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

by Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  Chapter One

  July 2012

  Laurent spread out the map on the tabletop, pushing aside the bottles of Badoît. He gripped the borders of the tattered carte as if he intended to steer the thing across the outdoor bistro table and into Aix-en-Provence’s bustling Cours Mirabeau.

  “Look,” he said. “Here is St-Buvard. You see?”

  Maggie sighed. “I see it, Laurent. I saw it back in Atlanta. I saw it on the airplane, in the taxi cab, on the map you have pinned up over the sink in our hotel room...”

  He looked up, a puzzled look on his face.

  Maggie flapped out her napkin and spread it across her knees. She was glad she had decided to wear slacks tonight. She’d had little idea what the weather would be like in the south of France in October. As it turned out, it was cold.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “yes, I see St-Buvard. Very nice red dot, surrounded by lots of inferior little gray dots.”

  The outdoor café they chose for their first night in Aix-en-Provence was a modest bistro, slapped together with whitewashed walls and rickety tables and an assortment of wicker chairs, whose paint was peeling in various stages. The food of course was wonderful.

  “You are being drôle.” His brown hair was long and intruded into his face. He enacted a familiar gesture by sweeping away his thick fringe from his eyes with an impatient hand. Maggie thought him extraordinarily handsome

  Even in early October, the air was fragrant with the scent of lavender and olive trees. The garden scents mingled on the night air with the aromas from the many culinary concoctions being produced in a half a dozen restaurants and bistros along the boulevard. It was a sensation, Maggie felt, one could experience nowhere else in the world―certainly not in Atlanta where she was from.

  She picked up a piece of bread and dipped it into the sauce of her rabbit stew. She wasn’t sure why she was a little unsettled tonight. Possibly it was the residual effects of their long flight. Maybe it was due to the kamikaze taxi driver who had taken them from the airport in Marseille to Aix-en-Provence and had Maggie saying breathless, imagined good-byes to her loved ones.

  She looked at Laurent. She watched the serious nod of his head, his brow plaited in concentration over his map. He was big and looming and gentle. After nearly two years, he was still the most intriguing man she had ever known.

  It had been two years since they had met and fallen in love. They were living in her apartment when the letter announcing Laurent’s inheritance had arrived three months earlier. They had already been talking about spending a year abroad; the inheritance simply provided the means. Laurent’s bachelor uncle had left him some land near Aix-en-Provence outside the small village of St-Buvard. The property was described in the letter as covering nearly forty hectares, most of it planted with grapes.

  They’d quickly wrapped up their lives in America. Laurent had begun a one-man self-education program on wine-growing in the Provençal region. All the intense study had worried Maggie as she had no desire to become a permanent expatriate. But Laurent insisted it was just so he would know the operation well enough to get a good price for it when it came time to sell. They would live in the area and try to work the vineyard―or at least keep it from falling into ruin, and then sell the property when their year was up.

  She looked at Laurent hunched over his map. Although his passionate French nature could have him in thralls of ecstasy about a just-picked melon or a sauce that didn’t curdle, she was still surprised at the high voltage between them.

  “How’s your lamb?” she asked.

  “It’s good to be back,” he said flatly.

  That means he’s had to put up with bad American food these last couple of years.

  “My rabbit’s a little tough,” she said sweetly.

  “I do not believe it.” He looked up and his eyes smiled at her although his lips did not. “It is a long trip for us both,” he said, pouring her a large glass of red wine. “And we have many things to—”

  He was interrupted by a scream from a table on the other side of the restaurant. A group of four was at the table, although one of the party―a young, scowling girl―now sat sprawled between two of the chairs.

  A man at the table, blond and unevenly shaven, jumped up, knocking his chair back against the hard stones with an ear-splitting clatter. He grinned roguishly as he grabbed the girl’s hands and jerked her abruptly, but not unkindly, to her feet, then made a charade of dusting her off with his hands. The other couple at the table laughed and looked self-consciously around the restaurant.

  The retrieved girl pushed the young man away and slumped down, pouting, into her seat. She crossed her arms and looked away. Her friends burst into laughter. Angrily, she snatched up a cigarette and lit it.

  “Tais-toi!” she said crossly to them. Then, noting Maggie staring, she stuck out her tongue at her.

  “Did you see that?” Maggie said indignantly to Laurent, who had returned to his map. “Oh, look, just study your map, will you?” Maggie pushed her dish away in annoyance.

