Murder in the South of France: Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series)

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  The apartment smelled of sautéed garlic and onions, although the galley kitchen was tidied to a shine with neither a pot nor a dribble of olive oil to be seen. She imagined her Frenchman whipping up his lunch hours earlier and she smiled. Although it was true she’d never read in any of the questionnaires or articles in Cosmopolitan magazine that said smiling all the time was a sure sign of compatibility, she assumed it was on the right track.

  Had Elise been hateful to Alfie? Maggie set down her wineglass and got up to adjust the venetian blinds. It was dark now, and she didn’t enjoy the thought of Peachtree Road traffic peeking in her living room window. Maybe Elise had begun withdrawal and had been really testy? Maybe she hadn’t realized that Alfie was mentally handicapped?

  Maggie resettled herself back on the couch and took a sip of her wine. And where does all this lead? Could Alfie have killed Elise? She tried to imagine the sweet man-child she had seen today angry enough to kill somebody. She tried to imagine him chasing Elise down the hallway to the bedroom with a wire outstretched in his chubby fists. She closed her eyes and willed the image away. It was too soon. Too soon to think of Elise’s terror in her last moments alive.

  Hours later, the evening’s rain had stopped and left fat droplets hanging by glittering threads from the small magnolia bush outside her living room window. She could see the branches, black and slick with the raindrops, tremble in what looked like a reasonable effort to dislodge them.

  Maggie finished off her wine and glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty. She was glad Laurent was getting to know her dad, but she wished he’d come home soon. When her landline rang, Maggie frowned, assuming it was Laurent calling to say he’d be even later. She picked up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  The voice rasped into her ear like a jar full of wasps. “How about if you’re next on the list, bitch?”

  12

  “You are ready to eat, chérie?”

  Maggie smiled as she rummaged in the bottom of her clothes closet. She loved the whole chérie bit. “In a minute!” she called. She raised herself onto her knees and arched her back. The cops had been through every inch of her apartment with a flea comb, and although not the tidiest of people, they hadn’t ransacked the place either. She knew the chance of finding any kind of clue behind a team of experts was pretty slim. She tossed a wool sweater onto a heap on the floor of her bedroom that she had mentally marked “winter stuff.” She wasn’t sure why she should bother packing it away now. After all, chilly weather was only four months away. On the other hand, she wanted to make room for Laurent and his wardrobe.

  Would he still be here for winter?

  “It is getting cold, Maggie!” There was an extra sharpness to his voice, and Maggie noted that few things could flap the man except where it involved his stomach and the making, presenting and consuming of food. The aroma of garlic and sizzling peppers wafted delicately through the apartment.

  “Coming!” She hopped up and raked the multiple dust buffaloes from her knees, and while doing so she saw the laundry hamper in the corner of the room. She knew the cops had gone through it and she flinched at the thought. She reached into the recesses of the wicker hamper and pulled out underwear, bras, and a pair of gym shorts. And the cardigan. It was made of lightweight cashmere, ripped at the elbows and frayed at the sleeves. Elise had been wearing it the night she dropped back into Maggie’s life.

  She grabbed the sweater and met Laurent in the dining room. He was already seated. She tossed the sweater down on a nearby chair. “Mmm-mm! Qu’est-ce que-c’est?”

  He only smiled as he poured a pale pink wine into their glasses.

  Maggie settled into her chair, marveling over the steaming and colorful plateful of peppers and thin slices of rosy lamb cutlets. “God, Laurent, maybe you should be a chef somewhere. This looks wonderful!”

  “Pfut! In France, everyone cooks.”

  “Yeah, but it’s rarer over here. I’m serious, would that be something you’d want to do?”

  “Peut-être,” he said dismissively.

  She watched him enjoying his own cooking, his eyes flitting from time to time to smile at her but concentrating, for the most part, on his meal. Maggie couldn’t fill in all the blanks about Laurent. He was intense and passionate in bed, but remarkably phlegmatic otherwise.

