Chapter Eleven
“We hope you know we’re all thinking of you, and that we’re so terribly, terribly sorry about your sister.” Gary spoke from the head of the conference room table, supported by muted murmurs from the rest of the office workers.
“Thank you,” Maggie said, letting her eyes fill without embarrassment.
“We sent flowers to your parents,” Deirdre said, looking down at her doodling as she spoke. “Since we didn’t know when the funeral was going to be.”
Maggie cleared her throat and smiled shakily at her coworkers. “It’s going to be a memorial service. Just for family.”
Deirdre handed Maggie a condolence card showing a seagull soaring over an ocean wave. “We all signed it,” she said, still not looking at Maggie.
“Thanks, Deirdre. Thanks, all. That was kind.”
“Right,” Gary said, clearing his throat. “And now on to business.” He gestured to Deirdre to begin reading the traffic sheet.
Obviously relieved to be on safer ground, Deirdre’s voice became perky and confident.
“The EMI brochure needs to have copy by the end of the week.” She looked at Maggie who nodded.
“I’ve already started on it.”
“And I’ve got the layout due at the same time because of the tight deadline on this.”
“Pokey?” Gary directed his attention to the art director. “Will that be a problem?”
Pokey tossed the schedule down in front of him. “Not if I have any interest in enjoying my weekend or having a life outside the office, I guess it won’t,” he said, his face twisted into a surly knot.
“Good.” Gary nodded at Deirdre to continue.
“I have a problem.”
“Yes, Patti?” Gary’s voice was tight. He seemed to be concentrating on correcting some typo on the schedule in front of him.
“My problem is the new budget on the Calloway Toys commercial—”
“I haven’t gotten to that yet,” Deirdre said.
“Well, I’ve gotten to it right now,” Patti hissed at her. “Gary, the new budget cuts the frequency nearly in half. Without the back-to-backs I’d set up—”
“Who’s the AE on this?” Gary looked around the table.
“Uh, that’s Linda,” Deirdre said. “She’s with a client.”
“All right, we’ll discuss it when she’s back in the office. Next, Deirdre?”
“That’s b.s!” Patti said. “My new budget is due in Linda’s in-box at two o’clock today. I have stations I’m having to renege on. I gave people my word! I’m having to lose discounts that I’d already figured into the budget, discounts that the client was counting on.”
“Patti, I’m afraid you’ll just have to redo the schedule with the new monies.” Gary turned and stared at her, his face reddening with his effort to keep control of his temper. “And b.s though it may be, it is also the nature of the business.” He looked at Deirdre. Patti gathered up her schedule and pens and stormed out of the meeting.
“Shall we continue?” Gary said wearily.
Two hours later, Maggie sat in one of the wicker chairs that lined the little office courtyard and waited for Gary to join her. The heat was cranking up with each minute she sat there. She removed her scarf and smiled wanly at a couple of female graphic artists from her office as they approached with their own brown bags and settled into chairs a few feet away from her. She watched them extricate their tuna salad sandwiches and little Charles Chips bags from their lunch sacks.
Laurent had packed a lunch for her of stuffed courgettes and roasted peppers. She carefully peeled the peppers off the wax paper before popping them in her mouth. The peppers melted in her mouth, offering only the essence of their flavor without the peppers’ usual bite. How does he do that?
She’d already called him twice today. Twice just to hear his voice and remind herself that he was there, in their apartment, waiting for her. She’d have to resist calling this afternoon. Laurent would be with her father, at his club. She shook her head.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Living with Laurent was a total surprise, she decided. It was not as if she’d ever lived with a man before and so possessed some kind of control sample of cohabitation, but she’d had expectations. Concerns. Probably bred from answering too many Does He Love You quizzes in magazines at the hairdressers.
And Laurent had defied them all. He was accommodating, sweet, loving and strong. Did he dislike anything about the way she lived? Not seriously, anyway. Not in a way that wasn’t teasing or playful.
The fact was, as frenetic and compulsive as she was—even without a murder investigation topping her To-Do list—Maggie found Laurent’s soothing, caretaking ways a balm.
She had never had it to know she wanted it, and now she couldn’t imagine living without it.
“Hey, sport. Why not pick a table right out in the middle of the blazing sun?”
Gary tossed down a plastic-wrapped sandwich from the building deli and sat down in a chair opposite Maggie’s.
“We can move if you want.”
“Patti told me she’s in love with me.”
“Patti Stump?”
“No, Maggie, Patti Page. Yes, Patti Stump.”
“She told you this?”
“Loudly and without any mistake. Does this look like chicken salad to you?” Gary held out his sandwich to her.
“What are you going to do about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you can’t pretend she didn’t say it. Or is that exactly what you intend to do?”
“Why can’t I pretend she didn’t say it?”
“Gary, you’re her boss!”