  “St-Buvard,” she said, now beginning to enjoy her pique. “You said yourself, it’s French for ‘Saint Blotter,’ for crying out loud. What kind of a name is ‘Blotter’ for a town? And who would canonize a stupid blotter―?”

  “Excuse me.” A voice spoke to her from behind.

  Maggie started, knocking over the tumbler of Badoît with her elbow. Laurent pulled his map away as if acid had just been released onto the tablecloth.

  “Oh, no! Now I’ve made it even worse,” the young man said in an American accent, as he began to mop up the mess with her napkin. Maggie could hear his table of rowdies across the room cresting new plateaus of mirth.

  “My little group of brigands over there...” he gestured back toward his table. “...we felt we were intruding on your quiet dinner, you see. And then I heard you speak and I said to myself, ‘an American!’ I have to speak to them.”

  “Bonsoir,” Laurent said gruffly. “I am not American.”

  The young man threw back his head and laughed.

  “No shit! I meant votre femme here.” He turned to Maggie. “Look, mind if I join you?” He scooted up another chair next to Maggie and seated himself. A little taken aback by his forwardness, Maggie, nonetheless, found herself charmed by him.

  “Connor MacKenzie. Sculptor, artiste, and lover extraordinaire. Although,” he smiled and lowered his voice, as Laurent looked up, “I don’t usually mention that last fact to married women. Bums ‘em out, you know what I mean?”

  Maggie cleared her throat. “I’m not married, Mr. MacKenzie,” she said.

  “Jeez, call me Connor, or shit-head or something. Whadya mean ‘not married?’ Since when? Hey, big guy, quelle problem-o?”

  She eased back in her seat and watched Laurent who had never, in her memory, sat still for the hot-seat treatment. He didn’t now either.

  “Why are you here?” Laurent asked the young man bluntly.

  “Laurent!” Maggie said. “That’s rude.”

  “Don’t worry,” Connor said with a laugh to Maggie. “I’m not easily offended. But may I ask to whom did I have the honor of annoying?”

  “Allons-y! Connor, come on!” His friends were standing now and obviously ready to move on to the next venue of pleasure.

  “I’m Maggie Newberry and this is Laurent Dernier.”

  The name “Dernier” seemed to stop Connor in mid-turn. His smile faltered for a second and then reasserted itself.

  “How long did you say you two were in town for?” he asked.

  Laurent tucked away his map and reached out to pour the last of the Gigondas into Maggie’s wine glass.

  “You think you know me?” he asked without looking up.

  “Connor! Vas-y!”

  “Un moment!” Connor’s voice was surprisingly sharp to his friends, and they, in spite of their obvious impatience, waited for him by the front entrance of the restaurant.

  “We’re going to
be staying in St-Buvard,” Maggie said, reaching for her wine and glad for Connor’s hesitation to leave. “Do you know it?”

  Connor grinned and crossed his arms in front of him.

  “Oh, yes. I know it well.”

  He held out his hand to Maggie, relinquishing her of the burden of trying to figure out the proper farewell response for mutual nationals far from their own nation. She put her wine down and shook his hand.

  “Mademoiselle-Newberry-who-is-not-married-to-Monsieur-Dernier,” he said, as he reached for Laurent’s hand and gave it a solid shake. “I shall be seeing you both again.” With that, he turned and rejoined his friends―all of whom began to giggle as soon as he was back with them again.

  “Strange fellow,” Laurent said, absently patting the map in his vest pocket.

  “Fun fellow,” Maggie said as she watched Connor and crowd invade the streets of Aix-en-Provence. She had no doubt she would see him again.

  The next morning they were up early and checked out of their tiny hotel room. Laurent allowed only a brief stop at the boulangerie for croissants before climbing into their rented Citroen and pointing it westward toward St-Buvard. The night’s rest had refreshed both of them, but Maggie began to feel the burgeoning kernels of annoyance return when Laurent vetoed her morning coffee as taking up too much time.

  “We’ve got the rest of our lives to get there, Laurent. A lousy cup of coffee won’t make us miss the ferry or anything.”

  “There is no ferry to St-Buvard.” Laurent started the engine of the little car.

  “Well, there you are.” Maggie fumbled for a seatbelt that didn’t exist. “We don’t even have to wait for the ferry.”

