Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  *****

  Gary gazed out his office window into the late afternoon pollution-dimmed haze. “And that kind of frequency looks good to you?”

  “It looks excellent to me, Gary.” Patti sat opposite Gary in his office. “This buy will guarantee saturation, practically.”

  “Practically.” The voice came from the doorway.

  Gary looked up at Pokey Lane standing in the hall, smirking. “Ah, Pokey. Leaving for the night?”

  “What do you mean, ‘practically’?” Patti swung her bony legs into a crossed ankle position, as if aiming them at the art director in the doorway. “What do you know about frequency? Give me a break.”

  “Hey, come on, Patti...” Gary made a calm-down gesture with his hands. It was too late in the day for this.

  “I know as much as any first-year assistant buyer would know, darling—that if you spend a fortune on drive-time and every other kinda prime air time that you can saturate just about anything. ‘Practically,’” he added sarcastically.

  “How much are we spending, Patti?” Gary looked up from his hands.

  “I don’t believe this!” Patti huffed. “I have a budget. Does anybody remember the budget?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the client is gonna wanna know.” Pokey said.

  “I don’t know what your problem is,” Patti snarled at Pokey. “But I—”

  “Hey, come on, Patti,” Gary said. “Let’s pack it up for today, what do you say?”

  “We definitely should pack it up when a little monkey-faced layout artist can tell me how to buy time—”

  Gary wanted to reach over and wrap her red floral scarf around her flapping mouth. “Please, stop it, both of you. Pokey, go ahead and knock off for the day.” Pokey shrugged and gestured to Gary in a catch-ya-later-buddy motion that served to further infuriate Patti in its attempt at male confederacy. She folded her arms and glared at the retreating art director.

  “God, Patti, why do you let him get to you?” Gary rubbed his eyes and leaned back into his chair. “I mean, what is it between you two? Are you, like, ex-lovers or something?”

  “Don’t be revolting. The man’s an ape.”

  “Well, stranger things have happened in my experience.”

  Patti paused dramatically as she stood up from the swivel chair that faced Gary’s desk. Her face was flushed, her eyes wide and fixed on Gary. Her long fingers groped unconsciously at the loose cotton belt that hung from her waist.

  He found himself bracing against her words.

  “Gary, I would like to talk with you about something that’s personal.”

  “Patti, did you talk to Maggie? You know I have all the women in the office talk to her.”

  “I know you do, and I did. She was useless.”

  “I see. Well, can it wait?” In his present state, he’d probably give her a thirty percent salary increase just to be able to be in his car and on his way home within the next fifteen minutes.

  “I don’t feel it can, no.”

  “All right.” He stood up and began packing up his briefcase, hoping this would at least be moving them both in the right direction: out the door.

  “There is someone in the office who is making it difficult for me to perform my job.”

  “Do you mean Pokey?”

  She made a face. “No, I mean difficult in that I find myself distracted as a result of our close working relationship.”

  Gary snapped shut his briefcase and looked up at the woman. She was dressed in some awful polyester double knit skirt suit. A tall woman, she nonetheless looked like she was swimming in the bulky material, and Gary was struck by how warm she must be in it. “Let’s continue this in the elevator, shall we?” He nodded toward the door.

  She picked up her briefcase at the foot of her chair.

  “You know, Patti, these things happen all the time.” He knew he sounded idiotic. “But we’re expected to behave professionally in any case, you know? We need to transcend our feelings and get the job done. I mean, what would the industry be like if we all just behaved according to how we felt at the time? Like, if I hated a particular voice talent but he was the best one for the job, I’d be shooting myself in the foot, right?” I’m blathering, he thought as he jabbed his finger at the down arrow button on the elevator. “So, we all have to, you know, do things and work with people we don’t—”

  “Why do you keep implying that I’m having trouble getting along with someone?” Patti’s brittle voice stabbed at the airspace between them with no air conditioner’s hum to buffer its abrasiveness. “I am attracted to someone in our office. I think they may be attracted to me too.”

  “Well? What’s the problem?” Gary punched the down button again.

  Stupid elevators! Has the building turned off the damn electricity or what?

