Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries
Page 59
*****
Gary walked away from the gate and patted down his jacket pockets. He kept his wife and daughter in view at all times. In time, I’ll calm down, he thought. After a while, I’ll be able to relax again.
He watched Darla sitting in one of the long lines of plastic airport chairs, a roll of magazines in one hand and little Haley’s mittened hand in the other. She seemed very animated as she talked to Laurent. Only the clutching hand holding her daughter told a different story.
“I guess you got everything?” Maggie stood next to Gary in the airport gift shop and watched him anxiously.
He tapped his inside coat pocket. “Passports, visas, beaucoups American dollars, and a representative sampling of Kiwi dollars. Want to see them? They’re very pretty.” He stuck his hand in his jacket and pulled out a few pastel money notes in purple and pink.
“Very nice.”
“I was tempted to bring Monopoly money, but Darla assured me the vendors Down Under would be too sophisticated for that.”
Maggie shook her head. “I just don’t know what to say.”
“You act like you’re at a funeral.”
“I’m losing a friend.”
“There are daily flights to Auckland.”
“And applications for the next space shuttle, too. Excuse me for thinking neither is a very viable possibility for me.”
“You choose your own limitations.”
“Oh, thank you, Dale Carnegie. And I want to officially apologize for that crack I made in the car.”
“You mean the one about Kiwi fruit causing cancer? Forget it. Darla will explain Auntie Maggie’s sense of humor to Haley, and I’m sure we’ll get her to eat fruit again.”
“I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, Maggie. But you’ll visit. We’ll come back here for visits.”
“Won’t you be afraid of being gunned down in the concourse if you come back to the U.S.?” Maggie instantly regretted saying it.
“Well, no,” Gary said slowly. “Not being a fanatic or anything. I think I can handle bringing my family back for a visit from time to time.”
They were both quiet a moment. Gary waved to his daughter where they sat with Laurent.
“I forgot to ask you how you knew it was Patti,” he said, quietly.
“It was her scarf ring that made it all click for me.”
“Her what?”
“It’s something women use sometimes as an accessory with scarves. Patti lived by them. Brownie found it in the hallway the afternoon Elise was killed and he’d pocketed it. Anyway, he gave it to me thinking it might be important, only he didn’t know what it was. I knew it was a scarf ring, but it wasn’t until I was sitting in the cemetery at Montmartre that it finally came to me where I’d seen it.”
Gary shook his head.
“Yeah, only about a million times stuck on Patti’s graceful bosom. And that’s when I knew.” Maggie rubbed her arms as if a terrible chill had come into the room. “She’d been there that day. When her hired killer called to say the job was done, she knew it couldn’t be me since I’d just left the office to go shopping.” She shivered. “Anyway, as soon as I made the office connection—Deirdre and all that—well, the rest of it fell into place.”
“You said on the phone that the cops got the hit man who killed your sister?”
“They did. With help from the private detective my father hired to track him down.”
Gary nodded, then turned to throw a pack of gum on the counter at the newspaper kiosk. “How about Laurent? You got that sorted out yet?”
“He’s told so many lies about so many things…it’s hard for me to get past that. He’s got a lot of good reasons for much of it, and some very lame reasons for other stuff.” She made a helpless gesture with her hand. “My Dad likes him.”
“I suppose that’s good.”
“He’s not what I thought he was. Not as wonderful, but not as awful.” She ran a hand through her combed hair, knocking loose a restraining barrette. “Of all the things he’s lied about,” Maggie said, watching Laurent as he stood talking with Darla, “I do believe he loves me.”
“Quelle surprise, mon amie,” Gary said, smiling.
Maggie gave him a long hug. “Good-bye, boss. Show ‘em how to do real American retail advertising down there.”
“I fully intend to,” Gary said, wiping a quick tear away. “The starburst price-point and the use of oversized type is about to arrive in the land of sheep and honey. Antipodal advertising will never be the same again.”
“Nor on this side of the world either, dear friend.”