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

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  In fact, she was pretty sure she was going to start bawling any minute.

  “I say, I can’t help but notice that you really seem very upset. I’m happy to listen if it will help.”

  Maggie took a long breath. “It might,” she admitted. “But you’ve got to promise not to call airport security as soon as we land.”

  “Are you being funny?” The man frowned and Maggie couldn’t help but notice he looked a little less eager to listen.

  “I wish I was. The fact is, I have information that a murder is about to take place. In fact…” Maggie tapped the man’s wristwatch, making him flinch, “…possibly at this very moment. So you can see why I’m stressed.”

  He said nothing. Maggie noticed he inched away from her. “You probably want to be left alone,” he mumbled, reaching for his own magazine.

  Exactly. “Thanks for understanding.”

  Three more hours. Three more endless hours when anything could happen and Maggie was powerless to stop it. With Gary out of town, this was the perfect time for that crazy Patti to try something. Maggie rubbed her hands against her pant legs, but when the flight attendant came by she waved away another drink and asked for coffee instead. The booze was no longer helping her to calm down or deflect thoughts of Laurent. Might as well be as sharp as she could be for what was ahead.

  Laurent.

  What in the hell was she going to do about that?

  Why did he follow me back? Why is he carrying on pretending to be my boyfriend? What is he doing here?

  Did she have the nerve to report him to the police? What was she going to tell them when they asked her for the crime he had committed?

  She slumped back into her seat and closed her eyes. Instantly an image of Laurent came to her. Smiling, laughing, giving her that look that always turned her knees to jelly.

  What, indeed?

  * * *

  “I guess it never occurred to you that you were holding him back?” Patti Stump sat at the Parker kitchen table, her spine rigid in the straight-back chair. Balls of wadded up newspaper lay on the table next to the dark, blocky form of a seventeen-round Glock pistol.

  “I mean, did you even ask yourself if you were meeting his needs?”

  Darla sat at the table facing the woman. Her hands were drawn behind her and bound to the slats of the kitchen chair. Her hair stuck out of her head as if she’d been dragged around by it. She stared at the woman. And at the gun.

  “I didn’t let the others talk. You should feel honored.” Stump’s eyes were mad and piercing. She wore a lavender pantsuit, the kind Darla hadn’t seen since the sixties. The pant legs were flared and the trousers rode snugly on the woman’s bony hips.

  “You know about the others, right?” A hint of annoyance seemed to creep into Stump’s voice. “Gary knows, too. Trust me, he does.”

  Darla cleared her throat but was afraid to speak.

  “Sweet little Deirdre? Remember her?” Stump smiled. “What you probably didn’t know is that Gary screwed her. I know. Annoying, right? But I took care of her. I was following her and saw her go into the office last Saturday.”

  Oh, my God. She killed Deirdre.

  Stump’s glance darted toward the kitchen appliances as if she were looking for something and then returned to watch Darla’s reaction. “I’ll bet you didn’t know that Gary screwed her, did you?”

  Darla licked her parched lips.

  “We’ve screwed too, of course.” Stump leaned across the table toward Darla. “He told me he couldn’t stand you...that just to touch you makes him sick to his stomach.” She stroked Darla’s bare arm. “I’m sorry the little girl isn’t here tonight.” Stump stood, as if to search the house again to make sure. She looked at Darla and smiled. “I’ll have to kill her too, of course.”

  Darla fought back the bile rising in her throat, wondering if sheer terror all by itself was enough to kill you.

  * * *

  Gary called home as he stood in the hallway leading to the restaurant men’s room. His buyer waited at their dinner table, with the Dover sole and Brussels sprouts. Gary tried to remember how many client dinners he had sprung for, enthused over, gushed during, and then rolled his eyes about afterward. That probably wouldn’t change in New Zealand.

