Murder in the South of France: Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series)

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  The stand-up café counter at the Nice International Airport held a dazzling array of pastries and breads. The confections were displayed in staggered tiers to tempt weary travelers as they trudged to and from their international connections. Maggie leaned against a stone pillar, munching a croissant and drinking strong coffee.

  The flight had been tiring, with too much time to think. An hour into it she realized she had made a terrible mistake. She was taking an expensive trip back to France that her boyfriend was very unhappy about, and for what? Elise was dead! Was she going to make a citizen’s arrest of Gerard? In France?

  At two hours in and 30,000 feet up, the whole idea of going felt like a really bad idea.

  Dumping the remnants of her breakfast in a rubbish bin, Maggie hoisted the strap of her carry-on bag to her shoulder and dove into the bustle of pedestrians moving within the large airport. Within twenty minutes, she was settled on the shuttle bus heading to Cannes.

  Deirdre’s death seemed to have caused a bigger stir among Fulton County’s finest than Elise’s. At first, Maggie thought it was because Elise was a drug addict and the police have natural biases. But then she started to think that she didn’t really know much about Deirdre. She’d graduated two years ago from the University of Georgia with a major in Advertising. She was easy to get along with, young, cute and funny—all immensely helpful for a career in advertising—but beyond that, Maggie just didn’t know her very well.

  The events of the last twenty-four hours and the burgeoning symptoms of jet lag combined to give Maggie a slightly hysterical feeling. She found herself wishing that Laurent could have come with her. Beyond the fact that she spoke very bad French, she missed him already.

  Once in Cannes, she trudged up the few short steps to the concierge’s desk at the hotel she had booked. She checked in and took the single, rattling elevator to the third floor.

  In her room, Maggie unpacked her few things and put a call in to Laurent. She only had the energy to find a place to eat this evening and fall into bed. It seemed to ring a long time before he picked up.

  “Allo?”

  “Hey, Laurent.”

  “How was the trip?”

  “It was good. Oh, I miss you! I wish you were here with me.” Maggie settled back onto her bed and gazed out the tall, open French windows. “Is everything okay there?”

  “Ah, mais oui. But I am sleeping the night without you and that is not good, chérie.”

  “Not good for me either, trust me. I’ll be back soon, though.”

  “Will you do anything today?”

  “You mean about Elise? No. Today I crash. I just wish it was in your arms.”

  “Ça ne fait rien, ma petite.” It doesn’t matter.

  “I love you, Laurent.”

  “Et je t’aime, aussi, Maggie.”

  After she hung up, Maggie kicked off her shoes and massaged her swollen feet before putting on a pair of running shoes. From her hotel window, she could see the sky was leaden with a threat of rain, so she pulled a thin rain jacket out of her bag.

  It was late September, and while the sun was still bright in the South of France, Laurent had warned her that the nights would be cool. She slipped a credit card and a hundred euros in the front pocket of her jeans and left the room.

  She deposited her key with the sullen young woman at the hotel desk, gave her a cheery “Au revoir!” and trotted down the hotel stairs with more energy than she felt.

  The buildings that lined the narrow cobblestoned streets in this section of Cannes were ancient and jammed together. The crumbling eighteenth century architecture was testimony to the fact little had changed in this neighborhood in many years.

  Café fronts and restaurants, one after another, heralded mostly seafood dining, with each restaurant advertising itself as better and more delectable than the last. Couscous, coq au vin, pot au feu, soupe de poissons, paella. The scent of baking rillettes and the ever-plentiful croque-monsieurs filled the air.

  She fully intended to take it easy today. She would wait until she was recovered from jet lag before she tackled the famous red tape and confounding bureaucracy of the French police and its departments. Besides, she’d already emailed her requests to them. She had meetings set up with two different people. They would either help her or they wouldn’t.

  For today, her task was simple. Find an awesome place to eat tonight that wasn’t too far from her hotel, and find Zouk’s shop. She had sent Michelle Zouk an email asking to meet with her tomorrow too, and while she hadn’t heard back from her, she had been so friendly on the phone last week Maggie was sure they would get together somehow.

