of the kitchen table. She knew Laurent would use them again.

  Babette moved into the kitchen and touched a small china saucer painted with scattered rosebuds that was sitting on the edge of the counter. The saucer fell to the hard tile floor with a crash. Maggie jumped and whirled around.

  “What is your problem?” she said in exasperation.

  “Je n’ai pas de problème, Madame,” Babette said haughtily. I don’t have a problem. “Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”

  “You are a piece of work, you know that?” Maggie picked up the pieces of broken china. She had especially liked that pretty little dish.

  “I have slept with your boyfriend,” the girl said, smiling.

  Although she knew it was a lie, Maggie felt a hard twist in her stomach.

  “Honey,” she said, tossing the broken shards into the trash, “I imagine Laurent is about the only one you haven’t slept with in this town.” She stood up and faced Babette.

  “He is not your husband,” Babette said. “I will tell everyone that you are living without marriage.”

  “Gee, Babette.” Maggie crossed her arms and stared the girl down. “Who do you think they’ll believe? Me? Or the village tart?”

  “Belette!” the girl screamed. “Cochon! Pig!”

  “Be quiet! You’ll wake the house!”

  “Maggie!” Her father spoke as he appeared from behind Babette. His face was white. Laurent was behind him. Maggie knew something was the matter when she saw he had no wine in his hands.

  “What is it?” Maggie asked, searching Laurent’s eyes for a clue.

  Laurent went to the telephone and began dialing.

  “Dad? What’s the matter?”

  John Newberry shook his head and listened to Laurent speak in rapid French into the receiver.

  “Dad, what is going on?” she asked in bewilderment.

  Babette’s eyes were on Laurent and they grew larger and larger as she listened. Suddenly, she clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp.

  John Newberry put his hand on Maggie’s arm. “Darling,” he said. “It’s terrible....”

  “What? What is terrible? Is something in the basement? Did you find something in the cellar?”

  “Maggie, darling,” he said. “We...we found a body in the basement.”

  Maggie stared at him.“A body? A dead body?” she asked.

  Laurent hung up the phone and reached for her. He kissed her and lifted her chin in order to look into her eyes. She could smell the wine and cigarettes on him.

  “It’s Connor, Maggie,” he said.

  Chapter Eight

  1

  The pot bubbled violently. The combined scents of poached salt cod, boiled lamb, carrots, chickpeas, and stewed cauliflower wafted through the quiet café. Grace rubbed the mascara from her eyes with a shaking hand and sipped her Pernod. She wasn’t a bit hungry, couldn’t imagine trying t
o eat anything this morning, let alone boiled eggs and fish stew. The bile rose in her throat and she took another, longer sip of her drink to force the nausea back down. This wasn’t just a hangover, she thought miserably, something was really wrong with her. She looked out to the street and allowed the pain and horror of last night’s visit from the police to descend upon her.

  Connor, dead? It wasn’t possible. He was there last night, teasing and being naughty and charming and annoying. It just wasn’t possible that he wasn’t in the world any more.

  The waiter brought a small tray of eggs and aïoli with a large plate of lamb, cod and assorted vegetables. He also brought a plate of six snails nestled in little pools of garlic butter and freckled with parsley. Grace stared at them in horror.

  Has Windsor lost his mind?

  Across the crowded café, she watched him pulling cigarettes out of the rusting machine near the kitchen.

  The police had arrived in the middle of the night, chatted briefly on their doorstep with a groggy Windsor, and then left. When Windsor returned to bed he had been wide awake and after he told her the news, so had she been for the rest of the night.

  It’s no wonder I feel like shit.

  She lit up a cigarette and pushed the plate of escargots away with two fingers. No sleep, too much wine and probably stomach flu contracted from any one of half a dozen people last night. She stared straight ahead at nothing and felt the tears sting her eyes again.

  How could he just leave and not say good-bye?

  “How you doing, sweetheart?” Windsor tossed the packet of Luckies down on the table and then plopped into the chair opposite Grace. “Sorry, it was all they had.”

  She looked up at her husband who, in her estimation, looked about as bad as she felt. Bleary-eyed and pale, his hair uncombed, even his lips were cracked. They’d driven Taylor to school together this morning, not bothering to cover their gloom with robotic niceties to the child. They had driven into Aix in silence save for the occasional, nonsensical singing and babbling of their daughter. Leave it to a tragic, senseless death to bring out the cheer in the girl, Grace thought unfairly, and then admonished herself. Taylor didn’t know, of course, about Uncle Connor’s death.