"You must not speak with him."
"Laurent, don't be ridiculous."
"I am serieux, Maggee. If he is a murderer, I cannot have you with him. Ce n'est pas possible! Je suis serieux, Maggee!"
"Oh, settle down. Honestly," Maggie felt a little annoyed and flattered by Laurent's protestations. "If I talk with him at all, you'll be there. Okay?"
He looked unhappy with the compromise.
"I probably can't even find him, you know? And besides, he may be my number one suspect, but I'm not stopping there. I'm going to talk to everyone I can think of who might know what happened that afternoon in my apartment."
"The police, certainment, have--"
"Yes, yes, I know, they've talked with everyone already. Maybe they missed something. I keep telling you, Laurent, the police aren't going to give this case the care they might because they have bigger fish to fry, comprenez?"
"Bien sûr." He looked over at her and smiled slyly. Hopelessly entangled and looking extremely uncomfortable, he gave a sigh and eased his head back against the hammock pillow. "And so we will fry the little fishes together, n'est-ce pas? And together, we will find the truth."
Maggie leaned back into her own hammock. The truth, she thought. Of why Elise died and of the dangerous someone who had been in her apartment that day.
Chapter 10
1
Laurent placed the bag of groceries on Maggie's butcher block table. The bag was straining with gleaming bulbs of eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. He rubbed his hands together lightly and pulled from the bag a small tin flask of olive oil, a long baton of French bread and a bunch of green grapes.
Maggie watched him bemusedly from the doorway of the kitchen.
"Where did you get all that stuff?" she asked.
He turned to look at her, as if caught by surprise.
"Oh, Maggee, there you are!"
"Here I have been all morning, Laurent. It's you who's been out doing God knows what. What is all that stuff there?" She smiled at him.
Laurent wagged a finger at her and shook his head. He continued to unpack his groceries.
"You are eating the frozen dinners all the time, non? " He waved in the general direction of Maggie's freezer as if to imply that even owning a freezer was somehow a shameful thing.
"Not all the time." Maggie peered around him at the groceries. "I eat Cheerios in the morning sometimes."
"Mon Dieu," Laurent muttered. He held up a white block of cheese wrapped tightly in plastic wrap.
"What's that?" she asked.
"Fromage de chevre," he said.
"Goat cheese."
"Very good, cherie."
"I hate goat cheese."
"Mix it with your Cheerios. It's good for you."
"Cheese isn't good for you," she said moving into the kitchen. She wrapped her arms around his middle. "Cheese is bad for you. The whole world knows this but the French. Fact is, we've been keeping it from you."
Laurent tossed the cheese onto the counter and turned to face Maggie.
"You and the whole world?" he said, smiling down at her.
"We're very close." She raised up on her toes and kissed him then laid her head against his broad chest and felt the strength and security of his arms around her.
The police had allowed her to return to her apartment and she and Laurent were in the shy, but definite, throes of moving in together.
"Your asparagus is wilting," she said teasingly.
"Not possible," he said, giving her a last squeeze before releasing her and turning back to his bag of deli-goodies.
He piled all the vegetables in an impressive heap on the table in the tiny kitchen and spoke to her over his shoulder.
"I am making dinner for nous deux. Us two. You are going out now?"
"I won’t be long," Maggie replied, leaning against the doorjamb, watching him. "I'm going to talk to some of the people in the apartment complex about what they saw the night Elise was killed. And don't tell me the police have already done that because you've already told me that and I'm still doing it, right?"
"Bien sûr." Laurent begin rinsing the vegetables, the water sputtering over them and most of the kitchen counter too.
"Look, I'll be back for lunch, okay?" Maggie continued to stand in the doorway, wearing a loose sweatshirt and jeans and sneakers. For some reason, she wanted his blessing.
He turned and looked at her.
"You must do it," he said simply and shrugged.
An hour later, she was back in the apartment. Laurent seemed involved in his omelet-flipping and onion-parboiling.
