The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “It predates the one leaving everything to the boy,” her father said.

  “Are we going to get to meet John?”

  “I think there’s every reason to believe we will,” her father said. “His attorney has conveyed to me the message that the boy is very interested in being connected with his father’s people.”

  “I’ll be damned. Old Uncle Stan. You little devil.”

  “It’s likely he was just doing a good friend a favor,” her father said. “But there you are. Take it from me, there’s nothing quite like holding your own child in your arms.”

  “I just wish he felt he could have brought him home to us,” Maggie said.

  “It’s possible it wasn’t up to Stan.”

  “You mean Diane?”

  “I don’t have any other information as to that but she’s there in Paris, isn’t she? Maybe you could find out how she feels about John connecting with his father’s family.”

  “I haven’t been very friendly with her,” Maggie admitted.

  “And maybe you could amend that.”

  Maggie gathered up her crepe wrappings and shouldered her bag. “Yeah, maybe,” she said.

  After a long walk around the perimeter of the Île de la Cité trying to keep her thoughts in a line and her emotions from careening into those thoughts, Maggie let the start of a hard rain drive her back to the apartment where she climbed into sweat pants and a sweatshirt and wrapped up in a quilt on her couch.

  Almost like I’m sick, she thought as she sipped a large mug of hot tea and stared out into the gloom of the rainy afternoon. Twice she had fumbled for her cellphone to ring Laurent and both times she stopped herself. She was long past asking herself why he didn’t call her. Danielle’s scattered and veiled response to her on their last phone call made all kinds of sense now that it was clear that Laurent had hooked up with someone else. Pretty hard to be chatty and casual when you know your friend is being cheated on—and you told them it would probably come down like this.

  Why didn’t she listen to Danielle? Or Laurent, for that matter? How was it possible that she had been so blind and so stubborn? No, she couldn’t excuse herself for her blindness. Not when everyone around her was telling her that coming to Paris was a bad idea. Maggie just thought she knew better. As usual. And now she was paying the price of that arrogance. She looked at her phone. She was at fault. It wasn’t up to Laurent to put it right.

  What if his girlfriend answered?

  Maggie took a long steadying breath and punched in his number. Every ring was like a knife in her stomach until she heard it roll to voice mail and she disconnected. She stared at the phone. Had he screened her? Had the other woman? She dropped the phone on the couch, put her face in her hands and cried her heart out.

  The bistro was one of the very old ones deep in the heart of the Latin Quarter, with Art Nouveau decor, brass fixtures, French posters, and waiters in long white aprons. When she first entered and seated herself, she crossed her ankles under her and sipped elegantly at her martini as if to strike a pose. How was it that all the celebrities were photographed looking so perfect, so jejeune? Well, the ones who were jejeune. Obviously, the ones who didn’t bother with their hair or going out in public in last season’s jacket—those ones simply didn’t merit a photographer’s interest. Bijou looked around the restaurant as if expecting a member of the paparazzi to jump out from behind the booths and start snapping her at any moment. She sighed and tightened her grip on her martini glass.

  She would tell Maggie everything. Well, perhaps not everything. But enough. Enough that she would know how much she had cared about Stan. It was possible that Maggie didn’t really know that yet. And of course, she would tell her that she and Denny had broken up. She took another sip of her drink, mentally rehearsing the words that would reveal how sorry she was to have broken his heart. If she didn’t look careless and just a little not sorry, Maggie would soon guess who got whose heart broken.

  “Bijou, you look beautiful. Have you been waiting long?”

  Bijou knocked over her martini and began mopping up the spill with her napkin.

  “Oh!” she said. “You startled me! Merci, Maggie. That is very sweet of you.”

  “Are you okay?” Maggie’s brow was knit with concern as she sat down opposite her.

  “Of course, I am okay!” she said shrilly, smiling too wide. “Why would I not be? Are you okay? That is the question, ma chère!”

  The waiter approached and took Maggie’s order for a glass of white wine. She turned back to Bijou.