  Laurent deposited the bag of rolls into Maggie’s lap, then peeled out of the car’s parking space. He sped down the early morning avenue. Maggie clutched at the car’s door handle but, unable to manage a hold, she braced her arms against the dashboard.

  “You’re going too fast!”

  “We do things differently here,” he said, his eyes on the narrow road ahead. “You must remember that you are in France now.”

  “Look, Laurent, let’s start over, okay? Let’s just enjoy the trip. Okay?”

  Laurent nodded and patted her knee. “Bon,” he said happily. “And you will navigate?”

  “You don’t know this road by heart by now?”

  “We are first going to the home of a neighbor of my uncle. A Monsieur Alexandre. The estate agent said Monsieur Alexandre will show us the house.”

  “And he couldn’t tell you what kind of a house it was? If it was livable or a dump?”

  Laurent didn’t answer.

  “You didn’t ask,” Maggie said.

  “I do not want the world to know my business.”

  Maggie studied the scrap of paper with the address scrawled on it. “Asking what kind of condition the house is in wouldn’t be prying.”

  “Monsieur Alexandre will show us the property,” he said simply.

  Maggie fished out a croissant from the paper bag, depositing shingles of pastry all over the car. She offered it to him.

  Laurent shook his head. “I am only saying, chérie, that I feel sure the house will be good for us. After all, my uncle has lived there all these years, has he not?”

  Maggie watched the scenery go by. The morning sun had climbed high enough now to highlight the passing purple fields with a golden haze. She rolled down the window and took a deep breath. It was cool and she could smell rosemary and burning wood. The landscape looked mildly bleak with more scrubs and bushes than trees. But the colors of the fields―first purple then gray, then deep green, all suffused with the brilliant Mediterranean light were entrancing.

  Maggie ate a croissant, licking the grease from her fingers. A cup of coffee even in a Styrofoam cup would be perfect about now, she thought with a sigh. Even without the coffee, she felt a tingle of euphoria from the combination of the fragrance of lavender, the nip in the air, and the palpable excitement coming from Laurent.

  The road meandered westward through the countryside. Soon they passed through steeper terrain, the hills covered in the briar-patch look of vineyards. Maggie saw the workers hunched over, picking the grapes by hand.

  “My God. Don’t these people have machines to do that?”

  “Machines can break the grape,” Laurent said. “Besides, these are small farms. The big machines are trop cher.”

  “How did your uncle do it?”

  “Sais pas,” he said, his eyes glittering with eagerness as he watched the pickers in the fields. “Perhaps he hired people from the village.”

  “Gosh, Laurent, it looks like a big job.” Maggie caught a glimpse of a little girl, no more than six years old, her basket full, her little back bent to the job.

  Laurent pointed to the map in her lap. “We have a turn coming up, oui?”

  A quarter of an hour later, they saw the sign announcing St-Buvard. Perched in three tiers on a bosky hilltop, the village was a series of compact, rose-colored buildings protected in its spiraled setting against the fierce mistral.

  As they drove closer, Maggie realized how tightly spaced the little village was. Its narrow, rock and pebble streets looked more like alleyways than main avenues. And the stone apartments and shops tucked into the dark, looming buildings were perched on the roads without buffer or curb.

  A crumbling Roman aqueduct ran at the base of the hill that supported St-Buvard―looking to Maggie like some ancient train trestle leading nowhere. Laurent drove through the village, his face flushed with excitement.

  “Voici, St-Buvard!” he said. “There is the boulangerie, and the charcuterie, oh, and the post office...”

  As quaint little Provençal villages go, Maggie had to admit, St-Buvard was classic. Blue and green shuttered windows winked out over the gaily-striped awnings of the village shops and narrow cobblestone avenues shot out from the main road.

  “Ah, the village café!” Laurent said as they drove past an outdoor terrace of small tables which backed up to the dark cavern of a restaurant. “We will be spending much time there, I think.”

  Maggie smiled. St-Buvard was charming. It was old-fashioned and cobblestoned with window boxes of geraniums. She half expected to see a horse-drawn cart meet them around the next corner. Within minutes they were through the little village and onto a gravel road that led off into the horizon.

  “This can’t be right,” Maggie said, squinting at the map.

  “Monsieur Alexandre’s vineyard is less than a mile from here,” Laurent said.

  “He’s got a vineyard too?” Maggie looked into the surrounding fields and pastures and wondered if one of them could be a part of Laurent’s property.