  She hadn’t stayed in or visited this section of Cannes when she had come before. Then, her father had insisted she stay in the five-star district along the water. While Laurent had taken her all over Cannes during their week together, she was sure they hadn’t come here. It wasn’t a bad area, really. But neither did it feel exactly safe. She made a note to make sure she was back at the hotel before dark each day.

  Is Gerard in town? What if I run into him? Surely Laurent would have to understand if that happened.

  She walked down the narrow pedestrian street and glanced up at the shuttered windows as she passed. Did the maids and bellmen for the ritzy hotels on Boulevard de la Croisette live here? She glanced at her phone, where she had typed in the address for Zouk’s boutique. She wasn’t sure where it was, but she knew it wasn’t in this neighborhood.

  An hour later, she stood in front of the clothing store that matched the address she had. It was in a fashionable section of town, and from what Maggie could see in the darkened display window, the clothes looked to be colorful and of original designs.

  The name of the shop, Michelle Zouk, was painted in cursive letters across the broad window that faced the Avenue des Anglais. In a discreetly placed placard in the lower left corner of the window of the shop were the words Fermé pour la saison.

  Closed for the season.

  * * *

  The man’s fingers drummed nervously on the paint-chipped wooden desk, his fingernails bitten and scarred as if he’d actually chewed them completely off his fingers a time or two. Burton watched Donnell’s mutilated fingers continue their drumming and vowed to stop biting his own nails just as soon as he had the nicotine thing kicked.

  Dave Kazmaroff sat across the room—with its single table and three chairs—and balanced a legal pad on his knee. His stomach growled and he glanced at his watch.

  “Come on, Bob, it’s a simple question.” Kazmaroff could hear the fatigue in Burton’s voice. Usually it was a feigned weariness, designed to allow the suspect a certain false security to encourage him to lower his guard. Tonight, Kazmaroff doubted the weary tone was affected.

  “I told you.”

  “Told us what? What did you tell us?” Kazmaroff chimed in.

  “I told you that I was just walking along and—”

  “Oh, give me a break.” Burton tossed a pencil down onto the table and Donnell flinched. His bald head glistened with sweat. Every so often, he would reach up and smooth the top of his bare crown with his fingers. It was a gesture that repulsed Burton.

  “You were walking along and saw this apartment building and decided to go knocking on doors. Man, if you don’t start helping us out here…” The threat hung in the air.

  “I don’t know what you want from me!” Donnell’s hands flew to his mouth, where he began to gnaw a forefinger with vigor. “I confessed to everything, didn’t I?” His voice was muffled.

  “Take your hands outta your mouth,” Burton said.

  Donnell jerked his hands back to the table.

  “I said I did her, right? I told you who and how.”

  “And now we just wanna know why, Bob.” Kazmaroff spoke softly to countermand Burton’s roughness.

  “Yeah, Bob,” Burton said quietly. “Why did you do her?”

  The man looked at the detectives with wide eyes, as if he didn’t understand the question.


  “Like, instead of riding your bike ten miles that day or, say, painting your living room, why did you go out and strangle someone you didn’t know? Why?”

  “Why?” he chirped back at them, a panicked look beginning to appear on his face. “Well,” Donnell said, staring at his bad hands, “because she never really cared about me. That’s why.” He looked down at his shirtfront, resting his chin against his chest. “She only pretended to when he was around, but when he was gone she used to laugh at me or just pretend like I wasn’t there.”

  Kazmaroff eased the front legs of his chair back onto the ground. “Who?” he asked.

  Donnell looked up, his face a mask of misery and frustration. “Betty,” he croaked. “You know? Betty?”

  Burton restrained himself from screaming: Betty Rubble? Betty Crocker? How would I know what Betty you’re talking about, you stupid prick?!

  Kazmaroff said, “Your mother, Betty?”

