Murder à la Carte (Maggie Newberry 02] Page 14

  Her mother and Danielle and Eduard Marceau were seated on the couch. Their heads were close together so that they could hear themselves above the din of the laughing and booming Gallic voices. As soon as Maggie reached them, they stood up and pulled on their overcoats.

  “Darling!” Elspeth said, on seeing Maggie. “We’re just going out onto the terrace so Eduard can have a smoke.”

  Maggie was amazed that Eduard couldn’t see, in the thick haze of Gitanes and Gauloises in her living room, that such politeness, although appreciated, was hardly necessary. She was about to say so, when it occurred to her that she could do with a breath of cool night air herself.

  “I’ll join you,” she said. She made her way to the foyer for her coat and smiled pleasantly at a dumpy little man who was standing on her carefully needlepointed hassock and arguing with another taller man.

  “We’ll be outside, darling,” her mother called over her shoulder.

  Grace Van Sant grabbed her hand as Maggie made her way back to the French doors and the garden. “Rescue me,” Grace said urgently. “This dweeb doesn’t speak English and I have no interest in whatever he’s trying to say in French.” Maggie laughed and nodded politely to the pock-skinned young man pressing his attentions on Grace.

  “Un moment,” Maggie said to him, nodding as if speaking to an idiot. “Un moment, oui?” She pulled on her coat and tugged Grace away. “Get your coat and meet me outside,” Maggie said. “I had no idea Laurent invited the whole of St-Buvard.”

  “Are you kidding?” Grace laughed. “Some of these people are from Nice!”

  Maggie rolled her eyes and made her way, with much smiling and exaggerated nodding, to the French doors that led to the terrace. Once outside, she was assailed by the quiet and the clear air. The shock of the cold felt refreshing after the stale, smoky atmosphere inside. Her mother and the Marceaus were leaning against the stonewall where Gaston had broken the terra cotta pots the day before. Eduard was smoking.

  “Maggie, there you are,” Elspeth said, reaching out a wool-draped arm to her daughter. “You’ve got to hear what Eduard is telling us.”

  “I am sure Maggie has heard the mystery, n’est-ce pas?” Eduard smiled broadly.

  “About the Fitzpatricks?” Maggie turned to her mother. “I can’t believe I forgot to tell you that. Isn’t it wild?”

  “Eduard says the family was killed in the house.”

  “Really?” Maggie frowned and turned to Eduard. “I was told it was out front in the drive.”

  Eduard shook his head. “Dedans,” he said emphatically. Inside. “All four.” He made a shooting gesture with the thumb and forefinger of his unsmoking hand. “Bang, bang, bang, bang.”

  Maggie turned back to her mother. “And did he tell you why they were all killed?”

  Elspeth looked politely at Eduard, smiling in hopeful anticipation of more details.

  Maggie continued. “Because one of the men in the village was having an affair with the woman, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.” Maggie looked to Eduard and Danielle. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  At that moment, Grace swung open the French doors, releasing a gust of smoke and noise out onto the terrace.

  “God, it’s crazy in there.” She shut the door behind her. “Maggie, do you mind that some of the village women are upstairs trying on your clothes?”

  “Very funny,” Maggie said. “Grace, I hadn’t told my mother about the Fitzpatrick family massacre. I can’t believe I forgot.”

  Grace accepted a cigarette from Eduard with a cheerful “merci” and shivered in her coat as she waited for him to light it for her.

  “It’s a great story,” Maggie said. “Connor is sure the place is haunted.”

  “Have you heard anything odd at night, dear?” Elspeth asked Maggie playfully.

  “No, but I try not to listen too carefully.” Maggie took in a huge breath of the November air and expelled a foggy cloud from her lips.

  “The woman was a terrible woman,” Eduard said frowning, jabbing his cigarette into the air for emphasis. “She ruined many lives.”

  “Not to mention her own,” Grace said, smiling benignly at Eduard. She turned to Elspeth. “The man who killed them all, Elspeth, was a village hero of sorts. Fought with the Resistance, well-loved and respected, blah-blah-blah.”

  “C’est vrai,” Danielle said, her eyes flitting nervously from her husband’s face to the faces of the three women. “Patrick Alexandre était un homme magnifique.” Her husband didn’t look at her as she spoke.

