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

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  She could hear the sudden, fierce yapping of Petit-Four directly behind her. Struggling to push past the two hunting dogs, she turned to dump her armload of rugs onto the stone bench beside the terrace door. She caught her breath in a sudden, painful intake. Sitting on the bench was Gaston Lasalle. The missing club lay across his lap.

  Chapter Six

  The strong scents of rosemary, woodsmoke and lavender filled the air in the back garden. Maggie stood with her back to the French doors. Gaston Lasalle held the heavy stick in his large, capable hands. His face was flushed and angry, his small, lively eyes, boring straight through her.

  The dogs loped off to the hole in the hedge of the garden that led to the vineyards.

  “Get out of here,” Maggie said.

  “Or what, you stupid bitch?” Lasalle sneered, lifting the stick threateningly. Maggie backed away against the French doors. She was aware of Petit-Four’s frantic yapping and scraping on the other side of the door. “You will be telling your husband?” he taunted. His English was pocked with hard ‘g’s ending most words.

  “He will be very angry. We have no more work for you,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her. “You must go away now.”

  “Oh, yes?” Gaston tossed the stick down on the stone table and casually sat down. “Your husband was not angry before, hein?" The dark gypsy made an obscene cupping motion to remind Maggie of their earlier run-in. “He still shakes my hand in the street, Madame,” he said. “Perhaps he will thank Gaston to make love with you, eh?” He stood up and leaned toward Maggie. “Perhaps he will pay me to do it?”

  “If you touch me, you will go to jail for a very long time, maybe forever,” she said. “I am an American citizen. My consulate will see you get the guillotine!” Maggie turned and grabbed the door handle behind her. Gaston leaped up and slammed his hand against the door before she could open it.

  Maggie kept her hand on the door handle. “I know who you are,” she blurted out. Instantly, she wasn’t sure whether that had been a wise thing to say. Lasalle’s face hardened and he leaned against the door, putting her face between his arms and almost touching her nose with his.

  “I am who, Madame?” His voice was soft, nearly gentle. “A gitane, oui? A gypsy who your husband has invited to share wine with his family tomorrow. An honored guest of yours, Madame.”

  “You’re lying,” she croaked, intimidated and stunned.

  “Non.”

  “My hus...he would not have you in our house.”

  “Non?" The gypsy pushed himself off the door and away from Maggie. Watching her as he backed away, he picked up the stick again and, in one quick swing, smashed to pieces the two small terra-cotta pots of geraniums that Maggie had set on the low garden wall. She retreated inside and locked the doors behind her.

  “Until then, Madame,” Lasalle shouted to her through the windows. He tossed down the stick and hopped easily over the low stonewall. Maggie watched him disappear into the mist.

  Without taking her eyes off the garden where Lasalle had stood only seconds before, Maggie knelt to the floor and took the still-yapping puppy into her arms. As she soothed the dog and allowed it, with its licking and nuzzling, to soothe her, her eyes fell on the orange shards of broken terra-cotta. The black soil was scattered like a freshly dug grave, the geranium stems and blooms shooting out from it at unnatural angles.

  What had Lasalle wanted? Had Laurent really invited him to the dégustation tomorrow after their family Thanksgiving Day dinner? She ran her fingers through the small dog’s fur, combing it as if to straighten each curl. She continued to stare out the French door as if expecting Lasalle to reappear. She could see where the door panel was smudged and foggy from Petit-Four’s earlier protestations.

  Was he trying to scare her? She looked at little Petit-Four who was staring up at her with large eyes. Why me?

  She took a deep breath, kissed the dog on its topknot of curls and placed it on the couch. She stood up and walked to the phone. Carefully, she picked up the receiver, wondering what kind of police response a village the size of St-Buvard would have. Surely, it didn’t rate its own gendarmerie? But even if it did, was she willing to ruin her parent’s visit by having a squad of the local fuzz sitting around munching truffle pie and asking her to describe her assailant? No, this wasn’t a matter for the police, she decided, as she dialed.

  By the time Grace answered on the third ring, Maggie had convinced herself that it hadn’t really been much of an assault at all.