“Well, what am I supposed to do? Fire her? Put her in therapy? Set her up with one of my friends? Sleep with her? I don’t know how to respond to this crap.” He stood, running his fingers through his hair. “Darla was amused.”
“Well, with anyone else it might be funny, but Stump? Let’s face it, Gary, it’s like having a bad-tempered Minnie Pearl with the hots for you.”
“What do you recommend?”
“I recommend you have a talk with her.” She saw his look of distaste. “Gary, no one ever said owning your own agency was going to be all rainbows and free beer.”
“Well, that may be a moot point.”
“How so?”
“I may not be the owner of this agency much longer.”
“Thinking about firing yourself, are you?”
“I think I want to leave.”
“Leave for where? Another shop? Are you kidding? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t want this getting out to anyone, but I’m talking with Darla about leaving everything. I mean the agency, the city, the state, the country—just leaving.”
Maggie stared at him.
“What with murders and maniacs roaming the streets, I’m worried half to death about Haley and Darla, and I don’t seem to have much of a handle on what’s going on here either.”
“Gary, listen.” Maggie reached out and touched him on the wrist. “Don’t you think you’re just a little overwhelmed right now?”
“I don’t know. But I have to do something.”
“Where?”
Gary shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about New Zealand. It has clean air and no drugs and, like, one murder per decade. And no guns. I think it would be good for Haley.”
“New Zealand?”
“It’s still in the ‘just talking’ stage,” he said, not looking at her.
“Have you ever been to New Zealand?”
“Look, don’t patronize me, okay? You know very well I’ve never been there.”
“And Stump Lady?”
Gary covered his eyes and moaned. “Can’t I just let it ride? She’ll lose interest after awhile, and I just flat do not want to deal with it.”
“Well, she’s so daft she’ll probably be hooked on Pokey by next week. I wouldn’t worry about it, Gar. In fact,” she g
athered up her lunch debris and stood, “I wouldn’t worry about anything if you can help it. Sorry, I have to run. I’ve got that copy I need to get to Deirdre.”
Gary nodded and waved her away, but she couldn’t help think he looked absolutely miserable. Once back upstairs in her office, she saw her cellphone vibrating against the desk. She snatched it. “This is Maggie.”
“Don’t tell me, you were going to call as soon the wedding invitations were printed.”
Brownie. Maggie felt a lead ball settle neatly in the pit of her stomach.
“Hey, Brownie,” she said softly. “How’s it going?”
“Going okay, how about you?”
“Oh, you know...” God, she had dreaded this phone call. “I’m working through the thing with Elise. You coming to the service tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I talked with your mom.”
Oh dear.
“She told me about your boyfriend.”
“Brownie, I....”
“Hey, it’s okay.” He sounded so sweet and normal. “I wished you’d have told me, though. I mean, hearing it from your mom and all sucked a little.”
“I know, Brownie, I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I just wanted to make sure you were all right and to tell you I’ll see you at the service tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Brownie.”
“Take care of yourself, Newberry.”
“Yeah, you too.”
Maggie sat back in her chair and stared at the wall. Between her conversation with Gary and now Brownie, she could begin to feel like crap very quickly if she allowed it. She took in a breath and let it out. She wouldn’t allow it.
She checked the time to make sure she could get her copy assignment finished and on Deirdre’s desk before the end of day, then picked up the phone and punched in the number for the Fulton County Police Department.
While she waited to be put through, she picked up the office condolence card and glanced at the signatures inside. Pokey’s was practically unreadable. Funny, you’d think an art director would be too visual to end up with turkey-scrawl for a signature. Patti’s was very precise, almost begrudging.
“Burton.”
“Detective Burton? This is Maggie Newberry.”
“Yes, Miss Newberry?”
“I’m calling to see if you have anything else you can tell me about Elise’s death.”
“Not at this time.”
“Is it possible I might have a copy of your report?”
There was heavy sigh on the line. “Look, it’s really a lot easier for everyone involved if you just let the police handle this. You will be notified as soon as—”
“It’s just that I was really hoping to be a little closer to the investigation, as I’m sure you can understand. I didn’t know, for example, that there was a fake air conditioning repair truck parked out front of the apartment building during the time of the murder.”
“That is incorrect information,” Burton said, exhaustion dripping from every syllable. “The truck is not, at this point, related to the homicide.”
“It was just coincidentally left there? I assume you haven’t found the driver?”
“We have not. And we have no reason to believe, as I said, that it is in any way connected to—”
“Is it really so common to have bogus repair vehicles littered about the city to no real purpose?”
“You’d be surprised. The point is, Miss Newberry, that we have no new information at this time. I can suggest a support group or therapist to help you work through this. Relatives of victims of violent crime have a tougher time than people touched by other kinds of deaths. If you like, I can connect you back with the switchboard to be transferred to a department that can give you those numbers.”
