Murder in Aix (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series Book 5) (22 page)

She reached into
the paper bag and threw another piece of roll to the two pigeons, hitting one
in the head. She watched them fight over it until several more birds appeared.
She picked up the rock she had brought and waited until two were trying to peck
the bread more than each other. It was the so-called
lucky one
who would die, she decided. The one with the bread. The
one with more than the others. She waited until the largest bird had taken
possession of the bread and she fired the rock at it, hitting it full in the
chest. She was rewarded by a terrified squawk and a cloud of feathers as it and
the others flew away. She was sure she saw his wing at an unnatural angle. She
saw the bread sitting on the pavement, and the blood on the pavement next to it,
and she smiled.

The next time she
would be smarter. As with the car, she would take her pleasure from afar. It
wasn’t quite as satisfying, but it was more certain. It didn’t matter quite so
much that she
saw
the bitch contorted
on the ground in agony. It only mattered that it happened. That was the mature
approach. The adult approach. But then, if her plan came off as she
imagined—
and it was so simple, how
could it not?—
she felt sure she would be able to have both.

Grace
tiptoed down the stairs, Zou-zou’s stuffed bunny in her hand. She walked into
the kitchen and opened the door to the
cave,
where she could hear someone, probably Laurent, moving boxes around. She
shivered in the doorway of the basement stairs. It occurred to her that this
was the first time she had been at this spot in Maggie and Laurent’s house
since Connor was murdered. In the basement. On Thanksgiving Day three years
ago. A wave of sorrow and loss slammed into her and she grabbed the door jamb
to keep herself from sagging to her knees.

Dearest Connor. How I have missed you these last
three years
.
And here is where you died. Full of life
and piss and lies and so much laughter. And your life seeped out of you in the
coldest part of a one hundred year old basement while I was drinking and eating
turkey upstairs.
Grace took a long breath and hardened her thoughts. Connor
was gone and Windsor was going and it didn’t help anyone to dwell on it. She
pushed away from the basement and the innocuous sounds of Laurent tinkering and
working below.

She
moved into the living room and sat down next to Maggie on the couch. “Don’t you
two ever watch television?” she asked as she nodded to the notebooks and mini
tablets on Maggie’s lap.

“We
do,” Maggie said absently. “We watch Netflix sometimes.”

“You’re
kidding. You get Netflix?”

“Yeah,
it came to France a few months back.” Maggie pushed her notebooks away and
arched her back trying to massage the base of her spine. “God, I’m in agony. I
cannot remember the last time I slept through the night. Just to turn over
requires being fully awake and practically getting out of bed to reposition.
This part of the deal sucks.” She looked out the French doors to the vineyard
beyond. “Promise me it gets better when he’s born.”

“When
he
or she
is born, you mean.” Grace
sat cross-legged behind Maggie on the couch and put her hands on her friend’s shoulders
and began to massage between her shoulder blades. Maggie groaned with pleasure.

“It
gets better as far as being able to move around more easily,” Grace said. “But
it’s worse as far as always being exhausted. Much worse. Plus there’s the
worry. Once the little dear’s born, you will never again have a single
worry-free moment until you drop down dead of old age.”

“Don’t
sugarcoat it for me,” Maggie mumbled.

Grace
laughed. “It’ll all work out, darling.”
 

“Sure
doesn’t feel that way now.”

“That’s
because this whole Julia business is complicating everything.”

Maggie
turned to face her. “I cannot believe she confessed. She did it to protect her
boyfriend, I’m sure of it.”

“Probably.”

“I’m
sure she’s really discouraged. I was doing what I could but I got nowhere. It’s
been three weeks and she’s still in jail. She obviously lost faith in anyone
being able to help her.”

“These
things take time. Especially with your being on such a short leash. Half the
people you needed to talk to you couldn’t because of Laurent.”

“Tell
me about it.”

“I
know things look bleak at the moment. Trust me, nobody knows better than I do
how one or two setbacks can color the whole picture.”

“She’s
given up on me, Grace. She’s given up on herself.”

“Well,
you can’t give up, too, sweetie. Things have looked this black before.”

“Have
they, Grace? The police have a confession, plus incriminating forensic
evidence. And I don’t have anybody better than who they have in jail right now.
If I were Jules, I’d be confessing too.”

“Now
you’re just feeling sorry for yourself. You’ve got all the late trimester
discomfort to deal with, not to mention hormones, but you need to snap out of
it. For Julia’s sake, if not for your own.”

“This
is so unlike you, Grace.” Maggie turned her back again so Grace could resume
massaging her shoulders. “But I like the new you,” she moaned.

“Come
on, sweetie, bounce some of your theories off me. I’ve been out of the game but
I’m back now. What have you got?”

“Well…”
Maggie rotated her neck and gave a deep sigh that Grace interpreted with
satisfaction was from her ministrations. “I still like Mathieu for this. I’m
sure he could have done it. He has no alibi but plenty of motive, and
he’s got the same access to the crime
scene that Julia did. Plus, it explains why Julia would confess.”

 
“Okay, that’s good. So you think it’s
Mathieu.”

“Well,
except for the fact that Annette is still my number one suspect. Especially
since we learned she inherits when Lily dies.
And
she has no
convincing alibi for the time in question.”

“What
is
her alibi?”

“Roger would
never tell me, which makes it
really
unconvincing.”

“Ohhhhh,” Grace
said knowingly.

Maggie turned to
look at her. “What does
that
mean?”

“Roger wouldn’t
say because it involves someone in his organization higher up.”

“What?”

