The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “Je l’aimait,” Renoir said, almost in a whisper. I loved him.

  “Il n’en valait pas la peine, “ Maggie replied. He was never worth it.

  “Il m’aimait,” the woman said in a moan. He loved me.

  “Il voulait que tu partes quand tu étais enceinte.”He wanted to leave when he knew you were pregnant.

  “Il m’aimait,” Renoir repeated fiercely.

  “Ainsi tu les as tués.“ And so you killed them.

  Madame Renoir blinked at her as if digesting this. “Les tuais, “ she repeated Maggie’s words.

  “Tu les as tués.” Maggie wasn’t sure exactly where this was going. She wasn’t sure whether Madame Renoir would snap at the mention of her crime, or whether it would jolt her back to her senses, into remembering who Maggie was, who Grace was.

  Suddenly, Grace groaned loudly.

  “Cochon!” hissed Madame Renoir.

  Maggie banged her spoon against a large metal mixing bowl and Madame Renoir turned to her briefly.

  “Elle n’est pas un cochon!” Maggie yelled. “Not cochon! Dammit! It’s Grace! How many times have you waited on her? Talked to her? You...you gave her the little dog. Remember the little―”

  “Souillon,” the baker said, eyeing Grace with loathing.

  “Maggie?” Grace spoke in a pained whisper, her voice a crack that threaded along the ground and was almost lost. She struggled to a half-sitting position against the wall, her right arm limp at her side, her face bloodied, her stomach obviously showing her pregnancy.

  Immediately, Madame Renoir came around the large table toward the two Americans. Maggie put herself between the approaching Frenchwoman and Grace.

  “Don’t do this, Madame Renoir,” Maggie said, her eyes pleading. “It’s Maggie, Madame Renoir. Please, remember me.”

  “Harlot!” The baker screamed, her eyes insane and unreachable. “Cochon! Il m’a toujours aimé! Toujours!” He always loved me.

  She raised the weapon over her head, aiming directly at Maggie’s upturned face.

  Chapter Nineteen

  1

  Laurent bent over and slapped at the clinging flakes of ash on his corduroy pant leg. A lone needle of smoke sidled up the horizon on the far side of the field. The fire brigade would finish the job now. The two ancient fire engines had arrived in a flurry of blaring sirens and wheels spinning in wet gravel. Under the circumstances, too late or not, Laurent thought they had arrived in an amazingly short time. Who knows? he thought bitterly, a row or two more of vines might be saved.

  He could see Jean-Luc, who had disappeared into the house, returning now across the fields. He was disconcerted to see the old man hurry toward him in such a way as to suggest he might possess further bad news.

  “What is it?” Laurent called. “What’s happened?”

  Jean-Luc pointed toward the house and broke into a trot. “Monsieur Van Sant called while I was at the house,” he said, when he reached Laurent, his breath coming in small, labored gasps.

  Laurent gripped the farmer by the shoulder. “He has found Maggie?” he said, his fingers digging into Jean-Luc as if he could force the man to respond positively.

  “He did not find Madame Dernier.” Jean-Luc spoke quickly. “But he says you are not to worry. His own wife is also not at home...”

  “So he believes they are together.” Laurent relaxed a bit, releasing his hold on Jean-Luc. “He’s probably right. Maggie off on her own is one thing, but if she is with Grace, the two will talk and forget the time.” Laurent turned from Jean-Luc and stared at his smoldering fields. Snapping cinders jumped in the air around them. “I don’t like it, though,” he murmured.

  “Laurent,” Jean-Luc said. “I have called the police.”

  Laurent’s eyes watched him.

  “I will be here to greet them,” Jean-Luc said. “To introduce them to our neighbor, Monsieur Marceau.” He gestured in the direction of Marceau’s vineyard to their right. There was a hazy barrier of spent fire and smoke that divided the two properties now. “It is Christmas Day,” Jean-Luc continued. “I’m sure Monsieur Van Sant knows his wife, but me, I don’t believe the two women are sitting on a rock in a field talking on Christmas Day. I don’t believe they are in Aix shopping. I don’t believe there is a good reason not to find them today of all days. Do you?”

