Murder à la Carte (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series)

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  Maggie watched the drab French countryside roll away from her like an unimaginative travel video being run in reverse. The speed of the train made it impossible for her to rest her eyes for long on any one object out the window. Soon, she felt a dull ache develop between her eyes. She pulled the shade down on her window. The older woman across the aisle smiled at her again and Maggie returned the smile―with effort. Forcing herself to put thoughts of Laurent and Roger aside, Maggie picked up her French workbook and flipped it open. It was too advanced for her. Laurent had bought it in Aix a few weeks back. He was hopelessly optimistic, Maggie thought, as she read the complicated sentences, understanding none of them. She snapped the workbook shut and ordered another café au lâit.

  She remembered the last time Connor had teased her about her French. At the same time, he seemed to be encouraging her to try harder with it. She had to admit she’d done no studying, preferring to think instead, that “living it” would suffice to improve her grammar. Laurent refused to speak French with her at home―he said he needed to be able to communicate with greater depth than, “Here is the blue bowl. Let us eat the big peach.” Connor had scolded her about her laziness, her desire to learn French through osmosis. He was right, of course. Her French was not much better now, after three months in France, than it had been with all those conscientiously, if irregularly, attended class meetings at the French Language Institute of Atlanta.

  A new china cup of steaming, frothy café arrived, and the steward whisked away the soupy dregs of the old one. Maggie tried to picture Connor as he had looked the last time she had seen him alive. He had been robust, laughing, handsome and healthy. How could so much verve and energy be so quickly snuffed? She thought of Babette, angry and pregnant, flirting with Laurent, hating Connor. And then there was Bernard. Had Bernard Delacore really killed Connor? Maggie tried to think of it in logical terms. Had Bernard gone to their house that night with the intention of killing Connor? She hardly thought so. On the other hand, how could it have been done unpremeditatedly? After all, there was no argument between the two that any one could remember. No contact, even, although that might not mean much.

  It was beginning to rain as the train sped northward toward Paris. The dashes of rain jumped at Maggie’s window like animated exclamation points.

  Bernard was supposed be a passionate man, Maggie remembered. Everyone said so, even Laurent. But what passion he’d displayed on Thanksgiving night was directed at his wife, not Connor. He and Paulette were the ones that had supposedly quarreled. Maggie tried to imagine Connor downstairs in the cave, rummaging about for a bottle of this or that―and Bernard joining him, either because he was sent there by Laurent or because he saw Connor go down and wanted to...what? Maggie shook her head and lifted the window shade a little. Did Bernard really have the finesse to kill a man, and then come back to the party, quarrel with his wife and take his leave from his host with proper excuses in order? Maggie frowned at her reflection in the window. Now, Roger could have done it, she had no doubt. With Austrian cow bells on. But a big, bruising French peasant who supposedly couldn’t keep his mouth in check after one pastiche? It didn’t make sense.

  Even with the hot coffee in her, Maggie felt a chill at the creeping revelation that she was suddenly not at all convinced that Bernard killed Connor.

  Later, as she watched the evening lights of Paris drift by, Maggie found herself looking forward to the reunion with her parents. She needed this break from St-Buvard and its mysteries and oppressive provinciality. She welcomed the separation, she thought with surprise, from Laurent. She saw her father first, on the outdoor platform at Gare de Lyon, his white hair covered by neither beret or cap even in the face of this cold city-wind, somehow more nasty than the straightforward mistral of Provence. She waved to him and reshifted the bag on her shoulder as she descended from the train.

  “Good trip, darling?” John Newberry gave his daughter a hug before plucking her bag from her shoulder. “Sorry Laurent couldn’t make it. Let’s get ahead of the crowd.” He moved her from the train platform down the escalator and past the busy kiosks to a waiting taxi outside.

  “Mother didn’t come?” Maggie wasn’t disappointed as it occurred to her that this might be a rare opportunity for a father-daughter tête-à-tête.

  “No, she’s back at the hotel with Nicole. The Lindbergh’s baby-sitter was busy sitting for the Lindbergh’s tonight, if you can imagine!”

