Murder in Nice

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

“I adore the cicadas,” Haley said, picking up a fragile looking ceramic one and turning it over in her hand. “They’re so unusual and so representative of the region.”

  “Yes, and they look like big colorful roaches,” Grace said. “Oh, please, let’s do hang some in the kitchen where people eat.”

  “You’re funny, Grace,” Haley said, digging in her purse for her wallet. “You really have never been here before? How is that possible?”

  “Well, it never occurred to me, frankly. And of course Maggie wouldn’t have the patience for it.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” They both laughed.

  After Haley paid for the cicada, she spotted a child’s peasant skirt in layers of red, yellow and blue chintz.

  “Oh, Zouzou would look precious in that!” she said, picking up the skirt. “Would you like it, darling?”

  Zouzou jumped up and down and clapped her hands. Grace knew the child didn’t care, but she did love getting presents.

  “May I buy it for her, Grace? I can’t wait to see her in it.”

  “Sure. Thank you, darling. That’s very thoughtful.” Grace looked out over the crowd of shoppers at the market. They looked to be mostly tourists—the professional antique dealers had likely gotten first pick before the market opened. A blond head in the crowd caught her eye for a moment and she held her breath until he turned and she saw it wasn’t Gabriel. He’d called twice since their lunch in Aix. Once, she had let the call go to voice mail and the other, just this morning…

  “Penny for them, Grace?” Haley said as she helped Zouzou slip her new skirt over her shorts. “Oh, my, you are so beautiful, Zouzou!” she said to the little girl. “Isn’t she, Grace?”

  Grace looked at her daughter, already pirouetting in the new skirt to show it off.

  “Yes, just lovely,” Grace said, smiling absently.

  “You okay, Grace?” Haley smiled, but her eyes were soft with concern and Grace tried to remember the last time she’d had a conversation with someone who cared that much about how she was feeling. Seeing it now almost made her want to cry.

  “Yes, fine,” she said, watching Zouzou bend over Jemmy’s stroller to give him a kiss. “Did I mention to you that I went on my first date since the divorce?”

  Haley’s mouth fell open and she grabbed Grace by the arm and shook it. “No, you did not. We are going to find a café right this minute so you can tell me everything.”

  A warm flush of relief seeped into Grace at Haley’s words. “There’s really nothing much to tell,” she said.

  “The hell there isn’t. Come on, kids, Mommy and Aunt Haley need an espresso with some major pastries on the side. When did this happen? Where did you meet him?”

  Grace took Zouzou by the hand and led the way out of the crowd. She found herself feeling excited about the prospect of talking about Gabriel. Maybe it would help her sort out her feelings about him. As she stood at the curb facing the intersection, she felt a surprise twinge of guilt.

  This is normally the kind of thing Maggie and I would do.

  But Maggie hadn’t called or answered her phone for the last two nights. Which, considering Grace wasn’t totally sure what to do with the information about Laurent and his mystery woman, wasn’t as upsetting as it might be.

  As she stood on the curb with Haley and the children waiting to cross the street to a bustling outdoor cafe, Grace felt a burst of intimacy and affection and, without thinking, turned to Haley.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” she said.

  *****

  Two more maids joined Maggie and Ooli where they sat at the outdoor table. Even for late summer, Maggie felt a breeze coming off the Mediterranean. One of the maids set a large platter of chicken wings down on the table. Maggie watched the women eat and gossip and laugh and felt like she was watching the scene from another planet or dimension.

  Ben visited Lanie’s room.

  Ben was sleeping with Lanie.

  Ben lied.

  She sat with her hands in her lap, unwilling to move one step in front of the other when a sudden cold knot twisted in her stomach.

  Lanie’s baby…

  “Madame?”

  Maggie turned to see Ooli standing in front of her.

  “You come with me, yes?”

  Maggie grabbed the handle of her luggage. “Come with you?” she asked, shaking her head to clear it.

  “I have not yet told you the most important part.”

