Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  Chapter Five

  1

  Late November came to St-Buvard in the form of a rude stretch of icy weather. Mornings left a halo of cold fog over the vineyards, the mist rising up in clouds as if the ground itself were gasping. The barking of far-off farm dogs would break the frigid air and echo down the valley away from the hilltop village. There was a definite scent of decay in the air that mingled with the thin curls of blue smoke from the village chimneys.

  Maggie had spent the two weeks since the dinner party concentrating on preparations for the Thanksgiving visit of her parents and niece, who were due to arrive in two days. Consumed with decorating their large, and now, it had become evident, drafty, mas, she had seen very little of Grace or Windsor or Connor. Except for almost daily phone calls and the occasional hurried lunch at Le Canard, Maggie had seen more of Madame Renoir at the boulangerie than she had of Grace.

  Laurent was earnestly involved in the production of his own wine label. More than a few times, Maggie had brought a plate of sandwiches down to him and Jean-Luc in the cave where they spent their afternoons conferring and testing the young wine.

  The afternoon was cold and wet, the sky a wash of bleakest slate-gray, as Maggie made ham and cheese sandwiches with fresh, fragrant slices of Madame Renoir’s excellent bread and aîoli, the area’s rich garlic spread. She heard Laurent and Jean-Luc’s heavy boots on the old wooden stairs as they ascended to the kitchen from the cave. Maggie wiped her hands against her jeans and checked her makeup.

  “Oh, chérie,” Laurent said, his eyes brightening when he saw her. “We will come to the table like civilized men, hein?” His dark blue pullover strained against his broad chest as he ran a hand through his hair.

  Jean-Luc removed his rag cap and nodded at Maggie. He smiled his ruined smile and tucked his big, farmer’s hands under his armpits as if sorry he’d brought them along.

  “Bonjour, Madame,” he said.

  “Finished for the day?” Maggie asked hopefully as Laurent pulled a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon from the cupboard above her head.

  “Mais, non, Madame!” Jean-Luc said, clucking his tongue as if Maggie had made a bad joke. “There is much to making a good wine, yes? Only the best grapes are employed.”

  Maggie carried the plate of sandwiches to the table while Laurent brought the bottle and three glasses.

  “You are hand-sorting through a hundred bushels of grapes?” She thumped the sandwiches down on the table and looked at Laurent with incredulity.

  He shook his head. “No, but mon oncle has planted several different varieties, n’est-ce pas?”

  “And that’s bad?”

  “Non, non, not bad,” Jean-Luc said, seating himself at the table. “It will make for a wine formidable!” He kissed two of his fingers. “Grenache et Cinsault et―”

  “Grenache?” Maggie accepted a glass of wine from Laurent. “You mean like that pink stuff you won’t allow in the house back home?”

  “C’est différent, Maggie, “ Laurent said, a smile edging his full lips.

  “God, don’t tell me you’re going to embarrass me to my friends back in Georgia.” She affected an imaginary conversation, “Oh, the wine we make? It’s sort of a French Mad-Dog 20-20.”

  “‘Mad Dog’?” Jean-Luc looked up questioning to Laurent who shook his head at the older man.

  “Ce ne fait rien,” Laurent said to him. “L’humour américain.”

  “I understood that!” Maggie gave Laurent a playful jab.

  “The Grenache we make will be totalement différent,” Laurent said as he reached for a sandwich.

  “Well, why’s it taking so long? You’ve got crushers and stuff, right? Just squeeze all the juice out―”

  “And we will have le bon jus de raisin,” Laurent said, matter-of-factly.

  “Grape juice,” Maggie said.

  “Very good, chérie!” Laurent patted her hand.

  “The juice, she is squeezed.” Jean-Luc pressed his hands together, crumbs clinging to his mustache. “This is already done.”

  Maggie nibbled at her own sandwich and smiled politely at Jean-Luc. “And now?” she asked. “Now that the juice, she is squeezed?”

  “Maggie.” Laurent’s voice was low and admonishing. She didn’t look at him.

  “It must be fermented, bien sûr,” the older man said, as if every one must surely know this.

  “Will we or won’t we have our own wine to serve when my parents get here?” Maggie asked Laurent.

  “Bien sûr,” he responded. “We still have to acquire more bottles, eh?” He looked at Jean-Luc, who nodded solemnly. “The heavy, dark ones,” he explained to Maggie. “They are the best. And more wooden wine racks, although Bernard said he would make some at a reasonable price for us. And we don’t have enough corks. The cork is very important, tu sais. Did you know that Jean-Luc has wine in his cave over a hundred years old? Wine of his father. These sandwiches are really very good, Maggie. Ainsi,” he said, “we have some ready to drink for Thanksgiving, yes. And some that are, even now, maturing in the vats below.”