  Sometimes even his words of sympathy or commiseration about Elise sounded rehearsed to her, almost false. It was, of course, his inability to express himself in English with any real depth or focus, she told herself. Still, it needled her in some part of her mind that resisted glossing.

  Even during those painful months of no word and no contact, she hadn’t examined too closely why she had loved him so quickly, or why she felt she needed to be with him. It was as if thinking about it might reveal something to her that would make her continue to love him when she knew, deep down, she shouldn’t at all.

  “Laurent, I’ve decided I’m not logical when it comes to you.”

  “C’est bon.” He smiled at her and sipped his wine.

  “Well, I’m glad you think so, but it scares me.”

  “I will protect you.”

  “God, who says stuff like that any more? How can you protect me against you?”

  “Why do you need protection from me?”

  “From how I feel when I’m with you, I mean.”

  “You think too much.”

  “That’s what guys always say.”

  Laurent’s eyes flashed and she detected a tic of irritation in his full lips as he set the wineglass back on the table. “I don’t want to hear about your other guys.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Phshht. How can I be jealous? You are mine, n’est-ce pas?”

  Maggie felt a delicious tingle in her stomach. He was so disarmingly direct. It got her every time. “I am.”

  He shrugged. “So, I win. The other guys lose.”

  Maggie laughed. Was it possible it was really that simple?

  She took a savoring mouthful, even closed her eyes to enjoy it more fully.

  “Did you tell the police about the phone call?”

  Maggie pushed a red pepper with her fork. The butter made a trail across her plate. “I left a message. No one has broken down my door to ask me about it.”

  “Incredible.”

  “I know, right? I went downstairs earlier today to talk to the night watchman but he was asleep because, of course, he works nights, and his wife wouldn’t let me wake him to ask him questions. So, I thought—”

  “We will go and talk with him together.”

  “Thanks, Laurent.” Behind him, she could still see the wreath of blue cigarette smoke from his Gitanes enveloping the bouquet of daisies and carnations he’d brought home.

  “I’m just telling you, though,” she said, “I know it was Gerard. He had motive and opportunity, you know? This wasn’t random. Did I tell you the cops think it was some drug dealer wandering in off the streets? Gerard knew she was here. He came here, they fought and he killed her. It’s so obvious. I just don’t see why the cops don’t arrest him.”

  “Oh! You have a parcel!” Laurent looked around the living room without moving.

  “I got the mail, there was nothing.”

  “Ah! Voila!” Laurent moved to where a small box was sitting underneath a stack of magazines on the coffee table. Maggie pulled the paper off to reveal a small packet of stationary. A note, folded over, was jammed in between the pages. She opened it, aware that Laurent was reading over her shoulder:

  This should be the last of it. Only prints on it belong to your sister.

  Sorry there isn’t more at this time.

  Detective John B. Burton

  Maggie opened the stationary pad to the first page.

  “It’s a letter,” she murmured. “Elise was writing someone named Michelle.” She flipped a few pages. “It’s not finished.”

  “Do you know Michelle?”

  She shook her head. “It’s written in French.” She ha
nded the pad to him.

  She watched him scan the tiny, controlled hand on the page.

  “She says—”

  “Don’t paraphrase it, Laurent, I need to know word for word what she says.” Maggie tugged at Laurent’s shirt pulling him back to the table.

  “Dear Michelle,” Laurent read aloud. “I have been missing you very much and hope that this letter finds you well and happy. I am with my sister now and I believe she will take good care of me. I wish you could meet her, Michelle. She is very...” Laurent looked up at Maggie. “I am not knowing this word in English.”

  “What word? Show me.” Maggie jumped up and stood over his shoulder. He pointed to the word.

  “I think, peut-être, it means, oh, exotique? Or, different?”

  “She thought I was exotic?” Maggie looked out onto Peachtree Street.

  “But she has the good heart and I am glad to see her face—oh, she says, her dear face—and I am glad to see her dear face again.” He stopped reading and put the letter down. He touched her. “C’est tout,” he said.