"You are not being gone very long, cherie?" he said, cheerfully.
“Nobody saw anything ” she said.
Laurent slid the golden crescent of fluffed egg onto a stoneware dish, sprinkled on a few sautéed peppers as garnish and set it down in front of her at the kitchen table. He put his hand against her cheek.
"Do you want me to come too?" he asked gallantly. "I will tell them: 'you better answer her questions! Or Laurent can be very mechant...very nasty."
Maggie smiled and took his hand in hers.
"Come sit down with me. I don't want to eat alone," she said.
"Jamais, ma petite," he said, giving her hand a squeeze and moving back to the kitchen to get his coffee cup and a basket of croissants.
He took another platter of eggs from the warming oven and joined her at the table.
"Tell me," he said, pouring cream into his coffee.
Maggie picked up her fork. The eggs were beautiful, light and fluffy and she suddenly realized that she was hungry. "They were....I don't know, why were they so cross? I wasn't selling anything. It wasn't their sister who was murdered."
"Maggee." Laurent looked sympathetically at her and shook his big head.
"I shouldn't assume people want to help, I guess. I mean, I thought they'd think it was a waste of time and maybe boring, but the two people I talked to this morning...well, not so much the guy, but the woman definitely was rude to me." She took a bite of her eggs. "Laurent, am I going to get terribly fat living with you? Because I can't afford a whole new wardrobe."
As Laurent smiled at her, there was a knock at the door.
"That's funny," Maggie said into her mouthful of eggs. "People have to buzz you from outside. They can't get inside to knock on your door." She threw down her napkin and started to get up. "Usually."
Laurent was ahead of her. He went to the front door and swung it open.
"Oui?"
The man in the hall seemed startled to see Laurent. It was the man from the last apartment that Maggie had visited.
"I...I wanted...is Maggie here?" He peered nervously into the apartment. Maggie jumped up and hurried to the door.
"Yes, I'm here. It's Bill, right?"
"Yeah, listen..." He looked up at Laurent as if he definitely didn't trust saying what he had to say in front of this huge tank of a man. "...uh, I’m going out now, but I remembered something that, if it matters--"
"What? You heard something?"
"Well, I completely forgot about it until just now. I mean, there was so much excitement and everything the night of the...you know...and the cops were asking all their questions, so it just went outta my head. Now, I'm not positive, you know?"
Maggie nodded eagerly.
"You want to come in?"
He shook his head.
"Naw, we're going out, just leaving." He looked down the hall as if someone was standing at his doorway waiting for him. "But I remembered I saw this guy in the hallway that afternoon. Well, I'm pretty sure it was that afternoon. Might possibly have been the afternoon before, you know?"
My God, Maggie thought. Had he seen the murderer?
"I mean, he just does deliveries, you know? So, I thought, no big deal and I don't want to get anybody into trouble, okay?"
"What do you mean, deliveries?"
"From the grocer next door, you know? Sometimes he'll send his boy out to deliver stuff, only he's
not really a boy, more like..." and he tapped his head as if to indicate the person might be brain-damaged or perhaps mentally unstable.
"I see." Maggie was already thinking of her next step.
"Well, thank you verry much," Laurent said, about to close the door on the man.
"Yes, thank you," Maggie said hurriedly. "Thanks for taking the time."
"No big deal, bye." He turned on his heel and was gone.
Laurent ushered Maggie back to their cooling eggs.
"It is a good clue, yes?"
They reseated themselves and Laurent tucked into his omelet with enthusiasm.
Maggie toyed with hers.
"Yeah, it's great. Maybe."
It was possible, she thought. Just possible. She took a deep breath.
