The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  Ruefully tossing down the broken vine, he scratched his head and looked back toward the large stone mas where the Australian girl still slept.

  Did it always have to be one or the other? he wondered. Was the universe truly set up such that one had to choose one love or the other? Did not some people have everything? He thought of Jean-Luc happily tucked in with his beloved Danielle but shook his head.

  What more could he have done? Was the price for his happiness—for Maggie's happiness—that he become her pet Frenchman living in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia? The charming hulk trotted out at dinner parties to cook and beguile and add to her collection of unusual souvenirs of a well-lived life? What about his need for a well-lived life? Must it include losing the woman--the only woman—he loved? Laurent rubbed his hands against his jeans and began to walk back to the house.

  Had it only been Maggie's choice, he wondered? Or just obviously her choice? He realized it didn't matter. Whoever chose...the result was the same. Both were ready to walk away to get what they wanted. What they really wanted.

  The phone call two nights earlier hadn't been the catalyst or even the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. That had happened the day he had driven her to the train station in Arles and allowed her to get on that train to Paris. He wouldn't lay all the blame at her feet. He had played his part, too.

  As he approached the house, Suzie stepped out on the stone patio. She was holding a large mug of the coffee he had made that morning. She stood wrapped in a bulky duvet, her bare legs seemingly impervious to the cold. Her young face radiated in a welcoming smile just for him. Laurent felt a tiny part of his burden lessen when he saw her and quickened his step.

  Maggie decided she wasn't surprised by anything the French police said. In her experience with them, they seemed to consider instinct and personal experience equally as important as physical evidence or signed confessions. They had taken her statement, taped off Genevieve's apartment and left. Genevieve had been stabbed in the neck—that much Maggie could see for herself when she found the body. As to when it happened or how the killer gained entrance to the apartment—things Maggie would have imagined the police would understand were of interest to her, living right next door—this information was not forthcoming. Maggie decided it was likely because they just didn't know.

  Was the murder related to Stan's death? Was it just a coincidence? If it wasn't a robbery, what was the motive? Maggie stood in front of her bathroom mirror and applied gloss to her lips before heading out to do the shopping for tonight's dinner.

  Did the killer get the wrong apartment?

  She gathered up her purse, checked the weather on her smartphone, and grabbed an umbrella. It seemed inconceivable to her that such a thing could happen—a next door neighbor was murdered while Maggie slept—and she was not calling Laurent straight-away to tell him. She grimaced. At best, Laurent would give her a healthy dose of I-told-you-so. At worst, she would have to relay the message to his new girlfriend. The nausea that she had felt intermittently since she first spoke to the woman on Laurent's cellphone threatened to overwhelm her. She sat down on the couch to catch her breath and give her stomach a chance to settle.

  She still couldn't believe he had replaced her so quickly. Where had he found her? There were only village teenage skanks or old women in St-Buvard. He must have met her in Aix or Arles although why he would be in either of those towns...unless it was for the food market...but who was there to cook for now with Maggie gone? Why would he have gone to the bother?

  A feeling of misery cascaded over her as she thought of the bother Laurent had always gone to to prepare their meals. For her. For them. What a cliché I am, she thought. Not appreciating his acts of love, his messages of affection. I wasn't just trying to learn French this year, she thought. As a newly wed, I should have been trying to learn the language of Laurent and his ways. It suddenly occurred to Maggie that because she wasn't listening to his nonverbal expressions of love, his purely Laurent exhibitions of devotion, because she was comparing him to her former boyfriends back home, she never saw what he had been offering her.

  She forced herself to stand up and shoulder her bag. And now it was too late, she thought. Even if I went crawling back to him and begged for forgiveness, this woman would always be between us. This time would always be a beacon of the rift—the evidence of my lack of faith in his love. No, she wouldn't be able to get past it. Would he? If he thought she had been with another man? It was hopeless, she thought, stepping out into the hall and forcing herself not to look at the taped off entrance to Genevieve's apartment. As she approached the stairs, she saw the cat sitting by his empty food bowl on the landing, eyeing her indictingly.

  Bijou put down her cellphone and walked to the double bank of French doors of her apartment as they overlooked the Seine. She felt a sense of peace that she had not felt since many weeks before Stan died. She realized that now as she stood there, missing him, loving him, avenging him.

  She spread her arms out as if giant angel wings hung at the ends of her fingers and she could leap from her balcony and glide over the river, across the Tuileries, and back over the Île de la Cité to alight nose-to-nose with the gargoyles of Notre Dame.

  I am doing it for you, Stan, she thought with a tired smile. It won't bring you back. I know that. But it will help me go forward without you.

  It occurred to her that she hadn't truly smiled since his death. The thought made her smile even broader.

  As she turned back to the interior of her apartment, she saw that her phone was silently ringing. She picked it up, her smile even wider.

  "Hello, Jeremy," she said.

  "You ready for tonight?" he asked.

  "I am."

  "You seem to have made peace with what has to be done."

  "I have."

  "I guarantee you'll feel even better once it's all done and behind us."

  "I know that, Jeremy," she said. "I understand that now. Is everything in order on your end?"

