Murder à la Carte (2 page)

“Connor MacKenzie,” the young man said. “Sculptor,
artiste,
and lover
extraordinaire
. Although,” he smiled and lowered his voice, as even 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! You sound like my dental hygienist, God, call me Connor, or shit-head or something. Whadya mean ‘not married?’ Since when? Hey, big guy,” he spoke to Laurent, who had not yet become re-engrossed in his map. “
Y’a-t-il un problème? Es tu malade?”
What’s the deal? You sick?

Maggie decided she was enjoying the evening after all. 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 in Aix?” Laurent asked the young man bluntly. “You are not working here?”

“Working? Arghh!” Connor turned from their table to his own and shouted back to his friends. “He’s used the ‘W’ word!” He turned back to Laurent and shrugged. “It’s a matter of trust, really. My father...the aforementioned ‘Mac’ made his money in window sashes. Anyway, he died a few years ago and left me one.” He smiled at Maggie. “A trust, that is, not a window sash. No, I don’t work. I just am.” Some of the fun seemed to have gone out of him, as if the late hour and the effort of being witty had finally ganged up on him and won.

“
Allons-y!
  Connor, come on!” His friends were standing now and obviously ready to move on to the next venue of pleasure. Maggie couldn’t believe that the night would end for Connor’s group with dinner. 

“Anyway, it was nice to have met you,” she said. “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 three French 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, indeed,” he said. “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 murmur and 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.

2

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 quelled both their tempers, 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.

“Laurent! You’re going too fast!”

Laurent slowed the car. “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? We’re on our way now. So let’s just enjoy this and not fuss. 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 or what?”

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”

“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,”
he said, leaning back into his driver’s seat, “that I feel sure the house will be livable 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 by 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 so, she felt a brief euphoria from the combination of the scent of lavender, the nip in the air, and the palpable excitement in Laurent. The road meandered westward through the countryside. Laurent told Maggie that she would see no cattle grazing in Provence, only sheep and pigs and goats. This was the reason, he informed her, that
le boeuf
was so expensive on the menus around here. Maggie hadn’t noticed.

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,” she said in amazement. “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 smiled and pointed to the map in her lap.

“We have a turn coming up, Maggie,” he said.

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. As they approached, they discovered 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, the post office,
chérie
...”

As quaint little Provençal villages go, Maggie had to admit, St-Buvard was classic. Blue and green shuttered windows winked out over the gailystriped awnings of the village shops and narrow cobblestone avenues shot out from the main road. Even the people didn’t look too distrustful or bothered by the arrival of strangers, Maggie thought, as she received a curious half-smile from a young worker hosing down a front walk in his blue
combinaison
.

“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 still blooming
in October!--
and no other cars on the streets but their own. She half expected to see a horse-drawn cart meet them around the next corner.

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 asked. She 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,” Maggie said. “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 and looked at Maggie and Laurent in their car. He frowned and said nothing.

Laurent spoke quickly to him in French.

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,” he asked, “when I am sitting right here?”

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

Maggie spoke first. “Did you see that?”

“
Incroyable
,” Laurent said, starting the engine again, “…the effect your French has on the natives.”

“He was afraid of us.”

“
C’est ridicule
,” Laurent said, choosing the left fork and driving slowly. “French villagers are just not as open as Americans.” 

“Come on, Laurent,” Maggie said. “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,” Laurent said, smiling, “it is often the same thing.”

“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
or vainglorious estate. 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, nodding his head vigorously and, still wagging his stick, gestured for Laurent to remain in the car. Quickly, he jerked open the door to the back seat and settled himself inside. He patted the back of Laurent’s shoulder and smiled a large gappy grin at Maggie.

“Conduirez-vous,”
he said to Laurent.
Drive
.

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

On entering the restaurant, Jean-Luc led them to a large 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.