“What the hell are you talking about?” Randall said in frustration as he fired up the car and began backing out of the parking lot of the hotel.
“Please give me the chance to make it up to you. It’s just ten minutes away by car—”
“You cost me twenty-five grand!”
“Je suis désolée!”
“Désolée my ass! You’re crazy is what you are.” He lowered his voice and muttered, “You’re all crazy.”
“Think of it, chérie. If you give the co-anchor slot to me everyone will know there can’t be a breath of guilt attached to you over the incident with Lanie.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Is it believable that two people so in the public eye could get away with murder and then go on to anchor a major popular television show? It’s incroyable. No one would ever believe it. Better yet, they’ll feel sympathique toward you, toward us…and the show.”
“I don’t need the sympathy vote, Desiree. I’m innocent. Remember?”
Maggie was astounded that the two of them would have this conversation in front of her and the Andersons. It was a testimony to Desiree’s desperation, and Randall’s callousness.
Desiree responded, her voice wheedling. “But in our business, it’s all about perception, no? Let us show the world together that we have nothing to apologize for. Make me your co-anchor.”
He hesitated but Maggie could see he was relenting. “You’re crazy,” he said.
“Peut-être,” she said, tentatively touching his arm and trying to catch his gaze, “but I think we can make that work.”
Maggie felt the tension in the car build as the silence grew. Wedged in-between Janet and Jim, she almost felt like she was watching a movie. An irrational part of her was tempted to reach out to try to raise the volume just a tad.
“We need one last presentation,” he said quietly, lowering his voice for the first time as though finally aware they had an audience, “so Dee-Dee’s isn’t the final one.”
Desiree put her hand on his neck and leaned toward him. “Le Abbaye des Martyrs,” she said. “It is ten minutes away. Let me remind you of your faith in me.” She dropped her voice. “Just ten minutes away.”
*****
Laurent worked the kinks out of his neck as he drove the last curve of the long drive to Domaine St-Buvard. It had been a long day. Even in the growing dark, he could make out the rough outline on the horizon of his vineyard. For the first time in months, he felt his heart lift to see it. His meeting with Adele ensured the continuation of his life here with Maggie and Jem. It wouldn’t be the same, true. He and Maggie would have to have a painful heart-to-heart about the foreseeable future of their finances.
But in the end, it would work out.
As he pulled up to the gravel parking lot in front of the house, he saw the shadowy form of Ben Newberry leaning against the front pillar, smoking. Laurent grimaced, but thought in light of the new, positive change of circumstances perhaps the man could be endured for a few days more, at least for Maggie’s sake. It would take more energy and drama to throw the putain out than to finish the visit. He turned off the car and watched Ben approach him.
Laurent had spent too many years studying people not to have figured out some basic assumptions about unspoken human behavior. After having been caught red-handed last night ransacking Laurent’s study, Maggie’s brother was apologetic and pleading.
But this evening, Ben’s posture as he sauntered to the car told Laurent the man had rebounded. To affect this kind of confidence in the wake of last night’s humiliation told Laurent that the snake had replenished his venom. Laurent waited for him to come.
“Care to take a little ride, Laurent?” Ben said smoothly when he reached the car.
Laurent hesitated only a moment and then nodded. “Get in.”
They drove in silence back down the long driveway toward the village. Laurent knew it was likely that whatever gambit Ben had up his sleeve was not as potent as the man thought it was. Even so, long years in the trenches had taught Laurent not to assume too much. Better to be prepared for whatever was coming than taken unawares. He drove to the gravel turnaround at the entrance to St-Buvard and pulled onto the verge. He didn’t bother turning the car off. And he didn’t speak.
“I’ll need the light for this little magic trick,” Ben said, reaching up to turn on the car’s interior light.
Laurent watched him, his eyes missing nothing. There was a stain on the man’s shirt from lunch. He reeked of tobacco, so had evidently been attempting his nonchalant welcome home for Laurent for hours. And Ben’s fingers trembled as he reached into his jacket pocket, belying his outward presentation of calm and control.
