Maggie’s car sat alone in the darkened gravel drive. It was further evidence, Bedard felt, that she was alone and unharmed. A light glimmered past the curtains in the kitchen.
Quietly, he stepped from his unmarked police car and studied the house front. He pulled a cigarette from a pack in his shirt packet and tapped it against his lip, unlighted.
Where was Dernier’s car?
It was past midnight and the air had turned cold and windy. He could feel the beginning stirrings of the Mistral, the terrible arctic wind that sent roof tiles flying into the air all over Provence like so many loose playing cards. If he were lucky, he would be home, sleeping in his bed before it struck tonight. Bedard lit the cigarette in his mouth and approached the large stone terrace of the mas.
No porch light left on for the returning husband?
He would make his call from inside Domaine St-Buvard and hear his men’s report. He knew they would be either making an arrest of calling the coroner or, perhaps, both. He cursed his ‘instinct’ that drove him to come to Maggie, instead of accompanying his men to the more logical leads. Hadn’t Pijou said her Mother was next? The girl had awakened, fully conscious, naming Richard Dupre as her assailant and screeching that he’d bragged that Grace Van Sant and her mother were to be his next victims. And Madame Dernier. Bedard tossed the cigarette off the terrace into the night. Having heard Maggie’s name mentioned—even as the tertiary-intended victim—it was impossible that he could have gone anywhere else.
A laughing stock.
He raised his hand to knock on the door when the sound of a gunshot exploded from inside the house.
3
Richard lurched at Maggie, slashing the butcher knife downward in a wide arc toward her face. Instinctively, she tried to back away from him. The knife came down just as she felt the coffee table behind her knees, blocking her from further retreat. She twisted sharply at the waist and felt the knife as it sliced past her shoulder, cutting away sections of her long hair and skin. She shut her eyes and squeezed the trigger.
The sound of the blast exploded in her ears, the same sound that only minutes before she’d been too numb and shocked to hear. It seemed to ricochet off the walls of the room and swallow her up with its volume.
Richard buckled with the impact of the shot. A spot of blood formed near his hip and began to spread slowly. The hand with the knife hovered above her head as if caught in a freeze frame on a movie screen. His eyes bulged at her in astonishment, but, instead of falling backwards as she knew he must, he roared at her, viscous spittle flying about his head like sparks, his face a reddened, puckered picture of frothing insanity, and brought the knife slicing down once more. She forced herself not to twist away but to maintain her balance. As he screamed his final assault, Maggie shot him again.
This time, he gave a terrible groan and stopped, his eyes staring madly at her as if trying to remember who she was. Maggie corrected her aim and held the gun—now feeling like a hundred weight in her quivering arms—high, pointed at his forehead. Richard licked his lips; they twitched into a spasmodic semblance of a smile. Quietly, he crumpled to her feet, his knife bouncing away from him like a petulant child’s discarded toy. Maggie staggered backwards, nearly tripping once more over the coffee table, as Bedard charged into the living room. His face was flushed, his expression a combination of panic and shock.
Maggie looked at him without surprise and then sank slowly to the coffee table, the gun finally sagging into her lap. He ran to her and touched her shoulder.
“Oh, Roger,” she said, her voice a brief whisper. “Do I have to do everything for you?”
4
Laurent excused himself and walked to the terrace of Le Canard. He needed a moment to clear his head from all the drink and the cigarette smoke. He stood outside, staring in the direction of Domaine St-Buvard. His breath came in long slow puffs, visible in the cold air.
He pulled his collar against his neck. The weather had turned. By morning, they would be in their winter coats. He felt another surge of relief that the grapes were in.
Windsor came up behind him.
“She’ll do fine, Laurent,” he said, clapping a big hand down on Laurent’s shoulder. “Without Grace, I mean. She’ll be fine.”
Laurent looked at his friend and smiled.
“Of course,” he said.
“No, really,” Windsor said. The burly American rubbed his cold hands together and blew out a cloud of breath. “Maggie’s tough. Besides,” he looked at the darkened village street as if for the last time and Laurent was surprised to realize that his friend would be sorry to go. “Besides,” Windsor repeated, “she’s got you, man.”
5
Bedard took the gun out of Maggie’s hand and then bent to examine Dupre. Never taking his eyes from where she sat staring glassy-eyed at Richard, Bedard picked up the telephone and called an ambulance. He went into the kitchen and returned with a glass of wine and a dishtowel. Wordlessly, he handed the wine to Maggie and tied the dishtowel to Richard’s midriff. The man groaned softly on the floor while Bedard worked. When he was finished, he knelt facing Maggie.
She put the drained wine glass down on the coffee table. He saw that her hand shook.
“How did you know to come?” she asked.
“I didn’t know. I just came,” he said. And this time, when he took her into his arms and held her, she didn’t resist.
6
Maggie wrapped the heavy wool blanket tighter around her shoulders and still she shivered beneath it. She stood on the front porch of Domaine St-Buvard, watching for the jaundiced headlights of Laurent’s Renault. Bedard had called Le Canard and told him to come home. His men filled the tiny kitchen and living room, even her car held two of them with flashlights.
