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

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  *****

  Laurent kept his eyes fixed on Nicole. She sat stiffly, a starched white petticoat peeking from under her velvet tunic. Her hair, shiny and soft with a simple wave someone had put in it, was caught up by a blue velvet ribbon, which draped down her back. Her eyes were flat and stared unseeingly at her mirror-bright black patent leather shoes.

  “Nicole is six ans today,” Laurent said softly. He lifted her chin and smiled encouragingly at her. “A big girl now.” She stared dully into his deep brown eyes.

  “She’s a little tired tonight, Laurent dear,” Elspeth said as she straightened the candles on the dining room table. Laurent and Nicole were seated in chairs lined against the far wall. The butler’s table with Nicole’s birthday cake—a sugar castle of icing and roses—was placed next to them.

  “We’ve been shopping today and wrapping prezzies and helping Becka in the kitchen, haven’t we, darling?” Elspeth didn’t look at Nicole when she spoke, but continued to straighten and reposition the immaculately set dining table of crystal and china. It was set for five, although Elspeth had been tempted to add another plate for the one person who would never show.

  “Oh, that is formidable,” Laurent murmured to the girl. “You have been getting many beautiful things today, yes?”

  Maggie appeared through the swinging doors that led to the kitchen carrying a frosty highball glass. “Dad’s got the drinks and stuff in the library, Mother. Is that okay?”

  “That will be fine, dear.”

  “How are you two doing?” Maggie walked over and sat down next to Nicole. “Happy Birthday, darling.” The girl continued to stare at Laurent.

  The doorbell rang and Maggie put her drink down. “I’ll get it.”

  Brownie stood on the other side of the Newberry threshold, dressed in a sports jacket and razor-pleated trousers.

  “Brownie—”

  “I can’t come in. I just stopped by to give you this to give to Nicole.” He pushed a stuffed giraffe into Maggie’s hands. “So tell her ‘Happy birthday from Uncle Brownie.’ That is, unless you’ve already told her I’ve died or something, and in that case, forget it.”

  “Don’t be an ass. Why don’t you come in and give it to her yourself?”

  “Can’t. Got someone waiting in the car. And this is for you.”

  Maggie tried not to look toward the darkened interior of Brownie’s BMW, its engine still running, parked in the circular drive.

  He pressed something cold and hard into her hand. “It’s what I told you I found in your apartment.”

  “What is it?” She looked at the strange, circular piece of jewelry.

  “You’re asking me? Look, I gotta run.”

  “It’s a scarf ring,” Maggie said. “It looks like one of my mother’s.”

  “Mystery solved. Great. Later, Maggie.”

  He turned and hurried down the wide flagstone steps of the mansion’s verandah.

  “Thanks, Brownie. Thanks from Nicole, too.”

  Maggie watched as he opened his car door, illuminating the car’s interior. The woman waiting for him was young and pretty. Maggie dropped the scarf ring into her purse on the foyer marble-top table and returned to the birthday gathering.

  “Who was it, darling?” Elspeth was still retouching the flawless place settings.

  “Just Brownie. He brought this for Nicole.” She waved the giraffe at Nicole, who looked at it.

  “She is very beautiful tonight, is she not, Maggie?” Laurent said.

  Maggie touched Nicole’s dress. “Very pretty, Nicole. Très jolie!” She turned to her mother. “What else did you get her?”

  “That would be telling, darling. We don’t want to spoil Nicole’s surprises.”

  A loud crash sounded from the other side of the swinging doors and Elspeth sprang into action.

  “What is the woman doing?” she said as she hurried into the kitchen. Maggie noted the sense of satisfaction apparent in her mother’s voice. She took a long sip of her drink and listened as the ice cubes fell musically back into the half-empty glass.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to do this.” She said to Laurent, shaking her head.

  “Your father said it would be all right.” Laurent was watching Nicole closely. Maggie knew the girl had become special to him. It was as if there was already an existing kinship between them—their both being French? Maggie wondered.

  “Yeah, but Dad said that without checking with my mother. She will flip out.”

  Laurent leaned back in his chair and Nicole dropped her eyes to her knees. He stood up with his hands on his hips. “Well, why don’t we see?”

  “Oh, Laurent, are you sure?” Maggie couldn’t help grinning. This gift of Laurent’s really was a disastrous idea. “I think we should warn my mother first.” She realized that she found herself eager, in an impish way, to see her mother’s reaction to Laurent’s surprise.

  “Your father is the man of the house, is he not? He is the papa?”

  “Yes. But the maman will flip, all the same.”

  “Pfut!” Laurent waved away her comment with his hand and gave Nicole a quick kiss on the top of her head.

  “Un moment, chérie. Oncle Laurent will be right back with a wonderful birthday present!” With that, he turned and exited the room. Nicole let out a long sigh that surprised Maggie.

  “Hard day, huh?” she said with a smile, reaching for Nicole’s small, cool hand.

  Elspeth returned with Maggie’s father in tow, a large drink in each of his hands.

  “Hello again, Daughter,” John said jovially. “Refresh that drink for you?”

  “John,” Elspeth said firmly, her eyebrows arched. She was all business tonight, Maggie noticed. This was clearly to be another family occasion whipped into shape, marched out in front of the video cameras and made to form into a proper memory of the moment.

  Elspeth looked at Maggie. “Where’s Laurent?”

  “He had to go get our birthday present for Nicole,” Maggie said cheerfully.

  “Ahhh, yes!” Her father set down one of the glasses and took a healthy sip from the other. “The famous birthday present. Meanwhile, tell us about your upcoming trip.”

  “Well...” Maggie hesitated briefly. She crossed her ankles and straightened out the neckline of her knit dress. It was a deep blue, and she knew it offset her dark hair nicely. “Laurent takes me to the airport tomorrow afternoon. I’ll be gone about two days. If I need to, I might stay longer.”

