The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “I say, that looks marvelous.” Roger sniffed dramatically over Laurent’s shoulder. “Haven’t lost your touch, I see. Ah, avec les petites saucisses!”

  “What do you mean, not Gaston?” Maggie allowed Roger to wedge in between herself and Laurent. “Of course it’s Gaston...”

  “Maggie, put the wine glasses on the table, chérie.”

  “Laurent. I am talking to you about―”

  “Je sais. May we eat, please, before it is cold?” Laurent gave her a mildly exasperated look as he arranged the little sausages around each of the rabbit steaks.

  “I’ll open the wine,” Roger said, clapping his hands together lightly. “Just point me in the right direction, squire.”

  “Would Paris be too far?” Maggie asked sweetly.

  Laurent threw the pot lid into the sink with a loud clatter. Maggie started at the noise―along with Roger and poor Petit-Four. “Enough!” he shouted, without turning around.

  Maggie instantly regretted her sarcasm. “I’m sorry, Roger,” she said.

  “Don’t be silly,” Roger said good-naturedly. “I say, Laurent, you’re overreacting just a bit, aren’t you? Maggie’s always gone after me, haven’t you, my darling?”

  Laurent turned from the sink and regarded them both. He pulled a cigarette out of a pack on the counter, offered one to Roger, who accepted. “She’d been poisoned,” he said.

  Maggie swallowed hard, her eyes going from Laurent to Roger. There, in three simple words, went any hope she may have had of the death somehow being an accident. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Petit-Four barked sharply, breaking the mood.

  “I say!” Roger clapped a hand to his heart and staggered backwards against the counter to strained smiles from Maggie and Laurent. “Where did this little rodent come from?” He laughed and bent down to tousle the dog’s ears.

  Maggie and Laurent shared a glance over Roger’s head as he played with Petit-Four. The look she gave him was one of misery and uncertainty. As usual, his look was impossible to read.

  2

  “What did she say?”

  “What do you think? She congratulated us.”

  “Did you look happy?”

  Grace shifted onto her elbow in the bed and rearranged her silk pajama top so that it wouldn’t gape.

  “I did my best,” she replied.

  Windsor looked at her from where he sat at the foot of the bed. “I can’t believe this,” he said, staring at her, anger and disgust tracing the outlines of his face.

  “So you’ve said.” Grace turned away from him and set the alarm clock on her bedside table for five-thirty. Lately, there had been some difficulty in getting Taylor off to school. Grace would need the extra time to cajole her daughter from bed to clothes through breakfast and out the door. She set the clock back down and looked over her shoulder at her husband. “Are you going to have trouble putting on a happy face during Christmas?” she asked.

  Windsor gave her a cutting look and stood up. He walked to the bedroom door, opened it and listened for a moment before closing it firmly. He did not return to the bed.

  “This isn’t working out, is it, darling?” Grace said with a sigh as she leaned back into her overstuffed pillows and stared at the ceiling. She had made a point to have the workmen attach an attractive molding to the ceiling in their bedroom. It had cost the earth but she hadn’t been sorry.

  “You’re a piece of work, Grace, you know that?” Windsor remained standing by the door, his back to her, his shoulders rigid under his soft flannel pajama top. “And at Christmas, of all times. I could murder you.”

  “Sorry about Christmas,” she said.

  “Just shut up, will you? For once I don’t want to hear your last-word, your perfect bon mot, your precise pronouncements.” He approached her in bed, his hands bunched into fists by his sides. “I just want you to shut the fuck up.”

  Grace held her tongue.

  3

  To Maggie’s relief the breakfast car on the train wasn’t crowded. She sat down at a window table, placing a French grammar book and a copy of Graham Greene’s Heart of the Matter on the table. She hoped the books might dissuade anyone from thinking she was in a mood to socialize. She watched the landscape shoot by outside her window and allowed herself to feel some relief as St-Buvard and Provence receded from her.

  He’d actually had the nerve to ask about Nicole. How she was doing in school, for God’s sake. Was there no end to the man’s nerve? She smiled at the train attendant and ordered a café au lâit and two brioche with confiture.

