Murder in Aix (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series Book 5)

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  “I have never heard of this rule,” Laurent said, frowning. She saw him scanning the furniture in the living room for the glass of wine he had set down.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of it,” Grace said, nodding. “First the spouse and then the person who found the body. It’s a classic formula.”

  “It’s true, right?” Maggie said.

  “Yeah, except for one thing,” Grace said, picking up her own wineglass. “They arrested her for murder, not took her in for questioning, so they must know something.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Maggie said. “I was going to introduce you two today.”

  “Oh, well.”

  “Maggie?” Laurent stepped back into the room and held up his car keys. I am going into the village, yes? You are alright here with Grace?”

  Maggie nodded. “Fine, Laurent. If they call you—”

  “I will go immediately. You are not to worry now, yes?”

  “Okay.” Maggie forced herself to smile at her husband. She knew he hated to see her stressed, especially this late in the pregnancy. When she heard the front door shut, she turned to Grace. “We need to do something.”

  Grace raised her eyebrows. “You mean like organize a jailbreak?”

  Maggie sat down on the sofa and began pulling at the hem of her tunic. She stood up again in agitation. “I don’t know what I mean,” she admitted. “I just can’t stand this, knowing that she’s down there. Damn that Roger!”

  “Roger Bedard?” Grace’s eyebrows arched up. “Your Roger Bedard?”

  “Oh, stop it, Grace. I haven’t seen him in over a year.”

  “Did he know about…” Grace gestured to Maggie’s very prominent baby bump.

  “No reason why he should. We don’t run in the same circles. I mean, I knew he was transferred to Aix only because Laurent heard it and passed it on to me.”

  “Darling Laurent. So civilized about the men in love with his wife. I suppose it’s the French in him.”

  “Stop it, Grace. If you want to know, he’s not at all civilized about it but he knows he never had anything to worry about—”

  “Never? Careful about the history you attempt to rewrite, darling,” Grace said with a sly smile. “I was here at the time, remember?”

  “Okay, one kiss. That’s nothing to get derailed over.”

  “Does Laurent know about the one kiss?”

  Maggie looked at her with exasperation. “Why are we talking about this? It’s all water under the bridge. I’m practically ready to deliver Laurent’s baby. There was clearly no harm done and all parties have retreated safely to their respective corners. And I would greatly appreciate it, Grace, if you forgot about the stupid kiss.”

  “Consider it forgotten,” Grace said with a shrug. But her eyes met Maggie’s and said otherwise.

  As uncomfortable as this whole line of conversation made Maggie feel—especially with Roger showing up again in her life—she had to admit it was the first time since Grace had arrived that she had behaved in her old confident manner and Maggie hated to totally quash her teasing.

  “He wasn’t expecting to see me,” Maggie said as she reseated herself. “And all this…” She gestured to her stomach. “God, Grace, he looked…hurt.”

  “Which isn’t rational, right, sweetie?” Grace said, helpfully. “Whatever he felt for you or hoped to get from you was at least mostly all in his own mind, right?”

  Maggie nodded. “Laurent and I have been getting along so well lately.”

  “I should hope so.”

  Maggie narrowed her eyes at her. “Not just because of the pregnancy, Grace. Ever since I got back from Paris and got involved with the book I’m writing, I’ve been able to see the things I was doing to sabotage my marriage.”

  “That’s handy.”

  “Why are you being so glib?” Maggie’s face flushed with annoyance. “How I was treating him wasn’t easy to see and it wasn’t easy to stop doing either. You act like I’m some kind of one-dimensional sitcom character. Did I not tell you how close Laurent and I came to tossing in the towel?”

  “You did,” Grace said, taking a sip from her wine, her eyes never leaving Maggie’s.

  “Then how can you be so flip? It was literally the scariest thing I’ve ever gone through.”

  “I’m sorry, Maggie. But like you said, you and Laurent had serious issues and I guess I’m just not buying into the whole I solved it and everything’s perfect now scenario. Or do you honestly think having a baby will fix all that’s wrong with your marriage?”

