“We are getting married, Windsor,” Laurent said, taking a sip of his hot drink. He made a face. “What is in this?” he asked, looking down into his cup.
“Married?” Windsor jumped up and clapped his hands together once in a loud crack. “That’s great! Grace, did you know about this?”
Grace smiled, her face pale and serene against the rose pillows, and shook her head. She carried her broken arm loosely against her chest. “I didn’t,” she said.
“We want to be married in St-Buvard, probably sometime this spring, we think,” Maggie said.
“Windsor, get the champagne,” Grace said. “Will it be a big wedding?”
“Something in keeping with the traditions of the village, we think,” Maggie said.
“I see, so you’re already pregnant?” Grace’s eyes twinkled.
They all laughed as Windsor uncorked and poured a bottle of Dom Perignon. They held their glasses high in a toast.
“To Maggie and Laurent,” Windsor said. “To a life together as exciting and complex as the last six months...” He was interrupted by boos from the other three. “I was going to say minus all the murders and stuff,” Windsor protested.
“Oh, let me do it,” Grace said, shaking her head at him. “To Maggie and Laurent. May your married life together be as full of love and wonder as it is right now. We love you both.”
They touched glasses and drank. Grace took a tiny sip of her champagne and replaced the long flute on the coffee table. Maggie noticed she looked tired. Radiant, as usual, but weary. For a brief instant, Maggie had an image of Grace lying on the dirty bakery floor, the overpowering, yeasty smell of rising bread mixing with the smell of blood. The image was interrupted by Taylor’s high-pitched shout down the stairs.
“Mommy! I’m ready!” Taylor yelled. At the sound of the child’s voice, the little dog, Mignon, burrowed further into its padded den of wool plaid blankets and cashmere lap throws.
“I’ll refresh our drinks,” Windsor said, jumping up to open another bottle of champagne. “And then you can tell us the low down of what really happened in Madame Renoir’s bakery on Christmas Day and why. I’ve been waiting a week for this.”
Grace stood up and stretched out her back. “Don’t you dare say one single word, Maggie Newberry-almost-Dernier,” she said, wagging a finger at Maggie, “until I return from my maternal mission.”
“Does that mean you’re hitting the bathroom again?” Windsor said from the wet bar.
“Very funny.” Grace walked to the foot of the stairs and called up. “I’m coming, darling,” she said. Looking back at Maggie, she said. “I’m doing the shortest of bedtime stories and then prayers and then I’m back. Ten minutes tops. Don’t breathe a word of any of your deductions until I’m back to hear it. I didn’t break this arm, get a concussion and ruin my favorite Chanel slacks just to hear the story third hand from Windsor―and he always leaves out the good bits. Comprends-tu?”
Maggie smiled back at her. “Parfaitement,” she said.
“I guess the thing that finally tipped me off was when Grace told me about the baby in the cemetery,” Maggie said. She moved closer to the fire, her back to it, to better face her audience. She felt warmed by the fire, the champagne, and the affection of her friends. Telling the story, as she believed she knew it, was a sort of release for her. It helped assuage the guilt she had begun to feel toward Madame Renoir and even Grace, who certainly would not have been harmed if Maggie had pieced the puzzle together sooner. She straightened the hem of her wool sweater across her lap and picked up her warm mug of wine.
“Up to that point, the story had all seemed pretty normal. Then, a day or so before the confrontation in the bakery, Father Bardot confirmed to me that no dog would be allowed to rest that close to consecrated ground.”
“But that’s what he’d been told by the old priest who was here before him?” Grace pulled her slippered feet up under her from where she sat on the couch. Windsor sat with his arm around her.
“That’s right. The first guy obviously knew what the deal was with the baby―only he thought it had died prematurely or something―you know, innocent but born with original sin and all―and was just trying to protect Madame Renoir’s reputation by telling people it was a family pet.”
“Gruesome. He didn’t realize how much he was covering up,” Grace said.
“But I don’t understand.” Windsor frowned. “It was Madame Renoir’s baby? That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does when you consider she was having an affair with the Englishman, Robert Fitzpatrick.”
