“What made you come out here?” Maggie asked, following her gaze at their surroundings. To Maggie, it all looked like so many desiccated sticks jammed into the ground, albeit with a bunch of plump, fat grapes attached.
“It’s so beautiful,” Haley said, her voice holding a tone of surprise that Maggie could even ask such a question. “I like to take advantage of different scenery when I’m away from Atlanta. One morning back home—months from now—when I’m looking out my living room window at the traffic on Peachtree Road, I’ll remember this moment when the air smelled like roses and everything was absolutely and perfectly quiet.”
“Except for my cussing.”
Haley laughed. “I might edit that part out of my memories.”
“Did Laurent mention the lemon festival in St-Buvard today? Half the village will be there, which isn’t saying much, but it’ll still be fun. I mean, if you like imagining you’re someplace totally out of reality.”
Haley laughed again and Maggie felt her heart settle. She’d been forgiven.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Haley said with a smile.
*****
St-Buvard was a small village, Maggie thought with satisfaction, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hold up its end of the food bargain when it came to terroir and pride of produce. Although not ranking anywhere near the level of an Aix or Avignon food festival, the St-Buvard citron festival was still renowned throughout Provence.
And after a steady string of murders a few years earlier, being known for a lemon festival was a nice change of pace.
Grace, wearing immaculate white linen slacks and matching top, carried a patent leather red clutch bag under her arm. She shaded her eyes as she stood next to Maggie. The festival consisted of nearly fifty stalls, tables and kiosks that had been erected in the small village square. Laurent had a table near the entrance of the square for his label. Maggie saw he’d hired two of the young gypsy boys to hand out samples of the wine.
Next to them, and clearly the apex of the festival, was a long table with rows of shiny, polished lemons stacked in pyramids. In front them were displayed lemon pies, lemon tarts and dozens and dozens of bottles filled with citrus-infused marinades and oils.
Le Canard, the village pub and café, would serve a full menu today starting with its famous poulet au citron and finishing with les tartes au citron. Even the small Catholic church of St-Buvard, Sainte-Mère-Église, had a small kiosk of lemon cookies perched on the edge of the flagstone courtyard that was the main stage for the festival.
Of course there were always those vendors who came from outside St-Buvard with their lavender sachets and olives, or even their cheap Paris sweatshirts and knockoff sunglasses, but for once the locals didn’t seem to mind. Maggie noticed one stall in particular had a wide banner that read: Le meilleur à Aix. The best of Aix—selling a lemon-infused pastis and doing a brisk business.
“Don’t you already have a veritable dump truck full of lemons from your own trees?” Grace asked as she sampled a lemon-spritzed bite of chèvre on a small toast round. She nodded at the proprietor, who promptly shoveled half a dozen wheels of the goat cheese into a small paper bag for Grace.
“Today’s not about lemons,” Maggie said, shifting her overly full food basket to her other arm. “It’s about France’s general obsession with food.”
Grace tucked her cheese into Maggie’s basket. “Uh oh,” she said. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” Maggie said sharply. “Except there’s no way anyone can take off five pounds of baby weight living in a country where the sole focus is eating.”
Grace nodded. “Only five pounds?”
“Shut up.”
“Are you going to talk about last night?”
Maggie stopped and frowned. “I didn’t realize Laurent and I were that noisy.”
“Funny girl. I’m talking about Lanie’s surprise pregnancy.”
“And the fact the baby wasn’t Olivier’s.” Maggie nodded. “Major shock, that’s for sure. Poor Annie. She begged me to keep her updated on what’s happening with the case.”
“How would you know what’s happening?”
“Exactly.” Maggie approached a wizened old lady behind a counter where a large pot of steaming paella sat. “Bonjour, Madame Bonet,” she said, kissing the woman on both cheeks. Grace shook the woman’s hand and she and Maggie were both promptly handed small bowls of the fragrant rice dish, which they took to a small bench under a large sycamore tree.
“Annie thinks because I can sort of speak the language that the police will tell me what’s going on.”