  The buyer was not a bad sort. He was smart and he’d probably get along great with Maggie. Or was Gary just trying to allay any guilt feelings over selling before Maggie had a chance to disagree? He listened to his home phone ring a half a dozen times before she finally picked up. By then he had worked up a mild annoyance. Give me a break. How long does it take to wander into the kitchen from the TV room?

  “Hello?”

  Instantly, he knew something was wrong. Her voice was withered yet controlled. In a rush, all his terrors of the last six months came roaring back in living color to slam into his face.

  “What’s wrong?” He clutched his chest and felt his breathing coming in short, labored pants.

  “Oh, Gary—” The fear in her voice slithered across the line and wrapped its cold tendrils around his neck.

  He could hear her begin to cry—as if the sound of his voice was the only catalyst she’d been vulnerable to.

  “Darla,” he said hoarsely.

  And then another voice came on the line. A voice that would awaken him time and time again for years to come in a screaming sweat from the deepest of sleeps, the sweetest of dreams. A voice he would remember until the day he died.

  “It’s me, darling,” the voice hissed. “I’m here with wifey.”

  Gary was speechless. He tried to imagine the scene. Patti at his house, Darla hysterical... “What’s going on, Patti?” he asked evenly, hoping he didn’t sound as out of control as he felt.

  “I’m taking care of business, lover.”

  “Patti, what are you doing at my house?”

  “Don’t worry, darling, I told you—”

  “Patti, let me speak to my wife.”

  “Your wife? Your wife?” Her voice came across the wire like serpents writhing across dried leaves. “You can forget your wife, Gary. She’s deadsville, okay? She’s terminated, okay?”

  My God, my God, my God...Gary felt his mind unraveling.

  “I did little Deirdre too, or hadn’t you figured that out? Maybe I overestimated you, Gary. I’m doing it for you, you bastard! Do you hear me? I did ‘em all for you!”

  Gary saw his buyer rise from his chair and look in Gary’s direction. Gary turned his back. “My God, Patti. What are you saying? You couldn’t have—”

  “Couldn’t have what? Killed someone for you? How about two someones? How about going on three someones?”

  “Patti, don’t...don’t hurt Darla. If you care...” His mind raced. How fast could he get the cops there? Could he some how keep her on the phone while he called them?

  “The bitch is as good as dead, okay? So forget that. What I want to talk about now is the kid.”

  Haley.

  “You call the police or screw things up in any way and I’ll kill her, too. Do you understand?”

  “Let me speak to Darla, Patti...please.” He felt tears spill out over his lashes and he felt so weak. So powerless.

  “Behave yourself and it’ll be the three of us. I’ll be Haley’s new mama. Screw me over, Gary, and I’ll strangle her right now with her own Winnie-the-Pooh bathrobe belt.”

  He heard her small, guttural laugh, and he thought he would lose his mind. “Patti, please don’t hurt my wife and daughter. I am begging you.”

  “Here. Say goodbye to your first wife.”

  He heard Patti laugh again and then a small, muffled voice came on the line. “Gary?” Darla sounded so afraid and helpless.

  “Sweetheart, be brave. Keep her busy until I—”

  “Until you what, asshole?” Patti’s strident shriek was back on the line. “I told you! The bitch is history. Your only hope is for the kid now, understand? Do you fucking understand me?”

  “Yes,” he said, swallowing hard. “
Yes, Patti, I do.”

  * * *

  When the attendants came by with plastic bags to collect their cups, Maggie felt a rush of energy fill her chest. She’d had plenty of time to plan exactly what she would do when they finally landed.

  What she would not do was waste another moment calling the police. She would grab a taxi and go straight to Gary and Darla’s in Midtown. At this time in the evening, she could probably make it there in under thirty minutes. If she was lucky—if they were all very very lucky—she would grab Darla and they would…well, she hadn’t completely figured that part out. The last place she could go was her own apartment. Not with Laurent there. And she couldn’t go to her folks’ place because that would be the first place he would look for her.

  Her seatmate gave his seatbelt a tug and she looked at him.