When she saw the ambulance was ready to remove Richard, Maggie went upstairs to change clothes. It was there she discovered her blackened left eye, her split lip and bruised cheekbone. She stared into the mirror and saw her hair matted and chopped in two places, and the blood drying to her silk chemise under a bad cut on her shoulder. She touched the wound gently. It would need stitches.
The black X was vivid against her white face. Ignoring her wounds, Maggie picked up a tissue, wet it with her tongue, and began to rub at the black lines on her face.
Bedard knocked on her door and came in.
“You’re hurt,” he said, frowning. He carefully lifted her long hair away from the cut. “I’ll get the paramedics…”
Maggie tossed down the tissue, her face still marked, and moved past him to the stairs.
“I’ll go to the hospital in the morning,” she said.
“It could get infected,” Bedard said, following her. “I’ll take you now in the squad car, besides—”
“Laurent will take me,” Maggie said, her back to him as she moved downstairs.
Bedard reached out and held her arm; the two were hidden in the darkness of the stairwell.
“You blame me for not coming sooner,” he said.
“I had no expectation that you would come at all,” she said.
“I should have been here.”
Maggie disengaged her arm from his hand, and then gave it a brief squeeze before descending the stairs.
The front door flew open and Laurent entered his home in a rush of cold air, the heavy door thudding behind him with a loud boom. His hair was wild from the wind, his face flushed in anticipation and anger, and when he saw Maggie, anguish.
“Mon Dieu!” he cried. He took two long strides to where she stood at the bottom of the stairs and took her into his arms. He kissed her battered face, his words a murmured combination of English and French prattle. When he finally drew his face from hers, he looked into her eyes as if to make sure that the Maggie he knew and loved, lived still behind those eyes.
“I’m fine, Laurent,” Maggie said, wincing from the pain in her shoulder, yet not willing to unravel herself from his arms. “Really.”
Bedard slowly descended the stai
rs.
“She saved herself,” he said to Laurent. “She didn’t need either of us, it seems.”
Laurent regarded Bedard coming down the stairs from the bedrooms.
The same lack-luster sergeant stood in the doorway to the living room. It was evident there was nothing more to do. The rest of Bedard’s men were piling into the two squad cars in the gravel drive.
“We'll need a statement,” Bedard said to Maggie. “Perhaps after your husband has taken you to the hospital?”
Laurent frowned and looked at Maggie. Instantly, he saw her shoulder, a faint stain of pink coming through her sweater.
“Sacre bleu,” he muttered. “We will go now!”
“No, Laurent,” Maggie said, shaking her head. “We’ll bandage it up for tonight, okay? I have to rest. I can’t bear the thought of getting in a car. Please.”
Laurent touched her hair, her long beautiful hair that now hung in uneven, jagged pieces. His eyes welled.
“Mon Dieu,” he said again.
He picked her up into his arms and carried her into the living room.
Bedard hesitated, then let himself out.
7
Several hours later, Maggie woke up next to Laurent. She was stiff and sore. She was thirsty and her lips were cracked but while her shoulder felt achy, it didn’t really hurt. After giving her a brandy and wrapping her in one of her cashmere shawls, Laurent had driven her to the emergency room in Aix where they stitched the laceration in her shoulder and gave her painkillers. Now, Maggie lay watching her husband sleep, grateful for the drugs and for his gentle, insistent love. She listened to the sounds of the Mistral rearrange the roof tiles of the mas, its winds scuttling up and down the shuttered windows in a steady rattling staccato. She cuddled down under the duvet closer to Laurent,.
The noise she heard in the next few seconds made her sit upright.
Petit-Four!
She decided against waking Laurent. Worry can be as exhausting as pain, she thought, as she slipped out of bed and padded downstairs to the living room. On her way to the French door where she could see the silhouette of the little dog pawing at the door, Maggie hesitated at the coffee table, now carefully repositioned in front of her damask floral couch. She saw the pillows on the couch, the china creamer still on the dining room table. She touched the coffee table with her fingertips. It seemed to Maggie could still detect the fragrance of her father’s after-shave lingering in the air.
The little dog barked impatiently.
Epilogue
Maggie handed Grace the roll of masking tape.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this yourself,” she said.
It was a week after the attack. In surprising anti-climax, Richard died during the surgery attempt to remove the bullet from his stomach. It was a surprise considering that none of the wounds had been deemed life-threatening. Ironically, Grace suggested that Richard had died, not as the result of a would-be victim defending herself, but rather to the sloppy workmanship at the hospital. The attending surgeon had had too much Schnapps after dinner and before entering the operating arena.
Zou-zou sat happily on Maggie’s lap, winding the packing twine around her chubby fingers and chewing on the frayed ends.
“The movers would only break my best stuff,” Grace said, pushing a lock of golden hair behind her ear. “Besides, it gives me something to do.”
“It took me awhile to figure out,” Maggie said, combing her fingers through the baby’s sparse fringe, “that you really wanted to go home.”
Grace looked up from the package she was taping shut.
