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

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

Chapter Seventeen

  The skirt of Maggie’s stiff cotton sundress spread out in a fan against the lawn. She drew her bare legs up under her and sipped from one of the frosty glasses of lemonade Becka had just armed everyone with. Laurent stood a few yards away in khaki trousers and a black polo shirt, holding the reins of Nicole’s pony. Nicole, her jodhpurred legs sticking out awkwardly, sat woodenly atop the Welsh pony. Laurent spoke to her in French and Maggie enjoyed hearing his fluency for a change.

  She hated to admit that Gary might be at least a little right on that score. He had lately done more than hint that the very sexy French accent Maggie was so enthralled with was a pretty big roadblock to basic communication. She wouldn’t go that far, but from time to time she did find herself yearning for a more complicated exchange between them.

  Yesterday, when they were trying to agree on which movie to download for viewing, Maggie had been appalled to see Laurent zero in—not to the foreign films, as she had expected—to the horror/sci-fi section of the online store. They had actually argued about it.

  “I can’t watch this stuff, Laurent.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s garbage.”

  “Ahhh.”

  “I mean, come on, Laurent, blood and guts pouring out of a dead man’s eyeballs? It’s gross and meaningless.”

  In the end, they’d compromised. Maggie promised not to make retching noises during his shows, and Laurent resolved not to sigh too heavily or yawn during the British drawing room mystery that she wanted to see. After all, it could’ve been a lot worse, she mused. It could have been a Jerry Lewis movie.

  As she listened to him now, talking fluently to Nicole, she made a silent vow to take a French class at the local community college. Soon.

  She turned to her mother, who was seated on a white wrought iron bench next to her.

  “Do you think she enjoys that?” Maggie asked.

  Elspeth shaded her eyes against the sun and smiled at Laurent. “Watch her left foot, Laurent. She looks like she’s a little lopsided.”

  Laurent waved a finger in Elspeth’s direction to indicate he had it under control. He trotted up and down the lawn next to the pony. Nicole clung to the saddle like a tenacious but somnolent jellyfish. Her little face appeared to be screwed into a squinting mask of concentration, which was an improvement over her usual blank stare.

  “Why do you need to go to Cannes?” Elspeth spoke to Maggie, but her eyes were on her granddaughter. “Laurent mentioned that you are planning another trip overseas.” Elspeth took a sip of her lemonade and then patted her lips with a lace-trimmed cotton handkerchief.

  “I was going to tell you.”

  “He said you were going because of Elise.”

  Maggie cleared her throat and winced into the sun. “Well, sort of.”

  Elspeth turned and looked at her daughter. She wasn’t smiling. “Maggie.”

  Maggie sighed. “Look, I don’t know how to explain to you why I feel I need to go. I just do, that’s all. Elise was writing a letter before she died and I want to talk to the woman she was writing it to. I know it sounds feeble, but I think it’s worth a trip.”

  Elspeth set her lemonade glass down on the bench and stood up, applauding the approaching twosome.

  “Très bien, Nicole! Our own little National Velvet.” She touched Maggie’s head. “I love you, Maggie. Possibly more than anything on this earth.” She turned on her heel and walked back into the house.

  Astonished by her mother’s words, Maggie stared after Elspeth’s retreating back. Her lemonade glass was dripping blotches of condensation all over her skirt.

  “You are getting wet, Maggie,” Laurent called to her. He picked Nicole up and deposited her on the ground next to her pony and led the beast to where Maggie was sitting. He tucked the reins under the pommel and let the pony graze while he flopped down next to her. Nicole moved to where Laurent was seated and lowered herself to a spot beside him.

  “She seems to like you,” Maggie remarked.

  “Ah, mais oui!” Laurent patted the little girl’s hand. “We are very fond of each other, eh, mon petit chou?”

  “What else did the detective tell you?” Laurent asked, smiling at Nicole. Burton had called Maggie as she and Laurent drove over to her parents’ house that afternoon. Burton had called it a “courtesy call,” but as far as Maggie was concerned it had been pretty devoid of any actual courtesy. Or content for that matter.

  Maggie flicked away the droplets of water that had pooled in fat beads on her dress. “I did more telling than he did. He said this guy they have looks good for it and they’re going for an indictment and then to close the case.”