  Roger was unchanged, Maggie thought. Charming, friendly, witty, in some ways almost buffoonish. A dangerous man. She nodded politely at an elderly woman on the train, also traveling alone, who sought out a table across the aisle.

  What she had overheard last night, she had not been meant to hear. When she got up in the middle of the night for a drink of water, she’d heard the two men still up, drinking and talking down in the cave. Amazing, really, she thought. That that cold, dim, place of death should attract them, that they could want to stand there, sipping their Calvados and wine, unmindful―or at least uncaring―that a warm fire and soft chairs were just a few steps away. Their voices came up the stairs easily, like velvet slippers padding into the kitchen where Maggie stood at the sink. First, she heard Roger’s offer. And then, Laurent’s response.

  Maggie stirred the foamy milk around her china cup and stared out the train window onto the bleak, flat winter landscape. Laurent’s response, she thought bitterly. Not oui, not non. Not peut-être, even. Laurent’s response to Roger’s offer of employment had been silence. Of course, she had expected Roger to try to entice him. He hadn’t come for a social call. Naturally, he had a proposition. That’s what makes the Englishman run. Scams, gigs, deals. Of course, he would throw one out on the table to Laurent. She tried to imagine Laurent’s nonverbal reaction to Roger’s offer, but could only see Laurent’s enigmatic expression―not smiling, exactly, but not unfriendly, and certainly, not revealing a thing.

  Maggie sipped her sweet coffee and watched the brown, withered rooftops of a nameless village pass her window. Why, in God’s name, hadn’t Laurent told Roger to forget it? Loudly and definitely. Why hadn’t he said that he was happy with the way things were...that he didn’t want to jeopardize his new way of life? Why had he not answered him?

  Later that night, after Laurent had finally come to bed, they had argued. And Maggie had been left with the helpless feeling that she had done more to convince Laurent to take the offer than to reject it.

  Maggie watched the drab French countryside roll away from her like an unimaginative travel video being run in reverse. The speed of the train made it impossible for her to rest her eyes for long on any one object out the window. Soon, she felt a dull ache develop between her eyes. She pulled the shade down on her window. The older woman across the aisle smiled at her again and Maggie returned the smile―with effort. Forcing herself to put thoughts of Laurent and Roger aside, Maggie picked up her French workbook and flipped it open. It was too advanced for her. Laurent had bought it in Aix a few weeks back. He was hopelessly optimistic, Maggie thought, as she read the complicated sentences, understanding none of them. She snapped the workbook shut and ordered another café au lâit.

  She remembered the last time Connor had teased her about her French. At the same time, he seemed to be encouraging her to try harder with it. She had to admit she’d done no studying, preferring to think instead, that “living it” would suffice to improve her grammar. Laurent refused to speak French with her at home―he said he needed to be able to communicate with greater depth than, “Here is the blue bowl. Let us eat the big peach.” Connor had scolded her about her laziness, her desire to learn French through osmosis. He was right, of course. Her French was not much better now, after three months in France, than it had been with all those conscientiously, if irregularly, attended class meetings at the French Language Institute of Atlanta.

&nb
sp; A new china cup of steaming, frothy café arrived, and the steward whisked away the soupy dregs of the old one. Maggie tried to picture Connor as he had looked the last time she had seen him alive. He had been robust, laughing, handsome and healthy. How could so much verve and energy be so quickly snuffed? She thought of Babette, angry and pregnant, flirting with Laurent, hating Connor. And then there was Bernard. Had Bernard Delacore really killed Connor? Maggie tried to think of it in logical terms. Had Bernard gone to their house that night with the intention of killing Connor? She hardly thought so. On the other hand, how could it have been done unpremeditatedly? After all, there was no argument between the two that any one could remember. No contact, even, although that might not mean much.

  It was beginning to rain as the train sped northward toward Paris. The dashes of rain jumped at Maggie’s window like animated exclamation points.