  “Sorry I was such a basket case. You’ll be rid of me soon.”

  He smiled at her. “I hope everything works out for you.”

  She turned away and thought of Patti and Elise and Darla and Laurent and Nicole. And with a growing feeling of dread, she wondered how likely that was.

  * * *

  Burton hung up the phone and turned back to the blackboard.

  “No answer?” Dave asked. He sat, lounging at his desk eating a piece of cold takeout pizza.

  “It went straight to voicemail.”

  “Call the art director. What was his name?”

  “Poke-along or something. Bizarre business, advertising. They’re all basically freaks.”

  “Call him and ask if Parker was sleeping with anyone in the office. Ask about Maggie Newberry and Deirdre Potts specifically.”

  “Will do. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m supposed to be home tonight at a reasonable hour. If you can handle this on your own, I’m going to head out.”

  “No prob. Which, by the way, is one of the many copious reasons why you won’t find me slipping my neck in the old matrimonial noose.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s why you’re single. Just make the call. I’ll follow up tomorrow on the driver of the truck.”

  * * *

  Patti sat at the table in the cluttered kitchen, boxes stacked on counters and kitchen chairs. “We’ll go away, just the two of us, Gary and I. Perhaps Columbia, or maybe Mexico.”

  Afraid to speak, but convinced her fate was decided whether she did or not, Darla cleared her throat. “Why...why not just let him divorce me?” she asked in a whispery croak.

  “Divorce you?” Patti’s face contorted into a sneer. “You must think I’m a moron. Is that what you think, Darla? Do you think Patricia Stump is stupid?”

  She slammed her hand down hard on the table beside the gun. She snatched it up and pointed it at Darla’s head.

  “Go into divorce court with that mewling brat of yours and stick us with alimony and child support while you take the house and the car and the agency? And then you would always be popping up in our lives. ‘Haley needs shoes, Haley needs money for college, Haley needs, Haley needs.” Stump put the gun to Darla’s head and stroked her cheek with the barrel. “The only way Gary and I can begin our new life together is for me to erase his old one.”

  Darla was surprised she wasn’t crying. The bitch was pointing a gun ten inches from the bridge of her nose, and she was just sitting there, continent and calm. So this is what true fear does to you, she thought numbly. This is what facing your own death feels like. Perhaps it was the realization that she was totally helpless that made her calm. There was no sense in trying to come up with a plan. Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen.

  The sound of the doorbell made them both jump. Stump’s finger twitched against the trigger. She lowered the weapon and looked suspiciously at Darla.

  “I don’t know who it is,” Darla said, her eyes suddenly hopeful and desperate.

  “Stay here and keep your mouth shut. I’ll kill whoever it is if you so much as fart in here.” Darla couldn’t help but think the woman’s mouth was a tight, nasty little slit that spewed her words like the snakes and toads from one of Haley’s book of fairy tales. But she nodded.

  Stump took the gun and walked to the front door.

  Maggie stood on the porch and rang the doorbell a second time. Gary and Darla lived in an in-town tract subdivision with double and triple story elevations of stucco and brick. A typical bedroom community, it was virtually deserted by day.

  She noticed it looked pretty deserted right now, too.

  The house was quiet, but she knew Darla was home because she could see lights on upstairs and in the back of the house. She practically vibrated with excitement and anticipation. Just to see Darla’s face was going to feel like such a relief after that agonizing trip from hell, where she went through every imaginable possible scenario—and all of them bad. In one nightmarish image, she discovered Darla’s body hanging from her favorite apple tree out back. She shook the image out of her mind. In less than an hour, the two of them would be comfortably holed up in a luxury room at the Buckhead Ritz with room service.

  She heard footsteps coming to the front door and shifted her purse onto her shoulder, ready to embrace her friend and feel the titanic relief of their escape.

  The door swung open to reveal Patti Stump in a purple pantsuit, grinning at her from behind a large ugly handgun that was pointed right at her.