“Okay, good. Thanks.” Maggie pulled a brochure with product facts on her current copy assignment out of her desk drawer and set it next to her computer.
“I wish you luck, Miss Newberry.”
“Thank you, Detective,” she said, flipping on her computer.
“Hold while I switch you.”
Maggie disconnected while the line was ringing and dialed the Fulton County Police Department operator again, this time asking to speak with David Kazmaroff in Homicide.
“Kazmaroff.”
“Hello, Detective, this is Maggie Newberry, Elise Newberry’s sister. Detective Burton indicated you would have time to fill me in on the basic details of my sister’s case so far.”
There was a pause.
“He did?”
“Yes. He said he was too busy, but that you had plenty of time. I really appreciate it.” Maggie had picked up on the tension between the two detectives, and now listened with relief as Kazmaroff switched his focus from the fact of her phone call to the arrogance of his partner suggesting he was busier.
The rest of her conversation with Detective Kazmaroff was hurried and rude, but it revealed, nonetheless, a lottery-winning cache of information. The detective made it clear that the police believed a drug dealing homeless person came in off the street, into Maggie’s building, down the hallway and into her apartment. They believed that Elise’s drug history made it likely that the killing was a drug deal gone wrong.
“What about Gerard?” Maggie asked Kazmaroff.
“We talked to him, and he alibied out. He was having a party in his hotel room with half the call girls in the metro area. It’s confirmed.”
“At two in the afternoon?”
“Miss Newberry, he is not a suspect.”
“When did he go back to France?” She wasn’t even sure why she asked the question. She assumed he’d gone back days ago.
“He is scheduled to leave on a Delta flight to Paris tomorrow afternoon.”
“He’s still in Atlanta?”
Before Kazmaroff had the chance to confirm the information and warn her not to approach him under any circumstances, Maggie was out of her desk chair, car keys in hand, the unfinished ad copy still sitting on her blotter.
Twenty minutes later, she pulled into the parking lot of the Hotel Nikko off Peachtree Road. She knew if Dubois was ever going to be considered a suspect she needed to come up with evidence soon. She hurried into the lobby, noting how close the hotel was to the Lenox Square parking lot where he’d taken her money and given her Elise. He probably just waltzed back over here afterward and had a six-course snack at her father’s expense, she thought angrily.
She marched up to the front desk, asked for Mr. Dubois’s room number and was told Dubois had checked out earlier that morning.
Her shoulders deflated, as if all the air had been squeezed out of her.
Now what?
She turned away and stood in the middle of the Hotel Nikko lobby. Could she catch him at the airport? She tried to calculate how many flights went out daily to Paris from Atlanta. What were the chances she’d see him there? Do they still page people in airports? Hartsfeld had over a quarter of a million travelers a day coming and going through the concourses. And unless she wanted to buy an international ticket, she wasn’t even going to get close to wherever he might be.
She trudged back to her car and strapped herself in, sitting for a moment in the parking lot trying to think. A proper sleuth would probably at least go to the airport and try, but she knew it was as hopeless as it sounded. She’d missed him and that was all there was to it.
Maggie drove down tree-lined Peachtree Road past the old Sears parking lot, noting that everyone she knew still referred to the intersection that way even though there was a towering, glittering office building in place of the Sears parking lot, and had been for some years now.
At the traffic light in front of the Good ‘ol Days outdoor café that now looked to be some kind of hardware shop, she pulled out her phone. It wasn’t much, but in addition to telling her that Gerard was still in town, Kazmaroff had also let slip the fact Alfie lived with his mother, Carole Wexford.
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While she waited for the light to change, she found the website on her phone for the Fulton County tax commissioner, went straight to the property records for the name Wexford, and had the address within seconds. As she did a U-turn and headed back up Peachtree in the direction of Saint Phillips Cathedral, Maggie knew it would take the taste of defeat out of her day if she could talk for just a few minutes to Alfie or his mother about where he was that day.
Earlier, when she was driving to the Hotel Nikko, she had worked to ignore the creeping feeling of guilt that she was doing something wrong. She knew for a fact Laurent wasn’t available to come with her—he was out again with her Dad—but she was sure he’d understand the urgency and the timing involved.
On second thought, probably best just not to mention it.
Less than half a mile from her own apartment building, Juniper Street, where the Wexfords lived, was an older neighborhood made up of small, dilapidated crackerbox houses with blistering paint and stingy-sized garages that had once been sheds.
According to Kazmaroff, the police had questioned Alfie at police headquarters. Mother Carole had waited patiently during the interview and then taken Alfie home. No one had interviewed her.