3
The shop around the corner from Maggie's apartment building served as grocery and pharmacy for the whole building. It was a harmonious hodgepodge of sewing notions, eye cups and prophylactics, with creaking wooden display bins filled with plump fruits and vegetables. The shop also distributed for a fairly nice Buckhead bakery. Although the grocery was not more than five minutes walking distance from Maggie's own apartment, she'd only been in the place three times in the four years she'd lived at The Parthenon. It was so much easier just to swing into the parking lot of Winn-Dixie on her way home from work. Driving past the little neighborhood grocery, she'd always gotten the impression that just the elderly residents of the area shopped there. She'd seen them trudging along the sidewalk in front of the place, their wire and wicker baskets and, occasionally, their walkers, banging against their knees.
Maggie pushed open the shop door, hearing, as she did, the off-kilter tinkle of the bell that announced another customer. To her right seemed to be the drug store portion of the shop, complete with an abbreviated soda bar counter and a large, inflated mortar and pestle which hung over three peeling leather stools.
To the left was the grocery section of the market, certainly the main force behind the little store's revenue. In addition to the colorful bins out front, there were two rows of tinned and boxed goods. The place smelled of Ivory soap and soft fruit. Maggie was surprised at how complete and chock-a-bloc the store was and wondered how in the world it managed to survive in a neighborhood where all the real money hopped in BMWs and shopped for their Wheaties in strip shopping centers. Surely, the old-timers she saw doddering about the neighborhood, loyal or not, weren't enough to keep this place afloat?
"Can I help you, Miss?"
The proprietor came from behind the soda counter, wiping his hands on a towel that he'd tied in front of his slacks. He smiled industriously at her. His sparse gray hair capped a wise old head, it seemed to Maggie. His eyes didn't smile so much as they drilled. They were drilling now.
"I'm Maggie Newberry? I live next door and wondered if I could ask you a few questions?"
"If I can help, I'll sure try!" he said happily. Too happily. He clapped his hands together and then rested them on his hips. There was no one else in the store.
"You have a delivery boy?"
"Why?" He cocked his head at her like a bird watching a caterpillar.
"Well, because I think he may...he may have seen something that happened in my apartment building and I'd like to talk with him about it."
"Says who?"
Was she mistaken or was he becoming a lot less cheerful?
"Says someone who saw him there."
"Well, why not just ask the someone who saw him there what they saw?"
"Look, will you help me find the guy, or not? I just want to ask him a few questions."
"Boy's slow. Wouldn't harm a fly."
"I'm not assuming he would. I just want to talk to him."
The old fellow rubbed his hands across his eyes and then scratched the back of his neck.
"The police have already talked to him. This wouldn't be about that, again, would it?"
"It was my sister that was killed."
"Ahhh." He nodded his head, holding his chin in one fist and propping the fist-holding arm by the elbow with his other hand. It was an interesting contortion.
"And I was wondering if I could ask him what it was he saw."
"Well, he saw nothing."
"Okay." She waited.
"Didn't see a thing. That's what he told the police."
"But he was there that day? I mean, he was seen there the afternoon of--"
"I have no idea."
"Look," Maggie had about had her limit of exasperating old cusses who wouldn't cooperate. "You're his boss. Don't you keep some sort of schedule of the stuff that gets delivered? You know, Mrs. Brown's order blah blah blah sent out 3:l5? Stuff like that?"
"I don't know a Mrs. Brown."
"It was just an example."
"I don't keep records, Miss..."
"Newberry."
"Miss Newberry, when someone calls in an order I just put it together and then ring it up and have Alfie take it to the address. I don't have to write it down."
"His name's Alfie?"
"That's right." He looked less smug now. Obviously he hadn't intended to name his boy for her.
"And you don't think I need to see him."
"I don't think it would do Alfie any good."
"Is he, what? A teenager?"
"Alfie? No." The man looked at Maggie uncertainly as if he couldn't trust her to be putting him on. "He's in his late thirties, I'd say. If there's nothing else I can help you with, Miss Newberry, I'd better get back to my pharmacy."
"Right."
He smiled briefly, automatically, then turned and disappeared behind a towering stack of what looked like blue Milk of Magnesia bottles.
