Murder à la Carte (24 page)

The shop was crowded this afternoon, and Maggie found herself idly inspecting fat snakes of sausages coiled into speckled pyramids as she waited her turn: Toulouse, Cumberland, and Andouille. The five women customers in the store chattered away, with Maggie able to pick out the words “Connor Mackenzie” and
“les américains.”
It occurred to Maggie that they probably grouped Laurent under this label too, although, of course, they knew he was French. Aware that they hadn’t noticed her arrival, and intending to keep it that way for as long as possible, Maggie made herself unobtrusive next to a particularly unpleasant brace of plucked pheasants that swung conveniently at face height.

She recognized none of the women in the shop except Madame Dulcie, who was cheerfully and efficiently waiting on her customers, wrapping up one bloody purchase while listening to the order from the next in line. Maggie couldn’t help but note how differently this shop was run from Madame Renoir’s
boulangerie,
which was friendly and warm but always disorganized, as if the baker had just opened up shop and wasn’t quite in control of things. Maggie smiled. It was one of the things she liked best about Madame Renoir, she decided.

“Ah! Madame Dernier!” Madame Dulcie spoke sharply, but not unpleasantly. Several heads swiveled toward Maggie and all conversation ceased.

Maggie smiled. Madame Dulcie’s flint-sharp eyes examined her intently.

“
Bonjour,”
Maggie said, more to the whole shop than Madame Dulcie.

A few of the women nodded to her, (perhaps a little curtly? Maggie wondered.) Madame Dulcie pushed a wrapped parcel across the counter to one of the women. The butcher’s thin arms looked skeletal to Maggie, but hard and strong, too. With her lean, angular face and high cheekbones, she looked like an unkempt Duchess of Windsor dispensing pork ribs and lamb brisket to the poor.

“It is a shame what happened at Domaine St-Buvard,” Madame Dulcie said, looking not at all concerned or displeased with the “shame” of what happened.

Maggie moved to the counter; the other women edged aside for her
.

“Je cherche le jambon d’agneau,”
Maggie said, aware that the women in the store were listening carefully to her French. She looked up at Madame Dulcie. “
Avez-vous le―”

“I have the leg of lamb, yes,” Madame Dulcie replied impatiently in English. “You want the bone in or out, Madame?” She frowned at Maggie.

“Um, I need the bone taken out,” she admitted, looking briefly over her shoulder at the other women. They stood, five of them, in their brown and black cloth coats and capes, a few frowning, most simply curious. Maggie looked back at the meat case.

Madame Dulcie popped her head into the back room and shouted a few words to Monsieur Dulcie. Maggie caught a glimpse of him before the door swung shut. What she saw looked like something out of a Stephen King movie. Monsieur Dulcie stood, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, bloodied from neck to knees, an oversized butcher’s knife hanging limply from his left hand. The door swung shut before Maggie could see if the look in the butcher’s eyes was dull or bright.

“
Bon,”
Madame Dulcie said as she returned to Maggie. “It will be five minutes, no more.” Before Maggie could respond, Madame Dulcie looked past her to the hesitating gaggle of customers and bid them all loud good-byes, even waving her hands as one would to shoo away a flock of recalcitrant chickens. “
Allez! Allez!”
  she said, smiling for the first time since Maggie had arrived at the shop. “
Au revoir, à bientôt!”
The women alternately huffed out or shrugged good-naturedly and departed with only glimpses over their shoulders. Before they were completely out the door, their gossiping chatter began again.

The door slammed shut, bouncing the attached bell hard against the door port and cutting off its ring as abruptly as a knife killing a cat. Madame Dulcie leaned over the counter until Maggie could smell her breath, fragrant with anise― probably
pastis
.

“Everyone thinks they know who killed the American,” Madame Dulcie said, her eyes glittering.

Maggie watched her old face, its sharp lines pulling in all directions at once, and found herself wondering, idiotically, if the old girl had had a face lift at some point.

“Really?” Maggie said. 

“They think, perhaps, it was Monsieur Marceau,
hein?
What do you think?” The woman smelled like blood, Maggie decided.

“Monsieur Marceau?” Maggie asked, not sure she’d heard correctly.

“
Oui.
He hated the American.”