  “What cheek.” Maggie laughed. It felt suddenly good, even exhilarating, to be so free, so released. Strains from Joni Mitchell’s song I Was A Free Man in Paris came suddenly to mind. She hadn’t thought of that song since high school. It felt electric to be in Paris after so many months in the somber southland.

  “It’s been great seeing them again, the Lindberghs,” her father said as they settled themselves in the backseat of the taxi. Before he could give the driver the address, Maggie tugged at his arm.

  “How about a drink before we head back?” she asked. “Is Mother expecting us immediately? Will she worry?”

  “What a wonderful idea. Your mother will be fine.” He gave the driver the address of a bistro near their hotel and then patted Maggie’s knee. “All right,” he said. “What’s the news on Connor? Laurent told me about Bernard Delacore on the phone the other night.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re about as up-to-date as the rest of us then,” Maggie said, sinking back into her seat and allowing herself to be dazzled by the glittering lights as the taxi sped past the Place de la Bastille. “Everyone’s sorry about it―the people in the village, I mean. But nobody’s really surprised.”

  “And you are?”

  Maggie turned and looked at her father. He was watching her closely. She smiled and squeezed his hand.

  “God, it’s nice to be with people again you don’t have to mentally translate everything for first,” she said.

  The bistro was small and dimly lit, with glossy dark paneled walls and antique chandeliers hanging low over the crowded tables. From where Maggie and her father sat, they could see the late-evening pedestrian activity on the sidewalk outside. Maggie wondered how French children retained their reputation for being so perfectly well-behaved when they were always being marched about at eleven o’clock at night on a school night. She sipped her Kir Royale and let some of the stress of the last few days drain away in the noisy café.

  “You should call Laurent and let him know you arrived safely,” her father said.

  “I’ll call him when I get to the hotel. He won’t worry.”

  “Is everything all right, darling?” John’s eyes probed his daughter’s. “Between you and Laurent?”

  “Oh, Dad.” Maggie laughed. “We’re fine.” She took another sip of her drink and watched a handsome young man pay his tab at the bar. He was blond with a full beard. “I mean, he’s either going to stay in France and I’ll never see him again, or he’s going to come back to Atlanta with me and hate me for it. Other than that...”

  “You won’t consider staying in France with him?”

  Maggie looked at her father with amazement. “Are you serious?” she asked.

  “Quite serious. Is your situation so unlivable at St-Buvard?”

  “Dad, what are you suggesting?” Maggie leaned across the table. “Live at St-Buvard? Like, for good? Are you nuts?” She laughed, surprised at her own reaction. “Sorry about the ‘nuts’ thing. But I mean...you mean...stay there? Stay in France?”

  “Why is that so unthinkable, dear?”

  “Dad, I want to go back to Atlanta, okay? That’s my home, that’s where my apartment is and my job, if it’s still there, and my friends, not to mention you and mother...”

  “I’m not sure they sound like very good things to have at the kind of cost you may be talking about.”

  “You’ve talked to Laurent, haven’t you?” Maggie slowly felt the pleasure and the magic of the evening recede like the southern landscape in front of the train earlier today. “He wants to stay, right
?”

  “He hasn’t spoken to me about it.”

  “Well, then, it’s obvious, I guess, huh? Laurent wants to stay.”

  “Darling, I don’t think anything is obvious.” Her father gestured to the waiter and ordered them another round of drinks. “I just noticed that the idea of staying in France didn’t seem to be a part of your list of options.”

  “It isn’t,” she said, flatly. “And what would I do here?” She waved her hand about the bistro as if her father had just suggested a waitressing job there. “My French is barely good enough to order hot rolls in a bakery. How am I going to make a living? Certainly not as an advertising copywriter. What am I supposed to do while Laurent is off fulfilling himself as Mister Vineyard Owner?”

  “Perhaps you would get into the vineyard, yourself. I understand it is a quite complex―”

  “No, Dad, no.” Maggie shook her head and wadded up a cocktail napkin in her hand. “Absolutely, no.”

