Murder in Aix (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series Book 5) (26 page)

Chapter
Twenty-two

Florrie looked at
her with hooded eyes, his expression blank. As she watched him walk toward her,
Maggie couldn’t believe it hadn’t seriously occurred to her that it had to be
him. It was so clear now. Florrie, who inherited third behind everyone else.
Florrie, the good one. Florrie, the one nobody respected.

Or noticed.

“Madame Dernier,”
he said in a flat voice, “what a surprise to see you.”

He walked closer
and Maggie felt the muscles in her shoulders tense. The bar counter was to her
back and she pushed into it. She cleared her throat and willed the voice that
came out to sound normal.

 
“Oh, hey,” she said, her hand going
involuntarily, protectively, to her pregnant abdomen. A searing pain emanated
from deep inside and she grimaced as Florrie stood next to her. She was close
enough to smell the garlic and the wine he’d had for lunch.

“I’m afraid the
bar is closed Sundays,” he said. “No one else will be coming today.”

“I’m just waiting
for Laurent,” Maggie said cheerfully, watching Florrie’s face as he studied her.
Why had she dismissed him so soon?
Because
he hadn’t threatened her? Because he had a full head of nice hair and didn’t
wear a ring in his lip?

 
“I got a text message from Laurent saying
to meet him here,” she said, trying to sound upbeat. Trying not to sound like
she knew he was a killer.

“Oh, of course. What
am I thinking?” Florrie said, licking his lips and staring dully into Maggie’s
eyes. “Laurent
was
here but he had to
leave. He asked me to tell you he couldn’t wait. A round goose chasing for
nothing, eh?”

“Wild.”

“
Comment
?”

“It’s…it’s a
wild
goose chase. Yeah, never mind. Wow.
It’s just that that’s so unlike Laurent, you know?”
Should she have said that? Did it matter?
Florrie had lured her
here for a reason. The tips of her fingers began to tingle in an uncomfortable
way.

For a reason.

Florrie shrugged,
but there was nothing insouciant or casual about his face. In fact, Maggie
couldn’t help but see that he looked as if he were rehearsing something he was
about to do.

Something
terrible.

“If you can wait
a moment,” he said, “I will be happy to take you home.”

“That’d be great.
Thanks, Florrie.”
So he wants me in the
car.
Maggie could hear the rain coming down against the front windows of
the little bar and the light outside seemed to noticeably dim.

Just then the
phone rang and Maggie jumped. It was a landline sitting just under the counter.
Her fingers itched to snatch it up and blurt out that she was being held by a
homicidal maniac, but she still hoped it could all be reasoned out—
as long as Florrie doesn’t know that I know
.
Maggie stepped aside to allow him access to the phone.

He hesitated.

“Aren’t you going
to answer that?”

“People know
we’re closed on Sunday.”

“It could be
about your aunt. I understand she’s fading fast.”

He looked at her,
startled, and then snatched up the phone receiver. “
Allo
?” he said breathlessly.

Maggie could hear
Danielle’s high-pitched voice on the other line and it was all she could do not
to scream,
Send help!
Over the phone
line and through the muddied vowels of the southern country dialect, Maggie was
just able to make out the conversation.

“Florrie? I am
Danielle Alexandre, a friend of your aunt’s. I am so sorry to have to tell you
this but your aunt has passed this afternoon.”

Maggie watched
Florrie lick his lips again. If she had been expecting sorrow or remorse or any
other human emotion connected to the death of a loved one, she was
disappointed.

“What time?” he
blurted out.

“Excuse me?”

“What time did
she die? Exactly.”

There was a pause
on the other line as Danielle attempted to understand this most unlikely
response.

“The doctor isn’t
here yet to pronounce time of death officially,” she said.

“Yes,
officially
! So she isn’t dead until he
arrives to
officially
pronounce her
dead.”

Holy crap. Florrie was counting on Lily outliving Annette so
he would be the one who inherits, not Michelle.
Maggie glanced at the door to the bar
and saw the rain coming down in sheets.

“I know I don’t
know you very well, Monsieur Tatois,” Danielle said icily on the other line,
“but can I ask why, after all those years of attentive care to your aunt, you
did not come to her
this
Sunday of
all days? She asked for you repeatedly.”

Maggie grabbed
the back of one of the café chairs as the first solid contraction hit her full
force and without warning. She gasped with the impact of the pain and Florrie
turned to watch her. He hung up the phone without answering Danielle.

