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

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  “You need to go, Gerard. I’ve called some friends of Monsieur Golchek’s to give you a ride home because I think you’re a little over your limit.”

  He looked at her in confusion and mounting panic. “Golchek?” He struggled unsteadily to his feet and took a few hesitant steps toward the door. The night clerk looked up from his magazine.

  “You are giving me my money,” Gerard said loudly.

  “What I’m giving you, you worthless cretin, is a five-minute head start on the man who’s coming for you. Comprenez-vous?”

  He cursed her, but turned and ran in the direction of the front door. “I will hurt you!” he shrieked as he struggled to wrench open the door and disappeared into the night.

  The clerk gave Maggie a sour look and turned back to his magazine. The clock over his shoulder showed it was nearly two in the morning. Maggie walked to the elevator and punched the up arrow.

  Now I can leave. I have talked to the devil himself and learned every ugly, useless answer to all my stupid, useless questions.

  And I still don’t know who killed Elise.

  As she stepped inside the elevator, the exhaustion of her day bearing down on her, her thoughts turned back to the other little Nicole. The one who died without her maman on a warm summer’s night in the South of France.

  Maggie closed her mind to the image. She would put her grief away in the same little box where she kept thoughts of Elise and push it to the back of her mind, to be brought out and dealt with later—later when she was stronger. When she wasn’t so tired.

  Much later.

  28

  “Well, I didn’t want to say anything, Maggie, but I thought you should know.”

  Maggie sat in the lobby of her hotel, her bag at her feet, a cup of coffee on the table in front of her. She hadn’t slept much the night before.

  How many times had she seen that tattoo on Laurent? She had always just assumed it was a European thing. The design meant nothing to her. It wasn’t colorful or pretty, just a small mysterious graphic she had traced with her fingers in languid moments in bed, probably hundreds of times.

  “It doesn’t matter, Gary. I guess you and everyone else were right on that score. I didn’t know him very well.”

  When had she started referring to Laurent in the past tense?

  “How was the memorial service?” she said, switching the subject.

  “It was nice. I read a poem by Houseman. Deirdre’s brother gave the eulogy. It was sad. Everybody cried.”

  “I should have been there.”

  “The trip not what you expected?”

  “Not at all. Turns out I solved the mystery of who murdered the woman I thought was Elise in Cannes. Only trouble is, I’m not one inch closer to figuring out who actually killed Elise.”

  “Sorry, Maggie. But, hey, on a brighter note, the movers come in two weeks, and I’m meeting a guy in Savannah tomorrow who’s interested in buying me out of the business. Don’t worry. You’ll be brought in on all that when it comes together. We land in Auckland the week after that. Haley is thrilled.”

  “And Darla?”

  “Darla is committed to our going. Trust me.”

  “Got a job yet down there?”

  “Got a bunch of interviews, and they’re as good as got. New Zealand’s economy has been in bad shape for a while now, but their advertising community is pretty healthy. Plus, they respect outsiders, probably more than they should. They put Yanks and the Brits in all their top spots.”

  “So, you’re expecting to do well on the job market scene.”

  “I am,” he said briskly.

  “Gary, look, I’m not indicting you for moving to New Zealand, so I would appreciate it if you would ditch the defensive tone.”

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay? But I have to have a certain mindset to pull this thing off. I can’t relax or the whole thing will fall apart. And, honestly, no, Darla is not leading cheers from the sidelines. She’s going to New Zealand with the same attitude the penal colonists went to Van Dieman’s Island.”

  “And you still believe—”

  “With my whole heart.”

  Maggie sighed. From where she sat, she could see a couple of workmen across the street working to restring a shop’s awning. One of the men reminded her of Laurent. He stood on the bottom rung of the ladder and yanked on a long rope pulley. She watched the gray striped awning flap open over the metal scaffolding.

  “Well, that’s important,” she said. “Do what you gotta do, Gary.”

  “I fully intend to.”