  “Yes, yes,” Laurent said. “But which way?”

  “Well, there’s only to the left or to the right. Why don’t we drive a half a mile up each way and see what we find?”

  Laurent rolled his eyes, then pointed to an old man shuffling along the road a hundred yards in front of him.

  “This old fellow’s bound to know,” he said, driving the car abreast with the man. “Excusez-moi,” Laurent called to him.

  The old man turned. Laurent spoke quickly to him in French and the man peered into the car at Maggie.

  “He thinks we’re tourists,” Maggie said, smiling broadly at the man. “Tell him we’re his new neighbors.” She spoke loudly to the man as if he were hard of hearing: “Nous nous neighbors à Domaine St-Buvard? Oui? Comprenez-vous?”

  Laurent grimaced.

  “Is there a reason why you are speaking bad French to the poor man, when I am sitting right here?”

  The look of horror that swiped the old gentleman’s face was vivid for several seconds before he turned and jogged away. Maggie and Laurent watched him disappear behind an ancient stonewall.

  Maggie spoke first. “Did you see that?”

  “Incredible, the effect your French has on the natives.”

  “He was afraid of us.”

&nbs
p; “C’est ridicule. We French are not as open as Americans.”

  “Come on, Laurent. I didn’t ask him if he liked it with the woman on top. I just said we were his new neighbors.”

  “For a Frenchman, it is often the same thing,” Laurent said, smiling,

  “Oh, very funny. Hey, look! Is that a driveway?”

  Laurent slowed for a copse of trees that hid a sharp turn in the road as well as a gently sloping driveway. An old sign, the faded letters of which were nearly obscured by time and the crowding olive trees, read Domaine Alexandre. Maggie felt a chill run through her as Laurent turned down the tree-lined drive.

  It looked like an entranceway to a grand country estate. When the house finally appeared from over a slight rise in the road, it was no massive château. The dramatic entranceway led to a simple farmhouse, a mas, of rough fieldstone and wood, draped in verdant cascades of ivy.

  Large black poodles ran out from under the bushes near the house and bounded up to the car, barking loudly. Laurent drove to the front door—the only massive thing about the otherwise unimpressive little house—and shut off the engine. Within moments, the dogs were herded off by a slight man wielding a tremendous stick.

  “Allez! Allez!” he yelled, waving his stick precariously close to their windshield. He turned abruptly and examined the car and its passengers.

  His face was weatherworn and reddened from years in the Provençal sun. He wore clean, dark trousers, a white shirt, a dark blue tie and a cloth cap on the back of his head. He held the remainder of a cheroot clamped between a set of crooked, yellow teeth. Maggie guessed his age at about sixty. His face looked older, but his lithe, spare body moved with the ease of a younger man.

  “Monsieur Alexandre?” Laurent began to open his car door.

  “Bien sûr!” the older man called. He jerked open the door to the back seat and settled himself inside.

  “Drive on,” he said to Laurent.

  Jean-Luc Alexandre directed them to a small country restaurant about three miles from his farm. Maggie saw her chance for a better breakfast and even Laurent, for all his impatience, seemed not to mind too much.

  Inside, Jean-Luc led them to a table in the back. The restaurant’s owners regarded them suspiciously but warmed up when Jean-Luc ordered four bottles of wine―two whites, a red and a rosé. Maggie noticed that the wine labels were hand-written and difficult to read.

  Jean-Luc poured their glasses and held his own up as if to indicate he would make a toast. He did not. They drank their wine and then Jean-Luc and Laurent began to talk in fast, low-rumbling French. Their words were unintelligible to Maggie.

  Jean-Luc gestured with much animation as he spoke, his sentences punctuated often with “Zut!” and “Ach!” and once even a soft “putain,” before looking in Maggie’s direction and smiling apologetically.

  A large crock of pâté was deposited in front of Maggie, followed by a steaming loaf of bread, a couple of spit-roasted pheasants (golden-brown and fragrant with rosemary), a chafing dish with white fish, redolent in the garlicky aîoli sauce of the area.

  There followed a puffball of pastry, braided and baked to perfection, a large salad of greens glistening with olive oil and liberally sprinkled with basil, parsley, tarragon, oregano, chives and wild thyme, and, finally, little raviolis stuffed with a creamy, sharp cheese. It wasn’t yet ten-thirty in the morning.