  Laurent pulled out some grass and sprinkled it on Nicole’s lap. She looked at him somberly. “And so you told the detective everything you know?”

  “Well, you heard what I told him. All about Alfie and how Gerard was at my apartment that day.”

  Laurent nodded without looking at her.

  “And it meant nothing to him! I mean, I practically have a video tape of Gerard killing Elise, and they don’t care.” She looked guiltily at Nicole and then lowered her voice. She shook her skirt free of remnant grass blades. “They got their guy and they’re not interested in any more ‘facts.’”

  “Tant pis, Maggie.” Too bad.

  “Yeah, tant pis, all right.” She stood and gave her dress a shake. “Come on, let’s take Nicole inside. I’m starving and it’s mostly your fault.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Your cooking. It’s stretched my stomach. I used to eat like a bird. Now, if I don’t get multiple course meals on a regular basis, I feel like I’m on a starvation diet. Thanks a heap, Laurent. I hope you like your women hefty.”

  Laurent hopped up easily for someone of his height and bulk. He caught her by the waist and swung her effortlessly into the air and back down again. He kept her pinned in his arms.

  “Not too bad,” he said judiciously.

  She smiled, loving the feeling of his strong arms around her.

  Nicole sat quietly between them, staring at the torn grass bits scattered across the lawn and on her bright blue dress.

  Later that evening, they returned to Maggie’s apartment. The summer was giving way begrudgingly to the first signs of autumn, and the heat of the day had completely dissipated. Maggie was exhausted, which was what she would cite as her defense for what happened.

  She slipped out of her skirt and pulled on cotton shorts and a tee shirt while Laurent prepared a late night repast for them. She was determined not to remind Laurent of her upcoming trip. A part deep in the back of her brain couldn’t come up with a good reason why he was so set against her going. It didn’t feel like worry or even his usual protectiveness that seemed to be the impasse. For the life of her, she couldn’t put her finger on what it was, only that it had become the first and only real problem they were having trouble getting past.

  Now, as she sat curled up on the couch, a glass of wine in one hand and a warm Croque Monsieur in the other, she felt inextricably drawn to this man who had entered her life—and the lives of her family—so effortlessly and left her breathless with longing and desire.

  “Laurent?”

  “Mmmm—mm?” He looked up and smiled. A question mark hovered in his eyes.

  “Do you have any ideas about our future together?” Maggie was surprised as the words came out of her mouth. She had not expected to say them out loud. She wasn’t so unaware, however, as to not suspect they hadn’t been hiding out in her head.

  Laurent finished chewing and removed his napkin from his shirt collar. He placed it down on the coffee table and scanned the remains of their finished supper. It occurred to Maggie that Laurent, who always seemed to know what to say, when to get excited, when to let something pass, was a little uncomfortable.

  “Of course.”

  “You’ll get work over here?”

  “Perhaps I will get a job as the French chef at Burger
King.”

  Maggie blinked at him when he said this. Was he being facetious? “I was just wondering about a timeline for us is all. How long were you thinking of staying?”

  “You are wondering how long we will last? Of course. Living with a French lover is one item on your bucket list, non?” He did not soften the words with a smile.

  Vaguely aware that his English seemed to have improved, Maggie was horrified at how quickly the conversation had gone wrong. Even so, she was too angry to do anything but sputter, “What are you talking about? That’s not what this is.”

  Laurent made a grunt of disgust. “This. Always you are misunderstanding me. I am talking about Maggie not making room for me in her life.” He waved away her attempts to speak with an impatient hand. “Do not tell me you emptied a drawer for me, I am not talking about drawers. I am talking about your life.”

  Maggie wrapped her arms around herself and stared at him. “I see,” she said, stiffly. “I had no idea you felt this way.”

  “Bien sûr!” he exploded. “This is the problem. You want to continue as you are and be the independent single girl. Ach! You are so Américaine...”

  “Well, excuse me for being so Américaine. I’ll try in future to be a little more Libyan, or would my being a tad more French be good?” She began picking up dishes. “That’s what this is really all about, isn’t it? Me being some simple-minded French girl who’ll spend hours plucking her eyebrows and starving herself bony while whipping up heavy creamed sauces for her big Frenchman.”