Although hardly as exciting as the prospect of a confrontation with Gerard Dubois, Maggie still felt a nervous anticipation as she steered her car onto St. Juniper Street. While she expected Carole Wexford to be protective of her handicapped son, she also expected that, being his mother, she would have a clearer picture of exactly what her son had seen that afternoon.
Or done.
505 St. Juniper Street was less than six blocks from Peachtree Road. The Wexford cottage, with blue-gray cedar siding and a bright red door, stood out among the neighboring houses like a jewel in a basket of seaweed. Maggie parked in the bumpy driveway and made her way up the narrow walkway to knock on the door. Her approach had apparently been monitored because the door opened immediately.
“Yes?” The woman wore her jet-black hair in short, dated spikes that belonged on a much younger woman. Her eyes were framed in varying shades of green and purple eye shadow. Maggie guessed her age at about fifty.
“Good afternoon. My name is Maggie Newberry. Are you Mrs. Wexford?”
The woman looked at Maggie. “It’s about the girl who was killed, isn’t it?”
“She was my sister.”
The waning afternoon light carved reliefs in the woman’s face as she stood at the door. The lines cupping Mrs. Wexford’s mouth were harsh and indelible. “Alfie already talked to the cops.”
“I know. I just wanted to talk with you for a minute. I was hoping, maybe, that the two of you discussed what happened.”
“He already told the cops he didn’t see nothing.”
“I know, but I just thought he might have told you some things...I mean, he communicates with you better than with other people, right?”
“Your sister was a goddamn bitch.”
Maggie gaped at the woman. “What?” she managed to say.
“Your sister. She was mean to Alfie.”
“Are you sure?” Had Alfie spoken to Elise?
“You don’t understand what mean is?” Carole took a full drag off the cigarette she was holding.
“It’s just that my sister was sick and had only been in town for a few hours.”
“I ain’t sure of the particulars. I know he was there doing his business and she was in the hall and they talked. And that’s when she verbally attacked him.”
“And Alfie didn’t tell the cops this?”
Maggie saw a shadow move behind the woman and then form into a sweet-faced young man, who stood behind his mother, his hand on her arm. Mrs. Wexford ignored him. “He was too afraid. And if you tell ‘em, I’ll deny it and call you a filthy liar.” She pointed her finger at Maggie as if for punctuation.
Alfie smiled shyly at Maggie and waved at her with just his fingers seconds before his mother shut the door firmly in her face.
On the drive home, Maggie couldn’t help but think, irrationally but undeniably, that even though she’d only seen him for a moment the young man she just saw was nonviolent. Every intuition she possessed told her that Alfie could not have hurt her sister.
Twenty minutes later, Maggie arrived to an empty apartment and a note stuck to the refrigerator door.
Your father changed the time for me to come, it is tonight and not this afternoon. I love you, chérie—Laurent
Maggie sat on the couch, feet resting on the coffee table, with a chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc in her hand. Laurent’s note remained stuck to the refrigerator door where he’d placed it. She was disappointed and sorry she hadn’t called him in the afternoon after all. He could have accompanied her on her not very fruitful investigations. As it was, she longed to tell him of her discoveries, to see his thoughtful face as he listened to her theories and revelations. He would help her make sense of what she learned today.
The apartment smelled of sautéed garlic and onions, although the galley kitchen was tidied to a shine with neither a pot nor a dribble of olive oil to be seen. She imagined her Frenchman whipping up his lunch hours earlier and she smiled. Although it was true she’d never read in any of the questionnaires or articles in Cosmopolitan magazine that said smiling all the time was a sure sign of compatibility, she assumed it was on the right track.
Had Elise been hateful to Alfie? Maggie set down her wineglass and got up to adjust the venetian blinds. It was dark now, and she didn’t enjoy the thought of Peachtree Road traffic peeking in her living room window. Maybe Elise had begun withdrawal and had been really testy? Maybe she hadn’t realized that Alfie was mentally handicapped?
Maggie resettled herself back on the couch and took a sip of her wine. And where does all this lead? Could Alfie have killed Elise? She tried to imagine the sweet man-child she had seen today angry enough to kill somebody. She tried to imagine him chasing Elise down the hallway to the bedroom with a wire outstretched in his chubby fists. She closed her eyes and willed the image away. It was too soon. Too soon to think of Elise’s terror in her last moments alive.
Hours later, the evening’s rain had stopped and left fat droplets hanging by glittering threads from the small magnolia bush outside her living room window. She could see the branches, black and slick with the raindrops, tremble in what looked like a reasonable effort to dislodge them.
Maggie finished off her wine and glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty. She was glad Laurent was getting to know her dad, but she wished he’d come home soon. When her landline rang, Maggie frowned, assuming it was Laurent calling to say he’d be even later. She picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
The voice rasped into her ear like a jar full of wasps. “How about if you’re next on the list, bitch?”
Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries Page 17