  “What is it, Bijou?” she said. “You’re upset about something.”

  “I am not,” Bijou said, pushing the wet pile of napkin away from her on the table. “But Jeremy did just die two days ago!”

  “And you hated Jeremy.”

  “I did not!” Bijou said hotly. She started to rise from the table but when she saw the look of alarm on Maggie’s face, she forced herself back into her seat, her hand clapped over her mouth. “I’m sorry,” Bijou said through her fingers. “I’m a little upset.”

  “What’s happened?”

  Bijou couldn’t help but marvel at the way Maggie asked the question. Her eyes looked so caring, so genuinely interested in Bijou’s problem. Americans, Bijou thought. They step over every line, push open every door—no matter how hard you tell them to stay back. Her eyes filled with tears. Just like Stan used to do.

  “Everything,” she whispered. “Everything’s happened.”

  The waiter came with Maggie’s wine and a replacement martini for Bijou which he set in front of her while he deftly swept away the wet napkins from the table. He glanced at the unopened menu and turned on his heel and left the women in peace.

  “Tell me,” Maggie said.

  Bijou shook her head. “We are to talk about your crumbling marriage,” she said. “I am supposed to be making you feel better about your life. Not the other way around.”

  “Friends are a two way street,” Maggie said.

  “Yes?” Bijou reached out to Maggie and then snatched her hand back and picked up her martini glass instead. “Are we really and truly friends, Maggie? I hope so.”

  “Well, I think we are,” Maggie said earnestly. “I hope so. Stan loved you so much.”

  Bijou nodded. “He did. And I loved him, too. So much.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t,” Bijou said, her voice shaking. “I loved him so much that I killed for him.” She watched Maggie carefully to see the reaction she was waiting for. The American nodded as if judiciously digesting the information.

  “Really,” was all she said.

  “Yes, really,” Bijou said.

  “Maybe you’d better tell me about it.”

  Bijou made a face. “He thought I would help him after what he did. He never knew what Stan and I had together. Or respected it.”

  “Okay, I’m getting a little confused here,” Maggie said. “Which he are you talking about?”

  “Jeremy,” Bijou said with a touch of exasperation. “I’m talking about Jeremy.”

  “Help him after he did what? What did Jeremy do?”

  “You know.”

  “Push Stan off the balcony to his death.”

  “C’est ca.” That’s right.

  Bijou watched Maggie take another sip of wine and then look over her shoulder as if trying to locate the waiter. Oh, these Americans were very cool!

  “So Jeremy confessed to you that he killed Stan?” Maggie said.

  “In so many words, yes.”

  “When?”

  “Before your dinner party. He told me why it was that Stan spoke his name to you with his last breath.”

  “He thinks Stan said his name to me that night?”

  Bijou nodded. “He tried to make it sound like it was because Stan just loved him so much but it was an admission of guilt. It was his twisted explanation for the very damning facts.”

  She watched Maggie pick up the menu and she felt like snatchi
ng it away from her and throwing it to the floor. Did she not care what Bijou was telling her?

  “You even thought it was Jeremy,” Bijou said. “Didn’t you?”

  Maggie nodded. “I admit I did,” she said.

  “And now because Jeremy is dead you think differently? You think Stan’s killer is still alive? I am disappointed in you, Maggie. Up until today I thought that we were very much alike,” Bijou said. “The only difference is that you want justice or some such idiocy.” She stared at Maggie encouragingly as if expecting her to finish the thought. “And I want revenge,” she finished. “It’s a small difference, je sais.”

  Maggie stared at her. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” She spoke slowly, as if she were trying to form the thought cohesively in her head but was struggling to make it gel.

  Bijou smiled smugly because Maggie was not reading the menu now.

  “Do you want to know what I feel?” Bijou said. “I feel free knowing that Stan’s killer is dead. Because this is what I did for Stan.”