  Maggie picked up the letter and read the words in French, not understanding them, and felt a tiny prism of awe at Elise’s obvious comfort with them.

  “Who is this Michelle...” She flipped the envelope over and read, “...Zouk? That Elise would write her? Will the police contact her, I wonder?”

  Laurent shrugged and replaced his napkin in his lap. “Perhaps she is an old friend? The address is for Cannes, I think.”

  Maggie nodded, still holding the letter in front of her, her mind trying to remember something important. Laurent resumed his meal alone. Maggie suddenly jumped up and then crouched under the dining room table.

  “Laurent!” she shouted. “Take a look at this!”

  She knelt by his side as he sat at the table, the wadded up remains of Elise’s gray sweater clutched in her hands. She thrust the filthy cardigan into his lap and peeled back the label at the neck with her fingers. In large silver script, the words Chez Zouk Cannes, Paris were revealed.

  “This Michelle must have a boutique or something,” she said. “Elise bought her clothes from her, don’t you see?”

  Laurent touched the label and then looked at Maggie. “C’est important?”

  Maggie slumped back onto her heels, pulling the sweater across her knees. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s a connection, right?”

  Laurent nodded, chewing his lamb slowly and watching her.

  “I’ve got an address,” Maggie said quietly, thinking hard. “And I’ve got the name of a friend. Maybe even one who’s not a drug addict or a total loser.” Maggie stroked the soft sweater.

  She looked up at Laurent. “I need to go back to Cannes.”

  13

  Later that evening, Laurent led the way down the darkened corridor of the basement of The Parthenon. Cobwebs hung in large wattles in the corners, dripping into his face as he and Maggie made their way down the hall. It was hard to believe someone actually worked down here, actually packed a lunch and hummed himself off to work only to arrive at the creepy bowels of a hundred-year-old building.

  Maggie slipped her hand into Laurent’s and squeezed it. She knew he didn’t like the idea of her going back to Cannes—he’d made that very clear. She had worked to avoid the topic with him until she could make definite plans to go. It was very possible, she thought, looking up at him as they waited for the night watchman, that he thought she’d already dropped the idea.

  “Allo?” Laurent called as they neared a doorway at the end of the hall, light spilling out onto the cement floor. “Allo? Monsieur?” They stopped in front of the door and peered inside.

  “Mr. Danford?” Maggie called softly.

  “With you folks in just a minute,” a voice said.

  Laurent and Maggie looked at each other and then entered the small broom closet of an office. A metal desk was shoved up against one of the cement walls. A half-sized window hovered over it. From outside the building, the window would be eye level with one’s shoes, Maggie noted. Little had been done to make the office comfortable or attractive. No plants or pictures on the walls, no rugs across the cold and uneven concrete floor, not even a lamp with a shade to make the night watchman’s station less wretched.

  “You the girl whose sister was killed?” The man finally extricated himself from behind his six-foot filing cabinet and maneuvered around two metal folding chairs to stand in front of Maggie and Laurent. He held out his hand.

  Laurent shook it. The man withdrew his hand before Maggie could shake it, too.

  “Yes, that’s me,” Maggie said.

  “Told the police everything. Didn’t see nothing. I’m on duty at night, you see. Didn’t happen at night, did it?”

  He settled himself into a large swivel chair situated in front of the desk. Maggie thought he resembled Barney Fife with a touch of mange. His balding head supported long wisps of hair, witnesses to a losing battle. His eyes were bloodshot and watery, and Maggie found herself scanning the office for liquor bottles.

  “No,” Maggie said, turning her eyes back on the skinny little man. “But maybe you’ve seen strange people around at night. You know, shady characters that might be involved?”

  Danford scratched the back of his head with a long, crooked finger. “Thought the cops said this was a spur of the moment kinda killing.”

  “Monsieur, do you know if any peoples come here at night? Bad people?”

  Maggie wondered what the old guy would think of this big bruiser with the French accent.

