“Maggie,” Laurent said carefully. “They will find who did this awful thing. Our gendarmerie are very good.” He laughed. “I can tell you how good they are!”
“You’re not making me feel better,” Maggie said, frowning.
“You know the French,” Laurent continued, his good humor evident again. “They will always suspect the love angle first. Not like the Americans, I’m afraid.”
Maggie sighed. “I guess even the cops can’t get too attached to the idea that you would invite him to your party so you could bump him off in the comfort of your own living room,” she said.
Laurent released her hand and gave Petit-Four a quick nuzzle behind the ears. “There, you see?” he said and smiled. “Not to worry.”
3
“I just couldn’t believe it, you know? I still can’t.” Grace’s voice sounded thready and hesitant.
Maggie was lying on her bed. She placed a bed pillow on her stomach and rested the telephone on it. Her father was taking a late nap in the guest room. Her mother and Laurent had gone to retrieve Nicole from Madame Renoir’s―and perhaps a beignet or two as well for breakfast tomorrow.
“I mean, I do not handle death well, you know? I hate this business of one minute drinking and having a laugh and the next minute―permanent checkout. I hate it.”
“I know, Grace,” Maggie murmured. “And the fact that it happened while the children were here.”
There was a brief pause.
“Well, it’s not like they knew it was happening,” Grace said. “I mean, as deaths go, it was pretty subtle, Maggie.”
“Oh, yeah? Did the police describe to you how Connor was killed?”
“Maggie!”
“I’m sorry, Grace!” God, that was insensitive, Maggie thought, although she found herself a little surprised at Grace’s extreme reaction.
“No, they did not. They told us nothing. All they did was ask questions. ‘Where were you, how long did you know...’” She took a deep breath, “Did you know they asked me if Connor was my lover, for God’s sake?”
“Well, I guess they had to.”
How come they didn’t ask me if I had been Connor’s lover? Maggie tried to catch her reflection in the bedroom mirror. “Do they suspect Windsor, then?” She found herself feeling unforgivably hopeful that the police would switch their attentions away from Laurent and to Windsor Van Sant. After all, Windsor had known Connor longer―he had more time to build up a reason and a motive.
“I don’t know what they suspect,” Grace said in a voice that closely resembled a whine from Taylor. “They want to talk with us again, is all I know.”
“Well, who do you think did it?”
There was another pause on the line and then a long sigh. “I don’t know. My God, Maggie, half of St-Buvard was there last night.”
“No kidding, you should see my kitchen.”
“And Windsor said this morning that that in itself would look bad for Laurent.”
Maggie felt a wave of annoyance with Grace. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, you know, that he would have invited so many people. It makes a great cover, you know? I mean, that’s what the police might think.”
“Windsor said that?”
“Oh, come on, Maggie, Windsor isn’t saying he thinks Laurent killed Connor, for heaven’s sakes!” Grace’s voice regained some of its body. “I mean, what’s his motive? Why in the world would Laurent want Connor dead?”
“You mean, it’s understandable that Windsor’s motive is unbridled jealousy over Connor maybe being your lover, but Laurent could only have opportunity―but no reason?”
Grace burst out laughing and Maggie found herself joining in.
“Your feelings are hurt because the cops don’t think Laurent could’ve killed Connor because of you?” Grace asked, still laughing.
“It’s been a hard day,” Maggie said weakly, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes. “At lunch I was terrified that the cops thought Laurent might have done it. Now, my pride is hurt that Windsor has more motive than Laurent does!”
“Oh, God, I needed this,” Grace said.
“Okay, let’s eliminate loved ones from the who-dunnit list.” Maggie took a sip from l’eau gazeuse she had brought up to the bedroom with her. “Now who?”
“Jealous female lovers?”
“Babette!”
“It fits for me.”
“Did I tell you how she was coming on to Laurent all night?”
“I witnessed some of it.”
