The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

With this thought in mind, she hurriedly checked the rest of the stacks of sheets, then knelt down to wedge a hand between two stacks which seemed to have toppled backward off the shelf. When she did, her hand felt something rubbery and wet. Great, she thought, with disgust. I’ve probably just stuffed my hand into something toxic and infectious. Drawing her hand out, she was shocked to see it was covered with blood. At first, she thought she had cut herself somehow, but quickly, it became clear the blood was not hers. Pulling the stacks apart with both hands now, something long and hard shot out between them, hitting her across the side of the face.

  It was a human arm.

  Chapter Thirteen

  1

  “The pharmacist is bereft.”

  Bedard leaned forward in the chair facing Maggie. He held her hand tightly. The door to the nurse’s medical room, where they were sitting, was closed.

  The examination room was papered with yellow warning tape, crowded with forensic specialists and the hospital’s own coroner, and the rest of Yves Genet’s body. When Maggie left the coroner, he was still muttering something about just having had lunch with Yves in the cafeteria. Something about green Jell-O and beets.

  Maggie shook the image of Yves’ lifeless body from her mind. She concentrated on the bridge of Roger Bedard’s nose. Such a familiar, handsome nose.

  “Jean-Paul is bereft?” she asked.

  “Mm-mm. Seems he was in love with Genet.”

  “God, was there someone not sleeping with Yves?”

  “Oh, I don’t think it was a consummated sort of love.”

  Bedard’s eyes locked Maggie’s.

  “Oh...well, then,” Maggie said, looking away.

  There was a knock at the door and one of Bedard’s men stuck his head through the opening.

  “Est-ce que vous voulez voir le corps encore?” he asked. Do you want to see the body again?

  Bedard looked at Maggie and shook his head.

  “A l’autopsie,” he said, not looking at the man.

  After the man left, Maggie pulled her hand free and clasped her hands together.

  “I’m okay, really,” she said. “It was just a shock, is all.”

  “If you were not looking for bodies, chérie,” Bedard said. “What were you looking for in there?”

  “Don’t call me that, Roger,” Maggie said. Laurent calls me that. “I was just looking for anything. For a clue, for something that might tell me something other than...well, I found Madeleine’s ear ring, for example. It tells me she was still sleeping with him after she swore she wasn’t. It tells me she lied.”

  “You knew that already.”

  “Proof is always nice, don’t you think?”

  Bedard sighed and sat back in his chair. He continued to watch Maggie closely.

  “Am I really the one you should be questioning?” Maggie asked. “I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense to try to find the person who killed Yves? And why are you back on the case anyway?”

  Bedard shrugged.

  “There is an argument to be made that this is a different case altogether. It’s certainly a different murder. But, you’re right. I’ve been re-instated.”

  “It’s not at all a different case and you know that. But you’re back in charge of it because of the information I was able to give you, aren’t you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Do you think I killed Yves?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Maggie made a noise of exasperation.

  “In the meantime, the killer has gotten away!”

  “Maggie, the body had been there for many hours. That room is not frequently used. The killer was gone long before we police arrived. You are thinking he is lurking in the Mens’ room waiting for us to go away?” Bedard laughed playfully.

  “I should think smug condescension would be the last thing you would try to pull on me,” Maggie said coldly. “...considering the examples of your past police work on this case.”

  Bedard smile faded; he stroked his mustache.

  “Je m’excuse,” he said, meaningfully. I’m sorry. “You’re right. I’m being oafish, and so far you have been the only one coming up with clues. But we have the murder scene and the body now. We cannot stop and question everyone in the hospital! Surely, you see this.”

  Maggie rubbed her eye, wearily.

  “In Atlanta,” she said. “They’d have the whole damn block cordoned off and everybody stuck here until a cop had personally asked them where they were at the time of the murder. I can’t believe how slack...or, relaxed your way is.”

  Bedard stood up slowly and eased the tension out of his back.

  “You didn’t touch the body?” he asked.