  Donnell nodded and buried his sweating face on his folded arms upon the table.

  “I picked up the gun because she looked so much like Mother. I had to.”

  The gun? Burton covered his face with his hands.

  “Oh. My. God. He didn’t do it.” Kazmaroff looked at Burton, who was standing with his hands over his face by the now sobbing Donnell. “He didn’t friggin’ do it.”

  22

  Gary placed the newspaper on the kitchen table, knowing she was watching him from where she stood at the sink. He reached for his coffee, refusing to look at her.

  “Any good headlines?” Darla asked quietly.

  “Still complaining about the traffic on the Connector,” he said, taking a sip of coffee.

  “You’d think they’d be bored with that.” She carried her coffee to the table and sat down with him. “They’ve only had the Connector about fifty years now.”

  Gary noted the distancing pronoun “they” instead of the more familiar “we” and felt a small bloom of satisfaction. She was coming around. She was already starting to say good-bye to this place.

  Darla cleared her throat. “Anything about Deirdre in the paper?”

  Gary shook his head. “Nothing much. You can’t expect one little ol’ murder to occupy more than a few inches of media space. Not when it’s a full two days old now.”

  “Gary.” She touched his hand and he was forced to look at her. Her eyes were sad. He hated to see it but he couldn’t weaken now. He couldn’t ease up on her when they were so close.

  “What?” he said flatly.

  “You talked to the police. What do they think happened to poor Deirdre?”

  “Darla, I don’t know, okay? Is there any more coffee in the pot?”

  “But do they think it’s the same guy? I mean, the guy who killed Maggie’s sister?”

  “Look, Darla, you obviously know more about it than I do so why are you—”

  “Why are you acting like this?” Her face dissolved into an expression of frustration and despair. “I feel like I’m all alone in this, Gary,” she whispered, reaching for his hand again.

  Gary put the paper down and tried to show her a face of firmness and pity. He wished he didn’t have to act, but he knew that if he was honest with her she’d start rationalizing why it all happened. She’d find a toehold in it all and then the battle to stay would continue. No, he couldn’t let her backslide now.

  “I guess when it comes to dying, we’re all alone,” he said.

  “Gary!” She spilled her coffee in the saucer and he noticed that her hand was shaking. “Is that all you can say for poor Deirdre? That we’re all alone when it’s our turn to die?”

  “I’m sorry,” Gary said, pushing his own coffee away. “I didn’t realize it was my reaction to Deirdre’s death we were talking about. I thought we were talking about how alone you felt in dealing with it.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks and he steeled himself to avoid comforting her. Doesn’t she know I’m doing this for her and Haley? That emigrating is the only way to save us all?

  “It could’ve been us, Darla. It could’ve been Haley, just as easily.”

  “What are you talking about?” She was crying, but the question wasn’t real. She knew what he was talking about. Because she was afraid now, too.

  * * *

  How can it be closed? Does that mean Zouk’s not in Cannes? Maggie cursed herself for not following up before she climbed on an airplane and flew to France. Although, she reminded herself, there had been plenty of distractions.

  She sat in a café on the same street of Zouk’s shop and, after ordering a coffee she most certainly would not drink this late in the day, punched in Zouk’s phone number on her cellphone. Was this whole trip just one big expensive mistake? If she didn’t connect with Zouk, was it all for nothing?

  “Allo?”

  “Yes, Madame Zouk? This is Maggie Newberry, Elise’s sister?”

  “Ah, yes, Maggie. I have been waiting to hear from you.”

  “I’m actually in Cannes now. I just got in a few hours ago.”

  “Oh, tut!”

  Zouk made a noise Maggie had heard Laurent make many times. It gave her an instant feeling of connection with the woman.

  “Maggie, I am in Paris. I am so sorry. The season is over on the Côte d’Azur, yes?”

  “Right, well, I’m just starting to see that,” Maggie said as she watched the traffic on her street. Last spring this same street had looked like Mardi Gras there were so many tourists, cars and shoppers. Today, it could be any sleepy backwater French village…with multi-million dollar hotels in spitting distance.

