Chapter Five
The summer passed in Atlanta in a steamy swelter of wilted magnolias and scorched traffic knots. Polo ponies fainted from the heat in Alpharetta, church picnics never began before sundown, and hundreds of the city’s children found themselves in emergency rooms suffering from dehydration or heatstroke.
The humidity was an amazing eighty percent nearly every day, and this without a single drop of rainfall. Roses shriveled up like insect husks draped on a fence, and the Georgia Power electric company became richer still as air conditioning units operated at full bore all over the city.
Darla watched a lycra-clad group of women go through their paces. The music the women were dancing to in the large gymnasium was loud and the words unintelligible to Darla. Their leader, a trim young woman with hair pulled into a ponytail on the top of her head, bounced and kicked and squealed her encouragement to the crowd. Her large breasts were just barely restrained in her bright orange bra top. They were the only part of her that jiggled, Darla noted.
“Sorry I’m late. Been waiting long?”
Although she’d been expecting her, Darla jumped at the sound of Maggie’s voice.
“God, you’re edgy.” Maggie and Darla hugged quickly. “I thought intown living was supposed to be chill.”
“It is,” Darla agreed, hefting her gym bag to her other shoulder. “It’s coming into Buckhead I find unnerving.”
“Oh.” Maggie made a face of understanding. “Gary give you a hard time about meeting me here?”
“Define hard time.”
“I’m surprised he let you come.” Maggie led the way to a set of empty lockers and tossed down her gym bag. “He’s so paranoid about the crime in town these days.”
“We had words about it,” Darla admitted. “Maybe it’d be best for my marriage if you and I do lunch in Roswell or Smyrna next time.”
Maggie sat down on the bench in front of the lockers and looked up at Darla. “Is that all that’s bothering you, Darl?”
“It’s nothing.” Darla set her bag down and began rummaging around inside it, extricating gym clothes, deodorant, aerobic shoes and socks. “I’ll tell you about it sometime when we’re both too bored with talking about everything else first.”
Maggie continued to watch her friend. “Really?”
Darla stopped digging in her bag and looked at Maggie. “Really,” she emphasized. “Besides, it’s you I want to hear about. What happened in France? Gary said you met someone.”
“I did but it turned out to be nothing.” Maggie pulled off her slacks and folded them loosely before placing them at the bottom of one of the lockers.
“How nothing? Come on, Maggie, spill it.”
Maggie held her biking shorts in one hand and looked at them as if doubting the chances of squeezing into them. “He was one of the guys who helped us get Nicole back. He and I had a thing.” She shrugged. “I really fell for him, Darla,” she said, tossing the shorts down and sitting on the little metal bench. “I wish I could describe how he made me feel. He was so caring, but also really exciting. I can’t stop thinking of him.”
“And you haven’t heard from him.”
“It’s been four months.”
“You didn’t know him very long.”
“True.”
“Was his English very good?”
“Better than my French.”
“But y’all were able to communicate okay?”
“We managed, I’d say, wouldn’t you, Darla?”
“Oh, dear. Gary didn’t mention this part. You slept with him?”
“God, Gary is such a prude. I guess he thought he was protecting my reputation or something by not telling his own wife?”
“You know Gary.”
“Yes, I slept with him. It felt right at the time.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie.”
“Me, too. You know, Darla, I hate to forever destroy the sophisticated image you probably have of me as a single-gal-about-town, but I haven’t slept with a lot of guys, and none that I didn’t know really well.”
“I understand, Maggie. I don’t think the man who preaches the Baptist service at our church would, but...”
“Why can’t I shake it off?” Maggie pulled off her blouse and slipped a tee shirt on. “I mean, I work ten hours a day, I work out at the gym—for what, I might ask? So I can continue to look good in my off-the-rack nearly-designer dresses to impress clients?” Maggie pulled on her socks and athletic shoes and began lacing them up. Darla sat down next to her on the bench and pulled out a water bottle.
“Well, you do look good.”