Ben unfolded a copy of the Ordeur contract and placed it on the dashboard. Next, he took a pen out of his pocket and put it on the pages.
He’s confident, Laurent thought. I’ll give him that.
Ben pulled an envelope out of his breast jacket pocket and extricated a photograph. The image was grainy, the background broken up and indistinct. The figure in it, unmistakable.
Laurent said nothing. A photograph of him at a counter of a jewelry store was evidence of nothing. He couldn’t help notice, though, that Ben’s envelope was thick.
“A good likeness, don’t you think?” Ben said. “I have two others taken seven years ago at two different jewelry stores on the Côte d’Azur.”
Ben pulled out the photographs, surveillance camera screen grabs, each showing Laurent in a jewelry store talking with a different man behind the counter. Ben unfolded a text document that was obviously a fax.
“I’ve got testimony from two of the marks in the photos—that’s what you call them, isn’t it? Marks?”
Laurent looked at Ben, a slight smile on his lips. “This will not work.”
“Oh, no? Well, I have written testimony from a Monsieur Denis Blanc—you probably didn’t bother to remember the names of the people you scammed—but Monsieur Blanc remembers you well. He’s in prison, you know, doing time for criminal money laundering. A very bitter man, I assure you.”
Laurent waited for the rest. Three photos and the ranting of a convicted felon didn’t concern him. Yet.
“He said you posed as an attorney in order to collect a phony debt from a corporate client of yours. Ring any bells?”
When Laurent didn’t respond, Ben continued pulling sheets out of the envelope. “So when Monsieur Blanc deposited the cheques you sent him, fake, of course—and yes, before you say anything, I know he’s a greedy bastard and likely deserved what he got—he was arrested. My little online research did enlighten me that most marks usually fall for a conman’s tricks because of their greed or outright larceny. Doesn’t change the fact Monsieur Blanc went to jail and you walked away with a half a million euros.”
Laurent put the car into gear. “You have been busy,” he said, turning the car around and pointing it back toward Domaine St-Buvard. The contract on the dashboard fluttered to the floor.
“Well, in all honesty,” Ben said, picking up the contract, “I can’t take full credit for finding all this. But, yes, it was hours of research. I have more, too. I have documented evidence of rip deals you did up and down the French Riviera: exact dates, testimony from your marks, photographs. You name it.”
Laurent didn’t know what the bastard had, how damning it was, or if any of it might stand up in a court of law. He did know that if it came to a trial—even if it didn’t put him in prison—it would ruin everything he had built at Domaine St-Buvard.
“And all of this just for a signature from me?” he said dryly.
“See, I knew you were smart. Yes, exactly. Sign the contract and I won’t go to Interpol with these. Don’t sign it and you’ll lose the vineyard, the house, your freedom, probably your marriage.” Ben fumbled on the floor for the pen and held it up. “I have a recording of a telephone conversation between you and a Roger Bentley—he is a confederate of yours, I believe—that I can guarantee a jury will
see for exactly what it is: two con men at work.”
Laurent drove slowly, his head aching from the long day, Ben’s voice droning in his ear. He was tempted to roll down the window for some night air but wasn’t sure he wouldn’t vomit as soon as he did. What control he had needed to stay firmly in place.
“You will go to prison, Laurent,” Ben said. “It’s that simple. Sign the contract, if for no other reason, then for Jemmy’s sake—”
Laurent slammed on the brakes, and was startled because he hadn’t realized he was about to. The car sat in the middle of the road, the engine humming, the half moon illuminating the trees that bordered the road like jagged black spears pointing skyward. Laurent looked at his hands as they gripped the steering wheel.