“Oh, my God,” Grace said.
“And it does when you consider she got pregnant by him...”
“She was only twelve years old!” Grace shook her head.
“Almost thirteen.”
“So Patrick Alexandre was not carrying on with Madame Fitzpatrick?” Windsor asked.
“Pure as the driven snow, our Patrick. Even to the point of taking the rap for his precocious and very screwed-up daughter.”
“He went to prison for her,” Grace said.
“He snuffed himself while he was there too,” Maggie reminded her. “That’s a pretty hefty load of guilt for our lady baker to be carrying around all these years. In some ways, it’s a wonder she didn’t snap sooner.”
“So why did the whole village think he was having an affair with the Englishwoman?” Grace asked. “And what was Madame Renoir raving about the night she tried to kill us? All that stuff about he didn’t love you, he said he wouldn’t touch you...”
“Grace,” Maggie said, smiling. “She wasn’t talking about her father, she was talking about the Englishman. Robert Fitzpatrick. He’d obviously promised her that he wasn’t sleeping with his wife, that Marie-France―that’s Madame Renoir’s Christian name ―was his one and only.”
“And it was Patrick who started the rumors that he was carrying on with the Englishwoman―I mean, she was dead by then, so no harm to her reputation―”
“To protect his daughter.”
“Bingo.”
“But didn’t the townspeople know Madame Ren― I mean, Marie-France―was pregnant?”
“Evidently not. She hid her weight gain, I guess. And the baby was killed soon after it was born―”
“She killed her healthy baby?”
Maggie watched Grace touch her own stomach in an involuntary gesture.
“Remember, this is the same woman who had just killed two adults and two children,” Maggie said.
“And God knows how many traveling cakepan salesmen,” Windsor said.
“Plus, Connor,” Maggie said. “Yes, of course, she killed her own baby. In her mind, she had to. She couldn’t start hanging out at the boulangerie with a little newborn complete with English weak chin and all, could she?”
Then Windsor spoke: “Okay, explain to us how you figured out it Madame Renoir that killed Connor as well,” he said.
“It all makes such sense when you piece it together with Madame Renoir at the center. She was at our place that night, of course. And she was quite upset, Grace, if you remember. When I talked to her up in my bedroom it must have been right after she killed him.” Maggie shivered beneath her heavy wool sweater in spite of the fire behind her.
Laurent picked up the ball. “Jean-Luc admitted seeing her go down to the cave that night,” he said. “when we were all in the kitchen―”
“You’re kidding.” Windsor stared at him with his mouth open. “And he never mentioned it?”
“But he’s family, isn’t he?” Maggie shrugged. “He’s hardly going to offer up that bit of info to the police: ‘By the way, my niece, the plump and well-loved village baker, went down to the cave at one point in the evening for some unknown reason. No, I don’t know why she hasn’t volunteered the fact herself.’ ”
“Besides,” Laurent said, “she was above suspicion in Jean-Luc’s mind. He only remembered the incident because he thought it strange for her to go down there.”
“What in the w
orld was her motive?” Grace asked. “I didn’t think she even knew Connor.”
“Think about it.” Maggie began ticking the points off her fingers. “Connor was foreign, first of all―reminding her of that other foreigner all those years ago. He was despised by the one member of her family she still had left, Jean-Luc. People tend to forget because Eduard was so noisy about hating Connor that Jean-Luc had just as much to lose by Connor building a museum at Domaine St-Buvard. More to lose, in some ways, since the property used to be his family’s land. He hated Connor too―just not as flamboyantly as Eduard.”
“Anyway...” Laurent said impatiently.
“Thirdly,” Maggie continued, “and probably most significantly, Connor had impregnated Madame Renoir’s little pet, the hardly wholesome Babette, reminding her of other, unfortunate times in her own life. That night, Thanksgiving, Connor was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Madame Renoir was in one of her unfortunate, rare states of madness, she saw her opportunity...and boom. She went for it.”
Grace shook her head sadly. “She killed Connor.”
“She did.” Maggie looked at Grace. “She’s a strong woman, Grace. Maybe you noticed that?”