  “What?!” Maggie sputtered.

  “Look, I’m sorry, Maggie,” Grace said hurriedly. “I just don’t want you to think children will make a difference—except maybe to make everything worse. That’s the truth of it and I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear it.”

  Maggie took a long, steadying breath, trying to stay calm. She smoothed her tunic down over her tummy and forced herself to reach out for Grace’s hand. “It isn’t the baby that’s changed things, Grace,” she said firmly. “As I was trying to tell you, I changed the way I looked at living here in St-Buvard—in France—and that made everything else better.”

  “Well, that’s great then,” Grace said, her eyes filling with tears.

  Maggie scooted over to her on the chair and Grace moved to accommodate her.

  “Why are you here, Grace?” she asked quietly. “What’s going on with you and Win?”

  “Nothing good,” Grace said, brightly, blinking back the tears. “Nothing good.”

  Laurent’s nights out were rare and Maggie hated to begrudge him the few he did take. Besides his monthly co-op meetings in Aix where all the vignerons collaborated and exchanged notes, and his one night a week at Le Canard, the local pub in St-Buvard, he never went out after dark. Those rare times he did, normally he made her a dish of something that she either reheated or ate cold. Tonight he’d been distracted, and she found herself rummaging around in Laurent’s other kingdom—the kitchen. Although Grace insisted she wasn’t hungry and baby Zou-zou had already demonstrated she would eat anything in any condition at any time, Maggie still felt the need to rustle up something even if it was just cheese toast.

  “I honestly don’t bother at home,” Grace said, shifting the chubby toddler on her lap.

  “Well, that’s because you have a cook, isn’t it?” Maggie said from the interior of the refrigerator.

  “Oh, I guess you’re right. That could be the reason.”

  Maggie pulled out a plate of lamb slices, a tapenade and leftover potato gratin made with the gnocchi Laurent had served the night before. “I think I can do something with these.” She put the dish of lamb on the counter and scooped out a piece of cold gnocchi and handed it to Zou-zou.

  “Hungry, sweetie?” she asked the child, who popped the plump bit of potato and pasta into her mouth.

  “She’s going to be massive when she’s a teenager,” Grace said. “All she does is eat and those kinds of habits don’t die easy.”

  “Oh, Grace, you exaggerate,” Maggie said, laughing.

  “You won’t think so when she’s ripping your refrigerator door off its hinges. I kid you not. The child is a bottomless pit.”

  “Laurent will love cooking for her,” Maggie said. “He hates how I’m always watching my diet and swears he wouldn’t care if I get fat.”

  “Laurent is about the only man I could honestly believe that about. He really loves you no matter what. How did you manage that?”

  “I have no idea. Oh, look, he’s got great tomatoes still, and this bread he brought home from Aix.”

  “He went shopping while you were with your friend?”

  “You know Laurent. He wouldn’t pass up their Wednesday Food Market if it was me they were arresting for murder.”

  “A bit of an exaggeration.”

  “Maybe, but only a bit. Anyway, it’ll make a fine feast for us. We don’t normally have good bread unless one of us has been in Aix or Avignon.”

  �
��The village still hasn’t replaced the bakery?”

  “Nope.”

  “Ah, well. Memories are long in this part of France.”

  “You can say that again. Here, take the wine. Just because I’m not drinking doesn’t mean someone else shouldn’t enjoy it. Oh, she likes the gnocchi, Grace! Didn’t you, little bug? Is it weird she isn’t talking yet?”

  “Hush your mouth, Maggie Dernier,” Grace said, putting the little girl on her feet and grabbing the bottle of wine. “The minute they start talking is the minute they start whining. I’m enjoying the peace while I can.”

  They settled back into the living room and Maggie spread their picnic out on the coffee table, which Zou-zou attacked with delight, grabbing up a fistful of tapenade and smearing it across her face in her attempt to get it into her mouth.

