Murder in Nice

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  “Do you have the murder weapon?”

  Massar fidgeted in his chair. “Not at this time.”

  “Then are you sure it’s murder? Isn’t it possible she could have slipped and fallen?”

  “There was a word written on her forehead, Madame,” Massar said abruptly.

  A burning sensation formed in the pit of Maggie’s stomach. Any hope she’d held out that it might truly be an accident evaporated immediately.

  “May I ask what word?”

  His eyes flickered to Annie and Maggie instinctively clenched her stomach muscles. The word must be a bad one. And one that Annie might recognize.

  “Slut,” he said. “The killer wrote the word slut across the body’s forehead.”

  Annie reacted by turning to Maggie and gripping her arm. “What’s he saying? Why is saying that word?”

  “He…he’s trying to explain to me why he believes Lanie was murdered and didn’t accidentally drown in her bath.” Maggie felt Annie’s nails dig into her arm and she forced herself not to pull away.

  “Why is he saying that word?”

  “It’s a little confusing,” Maggie lied. “I’m not sure what word he’s really saying. I’m sorry. My French is still a little spotty.”

  She heard the air come out of Annie in a long sigh, as if she’d been holding her breath.

  Maggie turned back to Massar. “That’s an English word.”

  “C’est ça.”

  “Well, why do you have a Frenchman in custody? If it was him, wouldn’t he have written salope or prostituée?”

  “Slut is shorter,” the detective said with a shrug.

  “Do you have any other evidence that makes you believe it was Olivier Tatois?”

  “We can prove that the key used to gain access to Mademoiselle Morrison’s room that night was used by Monsieur Tatois.”

  “Really?”

  “It was found in his possession.”

  “But that wouldn’t be unusual, right? Since they were sleeping together?”

  “That is true.”

  Maggie couldn’t believe how impervious the man was to her questions. He not only didn’t seem to hold back information from her, he didn’t act as if he cared one way or the other.

  Maybe he was close to retirement or something.

  “May I ask you if the body…if Mademoiselle Morrison was wearing face makeup?”

  Massar frowned. “Of course not. She was in the process of taking a bath.”

  “If she wasn’t wearing makeup,” Maggie said, “why do you think she was expecting her lover?”

  His eyes darted away, as if considering this. He was too French not to see the logic in it. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. He shrugged—that maddening, classic Gallic gesture that ended all conversations without satisfaction or resolution.

  Laurent did it all the time.

  “Monsieur Tatois has no alibi for the time in question,” he said.

  Well, jeez, neither do you and somehow you’re not in a holding cell facing a charge of murder.

  “Will that be all, Madame Dernier?” Massar said, standing, effectively ensuring that it was, in fact, all. Maggie stood and so did Annie.

  “When will you release the body to her mother?”

  “The autopsy will be finished tomorrow. Madame Morrison may make arrangements to have the body shipped to the United States by Friday.” He held out a hand for Annie to shake and then offered his hand to Maggie before escorting them out of his office and down the long hall to the lobby of the police department.

  As the two stood on the street corner, Maggie put her arm around Annie.

  “Come on, Annie,” she said. “Let’s find a quiet place to talk.” She glanced down the long pedestrian shopping street studded with multi-colored and striped umbrellas over café tables and was about to move toward the closest one when she noticed a familiar form sitting at one of the tables.

  Desiree sat facing her, smoking feverishly, focused on her companion, to whom she was gesticulating wildly. The Frenchwoman’s face was contorted into a heavy sneer, the force of which nearly made Maggie gasp for how instantly it transformed Desiree’s features into something ugly and raw. Whatever she was saying, Annie didn’t need to be anywhere near it, Maggie decided.

  As she tugged Annie away in the opposite direction, Maggie heard the same cawing bray of laughter coming from Desiree’s companion that Maggie remembered hearing at breakfast when Bob Randall had shown his amusement over some trivial thing.

  Four

  It looked more like the opening act for a circus than one of the world’s most famous beachfronts.

  Maggie watched a long line of joggers, cyclists, roller skaters and even a few acrobats walk, ride and roll two deep past the café table where she sat with Annie. Add the odd Segway and baby stroller, she marveled, and you’d have a parade of the strangest collection of narcissists and showoffs to rival Venice Beach.

  Doesn’t anybody in Nice own a computer? Maggie had seen tourists with their noses stuck in tablets and smartphones in as gorgeous and remote hideaways as Mürren, Switzerland, and yet here in the middle of civilization it seemed the Niçois wanted nothing more than to prance along the boardwalk, to see and be seen.

  Strike that, Maggie thought wryly as a mime danced by, his hands climbing nonexistent walls as he moved. Nobody cares that much about seeing. They all just want to be seen.

  The waiter brought the carafe of rosé Maggie ordered, but Annie put her hand over her wineglass and asked for bottled water.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Maggie,” she said.

  Maggie frowned, dragging her attention away from the circus of people and vehicles along the Promenade des Anglais. “What do you mean?”

  Annie sighed. “Lanie and I were estranged. Had been for years.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “I’m afraid the reason for it involves you.”

  “Me?”

