“He’s drunk,” Windsor said, watching him go.
Jean-Luc nodded solemnly.
“You need to be careful, Laurent,” Jean-Luc said. “Eduard has become sick.” He tapped a heavy, bent finger to the side of his head.
Laurent picked up a menu and looked it over carefully.
“Laurent, he threatened to kill you,” Windsor said excitedly. “You know, I think Maggie’s wrong...” He gave a guilty glance in Jean-Luc’s direction. “I think Marceau had the best motives for bumping off Connor. And to do it in your house like that...what better way to embarrass you, implicate you?”
Laurent snapped the menu shut and caught the waiter’s eye. “Why did he not just kill me, then? Why bother killing Connor?”
The waiter approached and Laurent ordered another round of pastis for all of them and a plate of anchovy puffs and sausages.
“You forget,” Jean-Luc offered a little wearily. “MacKenzie wanted the land for his big American museum.” He shook his head. “A neighbor Eduard could be made to live with, but a parking lot? Traffic lights? Where once he looked out his front window and saw the sun dappling the fields of purple and green, roses planted between the vines for nuance and subtly of flavor, magpies and kestrels hovering overhead―now he was going to adjust to seeing a field of concrete stretching from his border all the way to the western slope of the village road? A field of concrete full of cars and―à Dieu ne plaise!―tour buses?” Jean-Luc shivered.
“God, you put it like that,” Windsor said taking a swig from his drink. “I’d have killed the little turd myself.”
7
Maggie held the little dog in her lap and stared out the French doors to the fields beyond. She caressed a floppy ear and let her mind go across the fields, over the ancient, bordering drystone walls, and down the village road to St-Buvard. She could see how it happened now. How the Fitzpatricks came to die, how Patrick came to confess to the crime and then why he committed suicide. She could see Baby Louise and why she was buried for eternity next to the brave young Resistance fighter, and she could see a twelve-year-old girl left behind. Fatherless, motherless. With only Uncle Jean-Luc left now, and he a rough youth caring little for a poor, orphaned relation.
Maggie shifted in her seat and cradled the dog in her arms like a small, floppy doll. Petit-Four closed its eyes and seemed to revel in the attention and petting it was receiving. Its little curly-cue of a tail wagged feebly against Maggie’s arm.
Fifty years ago the killer had struck, violently, passionately, insanely here in Maggie’s home of Domaine St-Buvard. The man had been killed first, shot outside with a hunting rifle. There had been no indication of a struggle. Then, the woman had been killed as she stood in the doorway of Maggie’s home, her two frightened boys huddling next to the car and their father’s body. Had they been about to go for a family outing? Maggie wondered sadly. The note of intention, without doubt Patrick Alexandre’s handwriting, had been thrust into the dying woman’s fingers. Her two young sons were shot as the killer left and returned to the village. What horrific crime had been committed to warrant this terrible injustice? This elimination of innocent children? As well as the cuckold whose only crime was ignorance and trust? As well as the one loved too much? Maggie felt a cold finger trace down her spine through the layers of wool and linen. Five weeks ago, in order to punish Connor for a similar crime, or, perhaps, in the killer’s ravaged mind, to punish him for the same crime of fifty years ago, complete with a betraying lover and an unwanted pregnancy, the murderer had killed again.
Quietly, Maggie put the dog down on the couch and pulled on her shoes. It had just occurred to her that the one person in St-Buvard who might know the most about both killings was the one person who had never even been approached.
Maggie put on her coat, turned down the stove and locked the door behind her.
Chapter Eighteen
1
Danielle Marceau watched the anglaise get out of her beautiful, expensive car and march quickly and purposefully to the boulangerie. Leave it to Marie-France, she thought without rancor or judgment, to be open on Christmas Day. The baker knew there would be enough people wanting their pain-beurre or bread for dinner and having not thought to buy it yesterday.
The French woman pulled out a lace handkerchief from her small leather purse and watched Grace try the doorknob to the shop, and then knock impatiently on the glass panes of the door. The woman was showing her condition, Danielle noticed. After several moments, the bakery door jerked open and the plump shadow of Marie-France Renoir appeared. Grace entered the shop. Danielle eased back into the driver’s seat of her car and smoothed the tips of her leather gloves over her fingers.