“You know, darling, Laurent was out on the terrace with Ben by that point, but I’m almost positive I heard you tell Annie you would find out who killed her daughter.”
Maggie took a mouthful of paella and closed her eyes. The saffron mingled with the sharp briny flavors of the seafood and melted into a perfect taste sensation.
“Madame Bonet makes the best paella,” she said, opening her eyes.
Grace was watching her expectantly. “Well?”
“I don’t see how it could hurt me digging around just a little bit to see what I can find out, for Annie’s sake.”
“And you’re sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact your brother thinks you’d be insane to get involved?”
“Where does he get off having an opinion one way or the other? What’s it to him?”
“I agree, darling. Laurent, on the other hand, will definitely have an opinion and I think we both know what it will be. Oh, there’s Haley,” she said, gazing over Maggie’s shoulder and into the festival throng. “She’s brave, wandering around by herself with not two words of French to rub together. I understand you spoke with her this morning?
“I did. She was very sweet and I didn’t deserve it.”
“Where’s your brother? Did he come with Laurent?”
“This isn’t his scene.” Maggie waved to Haley and her sister-in-law broke into a wide grin and hurried over. She, too, carried a basket full of individually wrapped parcels of bakery goods, cheeses and lemons.
“Oh, my God, you can smell the lemons from your house, Maggie,” Haley said. “I’m in heaven.”
“Whoa, you have a serious load of pastries there,” Maggie said. “And I have a certifiable weakness for macaroons.”
“Well, you’ll be able to eat your fill tonight,” Haley said. “By the way, I saw Laurent on the other side of the square. He looked to be drinking.”
“Well, he is a winemaker,” Maggie said, smiling at the woman behind a table selling sunflowers. “Kind of goes with the business.”
“Yes, but he had the baby,” Haley said. “And Zouzou. In the States, anyone under twenty-one wouldn’t even be allowed to sit in a bar.”
“Well, the French are more evolved,” Grace said.
“God, you cannot be worried about Laurent,” Maggie said, laughing. “Those kids couldn’t be any safer. Why do you think Grace and I are over here sucking up our freedom like convicts on work release?”
Maggie paid for a dozen sunflowers. “Besides,” she said, “didn’t you hear Laurent complaining this morning about me leaving the clothes basket at the top of the stairs? He’s convinced I’m the real danger to anyone’s idea of safety.”
“Well,” Haley said, “he has a point. Even without carelessly placed obstacles, the steps at your house are very slick. I’ve caught myself several times coming down them.”
“Those steps are eighty years old,” Grace said. “Laurent’s uncle built the house in the late thirties.”
“Older than that,” Maggie said. “His uncle did the renovations on the existing mas. Domaine St-Buvard dates back to the eighteen hundreds.”
“So no wonder the stairs are slick,” Grace said to Haley. “They’ve been worn down over the generations. Can you imagine?” Grace looked out over the bustling festival. “I love how old France is. It’s like living in history.”
“Yes,” Haley said impatiently,
“but my point is that perhaps—especially with children in the house—a little more care might be taken.”
Maggie frowned and chose to ignore the criticism. After all, Ben and Haley weren’t likely to visit again any time soon. Best to just smile and let it go.
“Good point,” Maggie said, looking around the festival. “Oh, there’s someone selling calissons. In for a penny…”
“I think the rest of that saying is in for another pound,” Grace said.
“Gosh, you are so amusing, Grace, I can barely stand it,” Maggie said, heading for the candy kiosk. “I’m buying them for Jemmy and Zouzou.”
*****
Laurent shifted Jem to his other arm and looked around to see if he could spot Maggie. It was a warm day, not unusual for summer, but the huge plane trees that bordered the square provided ample shade for the festival. He spotted her easily and, as usual, a smile curved around his lips when he did.
It was good that just the sight of her always gave him pleasure. She never seemed aware of herself, how she moved, how she looked. He glanced at Grace next to Maggie, and while he admitted Grace was beautiful, he saw a more relaxed, less practiced way of moving in Maggie. It was this unselfconscious presentation to the world that intrigued and delighted Laurent the most.