“You are alright,
Madame?”
 

This. Is. A. Nightmare.
Maggie thought as the agonizing spasm slowly receded,
allowing her to get her breath back again. She looked at Florrie and knew the
only possible way out of all of this was to make him believe that she didn’t
know, that she didn’t suspect. It was all she had.

She debated
asking him to call an ambulance, but if he hesitated the game was up. Because
what possible reason could he have for not? Other than the one that would
surely leave her very dead. The only safe alternative she had was to stall for
time by allowing him to drive her—as seemed to be his plan—and then
just hope for the best.

“You know? I
think I’m not really all right, Florrie,” Maggie said, easing into a chair. “I
think I may actually be in labor at the moment. So, if instead of running me
home you could drop me off at the nearest emergency room, that would really be
awesome.”

“Labor?” Florrie
frowned and gawked at her enlarged form as if he hadn’t noticed before.

Should she ask
about the phone call? Should she ask about his aunt? Maybe she could tap into
some reservoir of grief or human feeling—surely he had some, he’d been a
dutiful loving nephew for decades before he decided to become a cold blooded
mercenary killer. Maggie remembered stories of kidnapped victims who claimed
that attempts to humanize or personalize themselves with their captors worked
well in getting them, if not to outright release them, then to at least delay
in killing them.
And when you’re being
held captive by someone who wants to kill you, delays are what it’s all about.

Another agonizing
stitch began working its way up her diaphragm and she tensed in anticipation.

That is, unless you’re about to have a baby, in which case
delays don’t exist.
Maggie squeezed her eyes shut and let a low moan escape at the same time she
deposited a small puddle of water beneath her chair. She looked at Florrie in
mounting horror. It was do or die time now. There would be no turning back.

Her water had
just broken.

*
                          
*
                                 
*

Grace glanced at
her watch. She had been walking nearly an hour, but guessed she was still only
a couple of miles closer to home. And warmth. She had been afraid to pull her
cardigan from the backseat of the Renault. She knew it was probably silly.
Hell, she had been afraid to get her cellphone or her purse out of the car.
Maggie and Laurent’s
mas
was still a
good three miles away, at least. At least the sun was still up to counter the
chill that pierced her as she walked away from the car on the deserted road.
Was it an accident? Was it deliberate? How
would Laurent retrieve the vehicle?
He and Maggie only had the one car. Was
she being paranoid?
Probably.

She rubbed the
goose bumps from her arms and quickened her pace, hoping the exercise would
help to warm her. She found herself wondering what car Laurent was using today
since she had the Renault?

When she got to
Domaine St-Buvard
, she intended to walk
in the front door, kiss her baby, and go straight upstairs for the most
heavenly, hottest and intensely luxurious bubble bath of her life.
Surely, dear sweet Jean-Luc could watch
Zou-zou for another hour after she got home?

She felt the
first cold drops of rain on the back of her neck.

*
                          
*
                                 
*

Maggie clutched
the arms of the wooden chair and pushed herself to her feet. She looked at
Florrie, who was staring at the puddle beneath her chair with disgust.

Maggie’s mind
raced. Grace had dropped her off nearly thirty minutes ago. Domaine St-Buvard
was thirty minutes from the bar.
That
meant Grace was home by now. If, please God, Laurent was also home, they would
know something was wrong
. That meant she had to hang on—and
not get in that car,
where Florrie could
take her to God knows where—for the thirty minutes it would take for
Laurent to get back to the bar.

Correction. The way Laurent drives, I just need to hang on
fifteen minutes.

“I have to use
the facilities,” Maggie said, holding her purse to her chest and eyeing the
path past Florrie to the toilets.

“Clearly,
Madame,” Florrie said, his face twisted in a grimace of distaste.

Thank God for common courtesies,
Maggie thought as she edged past
Florrie. Even in the middle of a planned murder, it seems most civilized people
will make allowances for a call of nature. She began walking down the hall,
registering the increased level of discomfort in her stomach as she did. With
the buffering amniotic sac gone, she felt her bones grinding against each other
as she moved. She put a hand out to touch the narrow wall in the hallway for
support, her eyes going inadvertently to the hole Michelle had put in it last
week.

“Do not be long,”
Florrie warned from the head of the hallway.