  Laurent felt the anxiety and fear that he’d suppressed while he’d battled the fire escape and surround him like a noxious shroud. He turned and ran toward the house where the Peugeot was parked in the gravel drive.

  2

  Later, Maggie would remember putting the forearm of her unbroken arm up to try to protect her face. She would remember Madame Renoir’s almost sorrowful look as she raised the rolling pin high over her head, gritting her teeth as she brought it down hard on top of her. Maggie did not hear the noise of the shattering glass as she was struck.

  At the sound of the window breaking behind her, Madame Renoir whirled around to face Gaston Lasalle who jumped through the small backroom window and now stood, panting before her. Maggie fell backwards on top of Grace. She had succeeded in deflecting the blow with her arms, and although it felt like her other shoulder was now broken, she was at least conscious.

  Madame Renoir swung wildly at Lasalle and the wiry gypsy jumped easily out of the way. She screamed at him, her face mottled with rage, spittle flying from her full lips like milk in front of a fan.

  Gaston shouted at the baker and continued to dodge her wild swings. Maggie could pick out a few words from his hoarse French, “crazy” and “fat” being the two used most often. She gave Grace a quick, light squeeze on the shoulder, and wondered if she should leave her and try to go for help. She tried to think if there was a telephone booth anywhere in town. Surely, Le Canard would be long closed by now, and it would take her a full ten minutes to reach Father Bardot’s rectory even if she ran the whole way. And what if Madame Renoir succeeded in disabling Gaston? Madame would finish Grace off before Maggie even reached the rectory.

  Within seconds, Gaston sprang at the baker, knocked the rolling pin to the floor and grabbed the baker’s arms behind her. He forced her to her knees, her best Christmas dress finally dusting the dirty floor, and held her firmly. Maggie’s eyes met his briefly. Then, she turned back to Grace who, still propped up against the wall, was watching the proceedings through groggy, half-opened eyes.

  “Maggie,” Grace said.

  “It’s okay, Grace,” Maggie said, as she sank to the floor next to Grace. She took Grace’s hand as her own pain began to overwhelm her. “It’s over,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty

  1

  Less than thirty-five acres remained of Laurent’s vineyard. The rest of his land was scorched black, looking like an undulating parking lot of newly-poured tar. Maggie walked with Laurent through the field, the sounds of burnt vines and support stakes crunching under their feet. Petit-Four ran ahead of them, accompanied by Otto. The two chased each other through the fields, raising puffs of black soot and dust in their trail.

  “Can you bring it back?”

  Laurent threw a rock over the heads of the frolicking dogs.

  “Yes,” he said. “The men from the village will help.”

  “What, like plant seeds and stuff?”

  Laurent looked at her. Her left arm was in a white plaster cast and sling, her dark hair whipped about her face in a tangle. He tried again to imagine the battle in the bakery less than a week ago. Grace had suffered a concussion, a broken right arm and a cracked rib, although the baby was unharmed. Gaston Lasalle sported a broken nose thanks to Madame Renoir’s rolling pin, and Laurent thought he did so proudly. Lasalle was a minor hero in the village these days, credited publicly for Bernard Delacorte’s release from jail although, of course, he’d had little to do with that. But as he had very likely saved Maggie’s life and Grace’s too, Laurent was not willing to begrudge the scruffy little gypsy much.

  “They have offered seedlings,” Laurent said to Maggie,
putting his arm carefully around her good shoulder. “They will help me plant them in the spring.”

  She looked up into his face. “Laurent, what will happen to Danielle?”

  They both looked in the direction of the Marceau’s land. The house, which they could just see from where they stood in the middle of the field, looked dark and uninhabited. Danielle had gone to spend some time with her sister in Lyons. Eduard was in Aix, staying in the vacant apartment of a business partner, where he would remain until his trial was over. It was considered likely that he would do some time in prison for his arson. As he was a first offender, and because of his age, it would probably not be a terribly long sentence. Amazingly, less than five days after the police arrested Eduard, Jean-Luc had come to Laurent to tell him that Eduard would not return to St-Buvard to live, regardless of the outcome of the trial. Refusing to explain further, the old farmer had simply delivered his message, paid his embarrassingly humble respects to Maggie, and then gone away.