“I want stuff that I don’t have, Darla. Stuff I don’t even see on the horizon, you know? Husband stuff, children stuff, sharing my life with organisms other than a cat kind of stuff.” She paused. “I don’t even have a cat.”
“Sweetie, you’re just lonely.”
“How long were you single before you met Gary?”
“Me?”
“Yeah. How long were you on your own?”
“I didn’t get a chance to be on my own. I envy you that, Maggie. I really do. I mean, you know for sure that you can take care of yourself.”
Maggie shook her head and resumed lacing her sneakers. “I appreciate the effort, Darla, but it’s not all that tricky to buy your own groceries or pay the rent online. So what other reasons can you think of to envy me?”
Darla leaned over and gave Maggie an unexpected hug. “Something good is going to happen to you, Maggie. I can just feel it. Maybe not this hunky French guy you met over there, but somebody else, and soon. I know it.”
“Thanks, Darla. I sure hope you’re right.”
Later that night, Maggie returned to her darkened apartment on Peachtree Road. She flipped on the lights, made herself an iced tea, kicked off her espadrilles and heaved herself onto the couch. The air conditioner in her apartment hummed loudly, reassuringly, but she felt the weariness of the hot day settle onto her shoulders. She glanced up at the stark, high-tech wrought-iron clock on the living room wall. A little after seven.
She glanced at the coffee table where she’d dumped the mail without looking at it. She picked it up now. A bill from Macy’s, the electric bill, and a postcard from Cyprus. Her throat closing up with excitement, she dropped the rest of the mail to read the card.
Dear Maggie Hope this finds you well. Having a bit of a holiday in Cyprus. How is little Nicole? Doing well, I trust? Take care of yourself. Cheers, Roger Bentley.
Maggie turned over the postcard. An artist’s pretty blue and white rendition of the city of Paphos in watercolor on the picture side.
Even Roger felt pity enough to drop me a line.
Her cellphone rang, and when she glanced at the screen she saw it was a blocked call. “Yes?” she said sharply into the receiver.
“Mademoiselle Newberry?”
Maggie held her breath and then let it out in a rush. “Laurent?”
“Pardon?”
“Who...who is this?”
She sat up on the couch, the postcard fluttering from her fingers to the floor.
“I am Gerard Dubois. You are knowing me, yes? I am your sister Elise’s boyfriend?”
Maggie stood slowly, her heart pounding furiously in her chest. The hand holding the phone was immediately clammy. “What do you want?” she asked, wondering how she was able to sound so calm.
“What do you think I want?” The voice was high and nasty. Maggie detected a fuzziness to it too, as if alcohol had been the aperitif to the call. “I want my daughter that you and your family stealed from me. You are surprised, yes?”
Maggie felt the panic creep over her like a spreading acid. This cannot be happening, she thought with horror.
“I am talking to Monsieur Roger Bentley, yes? You are familiar, yes? Monsieur Bentley?” Maggie’s eyes flicked automatically to the postcard on the floor. “He is telling me that you have Nicole. Is true, n’est-ce pas?”
From the barely restrained gl
ee in the man’s voice, Maggie suddenly understood why he was calling her. This call had nothing to do with getting Nicole back—it had to do with how much the Newberrys wanted to keep her.
“How much?”
“And Elise said you were so stuupeeed.”
“Shut up about my sister, you filth!” Maggie was trembling with rage and almost didn’t hear the click as the man disconnected the line. “Hello?” Shaken, she dropped the phone on the couch sat down hard next to it.
Oh, God, now what was she going to do? He was going to try to take Nicole away and she couldn’t even go to the police. (“Exactly how did the child come into the United States, Miss Newberry?”) She covered her eyes with her hands and hunched over her knees.
The phone rang again and she snatched it up.
“You will not speak to me like that. You are a pig! That you would steal my child. You will give me five thousand dollars. Immediately! You are understanding me?”
Maggie’s mind raced. The banks wouldn’t open until nine tomorrow. Her father would still be at the club. Did he have that kind of cash lying around?
“Where?” She watched the hands on her living room clock spasmodically twitch off the seconds across its face. It looked vaguely malevolent to her now.