  Bernard was supposed be a passionate man, Maggie remembered. Everyone said so, even Laurent. But what passion he’d displayed on Thanksgiving night was directed at his wife, not Connor. He and Paulette were the ones that had supposedly quarreled. Maggie tried to imagine Connor downstairs in the cave, rummaging about for a bottle of this or that―and Bernard joining him, either because he was sent there by Laurent or because he saw Connor go down and wanted to...what? Maggie shook her head and lifted the window shade a little. Did Bernard really have the finesse to kill a man, and then come back to the party, quarrel with his wife and take his leave from his host with proper excuses in order? Maggie frowned at her reflection in the window. Now, Roger could have done it, she had no doubt. With Austrian cow bells on. But a big, bruising French peasant who supposedly couldn’t keep his mouth in check after one pastiche? It didn’t make sense.

  Even with the hot coffee in her, Maggie felt a chill at the creeping revelation that she was suddenly not at all convinced that Bernard killed Connor.

  Later, as she watched the evening lights of Paris drift by, Maggie found herself looking forward to the reunion with her parents. She needed this break from St-Buvard and its mysteries and oppressive provinciality. She welcomed the separation, she thought with surprise, from Laurent. She saw her father first, on the outdoor platform at Gare de Lyon, his white hair covered by neither beret or cap even in the face of this cold city-wind, somehow more nasty than the straightforward mistral of Provence. She waved to him and reshifted the bag on her shoulder as she descended from the train.

  “Good trip, darling?” John Newberry gave his daughter a hug before plucking her bag from her shoulder. “Sorry Laurent couldn’t make it. Let’s get ahead of the crowd.” He moved her from the train platform down the escalator and past the busy kiosks to a waiting taxi outside.

  “Mother didn’t come?” Maggie wasn’t disappointed as it occurred to her that this might be a rare opportunity for a father-daughter tête-à-tête.

  “No, she’s back at the hotel with Nicole. The Lindbergh’s baby-sitter was busy sitting for the Lindbergh’s tonight, if you can imagine!”

  “What cheek.” Maggie laughed. It felt suddenly good, even exhilarating, to be so free, so released. Strains from Joni Mitchell’s song I Was A Free Man in Paris came suddenly to mind. She hadn’t thought of that song since high school. It felt electric to be in Paris after so many months in the somber southland.

  “It’s been great seeing them again, the Lindberghs,” her father said as they settled themselves in the backseat of the taxi. Before he could give the driver the address, Maggie tugged at his arm.

  “How about a drink before we head back?” she asked. “Is Mother expecting us immediately? Will she worry?”

  “What a wonderful idea. Your mother will be fine.” He gave the driver the address of a bistro near their hotel and then patted Maggie’s knee. “All right,” he said. “What’s the news on Connor? Laurent told me about Bernard Delacore on the phone the other night.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re about as up-to-date as the rest of us then,” Maggie said, sinking back into her seat and allowing herself to be dazzled by the glittering lights as the taxi sped past the Place de la Bastille. “Everyone’s sorry about it―the people in the village, I mean. But nobody’s really surprised.”

  “And you are?”

  Maggie turned and looked at her father. He was watching her closely. She smiled and squeezed his hand.

  “God, it’s nice to be with people again you don’t have to mentally translate everything for first,” she said.

  The bistro was small and dimly lit, with glossy dark paneled walls and antique chandeliers hanging low over the crowded tables. From where Maggie and her father sat, they could see the late-evening pedestrian activity on the sidewalk outside. Maggie wondered how French children retained their reputation for being so perfectly well-behaved when they were always being marched about at eleven o’clock at night on a school night. She sipped her Kir Royale and let some of the stress of the last few days drain away in the noisy café.

  “You should call Laurent and let him know you arrived safely,” her father said.

  “I’ll call him when I get to the hotel. He won’t worry.”

  “Is everything all right, darling?” John’s eyes probed his daughter’s. “Between you and Laurent?”

  “Oh, Dad.” Maggie laughed. “We’re fine.” She took another sip of her drink and watched a handsome young man pay his tab at the bar. He was blond with a full beard. “I mean, he’s either going to stay in France and I’ll never see him again, or he’s going to come back to Atlanta with me and hate me for it. Other than that...”

