The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “Two of the pickers were arrested yesterday,” he said as he started the car up. “Your father gone?”

  “This morning.”

  Laurent placed a large hand on Maggie’s knee before putting the car into gear. “Ça va, Maggie?” he asked.

  “Yes, Laurent,” she said. “I’m okay.”

  “A bad trip.”

  “Yes and no,” Maggie said.

  Laurent began the forty-five minute drive to St-Buvard and their home.

  “I mean, it was terrible, of course about Stan. Not sure I’ll ever get over that. I got to him seconds after he fell. Did I tell you that?”

  Laurent nodded.

  “But being in Paris was good for me.”

  Laurent looked over at her and then focused on the road. “C’est bien,” he said.

  “Did I told you what he said to me? What his last words were?”

  “Jimbo?”

  Maggie turned to look at the foliage of the Provençal countryside. Everything looked so primitive and tiresome after the lights and fast pace of Paris.

  “Just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Who is Jimbo?”

  “You are sure it is a person?” Laurent said.

  Maggie turned to look at him. This was unusual. Laurent didn’t normally engage in these kinds of questions or word play. He was a straightforward kind of guy, Maggie thought. Not much like the old Laurent, she thought, who thought nothing of lying his ass off to bilk some rich heiress out of her fortune.

  “Well, what else could it be?” Maggie said. “You think I misheard and maybe it was Jumbo? That’s even more mysterious.”

  “Perhaps it was a French word,” Laurent said, pulling off the A47 to the smaller two lane road that led to St-Buvard—the one that Maggie always feared would be the death of her if she ever met up with one of the ubiquitous drunk French drivers on it.

  “Stan wasn’t French,” Maggie said. “Why would he say a French word?”

  “Sais pas,” Laurent said.

  They drove in silence for several minutes. Maggie wondered what it meant that she felt sadder and more unhappy the closer she came to her home.

  Jeremy stood at the woman’s apartment door, his silk ascot neatly knotted at his throat, his eyes bloodshot from tears and what could only appear to the most casual observer as a seriously committed drug habit.

  “It’s just that I know Stan mentioned that he gave you a key to his flat,” Jeremy said to the frowning woman standing in the door of her apartment. “And I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t an absolute emergency that I get in.”

  “Pourquoi ne demandez-vous pas la nièce?” the woman asked. Why don’t you ask his niece? Jeremy’s French was poor but he understood her well enough.

  “I wish I had done so,” he said. “Mon erreur. But the poor cat should not have to suffer for my negligence. Le chat? Comprenez-vous?”

  “Le chat est en bon état.”

  Dear God, could this woman be any more difficult?

  “Well, I really need to see that for myself,” Jeremy said.

  “Non.” The woman began to shut the door and before he knew he was doing it, Jeremy thrust out a hand to stop it from closing.

  “Please!” he said. “Just give me the damn key!”

  “Je vais appeler les flics!” I’ll call the cops!

  Jeremy took a step back and allowed the woman to slam the door in his face. He stood staring at the door for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest, when he heard the plaintive mewing coming from behind him. He turned to see Stan’s big orange and cream tabby sitting on the bottom tread of the stairs regarding him coolly.

  Maggie sat at the dining room table with Danielle Alexandre. She and her husband, Jean-Luc, had brought over a large pissaladière that they had enjoyed for lunch with one of Laurent’s early wines. Laurent loved pissaladières but Maggie always found them too salty for her taste. The men, not surprisingly, were wandering the perimeter of Laurent’s vineyard.

  “Again, I am so sorry about your uncle,” Danielle said to her in English.

  “Thanks, Danielle,” Maggie said. She had not always been able to appreciate her neighbor. A good thirty years her senior, Danielle spoke English poorly and although pleasant, had always behaved, it seemed to Maggie, as a traditional French housewife—one from the nineteen fifties—might. When her first husband went to prison for torching Laurent’s vineyard four years earlier, he divorced Danielle in a surprise move that gave Maggie new respect for the man. Danielle had long been in love with Jean-Luc. To Jean-Luc’s credit, when Danielle became available he wasted no time in courting and marrying her.