  “Except for briefly shaking hands with it, no.”

  “You didn’t move it?”

  “I told you, no.”

  “Why were you in Nîmes today?”

  “I had a lunch date with Madeleine.”

  “Who you think is a liar.”

  “It wasn’t for pleasure. I found a note in Brigitte’s diary that she planned to have lunch with Madeleine the day she died only Madeleine never mentioned the fact to anyone.”

  A muscle in Bedard’s face flinched.

  “You have Brigitte Genet’s personal diary?” he asked.

  “I just got it yesterday.”

  “And you arranged lunch with Madame Dupre to confront her about the luncheon engagement.”

  “She denied it.”

  “I thought we were supposed to tell each other when we got information.”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  “I’ll remember that. Time-lapse information. Well, you can go, I guess. I’ll call you if there’s anything else.” Bedard turned and picked up a stack of notecards from the desk and began flipping through them.

  “Oh, come on, Roger,” Maggie laughed. “This is pouting in any language! I’m sorry I didn’t call you and tell you about the diary, but I told you right away when I discovered a bloody corpse, now, didn’t I?”

  Roger dropped the notecards and grinned.

  “It must be a cultural thing,” he said. “I don’t know when you’re joking.”

  Maggie picked up her bag and walked to the door.

  “Funny,” she said with a smile. “That’s what Laurent always says.” She disappeared out the door, then stuck her head back in the opening: “You’ll call me at home with the autopsy results?”.

  Bedard nodded, his smile a very tired one.

  2

  Madeleine held her breath.

  She stood outside the double swinging doors of the intensive care unit.

  The police were so stupid! She smiled an ugly smile. Instead of questioning her about Yves’ death, they actually offered their condolences! In her memory, she saw the look of bewildered pain on her husband, Richard’s, face when the police told them of Yves’ death. It was true, she thought with no affection. The poor idiot loved Yves as a brother. Perhaps he will be the only person to truly mourn the monster’s passing.

  She peered in the small window opening of the door to make sure that the inhabitant’s attendants were occupied elsewhere then pushed open the door to the hospital room which held the unconscious Pijou, her hands squeezing her Prada reptile clutch so tightly she could feel its spine snap beneath her fingers.

  Perhaps, again, there is still one more left who may also mourn.

  3

  “I’m telling you, Madeleine killed Yves,” Maggie said into the phone receiver. She stood in the public telephone booth off the hospital cafeteria and squinted through the large picture window at the rain pouring down outside.

  “But I thought you said they were having an affair,” Grace said on her end.

  “Yes, yes, they were. Une affair de coeur, you know, how upsetting those can be.” Grace laughed.

  “If you say so,” she said.

  “So you don’t think it was Madeleine.” Maggie caught the eye of Jean-Paul Remey as he went through the line in the cafe
teria. He turned his red-rimmed eyes away, his back to her.

  “Marie says Uncle August was making threats against Yves in his restaurant.”

  “Well, let’s face it. Nobody like Yves. Hell, it could’ve been any one of his nurses, for that matter. Is Marie with you?”

  “Yes, she’s spending the night. I’m going with her to court tomorrow in Aix for René’s hearing. Hold on a second...”

  Marie’s voice comes on the line.

  “Hello, Maggie?”

  “Hey, Marie...”

  “I just wanted to tell you that sometimes to not think about something for a little bit is to finally see the thing you have been looking for all along, you understand?”

  “Yeah, thanks, Marie.”

  “Also, like with painting, I think you need to see the whole picture as it hangs on the wall--from the distance, yes? Do not get overwhelmed by the details! Look at the whole picture.”

  “Yes, alright--”

  Grace was back on the line.

  “Listen, darling, why don’t you drop by? It’s just us girls tonight, Win is in Paris working out the last part of his deal on selling the software business. It’d be fun.”

  “Thanks, but no. Laurent is out tonight and I really feel a need to spend some time alone, you know? Take a bath, paint my toenails, give myself a facial, maybe give Mother a call.”

