Maggie walked to the end of the sitting room to where two pairs of French doors led out to the garden. Although not the formal, main entrance to Brymsley, the garden entrance was the closest portal to the driveway and so the one most commonly used. Besides, Elspeth insisted that she liked the idea of visitors enjoying her garden as they walked to the door. She thought it much friendlier than the tedious, precision-manicured box hedges and bricked path that led to the front of the house, with its massive columns and imposing porticoes.
"A little bit of Tara goes a long way," she liked to tell her daughters. "The point is not to intimidate people."
"Just to have more money than them, that's all."
Elise had never given her mother much quarter.
Maggie peered through the panel sheers in the door and, seeing nothing, she pulled open the doors and stepped outside. Instantly, the warmth and humidity of the morning struck her and made her catch her breath. The air conditioning had given her goose bumps up her arms and legs but dissolved upon contact with the moist Southern air. Maggie stepped out onto the flagstone patio that curved in a crescent away from the French doors and out toward her mother's garden. Her eyes followed the natural line of the garden which formed a cul de sac of flowering shrubs and borders, a niche of peace and serenity. A small stone bench sat nearly hidden among a cluster of spirea, forsythia and camellia. Vines of thick, glossy English ivy snaked along the ground and up and over the high drystone wall that contained and cozied the whole garden. The fragrance from the nearby rose bushes--aggressively lurching their way up a rickety trellis to the right of the French doors--was light and sweet on the heavy Georgia air, air so oppressive with heat that you could almost see it wafting around you like thick curls of smoke.
Maggie scanned the garden, unconscious of the fact that she was holding her breath. A blooming bush of American Beauty roses shook slightly in the corner of her eye. She turned, her hands still clutching the handles of the French doors, and saw Laurent standing next to the bush of blood-red roses.
Chapter 9
1
Maggie stood quietly, her breath sucked out of her. He was wearing a blue jersey with his hands tucked in the pockets of his tan cotton trousers. His eyes smiled at her, tired eyes, sympathetic eyes.
"Zo," he said, softly. "I am here."
In a fluid moment, she released the door handles and moved out onto the bricked, terrace steps. Laurent caught her in his arms and lifted her off the ground. She wrapped her arms around his thick, sunburned neck and lay her cheek against his chest. For right now, she didn't care to see his face, examine his eyes, hear his story, or mark his changes. It was enough that he'd finally come.
"Ma petite," he murmured. He held her very carefully for several moments and then set her down and looked into her eyes. "I know it is very bad for you now, cherie," he said. He squeezed her tightly and kissed her on the ear. "Laurent is here. It will be all right now, comprends? It will be all right now."
Maggie kept her hands firmly on his arms as if afraid to let him go a second time. He was so looming, she had the odd sensation that he blotted out the morning sun at the same time he brought light into the garden.
"I can't believe you're here." She said. "After six months of no word, no letter. I mean, don't they have telephones in the south of France anymore?" She felt her heart crumble into his hands as she looked at his handsome face, so longed for, so well remembered, and loved. "It's such a rich place," she finished weakly, "I'd assumed those would be the first things they'd get."
"I told you I would come," he said, his eyes probing her face, as if to memorize her features.
"Yeah, I guess you did. Look, where are you staying?" Maggie asked, glancing behind her to see if Nicole were still in the living room.
"I stay with you, mais, bien sûr!" Laurent smiled at her and, involuntarily, she felt her heart expand in her chest in an attempt to encompass her joy. Bien sûr.
"How did you find me? How did you find Brymsley?"
Laurent waved away the question as if it were a droning fly about his head.
"Pfut! Your parents' address is on the cheque, is it not? A house so big as this is not façile...so easy... to hide? And Laurent knows where to find his cherie. Come, I think I am meeting la mere?"
"Margaret? Is everything all right, darling?"
Maggie turned to see her mother standing in the French doors, Nicole positioned at her side like a miniature sentinel.