  “You will go home for the funeral?”

  Maggie noticed Laurent’s tall form through the French doors as he and Jean-Luc walked together. There had literally never been a time when Laurent did not prefer to be walking his land, touching his vines and thinking or talking about them. She marveled that this was the same man who had lived by his wits for so many years lying and stealing. Until he had inherited Domaine St-Buvard, he had never owned an apartment or even a new car. To discover that he could be so passionately connected to the land—she wondered if that came as much a surprise to him as it did her.

  “No,” Maggie said, turning back to her neighbor. “There’s really no point. I wish we could have it in Paris,” she said. “Or San Francisco. Both places Stan had friends. He grew up in Atlanta but hasn’t visited in years.”

  Danielle gave her a questioning look.

  “It’s the family homestead,” Maggie explained. “It’s where my grandparents are buried, where Stan was born. It’s right, I guess, that he be laid to rest there. I’m just sorry that so many of his friends won’t be able to say goodbye to him properly.”

  “It sounds like he had many friends.”

  “He really did. He had a retail fashion blog that was respected and read worldwide.”

  “Blog?”

  “Yeah, never mind. Anyway, I didn’t know him that well until the end.”

  “You found the body, Laurent says.”

  “Kind of,” Maggie said, her glance once more darting out the door to find Laurent. “Stan spoke to me just before he died.”

  “Vraiment?” Danielle gasped. “What did he say?”

  “Jimbo.” Maggie shrugged.

  Danielle frowned. “Jambon?”

  “Well, maybe,” Maggie said. “But Stan was American. Why would his last word be French?”

  “It’s a mystery,” Danielle said. “Like Rosebud, oui?”

  Maggie laughed out loud. “Good Lord, Danielle, that is just about the last thing I would have expected out of your mouth. How did you know about Rosebud?”

  “Jean-Luc and I saw Citizen Kane last year with French subtitles.”

  “You and Jean-Luc?”

  “He hated it.”

  “Good,” Maggie said, laughing. “The world can now continue on its axis. I could no more imagine Jean-Luc watching Citizen Kane then I could endure a Jerry Lewis movie marathon.”

  “Jean-Luc loves Jerry Lewis!”

  “My point exactly!” Both women laughed.

  When the door to the back garden opened, Maggie felt an icy blast of cold air and turned to see her husband and Jean-Luc stomping the wet leaves off their boots onto the terrace tiles. Jean-Luc was peering into the house to locate Danielle sitting in the very spot he had left her. Maggie noticed that when Jean-Luc looked at Danielle, his whole face lit up.

  “Nice walk?” Maggie called to them from the table. Before they could answer she turned to Danielle. “I hated to miss all the excitement of the harvest this year. Who knew that Paris Fashion Week would be the same week that we’d need to harvest the grapes?”

  “It was exciting,” Danielle said, looking lovingly at her husband as he moved quickly to the table to slide into a seat next to her.

  Maggie had made a concentrated effort to get along better with Jean-Luc. She had never liked him and during their first year she’d been right not to trust him.
But in the intervening years, Jean-Luc had proven himself to be a good and loyal friend to Laurent—and Maggie, too, when she let him.

  Laurent leaned over to give Maggie a quick kiss which surprised her. Not normally given to overt signs of affection, Laurent certainly wasn’t known for it in front of other people.

  “Help me in the kitchen, Maggie?” he said as he walked out of the dining room.

  That didn’t sound good. Laurent never needed help in the kitchen. Maggie hopped up and ran after him. She grabbed his sleeve and tugged.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Something happen?”

  Laurent ran his fingers through his long brown hair, a gesture she had seen him do a hundred times in the past—usually when he was frustrated or trying to stall for time.

  “The Paris police called a few minutes ago,” he said.

  Maggie turned to look at the landline phone in the living room which had not rung all afternoon.