Grace continued to shake her head in disbelief. “She killed Connor and then went back to business as usual, serving up buns and tweaking children’s rosy cheeks. Didn’t she babysit your niece, Nicole, the very next day?”
“And why, exactly, did she kill the Fitzpatricks?” Windsor asked. “That’s never been clear to me.”
“They were leaving France to return to England. She wanted to stop them, stop him.”
“She certainly succeeded in doing that.”
“She was pregnant and obsessed with the man, Fitzpatrick. He was rejecting her―obviously in favor of his wife. I guess, in her tormented little mind she saw the children as products of the Fitzpatricks’ love.”
“That’s logical,” Grace said.
“And besides, the little mites were witnesses. Face it, if she’d spared them, she’d be just getting out of prison about now.”
“If she didn’t get the guillotine,” Laurent added.
“That’s more likely, back then,” Windsor agreed.
“I don’t imagine she’ll serve time now.” Maggie replaced her mug on a coaster on the coffee table and dabbed at her lipstick with a cocktail napkin.
“You’re kidding!”
“She’s sick, Windsor,” Maggie insisted. “She’s not some serial killer or hit man. She’s twisted.”
“I don’t know.” Windsor glanced at his wife. “She sounds pretty evil to me.”
“Poor Madame Renoir. Poor Marie-France,” Grace murmured.
“And the note that was found on the body?” Windsor said. “You know, the one that said, I forgive you but this is the way it’s got to be blah blah blah, signed Patrick? How do you explain that?”
“Easy. It was from Patrick, that’s true, but it wasn’t meant for Madame Fitzpatrick. It wasn’t signed Patrick, if you remember, it was signed P.”
“P for Patrick,” Windsor said, frowning.
“Or Papa,” Grace said slowly, the truth dawning.
“That’s right. Grace and I got the transcript for the note at the library. It looked like it was indicting Patrick, but it could be read another way. For example, if Patrick had found out about his daughter’s affair and subsequent pregnancy? He might be compelled to write a note to Marie-France saying he forgave her for everything. There was a line in there about this being the best road or way for them both to take and that he had no regrets. He was probably going to insist she have the baby, and that they’d raise it as a sort of little brother or sister to Madame Renoir. I don’t know. I’m just guessing there.”
“She had the note with her the night she visited the Fitzpatricks and dropped it at the scene,” Windsor suggested.
“Voila.”
“And all this time, everyone thought the note was to the Fitzpatrick woman because she was found clutching it,” he said.
“C’est logique,” Laurent said.
“And Madame Renoir attacking me? What’s logical about that?” Grace frowned and twisted painfully to get comfortable against Windsor’s arm.
“You caught her at a bad time,” Maggie said.
“No kidding.”
“She got it into her head that you were Mrs. Fitzpatrick.”
“Lucky me. Is there a resemblance?”
“Well, you were both foreign, English speaking, blonde, beautiful, married. I don’t know,” Maggie said, turning to look at Windsor. “Did Madame Renoir ever come on to you, Windsor? That would explain a lot.”
“We only slept together the one time,” he said with mock seriousness.
“I imagine it was just bad timing, Grace,” Maggie said. “Plus, you were pregnant and starting to show. We don’t know what kind of snakes and toads were crawling around in the old girl’s brain on account of that. Probably went a little haywire every time she was invited to a baby shower.”
They were all quiet for a moment.
“She made the best beignets à la crème,” Grace said.
Epilogue
Like a blanket of purple velvet, the surrounding fields of lavender engulfed the senses, subtly, delicately, exquisitely. Spring in Provence was intoxicating. The pastures were alive with tiny kid goats and rambunctious lambs in their fuzzy sleeper pajamas, kicking up their sharp, miniature hooves in glee. The air was redolent with new-mown hay and fresh-cut lavender. Poppies dotted the landscape like bright drops of blood.
It was Maggie’s wedding day.