“I won’t,” Maggie
said, hearing her voice shake. She reached the bathroom and stumbled inside, feeling
the harbinger of another pain beginning to creep up on her. She shut the door.
Above the sink was a mullioned window that opened outward. Maggie twisted it
open and looked out. The rain was still coming down hard. There was only scrub
and bushes in the back. And one lone sedan parked on the grass. There were no
houses or comforting lights to indicate there would be anyone to hear her
screams. Escape through the window was unthinkable. She couldn’t fit through it
at her present size. And there was nowhere to run to even if she could.

 
Her only hope
was to stay in here as long as she could to give Laurent time to get here.
Surely, Grace was home by now? It was pouring rain. Laurent wouldn’t be in the
fields in this kind of weather. Surely, he would be home.

No matter what,
Maggie knew she couldn’t let Florrie get her in his car.

“Madame?”
Florrie’s voice was loud and Maggie jumped. He must be right on the other side
of the door.

“Yes?” she said,
her breath coming in short pants as her fear and the pain of the next
contraction began to bear down on her. “Just a m-m-moment!” She felt the cold
smooth curve of the sink behind her as she instinctively backed into the
furthest point in the small room. What time was it? How much longer would she
need to stall before help came?

Oh, please let help be coming.

At the moment the
contraction reached its peak and Maggie sank to her knees to endure it, she
heard the crash of splintering wood and, out of the corner of her eye, saw
Florrie’s form fill the doorway. A piece of wood had shot under the hem of her
long tunic as she knelt on the filthy floor. When she felt the pain receding,
she steadied herself against the sink and looked up to see Florrie rolling up
his sleeves.

“I’m afraid these
old doors sometimes stick,” he said dully as he approached.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

The driveway that
led to Maggie and Laurent’s home on the far side of the village of St-Buvard
was long and twisting. Grace stumbled down the length of it, encouraged by the
imposing beckoning closeness of the tall
mas
itself, cold and wet, her heels stinging with broken blisters, and desperate to
go to the bathroom. She thought of how they would all laugh at this
night—after she’d showered and been bolstered by a nice gin and tonic.
During half of her walk in the rain she had expected Maggie and Laurent to
appear behind her on their way home.

It hadn’t
occurred to her that she would walk the whole rest of the way in the pouring
rain. She saw that the terrace light was on and that surprised her, because as
dark as the weather had made the sky, she thought it was still just late
afternoon.

She came to the
front door and realized she had left the door keys on the ring that was still
attached to the abandoned Renault. She grabbed the heavy brass doorknocker with
fingers so numb and cold she could barely use them and banged three sharp
whacks on the front door. She ran her hands up her bare arms and waited,
relieved to hear footsteps coming across the foyer to let her in. A feeling of
foreboding needled into her mood as it occurred to her that the footsteps
sounded too heavy to be those of the wiry little Frenchman, Jean-Luc.

The door swung
open to reveal Laurent standing there in the doorway looking at her with
surprise. Grace stared at him. She was having trouble putting her thoughts
together, but seeing Laurent on the other side of this door was wrong.

Very wrong.

Laurent seemed to
put it together within seconds of seeing her standing there, wet, shaking and
alone on his doorstep. The faint smile he’d opened the door with dissolved
instantly.
 
“What happened?. Where
is Maggie?”

 
“What…what are you doing here?” she
asked. “You’re supposed to be meeting Maggie at…you know, the bar at…” Grace
shook her head.

What was Laurent doing home?

Laurent was by
her side in a flash, his large warm hand on her arm. “Where is Maggie, Grace?”
A thunderclap underscored his words and she jumped and looked frantically
toward the inside of the house.

“She got a text
from you saying to meet her at…at that guy’s bar. Florrie’s.”

He looked out
into the storm. “A text?” She could see he wanted to move, to
go
.
 

“On your phone,”
Grace said, now violently shivering on the doorstep. “D-d-didn’t you send her a
text? It said
Meet me at Florrie’s. I
have great news
. I left her there. It’s…more than ninety minutes ago now.”

He stepped out
into the rain and then turned back to her. “Where is the car?”

“It…it ran out of
gas on the other side of St-Buvard.”

“Ran out of gas?”

“Out of petrol. Yes.
I left it on the side of the road. I walked here to…Laurent, you didn’t send
the message?”

She could see his
mind was whirling as he processed what he was hearing. “I lost my phone,” he
said. “I sent no message.”