Eduard had stormed home an hour earlier, more distressed than she’d ever seen him, and demanded that she leave for the afternoon. He had preparations, he said, and he didn’t want her involved. Danielle had been incredulous. Leave? It was Christmas Day! She thought of the goose cooling on her kitchen counter, the vegetables simmering in their jackets on the stove, the table set for the two of them. It didn’t matter, she told herself. It would be just as nice for a Christmas supper this evening. She shivered a little in the cold car and started it up again in order to switch on the heater. How long had she been gone? When should she return home? She glanced back at the boulangerie and saw the shadowy form of Grace Van Sant as she hovered over the display case trying, no doubt, to select the pastries for her Christmas tea. Where was the little girl? Danielle wondered.
She ran the car for a few minutes and then felt an irritation, foreign but rather pleasant, creep over her. She was cold. It was Christmas Day. Why was she sitting in a cold car in a deserted village street? As she twisted in her seat to reapply her seatbelt harness, she noticed the crowd at Le Canard Café. Through the large picture window of the café, she could see the familiar blue cap of Jean-Luc Alexandre. He was seated at a table with two other men. I’ll bet they’re not cold, she thought smiling to herself. Then, before she could think what Eduard would think, or anyone in the whole of St-Buvard, for that matter, Danielle Marceau picked up her purse, got out of her car, and stepped across the street to join the boys for a Christmas Day toddy.
2
Maggie picked up her pace in the cold, late afternoon air. She walked down the rough village road that led from her front door to St-Buvard. The road was deserted. Only the magpies moved in the fields, their black and white wings standing out starkly against the sky like little tuxedoes. She rounded the curve that marked the halfway point in the road to the village and quickened her steps.
3
Jean-Luc smiled broadly at the irony of the situation. He tugged at his long mustache and watched Danielle Marceau as she sipped her vin cuit. This unexpected Christmas present, he thought to himself, was a gift from Eduard and his anger. Jean-Luc sipped his pastis with pleasure and smiled.
“So she comes tearing down the stairs, right?” Windsor was saying, his ears rosy from the cool air and the drinks, “...and nearly collides with the Christmas tree.” He looked at Danielle, momentarily side-tracked. “Do the French put up Christmas trees?”
She smiled prettily. “Bien sûr,” she said. Of course.
“Okay, so she nearly knocks down the tree in her mad dash to the presents. Then there begins this frenzy of ripping wrapping paper...I mean, stuffed animals are being flung across the room, little cooking pots...I even got her a train set that really runs...none of it was what she was looking for, right?”
Laurent and Danielle and Jean-Luc listened patiently. Their slight frowns were the only indication that they had already made up their minds about this greedy little American child.
“I mean she doesn’t even look at the stuff. I thought Grace was going to strangle her.”
“What was she looking for?” Laurent asked.
“A kind of doll that cries and wets and frets and needs nearly constant tending. Can you believe it? My daughter, the nurturer? She wanted this whine-bag doll...”
<
br /> “Did she get the doll?” Danielle asked. Jean-Luc smiled at her.
“Oh, sure, she got it,” Windsor said, draining his pastis. “It’s all she’s played with all morning. Go figure. We could’ve saved ourselves a fortune. We’re talking a mountain of toys, a veritable Pyrenees of toys. And here we thought she was excited because there were so many? All the time she was thinking that, with all those toys, the doll had to be there somewhere.”
“You had no idea the doll was so prized by her?” Danielle asked.
“I didn’t, no. Grace may have. I mean, she was the one who bought the thing,” Windsor said, somewhat uncomfortably.
“Tout est bien qui finit bien,” Jean-Luc said wisely. All’s well that ends well.
“You can say that again,” Windsor laughed. “Especially when it comes to possibly disappointed six-year-olds on Christmas morning. None of you has ever had children, have you?”
The three smiled politely, shaking their heads.
“You’re smart.”
“But now you are having another child, yes?” Jean-Luc said. His eyes were on Danielle as he spoke.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Windsor said stiffly.
Laurent lifted his glass. “To the second,” he said. “And to the first.”