Maggie stood for another moment in the middle of the aisle, smelling all the conflicting fragrances and odors and then left the shop. She hesitated in front of it, not sure of what to do next. The sun had burned off the briefly pleasant morning and was now relentlessly attacking anything and everything that cowered below. She pushed up the sleeves to her thin sweat shirt and was sorry she wasn't wearing her sunglasses.
Squinting down the sidewalk, she saw the lumbering gait of a nice looking man with a vacant look in his pleasant eyes coming toward her and the grocery shop.
Alfie.
4
She settled down on the cool stone bench under the large sycamores in front of her apartment building. The bench, coated with moss and graffiti, was used primarily for Maggie's elderly neighbors to rest themselves as they made their laborious pilgrimages from pharmacy to lonely apartment room. Maggie had never noticed the pretty stone bench before.
Alfie had thick brown hair which crept into his green eyes, although a nervous hand tried repeatedly to prevent it from doing so. He smiled uncertainly at Maggie, pleased with her attention, obviously distrustful of it.
"Just a few questions, that's all. If that's okay." Maggie smiled and motioned for Alfie to sit next to her. She offered him one of the two cans of Cokes she'd pulled out of the machine in front of the grocery store.
Alfie continued to hover near her and the bench but refused to alight.
Maggie placed one of the Cokes on the bench next to her, keeping a wary eye on the store façade. So far, its proprietor was still busy whipping up medicinal concoctions behind his pharmaceutical counter. Maggie had little doubt that once he became aware of it, he would attempt to put an end to her interview with his delivery boy.
"What's the name of the old guy you work for?" That's it, she thought. Get him to commiserate about the old workhorse and he'll feel like we're on the same side.
"Mister Duffy?" Alfie squinted hard at the question.
"Yeah, Mr. Duffy. You like him?"
Alfie nodded vigorously. Whatever light she thought she saw behind his eyes was quickly becoming extinguished.
" Mister Duffy pays me money. He's great."
"Yeah, that's good." So, I can forget that ploy. "Well, listen, Alfie, I live here, you know?" She waved to the apartment building looming
up behind her in a backdrop of granite and slate-stone. "You deliver here sometimes, right?"
Alfie nodded again as he reached out and took the can of Coke she'd placed for him on the bench.
"I deliver the groceries that Mr. Duffy gives me."
"Okay, that's great." Oh, man, this is impossible. Even if he did see something, how would he make sense of it? How would she? And how could she trust his observation? Might as well cut to the chase, she reasoned. She didn't have time to develop a relationship with him just to get a few questions answered. "So, listen, Alfie, were you delivering groceries in my building the day the girl was killed?"
He reacted violently, as if he'd been electrically shocked.
"I didn't see nobody! I told 'em--!"
He'd raised his voice and Maggie darted a nervous look at the store front. All she needed was for ol' man Duffy to come charging out here.
"Okay, okay, Alfie, that's fine! No problem. Okay? Calm down. It's just that, she was my sister, you know? And I wondered if anybody saw anything that might help me find out who hurt her."
He stared at her. Maybe it was the sibling connection...Did Alfie have a sister? Or the fact that she wasn't accusing him nor was she keeping it a mystery why she was asking him questions. Whatever the reason, he seemed to calm down, even to be looking at her a little less distrustfully.
"Do you have a sister, Alfie?"
He shook his head a little.
"I have my mom," he said.
"Yeah. Mom's are good." Maggie got up from the bench. "Keep the Coke." He had begun to hand it back to her. She patted him lightly on the shoulder of his thin jacket. Incredible, in all this heat. "Take care of yourself, okay?"
"I didn't see nothing."
"I know you didn't, Alfie. That's okay. It doesn't matter." As she turned away from him she caught the image of Mr. Duffy standing in the front window watching them.
5
"You are ready to eat, cherie?"
The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4 Page 12