  “Well, perhaps it won’t come to that,” her father said, kindly. And the understanding was left clearly between them that, of course, inevitably, it would.

  “Roger’s with him, now,” she said, watching his eyes carefully.

  “Really? Bentley? How’s he doing?”

  “Jesus, Dad!” Maggie screwed up her face. “How can you ask how he’s doing? He bilked us out of twenty thousand dollars.”

  John Newberry leaned back in his chair and observed his daughter.

  “And don’t tell me how well everything turned out, okay?” Maggie went on, warming to her own aggressive mood. “I love Nicole as much as anyone, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s not my niece or your real granddaughter―and she was handed over to us by Roger Bentley as exactly that.”

  John Newberry leaned over and gently touched his daughter’s cheek. Her dark hair, a little snarled from her trip, draped over her shoulders like a velvet shawl. It framed her lovely, pale face, making her eyes sparkle like aquamarines.

  “Sometimes, sweetheart,” he said tiredly, his smile sincere and loving, “you talk with an amazing immaturity.”

  4

  “The attempt to hang himself was not successful.” Laurent’s voice came over the wire thready and disjointed― as if he were calling from an underground cave somewhere in the Congo. Maggie covered up the receiver and turned to her parents who were seated in the small suite off their bedroom at the Princess Hotel. It was the morning following her arrival in Paris and they had just finished their petit-dejeuner. Nicole was on the balcony feeding the crumbs of her croissant to the pigeons.

  “Bernard Delacore tried to kill himself last night,” Maggie said to them.

  “Oh, my dear, no.” Elspeth’s hand flew to her throat and the gesture instantly reminded Maggie of her mother’s grief over the death of her sister Elise two years ago.

  “He’s okay, Mother,” she said to Elspeth. She turned back to the receiver. “He’s okay, right?” she asked Laurent.

  “Oui, oui ça va,” Laurent said. “But everyone is now very upset about Babette.”

  “Babette?”

  “She has lost the bébé, Maggie.” Laurent spoke gravely.

  “Oh, no,” Maggie said, looking back toward her parents. “Babette’s miscarried her pregnancy,” she said to them.

  Elspeth shook her head and looked very sad as if Babette meant something to her, as if the girl had been a friend or the daughter of one.

  Maggie turned her back to them to finish her conversation. She could hear Nicole’s high-pitched laughter from the balcony.

  “And Roger?” she said into the receiver. “Is he still there?”

  There was a moment of silence and then loud static as Laurent spoke.

  “I can’t hear you, Laurent,” Maggie said, raising her voice. She heard her parents shift and move away from her where she was sitting on the bed in order to give her more privacy.

  “...evening’s train.”

  “So, he’s gone?” she asked.

  There was only silence punctuated by the crackle of static on the line. Maggie wasn’t sure whether he was angry with her for asking or whether he hadn’t heard her question. She decided not to push it.

  “Things really happen down there in ol’ St-Buvard way, don’t they?” she said, trying to keep her tone light.

  “...bad line,” Laurent said. “I will call again tomorrow evening?”

  “I’ll be home tomorrow evening,” Maggie said with impatience. Did he not even know when she was coming back? “Or did you think I’d hang around up here awhile?”

  “Quoi que,” he said. Whatever.

  With barely suppressed fury, Maggie hung up the phone without finishing the conversation. She turned and smiled bravely as Nicole burst into the room from the balcony.

  “Aunt Maggie!” Nicole said, her dark curls swinging over her shoulders as she moved to where her aunt was sitting on the bed. “You should see the birds! They’re everywhere.”

  “Astounding,” Maggie said as she put her arm around the girl, “that flinging great quantities of food at them should have that effect.”

  “I love Paris, don’t you?” Nicole’s eyes shone with her delight, she looked earnestly into Maggie’s face.

  “Yeah, I do,” Maggie said. “So did your maman. When she was young.”

  Maggie could see Elspeth turn her head at the reference to Elise to listen to the conversation.

