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

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

Chapter Twenty-One

  Maggie got out of bed, leaving Laurent asleep, and padded into the kitchen. As she pulled the refrigerator door open and peered inside, the interior light sliced a wedge out of the darkness.

  It was three o’clock in the morning. The police had allowed them to leave the office building just before one.

  She pulled out a carton of two percent milk, grateful she’d been able to convince Laurent to stop buying whole milk. She poured a stream of Hershey’s chocolate syrup into a glass, added the milk, stirred vigorously, and took her drink into the living room.

  Punching the buttons on the television remote control, she ran through her viewing choices: a sixties movie about a bunch of hippies intent on overthrowing the United States government, an old taping of a cooking show with Julia Child, a Spanish vocabulary lesson presented by a woman with a very strong Southern accent, and a fifty-year-old Bonanza episode she’d seen at least thirty times. Muting the volume for Laurent’s sake, she settled on Bonanza and sank back into the couch with her drink.

  Gary had come in to the office just before midnight. Maggie could still see his face, serious and nodding, shocked but not surprised. She thought he looked like one of those converts from some fanatical religious sect who is unable to conceal his pleasure when evidence of man’s sins is displayed so prominently. He feels vindicated now, Maggie thought.

  Poor Deirdre. So happy to be a part of the advertising world, to be a part of its wit and glitter and hard work and excesses. The cops said she had probably surprised the vandal when she stopped by the office on a Saturday night, much like Maggie had done. Maggie closed her eyes to blot out the sight of the perky traffic manager propped up against the back of the receptionist’s desk like some large, broken mannequin.

  Kazmaroff and Burton had not been able to disguise their surprise—and unhappiness—at finding Maggie involved with yet another violent death in their jurisdiction. She could still hear Detective Burton’s niggling question in her head: “What do you think he was looking for, Miss Newberry? In your office?”

  What was the murderer doing in her office? Why was it trashed? What was he looking for? As far as she was concerned, it could still be Gerard. Did anyone know for sure he was back in France? Did anyone know for sure he actually left four months ago when he said he would?

  Maggie thought of Gary’s strained, unhappy face when he came to the office. He looked old, she thought. He looked almost…panicked.

  She turned off the television and gazed at the blank screen, then closed her eyes and tried to imagine how Elise felt back on that afternoon, strung out and needy. Elise had come home. She’d screwed her life up and everyone knew it. Her parents knew it, as did her once adoring younger sister. Maybe even her little daughter knew it. And she was just sitting here wanting a fix so bad that nothing else mattered. Not her family, not Nicole, not tomorrow.

  And then someone had snuffed out all her second chances. Just like that.

  Maggie’s eyes flew open and she suddenly felt cold. Reminding herself that she needed to try to get a few hours sleep before her trip tomorrow, she stood and stretched, hoping the action might incline her toward drowsiness.

  Whatever Elise was feeling or thinking that afternoon, now nearly six months ago, it wasn’t going to help Maggie now to find her killer. In fact, thinking of it only filled her with an immobilizing sadness. She picked up her empty milk glass, deposited it in the sink in the kitchen and returned to bed.

  As she crawled into bed, Laurent automatically reached out with one arm to pull her into his chest, his warmth. When she let the strength of his arms cradle her, she felt herself letting go of her questions and her sadness, and a languid drowsiness claimed her.

  In a few hours, she thought as she allowed her mind to be claimed by her exhaustion, the real heart of her quest would begin. Tomorrow would be the start of the revelations. If she found out nothing in Cannes about who killed her sister, she would at least find out who her sister had become. She would at least find out who it was who had died in her Buckhead apartment and left so many people so injured.

  Laurent didn’t speak much as he drove her to the airport. He stood silently with her as she checked in and walked with her to Security, where they would part. Maggie had her own thoughts and the silence between them was not unwelcome. She knew he didn’t want her to go. And she still didn’t know why.

  “Call me when you land,” he said.

  “I will. Good luck on your other two personal chef gigs. With everything that’s happened—Nicole and Deidre—I haven’t even asked you how Saturday went.”

  He put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her deeply. She moaned. “God, Laurent, don’t kiss me like that when I have to get on a plane for seven hours and be apart from you.”

  “That is why I kiss you like that,” he said, releasing her, the smallest of fleeting smiles on his face.

  She turned and got in the security line. She wasn’t surprised when she turned around a minute later to see that he was gone.

  The stand-up café counter at the Nice International Airport held a dazzling array of pastries and breads. The confections were displayed in staggered tiers to tempt weary travelers as they trudged to and from their international connections. Maggie leaned against a stone pillar, munching a croissant and drinking strong coffee.

  The flight had been tiring, with too much time to think. An hour into it she realized she had made a terrible mistake. She was taking an expensive trip back to France that her boyfriend was very unhappy about, and for what? Elise was dead! Was she going to make a citizen’s arrest of Gerard? In France?