“We actually had a facedown.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, she had contrived a way to spend the night.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Incredible, isn’t it? Yeah, Babette’s definitely my number one suspect.”
“I imagine she is the police’s too.”
“Who else?” Maggie found herself feeling better. It was the predictable result of a conversation with Grace. Laurent must have known. He had encouraged her to call Grace before he left.
“Well, there’s Lydie,” said Grace.
“Yeah, what ever happened to her?”
“She did the dance of the Marseille rubbish.”
“Huh?”
“She got dumped.”
Together they crowed: “Motive!”
“God,” Grace said, when she regained her breath. “Is it bad to be this giddy only twenty-four hours after poor Connor’s death?”
“I think so,” Maggie said, sending them both back into rising rifts of laughter.
4
Typically, the dinner hour in St-Buvard was marked only by the increased activity on the terrace of Le Canard Café. The rest of the village appeared as lifeless as usual, hiding easily behind its cracked and ancient walls the bustle and energy of dishes being put on the table, pots being stirred, prayers sent heavenward in thanks. The small café faced a small fountain, long without any actual cascading font of water, but still important for what it once was and now represented: the center of the village. Formed into three simple, dark stone tiers, the basin of each scalloped by a rough, unpracticed hand, the fountain was encrusted with lichen, stained dark with years of dirt and pounding water. The uneven cobblestones that encircled it ran in a concentric pattern to the terrace of Le Canard, where two policemen sat, sober and grim, a bottle of marc between them.
Eduard Marceau sat with them. His face was a jagged mask of tension and obsequiousness. He smoked and drank continuously. One of the policemen―the skinny young man who had questioned Maggie and her parents―leaned back in his chair to survey the patrons of the restaurant. He knew it helped to make the customers believe they were being watched. He knew it helped in enticing them to come forward with information. He knew it felt good to intimidate them with just a casual glance, an enigmatic smile. He looked around the café often.
Next to him sat his superior, Chief Detective Michel Bedard. Bedard was short and handsome, with a stub of a nose and a square jaw. He was also capable, friendly, and more than a little ruthless.
Bedard spoke to Eduard. “You did not like Monsieur MacKenzie?” He picked up his squat marc glass and held it to his lips, but did not drink. He watched the other man carefully for his reaction to the blunt question.
Eduard licked his lips and looked at the young sergeant and then at the chief detective. It had been a bit of bad luck to run into them here. He’d sweated out the full day waiting for them to come, restlessly pacing his own vineyards, keeping vigil on his long terraced front porch, drumming his fingers near the telephone. And just when he could take the suspense no longer and had bolted for an evening drink in the village, they had pounced on him.
“We had differences,” Eduard admitted, wondering how much of the truth he needed to tell to have the lies believed too.
Bedard waved a stubby hand at the café.
“They said you had a contretemps here in the café with Monsieur MacKenzie...not...?” He looked at his confederate who f
rowned back at him in concentration. “...what? Three weeks ago?” He turned back to Marceau. “What did you argue about, Monsieur Marceau?”
Marceau resisted looking around the café. Who had told them, he wondered? Friends? People he drank with regularly? The owners of the café, whom he had known since he was a boy?
“Monsieur Marceau?” the detective prompted politely.
“I...we fought about...some land,” Marceau said finally.
“Land?” This from the scrawny little sergeant whose eyes glittered with the glasses of marc he’d already drunk down.
“Yes, that is what the argument was about.” Eduard lit another cigarette, although noticing he still had one burning in the small blue triangle ashtray on the table.
“Perhaps you could be more specific,” said Bedard. The detective’s face seemed to harden, like a claymation representation of impatience.
Eduard swallowed and looked up at the long arms of the sycamore tree that canopied their table, its branches bare and black against the gray November sky. It made him feel slightly claustrophobic.
“I...there is some land available that we both...wanted.”
Bedard frowned. “Why not simply make your separate offers to the owner?” he asked. “This makes no sense.”
“The owner will not sell.”