  “Even now, I’m ashamed to say it. I’ve tried for years to redeem myself to Lanie. But she wouldn’t listen.”

  “I don’t understand. What happened? I remember you were the coolest mom I knew. You understood me better than my own mother did. I can’t tell you how fondly I remember our talks around your kitchen table.”

  “That was right after the divorce. I wasn’t doing very well at all.”

  “I thought you were awesome.”

  “Well, I wasn’t. In fact, what I was mostly was drunk. Lanie and I were fighting daily. She blamed me for her father leaving. She was probably right. Once…no, more than once, I told her I wished her father had gotten custody of her but I needed the child support money so that’s why she was with me.”

  “Annie, don’t do this to yourself. It was a bad time for you. I’m sure Lanie understood that when she became an adult.”

  “I told her I wished you were my daughter.”

  “Oh.”

  “Not just once. Several times. Whenever you came over, you and I would talk—just as I imagined in my fantasies that Lanie and I might some day.”

  “I…I had no idea.”

  “No, you wouldn’t. The more I drank, the more I began to think that you were the daughter I really deserved, and Lanie was just part of my punishment. I was messed up. Eventually I got help and kicked the booze, but by then the damage to Lanie was done.”

  “She must have hated me.”

  “No, she hated herself for not being you. For failing me. For failing her father.”

  “I can’t believe this. My friendship with Lanie did end abruptly, and I never knew why.”

  “Well, now you do. You probably also never knew how important you were to me during that time, did you?”

  Maggie shook her head, stunned at Annie’s confession.

  “You are the last person to owe me anything,” Annie said. “I ruined my relationship with my only child, and her friendship with you—a friendship she could have really used during that time.”
r />   “It was a terrible time for both of you,” Maggie said numbly.

  “I need you to find the person who did this to Lanie,” Annie said. “I can’t believe I’m asking but I have to know and I need you to be the one to do it. I used you to hurt Lanie and I never fixed that in her lifetime.”

  Annie grabbed a tissue and held it to her face, her eyes squeezed shut until the moment of intense grief passed.

  “Can you see why I need you to step in now and set this right? It’s not even your mess to clean up. And it’s too late for me and Lanie. I know that. But she’s been gone three whole days and I still haven’t reached for a drink. There may be some hope for me to survive this, but if there is…I’m begging you, Maggie, if you ever cared for Lanie—or for me—find out who did this to her. Help me finally do right by her.”

  *****

  Janet rapped sharply on the hotel room door. It was late afternoon; a good time to catch people in, as it was a good time to take a nap and escape the heat of the day. Although she was sure some people weren’t bothering with sleep.

  The door opened a crack and Janet felt a tightness in her jaw. Did he think she would try to force her way in?

  “I need a minute of your time,” she said tersely. “If you’re alone, that is.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not,” Randall said, his eyes droopy and veined with red. “What do you want?”

  “I want,” Janet hissed, trying to keep her voice low, “to remind you that Jim and I are not the only ones to be hurt by loose lips.”

  “Jesus, Janet,” Randall said, “spit it out before I shut the door.”

  “You told Lanie about me and Jim.”

  She dared him to deny it. She literally quivered with anticipation. A part of her wanted him to try.

  “I didn’t, as it happens, but so what? Nobody cares but you.”

  “Oh, believe me, Bob, you’re wrong about that. Jim cares a great deal.”

  “Well, he should have thought of that then shouldn’t he?” Randall began to push the door shut and she surprised herself by stepping a foot into the room and wedging it against the door.

  “I wish the rest of the world knew you the way I do,” she said in a loud whisper. “I wish your little friend knew what you were capable of.”

  “Funny, Janet, I was going to say the same thing about you.”

  She saw by the way his eyes went suddenly blank that he didn’t care who he hurt. Especially her. For a moment, the stark look startled her because she hadn’t expected that kind of honesty from him. She pulled her foot back just in time as he slammed the door in her face. She stood there for a moment, hearing her own breath, the sound of the door echoing softly in her head, until she realized one of her fingernails had been too close to the door jamb.

  A thread of blood traced down her finger to her wrist.

  *****

  Maggie walked Annie to their hotel room and closed the drapes while Annie took a sleeping pill and a bottle of water to bed. It occurred to Maggie as she slipped out of the room that Annie was in prime position to swap one addiction for another if she wasn’t careful. Maggie rode down in the elevator and found a large wing chair in the lobby with a view of the Mediterranean. She dialed home and closed her eyes, willing herself to sound calm and nonchalant when he answered.

  “Allo,” Laurent said. “Are you on your way, chérie?”

  “No, I’m not on my way, Laurent,” she said, already feeling defensive and hoping she didn’t sound it. “This is a very tense business. A woman has lost her only child. I’m doing what I can to smooth things over and take some of the horror out of it for her, but it’s not an easy or fast process.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Would you please listen to me? Lanie’s mom is really upset and I’m helping her sort out all the bureaucratic red tape in getting Lanie’s body shipped home. I did tell you they’re calling it a suspicious death, right?”

  “You are not needed for that.”

  “I’m needed to be with her, Laurent. She has no one.”