  Elspeth Newberry looked like she belonged in the sunniest part of Provence, the part where the light was brilliant. Artists would love the gentle planes of her face, Maggie thought, as she sat opposite her mother. Elspeth’s hazel eyes were intelligent and knowing. Her thick, auburn hair, cut just to her ears, framed her face exquisitely. To be this beautiful at seventy-three, Maggie knew, was a legacy of her mother’s family. Her older sister, Elise, had rivaled their mother’s beauty. If Elise had lived, Maggie found herself thinking with surprise, she would be like Mother. Surprising, Maggie thought as she watched her beautiful, poised mother, because Elspeth and Elise were completely antipodal in nature.

  Her parents had arrived before Maggie had time to sufficiently blow dry her long hair, so she had tucked two combs on either side of her face and let it dry down her back. After all the initial flurry of kisses and hugs and good-natured reminders to one another that they’d just seen each other less than two months ago, Maggie ushered the group into the living room while Laurent carried their bags upstairs. Nicole, Elise’s daughter, seemed particularly delighted to be in France.

  “It’s wonderful, Aunt Maggie,” the little girl said. “We ate hot chocolate and croissants and jam and then Poppa let me see the movie and play with the headphones...”

  “Was it a good flight?” Maggie asked her parents as she wrapped her arms around her enthusiastic niece. “This one enjoyed it, I think.”

  John Newberry took his wife’s hand from where he was seated on the couch and nodded his head. “She slept most of the time,” he said, a playful smile tugging at his lips.

  “I did not!” Nicole pulled back from Maggie and shook a finger at her grandfather. “Poppa, you know I didn’t!”

  “Oh, maybe it was me who slept most of the time,” John said.

  “Your house is wonderful, Laurent,” Elspeth said as Laurent reappeared. “Quite the château!"

  Laurent shrugged but Maggie could see he was pleased. “It is only a farmhouse,” he said, waving his hand toward the rough plastered stonewalls. “A mas."

  “And Maggie, you’ve really made it a home,” Elspeth said as she examined one of the original watercolors Maggie had picked up with Grace at an art festival in Arles. Tall oak bookcases flanked the French doors. Maggie had filled them with books and mementoes from Atlanta and her week in Paris with Laurent before they had arrived in St-Buvard.

  A Sheffield candlestick, found by Grace in one of their Saturday morning trips to the Avignon flea market, had been turned into a lamp. Four heavy chairs, mismatched in damask and cotton fabrics of blue and rose and ochre, crowded the large couch that faced the enormous fireplace.

  Maggie had piled pillows from Lyons and Paris in all the chairs, pillows in colorful cottons, braided and tasseled and fringed. Every side table and coffee table held at least one vase of flowers from the Aix flower market―roses, petunias, zinnias, sunflowers. A worn, but still regal, Oriental rug stretched from the kitchen to the French doors.

  “Honestly,” her mother said, appreciatively. “It all looks straight out of Maison Marie-Claire!"

  Everyone laughed.

  “I have to admit,” Maggie said, looking about the room, “it’s been fun scouting out stuff for this place.” She looked at Laurent as he settled in one of the large, overstuffed chairs and took Nicole onto his lap. Nicole curled up in the crook of his arm and laid her head on his shoulder.

  “Est-ce que Nicole est fatiguée?” Elspeth said softly to the child.

>   Nicole murmured an unconvincing "non" and closed her eyes.

  “She misses you both,” Elspeth said, watching the two in the chair together.

  “Où est la petite amie?” Laurent asked, looking around the floor and then up at Maggie. Where is the little pet?

  “Outside. I thought I’d wait until hellos were over before I brought her in.” She turned to her Mother. “We have a new addition to the family.”

  “It’s not a goat or something, I hope,” her mother said pleasantly, her eyes sparkling.

  “Perhaps it’s a pig, dear,” John said with a straight face.

  “Thank you, both of you,” Maggie said. “It’s neither. It’s a ground sloth and it’s indigenous to the region. A perfectly Provençal pet. In fact,” she said brightly, “it’s a gift for you!”