Laurent, Jean-Luc and Danielle drank. Windsor studied his nails morosely.
“What about you, Danielle?” Laurent asked, his eyes dancing and playful. “Was there a mountain of cadeaux under your tree this morning?”
Jean-Luc frowned at Laurent, obviously not considering this teasing to be in good form.
“No, no cadeaux, “ she said. “Just a beautiful, cold Christmas Day to wake up to, and friends to share it with.” She glanced shyly at Jean-Luc. “And Maggie,” she said, turning quickly back to Laurent. “...she brought me the most unusual food yesterday. Texas chili?”
Laurent rolled his eyes but Maggie’s effort pleased him. “Have you tasted it yet?” he asked.
“It is much like Spanish food, n’est-ce pas?” she asked. “Beans and tomatoes and so forth? Eduard ate the whole bowl and couldn’t stop praising me for its unique taste.”
Jean-Luc and Laurent roared with laugher.
“Eduard a mange du chili pour son petit dejeuner de Noël? “ Jean-Luc asked, amazed. Eduard ate chili for Christmas breakfast?
“Je ne lui ai pas dit qu’il était notre voisins, “ Danielle said. I didn’t tell him it was from our neighbors. This set the two off into even wilder gales of laugher. Windsor snapped out of his mood and looked at the other three expectantly, hoping to be let in on the joke.
“Perhaps we can arrange to have some cornbread sent over,” Laurent said, sending Jean-Luc and himself back into fits of laughter.
Danielle laughed as well and then explained to Windsor. “It’s nothing,” she said. “Maggie brought over a covered dish this morning.”
“And that’s what’s so funny?” Windsor watched Laurent and Jean-Luc wipe the tears from their eyes.
“C’est rien,” Laurent said, grinning.
Jean-Luc and Danielle exchanged glances and Danielle suddenly realized that she hadn’t laughed so comfortably or so intensely since she was a girl. The revelation might depress her later, but right now she was happy just to be sitting here with these men, her friends.
The man appeared suddenly at the table. Danielle had seen him before and knew he was a friend of Bernard, her brother-in-law. She thought she remembered his name was Alvin.
“Monsieur Dernier,” the man said, gasping for air. “You must come right away. Domaine St-Buvard is burning.”
4
Marie-France Alexander Renoir stood behind Grace Van Sant, whose shoulders pinched together as she leaned over the pastry counter. Madame Renoir stood watching the gentle, full curve of the woman’s stomach, as Grace examined the remaining calissons and nougats, the crunchy almond bâtons, and the oreillettes dusted with sugar.
She has the nerve to come here on this sacred day? Marie-France thought. To come to me like this? Defiled and full of sin and flaunting it.
“I don’t know, Madame,” Grace said, the harsh American accent interrupting the stillness in the cold bakery. “What do you think? That gâteau looks nice.”
He doesn’t love you, Marie-France Renoir thought, as she watched the woman. A cold hate began to well up in her. He couldn’t love you. He said he would rather die than to touch you. Her hands made plump fists―dimpled, curled starfish hands made strong from a lifetime of labor. Whose child do you carry, anglaise? Whose bastard is in your belly, souillon?Slut.
Grace turned to her as she stood at the pastry case.
“Madame Renoir?” she said, pleasantly. Her smile dissolved on her lips when she saw the look on the baker’s face. “Is everything all right?”
“Souillon,” Marie-France said.
“Madame Renoir?” Grace frowned in confusion.
“He promised he would not touch you,” Madame Renoir said flatly, her voice dull, her eyes manic.
“Madame Renoir, would you like to sit down, dear?” Grace held her coat tightly around her and glanced at the front window of the shop. Madame Renoir had closed the blinds.
“Prostituée. Harlot.” Madame Renoir’s eyes moved to the heavy, floured rolling pin on a shelf on the wall behind Grace.
“Perhaps this isn’t a good time,” Grace said, beginning to move past the baker.
I can’t let the strumpet get away! Perhaps to try to seduce him again? Never! “I will get you le gâteau,” Madame Renoir said, moving past Grace and behind the counter. “A Christmas present for your children. For your little boys. Please.” She was breathing noisily as she raked the cream cake out of the case, scraping its messy sides along two other loaf cakes. She plopped it roughly on the counter, careful not to look up for fear Grace would turn and run. Of course, the door was locked, she thought, but the English bitch was young and strong and she, Marie-France, was but a child. The woman might escape. Marie-France cut a sheet of paper with which to wrap the cake.