  Danford finished scratching and looked up at Laurent. “Sometimes I seen some weird characters around here. In the winter, mostly. Trying to get in to sleep it off for the night, you know? Someplace warm.”

  “And in the summer?” Maggie asked impatiently.

  “Well, summertime’s different. People want in for different reasons in the summertime. This drug dealer the cops was asking me about? He comes by from time to time. I reckon he’s got a customer in the building somewheres, don’t you? Else why would he keep coming by?”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Looks like crap, you want to know. Got this long, nasty yellow hair, you know how they wear it these days?” Maggie hadn’t a clue, but she nodded encouragingly. “And clothes all ripped to hell. Big holes in the knees of his trousers, and his seat too, sometimes. Can’t be making much money as a drug dealer, that’s what I told Cissy. Cissy’s my wife.”

  “This drug dealer,” Maggie said, encouragingly. “Have you ever talked with him?”

  “Told him to get his sorry ass outta the building once. That’s talking to him, ain’t it?”

  “And he was okay about that?”

  “He left.”

  “But he came back.”

  “I told you, he’s got hisself a customer here. Must have.”

  “But you don’t know who.”

  “I got my suspicions. And, no, it’s nobody I’m gonna tell you about.”

  “Do you remember if he was around the night before my sister was killed?” That would have been the night I brought her home, Maggie thought.

  “He was. Shuffling up the damn hallway on the third floor. I knowed he was there ‘cause of the way he drags his feet, like he’s drunk or something.”

  “And you threw him out?”

  “That’s right. About three a.m. No problem.”

  “One more thing. The cops said there was an air conditioning repair truck parked out back during the time of the…incident.”

  “Thought they said it was fake? And besides, I don’t do no maintenance. I’m security.”

  “Yes, of course. It’s just, I wondered if you’d ever seen it hanging around before?”

  “No reason I would. I work nights. There ain’t no fake AC repair trucks parked anywhere near my building at night. That’d be just plain stupid.”

  “Okay.” Maggie looked at the man and then, helplessly, at Laurent. She’d run out of questions, and didn’t know how to process the answ
ers she was getting to the questions she had asked.

  Laurent indicated the doorway with his head and Maggie sighed. Might as well.

  “Thank you for your help, Mr. Danford,” Maggie said stiffly. She touched Laurent’s arm and they trudged silently back upstairs to Maggie’s apartment. Laurent unlocked the door and Maggie threw herself down onto the living room couch.

  She raised herself up on one arm and watched Laurent, who had seated himself in the large tub chair opposite the couch.

  “Well, I’d say we’re nowhere on this. I can’t buy the theory that this drug pusher is the killer. It’s too pat. I mean, what did he do? Go around rapping on doors: ‘I say, is the lady of the house at home and would she be interested in some crack?’ I mean, isn’t it too much of a coincidence that he is a drug dealer and she was a drug addict?”

  “You think the police have made up this theory?”

  “I think they thought: dead junkie, on-premises drug dealer, let’s put them together and wrap this case up.”

  “C’est possible. And Alfie?”

  “I’m not sure he’s tied into this at all. Elise was strung out and testy, they had a little ruckus, and Alfie probably remembers it worse than it was.” Maggie shrugged. “I can’t see him killing anyone.”

  “You do not know him very well,” Laurent reminded her. “Coffee?” He got up and headed toward the kitchen.

  “No, it’ll keep me awake.” Maggie pulled herself up to a sitting position and rested her feet on the coffee table. “Besides, he doesn’t strike me as clever enough to do it and get away with it, you know? I mean, if Alfie killed her, wouldn’t there be all kinds of circumstantial evidence leading right to his door? The cops would’ve picked up on it, surely.”

  Laurent poked his head around the corner. “The police have not questioned the maman,” he reminded her. “They know nothing about his argument with Elise.”

  “Boy, they really did a slack job, don’t you think?” She picked up a magazine and idly flipped through its pages.