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

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  Laurent’s eyes widened in surprise. “That would be very nice,” he said. “You’ll have to do it without mushrooms, though. They took all of ours.”

  * * * *

  Mathieu had nearly dozed off when he heard the police come up the stairs. He had been sitting in the dark for hours with the television off so he would know when they came. He wanted to be ready.

  They were noisy in their arrogance, uncaring if they awoke the neighbors, if their cars blocked the street below, if their feet flattened the little gardens out front, so carefully protected by little wrought iron and mesh fences to keep out the rabbits and the squirrels—no match for the city’s officers of the law.

  He waited until he heard them pass his door and continue up to her apartment. He knew they wouldn’t be long. He could tell there were two of them. They would make quick work of removing the police tape and taking down any surveillance equipment that was in place. Mathieu knew their coming meant things were moving along quickly now. She had either confessed or new evidence had been uncovered to ensure the State’s case against her. Either way made no difference to him.

  He leaned against his apartment door and waited until the sounds of the footsteps and the mindless laughter of the men had passed by his door again and disappeared into the street below. It was difficult working with no information to go on. He had been unable to have even one phone conversation with Julia to find out what they knew. What they still didn’t know.

  Perhaps, in the end, that had been best. Although he cared little for the thoughts or opinions of the pigs who had trampled her apartment and who held her from him, he had to admit it seduced him. And when it did, he weakened. When they finally knew that it was he who had killed the bastard, they would also know that he had let his love, his one heart of his heart, rot in their prison alone and tortured. They would all know he had allowed Julia to be punished for his crime.

  Yes, in the end, everyone would know that.

  Mathieu leaned his head against the doorjamb until the silence was complete. He took in a long breath and tried to remember how he had succeeded in not caring what they thought of him—what they would think of him when they knew. When he was ready, he unlocked his door and stepped out into the hallway with his suitcase.

  * * *

  “What happened to the living room rug?” Grace stood in the hallway with the toddler in her arms and Danielle’s husband, Jean-Luc, who had driven her home, behind her.

  Maggie roused herself from the remnant of the nap she had just enjoyed on the couch and went to greet them. “Oh, it’s a long and painful story,” she said, “that I’ll tell you over dinner. Have a nice sleep-over, you two?”

  Grace bounced Zou-zou on her hip. “Oh, we did, didn’t we, lambkin? Grand-mère Danielle showed us how to make gnocchi and we made a big mess!”

  Zou-zou giggled and then squirmed to be put down. Grace held onto her even tighter. “Oh, no you don’t,” she said. “We’ve got a date upstairs in Nap City.”

  “Nooooooo, Maman!” Zou-zou shrieked, trying even harder to break from Grace’s embrace.

  “Sorry, puddin,’” Grace said, heading for the stairs. “It’s a law in the bible of Keeping Mama Sane that cannot be broken. Catch you later, darling,” she said to Maggie as she climbed the stairs.

  Maggie turned to Jean-Luc, who stood silently in the hallway. It was unusual for him to come into the house when Maggie was here. Now seeing him stand there, she felt a little guilty about that. Years ago she had reason not to trust Jean-Luc, but she had to admit he had redeemed himself many times since then. Plus, he was very dear to Laurent—practically an honorary, beloved uncle if Laurent went in for that sort of sentimental thing, which Maggie wasn’t at all sure he didn’t. But he was also the newlywed husband of Danielle, who was beloved, no doubt about it. There had been many occasions when Maggie (not to mention Laurent) had scolded herself for not reaching out more to Jean-Luc. As a result, the man tended to hold back when she was around.

  “Would you care for a drink of something, Jean-Luc?” Maggie came into the kitchen and smiled at him. Besides, it had occurred to her that nothing would garner her more redeemable points with Laurent than being sweet to Jean-Luc.

  Clearly startled by the offer, Jean-Luc dragged his farmer’s cap from his head and held it twisted in is dark, gnarled fingers. He cleared his throat and then nodded.