  “Those are the best ones, right?” Maggie asked.

  “We shall see,” Laurent said, pouring himself another glass of the Cabernet. “Peut-être.“

  “What about your own wine, Jean-Luc?” Maggie asked, pushing the platter of sandwiches toward him when she saw he’d easily finished the two on his plate. “Are they all finished?”

  “Ahh, Madame,” Jean-Luc said, eagerly accepting two more sandwiches. “I am with the cave co-op, n’est-ce pas? The wine is being made now.”

  “What, exactly, is this co-op?” Maggie leaned back in her chair with her wine glass. “Like, all the grapes from everyone are all bunged into a big vat together? And whatever wine is made, is everybody’s wine?”

  “Exactement.” Jean-Luc chewed happily.

  “Wow, so, it really is sort of special that you make your own wine.” Maggie directed this to Laurent.

  “I have been trying to tell you this,” Laurent said. “Fini, Jean-Luc?” he asked, as he stood up.

  “Laurent, you can see that he’s not.”

  Jean-Luc stood up with Laurent, his mouth bulging with one sandwich, the other clutched in a weathered, red hand.

  “C’est magnifique, Madame. Merci,” Jean-Luc said in a muffled voice.

  “You’re welcome, Jean-Luc,” Maggie said with a sigh. “Je vous en prie. “

  “Très bien, Madame!” Jean-Luc said enthusiastically at hearing her French. Then, he and Laurent headed for the kitchen and the basement door.

  “You are going out, chérie?” Laurent called over his shoulder to her.

  Maggie followed them out of the dining room, aware that her lover had not waited for her answer. When the narrow kitchen door leading to the basement and its collection of fermenting liquids and calmly maturing wine had slammed solemnly shut behind them, she gathered up the empty glasses and dishes onto a tray and carried it back to the kitchen.

  “It’s not that I’m bored, exactly, that’s not it at all,” Maggie said into the phone receiver as she pulled a wool afghan closer around her. The fire in the massive living room fireplace was still alive, but barely. From where she sat on the couch, she could see the wind slapping the bare branches of the apple tree outside against the French doors. “I mean, my folks will be here in two days and I haven’t even begun cleaning the place. And I still haven’t got a confirmation on the turkey―”

  “You sure I can’t do anything to help? I’m really good at this sort of thing, Maggie. Organizing and buying things.” Grace laughed merrily on the other end of the line.

  “No, I know you’re busy right now, Grace, besides―”

  “I’m not that busy, darling! Really. Let me―”

  “I mean, he’s down there in the dark fiddling with his grapes and foamy vats and stuff like some bloody mole― coming up only to eat sandwiches and I’m running all over a thirteenth century village trying to find cranberry sauce!”

>   Grace laughed. “Listen, Maggie, I absolutely insist you stop being Madame Must-Do-It-All-Herself and let me pick you up and take you to Aix today. We’ll find a turkey, we’ll find cranberry relish, we’ll have a tall glass of something wicked, and we’ll leave the moles in the basement to their grape-squishing. Yeah?”

  “You’re a peach, Grace.”

  “Yeah. C’est moi. Une pêche. Pick you up in an hour.”

  2

  The girl arched her back, the swell of her tummy protruding, not unattractively, it seemed to Connor, as he stood by the window and watched her. Babette was completely nude and appeared to be unashamed of it―even in contrast to the fact that Connor was fully clothed. It was cold and wet outside but the renovated and luxurious farmhouse was cozy and snug. For as much time as he spent out of his clothes, Connor thought with a smile, central heating was imperative.

  He continued to watch Babette as she stretched. Her breasts were heavy against her thin rib cage, the veins prominent and blue like rivers on a road map. Her hair hung reddish-gold to her waist. She pushed it over her shoulder to expose even more of her breasts.

  Connor sighed. She wouldn’t age well, he feared. Already, the harsh lines of frowning marked her lovely face. That pert nose will grow too, he decided, no matter how many years she keeps it upturned in that haughty glower of hers. Why do I always pick mean-spirited women? he wondered, as he directed his gaze back to the mound of unshapen clay on his stand.

  “Dépêche-toi,” Babette said, her brows knitted together in a fierce look of petulance. She rubbed the sides of her arms as if she were chilled.

  “I can’t hurry, my love,” Connor said, poking tentatively at the three-foot form of clay. “This sort of thing takes time.” He smiled at her almost fondly. “You understood that concept well enough an hour ago.”

  “Don’t be dirty,” Babette said, jumping up from the rumpled bed and grabbing her robe.

  “Oh, Babette, what are you...?” He watched with disappointment as she tied her robe firmly around her.