“Sure. Annette is
obviously boffing Roger’s boss. Or someone like that. Could be a politician,
but I’m betting it’s someone in the police hierarchy. Are you and Roger back on
better terms since Laurent and he talked?”

“Somewhat.”

“If he won’t tell
you what her alibi is, it’s because he can’t.”

“It
does
fit.”

“Yes, but her
being protected by someone high ranking in the police department is bad because
it means her alibi is gold-plated.”

“And that really sucks
because everything else fits for her being the murderer. She loathed Jacques,
and with him dead she stood to inherit Lily’s estate. When you add motive with
personal animosity and throw in opportunity you’ve got a prime suspect. I mean,
Julia didn’t stand to gain financially from Jacques’s death like Annette did.”

“Okay. So you’ve
got Annette and possibly Mathieu. See? You do have some likely candidates for
the murderer. Well done!”

“I guess so. But
the fly in the soup is the question I keep asking myself about all this.
Why
is all the evidence laying at
Julia’s
feet?
Why
does she look so guilty to everyone?”

“Um, because
she’s guilty?”

Maggie stopped
and looked at Grace. “You think Julia is guilty?”

“I think it’s
possible.”

Maggie looked
pensively at her hands. “You don’t know her like I do.”
 

“No. I do know,
however, that you’ve staked your claim on her as your new best friend. I can
see why you wouldn’t want to believe you’re wrong about her.”

The look on
Maggie’s face betrayed her feelings. Grace watched her face animate and flush
with color.

“Facts,
unpleasant as they may be, don’t lie,” Grace said.

“Except in this
case,” Maggie said heatedly, “all the so-called facts don’t measure up to what
I
know
about the person.”

“Even people we
know really well can be capable of doing terrible things. May I remind you of a
dear sweet village baker who tried to kill both of us?”

“Yeah, okay,
Grace. I get it. I’m not saying I know anything for sure. I’m saying, in spite
of not knowing, I need to take my friend at her word or else friendship doesn’t
mean anything.”

Grace looked serenely
at Maggie before answering. “And isn’t that exactly what I’ve been trying to
tell you ever since I arrived, darling?”
 
 
 

Maggie stared at
her with her mouth open and then slowly smiled. “Yeah, I guess you have.” They
were quiet for a moment, both lost in their own thoughts. “What’s with the bunny?”

Grace picked up
the stuffed animal and tossed it onto the coffee table. “Evidently its left eye
is hanging by a thread. I’ve been informed it’s a necessary repair.”

“We don’t have a
seamstress in residence.”

“I think I can
manage it. Z isn’t a stickler for even stitches.”

Maggie reached
over to squeeze her friend’s hand. “Thanks, Grace. I feel a lot better.”

“That’s what I’m
here for, darling. Now show me how to get Netflix working on the TV. I hear
Laurent coming up the stairs and I’ll bet he’d just love to get us each a nice
glass of wine. Well, juice for you. And maybe you can get him to rub your feet.”

“You’re just full
of great ideas tonight,” Maggie said, snuggling deep into the couch.

That night, as Maggie
was putting lotion on her elbows in bed, she turned to Laurent, who had already
positioned a pillow over his head to block out the light.
    

“I’ve been
meaning to ask you, what did you say to Roger?”

“Pshht,
rien
,” he said. “The light, Maggie?”

“I don’t think it
was
rien
. I think it was the opposite
of
rien
. He called to talk to you
today and when you weren’t here he
apologized
for harassing us.”

Laurent grunted
but she couldn’t tell anything more from his reaction.

“You’re an
alchemist, Laurent,” she said. “Do you know what that is?”

“Does it involve
total darkness when I sleep?”

“I’m going to be
expecting you to work your magic on the baby when he comes,” she said snapping
off the light. “A man who can make difficult people do his bidding is a
valuable man to have.” She snuggled down next to him and he pulled her in close
to his chest. “And I am very glad to have him,” she whispered into his neck
before closing her eyes and succumbing to sleep.

Michelle looked
up at the darkened bedroom window of the stone mansion. She wasn’t expecting to
see how large the house was. Her mother had only said it was old. Of course,
she knew the bitch’s husband was a wealthy
vigneron,
but to see the fields of stripped vines stretching for miles in every
direction—even in the dim morning half-light—had been galling. Of
course she was rich. As with the English whore, she had brought her money with
her from America to live like royalty in the beautiful Provencal countryside.

It had been a
long walk in the dark and the bitter cold to the
mas,
but her moment of triumph was at hand. An hour’s bus ride from
Aix in the middle of the night—with every form of vermin and degenerate
riding with her, followed by a two-hour stumbling walk to reach the house. She
knew there were wolves in this part of the country, she had heard them during
her walk. But she had let her fear drive her steps, one after another, until
she stood beneath the bitch’s window.

The arrogance! She felt she could sleep so soundly without
even a dog to warn against attack. So comfortable and so sure of her safety
that she couldn’t be bothered to lock her doors.
But Michelle didn’t need to get inside
the castle to kill the bitch.

That was the
beauty of the plan.

She had arrived
early, just to be safe. She found a large yew tree near the entrance of the
house that was crowded by dark bushes. She slipped inside the thick underbrush,
feeling the long daggers of the branches cut her arms and neck but not caring.
Her excitement kept her immune from the pain. When her mother had reported back
about her visit to the
mas
, Michelle
had demanded she tell her everything about what she had seen. She had been
hungry to hear how rich the bitch was, but in the telling her mother had given
her the most vital piece of her plan—the key, in fact, to Michelle’s
ultimate revenge.

Maman had mentioned the empty milk bottles on the front
steps.
She had told
Michelle of the fact with disdain in her voice, but Michelle knew that disdain
was driven by envy.