  There’s more? Maggie felt a tightening in her chest as she followed Ooli down the long alleyway to the street behind the hotel. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Ooli dropped back a step and took Maggie’s arm so the two were walking abreast on the sidewalk. “I was just about to destroy it,” she said conspiratorially. “One more day and, pftutt, it would be gone.”

  “What would be gone?”

  At least they were walking in the right direction. The train station was only six blocks away. She’d be home in time for dinner. Laurent would be so pleased.

  “The evidence,” Ooli whispered in Maggie’s ear.

  Had she found the wine bottle?

  Maggie started to ask another question but Ooli put her finger to her mouth to indicate she would say no more and they walked in silence for another block until they came to what appeared to be a cyber café. Ooli pulled Maggie inside and settled them both at a table with a computer terminal. When the waiter approached, she ordered two espressos.

  She turned to Maggie and put her hand on Maggie’s as it rested on the table.

  “You will need to pay me for this,” she said softly.

  “Oh!” For a moment Maggie thought she was talking about the coffees, but as she reached for her billfold, she hesitated. She had one hundred euros in her wallet along with her train ticket to Arles. “May I see what it is you have to show me first?”

  The waiter set two tiny cups of coffee in front of them and hurried off. Ooli didn’t seem to take offense at the suggestion. She pulled her cell phone out of her uniform pocket and studied it for a moment.

  “Do you have headphones?” Ooli asked.

  Maggie shook her head. What in the world was she up to?

  Ooli held the phone to Maggie’s ear and pressed a button.

  Maggie heard static and someone screaming. She pulled away and then took the phone to position it better. The recording was brief and, at first, unintelligible. Maggie frowned in confusion and handed the phone back to Ooli.

  “I was washing the baseboards in the hallway,” Ooli said. “I saw the woman from Room 209 enter the dead woman’s room, and when the screaming began I turned on my phone to record it.”

  Room 209 was Desiree’s room.

  Maggie stared at her and then reached for the phone again. This time, as she listened, her eyes widened. She could easily identify Lanie’s voice, if not her words. At one point, she heard her scream, “Desiree! You must be joking!”

  She turned and looked at Ooli who smiled.

  “Worth fifty euros, oui, Madame?”

  Maggie nodded as Ooli pulled a patch cord from a wooden bowl on the table and connected her phone to the computer. Then she dug out a small plastic jump drive from the same bowl and inserted it into the back of the computer. After she transferred the audio file to the jump drive, she erased the master recording from her phone and sagged with relief.

  Desiree was on tape having a screaming fight with Lanie the night she was murdered. There could be no doubt as to whom Lanie was fighting with. She called Desiree by name.

  “Madame?”

  Maggie shook herself out of her thoughts.

  “I need to return to work, yes? You will pay our bill?” Ooli handed Maggie the jump drive and kept her hand out. Maggie dug out a fifty-euro bill and gave it to her.

  “Thank you, Ooli,” she said.

  Should she go straight to the police station? She had Massar’s number. Maybe she should call first?

  Ooli stood and touched Maggie on the shoulder. “Ple
ase tell the lady I am sorry about her daughter.” She turned and left the café.

  Maggie sat alone, her eyes on the little plastic jump drive next to her coffee cup until the waiter approached with the bill. Five minutes later, cell phone in hand in case Laurent responded with an irate phone call to the I may be a few minutes late text she just sent, Maggie hurried down the sidewalk toward the police station.

  This had to be case-breaking information! Ooli intimated that the police hadn’t interviewed the maids—although it was true they had all worked to be as invisible as possible.

  As Maggie jogged down the sidewalk, careful not to bump souvenir displays or café tables with her clumsy wheeled carrier, she glanced at her phone screen. He still hadn’t responded. That wasn’t entirely surprising. Laurent rarely carried his phone and he spent much of the day outdoors. It was possible he hadn’t received her text.

