The gun was not there.
“I can't slice the cheese with you holding that knife to my neck,” Maggie said. She cleared her throat and felt a needle of piercing anger at Laurent. Are you playing musical chairs with the stupid thing? Where is it now? In my fucking sock drawer?
“Try.” Richard held the knife to her throat.
“Are you so terrified of me,” Maggie said picking up the small knife from the counter, “that you don't think you could disarm me?” Easily? She began to saw into the block of Edam.
“I will not be manipulated,” Richard said.
Where in hell was that stupid gun? He wasn't letting her take a breath, let alone, find a gun, unwrap it, God knows load it because Laurent surely didn't hide it with bullets in it! Which means I also have to find the damn bullets…
Maggie cut three fat and ragged chunks of cheese and then dropped the knife onto the counter.
It was hopeless.
Her hands shook dramatically as she assembled the sandwiches.
“Do you…do you want a plate?” she croaked. She reached for the cupboard door over her head.
“Of course, I want a plate,” he said pleasantly.
She opened the cupboard and removed a small china plate. Before she closed the door, she saw what she did not expect to see and what she wasn't sure was at all important any more. Pushed back behind the saucers and dishes, she saw a small, unwrapped cartridge of rounds for the Glock.
“Bring it in here,” Richard directed, motioning toward the dining room.
Maggie grabbed the plate, her hands shaking badly now, and walked into the dining room.
Richard sat down at the table and motioned for her to do the same. Without a word, he snatched up the sandwich and took a large bite. He watched her, chewing loudly, his cheeks puffed out by too much food, and then stopped. His eyes looked startled, as if he'd found a small stone in his mouthful.
“Water!” he croaked through the muffling layers of bread and cheese. Maggie looked at him uncertainly and then was on her feet.
“Glass of water?” she said in her best hostess's voice as she moved quickly to the kitchen.
“And mustard! You stupid cow! You cannot even make a sandwich. Are you trying to choke me with these dry roof tiles of bread?!”
Once in the kitchen, Maggie heard him get up from his chair. She jerked open the cabinet door, grabbed a drinking glass and the bullets in one hand and moved to the sink. Her back to the kitchen door, she shoved the ammunition into the waistband of her skirt and filled the glass with water.
“Get out here, now!” he screamed from the other room.
Her eyes darted around the kitchen for a usable knife, while images formed in her mind of her storming out of the kitchen wielding the bread knife or stabbing herself in an attempt to hide it in her clothes. She could hear him opening drawers in the dining room, the sounds of candlesticks falling from the buffet, a small crash of china as something broke. She opened the refrigerator door and grabbed the jar of mustard.
“If I have to come for you,” he screamed, “I will cut off something important!”
Maggie stepped breathlessly into the dining room, the mustard in one hand, the glass of water in the other.
Richard was standing by the buffet, its drawers pulled open, a large linen napkin tied comically around his neck.
“I'm a messy eater,” he said, smiling as he touched the napkin with his fingers. The butcher knife lay on the table beside the half-eaten sandwich.
Maggie remained standing, holding her offerings, her eyes riveted on the small, partially-wrapped package in Richards's hands.
He'd found the Glock.
7
Laurent squinted at the check and grunted.
“Non, non!” Jean-Luc said, grabbing, ineffectually, for the bill.
Laurent sighed. How long would the man feel in his debt? Were words not enough to forgive the past? What more could he say?
“Jean-Luc…” he began, the weariness lacing his voice.
“Hey, you guys! I thought I'd find you here!”
Windsor Van-Sant strode up to the café table and tossed his calf-skin gloves onto it.
“Grace said you'd probably be here. Glad I caught you. Hey, Jean-Luc, how ya doing?”
Jean-Luc grinned his gap-tooth smile and motioned to a free chair.
Laurent stood and shook hands with Windsor.
“Windsor, it's wonderful you are here,” he said. “You were looking for us? All is well?” He frowned. “Maggie didn't call you--”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Windsor settled into the café chair and signaled for the waiter. “Just hadn't seen much of you lately and wanted to make sure I helped you celebrate getting the grapes in.”