  After she hung up, Maggie dialed Michelle’s number, noticing that two more calls had come in from Laurent. Just seeing the calls—both with voice messages that she deleted—glaring at her from her phone screen made her want to throw up, but also made her want to hear his voice.

  To guard against the impulse of answering the next time he called, she knew it was best if she shut her phone off until she was back in the States. Surely, she would feel stronger and better able to speak to him then?

  When her call to Michelle went to voice mail, she hung up and dialed Jack Burton’s number. He answered on the first ring.

  “Burton,” he said abruptly.

  “This is Maggie Newberry.”

  She heard the overly patient sigh across the line. “Yes, Miss Newberry.”

  “I was just wondering if you had any news for me about…anything.”

  “As you know, I was not assigned to the case involving your coworker and I have heard nothing on that front. As for your sister, well, we are still making inquiries.”

  “What about the guy you have in custody?” It hadn’t occurred to her that they might still be investigating Elise’s death.

  “He was released.”

  Maggie found herself getting excited. “Okay, so now what? Do you have somebody you like better? And what about my crank call? You said you’d follow up on that.”

  There was a hesitation on the line.

  Something had happened.

  “We did follow up on it, and it turns out the call came from a burner phone.”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a disposable cellphone.”

  Maggie sat up straighter. “No little old lady is going to buy and discard a cellphone to get her jollies.”

  “No. We are reinvestigating the presence of the air conditioner repair truck that was parked at your apartment that day.”

  “What does that have to do with the disposable cellphone?”

  The sigh he emitted made Maggie realize he was speaking against his better judgment. But he was speaking.

  “They are both possible evidence of a contract killing.”

  A hit man?

  “That doesn’t make sense. Elise couldn’t have been killed by a hired killer. That’s just ridiculous.”

  “In any event, that is the lead we are currently following.”

  Did any of this even matter? Every lead these idiots followed ended with nothing. Every suspect they dragged in was as unlikely as the one before. And now they think a contract was put out on Elise? Next they’ll be calling it a suicide!

  “Well, thanks for keeping me in the loop.” Maggie couldn’t help letting her frustration peek through with her sarcasm. She felt emotionally drained. She just wanted to get on that airplane, take a sleeping pill and not think of anything for about six hours.

  “Well, I’m sorry if we’re not informing you at the level you would like,” Burton said in a clearly annoyed voice, “but I did give all this information to Mr. Dernier a couple days ago.”

  * * *

  Laurent switched the telephone to his other ear. He stood in Maggie’s small galley kitchen leaning against the stove, regarding the red plastic wall clock opposite him. He should have known the reason why she wasn’t returning his calls. He should have known the minute she found that damn sweater with Zouk’s name on the label.

  “Non, merci, Roger,” he said into the phone. “I am glad you called me.”
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  “Well, I thought you’d want to know, old chap. Bit of a surprise for me, I can tell you, running into her like that.”

  “Mmm-mm, yes, I can see that.” His tee shirt strained across his chest as he took in a long breath.

  “Not sure what you’ll want to do about it,” Roger said. “She was dead keen to get to the bottom of this Nicole business, I can tell you. I’m afraid you’re in for it, squire.”

  Laurent sighed. “Well, thank you for calling, Roger. I will handle it from here.”

  “I know you will, old darling. Listen, I’m to Cap D’Antibes next month. I don’t suppose you’d be interested?”

  “Ach, non, Roger. Not this time, mon ami.”

  “Oh, well. Never hurts to ask. Take care of yourself, Laurent.”

  “Adieu, Roger.”

  Laurent hung up and turned to stare through the small kitchen window. The leaves from the cherry trees that lined the busy street below had just begun to fall. He rubbed a hand across his face as if to erase his very features. Ahhh, Maggie, he thought sadly.

  * * *

  Maggie told the taxi driver to drive to the airport by way of Montmartre. A check on her cellphone had showed that her flight was going to be delayed by at least three hours.

  Whatever.