  “I perfectly understand. The full female pampering treatment. Good for you.”

  “Give Marie my love, okay? And thank her for the advice, and tell René to hang in there.”

  “I will, darling. Enjoy tonight.”

  Twenty minutes later, after grabbing a cafeteria sandwich and a cup of coffee, Maggie was in her car and heading home. She spotted Bedard’s car in the hospital parking lot as she drove out. She knew the body had been moved an hour ago, so maybe he was still here doing tedious police work? Buoyed by the idea that Roger might be trying to tighten up what, up to now, had been sloppy detection work, Maggie resolved to put the whole case out of her mind for one night. She drove two miles in the increasingly fierce rain before thoughts of Yves and Brigitte came insistently back to her.

  She never did resolve how Brigitte could have married Yves in the first place. Either Yves had demonically evolved from the person he’d been when Brigitte married him, or Maggie really didn’t know Brigitte and her pathology well enough to be surprised by her loving him. She tried to imagine Laurent changing so completely from the man she fell in love with to something resembling the creature that Yves was, and she knew that Yves must have been venal from the beginning. Had Brigitte been so stupid? Had she been so shallow that Yves’ looks and stature as a physician blinded her to his evil? Had this been the woman Maggie had nearly chosen as her next soulmate? Or was it not a case of myopia? Was there, in fact, something about Brigitte that was attracted to Yves specifically because of who he was? Did she loathe herself so much she felt she needed to be abused? Was she atoning for something? Maggie’s mind raced to the men in Brigitte’s childhood--René (what do I really know about him except he’s a hot head?) and August Schworm--Could something have happened between “uncle” and “niece” when Brigitte was a child?

  Maggie took the ramp to the D-999 and noted she was low on gas. The clock on the dashboard said it was after seven o’clock. How could it have gotten so late? she thought with surprise. Laurent will already have left for his evening’s celebrations. She wished now that she’d called him from the hospital and told him what was going on.

  What is going on, she wondered? She thought of Bedard, so handsome, so different from Laurent. Small and wiry and ready to spring on every comment or askance look or gesture she might make, as opposed to Laurent’s steady, unblinking, slow observation-without-comment approach to life. It was like the difference between a little terrier with lots of personality and speed, and a lumbering St-Bernard, strong, and steady--but full of quiet cunning. Maggie blinked. Is that how she really saw Laurent? Full of guile under all that reserve? Well, as a con man, he did used to lie for a living, she reminded herself. But was it against nature for him to do so? She brought a picture of Laurent to mind and saw him, big and good-looking, his lips full, a small smile often there, his eyes, dark brown, his pupils nonexistent. She had looked into those unfathomable dark eyes so many times in the past and always found answers, reassurance, love and yes, secrets. Would there always be secrets between them, she wondered?

  On the off-chance he might be late getting off, Maggie pulled out her cell phone to call him and noticed that the battery was dead. Sighing, she tossed it back into her purse and accelerated, keeping her eye on the low fuel gauge. He’d likely already gone, anyway, she told herself. It was dark and the rain was coming down very hard. She would be glad to get home.

  She tried to remember how Brigitte and Yves met. Obviously she’d been attracted to his handsome looks first. She thought of Madeleine, then, and had to give her a begrudging respect for having married Richard. She had been the wiser of the two French women in the matter of the heart. Or had she? Although arguable the better of the two men, Richard obviously was not the right choice for Madeleine or why was she screwing around on him? Maggie had overhead the staff nurses discussing Richard with the gist of it being that he was very nice and didn’t bother any of them.

  Did Madeleine kill Yves? Why would she? They were still lovers. Was one of them trying to leave the affair? Did one of them make a terrible discovery? Bedard said Yves had been stabbed several times with a scalpel. Maggie drew a tired hand across her face and punched on the radio. Static assailed her as she tried without success to tune in a nearby radio station. Finally, she turned the radio off. She gauged she was only about thirty minutes from her driveway. When she got home, she planned on dropping her wet clothes in the foyer as she entered, pull on a robe before feeding the dogs and lighting a fire. Although she wasn’t hungry, she knew Laurent would have left something for her either warming in the oven or wrapped up on the kitchen counter. He would have decanted a bottle of wine for her too, she knew.