  Maggie stared down at the menu in her hands as if surprised to find it there. She looked back at Bijou who was still talking on and on about how much she loved Stan and how they could all sleep in peace tonight. Maggie thought Bijou sounded proud—as if this were all a competition for Stan’s affections and she had somehow won. Maggie knew it wouldn’t do any good to mention to Bijou that committing murder would hardly put her at the top of Stan’s treasured people’s list—or that the man was dead and so not likely to have such a list anyway.

  Or that Maggie had just heard Bijou confess to murder.

  La Prefecture de Police was situated on the Rue de Lutèce on the Île de la Cité. Built in the late 1800s under Napoleon Bonaparte, the imposing double-towered building had a long and colorful history, starting with the fact that it was originally a former palace that once served the Vichy regime during the German occupation.

  When the call had come in from an administrative police judiciaire officer, Maggie had opted to walk to the headquarters as it was only a mile or two from her apartment. She found walking in Paris to be different from walking any place else in the world. The same two miles on the track at her sports club in Atlanta took her an agonizing hour an a half to labor through while the equal distance in Paris was a quick, mesmerizing jaunt down quaint and enticing alleyways filled with pistachio and chocolate shops, clever boutiques that only sold scarves, or tiny stores with culinary treasures she never knew she couldn’t live without. Even the uneven walking paths over lumpy curbs and cobblestones didn’t slow her down. In fact, they added to the pleasure of it.

  The police lieutenant who had called her that day was brisk, clipped and efficient. She informed Maggie that she might have her stolen laptop back if she were to come down to the station for it. Maggie left her meeting at the café with Bijou after a strained and uncomfortable lunch. Bijou seemed completely oblivious to the fact that she’d confessed to murdering Jeremy. At least Maggie thought that’s what she had done. When pressed for details, Bijou had simply smiled slyly and shaken a slow finger at Maggie.

  “You are not going to solve me, Madame Dernier,” she said. “I have done all of Stan’s friends the ultimate favor. I have done what they would not do. What the police would not do.”

  “Did you strangle him yourself?” Maggie asked. “Because as wimpy as Jeremy could be, he was still bigger and stronger than you.”

  Bijou had given her a look of amazement and scorn. “Do not be stupid,” she said. But Maggie thought she looked a little sick when she said it. It was possible that Bijou wasn’t really sure what she had done. It was also possible that Bijou had done nothing to Jeremy and this was all just wish fulfillment in an addled, emotionally confused mind.

  Maggie wasn’t sure Bijou wasn’t a little mad.

  The lieutenant at the station ushered Maggie to a long hallway and filled her lap with a clipboard and a sheaf of papers to be filled out before she could retrieve her property. Maggie filled in the first set of pages and quickly realized that the others were just different versions of asking for the same set of information. She wrote until her hand cramped. When she looked up, she was surprised to see the police inspector who had come to Genevieve’s apartment when she was killed. The man was looking at her and frowning as if trying to place where he knew her.

  Maggie smiled. “Bonjour,” she said. “I’m from Genevieve Bonnet’s apartment last month? Off of Quai Saint Michel?”

  He approached her and nodded. “Ah, oui,” he said. “That’s right. The American. No more disturbances, I hope?”

  Poor Genevieve. A violent murder in her own living room reduced to a “disturbance” for her many inconvenienced neighbors.

  “No,” Maggie said. “All quiet.”

  “You are not here for Madame Bonnet?”

  “No, actually, my apartment was broken into the week before she was killed,” Maggie said, nodding at the clipboard in her lap. “I’m recovering my stolen property.”

  “Paris is a big city,” he said. “There is much danger.”

  No shit, Maggie thought, not even shocked at the man’s insouciance. She could tell he was distracted and it occurred to her that that was often the best time to luck into information she might not normally be able to extricate from a valuable source. “In fact,” she said, “did you know I had a dinner guest murdered just a couple of nights ago?” She shook her head. “I’ll say it’s a busy apartment building. I’m from New York City and even we don’t have that kind of action. Although the cops usually sort it out pretty quick.”