  So Laurent had taken the information from Burton about the threatening phone call and deliberately kept it from her. What other information had he known and concealed? Had he been steering her away from the truth all along? An unwelcome and nauseating thought occurred to her.

  Burton thinks a professional killed Elise.

  Laurent is a professional.

  She dialed Michelle’s number one more time, noticing as she did that she had another call from Laurent. In spite of the mounting evidence against him, she perversely felt her resistance to him, to his efforts to connect with her, weakening. I need to shut this thing off!

  “Allo?”

  “Michelle. Hey, it’s Maggie.”

  “Maggie! Did you see him?”

  “I did. He came to my hotel. Did you send him?”

  “I knew you would be safe, chérie. It was a public place. And you needed to talk to him.”

  “Yeah, well, it was very informative,” Maggie cradled the telephone against her cheek as she watched the streets of Paris streak by. “He denied killing Elise, of course. But admitted to being responsible for the other death. I mean, this whole trip was nuts. I solved a murder three thousand miles away that means nothing to me, and I still don’t know who killed Elise.”

  “Do not give up, Maggie.”

  “I am giving up. After what I’ve learned about Elise and...and Laurent, I just don’t have the energy to go any farther.”

  “Perhaps Gerard did not strangle the life out of Elise on that night, chérie, but he killed her as surely as if he held the wire that tightened around her throat. He put an end to her art. He put an end to her friends. Elise was alive with her friends. She could not live without her art. She was an artiste!”

  “I just don’t think I care any more. Elise lived her life the way she did. Gerard or not. Trust me, Michelle, her responsibility for this disaster is in there somewhere. Let me ask you, Michelle…”

  “Yes, chérie?”

  “What do you think of Gerard’s brother, Laurent?”

  “I do not know the man very well. Only that he makes his living as le voleur...the conman. But what is it mattering now? Oh, I see. You must get to the bottom of this Laurent fellow, absoluement! There are too many questions, eh? But if it is love...”

  Truly, the French are not like the rest of us, Maggie thought as her heart twisted in pain. She said goodbye to her new friend amidst promises to write and wished she could somehow believe the same philosophy. Then she turned off her phone.

  Maggie told the driver to wait and stepped out of the cab. From where she stood at the entrance to the cemetery she could see oversized granite urns and what looked like miniature Washington monuments punctuating row after row of plain stones—which looked like a field of gray surfboards jammed into the ground. The wind picked up. White crosses jutted out from the hard ground. Stone angels and fierce cherubs guarded long-dead babies under the ghostly great trees, their leaves shed onto the patient graves and markers.

  Montmartre Cemetery.

  Maggie entered the cemetery through the arched gateway. She moved between the headstones, careful not to trample the flowers mourners had placed next to the graves, and took a seat on one of the many wrought iron benches. She thought for a moment of the ancient artisan commissioned to create these graveyard thrones.

  She thought of her father telling her and Elise ghost stories when they were girls. Elise seemed to want to believe in witches and spirits and supernatural things. She had paid close attention to her father’s stories, jumping at the appropriate spots, eyes widening in fright. Maggie hadn’t seen the point. If someone was dead, he was dead. Elise told her she had no imagination.

  Maggie turned to find the window of Elise’s apartment in the building across the street. Gone forever, Maggie thought. Elise gone, her little girl gone. And here was Maggie, sitting in the scene Elise had painted maybe a hundred times.

  Why had she come here? To say good-bye to Elise? Why not the Elise who had lived in the Latin Quarter? At least that was an Elise she might have understood. Not the drug-addled wretch who had lived here.

  Maggie’s eyes filled and she opened her purse to search for a tissue. And, of course, the Latin Quarter Elise was an Elise who hadn’t felt at all understood. She was an Elise who’d packaged herself in such a way as to be accepted by her family—but who had compromised herself to do it. This Elise was the real Elise, Maggie realized. This Elise, who had lived in Montmartre and taken drugs and had brutal lovers.