  “I will go,” she said as she picked up her shoes and skirt from the inlaid tile floor.

  “Why?” Connor dropped his hands to his side in exasperation. “Because I don’t want to spend all day lolling around in bed?”

  “You are a pig,” she said, roughly pulling on her dark stockings. “My father says he will cut your heart out and bake it for his casse-croûte! “

  “I guess that means you’ve broken the happy news.” Connor tossed down his sculpting implements and walked over to her. He tried to take her hands in his but she pushed him away.

  “Why won’t you let me help you?” he asked. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “And how could it be?” She looked up at him and he caught a fleeting, painful flash of a little girl looking back at him. Nineteen years old going on twelve, he thought to himself.

  She recovered quickly. “I will kill the baby, and then you and I will continue to make love. But my father will live with this shame for always. Toujours.

  “You didn’t have to tell him, you know.” Connor ran a hand through his hair. “We could’ve taken care of this,” he pointed at her stomach. “And gone on like nothing―”

  “And your whore, Lydie?” The girl jumped up and pulled her heavy sweater on over her head. “And the little school girl, Denise? I have seen you with her near l’école des filles. She is not even sixteen years old.”

  Connor licked his lips. “You knew about Lydie before you came today,” he reminded her. “It didn’t seem to stand much in your way an hour ago―”

  “Don’t forget petite Denise,” Babette said with a sneer.

  “Look, what do you want from me? Huh? Money?” He jumped up and strode to the desk tucked under the eaves in his small bedroom. He snatched up his wallet and pulled out a five hundred euro note. “Is this enough? More?” He wagged the note in the air.

  Babette stared at him for a moment, then smoothed out the creases in her snug, turquoise-colored skirt. She approached him, her eyes constantly on his own, and carefully took the money from his hand. She tucked the note into the wrist of her pullover.

  “It’s a start, mon cher, “ she said, her lips curling away from her small, already yellowing teeth. “From now on, when you want Babette, you must pay.”

  Connor almost felt like laughing. And shall the price go up, my sweet? he felt like asking, when there is soon more of you to love? The girl must be loony!

  Instead, he kept his expression under control. “I understand, Babette,” he said, quietly.

  She turned abruptly away from him and left the room, not bothering to shut the door behind her. Connor listened as he heard her leave through the front door and wondered if she’d taken anything on her way out.

  He’d been a fool to think he could continue to see the girl under the circumstances. But he’d so wanted to try sculpting that body. It was at the perfect stage of its ripeness, not quite showing but not quite normal. A state halfway between the virginal girl and the maternal woman.

  He looked at the barely touched form of clay. What a shame, he thought. He had had such high hopes for this particular piece.

  3

  Madame Renoir dusted the flour from her hands and suppressed a gasp of delight when she saw the two American women coming toward her shop. She had just been about to close up―that useless Babette had not even shown up for work today―when she saw Madame Van Sant and Madame Dernier get out of the handsome black automobile in front of the Dulcie’s charcuterie. To her pleasure, the two women bypassed the butcher shop and headed straight for her own boulangerie.

  She scurried to the back of the shop, past the ovens and the large, mixing tables coated with flour, small clouds of the white dust still hovering gently above the floor, to the back room where she kept her milk crates, gumboots and brooms. Shifting her large body sideways to enter the small room, and listening for the sound of the bell at the front door, she reached into one of the large crates crammed up against the wall and the back door.

  She picked out two of the fattest, biggest puppies, clutching them to her ample bosom, and squeezed once more back through the narrow opening. As she walked through the back preparation room, the heat of the now-cooling ovens still warming the room, she could hear the tell-tale tinkle that heralded her customers’ arrival.

  “Madame Renoir?” Grace called as she opened the door of the little shop. “God,” she said to Maggie, “I gain weight just smelling the stuff in this place, you know?”

  They had finished most of their shopping in Aix―a twenty-five pound frozen turkey sat wrapped and strapped in the back seat shoulder harness of Grace’s Mercedes as testimony―and had decided to pick up their bread and Maggie’s pumpkin pie order at Madame Renoir’s.

  “Unfortunately,” Maggie said, eyeing the delectables in the bakery display case, “I practically live here.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No, really. Laurent and I both love fresh bread for dinner every night...”

  “And you mean to tell me you don’t stock up on a few eclairs and custard-tarts while you’re about it?”

  “Bonjour, Mesdames!” Both Grace and Maggie jumped, startled by Madame Renoir’s sudden entrance. She was red-faced and caked in white, and holding to the front of her broad, pale blue smocked tablier a squirming pair of poodle puppies.

  “Pour vous, Madame!” the woman chortled shrilly as she pushed one of the wriggling dogs into Maggie’s arms. “Et aussi pour vous, Madame. Pour votre petite fille, oui?” She shoved the other puppy into Grace’s hands, who held it as if it might explode at any moment.