“Yes, well…” she said. “I’m sure you can relate to that feeling?”
Maggie stood up with the baby and walked across the empty parlor, its walls lined with taped-shut cardboard boxes.
“You know,” she said. “That’s the funny thing.”
Grace stopped working.
“Oh, don’t tell me,” she said. “Don’t tell me you like it here now and are ready to settle in because, as my crusty old uncles used to say back in my Old Kentucky home, ‘that dog won’t hunt.’”
“You’re from New Jersey.”
“Same thing. I’m not believing it.”
“Things are different now,” Maggie said.
“I think I read about this in Martha Stewart Magazine,” Grace said. “It was an article entitled: ‘How to Feel at Home in a Strange Country. First, shoot some scum-bag lowlife, then plant a bed of day lilies near your driveway.’”
“Very funny.”
“I still can’t believe you know how to handle a gun. What was all that nonsense about hating them and having a fit when Laurent had one in the house?”
“It’s not nonsense. I do hate them.”
“But how—”
“I worked on the Glock account at the ad agency back in Atlanta.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, I mean, handgun makers have to advertise, too, right? So we had their account. I wrote the copy. I researched it. The client insisted I become familiar with his product, so I went to the shooting range several times to handle one.”
“Was this before or after you wrote the ads for pesticides and cigarettes?”
Maggie tickled little Zou-zou. “Mama’s being a be-yotch, isn’t she, sweetums? Yes, she is, yes she is.”
“Marie was totally impressed, I have to tell you,” Grace said. “Really completed her image of the gutsy American flying to the rescue, six-shooters blazing…”
“Before I forget, Laurent said dinner’s at exactly eight o’clock but you and Win come early if you can.”
“What’s he making?”
“I have no idea.”
“Not putting it in the cookbook, darling? It’ll probably be an extravaganza. You should probably take color pictures. Editors like that sort of thing.”
“Speaking of Marie…”
“She told me that Rene and Pijou are both home. And she’s working to put things back together for them. She’s extremely grateful to you.”
“I wish I could’ve figured things out before Richard was crouching in the backseat of my car.”
“You poor angel. I cannot imagine.”
“Madeleine called me.”
“From jail, I hope?”
“Grace, she didn’t know anything that Richard was doing. In fact, she slipped Yves a mickey-finn or something yesterday—”
Grace stared at Maggie.
“Madeleine tried to kill Yves?”
“She actually thought she did kill him when he turned up dead…”
“But then she found out he was stabbed.”
“Turns out Yves hit her, too.”
Grace grimaced and picked up a delicate china figurine.
“Lovely man,” she murmured.
“And you were right,” Maggie continued, handing Grace a sheet of packing newspaper. “The cosmetic surgery she had was corrective. Correcting a moment of Yves’ pique with her.”
“Why did she put up with it for so long?”
“Who knows? Why do any of ‘em?”
“Un monster.”
“In any event, she’s moving to Paris,” Maggie said. “And I’ve decided to dump the cookbook.”
Grace stopped wrapping the figurine.
“What? You’re kidding. You’re not going to do it?”
Maggie shook her head. “It was never my thing,” she said. “Not really.”
Grace stood up and wiped her hands on a clean cotton cloth on the table.
“All that work…”
Maggie made a face. She gathered her hair behind her head and held it for a moment before releasing it. It spilled in a small page boy style around her neck. She had had it cut to shoulder length to even up the jagged cuts of her encounter with Richard’s knife.
“I must have been desperate for something to do,” she said.
“But now that I’m leaving you’re not so desperate?” Grace took Zou-zou from Maggie and the baby laughed.
; “I’m going to write a novel,” Maggie said.
“A novel.”
“A piece of fiction.”
“As opposed to a factual recount of the dull happenings near and about the sleepy village of St-Buvard, France?”
“A novel.”
“The hair looks good, Maggie,” Grace said. “Richard did you a favor.”
Maggie burst out laughing. “God, you’re perverse, Grace! Anyone ever tell you you’re a serious fashion victim? The bastard wasn’t trying to give me a trim, you know. Besides, I’m growing it back.”
“Of course you are! We wouldn’t want to be chic for any length of time, would we? Maybe I can find you one of those Cher wigs for the meantime. I’m sure the iridescent green color wouldn’t be a problem for you.”
Maggie grinned at her. “I’ll never find anyone to take your place, Gracie,” she said. “God knows you’re one of a kind.”
Grace settled the baby on her hip and draped an arm around Maggie’s shoulder. “I’ll miss you desperately, Maggie, back in the real world of drive-through banking and round door knobs. You know I will.”
The two friends let the silence be between them. Then:
“You know Marie was hoping we’d all come to a special dinner tonight at her place?” Grace said. “She’s dying to see you and thank you in person.”
“Not tonight,” Maggie said.
Grace smiled. “I know. That’s what I told her. I said tonight’s dinner was special.” The two friends looked at each other and smiled. “But it’s not for thank you.”
MURDER IN PARIS
A Maggie Newberry Mystery
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4 Page 85