To stare much longer would inevitably generate the possibility of catching her eye, and just now that was not his intention or desire. He turned and slipped behind the awning of a tall kiosk selling barrels of glistening olives bobbing in oil. He didn’t need to look down to know that Zouzou was by his thigh. The child was devoted to him and mindful, even at her young age, of the necessity of not wandering off—at least not from Oncle Laurent.
He sat in a wooden chair pushed up to a table well hidden from view and settled Jem on his lap. Zouzou stood next to him: solemn, alert, curious.
“Bonjour, Laurent.”
He smiled at the woman who seated herself in the chair opposite him, then leaned over and kissed her proffered cheeks in greeting. She was flawless in that way of French women who know their assets and step into them as comfortably as breathing. He had often compared her to his Maggie. Adele Bontemps was completely secure in her effect on men. That was clear from the message in her eyes to the smile on her pink, full lips.
“Are we hiding today?”
“Not at all. Are we drinking?”
Adele smiled and held up a single, slim hand without taking her eyes off Laurent.
A bottle of clear amber pastis was set on the table between them, with a crystal ewer of water and two small glasses. Adele poured a healthy shot into each glass and added a small amount of water. Instantly the yellow liquid clouded.
Laurent watched her eyes go to Zouzou as she lifted the glass to her lips.
“Never mind,” Laurent said to Adele as he reached for his own glass. “The little ones keep my secrets.”
Eight
“Non. I forbid it.”
“Okay, stop that, Laurent. You know you can’t forbid me.”
“I am doing it.”
“Well, no, you’re not. We live in the twenty-first century.”
“You said this woman was no longer a friend of yours. Not for years. Why does this matter to you? Explain this to me.”
“Okay. Lanie’s mother used me as the paragon of perfect daughterhood with Lanie growing up. Annie was going through a bad time and she—”
“But this is something she did. Not you.”
“I’m not doing it because of guilt.”
“That’s not true. That’s all this is about. Your guilt.”
“She asked me, Laurent.”
“Hasn’t she caused enough problems? First with her own daughter, and now making you feel that her death has anything to do with you?”
“I feel sorry for her, Laurent. And yes, I feel guilty because I left the friendship and I didn’t try to find out why she didn’t want to be friends anymore. I just gave up on her.”
“And you think this giving up led to her death? You think if you had stayed friends she would not have divorced? Or been bitter and angry? You think you have that much power, chérie? Vraiment?”
“I played a part in it. Lanie needed my friendship—”
“You said she turned away from you.”
“Yes, so what? She needed me!”
“You are seeing this relationship through different glasses now, no? It is like an adult child of divorcing parents rewriting his memories of his childhood.”
“Maybe it’s seeing the truth for the first time.”
“I think it is foolish and self-indulgent to go.”
“But?”
“But I suppose I can see no real harm in it—as long as you do not climb out on any tree limbs. Eh? Promise me that? No skulking in caves or slipping into abandoned mines?”
Maggie burst out laughing. “You’ve been reading Jemmy’s Hardy Boys.”
“It is much the same with you, no? Promise me you will not be stupid. You are somebody’s mother now. Jemmy needs you in one piece. As do I.”
“I promise. Two days. I’ll ask some questions—all of which will no doubt confirm that Olivier is the murderer—then reassure Annie and come home to my little family.”
Laurent grunted but pulled her into his arms for a long kiss.
*****
Grace turned off the car but didn’t immediately get out. She listened to the sounds of the engine click and shudder as it settled into silence. She was pretty sure she was the only one who ever stopped at this dirt turnaround, half of a mile before the sign for the village of St-Buvard was visible. She didn’t remember when she’d gotten in the habit of stopping here. When she used to smoke, that’s for sure, she thought wryly as she noted the impulse to dig through her purse for a cigarette. She’d quit two years ago.