  “My cell phone,” Laurent said. “While I was out with Jean-Luc.”

  “What is the matter with those people?” Maggie said with exasperation. “They couldn’t call me? I gave them my cell number. Unbelievable!”

  “Does it matter, Maggie?” Laurent said, a weariness in his voice that she had heard before. “It is what they said that is important, yes?”

  “Fine, so what did they tell you?” As long as she lived in France she would never get used to being erased from any equation—especially by the police—in favor of any conveniently available husband.

  “They say it is suicide.”

  “Okay, that is total bullshit,” Maggie said hotly.

  “But not a surprise,” Laurent said. “Will you start the coffee? I will get the tart.” He moved to the refrigerator.

  “So they are not going to do anything to find out what happened to Stan?”

  “They have concluded their investigation, Maggie,” Laurent said. “Use the full cream, not the half and half.”

  Maggie went to the sink and filled the coffee carafe with water and set it on the counter. She turned back to Laurent.

  “Some investigation,” she said. “You know they didn’t even ask me any questions?”

  “You were wanting to tell them about your uncle’s last word to you, yes?”

  “Well, if you were doing an investigation, wouldn’t you want all the information you could get? They just saw someone smashed on the pavement and they think the first thing that anybody would think.”

  “The cream, Maggie?”

  Maggie turned to the refrigerator and pulled out a jug of cream and put it on the counter while Laurent ground the coffee beans. She waited patiently for him to finish.

  “When did they call?”

  “Five minutes ago.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  Laurent scooped the ground coffee into the filter and poured the water into the reservoir. He pushed the button and turned to her and pulled her to him into his arms.

  “None of this is a surprise to you,” he said into her hair. He kissed her cheek and held her chin to look into her eyes.

  “I know,” she said.

  He watched her for a moment and then turned and handed her the tart. He patted her on the bottom as if to propel her out of the kitchen. “I’ll be in momentarily with the coffee,” he said.

  Maggie brought the tart to the dining room and set it down in front of Jean-Luc and Danielle who both immediately oohed and ahhed. Maggie couldn’t help but think of how easily distracted the French could be when food was involved. The thought nearly made her smile.

  Nearly.

  “Laurent says your uncle was an important person in Paris fashion circles,” Jean-Luc said. Maggie glanced at Danielle who was handing out the stacked desert plates.

  “Sort of,” she said. “He had a blog that seemed to be widely read.”

  She saw him look at Danielle and mouth the word blog? Danielle shrugged.

  “And now Laurent tells me the official investigation is over and they are ruling it a suicide,” Maggie said.

  “I am so sorry,” Jean-Luc said, turning his attention to the slice of tart that Danielle was in the process of cutting for him.

  Laurent appeared with a tray of coffee cups, sugar bowl, creamer and a silver coffee pot.

  “Laurent, this looks marvelous!” Danielle said, handing the first plate to Jean-Luc. “Where did you get the berries this late in the season?”

  Laurent poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Maggie. He smiled at her and she tried to read the unspoken text. Was it: don’t talk about this now? Or: I feel your pain?

  As usual, she had no idea.

  “They were frozen,” he said.

  “Incroyable,” Danielle murmured taking a forkful off her own plate. “You are a magician, Laurent.”

  Yeah, Maggie thought, as she picked up her fork. I live with a magician. The question is, when does he make his obsession with the damn vineyard disappear?

  The next morning, Maggie wrapped herself in a thick cashmere throw and tiptoed into the living room. Her little dog, Petit-Four, a small poodle mix that she got in the first few months she came to St-Buvard, dropped from the bed and padded after her. Maggie curled up on the couch and set up her laptop on the pillows in front of her. Attracted by the glow of the computer screen, Petit-Four nestled herself in the crook of Maggie’s arm facing the laptop as if waiting for the show to begin.

  Maggie opened up her Skype application and dialed in Grace’s number. She glanced at the kitchen clock. Eleven thirty in the morning here should make it right about Grace’s kids’ wake-up time in Indianapolis.