  “What time does our train leave, dear?” John made a show of checking his watch to laughter from Maggie and Elspeth.

  Laurent stood up with the child in his arms. “I think the ground sloth must wait. Will it upset her to awake in a strange bed?” he asked Elspeth.

  Elspeth got up from the couch. “I’ll go with you, Laurent, to put her down,” she said, “Although, I’m sure she’ll be fine.” She gave Maggie a quick kiss. “I want to freshen up a little anyway, darling.” Elspeth followed Laurent up the wide marble stairs.

  Maggie joined her father on the couch. She took his hand. “Mom didn’t leave us here alone because you’ve got bad news for me, did she?”

  Her father laughed. “I swear,” he said, “I have no news, good or bad, to report, except that I am very glad to see you looking so happy, darling. And you do look so happy.”

  “Do I?” Maggie asked. “I am, but listen, how is Nicole doing? She looks great.”

  John Newberry leaned back into an oversized quilted pillow on the couch. “She’s doing very well,” he said. “The problem comes because she sometimes does too well.” He looked back at Maggie and smiled sadly.

  “Like how?” Maggie frowned.

  “Well, we tend to forget her history and all she has had to overcome. I mean, she’s so smart, Maggie!” He looked eagerly at his daughter. “You can’t even tell she has a French accent, can you?”

  Maggie shook her head and watched her father closely to try and determine if he was painting a rosier picture than was accurate.

  “And she’s so damn cheerful all the time. Just like you were when you were her age.”

  “And then what?” Maggie motioned with her hand to indicate she was ready to hear the other shoe drop.

  He sighed heavily and laid his hands palms downwards upon his knees. Maggie noticed he looked tired. In fact, she noticed, really for the first time, that he was looking old.

  “And then she does or says something which reminds us all that she’s not a normal little seven-year-old with a happy, unblemished memory of her first years.”

  “She’s not in therapy?” It wasn’t really a question. Maggie knew her niece wasn’t being seen by anyone.

  “You know the answer to that,” her father said.

  “Mother won’t allow it.”

  “I’m not sure she’s wrong, darling. Nicole really is doing quite well.”

  “Except for a few little mishaps here and there.”

  “Which,” her father held up a finger and pointed at Maggie, “I’m not sure she wouldn’t suffer even in the hands of the finest psychotherapist.” He shrugged and flicked away dust from his pants cuffs. “We’re happy with her progress, darling.”

  Maggie nodded with understanding and some resignation. Her niece did have a lot to overcome, from heartless first-graders who could hear that faint, telltale foreign accent in her voice, to the memory of the abuse she suffered as a toddler from strangers and relatives in her first home in France. Nicole had probably never known her real mother. That’s a big bundle for a little kid, Maggie thought as she watched her father glance overhead to the sounds of Laurent and Elspeth’s footsteps upstairs.

  “Come on, Dad,” Maggie said, tapping her father on the knee. “Give me a hand pulling the hors d’oeuvres out of the oven?” She stood up and smoothed out the lap of her knit cotton pants. “Laurent will undoubtedly tell you their per-bite value when he returns.”

  “He said truffles were involved,” her father said, standing up.

  “That’s what I mean. I’ll have to get a part-time job to cover the costs if I burn them.” Impulsively, Maggie turned and gave her father a tight hug. “Oh, Dad,” she said, smelling his familiar scent of tweed and soap, “I’m so glad y’all are here. It’s going to be a wonderful Thanksgiving.”

  Laurent pulled the corks out of two bottles and looked at Maggie questioningly.

  “Is that all?” he asked quietly.

  She knew what he meant. He wasn’t belittling her fears by the question. He was asking if she had told him everything.

  She hadn’t.

  In the hour before Laurent had arrived with her parents and niece Maggie had decided, with Grace’s help, to keep Gaston’s earlier assault of two weeks ago to herself. The incident would only enrage Laurent, and the last thing she needed during her parents’ visit was to have Laurent off trying to murder some rat-bag grape-picker.