  Maggie shifted the bundle of lapping tongue and curly fur in her arms and murmured her thanks to Madame Renoir, while staring in laughing surprise at Grace, who, up until this moment, Maggie could not have imagined looking awkward or uncomfortable in any situation.

  “Merci, Madame. Mais, pourquoi?” Maggie asked, peering into the puppy’s sleepy face. She qui
ckly checked the sex of the dog―a female―and decided, on the spot, that a year’s quarantine, or whatever the United States required for re-entry with an animal, could be suffered. It suddenly occurred to her that a pet was precisely what she needed during her year in France.

  “Pourquoi?” The baker grinned idiotically at both women, beaming as broadly as if she had produced the pups from her own litter. “Parce que, je veux vous donner un cadeau! Simplement!” Because I want to give you a gift, that’s all.

  Grace smiled generously at the woman and said to Maggie through her smile: “I can’t keep this thing. Windsor will shit.”

  “Madame?” Madame Renoir looked encouragingly at Grace as if she still needed some last, minor commitment from the American to accept the dog.

  Grace held up her puppy―a very active male―and smiled too widely. “Merci beaucoup, Madame. Ma fille sera très contente, très heureuse!” My daughter will be thrilled. She glanced at Maggie. “Taylor will have it skinned and eaten before dinnertime tomorrow, you watch.”

  The puppy wrapped his needle-sharp teeth around a glittering button on Grace’s double-breasted knit top. She attempted to pull the dog away from her buttons.

  “Ouch! You little monster! It bit me!” Grace looked at Maggie’s own docile puppy and she began to laugh. “God, this figures,” she said. “You get perfect-puppy there and I get the hound from hell. There’s no justice. How did this happen to us? Didn’t we just come in here for some bread?”

  “I told you,” Maggie said, watching the big blinking eyes of her puppy, “I come here a lot. It’s probably some sort of archaic bonding thing between proprietor and customer that she does with all her prized customers and you just happened to be here when the gift-giving portion of the rite happened.”

  “I’m riddled with luck.”

  “How do you say, ‘again’? I want to thank her again.”

  “You know I’m going to make you take this little rotter too as soon as we’re outside the shop.”

  “Don’t be silly, Grace. I’ll tell Taylor and you’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “God, you wouldn’t.”

  “Merci, Madame,” Maggie said, giving her puppy a little shake to indicate why she was thanking the woman. “Merci, encore.”

  “I don’t think that’s right,” Grace said, now holding her animal with both hands away from her Chanel country skirt.

  “She gets the idea.”

  Madame Renoir waved her hands at Maggie as if to signify that the giving of the puppy was nothing.

  “Votre tian de dourge sucrée est prête,” she sang out to Maggie. Your sweet pies are ready for you. She pulled out a large tray from under the counter and set it gently on the surface between them. On the tray sat two dozen small ramekins of what looked like orange pudding with caramelized topping drizzled over each.

  “My God, they look wonderful,” Grace said, still struggling with her dog for ownership of her buttons. “They smell even better. What are they?”

  Maggie looked a little closer, aware that Madame Renoir was watching her with some trepidation.

  “Well, they’re not pumpkin pies,” she said, finally, softening the words with an encouraging smile to Madame Renoir. The baker produced a small silver teaspoon and scooped the center out of one of the tians. She held it out to Maggie.

  “This isn’t really a pâtisserie, Maggie, darling,” Grace said softly. “There are lots of places in Aix. In fact, Aix is famous for its...” Grace watched Maggie as she tasted the spoonful of creamy, sweet pumpkin.

  Maggie looked up at Madame Renoir who, having accurately deciphered Maggie’s reaction, was beaming again.

  “C’est magnifique,” Maggie said to the baker.

  “Bon!” Madame Renoir began bundling up the puddings in various cardboard boxes while Maggie and Grace selected baguettes for the evening.

  “Où est Babette cet après midi?” Grace asked absently as she steered the little dog’s muzzle away from her large, gold earrings.

  Madame Renoir made an impatient hand gesture in Grace’s direction and rattled off a rather cross explanation of the girl’s absence.

  “You know, it’s weird,” Maggie said, plopping her dog on the floor to see what it would do. “Did I tell you what happened to me the first and last time I saw Babette?” The puppy shook its curls, then sat quietly at Maggie’s feet. It looked up at Maggie as if awaiting instructions.

  “You mean Gaston getting a freebie feel?” Grace eagerly deposited her own dog on the floor. “You told me. What a cretin.”

  “Est-ce que vous connaissez Gaston Lasalle?” Madame Renoir said suddenly to Grace as she pushed the wrapped tians toward Maggie on the counter.

