Murder à la Carte (Maggie Newberry 02] Page 13

  Suddenly, they heard Nicole scream.

  Chapter Seven

  1

  “Extraordinary,” John Newberry said as he watched Laurent examine the pumpkin head. “Who would do this? Is it a joke? Is this supposed to be funny?”

  Laurent stood up slowly and ran a hand through his brown hair. A rusting ax was embedded in the pumpkin, which had been painted to look like a human head. The “mouth” was agape as though in a silent scream of agony.

  “It is no joke,” Laurent said solemnly.

  “Laurent, is there some sort of trouble going on here?” John asked.

  “Non, non, John,” Laurent shook his head and put his hand on the older man’s shoulder. “It is a message, I think. That is all.”

  “What in the world kind of―”

  “Je ne sais pas,” Laurent interrupted him. “But there is no danger, I am sure. Je suis sûr.”

  “All right, Laurent. I guess you’ll take care of it.” John looked back in the direction of the house where Maggie, her mother and Nicole were. “I trust you will.”

  Laurent picked up the pumpkin and handed the ax to John.

  “What are you going to do with it?” John asked.

  “For now, I will put it down in the cave. “ Laurent said. “Come. There is another entrance from the garden. I don’t want Nicole to see this again.”

  “Aunt Maggie, it was horrible! It was laughing at me!” The small girl turned to her grandmother from her seat on a wooden stool in the kitchen. “You heard it, Mamie?” she asked, her dark brown eyes wide.

  “No, darling, but I saw it―”

  “It was laughing! It laughed!”

  “Uncle Laurent will take care of it, Nicole,” Maggie said gently to the child. “It was just somebody’s idea of a joke, I think. Do you understand?”

  Elspeth placed her hands on her granddaughter’s knees. “C’est une ruse, Nicole. Comprends-tu? C’est une mauvaise ruse. C’est tout,” she said firmly. It was just a bad trick.

  Nicole listened carefully to her grandmother, finally nodding.

  “Je m’excuse,” she whispered. I’m sorry.

  “Don’t be silly!” Maggie pulled Nicole off the stool and held her by both hands. “There’s nothing to be sorry about. It was a terrible trick and Aunt Maggie would have cried too if it’d been me that had found it.”

  “Vraiment?”

  “Absolutely vraiment. Now why don’t you help me set the table? That would be a big help, darling.”

  The child smiled at her aunt as she reached for the stack of pressed cotton napkins on the counter. They could hear the sound of Petit-Four’s tail smacking against the floorboards from under the kitchen table. The thumping increased just before the dog jumped up and followed Nicole into the dining room.

  As soon as Nicole left the room, Elspeth spoke to Maggie.

  “Who on earth could have done such a thing?” she asked, slapping her hands against her wool slacks in frustration. “Maggie, it looked so horrid!”

  Maggie began counting wine glasses on the counter.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t imagine.” Laurent will kill that crazy Gaston, she thought. He will kill him and then Laurent will end up in a nasty French jail somewhere and that will be that.

  “Is this some sort of autumn tradition? Macabre pumpkins in the neighbors’ fields?”

  “I really don’t know, Mother.” Maggie touched a finger to the turkey which was resting on the counter. It was roasted to a honey-brown, stuffed with pine kernels, fresh chopped chervil and savory. “There’s only twelve of us,” she said. “Do you think there’s enough food?”

  “You must be joking.” Elspeth stepped away from the kitchen counter to watch Nicole as she carefully placed the twelve napkins next to their plates. “While the rest of the United States is eating turkey hash for the next week, Margaret, you’ll be eating turkey hash and goat cheese and left over...what is this?” She lifted up the lid on a large crock of pâté. “Pâté? For Thanksgiving?”

  Maggie opened the refrigerator. “Laurent can’t eat a meal without the stuff,” she said. “Apparently, no Frenchman can. It’s in their country’s constitution. Here, try some of this.” Maggie spread a dollop of oily, black tapenade on a piece of Madame Renoir’s olive loaf. She handed it to her mother.

  “Mm-mm.” Elspeth said. “I love tapenade but you can’t find it back home.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can find it where they keep all the other stuff that will send you to an early, high-cholesterol grave.”