Annoying, she thought with a smile. It was always so much more pleasant with a cigarette.
Grace loved St-Buvard. That was almost the worst thing about leaving France a year ago, leaving this little world behind. Perched on the side of a hill with the remains of a Roman aqueduct at its base, St-Buvard was tinier than most little French villages. With one charcuterie, one bureau de tabac, and one café, St-Buvard was indeed petit. That was precisely why Grace and Windsor had settled there over eight years ago in a small, renovated château ten kilometers outside the village.
Had it really been so long ago? So much had changed. So much was gone.
She glanced at the cell phone sitting in its recharger dock in the console. She reached out and tapped it with a finger and then decided against calling.
What would I say? Hi there. I’m sitting out in front of the village remembering how it used to be. Is your girlfriend there? Can you talk?
Grace curled her outstretched fingers into a fist and placed it in her lap. She glanced at her watch. Maggie was probably en route about now, but there was a section of country from Aix to St-Tropez where cell reception was nonexistent. Perhaps Maggie was nearly to the coast? She picked up her phone.
I am the last person to need advice on affairs of the heart. And God knows, Maggie is the last person I’d be mad enough to look to for answers in that category.
Wasn’t it just amazing dumb luck that Maggie had found Laurent? And then kept him?
Grace dropped the phone back in its dock. Now that’s a thought. What if it really is a skill you’re just born with?
Because while it was absolutely true Maggie had the fashion sense of a demented Minnie Pearl, and equally true she tended to blunder her way though her marriage like a bull on steroids, it was also true that her friend had a man who was deeply in love with her.
Grace turned the car on. She had plenty of time—thank you, Haley. She had a good three hours before she was to meet Gabriel at Le Deux Garçons in Aix. Her stomach clenched briefly when she thought of him.
Stop that, she admonished herself. You’re just nervous.
She would arrive in town with plenty of time to park and see if there were any new bout
iques on the Cours Mirabeau. It was positively startling to her that it had been so long since she’d been to Aix.
She drove down the narrow tree-lined road away from St-Buvard, feeling the cool breeze of her car’s air conditioning gently rearrange her long curls as they framed her face. Bless Haley for watching Zouzou today, she thought again with a smile, and felt her mood lift.
Her eyes strayed to her purse. Perhaps she would stop at a tabac in Aix. Surely one cigarette wouldn’t hurt.
*****
Maggie tapped the pedometer but the numbers didn’t budge. There was no way she hadn’t walked more steps than it was reading.
Stupid thing. Probably measuring in kilometers or something useless like that. She sighed and clipped the pedometer back onto the waistband of her white linen shorts. Grace had begged her not to wear the shorts—said they’d make her look big-bottomed and she’d never be able to keep them from wrinkling desperately—but they were cool and comfortable.
She really wished she’d listened to Grace.
Laurent had driven her to the Aix train station early that morning, where she caught the train to Fréjus on the coast. Her brief conversation on the phone with Bob Randall assured her she’d have “loads of fun” and would finish the tour in a little more than two days.
That was just about the limit of Laurent’s patience. To be honest, Maggie wasn’t sure what she would do on the tour or even what questions to ask. She had no overriding reason to believe Olivier was innocent. Really, she was just collecting information, talking to the people who had known Lanie, and then checking it off her list so she could call Annie back and tell her she’d done her best.
What did it mean that Olivier was not the father of Lanie’s unborn child? Could it have been as easy as the fact that Lanie had an affair? Well, she certainly had never reported a rape, so it was a pretty safe bet if it wasn’t Olivier’s that Lanie had stepped out on him.
Unfortunately, the baby not being Olivier’s now gave him a motive. Poor Olivier, Maggie thought, shaking her head as she watched the flat expanse of French countryside fly by her window. Way to have that one turn around and bite you on the butt. She hoped his attorney would at least argue that if Olivier had known the baby wasn’t his would he logically have begged for a DNA test? Clearly, he assumed the baby was his.
Murder in Nice Page 8