  It was also possible he was already in Arles, doing some market shopping and getting ready to meet her train.

  As she looked away from where she was walking to glance again at the screen, she felt a sudden bone-wracking jolt to her shoulder as a strong, unseen arm slammed into her. Maggie staggered, windmilling her arms to stay upright, and pitched into a vertical postcard carousel. As she tumbled to the ground, she felt the strap of her handbag wrench off her shoulder. Metal prongs from the postcard holders scraped her cheek as she plunged into the display. She twisted around on her hands and knees amid the ruined jungle of metal and fluttering cards to see the back of a running form dart into the crowd.

  Her suitcase and her cell phone lay on the sidewalk at her feet.

  But her handbag—with the jump drive—was gone.

  Thirteen

  Maggie sat on a bench facing the Promenade des Anglais. She held her cell phone in both hands and kept her suitcase wedged between her feet, although rationally she knew there was little chance anyone would try to steal either of them. As she stared out at the relentless blue sea, dotted with bobbing yachts and powerboats, she tried to ignore the chill that crept up her bare arms.

  Someone had followed her. Someone had been watching her.

  She took in a long breath to steady her nerves. It couldn’t be a coincidence that her purse with the jump drive was stolen, could it? Had she simply been mugged?

  She wanted to believe that. She wanted to believe it was just bad luck that fate had chosen this day of all days to add her to the list of the clueless tourists getting ripped off on the Côte d’Azur.

  But she didn’t believe that.

  That jump drive pointed the finger at Desiree as Lanie’s killer. Pure and simple. Before Maggie met Ooli, there wasn’t even circumstantial evidence to point in anyone’s direction. The frustration pinged off her when she thought how close she’d come to being able to tell Annie of her progress.

  A trio of young girls walked by on the boardwalk. They must be French, she thought. They were all beautiful, their clothes simple, elegant, and brief. One of the girls walked brazenly topless next to her friends, her hips swaying in a low-slung sarong, her young breasts tan and taut.

  When Maggie’s phone vibrated in her hands, she was so startled out of her reverie that she nearly dropped it. She looked at the screen to see she’d gotten a text. It was from Dee-Dee.

 

  Maggie stared at the text, uncomprehending. Olivier had rejoined the tour? She quickly tapped in a response.

 

  She stared at her screen, willing Dee-Dee to answer her.

 

  Dear God, what is wrong with that woman? Maggie thought in annoyance.

  Maggie typed.

 

  Maggie felt a tingling in her fingers as her excitement began to ratchet up.

 

 

  I care. Especially if Desiree’s little excursion included following me to Nice.

  The sound of a horn made Maggie look up. Laurent pulled to the curb in front of her and the car behind him wasn’t impressed. Maggie hopped up and pulled open the back seat door and pushed her small suitcase in the back before joining him in the front. “It’s two hours from St-Buvard,” she said, leaning over and giving him a quick kiss before he turned the car into traffic.

  “Oui?”

  “Well, I only called you ninety minutes ago.”

  “I got held up.”

  “You sure you don’t have a stockpile of speeding tickets somewhere I don’t know about?”

  Laurent gave her a glance and accelerated into traffic down the main avenue toward the A8.

  “I brought one of your other handbags,” he said. “It’s in back.”

  “Oh, thanks, Laurent,” she said, looking in the back for it.

  “How did you lose your purse?” he asked.

  “I left it under my chair when I stopped for coffee.” She pulled a small handbag from the back onto her lap. It occurred to her she only had her cell phone to put in it.

  “You weren’t required to pay for your coffee before you left?”

  “I paid when they served me. So, what’s happening at home? How’s the baby?”

  “Fine.”

  “And Ben and Haley?”

  “They may be leaving soon.”

  “Did something happen?”

  “Country life is not to your brother’s liking.”

  Maggie studied Laurent’s profile, implacable as usual. If she wanted to know why Ben and Haley were leaving early she’d probably be better served by asking them.

  “How’s Grace?”

