“He did not burst into tears.”
“The French equivalent. They knew you were surprised. Anyway, I’m glad it wasn’t too traumatic for you.”
“I really need to study my French more. Laurent says I’ll do it when I get tired of making an ass of myself.”
“That’s sweet.”
“I don’t know why I’m not trying harder with it.”
“It would give you something to do...” Grace’s eyes were again arrested by something outside the window and Maggie had the idea that the something was a long way off from this restaurant.
“I’ve already decided on something to do,” Maggie said, as the waiter poured coffees for the both of them. “I’m going to write a book on the Fitzpatrick family massacre.”
Grace looked away from the window and exhaled a gust of blue smoke. “Seriously?” she asked.
“Yeah, my mother gave me the idea this last weekend.”
“It’s a good story,” Grace admitted. “Write it as fiction or as nonfiction?”
Maggie shook her head. “I’m not really sure,” she said. “First, I’m going to find out everything about it that I can and then I’ll decided how to handle the material.”
Grace rested her elbows on the table while she smoked. “It sounds like fun,” she said. “Can I help?”
“I’d love it.”
Grace stabbed out her cigarette and blew a last billow of smoke away from Maggie’s face. “Why not?” she said. “I could do with something to do, myself. So, what do we do? Go around asking people for their version of the story? I must have heard twenty since I came to St-Buvard.”
Maggie shook her head and poured a hefty dollop of cream in her coffee.
“What we do,” she said, “is find out the official story. Before it got handed down into the version it is now.”
“Mm-mm,” Grace said, nodding. “The official story. That sounds exciting. How exactly do we do that?”
Maggie, pleased to be taking the lead for once, stirred her coffee and smiled at her friend.
“You’ll see,” she said enigmatically.
4
Like a stinging nettle rubbing against a bare ankle, the tension between them was palpable and painful. Maggie had been careful not to mention Roger Bentley and Laurent had been cool and polite in asking about her weekend trip.
It was all perfectly miserable.
Now, as she came in from her day with Grace Van Sant, Maggie found her lover busy building a fire in the main sitting room of the house. She stood in the foyer watching him for a moment before taking off her coat. His broad back flexed as he reached for kindling and small logs, stacking them neatly on the fireplace grate. Finally, he turned to look at her.
“Well?” he said not unpleasantly. “You are coming in?”
She held up her bulging bag of fruits and vegetables. “Just catching my breath,” she lied, as Laurent walked to her to take the groceries. He leaned over and gave her a quick, welcoming kiss. Maggie slipped out of her coat and hung it up behind her as he carried the bag to the kitchen.
“Dinner in an hour, okay?” he called to her over his shoulder.
“Great,” she said, walking into the living room. Her coat was proving woefully inadequate to these Provençal winters. She found herself cold nearly all the time, even indoors, even in bed. She rubbed her shoulders with her hands and perched on the edge of the couch, waiting for Laurent to light the fire.
Fire building was an art with Laurent. He hand-selected the kindling, running his hands over the dead olive branches and pieces of cherry wood as if preparing to reject or accept each based sheerly on texture. Maggie got the impression, after the gathering and piling and arranging of wood in the hearth was completed―each layer designed to ignite the wood quickly and prolong its burning time―that Laurent was always a little let down by the final show of leaping flames and crumbling embers. For him, the satisfaction seemed not to be in the completed fire, but in the preparation. Considering how much time the man spent chopping onions, skinning eggplant and peeling and pressing garlic bits, his laborious, careful fire planning didn’t surprise her at all.
He returned from the kitchen and lit the crumpled pages of Nice-Matin under the still damp kindling.
“Will it burn?” Maggie asked. The mid-afternoon rain had thoroughly doused most of Laurent’s kindling supply.
The kindling caught and snapped into fiery life.
“Pas de problème,” Laurent murmured. No problem. He settled back into the couch and Maggie snuggled under his outstretched arm and laid her head against his chest. It felt good to be physically close again and Maggie was determined not to mention anything that might drive them apart even for an hour.