  Maggie pointed to the barstool by the counter and went to get the jug of pastis that Laurent kept chilled in the fridge. She wasn’t sure whether Jean-Luc drank it straight as so many of the old village grey beards did, or cut with water. She poured water into a pitcher and set it in front of him with the anise liqueur. She sat opposite him on a bar stool, taking a good two tries to get settled onto it. He watched her as he poured the water into his glass.

  “You and Danielle are having fun with your little American granddaughter, huh?”

  He looked at her with confusion.

  “Zou-zou,” Maggie clarified.

  “Ahhhh!” His whole face brightened and Maggie realized that it wasn’t just Danielle who was enjoying the foster grandparent role. Neither of them had children before they married each other and it was way too late for that now. They were clearly loving being partners in spoiling little Z.

  “She is merveilleuse!” he said. “So smart, that one. I am teaching her to count.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Maggie said. “You know, Jean-Luc, I was wondering if you had heard anything this year about the Mistral Promis?”

  The words weren’t out of her mouth before she saw the light die in his eyes and the wall slam back down between them.

  Whoa! What is all that about?

  “I understand they are not doing it this year,” he said carefully, appearing to seriously study his drink glass.

  “Oh? Is that because everyone and his brother lost so much last year?”

  Jean-Luc didn’t answer but Maggie thought she detected a slight shrug.

  “Did everyone bet that day?”

  Jean-Luc gave a grunt and, still looking only at his glass, said, “Everyone who had testicles.”

  “Did you lose much?” Maggie tried to sound sympathetic, but with Jean-Luc refusing to look at her, it was hard.

  “I don’t have much so it wasn’t so bad.”

  “How about Laurent?”

  She thought she saw the slightest of smiles edge on his lips. “You’ll have to ask him.”

  Deciding to abandon that approach, Maggie hopped up to see if there were any fried plantains in the breadbox. Laurent made them with salt and garlic. She found a container of them and slid them onto a plate, which she brought back to the counter with a jar of pickles and a dish of tapenade.

  “Can’t drink on an empty stomach,” she said cheerfully.

  “It was a sure thing,” Jean-Luc said, eyeing the tapenade. Laurent was famous for his tapenade.

  She handed him a spreading knife. “Except that it wasn’t. Yves Briande told me that Jacques Tatois lost everything that day.”

  Jean-Luc snorted in contempt. “The man was a fool.” Maggie wondered briefly how Danielle was doing with her don’t-talk-ill-of-the-dead philosophy with Jean-Luc.

  He spread a huge dollop of tapenade on a plantain. “The surprise wasn’t Jacques but his cousin Florrie.”

  “How so?”

  Maggie watched Jean-Luc push the plantain into his mouth and hopped up to get a napkin. Or a mop.

  “Up until then nobody knew Florrie had that kind of money.”

  “Florrie’s rich?”

  “Well, at least he was before the Mistral Promis.”

  “I guess you could say that about a lot of people.”

  Jean-Luc finally looked at Maggie. And smiled. “That’s true,” he said.

  * * *

  Roger had been careful not to choose the same table at Le Canard where he and Maggie had once met. He sat at the table furthest from the square and remembered that day two years ago. She had been wearing a sundress of
some kind, her legs tan and shapely. He remembered the sight of her approaching the table, her hips swinging slightly as she walked. He would have known her to be an American just by the way she walked, he mused. Not that French women weren’t the sexiest most provocative creatures on the face of the earth, of course. But Maggie walked with confidence, almost…swagger. He used to tease her that she was his image of the female John Wayne. As he recalled, she wasn’t at all offended by the comparison.

  Winter was nearly here and the pale yellow leaves were stripped from the linden trees that hemmed the square of the little café. The proprietor had obviously swept up all evidence from the terrace that there had ever been a bright canopy of leaves protecting the outdoor patio. Roger saw that the plant pots sat dark and naked, awaiting spring’s inspiration.