  The screen expanded to show Grace’s face, her hair combed and styled, lipstick on, earrings in place.

  “Wow,” Maggie said. “You look good for five thirty in the morning.”

  “Darling!” Grace said. “Is everything okay? Your dad got home okay? No problems?”

  Grace had only been gone from Maggie’s daily round a little over six months and still Maggie wasn’t used to being without her. She was convinced she never would be.

  “Yes, yes,” Maggie said, shifting on the couch and pulling a dog toy from underneath her. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “I mean, he’s exhausted but full steam ahead for the funeral and so forth.”

  “You still not coming home for it?” Grace turned her head to look at someone and spoke in a clipped tone. “No, ma’am, you sit right back down and finish that oatmeal. You are not eating snack bars for breakfast. Sorry, Maggie.”

  “No worries. How’re the girls?”

  “They’re fine,” Grace said. “Taylor is her usual titanic pain in the ass…”

  “I assume that’s not her you just spoke to.”

  Grace grinned. “No, that was the good one.”

  “And you swear you don’t talk like this in front of them?”

  “Maggie, darling, when you have children of your own some day, you’ll realize how wonderfully resilient they are to the relentless mistakes and flaws of their parents.”

  “So that’s a no?”

  “I do my best, Maggie. How’s that? I have to say I long for the day you put your hand to parenting. You’ll be so perfect at it, you’ll probably write books about it, until the day your perfect child enters her teen years and accurately informs you what a truly crappy mother you are.”

  “I take it you’re speaking from personal experience?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Grace said. “I am reliably informed by Taylor’s psychiatrist—and my own, for that matter—that it’s just a stage.”

  “God, Grace, I didn’t know things had gotten so bad. Was it leaving France, do you think?”

  “Who knows? She was pretty difficult even in France if you recall. I think it’s just being Taylor. Enough of that. You didn’t interrupt my calming morning rituals to hear about the joys of parenting. What’s up?”

  Maggie sighed. “The Paris police have decided that Stan’s death was a suicide.”

  “I see.”
r />   “Grace, there is no way he killed himself. No way.”

  “Well, what then? An accident?”

  “It could be an accident.”

  “Okay, Maggie, it’s early here too and I have little monsters to get to school.”

  “I think somebody killed him.”

  “Based on what?”

  “Based on it doesn’t make sense that he would be on the balcony alone in the middle of a party.”

  “And if he wasn’t alone…”

  “Then he must’ve been pushed.”

  “Wow, pretty big leap there, Maggie. Excuse the image.”

  “How about I just feel it in my gut?”

  “Maybe he had too much to drink and fell over?”

  “How do you accidentally fall over a balcony railing three feet high?” Maggie said.

  “I don’t know,” Grace said. “Three feet isn’t very high. I’m sure I could manage to fall over it. But it still doesn’t explain why you’re awake in the middle of the night. You can’t do anything about how the police ruled or the fact that Stan died.”

  Maggie chewed her lip and rearranged the dog in her lap.

  “Maggie?”

  “I feel like I have to do something.”

  “Do something? As in investigate, yourself?”

  “Yes, Grace, I guess that’s exactly what I mean. I can’t accept that the world thinks Stan killed himself and I can’t live with the idea that somebody out there will go unpunished after what he did.”

  “Laurent know about this?” Grace said. “Does he know you’re thinking about strapping your Sherlock hat back on?”

  “Nope.”

  “How are you two doing these days?”

  “Peachy.”

  “Okay, now you really need to give me more than that. Everything was so good just a few months ago.”

  “He had the harvest last week.”

  “And that’s always stressful because he’s so preoccupied but you were in Paris during all that. And by the way, darling, can I tell you how totally pea-green I was to know that you were at all the shows? And you never would go when I lived in France!”

  “Okay, let’s stay on topic, here, Grace, okay?” Maggie said. “I really don’t think I can let Stan’s death rest without digging into it a little more.”