  Surprised by the question, Grace told the woman that Gaston had helped pick the grapes at Domaine St-Buvard. She pointed to Maggie and said that Madame Dernier had spoken with the man and found him very unpleasant.

  The baker reacted dramatically. She turned to Maggie and began babbling frantically in French.

  “What in the world is she saying, Grace?” Maggie looked from Madame Renoir to Grace and back to the baker again.

  “I don’t...it’s kind of fractured,” Grace said, trying to keep one eye on the hand-wringing of Madame Renoir and one eye on her puppy as it pounced on her Ferragamos. “Something about...he’s a bad man...very méchant...very, I guess, evil? Oh, he’s a Bohémienne, and...”

  “What do you mean, like an artist or something?” Maggie frowned. Gaston Lasalle certainly hadn’t struck her as the sensitive type.

  “No, no, Bohémienne...that’s the Provençal word for gitane...you know...gypsy.”

  “Lasalle’s a gypsy?”

  “Dog, stop it!” Grace shouted at the puppy as it lunged again at her shoes.

  Madame Renoir wiped her hands against her apron, but only succeeded in coating them with more white powder. She turned to Maggie and shook her finger at her slowly. Her eyes looked worried and sad. Her words were slow but still incomprehensible to Maggie, who nodded as if she could understand.

  “Oh, my God,” Grace said, glancing at Maggie for emphasis.

  “What?” Maggie asked. “What is she saying?”

  “You are not going to believe this.” Grace pushed the attacking puppy aside with her foot. “Madame Renoir says Gaston Lasalle is the grandson of the gypsy they hung in your vineyard.”

 

  4

  Laurent scooped up the steaming, saffron-yellow polenta onto two plates. Maggie watched him from her stool. She had been delighted to return from her shopping expedition with Grace at a little before six in the evening, to find Laurent emerged from his cave, and cooking up a cozy dinner à deux. She held a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape as she watched him work.

  “You have brought a fougasse?” he asked with surprise, lifting the flaky flat bread from its wrapping paper.

  “Madame Renoir pressed it on me,” Maggie said as she watched Laurent break the bread up and then position two roasted quail on one plate and four other birds on the second plate. “She thought she’d upset me,” she continued. “You know how she is. Her way of dealing with stress is to give you free buns.”

  “I love fougasse. “

  “Well, then, I guess my little trauma was worth it.”

  Laurent gave her an admonishing look from under his thick eyebrows. But he said, “The news about Lasalle is troubling you?”

  “You don’t think it’s bizarre that the guy whose dear ol’ granddad is publicly and gruesomely offed in our vineyard shows up to pick our grapes? In the same vineyard? You don’t think that’s weird?” She decided, once more, to withhold a report on her little run-in with Gaston in front of the boulangerie two weeks ago.

  “You watch too much American TV,” Laurent said. “We will try one of our own wines, tonight,” He positioned salad leaves on two glass dessert plates.

  “Really? Is it ready?”

  “This one is meant to drink a little young. It’s not wonderful. But it i
s not bad, I think.”

  “Gosh, Laurent, what’s that?” Maggie pointed to the salad. “You should have told me you’d run out of lettuce, I could’ve picked some up for you. You don’t have to rip the weeds out of the yard.”

  Laurent’s smiled affectionately at her as he picked up a fork and gestured at the salad. “Dandelion leaves, rocket leaves, lamb’s lettuce.”

  “No Ranch dressing, I guess.”

  “Grilled goat cheese in olive oil.”

  Maggie sighed. “Anyway, I got all the stuff for dinner on Thursday. I think.” She picked up the salad plates and walked into the part of the living room that they used as their dining area. Laurent followed with the dinner plates and a bottle of wine under his arm.

  “Bon,” he said. “And you had a nice visit with Grace. That is very good. I am glad. Sit, sit, Maggie. It is getting cold.”

  “Well, aside from the dog relieving its surprisingly large bladder all over the front of Grace’s blouse...did you know she wears, like, original Chanel? The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful.”

  “Dog?” Laurent asked absentmindedly as he began working the cork out of the bottle.

  “Yes, didn’t I mention that? Madame Renoir gave Grace a dog. Cute little thing, smart too. Poodle, I think.”

  Laurent poured their glasses.

  “Try that,” he said.

  She took the large balloon glass in her hand and sniffed the wine’s bouquet.

  “I haven’t a clue as to what I’m trying to smell,” she said.

  “Just drink it, Maggie,” he said patiently.

  “Mmm-mm, tasty,” she said. “Very nice. Vin du Laurent. My favorite brand.”

  “It is a little young.”

  “No, no. It’s nice.”