  He had pulled Dernier’s file, of course, years ago. When he first began to work with Maggie—and had begun to have feelings for her—he had studied the kind of man she had chosen. It didn’t surprise him to know that she could be attracted to both the criminal and the cop. She was, after all, a complex, colorful woman. Unpredictable, indefinable. He had to admit, too, that his few run-ins with Dernier had been unsettling. For a goniff, he was surprisingly sure of himself. Roger assumed that was due to his size. Big men were used to looking down. They were used to being taken seriously. They were used to being unafraid.

  Roger lit a cigarette and watched the opening of the café for Dernier’s entrance. It occurred to him that he hadn’t thought the situation out totally, so that when Dernier asked to meet he could only bluffly agree, as if he had every confidence in the outcome.

  Was the man here to assault him? Surely Maggie had told him of their liaison two years ago? While in the end, Maggie had chosen to remain with Dernier, she had been torn, of that much Roger was convinced. It was, in fact, sometimes the only thing that kept him sane.

  “Bedard.”

  Roger was jerked out of his memories by the shadow of the man himself, concomitant with the recognition that Dernier hadn’t bothered to address him by his title, or even in a questioning manner. Immediately, Roger felt on a back foot. He blushed to further realize that he had to force himself not to stand when Dernier appeared. He grunted, not looking at him, and nodded to a chair. “Dernier,” he said.

  Dernier seated himself and a waiter immediately placed a drink in front of him. Roger cursed the wisdom of agreeing to meet on Dernier’s home turf. He had the advantage in all things, it seemed. A drink was placed in front of Roger and he looked at Dernier in surprise. Dernier was holding his drink up as if to toast.

  “To Maggie,” he said, throwing the contents back in one gulp.

  Roger felt an instant rush of kinship with the man that he couldn’t help. Like a wasp drawn into a spider’s web, he felt himself being pulled into a warm confederation: the men who love Maggie Newberry. He returned the gesture and drank his down.

  Roger had expected Dernier, if not to punch him in the nose, then at least to ask how they might sort this out as civilized men. Clearly, that was not the route Dernier chose to take. He wasn’t the kind of man who reacted to how someone else saw the world. He was the kind of man who had his own ideas about how things would be. Roger decided to sit back and get as comfortable as he could.

  “What do you want?” Dernier asked him straight out.

  Roger waited until the waiter had replenished their drinks before answering. He had already decided he wouldn’t play games with Dernier. The man was a con artist. There was no ruse or gambit he hadn’t seen or played a hundred times. That was his milieu and Roger wouldn’t be so stupid as to attempt to enter into it with him.

  “She is complicating my investigation,” Roger said flatly. “I need her to stop talking to people. Keep her at home, can’t you?” He had been planning that last line to be a little more damaging than it finally came out. He noticed with mounting frustration that Dernier appeared not to have even heard it.

  To assume that, he reminded himself, would be folly.

  “She is a pregnant woman ready to deliver her first child at any moment,” Dernier said dismissively. “How much trouble can she be causing you?”

  So he wants to play it that way?

  “Perhaps you don’t know your wife as well as I do,” Roger said, sipping his drink and never taking his eyes off Dernier.

  To his credit, the man laughed. “I doubt that,” he said, belying his laugh. “Do you know what it is you want?”

  A man of few words. He expected that. Experienced hustlers typically did way more thinking than talking. He would have to proceed with caution.

  Before he could speak, Dernier added, “Besides my wife.”

  Roger spilled his drink on the table, but before he could wipe it up the waiter appeared from nowhere and attended it. Roger now had the unmistakable and vastly uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched—and not just by Dernier.

  So there it was, out in the open. Perhaps, in the end, it was best this way. Roger actually felt a release of tension in his shoulders. This time, he got the glass to his lips without spilling it before speaking. “Your wife and I have a history.”

  “Not an important one. Except perhaps in your own mind.”

  “She kissed me.”

  “I heard it was the other way around, and that she rebuffed you.”