"Mother!" Maggie dropped her hands from Laurent's arms and turned to face her mother. "This is a good friend of mine. I...we met in France. He helped us get Nicole back...he was one of the two....Laurent Dernier, this is my mother, Elspeth Newberry. Mom, this is Laurent."
Elspeth Newberry stepped forward onto the flagstone pathway and offered Laurent a cool white hand. He shook it briefly in his sunburnt hand and murmured: "Enchantez, Madame. I am in love with your daughter."
Maggie blushed and touched Laurent lightly on the sleeve as her mother retracted her hand.
"I see," she said evenly, her eyes darting to Maggie, her smile wavering but still intact.
"You have not been talking about me, Maggee?" Laurent wagged a finger at her and smiled again at Elspeth. "I am not a very good, what is it? Writing of the letters?"
"Anyway," Maggie said lightly, wanting, for some reason, to break up the moment. "Let's go inside, shall we? Mother?"
"I am so sorry about your daughter, Madame Newberry. Je me regret, Madame."
Elspeth's eyes filled quickly .
"Merci, Laurent," she said, turning away to lead the way back into the house.
Laurent looked at Maggie: ça va? She nodded and touched his arm again. Ça va, she thought. And then some.
2
Laurent pushed away the fennel salad, his dish smeared with olive oil and a last crust of bread. Madame Newberry had seen to it that the big Frenchman would not be homesick or hungry his first night at Brymsley. She had had her cook prepare a rabbit smothered in rosemary, followed by mini-crock pots of honey and saffron cremes.
Their unexpected guest had been placed between Maggie and Nicole at the dinner table with Elspeth and John Newberry facing the three of them. Nicole's mousy brown hair was gathered back in a French braid. Gold velvet ribbons interlaced the plaiting, and she wore a simple chocolate-brown shift. The little white Peter Pan collar displayed her small head like a cabbage on a platter. Maggie could see flecks of gravy on the linen napkin that had been tucked into the child's collar and found herself marveling that Nicole was as neat as she was. For someone in the throes of autism, she thought curiously, she's remarkably tidy.
Maggie wondered, too, what Laurent thought of Nicole. The child sat at the dinner table between them, quiet and seemingly unseeing, her only movements the slow, uncaring ones that carried her spoon from her plate to her mouth. She could be eating dog food, Maggie thought, so little did she seem to care about what she did.
After dinner, the rest of the family had retired to another part of the house, to read or watch TV. Laurent's meeting with Maggie's father had been a little more successful than the one with her mother. John Newberry was jolly and kind, if a little wounded, in general, and had welcomed Laurent wholeheartedly into his home. Maggie wondered, with surprise, if he and her father might even become friends someday?
Having finished her own meal, Maggie had been happy to sit with Laurent and watch him while he sopped up the last flecks of the savory sauce. He looked around for the bottle of Clos des Papes and noticed that they'd finished it during dinner. He shrugged and removed his napkin.
"Becka will bring in coffee in a bit," Maggie said, as she leaned back into her chair. She had almost gotten her fill of looking at him and reassuring herself that he had, indeed, not forgotten her. Now that he was here, it didn't occur to her that she might not be emotionally ready for him. He intended to move in with her the day after tomorrow when the cops had finished dusting and scraping her flat for evidence. (How was she ever going to eat
omelets and nachos or watch inane sit-coms in the same room a murderer had stood threatening her sister?)
The relief of having him with her again, the affirmation that she had not misjudged him or her own feelings had, for the moment, obliterated the thought that perhaps she wasn't quite prepared to have him move in with her.
"I like your maman and papa very much. They are good people."
"I know."
"They love that little girl, too. Such a sad little girl. Tch-zut!" Laurent sucked his teeth and shook his head.
"I'm not sure she's really Elise's."
"Not Elise's?" A thin veil seemed to come down between them. Laurent looked tired, guarded. "That is impossible! Of course she is your sister's daughter. Roger has taken her from--"
"I know, I know, Laurent... I just...sometimes I think...oh, never mind. I'm bats. It's just so hard to think that I'm really and truly related to her. She's so...she's nothing like any of us, you know?"