“Your day with Grace was good, hein?” Laurent said, his eyes watching the flames crawl up the kindling to the warped cherry logs on the grate, their buckling bark peeling and disintegrating.
Maggie nodded. “I told her I’m going to research the Fitzpatrick family massacre and she wants to help.”
Laurent frowned, but said nothing.
“It could be fun,” Maggie continued. “Besides, I’ve got nothing else to do.”
Laurent disentangled himself from her and snatched up a poker as if something urgently needed taking care of. He prodded a perfectly placed piece of wood into a position less than an inch from its original position. He tapped the poker on the slate hearth to shake off any coal dust or hot sparks then stared into the fire, the poker in his hands, as if waiting for further insubordination from the fire.
“Ah, yes?” he said absently.
Annoyed, but fighting the feeling, Maggie leaned forward and peered into the fire.
“And what did you do today?” she asked, bracing herself for a monotonous report of the topography of each row of vines in the now bleak and desolate vineyard.
“I visited Jean-Luc,” Laurent said, poking another errant piece of kindling.
Quelle surprise, she thought.
She leaned back into the couch and watched the flames flutter and dance over the logs. The cherry smelled generously fragrant as it burned, even blotting out the usual pleasant aromas from Laurent’s kitchen.
“I confronted him with Inge’s death,” he said, still jabbing at logs.
Maggie sat up straight and looked at him. “You’re kidding,” she said. “You think Jean-Luc poisoned Inge?”Jean-Luc poison one of the dogs he gave to Laurent? One of the dogs he’d raised from a puppy? Was that possible? Were these people really that different from us?
Laurent scraped a piece of bark off a log with the side of his poker. “I do not think he did it,” he said. “But I think he knows who did.” Laurent replaced the poker in its tarnished brass holder.
“Well, what did he say?” Maggie put a hand on Laurent’s knee and he looked at her as if surprised to find her there.
He covered her hand with his own and gave her a squeeze. “I am sorry for our fight, chérie,” he said.
Maggie put her arms around him and they held each other for a full minute without speaking or moving. Finally, Maggie pulled away from him and sat next to him, holding his hand.
“He admitted some bad things,” Laurent said, his voice heavy with disappointment and yet unsurprised. Maggie knew Laurent had seen too many things in his life to be surprised by the betrayal of one old farmer. “He hired Gaston to bother us.”
“To bother me, you mean.” Maggie felt her face flush with anger and resentment at Alexandre. He had come to her house―countless times―eaten her sandwiches, praised her feeble French, literally stolen her boyfriend for hours and hours of tromping through wet and cold vineyards, and then he sent some slimebag degenerate with an attitude to rough her up and try to rape her.
“Non, chérie,“ Laurent said. “To these people, bothering you is the best way to bother Laurent. They know this.” He turned to look at Maggie. “Jean-Luc did not know Gaston attacked you in the cellar.”
“And you believe him?” Maggie asked bitterly.
“He is an old man,” he said. “I know what he’s capable of.”
“And Inge?” Maggie said sarcastically. “I suppose he was shocked and horrified to hear that somebody poisoned Inge?”
“He didn’t know the dog had been poisoned.”
“And you believe him.” Maggie repeated.
“Maggie, Jean-Luc will not kill his own dog,” Laurent said in mild exasperation. “After I hurt Gaston, la belette, he refused to do any more work for Jean-Luc―”
“I can’t believe you’re even talking to this deviant. Jean-Luc is not your friend, Laurent. Haven’t you figured that out yet? He hired someone to...”
“To plant a painted pumpkin in my fields,” Laurent said, his eyes drilling into Maggie’s. “To cut a few vines, to scare ma femme...”
“Scare me?”
“Maggie,” Laurent said slowly. “I do not believe Jean-Luc wanted you hurt. I do not believe Jean-Luc wanted to kill one of my dogs...”