  "Like ducks in a row. Everyone plays their part, it'll go off perfectly."

  "Any special preparations I should do?"

  "Just look irresistible tonight," Jeremy said with a chuckle. "Like you can't help doing anyway."

  Bijou felt a wave of affection for him. He really was a bundle of contradictions, she thought. It was no wonder she a little bit hated him and a little bit loved him.

  "Je suis prêt," she said. I am ready.

  "I know you are, darling," Jeremy said smoothly. "I know you are."

  Maggie cradled her cellphone and reached across her bedside table for the bronzer she had bought today. She squinted in the bedroom mirror. Her reflection came back to her as pale and frazzled. Not exactly the look she was going for as the hostess of this very important dinner party.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea? Confronting the murderer like this?” Grace interrupted her thoughts on the other end of the phone line and Maggie looked away from the mirror.

  “It worked for Ellery Queen," she said.

  “…who is fictional.”

  “There will be six people here, Grace,” Maggie said.

  “Okay, you’re citing safety in numbers? Because isn’t it just possible that your uncle’s murder was a group effort? I mean, one to plan, one to obfuscate, one to actually do the deed?”

  “Even if that’s true—and it’s really unlikely—these people may hang out together but they can’t agree on anything—nobody is going to risk implicating themselves by hurting me unless they’re the actual killer.”

  “You think.”

  “Well, that’s what the dinner is about, to find out for sure.”

  “So you don’t know who the murderer is?”

  “Well, I think I do. I suppose something could happen at the dinner to surprise me.”

  “You mean like you being stabbed to death while you serve the hors d’oevres? No wonder Laurent didn’t want you doing this.”

  “Look, Grace, I have to stir thing
s up,” Maggie said in frustration. “If I don’t goose these people, everything stays the way it is—Stan a suicide and some bastard just carrying on with no consequences for his actions.”

  “I get it, Maggie,” Grace said. “I just don’t remember you and I doing this direct confrontation thing when we were doing our sleuthing thing.”

  “Weren’t you the one who said get the confession?”

  “Yeah, but I guess I was thinking just be there when someone breaks down sobbing and tells all.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to make happen at the dinner. I can actually use the others to help me corral the guilty party and break him down. It will work, Grace, trust me.”

  “And if it does work, how does this translate into a conviction in the light of day down at the police station?”

  “I’m going to be secretly recording it.”

  "I'm worried, Maggie, is all," Grace said quietly.

  Maggie tossed down the tube of bronzer on the bed.

  "Oh, please don't," she said with exasperation. "It's very safe and none of these people is a career killer. I'll expose the murderer—"

  "Who is the murderer, did you decide?"

  Maggie cleared her throat. "After careful examination of the facts—"

  "You mean the very few facts you have available."

  "Yes, Grace," Maggie responded testily. "I have determined that the murderer is Jeremy."

  “Really.”

  "You don't sound surprised."

  "Darling, I have no idea who it might be. Why did you decide it was him?"

  "Well, even if it's not him, it'll stir things up and very likely prompt the real killer, if it's not him, to reveal himself."

  "You have totally been watching too many Closer episodes."

  "We don't even get that over here. This is from basic deduction."

  "Oh, dear Lord."

  "Okay, Grace, I appreciate your support but I feel strongly about this—and I am the one on the front lines so to speak—and I have to get ready for the party."

  "Anybody else but me know you're doing this tonight?"

  Maggie paused.

  "I take it by your silence that that's a No?"

  "Nothing is going to happen, Gracie," Maggie said with exasperation. "Nothing except the public discovery of Stan's killer."

  "Okay, you have to know that that is not going to happen, right? Whatever goes down, you're not really anticipating the culprit, whether it's this Jeremy character or whoever, to fling himself at your feet with a tearful admission of guilt and, by the way, an involuntary applaud of your brilliant sleuthing."

  Maggie felt her face flush with embarrassment. "I'm certainly not doing this for the ego gratification," she said hotly. "This is the only way to get the stupid French police to reopen the investigation. I told you that."

  "Yes, you did," Grace said tiredly. "Please call me when they've all left, will you?"

  "To confirm that I am still alive?"

  "Something like that, darling."

  "I'll call as soon as the last guest leaves and I have Jeremy's tear-stained confession in my little hand."

  Maggie could hear Grace's long sigh.

  "Call me, darling," Grace said with resignation, and hung up.

  Maggie sat on the bed holding her phone and wondered with a slightly sickening feeling in her stomach what Grace would have said if she'd told her about Genevieve.

  After she had dressed and pulled the camembert out of the fridge to bring it to room temperature, she had spent an hour walking through her carefully choreographed presentation of bringing Jeremy to his knees. First, she intended to put them all at their ease as any hostess would and then reveal the purpose of the gathering. That should prove interesting--even entertaining—to all nonguilty parties. For Jeremy, she fully expected a loud and offended denial.