  “She was a great painter in Paris, you know,” Nicole said happily, not waiting for a response as she bounced off the bed. “I love the pigeons of Paris!” she crowed out the open French doors that led to the hotel balcony.

  “Settle down, darling,” Elspeth said, smiling at the child. “Poppa is already downstairs in the lobby. Why don’t we join him?” She looked over at Maggie and increased the wattage on her smile. “Maggie? Are you ready for another day’s walking and shopping and eating?”

  Maggie nodded and stood up. He knew how to call her back, she thought, if he wanted to finish their conversation. But she knew he wouldn’t. She was surprised to find herself so calm after hanging up on him. She was also surprised to discover that she hadn’t really missed Laurent on this trip. Oddly, there had been a sort of relief at being without him.

  She followed her mother and Nicole out the hotel room door, listening to Nicole’s excited little-girl chatter and her mother’s amused answers.

  What did all this mean? Was she falling out of love with Laurent? Or was she just trying the feeling on for size? As she closed the door, she heard the refrains again of the Joni Mitchell song in her head: “...I was a free man in Paris...I felt unfettered and alive...”

  5

  The woman stood in the doorway, her face harsh from too many years of facing into the mistral, of hard work and dashed expectations. Her arms were thin but tough, like the cords visible on a gutted rooster. She looked at Laurent without surprise or interest, as if she’d been expecting him.

  “Madame Delacore?” Laurent said, his hands resting lightly on his hips.

  “Monsieur Dernier,” the woman said dully, not inviting the big man across her threshold.

  “Please,” Laurent said. “Call me Laurent. I am here to tell you how sorry I am for your troubles and to see if there is anything I can do for you. Is there something I can do?”

  The woman stared at him blankly as if she failed to understand her own mother tongue.

  “Bernard is a good man,” Laurent continued. “He has friends.”

  “Yes,” the woman said without emotion. “He has friends. Eduard is helping us, too.”

  “Maman? Who’s at the door?”

  Paulette Delacore hesitated for a moment and then beckoned Laurent into her house. She had been beautiful once, he knew. He’d heard some of the old women milling about the various shops in the village talk about Paulette Delacore. Not particularly smart or clever at school, but quite beautiful―perhaps, they said, even the most beautiful girl in all of St-Buvard. That was a long time and a rather difficult
marriage ago. Laurent estimated that the woman was a year or two younger than himself.

  He entered the apartment hallway.

  “How is Babette?” he asked.

  “Maman?”

  “It is Monsieur Dernier,” Paulette called to the back room. There was no tension or sign of impatience in her voice. It, like her manner, was flat.

  There was no answer from the back room.

  “I am sure,” the woman said quietly, “that she would like to see you, Monsieur Dernier.”

  Laurent nodded formally and walked down a narrow hall in the direction where Paulette pointed, her arm looking like a broomstick as it directed him down the hallway. It was clear that she would not accompany him. He tapped on―then pushed open―the door to the sitting room.

  Inside, Babette lay propped on a couch. She was fully clothed, her hair unwashed and her face mottled from tears, but her prettiness was still evident. She seemed to Laurent a beguiling gamin―thin, unhappy, yet winsome.

  “Laurent,” she said, her eyes still holding the surprise of when she had heard her mother speak his name a few moments earlier.

  Laurent stood at the foot of the couch, his arms crossed in front of him. He felt a rush of sympathy for the girl. In many ways, her miscarriage, even her father’s imprisonment, were the least of her problems.

  “How are you, Babette?” he said. “I was very sorry to hear the news.”

  “I’m okay,” she said, blinking her large, red-rimmed eyes at him. “I’m better.”

  “I was telling your mother that if there is anything I can do for you or your father...” he let the sentence trail away, the offer standing between them like a referee.

  “Thank you,” the girl said, watching him closely. “My father did it because of the baby. You know that, don’t you?” She clutched great wads of bedclothing in her hands and pushed herself to a sitting position. “And now there is no baby.” She looked toward the hallway as if anticipating her mother, or someone, to be there listening. “And no Papa either.” Her eyes glazed over for a moment as she continued to stare past Laurent into the hallway.