  “You could not possibly be French,” Laurent said with a shrug.

  “I hate you.”

  “D’accord. As you always say, I can live with that.”

  “Great.” Maggie whirled around and stomped toward the bedroom. “Why don’t you live with cleaning up this mess in the kitchen while you’re at it?”

  “That would be different than usual?” he called after her. The door slammed between them.

  Later that night, as Laurent lay snoring softly against her, Maggie watched the moon through her window as it broke loose from behind a diaphanous shred of cloud. She touched his sleeping face. The fight had been stupid, but it had also felt somehow necessary. It helped to put to bed finally and forever her concern that their language gap was only allowing them a shallow relationship. After the fight, she would never have to worry about that again.

  She looked at his sleeping profile. Even with a scant one hundred words of common vocabulary between them they were still able—as able as any other couple—to have a silly fight about nothing.

  When he had finally tapped on the bedroom door and entered, she could see from the frown on his face that his making the first move was as far as he was going to go with the reconciliation. Relieved to have at least been offered an olive branch—if somewhat hesitant—Maggie had reached out to him.

  She looked at the alarm clock on her nightstand; it was a little after two a.m. This wasn’t the first night Laurent had fallen asleep easily after three or four cups of strong Brazilian coffee, while Maggie fidgeted and tossed after her one meager café au lait.

  She eased away from his sleeping form and got out of bed. Making sure not to wake him, though she didn’t think anything short of another charge up the Bastille could, she gathered up a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and closed the bedroom door behind her.

  She set up her laptop on the dining room table, poured herself a glass of milk and rummaged in the cabinets until she found a few Oreo cookies. Rationalizing that she needed the cookies to go with the milk, that she needed to make her sleepy, she pulled on the jeans and sweatshirt over her filmy silk chemise.

  “What is it?” Laurent’s sleepy voice came to her from the bedroom.

  So much for her assumption he was a sound sleeper. She walked to the bedroom door. “Nothing, go back to sleep,” she whispered, then turned and sat down at the dining room table to sort out her thoughts with the investigation so far.

  Laurent appeared in the doorway, dressed, his hair mussed and full about his face, his eyes squinting against the light in the dining room.

  “Oh, Laurent, go back to bed. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I am not sleeping good when you are gone,” he said, holding a huge hand up to contain a yawn.

  She saw him looking around the dining room and she hoped he wasn’t going to make them something to eat.

  “I will go for cigarettes,” he said, tapping his tee shirt pocket as if to show there were none where they should be.

  “Really? Laurent, it’s past two in the morning.”

  He shrugged, now more fully awake, and tucked his wallet into the back pocket of his jeans.

  “There’s an Amoco station open on the corner, down Peachtree,” she said, turning back to her laptop.

  “I will be back,” he said, kissing her before disappearing out the door. Maggie tried to sense if there were any vestiges left over from their fight. She could feel none from him. No emotional hangover, no recriminations.

  Was it true what he said? Was she not making room for him in her heart? She thought she was so gaga over him she was downright foolish in most matters that concerned him. She ate when she wasn’t hungry. She drank when she knew she’d already had too much. She trusted him implicitly when there was no real reason to do so after the very short amount of time they’d known each other.

  Whoa. Where did that come from? She rested her fingers on the keyboard and stared ahead. Was she afraid she trusted him in spite of herself? Was there something going on underneath the infatuation and the passion—something Laurent detected—something in her that was resisting him?

  Every single person in her life, with the possible exception of her father, who had his own form of infatuation with Laurent, had dropped comments or asides to the effect that she was getting in too deep too fast. Her mother, Gary, Brownie…even Darla had exhibited surprise to see the two of them moving so fast.

  As usual, Laurent was several strides ahead of her. He knew what she had only begun feeling in a distracted, unformed way—that she wasn’t quite sure of him. Somewhere not so deep down she hadn’t forgotten that there had been no word from him for six months. And no explanation as to why not.

  What could she possibly do about it? She couldn’t ask him to move out. She didn’t want him to move out. Her mind flitted back to a moment a few hours earlier under the covers at the height of their make-up sex. She blushed at the thought and stood to shake off the feeling. It was a wonderful feeling, to be sure. It was also a feeling of loss of control.