  “You will have to make peace with Jean-Luc,” Laurent said to her now. “He is miserable for your sake.”

  “I know.”

  As they stood watching the abandoned Marceau farmhouse, Laurent took Maggie’s hand in his.

  “I don’t know what she will do. But I hope she comes back to St-Buvard. She has friends here.”

  “You mean Jean-Luc?”

  Laurent laughed. “Maggie, you surprise me,” he said, pushing an errant lock of black hair from her brow. “You are her friend, are you not?”

  “I like Danielle. I hope she comes back,” she said. “Sans Eduard, of course,” she added quickly.

  “We’d better hurry,” Laurent said, turning back in the direction of the house. “I told Windsor we would not be late for dinner.”

  “Are we usually late?”

  Laurent shrugged. “He insists so.”

  “That’s nerve. He and Grace are chronically late to everything.”

  Once inside the house, Maggie began to carefully peel away her heavy outer jacket from her broken arm.

  “Don’t take that off,” Laurent said from the kitchen, where he was searching for the car keys. “We are leaving right now.” The ringing phone interrupted him and he snatched it up impatiently. “Oui?” he said briskly.

  Maggie listened as he continued the rest of the phone conversation in French. She edged closer to the kitchen to get a better idea of who might be calling when, suddenly, the conversation was over. Laurent stood in the door, the keys in one gloved hand.

  “That was Bernard,” he said. “He and Paulette would like us to stop by briefly on our way to the Van Sants.”

  “Do we have time for that?” Maggie asked.

  “I told them we would come. They wish to thank you for your work in helping Bernard come home to his family.”

  “Oh, Laurent, I don’t want them to think I rescued Bernard.”

  “Why not? It is true.”

  The phone jangled insistently again. Laurent picked up the receiver.

  “Allo? Oui, oui,” he said into the receiver. “But we are just leaving now. Maggie will call you back tonight, okay?”

  “Is that my Mother?” Maggie said, tugging on Laurent’s sleeve. “Let me talk to her.”

  Laurent handed her the phone. “We must hurry,” he reminded her.

  “Hello, Mom? Where’ve you been? Did you get my letter? Can you believe all this stuff that’s happening here? Where’ve you been for the last five days anyway?”

  Laurent jingled the car keys in his hands.

  “Maggie,” he said. “You must tell her about it later. We are late and we have an extra stop to make.”

  Maggie ignored him. Quickly, she filled her mother in on the news. She only related the burning of their vineyard, believing the story of Madame Renoir would have to wait for a face-to-face. Within seconds, Maggie’s father was on the phone.

  “The bastard tried to burn down your house?” Her father was dumbfounded.

  “Well, it’s not clear he was ever really after the house, Dad. He concentrated on the fields.”

  “That’s his idea of, what, persuasion?”

  “We think he was frustrated. I mean, Laurent obviously wasn’t going to sell and Eduard was really upset about it.”

  “Well, what was Eduard’s problem? It’s not like Laurent was going to build a parking lot on the land like Connor or something.”

  “No, but the damage had already been done as far as that goes. He’d already worked himself into a frenzy over images of parking lots and tour buses and belching exhaust pipes and tourists and stuff. I think Connor really painted such an awful picture of what would happen to the property that Eduard became convinced the land would be, you know, ruined if anyone owned it but him. And, of course, he wanted the extra acreage for his own farm. Laurent’s additional forty hectares would’ve really positioned Eduard as the kingpin landowner in these parts. A veritable Southfork en Provence if you know what I mean.”

  “It’s hard to believe he’d destroy the vines, though. Didn’t he know how much he was risking? I mean, what’s Danielle going to do now? What’s going to happen to his own farm now? What’s going to happen to him? “

  “He’ll go to jail probably. It’s kind of an open and shut case as far as that goes. I mean, he did it and everyone knows he did it and the cops picked him up reeking of gasoline with these little petrol soaked fuses sticking out of his pocket and all. I think you could say, his goose, she is cooked.”

  “I feel sorry for him.”

  “I know, Dad, me too. How’s Nicole? Did she have a good Noel?”

  “What do you think?”