  Two hours later, Maggie welcomed what appeared to be the last guest on her list into her apartment. She had set out two plates of olives and gougères on the coffee table and a tray of filled champagne flutes. She wanted to keep things simple. The photo she discovered of Stan and Jeremy together with the manic scrawl on the back "I'll see you dead first," would be her coup de gras. She had anticipated the look on Jeremy's face when she presented him with the photo—she intended to pass it around the group as the original was hidden safely away—and it was all she could do not to jump right to the incriminating photo and watch Jeremy crumble. But she knew she had to do everything in stages in order to get the rest of the crowd behind her. Every bit of her plan was working smoothly, including the slightly suspicious glances she was receiving from each guest except Ted. Out the window, the descending sun drenched the facade of Notre Dame like some highly expensive stage prop conjured up just for the evening. Everything was exactly as she'd planned with the exception of one thing.

  Jeremy was not here.

  Bijou sat on Maggie's couch next to Denny, her hand draped between his long knees in order to hold his loosely hanging hand. She looked the picture of the moon-eyed lovestruck teen even down to the detail of nearly having her head resting on his shoulder. Ted stood by the French doors, enjoying the sight of the sun going down on the cathedral and talking with Diane who stood opposite him speaking softly.

  How can I do the Ellery Queen thing if my suspect doesn't show up? It was maddening! Jeremy had always shown every hint of feeling left out up to now to the point that the last thing Maggie would have believed possible was that he would blow off a dinner party hosted by her. She frowned. Unless he thought he might be exposed tonight? She shook off the thought. It's true Jeremy acted downright paranoid at the best of times but he could no more pass up a party—especially with this lot—than tell the truth when his life depended on it.

  Maggie approached Denny and Bijou on the couch and was surprised to see Denny roughly disengage himself from Bijou and stand up.

  "The toilet?" he said.

  Maggie nodded in the direction of the hallway and wondered, briefly, if he might not just head on to the bedroom and rifle through her jewelry case. Bijou grabbed her hand and pulled her down onto the couch, spilling some of Maggie's champagne in the process.

  "Come, sit, mon vieux," Bijou said.

  "You doing okay, Bijou?"

  "This is exactly what I would like to ask you, Maggie. You look so sad tonight. You look like you have lost your best friend...perhaps to your husband."

  Maggie smiled sadly. "Yeah, that'd be pretty bad," she said.

  "What is it?" Bijou asked. "What makes you so sad?"

  Without realizing she was about to say it, Maggie found herself on the verge of telling Bijou everything about Laurent and the woman who answered his phone, about the separation and what a fool she had been. Instead, she fought to keep the words in and the tears from cascading over her lashes.

  "Oh, Maggie!" Bijou said, running her hand up and down Maggie's arm. "It's about your husband, isn't it? Have you broken up?"

  Maggie took a long breath to fortify herself and tried to smile.

  "It’s possible," she said, surprising herself that her voice sounded as strong as it did speaking the words.

  "Oh, I am so sorry," Bijou said, looking very much like she was going to start crying too. "I hate sad stories. And this is so sad."

  Maggie tried to shake herself out of the mood.

  "Well, you know?" she said to Bijou before taking a swallow of her champagne. "There's nothing for it and that's not what this party is about so let's just leave it alone, okay?"

  Bijou nodded and patted Maggie's hand. "Tomorrow we will drink wine, just us two, and sort it all out," she said. "If it can be salvaged, we will concoct a plan, okay?"

  Maggie nodded, finding herself grateful for Bijou's simple answers.

  "And if not, we will salve the pain," Bijou said.

  At that moment Ted approached and knelt down to the two by the couch.

  "Hey, everything okay, you two?" he said.

  "Just girl talk, Ted," Bijou said. "Unless you spe
ak that language?"

  Ted laughed. "Nah, I'll leave that to you." He caught Maggie's eye as if to ask: is everything okay?

  Maggie took herself in hand and stood up with her drink. She patted Bijou's shoulder. "Tomorrow for lunch, okay?" she said. "And thank you."

  "Pas du tout, darling," Bijou said, which just made Maggie sadder. Laurent always said that.

  Ted took Maggie by the elbow and propelled her into the kitchen where the catered boxes sat ready to have their contents distributed to the six, now five, waiting dinner plates. He refilled his champagne glass as Maggie began to dish up the cassoulet.

  "You did invite Jeremy, didn't you?" he asked.

  "I did," Maggie said. "I’m as surprised as you are that he's not here."

  "Well," Ted shrugged. "It's a better party for it."

  Maggie grinned at him.

  "It is," she said, "except he was kind of the centerpiece of my entertainment for tonight."

  Ted blinked at her for a moment, frowning and then brightened.

  "Ahhhh," he said. "So you finally think Jeremy's the murderer."

  Maggie tonged up salad greens from a large store-bought cellophane bag and shook out the packet of blue cheese crumbs onto each plate.

  "The French eat their salads after the main meal," Ted pointed out.

  "I'm not French," Maggie said and then stopped. She turned and looked at him. "You're right," she said. "I'll serve it last."

  "Hey, you can serve it whenever you want," Ted laughed. "Bijou's your only Frenchie and trust me she doesn't care."

  "It's not that," Maggie said, setting the salads aside. "I don't think I've done myself any favors by sticking so rigidly to my vision of how things would be done back home. A little adaption would probably have been better in the long run."