Maggie cleared her throat and resisted glancing at the door where her leg of lamb was being boned. “Well―” she started.

“Eduard said as much, you know.”

“Said that he’d kill Connor?” Maggie asked.

The butcher’s wife nodded sagely. “The whole town has heard it,” she said, now wiping up bits of fat and chicken skin from the counter top with a dirty rag.

Maggie didn’t believe it. Eduard had never given any indication that he didn’t like Connor.

“‘I will kill you, you filthy interloper!’ ” Madame waved her rag in the air and then tossed it back onto the counter where she attacked a stubborn brownish red stain. “Everyone heard him. More than once.”

“But why?” Maggie dug in her purse for money, thinking that having it ready might hurry things along. “Why on earth would Eduard hate him so much that he’d―”

“Acht!” Madame Dulcie replied gruffly. “Because of the American museum,
n’est-ce pas?
The American would build the museum on land next to Eduard’s...also he would build a parking lot right next to Eduard’s oldest vines.” The woman smacked her hands together to indicate the close proximity of this.

Maggie stared at her. “Museum?” she said, aware that her mouth was hanging open just a little.

“
Bien sûr.”
The woman continued to rub the counter.

“Connor...the American was going to build a museum in St-Buvard?” Maggie stared at the woman as if the woman had gone quite colorfully mad before her very eyes.

“Everyone knew of it,” Dulcie said matter-of-factly.

“I didn’t know of it,” Maggie said, flustered. “Who is ‘everyone’?”

“The whole of St-Buvard. The American did much bragging about his museum.”

“I don’t believe it.” But Maggie spoke softly, as if to herself.

Suddenly the woman barked out an impatient order over her shoulder and then looked back at Maggie.  “Almost finished,” she assured her. “Your husband knows good meat, eh? When he comes to my shop for meat, he knows what he wants,
exactement.”
The woman smiled at the thought of waiting on Laurent.

“And precisely where,” Maggie asked, feeling a large weight seep into her shoulders and neck, “was the American going to build this museum?”

Maggie knew the answer before the woman spoke the words.

“
Mais,
Domaine St-Buvard, of course.”

4

Laurent surveyed the gnarling vines that poked up from the ground like spirits reaching out from a graveyard. He touched the base where the stocks had been severed, then wiped his fingers against his corduroy slacks. The sun was low in the sky, spilling an effusive display of pink and burnt orange over the countryside. The winter horizon seemed to close up on him, making him feel as if he could bump his head on the low-hanging late-afternoon clouds as they drifted by. The air was cold.

“Sort of a severe pruning, wouldn’t you say?” He spoke to Jean-Luc who watched him through serious, undisclosing eyes. Alexandre said nothing.

Some time during the night, an ax had been taken to several of Laurent’s plants. Laurent counted the damage. Twenty vinestocks destroyed. The vines were far enough away from the farmhouse to have been mutilated anytime after dark without arousing the dogs. He watched the hounds as they sniffed the ground―almost contritely, it seemed to him.

“Perhaps it is a prank,” Jean-Luc offered, looking at the damage, at the dogs.

“Yes,” Laurent said lightly. “I’m sure that’s just what it is.” He clapped a heavy hand down on the old
vigneron’s
shoulder, making the man jump. “I must be more vigilant, I see,” he said. “I’ve been enjoying the good life. The life of
a vigneron, hein?”
  

“I am sure it’s just bad children from the village,” Jean-Luc said, less forcefully than before.

“You will stay to dinner?” Again, Laurent squatted next to one of the ruined plants and held the stalk in his hand, looking as if he believed he might restore it in some way.

“
Merci, non,”
Jean-Luc replied, removing his dirty blue cap and letting the icy breeze redistribute his sparse, gray hair. “I still have work to do tonight,” he said.

“Ah, yes?” Laurent stood up and gestured for the dogs to accompany him. “Pruning of your own?”

Jean-Luc stumbled over a loose vinestock and Laurent caught his arm, holding him tightly and keeping him erect.

“Careful, old fellow,” Laurent said, his voice cool.

5

Connor had been planning to build an American museum on Laurent’s property? A museum of what? American art or American artifacts?

Maggie had a brief image of bobby sox and Pilgrims and copies of
Portnoy’s Complaint
on a shelf. She parked the quirky Renault in her front drive and sat there, looking up at their farmhouse.