  Roger stared at Dernier. So she had told him. He knew his face was as readable to the con man as a child’s primer. He realized he had been counting on Maggie keeping the kiss from her husband.

  “I’m going to help us to come to an understanding,” Dernier said, nodding at the waiter, who quickly brought over two menus. Dernier glanced at the menu and then looked at Roger. “She’s mine,” he said. “She’ll always be mine.”

  Roger stared at him as if hypnotized, pulled into his magnetic orbit.

  “But there may be a way for you to stay in her life.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Not by stealing her dog or ticketing her car.”

  Roger felt the blush inflame his neck and face. To have his childish actions outlined so baldly made him wish he could deny them with any credibility. Acknowledging that was impossible only deepened his shame. This is what comes from living alone. There’s no one to point out to you when you’re making a total and complete ass of yourself.

  “As it happens,” Dernier said, “I know something that you would do well to know, too.”

  Roger cleared his throat and found it difficult to look at him. “What is that?” he asked, stubbing out the cigarette he had forgotten to smoke.

  “I know that you and I are going to be friends, Bedard. What do you think of that, eh?”

  Roger snapped his head up to look at Dernier to see that the man was absolutely sincere, his face open and amused at the apparent ludicrousness of the situation. Before Roger knew what he was doing, he was genuinely smiling back at him.

  After a pleasant evening watching old Masterpiece Theatre reruns with Grace, Maggie felt more relaxed than she had in weeks, and certainly more relaxed than she had any right to imagine she would after a day which saw the invasion of her home, the near loss of her beloved petit-ami, and the stark realization that she and Laurent had probably taken a severe financial hit during the last year—meaning at the very least that Laurent was up to his old tricks of not sharing with her when there was something to worry about money-wise.

  Even so, after Grace had gone up to bed and Laurent still wasn’t home from whatever mysterious outing he was on, but which almost certainly included drinking vast amounts of wine or pastis and then winding his way home on the narrow and precarious back roads from the village, Maggie found herself too edgy to sleep. Envying the easy sleep that Grace always found—even in the midst of her trials—and Laurent, too, for that matter, Maggie put a small pan on the stove and filled it with milk.

  Petit-Four followed her from couch to kitchen and back again as Maggie settled in with her warm cup of milk. It tasted terrible but was the best she could do this late in the
pregnancy. God! How much longer? She rubbed her belly. Hurry it up, Chico. Mummy has things to do and your papa won’t be happy until he’s the one carrying you around.

  As she sat in the comfort and warmth of her living room—even sans the wool area rug that Roger’s thugs had taken—Maggie couldn’t help but wonder what Julia was doing tonight. Was she afraid? Was she able to sleep? Were people hurting her in there?

  She had to admit that her so-called investigation into Jacques’s murder and her attempt to clear Julia was at a dead-end. Not only did Maggie have no idea who might have done it but Laurent had finally put his foot down and there would be no edging around that fact, no “reinterpreting” what he said in order to go her own way. She had to face it: her involvement in helping Julia was finished at least until after the baby was born. And if what Grace said was true, even then.

  A muffled sound from the small anteroom between the kitchen and the mudroom snagged her attention. Petit-Four lifted her head too and looked in that direction. Maggie frowned and put her cup down on the coffee table. She had put seed in the little lovebird’s bowl last night, but in all the excitement hadn’t checked on him since then. The least she could do for Julia at this point was take care of her little bird. She padded into the kitchen, picking up her vibrating cellphone as she went.

  It was Laurent. “Hey, lover,” she said. “On your way home?”

  “Oui. You are still up?”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “I have some news for you, chérie, and it’s not good. Are you okay to hear it?”

  Maggie stopped walking. “What is it? Is it Jules? Is she dead?”

  “Non, non, chérie. She is fine. Will you wait to hear it from me in person?”

  “No, tell me now, Laurent.” Whatever it is, at least she’s alive. She walked into the anteroom where the noise had come from.

  “I’m sorry, chérie,” he said. “The murder case est fini.”