“Oh, no, darling, because Jean-Luc is a good and sweet person who loves animals and respects women, n’est-ce pas? So he couldn’t be the one―”
“Maggie, stop it―”
“Well, if not Jean-Luc, then qui?” Maggie pulled her arm out of Laurent’s grip. “Gaston, freelancing?”
Laurent shook his head. “Gaston has had enough. He quit after our tête-à-tête.”
“Says Jean-Luc.” Maggie rubbed her arms and made a face at Laurent. “Well, then who? I don’t suppose Jean-Luc had any ideas?”
“He said not.”
“And you believe him.”
“Maggie,” Laurent spoke with an ire that threatened to bubble over the top of his patient reserve. “You are making me angry.”
Maggie nearly laughed out loud, whether from nervous frustration or from Laurent’s budget-basement expression of emotion. He looked like a large, unhappy kitten. The moment helped to balm her own frustration and indignation. She picked up his hand.
“It does not help to be a smartass,” he said to her, his brows knit in serious communication.
“All, right, darling,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“I did not believe him.”
Finally.
“But he would not say who killed the dog,” he continued. “So I am just guessing.”
“You think Jean-Luc had a partner?” Maggie screwed up her face. Except for Laurent, Jean-Luc never hung out with anyone that she could remember.
“Peut-être,” Laurent said.
“Come on, Laurent, don’t get mysterious on me now. If not Gaston and not Jean-Luc, then who has picked up the baton, so to speak, on harassing us?”
Laurent shrugged and reached out for the poker again. “I would guess Eduard,” he said matter-of-factly.
Maggie watched with dismay as Laurent set the small copper tray of escargots in front of her. The snails winked out at her like six black erasures embedded in oily pools of parsley-butter.
“Laurent, you know I hate snails,” she said.
“These are petits gris,” he said, ignoring the face she was making. “You see? With fennel and thyme.”
“Oh, well, that makes a difference, then,” Maggie said, rolling her eyes.
Laurent poured the wine, a light, country wine from the Principality of Orange―not from his own cellar.
“Are we running out of vino?” Maggie asked as she picked up a snail shell and dug the dark slug from its recess. “How come we’re not drinking Domaine St-Buvard tonight?”
“We must drink other wines,” Laurent said. “To compare, to enjoy. We do not always eat at home, n’est-ce pas?” He watched her as she deposited the grisly morsel on the side of her plate and then tipped the shell’s contents of garlic and butter into a small pool onto her saucer. She dabbed her bread into the ochre grease and popped it into her mouth.
“Maggie, you are wasting good food,” he said.
“I’m just picking the bugs out of my dinner,” she replied, picking up another snail shell.
Laurent sighed and seated himself. “Bernard was arraigned today,” he said.
She looked up. “How do you know that?”
He shrugged. “Jean-Luc told me.”
“For someone who’s practically a hermit, Jean-Luc always seems to have the latest scoop on everything. How is that?”
“I don’t know, chérie.” Laurent chewed a snail and took a swallow of wine.
“Yeah, me neither,” Maggie said, prying another snail out of its shell and plopping it on the small pile of corpses she was building on her plate. “So you think ol’ Eduard is after our blood, too, huh?” She shook her head. “You know what I think?”
“No, chérie,” Laurent said as he watched her work. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s Gaston.”
Laurent lifted his eyebrows in a have-it-your-way gesture and gave his attention back to his plate.
“I’m serious, Laurent,” Maggie said. “You’ve signed off on Gaston and he’s the most obvious.”
“Most obvious for what?” Laurent asked. “To have killed my dog? Pourquoi? For revenge against me?”
“That, and he’s the most obvious one for Connor too.”
“You still think Gaston killed Connor?” Laurent rolled his eyes
“Stop that, please. It makes more sense than Bernard killing Connor.”
“Je suppose.” He stood up and collected their plates. “If you really think so, why not show it?”
“What do you mean, show it?”
Laurent called to her from the kitchen where he dished up the sea bream. A strong scent of fennel drifted back to the table. “Prove it,” he said. “You would make a lot of people very happy if it could be proved that Bernard is innocent.”
