Chapter Twenty-five
Once outside, the sunshine hit her full in the face as the cool breeze of the late morning sent her hair billowing around her shoulders like a loose silk scarf. Elise had never told anyone Nicole’s full name Maggie thought as she hurried away from the shambling old hospital. No one knew and no one would ever have known unless they came to this desolate street in degenerate Montmartre. Even Michelle hadn’t known that Elise had named her only child after Maggie, her only sister.
Maggie touched the pocket that held the birth certificate she had stolen from the file before slipping out the door unobserved. Her mother would be glad to have this, she thought. She would be glad to safely file this document away in the Newberry archives along with all the other family documents.
She stopped at a stand-up pizzeria and bought a slice of pizza and a can of Coke and consumed her lunch as she walked down Boulevard de Clichy, a street as cheerless and ugly as any she’d found in Montmartre so far. Pigeons flocked and crowded her until she finally gave up the remainder of her lunch to them, scattering it in handfuls in the air and stepping away from the frenzy of feathers that resulted.
The address that Michelle had given her for Elise’s old apartment was 1/2 Bijoux in Montmartre. She had been warned that it wasn’t a proper street and didn’t appear on any maps of the neighborhood, so she was prepared to have to hunt for it. Across from the Moulin Rouge, with its gaily-lighted blades, and before Clichy jammed into Rue Caulaincourt, Maggie could see the ghostly spires and columns of Montmartre Cemetery and she knew she was close. Michelle said that Elise would often write of the view of the cemetery from her flat.
Maggie approached it slowly, looking around, trying to find in the rows and rows of ancient, towering apartment buildings the window that might have been Elise’s perch as she wrote to her friend, Michelle.
She looked for numbers by the doors but there were none that she could see. The very brick of the buildings seemed to envelop her. She began to feel suffocated, even nervous. Elise lived here? It was just one more wretched street in a whole wretched neighborhood. But the fact that Gerard could bring Elise here—where she would live with her baby, little Nicole—was, in Maggie’s eyes, further evidence of the man’s guilt and general uselessness as a human being.
The grim, stately stone markers of Montmartre Cemetery spread before her, its few large trees shading the dead, the celebrated and the wretched. Elise would have sat at her window in order to see the cemetery and to write Michelle, and she would have used this light by which to paint. Maggie felt a tremendous sadness and wished there were a place where she could sit down for a moment. To think that Elise had been living for three years in this slum, and her Atlanta family had never had a clue.
*****
“I went by Elise’s Paris flat today.” Maggie sat on her hotel bed, cradling her cellphone, a can of diet soda on the nightstand.
“Ah, oui?” Laurent seemed in a better mood tonight. She assumed it had to do with the fact she was leaving Paris in two days.
“It was just depressing.”
“Your meeting with Michelle Zouk was helpful though, yes?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I learned what Elise was doing this year and how her being in rehab made it possible for Gerard to pass her off as dead, but I haven’t learned anything that relates to why she died in Atlanta, or by whose hand.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie.”
“Yeah, you were right. Coming was a mistake. It didn’t help and I’m not sure I don’t feel worse.”
“You are leaving tomorrow, oui?”
“No, the day after, unfortunately. But my flight is a morning one so I shouldn’t be in too late.”
“Ach, I have an appointment in the evening. But I can cancel.”
“No, Laurent. Is it one of your personal cheffing gigs? Just go. I can take a taxi to the apartment.”
“If you are sure, chérie. I hate not to see you immediately.”
“You’ll just have to give me a super warm welcome when you get home.”
“You will have jet lag.”
“Well, as long as we’re not talking trapezes or French maid costumes…”
“Très amusant, Maggie. We will leave those for the weekend, of course.”
“Oh, I miss you so much, Laurent. I’m so used to processing everything through you, it’s hard to have an independent thought.”
“As it should be, chérie.”
“Je t’aime, Laurent.”
“Come home, chérie.”
After they’d hung up, Maggie sat holding the phone for a few more minutes. Slowly, she stood up, replaced the phone on the nightstand next to her bed and went into the bathroom to splash cool water on her face. It was only seven in the evening and she didn’t feel like staying in her room, but she had no place she could think of to go. She tidied up her makeup and pulled a comb through her hair. She tied it back in a ponytail and stared at herself in the mirror.
She wore a thin black turtleneck and a pair of cotton slacks. Very French, she thought when she had packed them. Now, she just shook her head. She had circles under her eyes and the lipstick she’d brought made her look too corporate in spite of her outfit. Elise could’ve pulled it off, she thought with a sad smile. Elise could’ve pulled off looking sultry in clown shoes.
When her phone rang, she picked up and was delighted to discover it was Michelle.
“Bon soir, Maggie, do you have dinner plans for tonight?”
The restaurant they decided to meet at was a short walk from Maggie’s hotel. Maggie noticed it was a classic Parisian brasserie, with polished wooden floors, deeply recessed paneling and moldings, lace café curtains and all of it lit by candlelight. Michelle had made reservations and was waiting for Maggie when she arrived.
Maggie still couldn’t believe her luck at finding Michelle Zouk. It many ways, it was like getting a piece of Elise back. The sober, non-crazy piece.