  “Oh, yes, isn’t that on Roswell Road in Atlanta?”

  Maggie laughed.

  Nicole popped her head back into the kitchen. “Mamie! Aunt Maggie! Someone is here. I hear the car!”

  “Oh, God,” Maggie said, her mouth full of bread. “I look like hell.”

  “You look lovely.” Elspeth said. “Nicole, go and let them in, darling.”

  Nicole vanished and Maggie peered out the little kitchen window. “Oh, good, it’s Grace,” she said. “I was hoping she’d come first.”

  Laurent and her father emerged from the basement.

  “Voila!” Laurent said, brandishing a bottle of rosé in each hand. His broad, handsome face was flushed from the cold and his own returned good humor. He grinned conspiratorially at Maggie and winked. “Thanksgiving, she can now begin!”

  2

  The shame of it was unbearable. To be forced to go, dragged so unrelentingly by her father―for what? To what end? To be humiliated, that’s what! To be publicly degraded! She was not fooled. Babette knew that was why her father was insisting she go in the first place. Bâtard!

  She stood in her bedroom and stared out of the large window of her bedroom. Her parents had always reminded her that hers was the best bedroom in the house. This! A pigsty! A hole too small to interest a rat or a hedgehog! She glared out the window and across the dirty, cobblestone street to the bureau de poste. If not for the thin and dilapidated row of houses and shops which outlined the village of St-Buvard, she would be able to see the road that ran to the Dernier’s property. She thought of Laurent Dernier and a feeling fluttered pleasurably in her throat. A fantasy of Laurent and herself locked in sexual combat filtered through her mind and she smiled.

  Bah! Why is he with that old American hag? The beast must be forty! Babette’s own mother had had grandchildren at thirty-five. She wrenched her eyes away from the storefront and the image of the fields behind it and returned, once more, to her shabby room. But best of all, she thought, it would kill the bastard Connor to think I had made love with Dernier.

  “Babette? Es-tu prête?” Her mother’s voice climbed up the stairs of the creaky old house and slid under the girl’s door.

  Babette’s anger returned. She looked at her reflection in the small mirror over her dresser. Her blonde hair hung to her shoulders. Her smooth complexion was puckered with her ire, erasing her prettiness. She thought she could see the seams of her tight blue dress strain just a bit more than usual across her lower abdomen. And now she was to be dragged― pregnant and disgraced―to the house where her lover was dining? She looked at her reflection in anger. And to be presented as part of the peasants’ dégustation afterward! The humiliation was absolute. Her father’s betrayal of her was complete.

  “Babette!”

  Babette closed her eyes against the image in the mirror and the voice downstairs.

  They will pay. They will, all of them, pay and pay and pay.

  3

  Maggie eased into her seat next to Laurent, grateful that they had decided to sit next to each other and not be the bookend host and hostess at the ends of the table. The turkey had been perfect. The best ever. The dressing―the only item besides the cranberries that hadn’t been Frenchified―was a hit with the Marceaus, which Maggie took as a personal victory. Both the Marceaus were in happy spirits, Eduard laughing heartily at all of John Newberry’s jokes and nodding sagely at whatever bon mot Laurent happened to utter. And Danielle, al
though every bit as taciturn as usual, was at least smiling in all the right places throughout dinner. Maggie could tell that her mother liked the woman. Her French was so much better than Maggie’s, so she was able to chat with Danielle.

  Grace was her usual charming, wonderful self, Maggie thought, and she looked particularly beautiful today in a forest-green cashmere sweater set. Maggie was always a little amazed that Laurent professed no attraction to Grace. Windsor sat at Grace’s side, handsome, stoic...pouting? It was hard to tell. Something was going on between the two of them, Maggie was certain, although it was hard to determine exactly what.

  And then there was Taylor. In all her glory. Maggie had been prepared for a brat, had tried to prepare Nicole without actually warning her, and had done her best to remove those items around the living room that would be missed too much if they got smashed or broken.

  Moments before dinner was served, while everyone was sipping marc and munching on marinated olives, Maggie heard a sharp cry from Petit-Four that sent her running from the kitchen into the living room. There, she found Taylor and Nicole huddled over the quivering puppy.