  “You won’t consider staying in France with him?”

  Maggie looked at her father with amazement. “Are you serious?” she asked.

  “Quite serious. Is your situation so unlivable at St-Buvard?”

  “Dad, what are you suggesting?” Maggie leaned across the table. “Live at St-Buvard? Like, for good? Are you nuts?” She laughed, surprised at her own reaction. “Sorry about the ‘nuts’ thing. But I mean...you mean...stay there? Stay in France?”

  “Why is that so unthinkable, dear?”

  “Dad, I want to go back to Atlanta, okay? That’s my home, that’s where my apartment is and my job, if it’s still there, and my friends, not to mention you and mother...”

  “I’m not sure they sound like very good things to have at the kind of cost you may be talking about.”

  “You’ve talked to Laurent, haven’t you?” Maggie slowly felt the pleasure and the magic of the evening recede like the southern landscape in front of the train earlier today. “He wants to stay, right?”

  “He hasn’t spoken to me about it.”

  “Well, then, it’s obvious, I guess, huh? Laurent wants to stay.”

  “Darling, I don’t think anything is obvious.” Her father gestured to the waiter and ordered them another round of drinks. “I just noticed that the idea of staying in France didn’t seem to be a part of your list of options.”

  “It isn’t,” she said, flatly. “And what would I do here?” She waved her hand about the bistro as if her father had just suggested a waitressing job there. “My French is barely good enough to order hot rolls in a bakery. How am I going to make a living? Certainly not as an advertising copywriter. What am I supposed to do while Laurent is off fulfilling himself as Mister Vineyard Owner?”

  “Perhaps you would get into the vineyard, yourself. I understand it is a quite complex―”

  “No, Dad, no.” Maggie shook her head and wadded up a cocktail napkin in her hand. “Absolutely, no.”

  “Well, perhaps it won’t come to that,” her father said, kindly. And the understanding was left clearly between them that, of course, inevitably, it would.

  “Roger’s with him, now,” she said, watching his eyes carefully.

  “Really? Bentley? How’s he doing?”

  “Jesus, Dad!” Maggie screwed up her face. “How can you ask how he’s doing? He bilked us out of twenty thousand dollars.”

  John Newberry leaned back in his chai
r and observed his daughter.

  “And don’t tell me how well everything turned out, okay?” Maggie went on, warming to her own aggressive mood. “I love Nicole as much as anyone, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s not my niece or your real granddaughter―and she was handed over to us by Roger Bentley as exactly that.”

  John Newberry leaned over and gently touched his daughter’s cheek. Her dark hair, a little snarled from her trip, draped over her shoulders like a velvet shawl. It framed her lovely, pale face, making her eyes sparkle like aquamarines.

  “Sometimes, sweetheart,” he said tiredly, his smile sincere and loving, “you talk with an amazing immaturity.”

  4

  “The attempt to hang himself was not successful.” Laurent’s voice came over the wire thready and disjointed― as if he were calling from an underground cave somewhere in the Congo. Maggie covered up the receiver and turned to her parents who were seated in the small suite off their bedroom at the Princess Hotel. It was the morning following her arrival in Paris and they had just finished their petit-dejeuner. Nicole was on the balcony feeding the crumbs of her croissant to the pigeons.

  “Bernard Delacore tried to kill himself last night,” Maggie said to them.

  “Oh, my dear, no.” Elspeth’s hand flew to her throat and the gesture instantly reminded Maggie of her mother’s grief over the death of her sister Elise two years ago.

  “He’s okay, Mother,” she said to Elspeth. She turned back to the receiver. “He’s okay, right?” she asked Laurent.

  “Oui, oui ça va,” Laurent said. “But everyone is now very upset about Babette.”

  “Babette?”

  “She has lost the bébé, Maggie.” Laurent spoke gravely.

  “Oh, no,” Maggie said, looking back toward her parents. “Babette’s miscarried her pregnancy,” she said to them.

  Elspeth shook her head and looked very sad as if Babette meant something to her, as if the girl had been a friend or the daughter of one.