  “A little too much tannic, too, I think. No matter.” Laurent studied the bottle with his own hand-scrawled label on it. “It will get better as I do. You will see.”

  “Well, the polenta is wonderful, as usual,” Maggie said. “And not fattening either, I’ll bet?”

  “Madame Marceau was here today.” Laurent cut into his quail.

  “Really? What did she want?”

  “She left you a gâteau for Thursday’s dinner, she said.”

  “No kidding? That was sweet.”

  “It is a Gâteau de Fruits Battus.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “It is a traditional cake for a vigneron’s wife to make. It is made from the broken, too-ripe grapes.”

  “Are you telling me I’m supposed to make this grape-cake too?”

  “Non, non, I am just telling you. That is all.” He looked at her with mild exasperation. “Also, Jean-Luc stopped back by today.”

  “Quelle surprise,” she said, cutting into the polenta.

  “He brought us a couple of good dogs.”

  “Excuse me?” She looked up from her plate.

  “Dogs. You know.”

  “I know what dogs are. What do you mean, ‘he brought us a couple of dogs’?”

  Laurent shrugged. “Which part is unclear?”

  “We have dogs now? Is that what you’re saying? We’re pet owners?”

  “These are not pets. They are hunting dogs. Guard dogs. Dogs to go for walks with―”

  “But plural. Dogs. As in, more than one.”

  Laurent took the napkin from his lap and tossed it down on the table next to his plate, scowling. “Jean-Luc comes to my house to give me les cadeaux and I am going to say, ‘Mais, non, I must ask first my girlfriend?’ C’est ridicule.“

  “Well, gee, Laurent, I’m glad you find it so ridicule. May I ask where these new members of our family are now?”

  “I have put them in the little walled-off part in the―”

  “In our garden?”

  “They are perfectly safe there.”

  “What if they dig up stuff and crap all over the terrace?”

  “Enough, Maggie,” Laurent said sternly, resettling his napkin. “They are not to be doing any of those things. Pas du tout.”

  “Yeah, pas du tout. What are they, hounds or something? They’re gigantic, aren’t they?”

  “They will not be in your way. You are not to worry.”

  “Well, thank you, Laurent,” Maggie said sweetly. “That relieves my mind considerably. And, well, dearest, I have something to tell you too.”

  “Yes?” Laurent frowned and chewed, watching her.

  “I, too, have acquired a dog today without first asking your permission.”

  “It’s a joke.”

  “You’ll think so, chéri.” Maggie laughed in spite of herself as she saw Laurent’s eyes narrow. “Especially since this dog will not be sleeping in the garden at night.”

  “You are making a joke to get back at me.” Laurent allowed a small smile but glanced around the room as if expecting the emergence of a dog at any moment.

  “I’m not, Laurent, I’m really not.” Maggie began to laugh, suddenly relieved and tickled at the same time. She would let Laurent have his smelly old hounds to go cavorting around his precious vineyards with. He could hardly object now to Madame Renoir’s little gift to her. “I’m calling her Petit-Four, since I got her from a bakery.”

  Laurent stabbed at the remaining rocket leaves on his plates and shook his head. “I will never understand your humor,” he said.

  “Yeah, ditto.” Maggie took another sip of her wine. “So, why did Jean-Luc give you dogs in the first place?”

  Laurent grinned. “It’s just until we have children of our own, he says.”

  “For crying out loud.”

  They both laughed and Laurent leaned over and took her hand and squeezed it.

  “Je t’aime, Maggie “ he said.

  “I love you too.”

  “You are excited about your parents coming tomorrow?”

  “I can’t wait to show Mother the house and all. I want to make this a Thanksgiving to remember always. I mean, think of it, Thanksgiving in Provence. It’s going to be perfect.”

  “Perhaps Nicole will make friends with little Taylor, yes?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said doubtfully. “I mentioned it to Grace and she didn’t seem too sure. You know, she almost never talks about her. Do you think that’s odd?”

  “Connor says the child is very bad.”

  “What, bad, you mean she’s a brat?”

  He wiped his mouth and reached for a cigarette. “Oui, a brat.”

  “Poor Grace and Windsor. I wondered how come we hadn’t met the little darling yet. God, I hope she behaves on Thursday.”

  “Not to worry, chérie,” Laurent said. “We have ferocious Petit-Four to make her mind!” Laurent growled for emphasis. Maggie grinned and then disappeared into the kitchen to retrieve the coffee and the apple tarts.

  5

  Jean-Luc picked up the knife and let it fall casually between his legs. It pierced the wooden chair beneath him. His rough and worn hand grasped the handle loosely and then flicked it again between his legs with a satisfying thunk.