“Then why not argue with the owner?” The younger detective leaned forward into the table. “That doesn’t explain why you argued with Monsieur MacKenzie.”
“Monsieur MacKenzie...” Eduard felt helpless, pathetic. How, possibly to explain to these men the truth without hopelessly incriminating himself? “...He was a man with whom it is easy to argue,” he finished lamely.
Both detectives looked at him.
“It’s true,” Marceau continued. “We argued about land. People may tell you I hated him.” He waved his hand toward the village. “And I can’t defend myself against that. He wanted only ruin for St-Buvard. He wanted to take the land and...change it forever.”
“Monsieur MacKenzie had a lot of money,” Bedard offered mildly.
“He could easily have outbid me for the land, it is true,” Eduard admitted.
“And what land is this we are talking about?” Bedard asked.
Eduard sighed and poured himself another glass of marc. “It is Domaine St-Buvard,” he said tiredly. “Laurent Dernier’s property.”
The eyebrows of the younger detective shot up in a mock portrayal of incomprehension. “But Dernier says he is going to sell his property.”
Eduard nearly sneered at them. “Yes,” he said, instead. “He does say that.”
The waiter came to the table with a plate of sautéed mushrooms, still sizzling in Madeira and olive oil. This was accompanied by a half baguette of bread, a large dish of pâté, and a substantial crock of goat cheese. Within minutes he returned with a bottle of Gigondas, decanted it and poured two glasses. The men were silent until the waiter left.
“When was the last time you saw Monsieur MacKenzie?” Bedard asked.
Eduard watched the two policemen begin their dinner.
“Last night, at Dernier’s dégustation.”
“You were a dinner guest of Monsieur Dernier’s prior to the degustation?”
“I was. With my wife.”
“Did you speak with Monsieur MacKenzie at the dégustation?”
“I did not.”
“Not at any point?”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Did you see Laurent Dernier talking with him?”
Eduard looked hard at the detective. “Of course,” he said. “At several points in the evening.”
“Did they argue?”
Eduard suddenly saw an opening that he hadn’t believed possible. He blinked and looked upward as if the opportunity had fallen to him as a gift from the heavens.
“Perhaps, now that you mention it...” he said.
“Yes?”
“Nothing of any consequence, I think,” he said. “But if I’m remembering correctly, there may have been sharp words between Dernier and MacKenzie in the kitchen. I’d forgotten that until just this moment.”
Much to Eduard’s growing sense of relief, the sergeant flipped open a small cahier and began to write.
“You heard nothing of the meaning of the discussion?” Bedard asked.
“No,” Eduard said with some confidence. “Just the tone of the words.”
“Harsh?” Bedard asked.
“I would say, so, yes.”
Bedard nodded and then scooped up a forkful of the greasy champignons. He chewed for a moment, his eyes never leaving Marceaus’ smoking, lying face.
“Délicieux,” he said, pushing the plate toward Eduard. “Have you had them before? Perhaps you know their name?” He gestured for Eduard to pick up a fork. “Trumpets of Death,” he said.
Eduard hesitated, his cigarette burning low between his fingers.
“Do not worry, Monsieur,” Bedard said. “They are quite safe.” He took another large bite and watched Eduard as the sweat dribbled off the man’s neck, spattering down his clean white shirtfront.
5
Her mouth was agape, the little rosebud lips were pursed gently as though the lips had frozen in the midst of blowing a kiss, although that hardly seemed likely with Taylor. The child’s mass of golden hair spread out on her pillow. Grace watched the thick cluster of dark lashes quiver against her daughter’s baby-cream soft cheeks.
How did we create that? Grace wondered as she stood watching the child from the doorway, a shaft of diffused light spilling onto the sleeping girl from the window. How did we make those perfect eyes, that delicious little bow of a mouth? That remarkable musical ability? Windsor and I, together, did this thing.
As she stood there, watching her child, a terrible and painful thought occurred to her. What if? The feeling swam around her head and pounded into her ears. What if the only time she really loved her daughter was when the child was not conscious?