  What about August? Is he just a big powder-puff or could he have killed Yves? He seemed so afraid and respectful of Yves--could he have made the switch to violent hatred? He adored Brigitte, Maggie had to admit. But surely he must have been aware that Yves was beating Brigitte? Maggie exited the D-999 to the more remote country road that led to St-Buvard. Some types of people can talk themselves into not believing things they don’t want to believe, she told herself.

  Surely, Bedard will get a statement from August as to his where-abouts at the time of the murder. Either his people at the restaurant will give him his alibi, or we’ve got our suspect, Maggie thought. She made a mental note to call Bedard when she got home. A tiny rattling sound pinged up at Maggie from the floorboards or just behind her seat. Annoyed that the car was making, once more, new and unasked for noises that would probably warrant a week’s visit to the garage in Avignon, Maggie twisted the radio knob in hopes it might have come from there. The noise stopped.

  And it seemed to her that Jean-Paul got taken off the suspect list pretty quickly. Just because he’s gay and acts like he’s sorry Yves is dead, is that a reason to believe he didn’t kill him? Maggie shook her head. These French were so wrapped up in their sophisticated version of sexual implication, they can’t stand to think that sex might not be a motive! For that matter, if a homosexual attracted to Yves could want him dead for some reason, couldn’t a homosexual despising all women want Brigitte dead? Maggie’s eyes widened. Was it possible that Brigitte was killed--not because of who she was intrinsically--but because she stood in the way of someone else? Someone who would kill, not from jealousy or desire or passion, but from revenge and resentment?

  What if you took the sex out of it? Remove the “cherchez la femme” aspect from it and what have you got? Maggie found herself getting excited. The details were falling away, blending into a pattern that formed a picture. She stepped back from it in her mind and watched it develop.

&nb
sp; Who could like a scumbag like Yves? When he wasn’t sleeping and bragging about the women he slept with, he was condescending and cold. What buddy would tolerate or trust him? Why did Richard? He was not only the only person who professed to like Yves, he defended him. What did Richard see to like in him? Was he just too pure? Too good that he didn’t see it when he was staring into the face of evil?

  Maggie left behind the dark, winding road that threaded through St-Buvard. The shutters had been pulled shut, the vegetable bins and postcard carousels safely tucked away for the night. Not even a pinprick showed through the tightly fastened windows to indicate that the village was anything but deserted. She slowed the car to drive the painstaking switchbacks on the one-lane road to Domaine St-Buvard.

  The thought occurred to her as she slowed to negotiate a particularly tricky stretch of gravel road that hugged a small bridge with no protective brink, that if Richard isn’t a total simpleton, then why does he like Yves? Surely, in all their years of friendship, Richard must have seen Yves for the snake he was. A chill began to vibrate at the base of Maggie’s spine. Richard knew that Yves was abusing Brigitte. Maybe the words “too good” didn’t accurately describe why Richard and Yves were such good friends. Richard would have to be an idiot not to have been affected by Yves. And Richard was not an idiot. He was a brilliant physician, admired and respected for his specialized knowledge, his analytical mind, his ability to make astute judgments.

  From around the last dark bend in the corkscrew country road, Maggie could see the lights of Domaine St-Buvard. Laurent was not home, but he’d left a welcoming light for her.

  What if Madeleine wasn’t lying about the lunch engagement with Brigitte? What if Brigitte believed she was meeting Madeleine because someone she trusted had set it up? And who to trust more to set up a luncheon engagement than the husband of your friend? “Madeleine is busy all morning, Brigitte, but she wanted me to ask you, if I saw you today, to meet her for lunch tomorrow. A nice little place in the country. We were there this weekend, so charming…”

  It’s Richard, Maggie thought dully.