Grace hesitated and then moved, resignedly, back to the counter for the cake. “Well, all right,” she said weakly. “Thank you, Madame Renoir.”
Madame Renoir turned to cut the length of ribbon behind her for the parcel, but instead picked up the rolling pin from the shelf and brought it out in a straight-armed wide arc, sending measuring beakers and glass canisters of chocolate sprinkles and candied cherries crashing to the floor. She struck Grace squarely on the side of her beautiful, blonde head and watched as the foreigner crumpled with an anguished moan to the bakery shop floor.
5
Laurent’s vineyard was divided into quadrants by two tractor roads that carved rutted tire tracks out of the dirt. One road stretched a kilometer from the side of their farmhouse across the width of the vineyard to the wall that separated Laurent’s land from Eduard Marceau’s. The other ancient road scored the vineyard down its center. The flames writhed and squirmed between the rows of grapevines but hesitated at the tractor road which ran east to west, reluctant to jump it even at the urging of the strong wind.
Jean-Luc knew it would not be long before the blaze sprinted this easy barrier and ignited the remainder of Laurent’s dry vineyard. He stood on the gravel path beside the house and watched as the northwest quadrant of the field burned. This quadrant was a screen of lampblack smoke. The density of the pitch fog hid the picture of what his mind already knew: the quadrant was lost. There was nothing he could do to save this, the largest quadrant of Laurent’s field. He focused his attention instead on the section closest to the house. This southeastern area of the vineyard was bordered by the village road and contained by the ancient stonewall that ran along the length of the entire vineyard. It was, as yet, untouched, but the wind was pushing the flames closer and closer. The southwestern quadrant, like the southeastern one, was only threatened at this point.
Suddenly, Laurent was at Jean-Luc’s side, out of breath, his hair wild, his eyes dark and unreadable.
The men from Le Canard had parked in Laurent’s gravel drive and pulled their trucks and ancient cars up on the lawn that separated the house and garden from the vineyards. Now they were carrying shovels and axes over their shoulders. Their faces were grim, their eyes riveted on the arc of fire in Laurent’s fields.
Jean-Luc wrenched the gate open that led to the vineyard. Everywhere, the vines were ablaze, the fire drawing hungrily at its tinderbox of fuel. Flakes of ash drifted to the ground around them like pieces of dark confetti.
Quickly, Jean-Luc barked orders to the village men.
“There!” He pointed, indicating the tractor road straight ahead of them and at the heart of the field. “We’ll begin digging the trench there.” He grabbed a shovel and moved into the vineyard. The men followed him, their heads bowed in determination.
Windsor, who had hung back, now grabbed Laurent by the arm. He licked his dry, peeling lips. His cashmere coat was flecked with soot.
“Do you think Maggie’s okay?” he asked, looking back at the house.
Laurent began to follow Jean-Luc and the men, forcing Windsor to hurry beside him.
“She must be in the village or with Grace,” Laurent said. “Tiens, Windsor, go look for her, yes? See that she is safe, okay?” Laurent gripped Windsor’s shoulder and then disappeared into the dark cloud of smoke that was slowly spreading across the entire vineyard.
Running across the ground, Laurent reached Jean-Luc where he stood in the tractor tracks.
“How long until the fire brigade can get here?” Laurent shouted over the crackling roar of the fire.
Jean-Luc shook his head. “St-Etienne is more than twenty kilometrès away,” he said.
Laurent nodded solemnly, knowing what the answer must mean to him and his future in Provence. He turned away and viciously wedged a chunk of earth from the trench with his spade. He worked alongside fifteen men from the village throwing the dirt across the road onto the smoldering lines of fire. Sparks and shooting embers burned their eyelashes, their hair, their brisk, dark mustaches. The heat pressed against their faces and bodies. And all around them, the smoke muffled the sound of their work like a billowing black shroud, covering them with grime, cloaking them from each other in a charred, dusky veil.
The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4 Page 63