“Superbe, Windsor,” Laurent said. The three gave their drink orders to the waiter and Laurent tucked the dinner bill under his coaster.
Life was so good tonight, Laurent thought as he felt himself settling in for a long, celebratory night at the café. He watched Jean-Luc--with his nonexistent English--and Windsor--with his bad French--chat companionably to each other. So blessed in so many ways, he thought.
8
“Don't you think it's fun to go through people's drawers and see the treasures you find?” Richard said. “I was just looking for une serviette and found…ahh! Now that is a good mustard. My favorite, in fact. And did you think to bring a knife to spread it?”
Richard set the handgun down next to his plate and reached for the mustard.
“No knife?” He laughed. “Not as resourceful as I gave you credit for,” he said. “I thought all Americans were resourceful.” He unscrewed the lid and dipped two fingers into the mustard. “But you are not a sly people, are you, you Americans? Instead, so…what is the word? 'Up front,' eh?” Using his fingers a spread the mustard onto his sandwich, then wiped them on his napkin at his neck. Two startling streaks of yellow jumped out from the white cloth at his throat.
“Perhaps to be a little sly might be helpful from time to time, eh?” He took another large bite of the sandwich and nodded as if to reassure Maggie that this time it was good. “Might be a useful thing in certain situations that come up.” He smiled unpleasantly at her. A piece of ham slipped from his thin lips and sputtered to the tablecloth. Maggie dragged her attention away from the gun.
“Brigitte wasn't American,” she said, setting the water glass down near his plate.
Richard continued to chew but scowled at her.
“But I guess she wasn't very resourceful, either,” she said. “For all her being French and everything...”
“Shut up,” he growled.
Richard finished his sandwich, drained the water glass, then took his napkin and carefully wiped the glass of his fingerprints.
“Can’t be too careful,” he said.
“I should imagine you could leave your prints all over everywhere,” Maggie said, the bullets in her waistband began to pinch. “And the police still wouldn’t figure it out. They are so stupid.”
Richard frowned.
“They are not that stupid,” he said, pushing away from the table. He picked up his knife and the gun. He held it up for her. “Where are the bullets for this?”
“I have no idea. It’s Laurent’s gun.”
“To the couch,” he said, motioning her with the knife.
“It’s because they’re French,” Maggie continued. “In America, you couldn’t get away with being so sloppy.”
Richard’s face turned crimson.
“What are you saying?” he roared. “That the French police are inferior to the American police?”
Maggie hesitated at the coffee table near the couch. In the mirror over the couch, she briefly caught her reflection and the image jolted her as nothing else had tonight. She saw herself; her long hair had worked loose from its bun and now hung in a black curtain past her shoulders. She wore her gray chemise untucked over a slim black skirt, her pale, heart-shaped face startling beneath the harsh black
lines of the vivid X which stretched across her face from cheekbone to brow, chin to cheek.
She was dressed to be a corpse.
Richard walked to the coffee table and dropped the Glock onto it with a loud clatter. He was angry and held the knife low at his side, flicking it against his thumb and forefingers, nicking himself as he fidgeted.
Maggie saw that there was nothing left. No hope, no cavalry coming, no chance for her except what she was virtually able to create against nature. In all likelihood, it wasn’t going to be much, probably just enough to lead the police to Richard but not enough to save herself. She pushed the thought—and the image of her face in the mirror—as far away from her as she could. Bringing Richard down, she thought. Well, that was at least something.
Richard was ranting now.
“The French are superior to the Americans in every way!” he shrieked. “I am simply too clever for the police. That is why—”
“I admit your food is pretty good,” Maggie said, forcing herself to move closer to Richard—and the gun on the coffee table.