  Maggie watched as Laurent finished off his third glass of rosé and allowed his new friend to pour him a glass of the headier red. Before she had time to give him a nudge under the table, they were joined by a couple whom Jean-Luc introduced as Eduard and Danielle Marceau.

  The Marceaus were also Laurent’s neighbors and winegrowers as well. Madame Marceau was a youthful fifty-something with severely coifed blonde hair that was obviously created from a bottle purchased at the village pharmacie. Her face must have been pretty once, but was now harshly lined from too much wind and southern sun. She smiled at Maggie and Laurent through razor-thin lips.

  Eduard Marceau was as pale and flabby as Jean-Luc was ruddy and firm. Maggie marveled at the contrast in the two men: one of them obviously didn’t have to go out and pick his own grapes.

  Eduard extended a pudgy hand to Maggie and Laurent.

  “Bienvenue!” he said cheerfully. His wife nodded in agreement. “We are happy to be meeting you at long last. Oui, Danielle?” He patted his wife’s hand, then turned to Maggie.

  “You are to forgive Jean-Luc for talking away with your husband not in English. He is a rough country character with no manners.” He smiled broadly at Jean-Luc, who poured Maggie a large glass of the strong red wine as if to compensate for his supposed rudeness.

  “I am très sorry, Madame,” Jean-Luc said to her, smiling through the picket fence of his teeth. “I am so desiring to talk business with your husband.”

  “Eh? What’s this?” Eduard boomed out a little too heartily. “Talking business already? They have just arrived!”

  “They haven’t even seen the house, Jean-Luc,” Danielle said meekly.

  “What’s the house look like?” Maggie turned to the older woman and took a large sip of her wine. She noticed the old girl wasn’t drinking.

  “Of course, you see?” Eduard shook his head at Jean-Luc. “They haven’t even seen the property yet and you are working your wiles, you old devil! Let the man eat his lunch!”

  “What sort of business, exactement,” Laurent said pleasantly, sniffing the bouquet of his wine, “are you referring to, Monsieur Marceau?”

  “Call me Eduard, please,” Marceau said, tearing a piece of bread apart.

  “Eduard.”

  Marceau smiled and reached for his own glass of wine. “There is so much time for all of that, Monsieur Dernier...Laurent, that I think we will not bore the women, eh? First, let us enjoy a good meal and become a little of what we were to your uncle. Good neighbors.”

  “Friends,” added Madame Marceau.

  “You knew my uncle well?” Laurent asked, spooning into the huge spinach pastry, its steamy, fragrant contents spilling across the stark whiteness of his plate.

  “We were neighbors,” Jean-Luc said, helping himself to one of the pheasants. “Not really friends, but you get to know your neighbor. We helped each other when there was a call for it.”

  “For nearly ten years,” Eduard said.

  “So your property connects with Laurent’s?” Maggie asked, swallowing a mouthful of cod soaked in aïoli.

  “Both of our properties touch yours,” Jean-Luc said to Laurent. “I am placed on the east, yes?” He positioned a chunk of bread next to Laurent’s wine glass to indicate where his house was located, and then moved the pâté below it. “And Eduard is just to the south, comme ça.”

  “Neighbors,” Laurent said.

  “Comme il faut,” Danielle said, then smiled at Maggie. “My English is not being too good.”

  “That’s okay,” Maggie said. “My French sucks. Can you tell me about the house? Can we live in it or is it falling down?”

  “Live in it?” Jean-Luc looked questioningly at Laurent. “The agent said you were interested in selling Domaine St-Buvard.”

  “I totally the love name.” Maggie grinned and looked at Laurent. “I’ve got to get stationery printed up. Seriously.”

  “We are interested in selling it,” Laurent said, refilling his wine glass. “Just not immediately.”

  “Ah,” Eduard said and glanced briefly at Jean-Luc. “Well, you will be anxious to see it, I’m sure. And yes, Madame―”

  “Maggie,” Maggie said happily, deciding she quite liked this old gentleman winemaker and his wife.

  “Bon, Maggie. The house is not falling down.” Eduard said. “It is not a château, you understand? But it is a good house. Don’t you agree, chérie?” He turned to his wife, who nodded in agreement.

  “We would love to accompany you on your visit,” he added, “bien sûr, but Danielle and I have business in Aix this afternoon. Tant p
is.” He shrugged, then reached over and took the last roasted pheasant.