  “This is Christmas morning, you showing up here, Maggie. That’s all I can say. You’re dead. You know that, right?” Stump grabbed Maggie by her jacket and jerked her into the house.

  32

  She lay on the large, queen-size bed. The house was quiet now. No more screaming or phones ringing. Patti rolled over and buried her face in one of the cotton floral pillowcases. Her heart quickened as Gary’s distinct scent filled her nostrils. This must be the side he sleeps on. Here’s where he dreams and reads and makes love. A jarring thought pierced her when she called an image to mind of her beloved locked in a passionate embrace with either of the creatures downstairs. She replaced the picture with a more vivid one of herself and Gary, together finally, in this bed.

  A thought came to her and she got up and walked to the closet. On the floor amongst his shoes was the laundry basket. She pulled out a man’s blue and white striped dress shirt. She held it to her face and breathed deeply.

  She peeled off her violet-colored pullover and tossed it onto the bed. She slipped the soiled button-down over her shoulders and fastened it up to her neck. Raising an arm to her face, she smelled the fabric. Now, whenever she wanted to, she could access him.

  Patti moved to an old maple dresser standing against one wall of the bedroom. She pulled open the drawers one by one. Underwear, undershirts, socks, his passport, bowties, cufflinks, a Father’s Day card, a packet of condoms.

  Patti held the condoms in her hand and reflected on how she felt about finding them. Deciding that they were his commitment not to have any more children by the bitch downstairs, she replaced them in the drawer. Her fingers touched a greeting card in the drawer. To the man I married on our anniversary.

  Feeling instantly annoyed and agitated, she turned and left the room, scooping up the Glock from the bed as she did.

  Time to do it, she thought. Time to finish it.

  Darla sat next to Maggie, who was now also bound in one of the kitchen chairs. Stump had pressed packing tape to their mouths, and so the two sat mutely watching each other, as if willing the other to be either solution or solace.

  Darla knew it was all over. She knew it was going to end right here at her own kitchen table, her own macaroni-and-cheese-hot-soup-and-tea kitchen table. A bizarre thought came to her. She and Gary had made love on this table once. She wished she was ungagged just long enough to tell the crazy bitch that. She looked at Maggie. She looked dazed and scared. Darla felt a rush of guilt.

  “Botched it with you once, Maggie,” Stump said as she entered the kitchen, wagging the gun at her. “Remember all that great advice you gave me? About how to make a man run for
his life from you? Remember that? You bitch. I’m going to enjoy killing you more than wifey here.” Without another word, she placed the barrel of the Glock to Darla’s temple, her finger quivering on the trigger.

  “Bye, wifey. Time to become the ex-wifey.”

  * * *

  “What are you doing still here? Thought you were heading out.”

  “Got cornered by Jamisons downstairs and then realized I left my jacket and cell phone up here. Any luck on that phone call?”

  “The art director said Parker was scheduled to be out of town tonight.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “He also said it was commonly known that the media director, Patricia Stump, was infatuated with him. He made it sound like maybe it wasn’t…healthy.”

  A silence mushroomed between the two of them and they stood looking at the blackboard. Burton grabbed his jacket from the back of his desk chair and strode to the door.

  “Bring the address,” he said over his shoulder.

  * * *

  Maggie saw Darla squeeze her eyes shut and the movie of exactly what was going to happen in front of her played out in her head. She screamed behind her gag as loudly as she could and was rewarded with Stump snapping her head around to look at her.

  “Got something to say, Maggie? Oh, this I gotta hear. If you scream, though, I shoot you both and no more fucking around.” Stump tucked the gun under her arm and grabbed the tape on Maggie’s mouth. When she ripped it off, Maggie felt a layer of skin go with it and she couldn’t help her cry of pain.

  Stump pointed the gun at Maggie and grinned. “You could beg for your life. I’d listen to that.”

  “You can’t seriously think you’ll get away with this,” Maggie said, her lips on fire from the removal of the packing tape.