Incredibly, now that she was close to him, Maggie picked up a faint fragrance that she recognized as overpoweringly familiar to her. Her stomach churned with the sudden recognition that Richard was wearing the same scent her own father had worn for years when she was a child. The scent, at once sweet and clean and male, sent years of images and feelings of safety and love surging through Maggie. She forced her knees not to buckle with the emotional impact.
“Our--? Our food?!” Richard sputtered.
It occurred to Maggie as she watched the man rage that the climax to this nightmare was likely upon her, and with that thought was the realization that she was angry. Angry at not being able to see her parents or Laurent again, at not getting the chance to have a baby. Angry that this piece of killing vermin had the power to unnaturally end her biography, that something so vile and valueless as this piece of walking dementia could subtract her from the population and there was nothing she, or Laurent or anyone, could do to prevent it. And amidst that anger, building with every sickening second, Maggie got a desperate idea. Desperate and futile. But she was barreling her way down a dark and too-slick tunnel to her last moments on earth—she could see that—he had killed before, he was in the process of preparing himself to kill again.
Somehow, against all her instincts, Maggie knew that, this time, stalling was not the answer.
“How did a vulgar little crapaud like you ever get Madeleine?” she asked, edging closer to him.
“Eh?” Richard blinked as if he hadn’t heard her correctly.
“I mean, is there something wrong with her or did she lose a bet or what?”
The look on Richard’s face might have been amusing, he was so stunned by Maggie’s words.
“You should see how stupid you look right now,” she said, doing her best to sneer. “You never answered me about Madeleine. That has got to be the mystery of all time. I mean, I can understand what she saw in Yves—”
In a burst of flying food particles and a torrent of howling, incomprehensible French, Richard drew back his fist and slammed it into Maggie’s taunting face. She reeled with the blow and fell at his feet. Richard held the butcher knife high above his head and reached down to pull away the massive tangle of dark hair that shrouded her as she lay slumped atop the coffee table. His screams continued as he fought with her hair, his knife beginning to paw the air with anticipation.
A noise from the French doors leading to the garden startled him. He dropped the tangle of hair and stepped away from Maggie’s body for a moment. He held the knife to his chest as if to shield himself with it and looked through the panes of the doors from where the noise had come. Then, he took a long breath to gather himself and returned to the job.
It was only the little dog.
Chapter Fifteen
1
Maggie saw the blow coming and forced herself to receive it. Her last thought before she blacked out was that it wasn’t much of a plan. Stars erupted in her brain against a background of screaming blackness as she felt the floor give way beneath her. She tried not to give into the faint but it overwhelmed her as she fell, crumpling onto the coffee table between her and Richard. It felt right to succumb, to allow it to happen, to shut down. She felt herself drift away from the noise and the fear and pain, and the need to do so was great. To end it all, to just close my eyes, and end it…
Within seconds she was being tugged back to consciousness, the pain roaring through her like a train gathering speed. Fighting a barely recognizable feeling of disappointment to be back among the living, Maggie forced herself to move, to think again. The rush of fresh pain as Richard pulled violently on her hair, twisting and jerking it, seemed to help clear her head. She felt the hard, boxy shape of the Glock beneath her on the table; she could hear Richard screaming at her, although the words were lost to her brain. Her hair cloaked her as she lay with her back to him. Slowly, her fingers—numb and stiff—began to fumble in slowmotion at her waistband for the cartridge of rounds.
He was jerking her by her hair up off the small table. In terror, Maggie felt for the chamber on the Glock with fingers that felt like baseball mitts. She forced her mind to recollect…to reconnect…to focus as she tried to remember the gun with her fingers.
She was fully awake now and could understand his raging: “Tue es mort! Tue es mort!” You’re dead, you’re dead. He wrapped his fist around a length of her hair…
No! No! Not yet! Please, God…
Her fingers fought to find the chamber opening as she felt herself being lifted, the back of her neck exposed to him. Her fingers plunged into the chamber and with her other hand she tried to position the round for insertion, but it was too late. As she felt herself being lifted off the table by the roots of her hair, Maggie saw an absurd vision in her mind of her old account executive at the ad agency holding up a pie chart.