  “And Gary doesn’t mind, dear?” Her mother moved an errant silver fork on the dinner table to its proper place next to a plate.

  “No. He’s so wrapped up in his own plans to bolt the country that he really doesn’t care. I mean, he’s sympathetic and all.” She shook her head. “But my leaving town is way down his list of priorities.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” her father asked.

  “He’s going through a bad stage, Dad. He’s worried to death about his family’s safety with all the crime in town. This thing with Elise was actually the trigger.”

  “I can certainly understand that,” Elspeth said.

  “And taking over the company was more...I don’t know...stressful than he thought it would be.”

  “So he’s moving out of the country as a result?” Her father sounded incredulous.

  Maggie nodded. “New Zealand. In six weeks.”

  “How does his wife feel about all this? What’s her name?” Elspeth settled into the chair next to Nicole and took the girl’s hand.

  “Darla. Not great. I mean, she’s not the one coming unglued. She doesn’t want to leave.”

  “Poor man. I don’t suppose he’d consider some kind of therapy?” Her father looked genuinely concerned and Maggie felt a rush of love for him.

  “He thinks this is therapy, Dad. He thinks it’s the epitome of mental health to be doing this.”

  “Poor lad.” He shook his head.

  Maggie’s mother gave a sudden, small shriek and jump
ed up, dropping Nicole’s hand. Maggie, sitting on the other side of Nicole, jumped up too, although she didn’t know why. Her first thought was, bizarrely, that her mother had seen a snake curled up under the child’s chair.

  “What is it?” Maggie, totally bewildered, moved away from Nicole. “What happened?”

  “Nicole!” Elspeth took Nicole by her thin shoulders and forced the girl to look at her. Only then did Maggie see the puddle of yellow pooling under Nicole’s antique wicker chair.

  “Oh, dear,” Maggie said, looking at her father with dismay.

  “Nicole, honey, are you all right?” her mother asked.

  Nicole jumped up and wrestled free of Elspeth’s grip. “Laissez-moi tranquille! Laissez-moi tranquille!” she shrieked, running from the room. Her voice, bleating and frantic, echoed through the house, room by room, until they heard the distant slamming of her bedroom door.

  Elspeth sat, twisted around in her chair facing Nicole’s exit route, her hands still in the air and her mouth open in a caricature of astonishment. Maggie gaped at her mother and then at the little puddle of urine on the imported Moroccan tile beneath the chair. She looked up in time to see Laurent walk through the doorway, the squirming terrier puppy in his arms, its front paws bandaged and a worried glint in its large dark eyes.

  “Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” Laurent’s brow puckered in confusion. What’s happening?

  “Well,” John said, picking up the other drink from the table and bringing it to his lips. “I believe we just had a breakthrough.”

  An hour later, Maggie turned in the passenger seat to face Laurent as they drove through Buckhead back to her apartment.

  “Peeing on the floor and running away screaming, ‘Leave me alone!’ That’s progress?”

  “Slow progress,” he said with a shrug. “At least she is speaking.”

  “Hey!” Maggie said suddenly. “Pull into Selby’s for a sec, would you?”

  “Pourquoi?” Laurent turned down the street where the advertising agency was located.

  “I left a flash drive in my desk that I need for the trip. It’ll just take a second, okay?”

  Laurent sighed and rubbed his eyes. After this was all over she’d make it up to him, she promised herself. She’d swamp him with attention the way she was sure most real French girlfriends do.

  Laurent pulled the car into the office building’s parking lot and stopped in front of the large double doors. He unbuckled his seatbelt, but she was already out of the car. “No, darling, pas de necessaire. Don’t even turn off the engine. I won’t be a minute.”

  Maggie dashed for the heavy outside door and used her key to get inside. She stood in front of the lobby elevators, now looming like wicked maws in the vacant lobby, and glanced through the side panels of the building’s entrance to see Laurent waiting patiently in the car. She punched the up button and the lift came immediately.

  As soon as the elevator reached the advertising agency floor,she went to the front door and used her key to open the door. She was surprised when the key turned freely. It hadn’t been locked. She slipped inside, closing the door behind her. Had Jenny forgotten to lock up tonight? Who had been the last one out?

  The darkened receptionist counter looked sinister with its disorderly assortment of telephones, snaking wires, and magazines. Maggie scurried by, cursing herself for the forgetfulness that had prompted this mission in the first place. She ran past the art directors’ cubicles and down the hall to her own office.

  She groped for the light switch on the wall and was immediately assaulted with a bedlam of sensations, as if a terrible odor had been released with the flick of the switch. She stared into her office, her hand still wavering near the wall. Her desk was on its side, its drawers hanging open, reams of paper and open file folders erupting from them like great winged birds frozen in flight. Her chair was across the room, upside down. The filing cabinet had its contents scattered everywhere in a white snowstorm of paper and manila envelopes.

  Maggie felt her stomach lurch violently and she thought for a minute that she might be sick on top of the paper mess. She felt a strange creeping sensation on the back of her neck. One part of her actually thought she should find the jump drive, while another, more controlling, part of her wanted to flee—by the window, if necessary.

  She turned and ran.

  Sprinting down the darkened hall, clutching the office key in front of her like a protective talisman, Maggie cut through the conference room to the receptionist’s alcove that led to the outside foyer and stumbled over what felt like an oversized bag of laundry. She fell face-first into the receptionist’s desk, flinging her arms out in an attempt to catch her fall.

  As she scrambled to her feet, cursing Jenny for leaving her gym bag in the middle of the hall, she felt the hard resistance of the “bag.” Not wanting to know, but turning to look anyway, she saw a body slumped against the base of the desk.

  It was Deirdre.

  Maggie began to scream.