  “And he fell in love with this woman?” Elspeth asked.

  “An Englishwoman,” Eduard said curtly.

  Danielle nodded. “She drives him to do this terrible thing,” she said.

  “I see,” Elspeth said, looking at Maggie, who shrugged.

  “Pretty grisly,” Grace said happily, dragging on her cigarette.

  “Patrick died in prison,” Eduard said. “His wife had been dead for many years. But his daughter...” He shook his head to indicate the shame of it all.

  “That’s Madame Renoir, right?” Maggie said brightly. “Remind me to track her down inside somewhere, Mother. She’s been so nice to me, I can’t be rude.”

  “It was a terrible thing for a young girl,” Eduard continued. “Madame Renoir is an exceptional woman.” He tilted his chin up. “She will hold her head up high!”

  “Well, after all,” Grace said dryly, “she can be proud of all the Nazis he must’ve killed. I mean, it balances out, doesn’t it? After all, he only killed four measly English people, right?”

  Maggie pinched Grace through her coat.

  “Ouch!” Grace said.

  “Anyway,” Elspeth said, “it’s a fascinating story.”

  Maggie peered through the French doors at the jumble of colors and moving shapes until she picked out the biggest one. Laurent stood, wine glass in hand, talking animatedly to Bernard Delacore. A dowdy woman stood at Bernard’s side, her eyes downcast. Maggie shook her head.

  Why do all French country wives act like they have large yokes around their necks?

  Maggie caught a glimpse of Babette standing behind Laurent. Something about the way the girl was touching Laurent on the arm as he spoke made Maggie’s stomach start to hurt just a little.

  “What do you see?” Grace turned to peer through the French doors.

  “Nothing,” Maggie frowned. “Babette’s here, is all.”

  “Est-ce que vous le connaissez?” Danielle asked. Do you know her? Danielle looked at Maggie and followed her gaze into the house.

  Maggie forced a smile. “I’ve met her, Danielle. She’s your niece, isn’t she?”

  “My husband’s,” Danielle said. Then, after a pause, “And mine too, of course.”

  “You see, it is true,” Eduard said to Elspeth with a smile. “We are all related.” He turned to point into the crowd inside. “Jean-Luc? The tall, ugly one there? You have met him?”

  Elspeth shook her head.

  “A scoundrel,” Eduard said.

  “He is the brother of Patrick Alexandre,” Danielle said. “Son frère.”

  “Ah, I see.” Elspeth smiled encouragingly at the woman who was now, it seemed, watching her husband with some nervousness

  “He was not shamed by his brother’s crime,” Eduard said. He shook out another cigarette and offered it to the group, all of whom politely declined. “He déteste his brother, you understand? When Patrick went to prison...” He threw up an arm as if to ward off a perching pigeon, “Poof! Jean-Luc is a landowner, n’est-ce pas? Très riche, you understand?”

  Again, Elspeth nodded politely and made the appropriate noises of comprehension.

  Maggie watched Babette giggling and clutching Laurent’s arm. She watched Laurent cheerfully ignore the girl’s attentions.

  “She’s really slogging it down for someone who’s three months pregnant,” Grace noted, crushing out her cigarette on the flagstone terrace with the toe of her shoe. She looked up abruptly at Eduard. “Oo
ps,” she said. “Sorry.”

  He waved away her concern. “Cela ne fait rien,” he said dismissively. “The whole village knows. It is not a secret. My brother, Bernard, will handle it.”

  I wonder, exactly, how he intends to do that, Maggie thought. She watched Babette―looking unfortunately pretty tonight with her long blonde hair and her French pouting lips―pull Laurent away from her parents and into the relatively private confines of the kitchen.

  “Want to join them?” Grace said quietly to Maggie.

  Maggie shook her head. “Je le fait confiance,” she said. I have faith. She took another deep breath. It had gotten very cold on the terrace all of a sudden.

  Grace fluffed her hair with a slightly drunken hand and stared into the bedroom mirror.

  “I look like shit,” she said.

  “You do not,” Maggie said. She sat on the edge of the bed. The noise downstairs was making the mattress vibrate gently. “God, when will they leave?”