Suddenly, the pressure on her hair ceased. Inexplicably, Richard stopped his assault. In her mind’s eye, she saw him step away from her, felt him disengage, and knew immediately—as if she’d been watching it on a movie reel—that the respite was temporary. He hadn’t quit for good, just for the briefest of moments.
But, for Maggie, it was enough.
Her hair draping her once more, she slammed the cartridge into its chamber and twisted over on her back, pointing the gun in front of her. Not bothering to take the time to push her shroud of hair from her face, to sit up or even to aim beyond Richard’s general direction, she fired.
Richard screamed and grabbed his arm. He slashed downward with the knife.
Maggie twisted off the table. The knife sliced into her hair. She scrambled to her feet and held the gun straight out in front of her.
He stood—too closely—the knife in his hand, but that hand was also gripping his shoulder which was gushing a small fountain of blood. Rage and pain gathered on his face, joining a stark look of surprise.
Maggie felt her hands slick with sweat and she longed to remove one from the gun to wipe against her skirt. She knew she didn’t dare. She locked her elbows in a shooter’s stance and took careful aim at Richard’s face. He looked like a mad bull about to charge.
“This Glock is loaded with fifteen rounds,” she said, licking her lips and wondering where her voice was coming from. “Fourteen in the clip, one in the chamber. There is no safety. Unlike a revolver, a semi-automatic is the perfect lady’s choice with the effort to shoot off each round equivalent to the work it takes to press a button on a keyboard…”
Richard looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.
“You must put that gun down,” he said, his fingers on his good hand flicking the blade of his knife.
“I plan to,” Maggie said evenly. “Guns are dangerous. I’m a big believer in gun control.” She moved to the telephone on the side table. Her tongue felt a loose upper tooth and her lip had already swollen to the point she was having trouble speaking. The prospect of balancing a telephon
e on her shoulder, dialing, dealing with the French operator and keeping Richard—as wily as a mental patient—from sticking his knife in her throat seemed insurmountable. “Drop the knife,” she said.
Richard looked at the phone and smiled.
“I don’t think so.” His smile was more of wince than a smile, it seemed to Maggie.
He took a step toward her.
“You can’t imagine I won’t shoot you, Richard,” Maggie said.
“Madame, you are marked for death. Don’t you see? I am not the one who will die tonight. Like Brigitte, like little Pijou…like so many more to come…”
She saw the hand twitch that was holding the knife. She steadied her arm. The Glock felt heavy and she resisted the need to lower it to her side if just for a moment.
“You’re nuts,” she said.
“And you are so americaine, n’est-pas? So very fair, you americaines, yes? A gun against a knife? I am nearly unarmed! And wounded! You will shoot me?” He laughed and looked almost fondly at Maggie. “Your very nationality will prevent you from saving yourself tonight!”
“A round from a semi-automatic creates a tidy hole upon impact,” Maggie recited, forcing herself to take strength in the mantra of her copywriter’s facts.
“Now to have me arrested, ahhhh, that would be so tidy, yes? The police to come and put me in jail? But that is not, as you say, ‘where we are.’ There are no police tonight. There is only one little americaine alone. A little americaine who cannot take another life.” He smiled sadly, shaking his head. “Even to save her own.”
“One more step, dirt bag, and I empty the chamber into your neck.”
“Oh, Madame,” Richard said softly, his eyes glittering with intent as he moved his knife hand from his wounded shoulder. “Why is it that I just don’t believe that?”
2
Bedard eased the emergency brake on and sat quietly a moment, watching the house, thinking. Surely it was Marie Pernon or even Grace Van Sant who would be Le Docteur’s victim tonight. To come to Maggie’s house, alone, while sending his men to the other women’s homes was to ensure, at best, he would be made a laughing stock. At worst, he would not be on hand to apprehend the murderer in time and Mesdames Pernon et Van Sant would pay the final price for his addle-headed reasoning.
The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4 Page 84