A high-pitched giggle assaulted her from the other end. “You will come with the money to the car park at the Lenox Mall, you understand? Les grandes magasins? The shopping stores?”
“How will I—?”
“Park your automobile. Gerard will find you. Perhaps when I find you, I will screw you first, eh? And then you give me the money. Ha! Ha! You will pay Gerard to be screwed!”
Maggie felt perspiration form on her face. The man might be insane, she thought. Could he have gotten into the country with a gun? Could he have gotten one since arriving?
“What time?” she asked, her stomach twisting in nausea.
“Three hours. Exactement.”
Maggie looked at the clock again. “Midnight.”
He hung up. Maggie took a deep breath, then dialed the number of her father’s club. Would he have the money? Should she call Brownie? How can our customs and immigration people let such scum into the country? Don’t they have eyes? Does this Gerard person look normal? Should she bring a gun? Her dad would have one. God! She suddenly realized she couldn’t tell her father the full story behind why she needed the money. He’d never let her meet this creep alone in a darkened mall parking lot.
“Hello? Cherokee Country Club.”
“Yes, could you please see if my father is there tonight? John Newberry?”
“Yes, of course, Mr. Newberry is upstairs. One moment and I’ll connect you.”
“Thanks.” How were they going to make sure Gerard Dubois didn’t bother them again? How were they going to get him out of their lives permanently?
Then, her dad’s strong, gentle voice was on the line. “Hello, sweetheart? What’s up?”
The towers surrounding Lenox Square, the Southeast’s once super-eminent shopping mall, loomed over all avenues leading to the retail complex. Mingling with the massive, full-leafed trees that lined nearly every street in Atlanta were the me-too office structures, strange testimony to an architectural confusion the city seemed intent to promote. The combination of trees and towers gave the part of Peachtree Road that led directly to the front of Lenox Square a feeling of secrecy, as if anything could be hiding behind them, from an upscale bookstore to a fast food restaurant…to a maniac with a hunger for killing.
Maggie left the lights and late night traffic of Piedmont Avenue and, turning right, drove slowly down the subdued stretch of Peachtree Road in front of the Financial Center and the Swissotel.
She glanced briefly at her purse in the seat next to her. Five thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, almost like her father expected to need it handy one day.
“Are you sure this will be enough to help your friend, Maggie?”
“Yes, Dad. I’ll be able to give you full details later.”
“I understand.”
“It has to do with Elise, Dad.”
“I understand, Maggie. I trust you that you, personally, are in no danger?”
“Of course not.”
“Very well. Call me when it’s done.”
Maggie shivered. A part of her was sorry that he hadn’t wanted to know it all. That he hadn’t demanded the truth. But he just wanted to throw money at the problem and to trust Maggie that this would be the end of it. Did she really believe that about her own father? She stared at the road ahead. Elise would have believed it.
Maggie waited at the light and glanced at the Swissotel, which ascended to the west of the shopping complex, and wondered if Gerard Dubois was registered there. More likely, he was settled in at one of the pimp-cribs downtown where shootings and drug overdoses were as prevalent as clean towels. Probably more so.
Sitting at the traffic light, a movement caught her eye like shifting vapors behind the trees, whose unruly branches were so long they reached out and nearly touched her car. Would Gerard come on foot? She stared into the somber web of trees and thought she could make out the form of someone standing there, watching her. Then the light changed and the half-seen figure dissolved into the deepest shadows, until she wasn’t sure she’d seen anything at all. She turned into the nearest parking area of Lenox Square.
Her eyes scanned the full width of the parking lot as she drove cautiously to the building entrance. The mall had closed two hours earlier and there were only a few other cars in the lot.
She decided she was too nervous to park very far away from the mall itself. Even as a darkened, largely vacant hulk, it felt like a source of security to her, probably from years of mindless, depression-solving shopping junkets there. She peered at the nearest car—about a hundred yards away—as she parked her Honda. There didn’t appear to be anyone in it, but of course he could be hiding, crouched down on the floorboards.