  Maggie’s fingers found the little scarf ring Brownie had given to her at Nicole’s birthday party. She thought of that little girl and her heart squeezed. What’s to be done about all that?

  She shook herself out of her blackening mood. Plenty of time for all of those questions back in Atlanta, she told herself,. She tucked away her tissue and held the scarf ring for a moment and thought of Brownie. Poor Brownie, who loved her so much and who she knew would never lie to her.

  Suddenly, as she looked at the little gold-painted scarf ring in her hand, Maggie felt a realization so swift and undeniable that she snapped the ring in two with her fingers. Sitting there on that bench in Montmartre Cemetery with no one but the dead to see or hear, she emitted an audible gasp.

  She knew who Elise’s murderer was.

  29

  Darla stared at the map of Auckland propped up against her coffee cup. Gary had drawn circles on it to indicate areas where they might live, where he would work, where Haley might attend school. Darla touched a spot on the map. Kohimarama. She traced the line across Hobson Bay. One Tree Hill. Onehunga. Te Papapa. Her finger came to a stop at Manukau Harbor.

  “Finding everything all right?” Gary leaned over the back of his wife’s chair. He smelled of soap and coffee beans. “See, this is Waitemata Harbor.” He jabbed at an expanse of blue that divided the city of Auckland. “If I take the Bates job, I’ll be able to see the water from my office. They’ve got a regatta every Wednesday in full view. That’s what the headhunter said. Pretty neat, eh?”

  “When will you be back?” Darla asked, picking up her coffee mug.

  He shrugged and peered around the corner of the kitchen into the living room as if searching for something. “Tomorrow afternoon. I’ll get there around eight or so. Meet with Bryant for dinner. God, it’s going to be a late night.”

  “You think he’ll buy you out?” The map crinkled noisily in her fingers. He thought it was taking her a long time to get it all folded up.

  “That’s the plan. Seen my briefcase?”

  “Going to wrap up everything before Maggie’s had a say?”

  Gary stopped hunting for his briefcase and looked at his wife. “Maggie has no say, Darla. But she know
s I’m talking to a guy. If it weren’t for all this happening to her and her sister, I’d be tempted to sell it to her. I’m sure her dad has the money to loan her and she’d do a great job running the shop.”

  “I think Maggie wants a husband and kids.”

  “No reason she can’t have that and an ad shop, too.

  Darla stood up from the table and put a hand up to his freshly shaved cheek. “I love you, Gary,” she said, beginning to cry.

  He put his arms around her. “Believe in me, Darla. Believe I’m doing what’s best for all of us.”

  She buried her face into his suit jacket.

  * * *

  The gods must be holding their sides was all Maggie could think as she stared at the flickering battery indicator on her phone. It looked like fate was going to ensure she didn’t break down and accept one of Laurent’s calls.

  Or anybody else’s.

  The taxi driver gave Maggie an impatient toot on his horn. Maggie glared at him as she hurried in his direction. Can’t he see I’m coming?

  “Un moment!” she shouted. It had taken a few precious moments to power her phone back up and, in her excitement, she’d dropped it in the dirt, costing her more time before she could punch in the call-back function to Burton’s line.

  “Sorry, Ma’am,” the voice crackled over the telephone line to her. “Detective Burton isn’t answering his page either.”

  Maggie shifted her phone to her other ear as she reached the cab and slipped into the backseat.

  “I’ve got to talk to him.” She closed her eyes in agony.

  “You’ll have to leave a message.” The impersonal drone of the sergeant’s voice made her want to scream. She took a deep breath and looked out the window as the taxi began to move.

  “Look, tell Detective Burton or Detective Kazmaroff that Maggie Newberry called again, okay?” She paused until she was sure the man was writing this all down. “Tell them, please, that I know who killed my sister. And Deirdre Potts, too. Tell them that. And...and to page me at the Paris airport, okay? I’ll be there in about thirty minutes and then for about an hour once I’m there. Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. Okay?”