"You must give her time, Maggee. You are so impatient about everything, I think." He smiled wearily at her.
"Why did you come, Laurent?" Maggie leaned across the starched white tablecloth towards him. He pulled out a blue packet of Gitanes and lighted one up with a box of matches. He held the smoking match between his fingers and looked at her inquiringly. Distractedly, she got up and walked to the large walnut hutch in the dining room and began rummaging around for an ashtray. "I mean, nobody's happier about it than I am, but do you have business in town or what?"
Becka, a middle-aged black woman with shiny, dark skin nearly the color of the hutch, entered the room carrying a silver tray with a silver coffee pot and creamer. The sugar bowl was a delicate light blue china with matching cups and saucers.
"Hey, Becka." Maggie pulled a crystal ash tray from one of the drawers of the hutch and returned to the table.
"Your Mother and Father havin' their coffee in the livin' room," Becka said as she unloaded her tray.
"You are the chef, Madame?" Laurent stood up from his chair.
"Don't be standin' up, now. I cooked it if that's what you mean." Becka hid a smile.
Laurent kissed the tips of his fingers with a loud smacking noise.
"C'est magnifique! It was better than anything in Paris or the Cote D'azure, absolutement. Merci beaucoup, Madame."
Grinning outright, Becka hugged the tray to her breast and backed out of the room.
"Well, I'm glad you liked it. G'night Miss Maggie."
"Goodnight, Becka. You outdid yourself. It was delish plus."
The cook exited the dining room with a loud swish of the swinging door.
"Marveillieux, that woman, she--"
"Yes, yes, wait'll you taste her grits and eggs. Listen, Laurent," Maggie thumped down the Waterford ashtray in front of him. "...I mean, as you were saying? About being here on business?"
"But I am not here on any business." Laurent looked at her with surprise. "Except you, ma petite. I am here to be with you. You are my business."
Maggie felt a flush of pleasure creep up her throat to her face. She scraped some bread crumbs from the table with her hand and emptied them into Laurent's ashtray.
"You know," she said. "I never did get straight what it is you do for a living. I mean, can you afford to just take off time like this?"
Laurent poured her coffee and then his own before answering. He held up the china creamer and she shook her head.
"I have been working for the government, comprends?" He poured a hefty dollop of cream into his coffee. (Hadn't these people ever heard of cholesterol?) "Maintenant, I am en vacances, oui? On vacation? For many weeks."
"And then you'll go back to France?"
Laurent looked at Maggie and then touched her chin gently with his thumb and forefinger.
"Don't worry," he said. "Okay? I am here today."
Great. One of those live for the moment types, Maggie thought as she pulled away from him and sipped her coffee.
"You have been through very much. To have a sister die..." He shook his head and clucked his tongue.
"I intend to find out who killed Elise." Maggie was surprised to hear the words coming from her mouth. Up until that moment, it hadn't occurred to her that she would do anything but wait to hear from the police.
"Comment?" Laurent set his coffee cup down in its saucer and held her gaze. "The police will find out--"
"No. They won't. They don't care."
"Maggee...it is their job. They will find out qui--"
"Laurent, you don't understand! The cops are chasing psycho nut cases right and left in this town. There’s one in particular who's been killing people near and around my own neighborhood..."
"Mon Dieu!"
"That's right. So one more weirdo to them is just one more weirdo...”
"Merde! Maggee, if I had known..."