  “Oh?” Grace turned and smiled at Maggie. “Laurent didn’t tell you?”

  Maggie laughed in spite of her fatigue. “Don’t make me laugh, Grace,” she said. “I don’t feel like laughing. I feel like sleeping and then having you clean my house.”

  “You are tired!” Grace straightened her sweater set and wet her lips. “Seen Windsor lately?” she asked lightly.

  “Are you kidding? I haven’t seen anybody I know or recognize in the last thirty minutes. It’s getting worse, not better.”

  “He was talking to Connor about an hour ago.” Grace added powder under her eyes. “They both looked drunk.”

  “Well, quelle surprise,” Maggie said, laying out flat on the bed.

  “Madame?” Portly Madame Renoir stood in the door way, hesitant and awkward. Instantly, Maggie sat up.

  “Oh, Madame Renoir,” Maggie said, rubbing her face in a gesture of exhaustion. “I am so sorry not to have talked with you before now. Does she understand me?” she said to Grace.

  Grace quickly translated for the woman and then edged toward the door.

  “You’re leaving?” Maggie asked with dismay.

  “Gotta do a husband check,” Grace said brightly. “I’ll leave you two girls to your little chat.” She turned to the heavy-set baker and patted her on one meaty shoulder. “J’adore le pain aux olives, Madame! C’est magnifique.”

  Madame Renoir mumbled her thanks as Grace escaped out the door in a scented wake of Chanel No. 5.

  “Madame Renoir,” she said to the baker. “je suis si sorry to talk with you comme ça...” Maggie sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy without a translator.

  “Please, je vous en prie,” she said. “Sit down. Is something wrong?” God, just what she needed, Maggie thought, tiredly―to work through the problems of the village baker at midnight on the longest Thanksgiving Day in the history of the holiday. She patted the woman’s hand in a gesture she hoped the woman wouldn’t find too intimate. “Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” she asked. What’s the matter? She noticed the woman seemed quite distressed.

  Obviously encouraged by Maggie’s French, Madame Renoir immediately burst into an agitated monologue of incomprehensible phrases accompanied by much hand wringing and head shaking.

  Maggie nodded sympathetically and then patted the older woman’s hand again.

  “Je ne vous comprends pas, Madame,” she said helplessly and shrugged in an exaggerated way, hoping this would motivate Madame Renoir into either hunting down a translator or, even better, giving it up for the night.

  No such luck.

  Madame Renoir took a ragged breath and seemed visibly to attempt to get control of herself. Her fat little hands smoothed and clutched at her long and baggy black wool skirt, which fell to her plump ankles. Her face was lined and troubled, its usual cherubic look absent. Maggie could see the woman had few of her own teeth left and the thought of years and years of sugary, yeasty sweet buns came to mind. Maggie ran her tongue over her own teeth and tried to remember if she’d flossed last night.

  “I have bad news tonight I hear,” the woman said to Maggie, her hands trembling against her knees, her voice cracked and tremulous. “Very bad news I hear,” she said.

  Maggie took the woman’s hand in her own. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me the bad news.”

  A tear creased down Madame Renoir’s heavy cheek and she blinked two more down the same pathway―looking rather like a startled baby owl when she did so, Maggie thought.

  “I am a woman....” Madame Renoir looked up on the top of Maggie’s armoire as if to find her words among the hatboxes and summer straw hats. She looked frantically around the room for a moment and then back to Maggie. She touched a small wooden crucifix around her neck. “...religieux.”

  Maggie nodded encouragingly at the woman. Oh, God. Is Connor telling Pope jokes downstairs or something?

  “Il y a...there is un peché terrible here.”

  A sin. Oh, God, what has Connor been up to? “Madame Renoir...” Maggie began, not really knowing how she could soothe the old woman.

  Madame Renoir shook her head fiercely, still holding onto the tiny crucifix. “Un peché...in my own boulangerie. Comprenez?”

  Maggie frowned and shook her head.

  The baker took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment as if to gather strength. Then, she squeezed Maggie’s hand and spoke in low, sorrowful tones.

  “Babette is...disgraced, Madame,” she said, staring at the floral wallpaper opposite them on the bed.