  “Can you come to Paris? I am free tomorrow.”

  “Paris?” Could she do that? Maggie tried to think how complicated that might be.

  “There is a train every hour from Nice,” Zouk continued, as if interpreting Maggie’s hesitation. “It is two hours on the TGV. I will meet you at my shop, yes? What time would be good?”

  Am I really going to Paris?

  “Er, yes, tomorrow would be…no, actually, I have some interviews tomorrow. Can we make it Wednesday?” She was supposed to be flying home on Wednesday. Maggie did a fast calculation. She would change her return flight to leave out of Charles de Gaulle and push it back a day.

  “Wednesday is also very good for me. Shall we say two?”

  “Yes, that’s fine. Thank you, Michelle. Merci.”

  “Until Wednesday, Maggie. Au revoir.”

  Maggie sat in the café and drank the coffee—and two more—while her head buzzed with thoughts triggered by the change of plans. Later, after she’d trudged back to the hotel full of coffee and pastry as her dinner, she sat down on the bed and shook out a few postcards she’d bought on the walk back from a tissue-thin paper sack.

  She thought about calling her mother, but decided against it. She was too exhausted, physically and emotionally, to be shoring up anybody else at the moment. Besides, she’d be home in a few days. And hopefully with some answers.

  Her phone began vibrating on the writing desk in the corner of the room, and when she glanced at the screen she felt her spirits lift. “Hey, Laurent. I was just thinking of you.”

  “You have not crashed yet?” His voice sounded strong yet sweet. Maggie smiled just to hear his low rumble of a voice, all guttural r’s and sliding z’s. So excitingly French, she thought, and wondered, not for the first time, how much of her attraction to him had to do with his foreignness.

  “No, I’m just about to. Have the cops come out with a line on Deirdre’s killing yet?” Maggie ran a hand through her hair.

  “Nothing they are sharing.”

  “Figures.”

  “So I will be at the airport at five, yes?

  She hadn’t been looking forward to this conversation.

  “I had to push my flight departure back a couple of days, Laurent.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Turns out Zouk’s shop in Cannes is closed for the season, so she’s in Paris. I’m taking the train up there t
o see her on Wednesday.”

  “You are going to Paris.”

  She now clearly heard the coldness that had been underlying his tone for the full conversation. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror that hung opposite the bed.

  “I have to.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Well, okay. I’m going to. I didn’t fly all the way over here to say, ‘Oh, not home,’ and just leave.”

  “This is a mistake.”

  “I know you think that, but I don’t know why you do.” Maggie realized she was too tired to make sense. The last thing she wanted was to start a transatlantic fight when she was so jet lagged she couldn’t see straight. “Look, Laurent, let me go, okay? I’m beat and tomorrow’s a big day for me.”

  “Fine.”

  “I miss you. It’s killing me to be apart like this.”

  “Then come home.”

  “I am coming home. Just as soon as I talk to these people.”

  “Who know nothing.” His voice came across the line without emotion or energy.

  “Well, I’ll at least find out once and for all what they do know.” She was surprised she still sounded coherent given how weary she was. They were both silent for a moment. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said finally. “And I’ll be home two days after that. I love you, Laurent.”

  “Et je t’aime aussi,” he said, almost sullenly.

  After she disconnected, it occurred to her that she’d forgotten again to ask him about his chef gigs. I must be the worst, most self-absorbed girlfriend on the planet.

  She picked up a postcard showing the Isles de Lerins and thought of her office back in Atlanta. She thought of Pokey and Patti, Bob and Jenny, Gary and the rest of them and how they must have reacted to the news of Deirdre.

  She imagined the look on each of their faces when they realized little Deirdre wouldn’t be showing up for traffic meetings any more. She felt so far away tonight from the people she cared about.

  I should be with them. I should be sharing their grief in the office. My God, Gary is probably having a full-blown, living color nervous breakdown about now.