  “I don’t want him here, Laurent.” Maggie pulled the second batch of truffle pies out of the oven and scrutinized their golden tops. “He was rude. He broke our flower pots.” She looked up at her lover and he was watching her. “He scared me.”

  “He will not be here tomorrow, chérie," he said, his deep brown eyes probing hers. "Je te le promets." I promise you.

  The dates were circled on the calendar, it seemed to Grace, like angry red ovums. Indicting, mocking, nasty circles, blood-red, menses-red. She stood in the cold, stainless steel kitchen and slowly counted the days since ovulation as she had counted them nearly every morning for the last two weeks. Then she counted the days since her last period. Both of these goal dates were also circled. Days of shame and failure should she reach them and then bleed.

  Days of agonizing hope and distrustfulness should she reach them with no telltale verdict on her mini-pad. She shifted from one bare foot to the other and again counted the days, this time counting since the last time she and Windsor had made love. She tapped the end calendar date with her finger. Impossible, she thought. She shook her head and went to the refrigerator, careful not to make any noise. One wrong step, one creaking wooden slat, and Taylor would awaken and descend upon her.

  Grace took a pitcher of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured herself a tall tumbler full. If sperm can live up to seventy-six hours, she reasoned, and the egg (or eggs) hadn’t spring boarded itself into the fallopian tubes until...she returned to the calendar and squinted at the circled dates...until, when? seventy hours later...She stood with her index finger pressed against yet another calendar date. This is ridiculous. I’m banking on a seven-hour window of opportunity? Is that nuts?

  She sighed and drank the orange juice. Above her head, she could hear the rustling and then thumping noises that meant Taylor was awake.

  She rinsed out her juice glass and, pulling her full-length silk dressing gown shut around her slim waist, went to the bottom of the stairs and listened. She had hoped to get a cup of coffee to herself before her day began, but that was not to be. The sounds of water thundering in the overhead pipes meant that Windsor was up too.

  “Mommy!” The voice shrieked plaintively down the broad, winding staircase. “Mommy, come here!”

  Grace looked at the stairs and wondered when they had skipped the part in Taylor’s education where she learned to say “please” and “thank you.” Before Grace had children, she had sat around her friends’ homes observing their little horrors, confident that these friends―although wonderful enough people―were completely useless as parents. She wondered if Maggie thought that about her.

  “I need you!” the little voice howled, the last word stretched out to nearly inhuman proportions. Grace was sure Windsor hid in the s
hower in the morning in order to avoid the duties of parenting Taylor, taking sometimes up to twenty or thirty minutes to wash and shampoo his hair. The coward, she thought, then felt suddenly uncharitable. After all, she reminded herself, he does drive her to and from school most days.

  Grace moved slowly up the stairs toward her screaming daughter. She resisted the urge to cover her ears as she approached the child’s bedroom, and instead swung open the door as if the sudden motion might shock the girl into silence.

  “Mommy!” Taylor sat in the middle of her four-poster bed under a canopy of pink and white lace and chiffon. Her little hands lay calmly in her lap as if the screaming were simply a device, a tool to be dredged from her bag of parental manipulations, but had nothing to do with how the child actually felt at any particular time.

  “Darling, what is all this shouting about?” Grace frowned and then began picking up last night’s frock, crumpled socks and underwear.

  “I’m ready to get up,” the girl said, pouting.

  “Well, sweetheart, you know you don’t have to―”

  “And I want you to get my blue velvet dress for today.”

  “Taylor, you don’t want to eat your breakfast in your good dress, do you?” Grace stooped and picked up the stack of magnetic blocks that had not been played with in weeks.

  “Yes, I do.”

  When will I learn to tell, not ask? Grace looked at Taylor with resignation and fatigue. She was a beautiful child, all tumbling gold curls and large green eyes fringed with thick brown lashes. Her skin was as perfect as a porcelain doll’s.

  Grace continued to watch Taylor as the child leaned back on her lace pillows. She forced a smile for the child that she didn’t feel. Did she really have the energy to start this day― of all days―with a battle?