  “Will that make her sick, do you think?” Maggie asked, reaching for a napkin for the child.

  “I really don’t know,” Grace said. She broke off a piece of the bread and dipped it into the tapenade.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not yet, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay. But that is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” Grace looked at her blankly, then away. “I suppose it is. Why else? To process it all. To say it out loud to my dearest friend and watch the expression on her face. You know, some cultures don’t believe a thing is a fact until it’s spoken. That’s strange, don’t you think? That you can keep something from being true just by not saying it?”

  “I think people do it all the time.”

  Grace laughed but there was no mirth in the sound.

  “Does Taylor know what’s going on?”

  Grace shrugged. “She’s pretty solidly into her own little world. A normal kid couldn’t help but know. But Taylor? I have no idea.”

  Maggie wanted to ask about Windsor. Was he distraught? Was he fed up? Was he the guilty party? She watched Grace as she pulled an anchovy out of Zou-zou’s grubby little fist and replaced it with a carrot spear. She would talk when she was ready.

  As if Grace could read Maggie’s mind, she turned to her. “Tell me about your new best friend. How did you two meet?”

  Maggie tucked a thin wedge of lamb into the heel of the crusty bread and spread a hefty dollop of tapenade over the top. “We met at a fete that Laurent’s co-op put on. She was there with Jacques, the man who died, and we were the only two native English-speakers in the room.”

  “A natural recipe for instant friendship.”

  “Well, it kind of is, as you know,” Maggie said pointedly. “She was English, not American, but we were both with Frenchmen and living in Provence and so we had a baseline of things in common. The more we talked…you know.”

  “The more you fell madly in love with each other.”

  “Well, Grace, we connected. Above and beyond the obvious things we have in common, we really enjoyed the time we spent together. I’m sorry you haven’t made any friends in Indiana, but it’s worse for me since, unlike you, I don’t have a whole effing country of my own people to fall back on. It’s pretty lonely over here and friendships mean more.”

  “Wow. Big speech, darling. And you’re right. It’s hard for me to complain about being friendless when I have drive-through banking and round doorknobs.”

  “Okay, Grace, I am not going to apologize for making friends. And if you were any kind of a real friend, you’d be glad I had someone to turn to after you left.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to be such a disappointment to you, Maggie,” Grace said. “But even all the wonders of living back home again couldn’t fill the hole left by the dissolution of our friendship.”

  “Now you’re being dramatic. We Skype practically every day.”

  “Which is not the same as being together and solving mysteries like Lucy and Ethel the way we used to and getting into all kinds of trouble. In fact, I officially hate Skype.”

  Maggie laughed. “Grace, you’re such a ninny. How can you possibly think there is a replacement for you in my life?”

  “This Julia character certainly seems like she fits the bill.”

  “You are so unabashedly self-absorbed, it floors me. The poor woman is under arrest for murder!”

  “You don’t have to apologize for preferring one person over another, Maggie,” Grace said, grabbing Zou-zou’s hand before she reached the TV remote control.

  “It’s not a competition, Grace.”

  “You idiot, that’s exactly what it is!”

  Maggie stared at Grace with her mouth open. Zou-zou, whose hand Grace was still gripping, began to squirm away from her mother and make little grunting sounds.

  Maggie shook her head. “I was in a bad way when you left, Grace.”

  “You’re not going to blame—”

  “Just listen to me. With all the other stuff going on, mostly Laurent and I doing a nosedive on the newlywed front, your leaving really kicked the stuffing out of me. I know it wasn’t your fault, and that Windsor had a chance to make caboodles of money by selling his software company and then running it for the new owners in Indy. I get all that and I point no fingers. But it was really bad timing for me. And when I met Julia, it helped a lot. She was giving and funny and open and always accessible…”

  “All the things I’m not.”

  “I said funny.” Maggie smiled at her and Grace allowed a small one in response.