Grace watched the small form and forced herself to remember Taylor this evening when she’d come home from school. She forced herself to remember the sour, scrunched up little face, the tiny, o-shaped no-no-no-no-no’s pouring out of the perfect bow mouth, the four-year-old’s body stiff with defiance. She forced herself to remember it and to remember it with love and forgiveness.
She walked slowly back to her own bedroom. Instantly, the puppy, Mignon, crawled out from under the bed and attacked her slippered feet. She didn’t even care. For the most part, the poor thing stayed huddled under the bed to avoid Taylor, who―in the end―had won the who-can-be-meanest contest between them. The enmity had tempered the dog, not the child. Grace leaned down and scooped up the animal, which immediately quieted in her arms. She laid it on its back, its four feet pressed against her breasts, its little pink tongue lolling pleasurably out of the side of its mouth. It blinked, then yawned.
The fight hadn’t been her fault, for God’s sake. She looked at the perfectly made bed and wondered when the cleaning girl from the village had come and gone.
Windsor had tired of the long day of being sympathetic to Grace and had, finally come out with the extraordinary statement that he wasn’t really devastated with the elimination of Connor. Grace had been astounded. He’d tried to cover up with all sorts of noises about “poor Maggie and Laurent” and how inconvenient the police were making it on all of them, but she knew he’d shed no tears over Connor’s death. Indeed, he’d seemed quite calculating in his minimal attempts to relieve Grace’s grief.
“You were his friend!” she had said, so shocked at his denial of grief that she’d nearly dropped her fork in her lap during dinner.
“Not really,” he’d said, maddeningly matter-of-factly. “He was really more your friend. Connor liked women.”
“You don’t care that he’s dead? You don’t care that he’s been murdered?” She had honestly felt a sort of horror when she had looked at Windsor’s face. It was the face of someone she decided she really didn’t kn
ow very well.
“Of course, it’s awful he was murdered. And I’m sorry he’s dead, okay?”
“But just so long as he’s out of the picture, right?”
“Grace, I hate to see you taking this so hard. In fact...” He’d wiped his mouth deliberately with his napkin as if he were leading up to some exceptional statement. “In fact,” he’d repeated, “I’m not sure I know what to make of your taking it so hard. We knew the man less than a year―”
“What are you trying to say, Windsor?” A burgeoning fear had destroyed the remainder of her appetite.
“I’m saying nothing, okay, Grace?” He frowned at her and she could tell it was the prelude to a serious agitation. “It’s just that enough’s enough. He’s dead, we’re sorry, but let’s get over it, shall we?”
“We just found out about it this morning!” she railed at him and his ignorance and his refusal to allow her her moment.
“So, let’s get over it!”
In the end, too many harsh words were said and he’d left the house. Grace smoothed the fur back from the drowsing puppy’s face and then nuzzled its neck with her cheek. It smelled sweet, not doggy-like at all, she thought with surprise. She kissed it on the head, and thought of her friend, Connor, and what in the world he would have made of all this today. What would he have thought of Windsor’s reaction? Would he have expected it? Laughed it off?
Grace looked out the bedroom window into the deep inky darkness of the night, not a light to be seen to break up the blue-black horizon. Her breasts tingled and ached as the dog pressed against them. And how would Connor laugh to see her cradling a dog in her arms like some twisted Madonna―her husband stomping around in the night, her daughter wheezing in her bed through her feverish dreams of torture and transgression.
Oh, how he would laugh.
Chapter Nine
1
Jean-Luc spread the thick saddle soap across the leather harness and absentmindedly rubbed it in as he stared out across his vineyards. The others used tractors now to go between the rows, harvesting, pruning, planting. His land was not so big, his work not so much that he needed a motor. His mare would do for him awhile yet. He worked the yellow foaming soap into the crevices of the harness with his thumbs, kneading and digging into it.
The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4 Page 47