Ben cleared his throat. “Look, my parents may know theoretically about your criminal past, but it’s a little different seeing it in vivid color. Imagine sitting at the family Thanksgiving table in Atlanta across from John and Elspeth Newberry after they’ve heard the audio of you posing as a businessman to sell worthless shares to unsuspecting victims. Oh, but what am I saying? It will only be Maggie sitting there. Because you, my criminal friend, will be in prison. For many, many Thanksgiving Days to come.”
Laurent turned to look at him, his face impassive.
“Don’t blame me for this,” Ben said, a line of perspiration popping out on his forehead. “You brought this on yourself. There is an easy way out.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Laurent said as he leaned across Ben and jerked open the passenger side door. “Get out.”
“Are you serious? We’re at least two miles from—”
Laurent grabbed Ben by his shirtfront and slammed his face into the dashboard. Ben screamed and grabbed his face as blood gushed between his fingers.
“You broke my nose!”
With a hard shove, Laurent toppled Ben out of the car and onto the road.
Too bad we don’t have a recording of that, Laurent thought as he put the car into gear, not bothering to look in the rearview mirror but hearing the creature’s howls as he drove away.
One thing was certain: the day had suddenly and definitely turned to shit.
Seventeen
If it wasn’t so creepy, it would be truly beautiful, Maggie thought as she stared up at the towering stone structure of the forbidding Benedictine monastery. L'Abbaye des Martyrs perched like an ominous hulk over the D17, a scant ten miles from Arles but visible the minute they broke free of the city limits.
“He saved the best for her,” Olivier said in disgust. He and Maggie stood in the dirt car park at the base of the steep walkway that would take them to the abbey. The others had already walked up to the structure but Maggie stayed behind to help Olivier carry his video equipment. He’d arrived by taxi minutes after the group had arrived at the scene.
“I really don’t think he knew Desiree would try to hurt Dee-Dee,” Maggie said, her eyes going from the tops of the darkened towers across the multiple and variable pitched roofs. For some reason, the word wicked formed in her mind and she shivered. “Are you really going to have enough light to shoot? It’s nearly dark.”
“I’ll set up lights inside,” he said, hoisting the heavy tripod onto his shoulder. “The acoustics are amazing in there. Dee-Dee earned this part of the tour. She should be giving the last presentation. You won’t need your purse. We’ll be done in twenty minutes. Can you grab the camera bag?”
Maggie shouldered Olivier’s camera bag and began the long walk up the drive. “Is it deserted?”
He shrugged and squinted up at the facade of the looming stone castle. “They talk about turning it into a museum or something,” he said, joining her on the gravel walkway. “But for now, it’s just a ruin. It sits on a huge rock that rises out of a former lagoon.”
“Not getting any less creepy. How old is it?”
“900 AD?”
Maggie looked at the stark architecture and tried to imagine anyone living here, as the monks must have done for centuries. She tried to imagine anyone feeling warmth or joy within its hostile, cold walls—from life or God Himself.
A sound up ahead made her look up in time to see Randall and Jim coming back down the path supporting Janet between them. She and Olivier stepped off the path to let them pass.
“What happened?” Maggie asked.
“She’s drunk,” Randall said in disgust. “Gonna let her sleep it off in the car.”
“I don’t see why I have to come,” Jim grumbled. A closer look showed he wasn’t really helping to support Janet. His hands were shoved in his pockets. Maggie watched them disappear at the bottom of the path and turn toward the car, now swallowed up by the night.
“Ever hear of the book Ten Little Indians?” Maggie said as she turned back to Olivier.
“No. What’s it about?”
She trudged up the path. “It’s about a group of people who disappear one by one.”
Desiree was visible at the top of hill smoking a cigarette. “Bob said to go ahead and set up,” she said as Olivier and Maggie walked by. They didn’t respond. At the base of the abbey was a small courtyard that led to an opening on top of a series of wide stone steps.
“Kind of anticlimactic,” Maggie commented.
“Wait ’til you see inside.”
“I take it you’ve been here before.”
She saw him nod in the half-gloom.
“Once. With Lanie.”