Why hadn’t Connor said something to her? Did Grace know? Was the business about the museum all just bullshit? Connor’s way of irritating the locals?

She bit her lip.
Why hadn’t Connor mentioned that he and Eduard didn’t get on?
Her mind raced to remember a conversation or a dinner where she had mentioned the Marceaus to Connor, but she could think of none.

She remembered Grace saying Connor was rich.
Rich enough to get his hands on...what were the words?...investment funds.
Maggie stared up at the imperious, even majestic, façade of their stone farmhouse, its antique, weather-bowed balcony over the massive front door, its series of three Mediterranean-blue shutters winking out from the house.

Had Connor really planned to build a museum here?

Maggie carried the hard-won leg of lamb to the front door, which she pushed open with her hip. When had they gotten into the habit of not locking it? she wondered. The foyer was dark and cold. Instantly, Maggie was annoyed.

Where was Laurent? Why didn’t he just pitch a tent amongst his precious grapevines and be done with the pretense of living with her?

She walked into the kitchen and dumped the groceries onto the counter. The kitchen was tidy―Laurent always kept it that way―so she couldn’t tell if he’d returned for lunch during the day.

Petit-Four scampered down the long staircase from the upstairs bedrooms and ran quickly into Maggie’s legs in the kitchen before doing a flopping hop-dance against Maggie’s calves designed to get Maggie to pick her up. Maggie scooped up the little poodle and nuzzled her sweet-smelling curls. God, if men could just give you this kind of welcome home, Maggie thought, I bet the world would need a lot fewer marriage counselors. Still holding the dog, she snapped on the kitchen light and read the digital clock on top of the refrigerator.

Six-thirty! Where was he?

Maggie set the dog down and pulled open the refrigerator door.  She set the lamb for tomorrow’s dinner inside, then, slowly, and with much vexation, began pulling out the various tubs of leftover
lapin
and aubergine mishmash
à la
Laurent, and
couscous
. If Laurent wants a salad when he comes in, she decided, he can go out to the weed patch and pick it. She glanced at the clock again. It was unusual for him not to be here by now, she thought, listening to the pervasive silence of the house.

“Where is everyone?” she said softly to Petit-Four. The house felt creepy to her tonight, although she was sure that was only because of the
cave
and its awful secrets. She shivered and set about mixing up the dog’s dinner, straining with her ears to hear any sound of Laurent’s homecoming. As she was setting the dog bowl on the floor, she spotted a slip of paper with her name on it.

“Damn,” she said, unhappily, “what is this?” She picked it up, knowing before she read it what it was: a note from Laurent telling her he would not be home for dinner. She finished reading the brief note which ended with much “
amour
” on Laurent’s part. He’d gone off some place with Jean-Luc and wouldn’t be back until late. Maggie wadded up the note and tossed it into the kitchen garbage.

No longer interested in supper, Maggie opted for a large glass of red wine and a bath instead. She opened every cupboard in the kitchen before the reality of her situation struck her: If she wanted wine, she’d have to go down to the
cave
and get it.

She’d only been down there once or twice before and that was before they’d discovered Connor’s body down there. On the other hand, she was not going to spend a lonely, cold evening in this house―pissed-off at her lover―without a glass of wine. She scolded herself for her nervousness and turned the knob on the door to the cellar. It was locked. She twisted the lever to unlock it and opened the door.

Instantly, the tight, closed air flooded up the stairs to her. The
cave
smelled dank and yeasty. She wrinkled her nose. It was dark but she remembered a light switch at the foot of the stairs.
Stupid place to put it
, she thought as she groped her way down the staircase. She looked briefly back at the lighted kitchen. Petit-Four stood over her dinner bowl, watching Maggie, and chewing. Maggie turned and descended into the
cave
.

She remembered seeing a row of wine bottles stacked against the wall across from the staircase. She didn’t care if they were plunk or premium, whatever they were would be fine. She hunted for the light switch at the base of the stairs but she couldn’t find it. It didn’t really matter, she decided. The wedge of light from the kitchen cut a slim path of vision into the dark basement, illuminating the stack of wine bottles laying on their sides, punt side outward, in front of her.