  “The problem, Gary, as I’m sure you know only too well, is that I’m in love with you.”

  As Maggie drove down Peachtree Street toward her apartment, she leaned over her Macy’s department store purchases to reach for the letter again.

  I think that I will see you in a little time. Did that mean he’s coming to Atlanta? Perhaps he was going to suggest she come back to Cannes? She tucked the letter into her handbag on the passenger seat. Why does he say and think of you? Is that just bad English, or is he some place special that’s made him think of me? She rubbed her eyes tiredly. It didn’t matter. He’d written her. Finally. He’d reached out.

  And that was all that mattered.

  She pulled into the back parking area of her building and looked up at the darkened structure. Smack in the middle of fashionable, trendy Buckhead, The Parthenon was a throwback to another era. A huge, looming edifice, it looked more like a castle than a honeycomb of modern apartment units. Somber and out of step with its surroundings, it had been an area landmark for over one hundred years. The Parthenon was that curious mix of something so wrong for its ecoclimate and cultural setting that it was perversely viewed as a resounding success.

  She glanced up at her apartment window and was glad to see the living room light was on. That meant Elise was awake, she thought, and immediately was struck by the pleasant anticipation she realized she’d been feeling all day long. Elise hadn’t answered the apartment phone all afternoon, and Maggie realized how much she was looking forward to telling Elise about Laurent. Maggie couldn’t wait to tell Elise how mysterious and sweet and sensual Laurent was. From his heavy, expressive eyebrows to the subtle twitch of his full French lips.

  Maggie unlocked the heavy back door to the building and shifted her parcels in her arms. She’d stopped for Chinese food on the way back and now the aroma of steamed dumplings and moo shu pork rose deliciously in the air. She hurried down the narrow carpeted hall to her apartment. As soon as she’d entered the building, she heard a rumbling hum of voices coming from the hallway.

  Something was wrong.

  Later, she would say it was the noise, the sounds of burping police walkie talkies, the velvet mumblings of a gathering crowd that stood on both sides of her apartment door attempting to peer past the lone policeman standing outside.

  When she saw the policeman she found herself groping for the least painful option available to her. She had talked with Elise shortly after eleven this morning and then not again the rest of the day. If Elise had reconnected with Gerard, if she had somehow gotten more drugs, if she had…it was hard to think, impossible to imagine why the police would be in her apartment unless…

  Before she could push her way to the front of the scrum of people, she saw the gurney begin to make its slow exit across her apartment threshold.

  It wasn’t until the policeman snapped his head in her direction and the rubberneckers who surrounded her began to inch away that she realized she had screamed.

  Maggie stumbled to the head of the crowd and felt the hands of the policeman come down hard and unrelenting on her arms. But all she could see was the black body bag on the gurney.

  “Do you liv
e in this apartment, Miss?”

  Maggie still gripped the handles of her shopping bags as the gurney stopped in front of her. She nodded.

  “Detective! This woman lives here.”

  Maggie felt the policeman’s hands on her relax into a guiding pressure as she was pulled away from the gurney and into her apartment.

  Two men not in uniforms stood in her living room. At least four other police officers were in the dining room. Maggie saw that a lamp had been knocked over and a candy dish lay upside down on the carpet. Aside from that, the living room was tidy, each cushion in its place, the smell of Chinese pancakes and plum sauce slowly beginning to mix with the scent of lavender potpourri on the coffee table.

  This can’t be happening.

  Maggie looked into the faces of the two detectives and she could see by their mouths that they were speaking to her, but the volume seemed to have gone down on her world. She staggered to the couch and sank onto it, her heart a heavy weight of emotion. She turned to stare blindly out the narrow French doors that led to the small stone balcony overlooking Peachtree Road. She could see the tips of the lone mimosa tree just outside her apartment, its stubborn, flamboyant blooms unfurled amongst a stand of the ubiquitous Georgia pine, a radiant reminder of nature’s individuality, its irony.

  Her eyes, dry and wide, lowered to fall on the Macy’s bag at her feet—her sister’s triumphant homecoming gown. A pretty fuchsia dress with lace tatting at the collar that Elise could now, finally, be buried in.