Maggie ordered the veal with a salad and a spicy eggplant gratin. Michelle ordered a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
“I’m so glad you called,” Maggie said as they waited for their meal. “I pretty much finished up everything I had to do in town, and now I’m really just waiting around until my flight leaves on Friday.”
“Did you get your answers?”
Maggie sighed. “I guess I was hoping to find evidence that would indicate that Gerard killed Elise. I don’t know how, really. And if I did, I’m not sure what I could have done about it.”
“The police are not doing their job in Atlanta?”
“I really don’t know what they’re doing, to tell you the truth. They say they have someone in custody.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but to accept their suspect as Elise’s killer you have to believe that Elise was killed for no reason, that it was just random bit of violence.”
“You want her to death to have meant something.”
“I guess so.” Maggie took a sip of the wine. It was bright and velvety on her tongue. “I saw Nicole’s birth certificate today. Gerard wouldn’t give his name as the father.”
Michelle shook her head as if to indicate she was not surprised by anything Gerard did. The waiter came with their salads. Michelle immediately cut into her crudité. Like all the French, Maggie noted, food was a serious business with her.
“I went to the neighborhood where she lived in Montmartre, too. I have to say it was disgusting. My mother would’ve wept.”
“Monsieur Dubois has much to be responsible for, I’m afraid. Starting with moving her to that slum.”
Maggie toyed with her food. “You know, Michelle, there was another murder that happened the night before I flew to Nice.”
Zouk stopped eating. “Another?”
“She was a coworker and a friend of mine.” Maggie felt hot tears spring to her eyes. It was true she and Deirdre never went out for drinks after work. She hadn’t had her over for dinner, nor had she ever met her boyfriend, Kevin.
But it felt like they were friends.
Michelle gave Maggie a pained look. “I am so sorry, Maggie. This is very hard on you.”
Not half as hard as it is on Deirdre, Maggie thought, concentrating on her plate again. Or Elise.
“Anyway,” she said, taking a ragged breath and reaching for her wine. “Since Gerard was probably in France at the time Deirdre was killed, I’m open to believing that he might not be involved in Deirdre’s death. Maybe her murder was random. I don’t know. It’s all so confusing.”
“Of course, I see.” Michelle said. She caught the eye of their waiter and asked him to bring two crémes brûlées.
“Everything you told me about Elise being in rehab fits with what I learned in Cannes, but it really only shines light on that murder. Not the one I’m really interested in.”
“You have no more work to do in Paris?”
“Not really.”
“What if I was to tell you that Gerard Dubois is here?”
Maggie’s fork stopped halfway to her mouth. “Gerard is in Paris?”
“Oui. And I know where you may find him.”
Maggie’s mind began to reel. She looked out the brasserie windows, then back at Michelle. “I kind of promised I wouldn’t talk to him.”
“Of course, very sensible. He is a dangerous man. I just thought you would want to know. But if there was some way you could talk with him in public, that would be good, non? If you like, I would be happy to accompany you. The dog would not have the nerve to hurt us together.”
Maggie licked her lips and pushed her dessert away. Gerard in Paris! I can finally get some answers. Her mind raced as she remembered how vile he had been in their last interaction. She wouldn’t be so naïve as to think it would be easy. But Michelle was right; together they would be safe against him.
“Was it your papa you promised? Because I can talk to him if you like.”
“No, it was my boyfriend.”
“Oh, these men of ours! They are so protective, non? They think we are little flowers that need to be carried around in a buttonhole, comme ça.” She mimed putting a rose boutonniere in her lapel and smiled.
“Yeah, he’s seriously protective when it comes to Gerard,” Maggie said.
Michelle nodded and spooned into her crème brûlée. Maggie noted that Michelle ate delicately, almost theatrically, holding the spoon in front of her after each dip into the pudding as if she expected to be photographed for Paris Vogue. “But otherwise he supports you, yes? That is very important. Love is all very well…”
“He does. Mostly. I have to say he’s losing steam with it though. He’s French, by the way.”
“Yes?”
“As a matter of fact, I met him during all this. When I came to Cannes to find Nicole, he helped me get her.”
“How did you meet?” Michelle turned to the waiter and ordered coffees.
“It was through another guy, an Englishman, who my father was in contact with. Laurent was brought in to help us find my niece.”
“Gerard has a brother named Laurent,” Michelle said.
Maggie felt her stomach tighten. What an odd thing for her to say. “Well, I guess it’s a common name, huh? Laurent’s last name is Dernier, not Dubois.”
Maggie watched Michelle put her hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock, almost as if a video had been slowed down. Maybe, on some level, Maggie knew what Michelle would say. Maybe a part of her had always known. She found herself wanting to reach out, to physically stop the words from coming out of Michelle’s mouth.
“Your boyfriend’s name is Laurent Dernier?” Michelle shook her head.
Maggie didn’t answer. She watched Michelle’s mouth as the words tumbled relentlessly out.
“Oh, chérie, is this possible?” Michelle whispered. “That is the name of Gerard’s brother.”
Murder in the South of France, Book 1 of the Maggie Newberry Mysteries Page 35