  “Why have I not heard of this person before now if she is so important to you?”

  “That is a very interesting story and I’m going to tell you as soon as I get home.”

  “I have time now.”

  “Well, okay. Let’s see…I guess it’s not so much that she was important to me as the other way around. Without knowing it, I was used as a sort of wedge between her and Lanie when…look, it doesn’t matter, Laurent. Why can’t you take my word for the fact that she needs me?”

  “Incroyable! Your child needs you.”

  “Jemmy has you—he’s probably sitting on your lap right this minute—and I’m only talking about another twenty-four hours. Annie has no one.”

  “If you tell me you have agreed to investigate this woman’s death, I am putting Jem in his car seat and driving to Nice tonight to bring you home.”

  “Jeez, Laurent, way to overreact. Did I say I was investigating it? Did I even hint at that? The police have someone in custody that they are very happy with and I have no reason to doubt their choice.”

  “So this is just about helping your friend’s mother navigate the red tape?”

  “Yes, that is it. Almost completely.”

  “Almost?”

  “Completely.”

  There was a pause. “Twenty-four hours?”

  “I promise. Put the baby on the phone; I’ll promise him, too.”

  “He isn’t old enough to know your ways yet.”

  “Laurent Dernier, you take that back.”

  He made a sound of disgust.

  “Oh, I meant to mention that my brother and Haley are on their way,” she said. “He said he’d call you when he’s an hour out from Arles. Okay?”

  Laurent grunted, which Maggie decided to take as an affirmative.

  “Meanwhile, can you tell me what cute thing Jemmy’s done since I’ve been gone?”

  An hour later, Maggie hurried up the broad stone steps of the Soho lobby to the front desk. It was after three in the afternoon but there were no guests in the lobby or standing by the desk. The concierge, a tall man with a long jaw and small eyes that missed nothing, watched her approach from under heavy eyebrows.

  “Excuse me,” Maggie said to him in French. “I’m in Room 205.”

  The man didn’t respond.

  So it’s like that, is it? It had been a long time since Maggie had bumped up against an imperious or outright rude service person in France. Even in Paris, most of them nowadays seemed to know on which side their beignet was buttered. And the south of France especially was usually a little more accommodating to tourists and foreigners.

  “Mademoiselle Morrison died in your hotel two days ago,” Maggie said bluntly. If she expected the man to blanch or soften, she was disappointed. He continued to wait for her to get to the point. “A glass of wine was found in her room. Did she order it through room service that night?”

  The man smiled faintly, surprising Maggie. It was the look from a man wondering how long before someone asked him the million-dollar question.

  “Oui,” he said.

  “And did she order just a glass or did she order a bottle?”

  “A bottle,” he said. “A Côtes du Rhône.”

  “No bottle was found in her room.”

  He shrugged. “The valet did not wait for her to drink the whole bottle.”

  “So is that your smart-ass way of telling me he delivered the bottle and left it with her?”

  “As you wish, Madame.”

  “You’ve been a peach,” Maggie said, turning away abruptly. “Thanks.”

  So Lanie had been bashed in the head with her own wine bottle. Maggie took the elevator to the second floor, her mind racing. That meant whoever had interrupted Lanie in her bath had probably not come there intending to kill her but somehow things escalated and the killer used whatever weapon he could find.

  In this case, a bottle of killer Côtes du Rhône.

/>   Where was the bottle? Surely the cops had gone through all the rubbish bins and garbage cans around the hotel. Would they think to look at a wine bottle as the weapon? Maggie sighed. There must be a hundred bottles a day tossed in the hotel garbage, not even counting the ones the guests brought in themselves.

  As Maggie turned the corner from the elevator, she slowed and then stopped. She could easily see the room she shared with Annie at the end of the hall. And she could also see a woman kneeling in front of the keyhole.

  At first she thought the person was attempting to spring the lock on the door, but as she stood there she saw the woman was trying to peer through the ancient keyhole into the room. Maggie took several quiet steps on the balls of her feet until she was close by and then cleared her throat.

  The woman jumped to her feet and whirled around to face Maggie.

  It was Dee-Dee Bell. Even in the semi-darkened hallway, Maggie saw that the woman’s blouse was food-stained and her hair had yet to be combed that day.

  “Oh, my goodness, you startled me!” Dee-Dee said, her hand to her throat. Maggie was close enough to smell her breath. She took an involuntary step back.

  “Did you drop something, Miss Bell?” she said sharply, her irritation ratcheting up as she waited for an explanation.

  “What? Oh! Yes, I did. I dropped my room key but, well, here it is! I found it.”

  “Okay, that’s bullshit. You were trying to look inside my room. What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I dropped my key.”

  “Where is it, then?” Maggie peered at the woman’s hands.

  Dee-Dee scowled at Maggie and took a step toward her. “I made a mistake, okay? Give me a break. I thought this was Desiree’s room. Hers is right next door. Okay?”

  “How is that any better than you trying to peek inside my room?”

  “Well, it’s better, Miss whoever you are—and I don’t really know why I’m answering your questions—because I have a reason for looking in Desiree’s room.”