In the five months since the Christmas Day fire, Laurent’s fields had been hand planted with vinestocks from the neighboring vineyards―mostly Jean-Luc’s and Eduard Marceau’s. Eduard had pled “not guilty,” was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. Later, in a move that surprised nearly everyone, Danielle had sold the lion’s share of the Marceau fields to Jean-Luc, keeping only the house and the surrounding rose gardens for herself. The question of where she would go and where she would live when Eduard emerged from prison was still unanswered in most people’s minds.
Elspeth and John Newberry arrived with their granddaughter Nicole, who was to share duties with Taylor Van Sant as flower girl. Grace was eight months along, and Windsor appeared proud and happy. In a secret moment, Grace revealed to Maggie that Windsor had decided he could ignore the question of the patrimony of the awaited child. He had been profoundly affected by the thought of losing Grace and had quickly reshuffled his priorities.
Madame Dulcie had rallied the rest of the village women to periodically visit Maggie at Domaine St-Buvard in an effort to make her feel welcome and at home in St-Buvard. The butcher’s wife made it clear she held Maggie completely responsible for clearing Patrick Alexandre’s good name. Her gratitude was, if gruff, seemingly boundless in the form of free lamb cutlets and ground beef.
Paulette and Bernard had become, if not regular visitors to their home, then less infrequent ones. And Maggie found herself appreciating the quiet, strong farmer’s wife and marveling in the couple’s obvious affection for one another. Bernard, although never again mentioning his thanks for her efforts in clearing his name, was kind and patient with Maggie’s tortured French, and quite talkative. Maggie was surprised and ashamed that she had viewed him before as an oafish, thick peasant. He was no scholar, granted, but he was good company and could make her laugh. Babette married the biker, announced her pregnancy, and moved to Nîmes. Paulette seemed sorry to see her go. Maggie thought she could even understand why.
The boulangerie was crudely boarded up with plywood, upon which was painted the word “Ferme.” Closed. Even after nearly six months it was painful for Maggie to look at the little shop. Marie-France Alexandre Renoir was placed in a mental hospital in the north, too far away for Maggie to indulge in any impulsive whims. In any event, Renoir’s doctors had asked that Maggie not write or try to contact the woman. They had classified Madame Renoir as a paran
oid schizophrenic and asked that she not be reminded of her past life in any way. Maggie thought it a strange way to deal with mental illness. Madame Renoir had been a big part of her introduction to St-Buvard, to France itself. Every time she pulled Petit-Four onto her lap, Maggie thought of where the dear pet had come from.
Today, she stood in the cold stone side room in the little church at St-Buvard, her friends and family waiting on the church pews polished shiny from years of penitent villagers’ bottoms. She wore a simple white dress, her dark hair off her neck in an elegant French twist, with tiny lavender and gardenia blossoms pinned in the upsweep of hair. She held a small bouquet of village flowers in her hands: violets, lavender, and pale pink rosebuds. All from her own garden.
Maggie turned and walked to the window of the little room and looked out. The purple hills that seemed to stretch all the way to Lyons filled the horizon and, even from this distance, Maggie could smell their lovely, light scent.
Immediately outside her window she could see the little church graveyard, its granite tombstones, ornate crosses and weatherworn angels stuck into the ground at haphazard angles. From where she stood she could just see Patrick Alexandre’s grave as well as the tip of his granddaughter Louise’s. She wondered if old Patrick was resting easier these days. But since the fear of exposing his cherished only daughter, Marie France, was the reason he died in the first place, Maggie hardly thought he’d thank her.
“You are not thinking of jumping?”
Maggie started at the voice and then turned to smile at Laurent. He wore a simple gray suit, a white rose bud in his lapel, his dark hair trimmed to just below his ears. He was gorgeous.
Wordlessly, she moved toward him. He held her arms in his two hands and looked into her face.
“You look magnificent, Maggie,” he said.
“I am happy, darling.” She smiled at him and then cocked her head. “Did you think I might change my mind?”
He leaned over and kissed her again. “I have come to thank you for my early wedding gift.”
Maggie looked at him with a look of mild confusion. Then her eyes strayed to the door and the noise of the gathering congregation outside. She smiled back at him.
Murder à la Carte (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series) Page 36