“Laurent, she’s
in trouble,” Grace said, feeling the panic rising up inside her throat. She
stepped into the foyer and saw Jean-Luc standing there. She nodded at him and
then looked around him for the child.

Jean-Luc
interpreted her look and answered quickly. “She is asleep,” he said. “Don’t
worry. She is dead to the world.”

Laurent stepped
back into the house and went to the telephone. He picked up the receiver and
put it back down. “The phone’s out,” he said and held his hand out to Grace.
“Your phone, Grace.”

“I…I left it in
the car,” she said wishing she had gotten blown up rather than have to tell
Laurent that.

He turned to
Jean-Luc. “Is Danielle home yet with your car?”

Jean-Luc shrugged
helplessly. “She hasn’t called in a couple of hours. I didn’t know the phone
was out. She might be.” He pulled out his house keys and handed them to Laurent
who took them and plunged into the night without another word.

Grace stood in the
foyer shivering and dripping onto the slick hall tiles.

Jean-Luc stood in
the open doorway and then closed it against the night. He turned to Grace and
gestured awkwardly to the stairs. “If you want to take a bath,” he said. “I’ll
keep an ear out for the child.”

*
                    
*
                         
*
                         
*

Florrie held
Maggie’s elbow with one hand and an umbrella with the other as he helped her
into the passenger’s side of his Peugeot sedan. The hand on her arm was as
fierce and pinching as a manacle. The pains had started coming stronger and
more often now that her water had broken, and Maggie’s mind raced trying to
alternately think of what happened next in this stage of the labor and delivery
and how in the world she was going to get away from the man who wanted to kill
her.

Clearly, by
removing her, Florrie must have hopes of keeping his bar clean. Maggie knew it
was always tricky cleaning up after a murder, and although she wasn’t
absolutely positive of the criminal evidence advances in backwater France, she
had to assume they at least had access to Luminal and other basic forensic
investigating tools. She decided to look at it as a good sign. It meant he
still had something to lose. It meant he intended to try to continue to live in
the community after everything he’d done. Maybe it meant he wasn’t going to
kill her.

“I’m sorry you
had to be involved in all this,” Florrie said as he started the car and backed
it out of the parking lot.

Do not let him confess to you while you’re helpless and two
centimeters dilated,
Maggie thought feverishly.
He’ll have no
reason not to kill you.

“Oh, not at all,”
she said. “You know, I’m only trying to help my friend, Julia. Well, you know
Julia, of course, through Jacques, and…” The pain heralded its advent with a
slow but sinister preview and Maggie found herself clutching the car door
handle trying to push against it in any effective way she could.

“Another pain?”
he sounded almost cheerful, certainly unconcerned.
Not a good sign
. “No, I guess I was apologizing about today,” he
said. “I hate all of this and I do feel like you are an innocent party to a
certain extent.”

Do not let him reveal anything incriminating!

“Please!” she
gasped, wiping the sweat off her forehead from the last contraction. “Think
nothing of it. Laurent is always saying I poke my nose in where it doesn’t
belong.”
Perhaps reminding him of Laurent
will shame him into not doing what ever it is he’s thinking about doing?

“I just wanted to
say I’m sorry,” Florrie said.

A part of her
wanted to ask him
for what?
to stop
this agonizing game of cat and cockroach. But she didn’t dare.

“Not at all,”
Maggie said. “I’m just grateful that you were here to help me today. Laurent
will be so grateful, too. We’re both just so—”

“Annette said you
knew. About me.”

No! No! No! Nooooooooo…..

“I have no idea
what you’re talk—”

“I don’t think
she really knew herself until the end, but I’m sure she probably suspected.”

The next pain hit
Maggie without warning and she allowed the scream to escape and careen off the
interior of the little car without attempting to temper it.
What is this kind of pain that’s so unholy
that you can scream your damn head off and not even care?

She could hear
from somewhere in the background recesses of her mind that Florrie was still
talking. Incredibly, he seemed to be trying to talk
over
Maggie’s moans and intermittent shrieks. Was it possible he
was so focused on his own trauma that he was unaware of her writhing agony in
the seat next to him?

“It wasn’t a
crime of passion,” he was saying, staring thoughtfully at the road in front of
him through the windshield. “That’s what gets me. Most people can forgive that.
But I’m not like that. It’s hard for me to get worked up.” He laughed. “A part
of me envied Michelle for her ability to feel so strongly.” He shook his head.
“Crazy bitch.”