  He frowned at her. “A dinner guest was murdered?”

  “Jeremy Hutten? I don’t suppose that’s your case too, is it?”

  Surely, if it was homicide in the same arrondissement this guy would be aware of it?

  The police inspector drew himself up to his full height of just under six feet and puffed out his chest. “That murder has been solved,” he said, pursing his lips.

  “Gee, that’s great but don’t you need to have someone in custody for that to be the case?” Maggie asked sweetly, baiting him.

  “Bien sûr,” he said, hooking his thumb in his belt looking like a parody of Barney Fife trying to look relaxed. “We have a suspect and we have a confession from the suspect.”

  “Oh, that was clever!” Maggie said. “Getting a confession from him so fast. I’m impressed.” Her heart was pounding and she willed herself to look calm. She had him hooked but if he could see how excited she was at what he was telling her he would surely clam up.

  “It was nothing,” he said, shrugging. “We picked him up within hours, of course.”

  “Of course. Good job! A friend of Monsieur Hutten’s, I wonder? Because he wasn’t loved, I have to say. Just about anybody probably wanted to throttle him at any given time.”

  “Our suspect insists he was not an acquaintance,” the detective said, preening with the information he had possession of. “He was simply hired to do the job.” He barked out an ugly laugh. “Clearly, the salary of a lowly dresser must be augmented in as many creative ways as possible.”

  “He was a dresser? From which house?”

  All of a sudden, he gave her a suspicious look.

  Damn. Too far.

  “Give your information to the Lieutenant when you are done,” he said. And without further comment, he turned and walked down the hall and disappeared into one of the many offices.

  Maggie watched the now empty hallway and found her thoughts collecting slowly as if the burden of their inevitable logic would be too much to bear.

  So it was Bijou. Which the police would quickly discover upon further interrogation of their amateur assassin.

  Jeremy and now Bijou. Their lives forfeited or destroyed because of Stan’s murder. She glanced at the wedding band on her left hand. What other collateral damage would register in the final culmination of this terrible business as they all headed down the home stretch?

  Chapter Fifteen

&
nbsp; The Jardin de la Tuilieries was beautiful any time of year, Maggie decided as she tossed a corner of her pizza to the little huddle of dirty pigeons and gulls who sat watching her hungrily. It was the last week in November—the day before Thanksgiving back home—and Maggie thought of the preparations her parents would be busy with about now. A wave of guilt and sadness crashed over when she thought of the four Thanksgiving day dinners Laurent had created for her—right down to the cranberry sauce and corn bread dressing which he had essentially considered a violation of his integrity as a Frenchman. But he had done it. Every year he had done it, even when the process of procuring a turkey, fresh or frozen, in the south of France had been harder than finding truffles in July. He had done it. For her.

  Was there a statute of limitations on idiocy? she wondered. Or blindness? She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin and scattered the remnant crumbs of the pizza crust from her coat. Fact is, she was pretty sure she didn’t deserve to have Laurent. In lieu of frustration or stubborn refusal at her idiotic, childish demands, he had gone underground. He possibly hoped that his resignation would be enough.

  And of course, it hadn’t been.

  Sighing heavily, she pulled her cellphone out of her coat pocket and punched in Bijou’s number.

  “Allo, Maggie?”

  “Hey, sweetie,” Maggie said. Through the ferris wheel at the end of the gardens, she could see the obelisk on the Place de la Concorde which marked the beginning of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées which stretched a famous mile to the Arc de Triomphe. Maggie could never look at that avenue without thinking of Hitler parading down it with his Nazi cronies thinking he had claimed Paris for his own. “I’ve got some news for you,” she said into her cellphone.

  “Oui?”

  “There’s no good way to say this, Bijou,” Maggie said, hunching into her coat on the bench when a wicked slice of cold wind lifted her skirt and sent her long hair flying around her face. “The police have arrested the man you hired, you know, for Jeremy? And it’s only a matter of time before they knock on your door. I’m sorry.”