  2

  Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in EuroDisney could hardly have looked more enchanting than the Van Sant’s château as it stood decked out for Christmas. Twinkling lights in rainbow colors sparkled against the blue-black night in zany outlines around windows, doors, bushes and even the two flanking olive trees in the front yard. Maggie was delighted. Windsor must have hired a hoard of hungry (and ultimately amused) Frenchmen to string the colored lights on the outside ramparts of the house, she guessed. They dipped and swayed in the cold, brisk wind, visible for a mile down the road.

  Laurent was appalled. “It looks like a sex shop in Thailand,” he said.

  “Really?” Maggie answered. “How would you know?”

  “This is not the sort of thing that translates well in France,” he said. “It is a uniquely American custom. Roast turkey, okay, we can adapt―perhaps even cranberries and dressing, although it is difficult, but this―”

  “Oh, Laurent, in America, the gaudier the outdoor lights, the better.”

  “It doesn’t translate over here.”

  “Quoique,” she said. Whatever.

  They parked their car in the winding drive, and hurried to the front door. It was still cold. The New Year was only a few days off with snow and more wind in the forecast.

  Windsor met them at the door. A wedge of yellow light fell across the broad threshold when he opened the door on them. He hugged Maggie gently, mindful of the cast on her arm, and shook Laurent’s hand enthusiastically.

  “Grace and Taylor are in the salon,” he said. “We’re having mulled wine tonight. Was the drive bad? It’s freezing out there. Here, let me take those for you.” He gathered up their coats and tucked them into the hall closet. Maggie walked down the hallway into the salon.

  “Did a lady here call for a broken arm?” Maggie said wagging her cast as she entered the room. Grace and Taylor sat on the thickly carpeted floor of the room in front of the massive stone fireplace. Its mantle stretched nearly the width of the large room. It was supported by intricately carved columns, something on the line of what Maggie remembered seeing in Avignon at the Palais de Pape. Maggie had not seen it lighted before and was amazed now to see the flames rising nearly three feet tall. She had images of Richard Coeur de Lion plotting and pacing in front of such a mammoth, majestic fireplace. Grace had strung large gold balls from the
mantle which reflected the dancing flames. The soft, wet nose of Mignon protruded from the recesses of a wicker basket on the floor beside Taylor. Maggie felt a pinch of memory of Madame Renoir when she saw the little dog.

  “Sorry, we’ve already got one,” Grace replied, lifting her own cast up in greeting.

  Windsor and Laurent came into the room behind Maggie. Laurent went straight to Grace and kissed her on both cheeks.

  “Bonsoir, chérie,” he said. “How are you feeling tonight?”

  “I’m good, Laurent,” Grace replied serenely. She looked it too, Maggie thought. Unlike herself, Grace had immediately tossed out her hospital-issue sling and replaced it with a grosgrain blue silk scarf which coordinated perfectly with her royal blue velvet top and pants. Her hair, unbandaged now, looked shining and full. Her eyes were alive with pleasure.

  “And petite Taylor?” Laurent said, looking down at the child who regarded him in return with undisguised suspicion. “How was Father Christmas to you this year?”

  “He was okay,” the child said, sullenly. “Mommy,” she said, tossing down a plastic piece of the game they were playing, “can we finish our game now?” The child’s face was screwed up in a prelude to a full-fledged whine. “Please?” she added belatedly.

  “Sorry, Taylor,” Windsor said from the bar where he was pouring the hot wine into large gold-rimmed mugs. “You know the deal.”

  “You can play quietly in your room for an hour before you have to go to sleep,” Grace said as she began to clear the pieces from the board. “I think you were going to win this game anyway. It’s just as well we’re quitting.” She smiled encouragingly at Taylor, who frowned back at her.

  “Mommy said you were going to bring your dog,” Taylor said to Maggie.

  Maggie glanced at Grace before she answered. “Well, no, Petit-Four is home with Otto, Laurent’s hunting dog.” She smiled at Grace and Windsor. “I knew it was only a matter of time before he let that big mutt into the house.”

  Taylor looked at her for a moment and then, to everyone’s surprise, stood up, brushed off her tiny lap of Christmas velvet, and walked to the foot of the staircase that led to the upstairs bedrooms. “You won’t forget to come up to say my prayers?” she said to Grace over her shoulder.