“You mean, like Babette?” Maggie said sweetly.
Laurent came into the room and set down their plates. “And Paulette,” he said. “And Bernard.”
“Do you think Bernard killed Connor?”
Laurent picked up his fork and thought for a moment. “Non,” he said, finally. “But I don’t think Gaston did either.”
Maggie surveyed her dish with pleasurable anticipation. It looked good, smelled wonderful.
“Maybe I will prove it,” she said as she scooped up a large forkful of the grilled bream stuffed with anchovy paste. “Laurent, this smells exquisite. As usual.”
“Bien sûr,” he said, waving his fork casually in the air over his plate.
For the rest of the meal, they chatted and laughed together, watching the sun disappear from their terrace in a display of bloody reds and purples, grateful for the renewed warmth and closeness that they had forged between them. The cold-weekend thoughts of relief at being apart from him were tucked into proper perspective for Maggie, the brief moments of happy freedom seen for just what they were, a weekend escape from problems, intimacies, responsibilities and emotions. She was glad to be back, she was glad to be with Laurent.
As Laurent proceeded to recount for her―in dry, amused tones and with much eyebrow accompaniment―his discovery of the array of dirty wine glasses and chipped supper dishes that Jean-Luc has stacked and perched and hidden about his ramshackle, dilapidated bachelor’s mas, it occurred to Maggie that with the relatively simple act of killing one of his own dogs, Jean-Luc Alexandre had removed any suspicion of guilt from himself for a wide variety of crimes.
Chapter Fourteen
1
Without an accurate English translation, Maggie could only get the gist of the newspaper article that Grace now held in her hand. Between Grace and herself, it was a very rough gist, indeed.
Grace pulled her chair closer to the library bench, careful not to snag her YSL hosiery against the rough underside of the wooden desk that she and Maggie had piled high with notebooks. Down the length of one notepad, a list of microfiche numbers was written in pencil in Maggie’s precise hand. A good deal had been written about the murders back in 1947. But the story contained few new facts. Oddly, e
ven Patrick’s trial had received little press.
Grace held a hard copy printout of that morning’s discovery in the microfilm library. “This one says the bodies of four people were discovered early on Thursday morning, December 10, 1946 at Domaine St-Buvard...” She looked at Maggie who hovered over her shoulder. “Isn’t that creepy? Hearing the name of your place like that?”
“What else does it say?”
Grace returned to the sheet in her hand. “...Shot in the head at point-blank range by a 22-caliber hunting rifle. The murder weapon, belonging to a Monsieur Patrick Alexandre, was found at the scene.”
“I guess that didn’t look too good for ol’ Patrick,” Maggie said. She pulled her cardigan closer around her. The chill in the Avignon public library felt like it was seeping into her very veins.
“Shouldn’t we get a real live French person to translate this?” Grace asked. “I mean, France must be full of them.”
“You’re doing great. What else does it say?”
“...Monsieur Robert Fitzpatrick,” Grace continued, “an Englishman and his family. His wife and two small sons...”
“Does it give their ages?” Maggie asked.
Grace scanned the article and shook her head. “I don’t see anything.”
“Okay, go on.”
“That’s about it, really. It says something about how the Fitzpatricks had lived in St-Buvard for two years and that Robert Fitzpatrick was running the vineyard.”
“He was a winegrower?”
“Doesn’t say. Just says he was employed by running Domaine St-Buvard.”
“Not much to go on,” Maggie said. She picked up the notepad with the list of microfiche numbers and scratched through one. “There’s still a couple more newspaper accounts,” she said.
“Why don’t we check the Paris papers too?” Grace asked. “It would have been big enough news to have made it up there and they might have a better slant on things. You know how biased small town presses can be.”
Maggie agreed. “You check the last of these small town presses,” she said, handing the notepad to Grace. “And I’ll rummage up what the Parisians thought of it. Can we make extra photocopies of all these clippings, do you think?”
Murder à la Carte (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series) Page 25