  “She’s not you, Grace. Never will be. But she’s a dear friend and just as if something like this happened to you, I want to move earth and heaven to help her.”

  Grace looked up. “Aha!”

  “What, aha?”

  “I knew it! You want to clear her name.”

  Maggie looked around the room with exasperation. “We don’t even know for sure that’s necessary,” she said evasively. “They’ll probably release her in the morning.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Okay, yes, if they don’t, I’m not going to sit here and do nothing.”

  “Well, then,” Grace said reaching for her wineglass and holding up to toast Maggie, “I guess Lucy and Ethel are back in the saddle again after all.”

  Chapter Five

  The farmers’ market in downtown Aix on the Place Richelme sits under the canopy of dozens of plane trees in full bloom that line the avenue. It has served as an outdoor food market since the middle ages. Laurent had left home before dawn so he would have the best pick of everything the market had to offer: peppers, glossy eggplants, tomatoes, strawberries that tasted like real strawberries, figs, apricots, peaches, plums, melons, and red currants like little glossy jewels in their tiny wooden baskets. The first stall he approached sold goat cheeses—hundreds of different varieties, little wheels of white that looked like carefully packaged gifts. He’d gotten home late last night, and still Maggie and Grace were not in bed. Although he worried about Maggie getting too tired, he was glad to see it. He didn’t know what Grace’s visit meant—except that it was more than just a visit—but he was glad to see her as a distraction to the current désastre with Maggie’s friend, Julia.

  Why do these terrible events always seem to follow Maggie? What were the odds that a murder would occur—if indeed that’s what this was—the very day Maggie had lunch with the prime suspect? Laurent shook his head and paid the goat man for several packages of good cheese. He moved on to the salami and ham stall, but took a moment to look around to enjoy his surroundings. At this early hour not every stall was stocked and ready to go, but beyond the many fruits and vegetables there were still crate after crate of olives, chocolate, herbs and spices. The air of the market was redolent with the scent of herbes des Provence and lemons.

  As Laurent approached a table full of calissons, the popular and ubiquitous iced cookie of ground almonds and preserved melons that Aix is famous for, and that his pregnant femme had a strong partiality for, he noticed someone in the crowd that he knew. It took him a moment to place him precisely, and when he did h
e couldn’t help but wonder if it could really be coincidental that he was running into the cousin of the murder victim the very next day after the crime.

  “Florian,” Laurent called, shifting his bag of cheese to his other arm in anticipation of the handshake when the man noticed him.

  However, when Florrie turned to see who’d called his name, Laurent thought he did the most amazing thing. Instead of acknowledging an acquaintance—for they were no more than that—and stretching out his hand in greeting, Florrie dropped his own bag, slapped both hands to his face and burst into tears. So stunned was Laurent by this reaction, he hurriedly moved to separate the man from the crowd by pulling him out of the flow of the quickly building sea of shoppers and tourists.

  “Get control of yourself,” Laurent said, giving Florrie’s arm a firm shake. “Are you all right?”

  Clearly, Florrie was not alright and Laurent cursed the fact that he’d seen him at all this morning.

  “I am so sorry, Laurent,” Florrie said, snuffling noisily into his hands and then his sleeve. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Well, you have had a shock,” Laurent said, eyeing him to make sure he wasn’t going to start crying again. His eyes were red and deeply bloodshot, as if he’d been drinking heavily or crying, or both. He was a good-looking man and favored his dark-haired cousin in that way, with blue eyes and very straight white teeth. But there the resemblance ended. Jacques had always been razor sharp in his manner and inclined to cut. Florrie was the soft, affable one.

  “I am so sorry to hear about Jacques,” Laurent said, hoping it wouldn’t start him off again. “It was a shock, I’m sure.”

  “I still cannot believe it,” Florrie said, patting his pockets in search of a handkerchief of some kind. “I just saw him yesterday!”

  “And he looked well?” Laurent wasn’t sure why he asked that. He glanced back at the market. He had been hoping to get a good fish before they were all gone.