A cold wave of fear fluttered over her. Her fingers fumbled for the small leather-encased tube of mace she kept at the end of her key chain. A faint hum of traffic from Piedmont came filtering down to her in the little cement valley.
Don’t these places have security? But there seemed to be no activity, no movement anywhere, as if, when the doors had closed at ten and the last shopper had finally been expelled, the whole shopping arcade had been vacated by managers, restaurant workers, maintenance, clerks and security guards, too.
She called Brownie earlier but he didn’t pick up. She was sorry now she hadn’t left a message. She gripped the steering wheel and felt the knots in her stomach clench and unclench, then clench again.
Would this be the end of it? Would he just take the money and go away? Was Roger okay? What about Laurent? Does Gerard know Laurent, too? Her stomach tightened again.
She heard the car before she saw it. Her shoulders rigid, clutching her mace, she held her breath as the car crept slowly toward her, its headlights turned off. Inside, Maggie could see two people. One head—considerably lower than the driver’s—looked like it belonged to a small child. For one irrational moment she thought, My God, he’s taken Nicole! The car pulled up next to her and stopped.
Maggie gaped at the car’s driver. His face was illuminated by one foggy streetlight overhead and Maggie saw, with surprise, that Gerard was handsome. She was stunned that the man who could destroy her sister, torment her niece, and blackmail her entire family could be something other than physically repulsive. He drove until their drivers’ windows were next to each other.
“Mademoiselle?” His voice broke the silence. High and ugly, it distorted his pleasant face and created a leering visage of wickedness. “Gerard is here. You have the money?”
Afraid to take her eyes off him, Maggie fumbled for the packet of bills in her purse and tossed it through her window into his hands. She immediately started her car and pushed the gear into place, ready to peel out and away from this man.
“Stop!” he shouted at her, and she thought for a moment he was going to get out of his car. The form next to him, huddled in the shadows, hadn’t moved.
“You don’t have to count it,” she said breathlessly. “Now, leave us alone.” Maggie knew her voice sounded frail and she hated herself for it.
He laughed, a shiny web of spittle forming on his lips. How could Elise have loved this? Slept with this? Maggie shivered, the hand on her stick shift still holding her tube of mace.
“I give you a little something too, eh?” He pushed his face through his window, so close that Maggie could smell the wine on his breath. She was suddenly angry to think he had been out having dinner somewhere, enjoying a glass of wine or two, while she’d been scraping up five thousand dollars and worrying her father.
“Don’t contact us again. Do you understand? We’ll call the police next time.”
He spat at her, a fleck of the spume grazing her cheek as it splattered against her car door. Her foot slipped from the clutch and her car stalled. Before she could restart it, Gerard leaned over the form seated next to him in the car, jerked open the passenger side door and pushed the person out onto the parking lot pavement.
“A little something I don’t want anymore. Compliments of Gerard Dubois!” He slammed the door shut and drove off with a squeal of tires. Maggie watched, shocked and aghast as he drove away, leaving the lumpish bundle of clothes, arms and legs in a heap on the ground. She stared at the body. It twitched slightly and then moaned.
Maggie jumped out of the car and ran to the body of what turned out to be a woman on the ground—it was clear it was not a child after all.
“Hello, can I help you?” Maggie knelt next to the woman and touched her shoulder gently.
The woman groaned and struggled to rise up on one elbow. Maggie could see she’d scraped her arm in her exit from Gerard’s car, but her hair hung in tangled sheets of brown snarls, obscuring her face.
“Parlez-vous anglais?” Maggie scanned the darkened parking lot for any sign of another person or a car.
“I am American.” The woman croaked out the words as if unused to speaking. “Where...where am I?”
Maggie grabbed the woman’s arms and pulled them away from her face, the woman weakly resisting her as she did so. Maggie touched the ravaged face, pulling it toward her, her fingers pressing into the woman’s skin. Their eyes met, one pair haunted and cloudy, the other wide and disbelieving.
It was Elise.
Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries Page 9