  Good God, is that what all this is about? Maggie felt her body relax a bit. At least it hadn’t happened in her house. She watched the older woman, so obviously hurt by Babette’s indiscretion, and she couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

  The noise level from below seemed to increase and Maggie heard the front door open, followed by shouting. She couldn’t make out the words but she was glad the commotion seemed to be moving outward and away.

  “I’m sorry, Madame,” Maggie said.

  “I think the village will know,” the woman said miserably. “Babette’s father and mother are aussi disgraced.”

  Maggie heard footsteps coming up the staircase.

  “I’m so sorry, Madame,” Maggie repeated. “What will you do now?”

  Madame Renoir looked at Maggie.

  “Comment?” she said, her plain, chubby face streaked with tears.

  “Well, I mean...” Maggie hoped the steps were heading in her direction. “She’ll continue to work for you, yes? Oui?”

  “Mais, bien sûr, Madame!” The baker pulled out a small square of plain cotton and dabbed at her face with it. She shook her head. “Babette needs the work, you understand?”

  Maggie nodded vigorously.

  “But the disgrace...” Madame Renoir moaned.

  Just then, Elspeth poked her head in the room.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, darling! I thought you were alone.”

  “I am!” Maggie said, jumping up to pull her mother into the room. “I mean, you’re not bothering us.”

  “Well, I’m just off to bed, sweetheart,” her mother said. “The Marceaus have just left―”

  “Bed, already?”

  “Honestly, Maggie!” Her mother laughed. “Aren’t you exhausted? It’s past midnight. I think Mrs. Van Sant is talking about taking her little one home.”

  “Minuit?” Madame Renoir asked, getting uncertainly to her feet. “I must go, Madame,” she said to Maggie. Still clutching her crucifix, she turned to Elspeth. “Vous avez une fille douce et aimable,” she said. You have a sweet and kind daughter.

  “Merci,” Elspeth said, smiling fondly at her daughter. “Moi aussi, je le crois.”

  “Merci pour tout, Madame,” Madame Renoir said to Maggie.

  “Je vous en prie,” Maggie said. They shook hands. “Appellez-moi Maggie, s’il vous plaît.” Maggie looked at her mother to see if she’d said it right. Elspeth merely smiled as Madame Renoir said goodnight and walked out of the room.

  “Is everythi
ng all right, darling?” Elspeth asked.

  Maggie sank back onto the bed. “She’s unhappy about Babette being pregnant. Babette works for her.”

  “I see.”

  “She’s practically the last person in the village to hear the news.” Maggie massaged the bridge of her nose. “Does it look like things are thinning out down there?”

  “Well, yes and no,” Elspeth said, removing a comb from her hair and allowing a mass of auburn curls to fall gently to her shoulders. “I’m afraid your father and Laurent are still going strong―”

  “Is Connor with them?”

  “Connor?” Her mother frowned. “He was talking with one of the little girls from the village earlier but he’s not downstairs now,” she said, walking to the hallway. “I’m off to bed, dear...”

  “That creep better not have left without saying good-bye.” Maggie followed her mother to the hallway and they kissed. “Goodnight, Mother,” she said. “It was a terrific Thanksgiving.”

  “The best. Goodnight, dear. Tell your father to be careful on those stairs when he comes to bed.”

  As she descended the stairs, Maggie tried to gauge from the noise the number of people still left in her living room. She was relieved to find that most of the guests had departed. Grace and Windsor were sprawled out on the couch, smoking and staring up at the ceiling.

  “So, it’s come to this, has it?” Maggie flopped down on a soft chair and examined the ruin of the room. Overturned ashtrays, broken wine glasses, crusts of bread and globs of tapenade on the once-glistening hardwood floors. Not too bad. Considering everything.

  “We’re leaving,” Windsor croaked from a supine position. “Next time Laurent throws a dégustation, wait until we’ve had our shots and have certifiable, institutional bedrest first.”

  “You had fun.”

  “We had fun.” Grace groaned as she stretched her limbs against the couch. “Ratbag retrieval time, dear,” she said to Windsor. “You carry her and I’ll open doors for you.”

  “Funny, that’s what your father said to me when I married you.”