  At two hours in and 30,000 feet up, the whole idea of going felt like a really bad idea.

  Dumping the remnants of her breakfast in a rubbish bin, Maggie hoisted the strap of her carry-on bag to her shoulder and dove into the bustle of pedestrians moving within the large airport. Within twenty minutes, she was settled on the shuttle bus heading to Cannes.

  Deirdre’s death seemed to have caused a bigger stir among Fulton County’s finest than Elise’s. At first, Maggie thought it was because Elise was a drug addict and the police have natural biases. But then she started to think that she didn’t really know much about Deirdre. She’d graduated two years ago from the University of Georgia with a major in Advertising. She was easy to get along with, young, cute and funny—all immensely helpful for a career in advertising—but beyond that, Maggie just didn’t know her very well.

  The events of the last twenty-four hours and the burgeoning symptoms of jet lag combined to give Maggie a slightly hysterical feeling. She found herself wishing that Laurent could have come with her. Beyond the fact that she spoke very bad French, she missed him already.

  Once in Cannes, she trudged up the few short steps to the concierge’s desk at the hotel she had booked. She checked in and took the single, rattling elevator to the third floor.

  In her room, Maggie unpacked her few things and put a call in to Laurent. She only had the energy to find a place to eat this evening and fall into bed. It seemed to ring a long time before he picked up.

  “Allo?”

  “Hey, Laurent.”

  “How was the trip?”

  “It was good. Oh, I miss you! I wish you were here with me.” Maggie settled back onto her bed and gazed out the tall, open French windows. “Is everything okay there?”

  “Ah, mais oui. But I am sleeping the night without you and that is not good, chérie.”

  “Not good for me either, trust me. I’ll be back soon, though.”

  “Will you do anything today?”

  “You mean about Elise? No. Today I crash. I just wish it was in your arms.”

  “Ça ne fait rien, ma petite.” It doesn’t matter.

  “I love you, Laurent.”

  “Et je t’aime, aussi, Maggie.”

  After she hung up, Maggie kicked off her shoes and massaged her swollen feet before putting on a pair of running shoes. Fr
om her hotel window, she could see the sky was leaden with a threat of rain, so she pulled a thin rain jacket out of her bag.

  It was late September, and while the sun was still bright in the South of France, Laurent had warned her that the nights would be cool. She slipped a credit card and a hundred euros in the front pocket of her jeans and left the room.

  She deposited her key with the sullen young woman at the hotel desk, gave her a cheery “Au revoir!” and trotted down the hotel stairs with more energy than she felt.

  The buildings that lined the narrow cobblestoned streets in this section of Cannes were ancient and jammed together. The crumbling eighteenth century architecture was testimony to the fact little had changed in this neighborhood in many years.

  Café fronts and restaurants, one after another, heralded mostly seafood dining, with each restaurant advertising itself as better and more delectable than the last. Couscous, coq au vin, pot au feu, soupe de poissons, paella. The scent of baking rillettes and the ever-plentiful croque-monsieurs filled the air.

  She fully intended to take it easy today. She would wait until she was recovered from jet lag before she tackled the famous red tape and confounding bureaucracy of the French police and its departments. Besides, she’d already emailed her requests to them. She had meetings set up with two different people. They would either help her or they wouldn’t.

  For today, her task was simple. Find an awesome place to eat tonight that wasn’t too far from her hotel, and find Zouk’s shop. She had sent Michelle Zouk an email asking to meet with her tomorrow too, and while she hadn’t heard back from her, she had been so friendly on the phone last week Maggie was sure they would get together somehow.

  She hadn’t stayed in or visited this section of Cannes when she had come before. Then, her father had insisted she stay in the five-star district along the water. While Laurent had taken her all over Cannes during their week together, she was sure they hadn’t come here. It wasn’t a bad area, really. But neither did it feel exactly safe. She made a note to make sure she was back at the hotel before dark each day.

  Is Gerard in town? What if I run into him? Surely Laurent would have to understand if that happened.

  She walked down the narrow pedestrian street and glanced up at the shuttered windows as she passed. Did the maids and bellmen for the ritzy hotels on Boulevard de la Croisette live here? She glanced at her phone, where she had typed in the address for Zouk’s boutique. She wasn’t sure where it was, but she knew it wasn’t in this neighborhood.

  An hour later, she stood in front of the clothing store that matched the address she had. It was in a fashionable section of town, and from what Maggie could see in the darkened display window, the clothes looked to be colorful and of original designs.

  The name of the shop, Michelle Zouk, was painted in cursive letters across the broad window that faced the Avenue des Anglais. In a discreetly placed placard in the lower left corner of the window of the shop were the words Fermé pour la saison.

  Closed for the season.