  “What’s going on here?” She had said it as calmly as she could, but images of Grace’s infamous daughter trying to perform living-room surgery on her dog came immediately to mind. Windsor appeared at her elbow, a cast of resignation and inevitability across his attractive features. Maggie found herself wondering what the man looked like before he had kids.

  “Taylor,” he said sternly. “What happened?”

  Maggie scooped up Petit-Four and examined her to make sure there was no lasting damage. The puppy licked her face enthusiastically and snuggled into the crook of her arm.

  “Nothing, Daddy!” Taylor stood up and glared at her father. Maggie noticed a vague outline of some breakfast morsel that had obviously found its way to the front of her beautiful blue velvet dress. “It wasn’t me. The puppy just won’t play.”

  “Never mind, Taylor,” Maggie said. She glanced at Nicole, who was watching Taylor with a frown on her face. “Petit-Four has had too much excitement for one day, I’m afraid. I’m putting her away.” She looked kindly at Nicole, hoping she’d understand. “She’s off limits for awhile, okay?” Nicole nodded.

  “No problem, Win,” Maggie said breezily. “Just pre-dinner hi-jinks. Laurent and I have been having them all morning.”

  Windsor dragged his eyes off his pouting daughter and allowed himself a smile in Maggie’s direction. “That’s kind of hard to imagine,” he said, teasingly.

  “Well, thank you very much,” Maggie said with an indignant laugh as she walked toward the kitchen. “Laurent and I can hi-jink with the best of them, I’ll have you know.”

  Once in the kitchen, she plopped the puppy into its cardboard box under the kitchen table. Laurent sliced off a piece of turkey and gave it to Maggie to give to the dog. He raised his eyebrows questioningly at her.

  “Nothing,” Maggie said in answer. “I probably over-reacted.”

  Two hours later, Maggie was ready to strangle the child―and Connor MacKenzie too, who still hadn’t shown up for dinner.

  “What is this MacKenzie fellow like?” Maggie’s father frowned and scooped up the last portion of the Potatoes Anna onto his plate.

  “Oh, Dad, he’s really nice.” Maggie watched Taylor as she dropped an oily green olive onto the tablecloth, then stuck her fingers into her water glass. “I can’t imagine where he is. He’s not usually late.”

  “I’d be really hacked off,” Grace said sipping her wine. She looked over at Laurent. “The rosé is merveilleux!” She gave a sly look toward Eduard Marceau. “Better, even, than the cooperative, Laurent. Très bon!”

  “Merci,” Laurent said, nodding. Maggie could see he was pleased.

  “Well, I am a little annoyed,” Maggie admitted, as she picked up her glass. She wondered what Emily Post said about the politeness of sending other people’s children from the table. “But you’ll like him, Dad,” she said hurriedly. “He’s quite funny and very sweet.”

  “That’s true,” Grace said. “He is all those things.”

  “And late,” Windsor added as he bit into a last pain aux olives.

  “Or, retard, as the French say,” Grace added.

  Everyone laughed.

  Taylor, obviously tired of the adult chatter, promptly tipped over her glass of water.

  “Look, Laurent,” Maggie said as she helped Grace mop up the flood on the damask tablecloth, “why don’t you get the coffee going? I’ll get the pies and cake in a sec.” She looked up at her mother who was lifting a portion of the cloth away from the table to try to save it from getting too wet. “Madame Marceau made a wonderful grape cake for us,” Maggie said with some strain in her voice.

  “Gâteau aux Raisins et fruits confits,” Danielle said to Elspeth. “Ce n’est rien.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it will be delightful!” Elspeth said.

  Grace had her head bent low over her daughter in a tense conference. Maggie saw Nicole scoot her chair away from the little offender.

  In the kitchen, Maggie sighed loudly and leaned against one of the kitchen stools. “I guess we can’t banish the kids until they’ve had their pumpkin pie, huh?” she said to Laurent who was pouring the coffees.

  “It might be noticed,” Laurent admitted.

  “That kid is a walking demolition site,” she said, trying to keep her voice down.

  “Now is not a good time to talk about having children?”