They mounted the steps, then turned to see if they could see Randall and Jim returning. Maggie assumed Janet must be causing some kind of trouble because they still hadn’t returned. She saw a halo of blue smoke curl around Desiree’s head, then turned to see that Olivier was holding open the massive wooden door.
Inside, the quiet enveloped them and Maggie was struck by a feeling of unearthly holiness. But the feeling didn’t bring with it any sense of peace. Her shoes were rubber soled and made no sounds on the slate floor. The entranceway opened up onto the grand hall—dark, austere, dangerous, unwelcoming. Graceful repetitive arches telescoped within each other in a series of symmetrical doorways that led them onward.
Olivier walked forward and Maggie hurried to stay with him. She had to force herself not to grab on to his sleeve. There was a feeling of death and hopelessness here that engulfed her and made simple breathing difficult.
“Wait for me, please.” Her voice sounded calm and reassuring in her ears and she decided that more talking might help chase the ghosts back to their tombs. Olivier set the tripod down and began loosening the bolts to extend each leg. There was a moon tonight and it gave some light to the room through the high, small windows.
She cleared her throat. “Can we put the lights on? I’m not loving the whole creeping around in the dark thing.”
Olivier laughed, but he reached in the camera bag and pulled out a heavy flashlight with a large clip on it. He attached it to the base of the tripod. “This is probably not the time to tell you about the crypt beneath where we are standing.”
“Very funny, Olivier.”
“I am not joking. They’re graves of centuries of monks, of starving peasants and villagers slaughtered by the plague, and of course, all the Protestants tortured and murdered here. They sleep now beneath these stones.”
“Where are we in the abbey?” Maggie asked, looking around, her flesh crawling and goose-bumping.
“This is the cloister,” he said. “It’s where the monks prayed. Built in the eleventh century, I think.”
“Where are Bob and Desiree?” Maggie asked, feeling her heart begin to speed up. The light was almost worse than the darkness, she decided. It accentuated the pockmarks in the ancient stone walls and revealed how high up those walls went, disappearing into the darkness of the ceiling with only a few streaks of moonlight dappling the dark. She tried to hear if anyone was coming. Nothing.
“May I ask you something?” Olivier said.
“Sure.” Maggie rubbed her arms through her thin cardigan. It was summer in Provence
and she wasn’t dressed for icy caverns or stone dungeons.
“I know you are trying to find justice for Lanie, but after all the time we have spent together I still do not know who you think killed her.”
“Oh, I have my theories.”
Olivier snapped the video camera onto the tripod and tightened the screws. “Any you might share with me?”
“Well, for starters I’ve always believed the paternity of Lanie’s baby was the key to who killed her.”
“Really?” Olivier took Maggie by the shoulders and gently moved her in front of the camera. “May I check the white balance on you?”
“Sure,” Maggie said. “I mean, I can’t help but think that her pregnancy was the catalyst. Without it the murder feels too random.”
Olivier didn’t speak.
“Did you and Lanie talk about it?” Maggie asked. “The baby?”
“I did not know she was pregnant.”
“Oh.” Of course that makes perfect sense, especially if Lanie knew the baby wasn’t his.
“But if I had known,” Olivier said, “nothing would have given me more joy.”
Maggie nodded. She decided it wasn’t worth mentioning that Lanie probably wouldn’t have kept the baby. She surely stood no chance at the co-anchor slot with a child.
Olivier looked at Maggie through the viewfinder and she found herself feeling uncomfortable. Was he acting a little strange tonight?
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Maggie said. “The keycard the cops found in your wallet. Massar says it’s their main piece of evidence against you.”
“That’s not a question.”
“Did Lanie give it to you?”
“Of course. She slipped it under my door that night.”
“And then you put it in your wallet.”
“That’s right.”
“So were you planning on visiting her later?”
“Comment?”
“Well, she gave you the key to her room, right? Like an invitation?”
“Oui, of course. Yes, I was intending on going to her later.”
Murder in Nice Page 19