Maggie was so
relieved from the respite from the last contraction that, while she registered
that Florrie was confessing to her, a part of her just didn’t care any more.

*
                          
*
                                 
*

Grace picked up
the phone again.

“Is it working?”
Jean-Luc asked from the kitchen. He poured a glass of wine.

She shook her
head, then walked over to the kitchen counter and took the glass he held out to
her. She noticed a stark discoloration on the beautiful granite counter top
behind him and wondered idly when that had happened. “It’s unusual for Zou-zou
to sleep so long,” she said. “Or so soundly. We usually have to tiptoe around
when she’s taking her nap.”

He shrugged and
glanced at the clock on the wall. “I should go now,” he said. “If Danielle is
home, Laurent will have her car. Or at least her cellphone.”

“And if she isn’t
home?”

“Our phone lines
are newer than the ones at
Domaine
St-Buvard
.

“I thought it was
the storm that caused the lines to go out?”

Maddeningly, he
shrugged again. “Laurent should be able to call from there.”

“Who will he
call?” Grace said, sitting down on the couch. She had taken Jean-Luc up on his
offer to watch for the baby to wake while she showered and dressed in dry
clothes. Now that she was dry and had a glass of wine and a piece of Laurent’s
quiche in here, she was ready to start worrying again. She stood up and glanced
toward the stairs.

“How long has she
been asleep?” she asked.

He shrugged
again, that quintessential movement of every Frenchman since the beginning of
time, Grace thought with building irritation.

“How long is
that, Jean-Luc?” She could see he didn’t look comfortable answering and that
prompted an unexpected rush of concern in her. “What is it you aren’t telling
me?” she asked. Perhaps it was the nascent terror building over Maggie’s
situation—
Where was she? Who texted
her? Why hadn’t she called? Who disabled the car —
but Grace realized
that she found Jean-Luc’s obvious attempts to dissemble a billboard invitation
to totally lose her shit.

“Jean-Luc!” she
screamed. “
Why
is Zou-zou sleeping so
much? What’s wrong with her?” She was up the stairs before she even thought to
put her drink down first and spilled most of its contents down her forearm and
the front of her dry cotton sweater. Jean-Luc was behind her on the stairs and
the two of them burst into Zou-zou’s room, knocking a lamp over in the process
and breaking a small picture frame that had been hung too close to the light
switch.

The child lay
immobile and oblivious to the noise.

“Zou-zou! Zou-zou!”
Grace cried, reaching into the bed and pulling the dead weight of the baby into
her arms. She turned to Jean-Luc, her face a mask of terror and disbelief.
“What’s the matter with her?”

“It’s nothing,
Madame!” Jean-Luc said, starting between the two in horror and biting his lip.
Grace could see he was blinking rapidly and rubbing his face with a trembling
tic. “There was a problem…”

“What kind of
problem?” Grace roared. “Zou-zou, baby, Zou-zou, sweetheart, wake up now,
lambie, wake up, honey.”

“She…I…she was so
hungry and she cried so pitifully that I could not send her to bed hungry,”
Jean-Luc said, his face full of misery and shame.

“What did you
do?” Grace shrieked, clutching her unresponsive child.

“The milk was
bad!” Jean-Luc said. “I had to give her something so I gave her a glass of
Laurent’s
chocolat liqueur
. She was
starving!”

Grace looked at
Jean-Luc and then Zou-zou, who was beginning to rouse herself.

“Laurent’s
chocolat liqueur
,” she said. “That’s
like ninety proof or something, isn’t it?”

“I cut it with
water,” Jean-Luc said, “but I couldn’t give her
just
water and there was nothing else. She cried so bitterly,
Madame.”

Grace sagged onto
a chair at the foot of the bed, little Zou-zou yawning and stretching in her
lap. “So, the little sot’s drunk?”

“Not at all,
Madame!” Jean-Luc said indignantly. “She is just…very relaxed.”

“
Maman
?” Zou-zou looked up at Grace and
grinned. “Zou-zou wants Oncle Laurent’s chocolate milk!”

Grace felt the
hysterical laughter welling up inside her, and when Zou-zou turned to Jean-Luc
and held out her arms to him, she released her daughter to the adoring
grandpère
who had just coordinated her
first bender and sat in the chair, laughing and crying into her hands.