"Well, if you'd written me, I'd have told you. This has been a particularly bad summer for crime in Atlanta. I’m sure it’ll affect our rating nationwide...but my point is, the guy who stabbed and strangled Elise--"
"Maggee, Maggee, I think you are too upset right now. I think you need to forget a little bit. All this about stabbing and--"
"I can't forget." Maggie's eyes hardened. "God, Laurent, you want to look at my mother's face and ask me to forget? I put that look there! If I'd have told them Elise was back...if I'd have just picked up the damn telephone. What was I trying to do? I should have driven Elise straight to Brymsley that night..." Maggie clutched her starched damask napkin with her fists. "Okay, so I didn't. I'll take it to my grave regretting it but there's no reversing it. It's done. And now I'm trying to tell you that it's the police who are going to forget. And then everyone will forget and the bastard who killed her will have gotten away with it! And then I'll never be able to look my mother and father square in the eyes, or myself, or--"
"D'accord, d'accord, all right, then. Je compris." He patted her hand as it lay on the elegant damask tablecloth. "But first, you will work with the police, eh? You will see what they have?"
"Yes, of course." Maggie sighed and covered her eyes.
"And Laurent will help, yes?" He reached over and held her hand. "I can be very resourceful, non?"
Maggie looked up him and smiled.
"Thank you."
The big Frenchman shrugged.
"Ahhh, well." He leaned over toward her, allowing a quick look over his shoulder first. "But I think our first effort should be to find where we are to be sleeping tonight, oui?" His eyes twinkled and Maggie heard herself laugh for the first time in two days. It had a hollow, flat sound to it.
3
He flipped the frontispiece over and stared again at the tiny, precise handwriting. To my darlingest Aged Parent for Christmas 1975 from his wiley wabbit, Elise. John touched the cover of the leather-bound Dickens book and stared straight ahead over his desk. He remained this way, cradling the book in his arms, his face impassive, his eyes dry, his gaze unwavering, for nearly an hour. Finally, he replaced the book on his desk and stood up. He turned off the desk lamp and, not bothering to straighten up all the way, walked with heavy, laborious movements to the door of his study. The house was dark and shrouded with the stillness of the coming dawn.
Such a wiley, dear spirit.
4
Maggie curled her feet up under her in the hammock and stretched her shoulders. After a heavy picnic lunch á la Becka that had her seriously thinking about fasting for the next week, she and Laurent had spent the bulk of the afternoon napping and reading in Brymsley's large garden. She watched him trying to get comfortable in the twin hammock that hung alongside her own. He looked like a giant water buffalo trapped in a fisherman's tuna net.
"Trouble, Laurent?"
"Non, non," he said wrestling with the knotted ropes a little less frenetically as if to prove it.
"Look," she said twisting around to face him. "I need to think out loud about all this stuff, okay?"
"Mais, oui," he said cheerfully.
They had
spent the night wrapped in each other's arms in Maggie's bedroom. To have been apart that first night had been unthinkable, even at the risk of embarrassment or disapproval from her parents in the midst of their grief. Laurent had held her, petted her, consoled and loved her until the early hours of the morning. They had slept little and parted discreetly before breakfast.
"Okay, you know what my main question is?"
He shook his head, nearly depositing himself on the manicured lawn beneath them.
"Why Elise? And if I answer that question, I always come up with the same answer."
"Gerard."
"That's right. Gerard. He's evil enough to have done it and perverse enough to have a motive. After all, now his wife and child were going to be together and, presumably, happy. Don't you think it fits in with his character profile that that might drive him wild? The notion that they didn't need him. Were, in fact, going to be better off without him?"
Laurent frowned and looked unconvinced.
"Did you tell the police about Gerard?"
"Well, yes, but I didn't get the impression they were really listening. They did take down his name and stuff."
"They will question him."
"I suppose so."
"Absolutement. But I think, perhaps, they will think his reason to kill her is a little..."
"Weak?"
"Oui. Façile. Not good for killing, I think."
"I think you're wrong, Laurent. You, of all people, ought to know about crimes of passion."
"Moi?" He sounded startled.
"Well, yes, being French and all."
"Ahhh, oui, of course."
"I mean, Gerard had a child by Elise. He'd lived with her for nearly seven years. She was beautiful and she rejected him by coming here to her family. I mean, he's disgusting and all, but he probably thought his pride was being attacked or something. Did I tell you how he just opened up the car door and dumped her out onto the concrete? Yeah, Gerard is definitely my number one suspect."
The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4 Page 11