  Maggie opened the dining room window, which looked out over the back parking lot and adjacent woods. It was a cool night, unusual for late August. Aside from the reputational splendor of living at The Parthenon, Maggie had been drawn to this apartment building because it felt like a little bit of country in the heart of the city. It, and a few residential houses in the neighborhood, shared a fair-sized tract of woods. The stand of trees was thick and forbidding though, protected by some stubborn dowager who’d owned the property for generations and who’d refused to sell to developers.

  Peachtree Creek flowed through the forest and Maggie had seen raccoons and foxes in it. Once, after she moved in, she had indulged in a little exploration in the woods. For a few moments she’d felt like she was somewhere on the Appalachian Trail. She’d also been stung by a bee and hadn’t gone back in four years.

  Tonight, the moon cast an eerie incandescence over the wooded patch. Blackened tree limbs were elongated by shadows and stretched out in all directions like skinny witches’ arms beckoning her. She shivered and enjoyed the comfort of her little lighted nook in the darkness.

  Suddenly, from where she stood at the window, she heard a noise from outside. She took a breath and held it, but all she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears. The wind seemed to have risen. She could hear it moaning in the trees. And then the sound again, like a dog in pain.

  She pulled on her sneakers and stuck her keys
and a small flashlight from the kitchen drawer in the pocket of her jeans. As she closed the apartment door behind her, the hall lights, triggered by her movement, blinked on. Maggie ran down the hall and pulled open the heavy outside door at the end of the corridor.

  The moon, although not quite full, kept her path lighted making her flashlight unnecessary. She hurried to the opening of the woods in front of her dining room window. When she glanced up at her apartment window, she was surprised to see her dining room illuminated clearly and distinctly.

  “Here, boy,” she called. “Where are you, puppy?” She wished she’d picked up her can of mace instead of the flashlight. She heard the dog whimper directly ahead of her. Clicking on her flashlight, she moved through the trees and into the opening of the woods, toward the sound. As the darkness engulfed her, she strained to hear in spite of the thundering of her heart in her head.

  Then she saw it.

  A scruffy little terrier with floppy ears and big dark eyes was tied to a small sapling across a six-foot ravine. Her emotions seesawed between relief at having found him and trepidation that human hands had clearly put him there. She could see a representative trickle of Peachtree Creek at the bottom of the ravine. A few miles away it would turn into a proper creek, but here it was just a moving, damp creek bed.

  She grabbed at branches and rocks as she slid her way down the steep side of the slope to the bottom of the muddy creek bed. The puppy squirmed against its bonds and watched her approach with large, frightened eyes.

  “It’s okay, boy,” she said, trying to keep herself calm as much as the dog. “I’m coming.” Her light flashed spasmodically along the leaf-choked side of the ravine. She took a couple of steps up the other side, her fingers reaching for the little dog and his rope. She pulled at the hemp twine but it held fast. The puppy whimpered again.

  Maggie knelt down on one knee near the puppy and pulled out her house keys.

  “It’s all right, boy,” she said, using the teeth of her keys to saw at the twine. She reached for the animal and it cried out. She shone the light on him and saw that the dog was covered in blood.

  Maggie gave the weakened piece of twine a sharp jerk and pulled it free of the tree. She quickly picked up the animal, ignoring its cry, and tucked it against her.

  It was then that she heard the other noise.

  It was the sound of movement in the woods above her, the movement of something heavy treading on leaves and sticks. The sound of someone trying to be stealthy.

  Fighting the urge to panic, Maggie clutched the dog and climbed up the steep side of the ravine. The dog trembled against her. Her mouth was dry and she could feel the beginnings of terror start to unravel her mind. Who was out here? She reached for a hanging root and hoisted herself a few feet higher up the ravine. As she neared the top, her hands were trembling and clumsy with fear, her heart fluttering in her throat.

  She sensed her assailant behind her before she heard him. She tried desperately to climb the last few feet up the ravine before he could reach her, but everything felt as if it was moving in slow motion.

  She was only vaguely aware of dropping the puppy. She heard it cry as if from a long distance. She smelled a light fragrance, like violets or lily of the valley. And then a blinding pain crept up from the back of her head, and the dark, damp ravine bottom of Peachtree Creek rushed up to slam into her face.