  Maggie reached for the cream pitcher. “I’ll never understand the French sense of humor,” she said, shaking her head for his benefit. “Hey! I made an oxymoron! Get it? French? Sense of humor? Comprends-tu? “

  Laurent looked up questioningly.

  “God,” Maggie said, placing the cups and saucers onto a tray. “All my best lines are wasted on someone who doesn’t speak English.”

  Laurent kissed her the nape of her neck. “But I speak other languages, chérie,” he said softly into her hair.

  Maggie felt a tingling thrill as he spoke. “Better get the grape cake,” she said, as she lifted the tray of coffees. “The sooner we get through dessert, the sooner you can start teaching me some new vocabulary.”

  “I don’t like punkin pie! Mommy, you know I don’t like punkin pie!”

  Maggie walked into the dining room and set the tray down. Ignoring the squawking child, she distributed coffee around the table. “Dad?”

  John shook his head. “I’ll have mine later with marc,” he said, trying not to watch the squirming child to his immediate left.

  “Mommy! I told you! I don’t want―”

  Windsor bent over Taylor’s chair until his face was very close to hers. “Taylor,” he said, “if you don’t stop howling, Daddy will take you home immediately, do you understand? You won’t be able to play with Nicole, you won’t―”

  “Oh, swell!” Grace tossed down her napkin. “Now if she doesn’t behave we have to leave! You can’t make a threat like that and not follow through with it. All the books say―”

  “Screw the books!” Windsor looked up quickly at Elspeth and Danielle and smiled weakly. “Sorry,” he said. He straightened up, to the low sounds of Taylor’s renewed whining, and faced his wife. “What would you suggest?” he said tightly.

  “Why don’t you beat the snot out of her, then let her howl it out in the garden? It’s not that cold and I’m pretty sure the wolves have gone by now.”

  All heads turned toward the source of the voice in the living room foyer.

  “Connor,” Grace said almost inaudibly, shaking her head.

  He stood in the living room in his red-checkered wool jacket, a bottle of red wine in each hand, his hair tousled from the windy night.

  Maggie noted, not for the first time, how good-looking Connor was. As she took the bottles of wine, he kissed her on both cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Mags,” he said, unwrapping his muffler from his neck. “I had date problems tonight, you know? Forgive
me?”

  Before she could reply, Laurent was standing behind her. He and Connor shook hands solemnly.

  “Hey, big guy,” Connor said. “Sorry to miss the bird.”

  “Pas de problème,“ Laurent said. He took the wine bottles from Maggie and studied the labels. He nodded. They were good bottles, Maggie guessed. “Merci, “ he said.

  “Connor, I want you to meet my parents,” Maggie said, ushering him towards the dining room table. Somehow, all the good-humor of the evening had returned―even stronger than before. Maggie found herself aware of the scent of cinnamon, marjoram, nutmeg and coffee in the dining room. There was a feeling of expectation in the air. In addition, Taylor hadn’t uttered one whiny syllable since Connor’s arrival.

  4

  The living room seemed to shrink with the press of bodies, moving, sitting and, being mostly French bodies, gesticulating wildly with arms, heads and hands. Maggie couldn’t imagine that Laurent had invited all these people, but every time she was able to seek him out in the crowd, he looked unsurprised and as if he were enjoying himself. Nearly one hundred villagers were crammed into the kitchen, dining room and living room of the stone farmhouse.

  Several of Laurent’s wines were lined up on the kitchen counter and dining room table like bowling pins, one row behind the other. Some were uncorked, some were tightly sealed: rosé and grenache in bright green bottles with Laurent’s hand-written label slapped on each. Maggie found it hard to believe that there would be any wine left for the two of them this winter after tonight’s bash, let alone enough to fill an order at the Atlanta Cherokee Country Club.

  Maggie edged her way along the wall from the dining room to the corner of the living room. The fire Laurent had built earlier in the fireplace had gone out. Just as well, Maggie thought, as she maneuvered toward the couch. The heat from all these bodies would make a fire unbearable. The children had gone to bed upstairs, exhausted and stuffed full of too-rich food.

  Maggie paused to smile at a herd of dark-clothed, swarthy villagers as they drained large glasses of marc and rosé. If nature called, she wondered if they would be insulted if asked to use the garden.