  Laurent looked at her. “You are not in constant touch with Grace as usual?”

  “We…I’ve been so busy. I’ve missed some of her calls.”

  He nodded and focused back on the road.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” Maggie said. “I wonder when the last time was that you took a little holiday from your work at the vineyard?”

  Laurent grinned. “You are getting much better at this, chérie. I’m proud of you.”

  Maggie laughed. “I just thought it wouldn’t take that much more time if we went home by way of Marseille.”

  “It is not on the way.”

  “No, but it could be, without a whole lot of extra time.”

  “You want me to drive you to Marseille.”

  “It’s a beautiful day and you haven’t been to the beach in forever.”

  “Marseille is not what I would call a beach.”

  “I need to talk to a couple people on the tour,” Maggie said, dropping the animation from her voice. “I just need one hour more. Something’s come up.”

  “Quoi?”

  “Well, Olivier was released on bail—Annie paid for it, it seems—and…and I heard something really suspicious about Desiree that I’d like to check on. It wouldn’t take long at all, Laurent. Please?”

  “Bon,” he said, shrugging.

  Maggie’s mouth fell open. “Really? You don’t mind?”

  He smiled. “I am with you,” he said, “and the day is indeed beautiful. Your brother’s wife is babysitting les enfants. We will finish your little mystery together and then go home. Together.”

  A surge of happiness fluttered in Maggie’s chest as she faced the road and ran through the questions she would ask Olivier…and then Desiree. She would need to call Annie, too, and inquire why in God’s mysterious world she had paid Olivier’s bail.

  “And it gives us time to talk,” Laurent said.

  Maggie looked at him and frowned. “Talk?”

  “Oui. You can tell me how you got the cut on your forehead.”

  *****

  Haley decided the French countryside was at least as pretty as the North Georgia mountains. That was a surprise. Or was it just here on Maggie and Laurent’s farm where the sky and the land seemed to meld in such a comforting hue of harmony? She str
etched out her legs and repositioned little Jem on her lap. He was sleepy now after a morning of rambunctious crawling all over his father’s vegetable garden. Haley believed strongly that a little dirt didn’t hurt anyone.

  He nestled in her arms and she felt the tremor of his happy sigh as he succumbed to sleep. Over his head, she watched three bees dodge and weave an aerial pattern over the tops of Maggie’s zinnias. The air was scented with lemons and rosemary. No wonder the French like their food, she thought with a wry smile on her lips. Their whole world surrounds them with it.

  She was surprised at how much she was enjoying France. She’d deliberately never traveled outside the U.S., and if it hadn’t been for Ben’s insistence early last spring that they visit Maggie this summer she wouldn’t be here now. The thought of Maggie made her frown.

  It didn’t bother her that Maggie—and now Laurent too—had left the premises for whatever errand was so much more important than a house full of overseas guests. Although, granted, Haley would likely milk it for what it was worth when she described the visit to Ben’s mother.

  Imagine, Elspeth. Her only brother comes to visit for the first time ever and Maggie just up and leaves?

  On the other hand, there was no sense in upsetting Elspeth. The woman would no doubt find a way to explain away Maggie’s poor behavior—as she always did—and Haley didn’t want to look like a complainer in her mother-in-law’s eyes.

  So far the biggest surprise of the trip had been Grace. Haley could not remember anyone as warm and instantly accepting as her new friend. Grace trusted Haley with the care of her precious child. And her secrets. Haley smiled at the memory of her coffee with Grace in Arles after the flea market.

  Grace admitting that she was afraid to fall in love again after Windsor didn’t seem to Haley to be much of a secret. Why not tell the world? Who cares? But maybe Grace came from a world where people do care about such things. Maybe she had learned to protect herself—and her heart—by recognizing that some things are better kept to oneself.

  Haley looked down at the baby and ran her fingers through his fine hair. How on Earth could Maggie leave this little angel? He’s so tiny, so dependent, so vulnerable.