  “Must you do that?” Eduard Marceau said from where he stood on the large, shaded verandah at the front of his house. “Those benches came from Paris. If you don’t mind.”

  Jean-Luc grunted and pulled the knife out of the wood. He held the knife between forefinger and thumb and looked at Marceau.

  Eduard kept his eyes directed out to his fields and beyond. It was too cold to be really comfortable on the verandah, he knew, but he hated to bring the voleur Alexandre into his home with his wife if it could be avoided. He noticed the line of olive trees that separated his house from his vineyard.

  One of the olive trees was badly damaged from the fierce mistral wind that had visited them last week. Jean-Luc, noticing the destruction, had suggested that it had not been the mistral at all but just a bad wind blowing from the south. The man was un idiot. Eduard’s eyes turned, as they had for so many years now, to the land that adjoined his.

  “Do you not want to know how much I
offered him?” Jean-Luc asked as he pocketed the knife and brought out a tattered pack of Gauloises. “It was a serious offer.”

  “If he refused it,” Marceau said, “it was not taken seriously.”

  “Dernier insists he wants to run the place for a year.”

  Marceau turned to watch Jean-Luc as the man blew out a great cloud of blue smoke. Jean-Luc wore his usual uniform of blue trousers and stained, dark blue shirt. His leather boots, although dusty, looked new.

  “Does your offer expire at midnight?” Marceau asked sarcastically. “Can we not wait a year after so long?”

  “He turned me down, Eduard,” Jean-Luc said flatly, smoking slowly, watching his companion through hooded eyes.

  Marceau looked back out to the fields of his neighbor. “So, either he does not want to sell,” he said, “or he does not want to sell to you. Or the offer was not what he was hoping for.”

  A thin vein of smoke wafted over to Marceau.

  “I think he intends to stay,” Jean-Luc said. “I offered him more than I can pay. More than I know you are willing to pay.”

  Marceau looked at him with disgust.

  “And still,” Jean-Luc continued, sucking in his tobacco smoke until the small cigarette seemed to shrivel into a tube of empty paper. “Still, he refused.”

  “He cannot stay,” Marceau said grimly, watching the smoke rise from the Dernier fireplace beyond the abutting vineyards of dark grays and heavier purples, the jutting forms of the depleted vines and their hanging wires ghostly and forbidding. They reminded him of the concentration camp, so many years ago. “He cannot be allowed to stay,” he said.

  6

  The next morning, Maggie got up early. She made a quick inspection of Petit-Four’s cardboard box at the foot of their bed to make sure there had been no mishaps during the night. She scooped up the little dog and settled it on their bed―to the mildly disapproving grunts of Laurent who was still in it. The poodle, a ball of gray and downy white fur, sat between their pillows, looking from Maggie to Laurent and back again.

  “She likes you,” Maggie said, scratching the animal behind its ears.

  “I am so pleased,” Laurent murmured to his pillow.

  “And pretty soon, Petit,” she said, whispering close to its furry face, “you will be out of that nasty box and sleeping on the bed with us, yes? Comprends-tu, puppy?” She gave Laurent a mischievous look and he rewarded her by opening one eye for effect. She laughed, picked up the dog and left the bedroom to inspect the guest room.

  She rearranged the bowl of fresh flowers and lavender by the bedside table, on what she hoped would be her mother’s side. Is it funny not to know on what side my mother and father sleep in bed? She remembered early mornings of slipping into bed with both of them when she was a little girl. Perhaps they switched around as she and Laurent sometimes did? She felt herself blush to be comparing her and her lover’s sleeping habits with those of her parents. She plumped the stark white cotton duvet and settled the lace pillows into place and left the room.

  Laurent was still shaving when she came in to take her shower. They had finally agreed that Laurent would pick up her parents and Nicole at the Marseille airport while Maggie stayed to attend to last minute details in preparation for their visit. She still hadn’t swept any of the rooms or beaten the few small rugs that would go in her parents’ room or made the positively prehistoric guest bathroom look like something other than a medieval chamber of hoses and nozzles and weird contraptions that drained instead of flushed.

  She wanted everything to be perfect. Down to the welcoming bottle of iced Dom Perignon and the difficult little truffle pies that she had decided in a mad moment to make. Even Laurent had raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Cassoulet au truffes?” he had said. “Pourquoi? It is not even truffle season.”

  But it was too late now. She had imagined the picture of her folks entering the massive front door―golden light streaming into the side bar windows onto the yellow stones of the foyer―and her there, waiting, with a lace-cloth table display of china plates full of little miniature tartlets―all buttery brown on top―each with a mouthwatering nugget of truffle hidden inside.

  She decided she was almost certainly mad.

  As soon as she’d kissed Laurent good-bye, Maggie set about preparing her truffle tarts, figuring these, of everything else to be cooked, would be the most prone to accident or failure. It didn’t help her anxiety that Laurent had pointed out that, as a result of the large truffle per pastry, each tart cost just a little less than ten dollars a piece.

  Maggie cleaned and chopped the Chanterelles, distributed them evenly into six small earthenware dishes with butter and then wedged the precious truffle squarely in the middle of all of it. Petit-Four curled up contentedly on an old shirt of Laurent’s in a corner of the kitchen where she could keep her eye on Maggie and enjoy the smells of the kitchen.

  Why are my nerves so bad? Maggie wondered, as she rolled out the puff pastry onto a large floured wooden board. Is it truffle-phobia? Or nervous anticipation? Carefully, she topped each of the little truffle dishes with a lid of rolled pastry and sealed the rims. Standing back from the cookie sheet upon which sat the six completed, unbaked tarts, she made a small sigh of relief. So far so good. She looked at the little dog, whose bright eyes smiled back at her immediately. She tossed it a piece of cheese Laurent had left from his breakfast.

  The phone rang as Maggie was trying to decide what to do next―tackle the bathroom or start whacking rugs? It was Grace.

  “Maggie, I’m about to wring the neck of one of God’s living creatures and I’m calling you for interference.”

  Maggie laughed. “Oh, Grace, don’t tell me the dog’s not working out.”

  “That woman deliberately gave me the bad one.” Maggie heard her speak away from the phone: “Mignon, stop it! Stop it!”

  “Maybe it’s just high spirits―”

  “I don’t care if it’s deep psychological miswiring. I don’t care if it’s grade one schizophrenia, why do I have to deal with it?”

  “Does Taylor like it?”

  There was a brief pause. “Well, actually, yes. Sort of. I think she respects the little monster. It’s kind of, like, she found something that’ll torment her worse than she can torment it, you know?”

  “Is that good?”

  “Speaking as a harassed parent? Yes, that’s good.”

  Maggie laughed again. “What did Windsor think of the dog when you brought it home?”

  “He wept with real joy.”

  “Really?”

  “No. It was all I could do to get him not to have me rushed to Avignon for psychological testing. This is a wild animal here, Maggie. We’re not talking docile, little perfect puffball like you’ve got.”

  Maggie looked down at Petit-Four, who had followed her quietly into the living room and was now settled at her feet.

  “You know, Grace,” she said. “Some people really can’t stand to have a calm life. Did you ever think you might be one of those people?”

  “Oh, for that I’m going to bring the dog as well as the child to dinner tomorrow. No mercy for you, pal!”

  Maggie laughed, and after a few minutes, and a more precise determination of what Grace would be bringing to Thanksgiving dinner, they rang off. Maggie went upstairs to drag the rugs outside, the little dog scurrying to keep up with her. She reminded herself with a glance at the foyer clock that she would need some time to fix her hair and dress.

  As she mounted the stairs, she mentally ticked off tomorrow’s guest list and menu. Thirteen for dinner, twelve if Jean-Luc bowed out as Laurent predicted he would. Then another dozen were invited after dinner for the dégustation of Laurent’s new wine. She knew he was a little nervous about it, probably all the more so after her own tepid response to the wine last night.

  She scolded herself for not being more supportive. She knew the wine-tasting was important to Laurent, because, in his mind, it would help establish his
reputation in the region as a wine producer. She wasn’t sure what the point was if they were only going to play wine makers for just another ten and a half months.

  Maggie gathered up the rugs off the floor in her parents’ room and hurried back downstairs with them in her arms. She stepped out the French doors, careful not to let the puppy out. Petit-Four whimpered softly as it sat inside and watched her through the door pane.

  As she stepped onto the terrace, Laurent’s two dogs greeted her enthusiastically, barking and jumping up on her legs. Nasty brutes are destroying our hedges, Maggie thought sourly as the dogs continued to jump up on her. She had left a heavy wooden stick which she used to beat rugs on one of the stone tables in the terrace the day before. But the bat wasn’t there now.

  “Get down, you clods!” she said, pushing the dogs away with her hands and the rolled-up rugs. The nearly full-grown dogs were a mixed breed with long, curly brown hair. “Go!” she said ineffectively. “Sit!” They licked her hands and stepped on her feet. One dog crowded her knees until she thought she was going to fall backwards into the French door. “Damn it, dogs, buzz off!”

  She could hear the sudden, fierce yapping of Petit-Four directly behind her. Struggling to push past the two hunting dogs, she turned to dump her armload of rugs onto the stone bench beside the terrace door. She caught her breath in a sudden, painful intake. Sitting on the bench was Gaston Lasalle. The missing club lay across his lap.

  Chapter Six