Murder à la Carte (40 page)

“It’s not what it sounds like, sport,” Windsor reassured him.

“―can make whatever jokes they want.” Maggie continued. She put her hand to her heart and spoke with mock drama: “I will continue my work to free Bernard.”

“And make the world a better place,” Grace whispered. “You left that out.”

“
Ça va de soi,”
Laurent said rising from his chair. “Dessert, yes?”

“It is ready, yes,” Maggie said, collecting dinner plates.

“Did I tell you about Babette?” Grace said to Maggie.

“Something new about Babette?”

“I stopped in at the
boulangerie
this afternoon and Madame Renoir was in a state. Seems our village darling has quit her job―”

“I couldn’t really see her content with sweeping up flour and powdered sugar for too terribly long,” Maggie said.

“Yeah, but get this. She’s shacked up with some biker-guy over in Toulaud.”

“Really?”

“Madame Renoir was literally sobbing in the
beignets
.”

“Poor old dear,” Maggie said as she exited into the kitchen. “Any idea how Paulette took it?”

Laurent shook out a cigarette and lit up. “She is too tired to care,” he said.

Grace looked at him in surprise. “You knew about Babette?”

“He visits with Paulette from time to time,” Maggie said as she returned with the apricot mousse.

Grace picked up her spoon and poised it over her bowl. “This looks delicious, Maggie.”

“
Mousse d’abricots avec un coulis de framboise,”
Maggie said. “Apricot mousse with raspberry sauce.” 

“You know, now that you mention it...” Windsor said, as he stared into space, “I think you must have said something that’s triggered a memory that I...” His face was flushed with excitement. “In fact,” he said in a tone of some bewilderment. “...I’m sure of it...I did see Jean-Luc go down to the basement...I saw him go down...” He paused and looked at the three stunned faces at the table with him. “Just after I saw Connor go down there.”

Chapter Seventeen

1

Maggie gazed out the living room window and watched a light snow come down. A lively fire blazed in the fireplace. It was a little after eleven o’clock on Christmas Eve.

“Snow for Christmas morning,” Grace said from behind her. “Taylor will have to be sedated she’ll be so bonkers.”

“It’s really sort of magic, isn’t it?” Maggie said. “I feel the same as Taylor. Listen, you still want to go to Mass tonight? It’ll be sort of a mess getting there now.”

“Are you kidding?” Grace leaned against the cold window jamb. “It’ll be even better now.”

“What do you think about what Windsor said at dinner?” Maggie asked.

“You mean, about seeing Jean-Luc go down into the basement with Connor?” Grace shook her head. “It’s news to me. If he says he saw it, I guess he did.”

“I wonder if it’s enough to go to the police with,” Maggie chewed the lipstick on her bottom lip.

Grace didn’t respond. From where they stood they could hear the men talking in the kitchen. Laurent had whipped up a batch of
vin cuit
just for this evening and although he swore that the alcohol content was such that even a baby could safely drink it, Grace and Maggie had both declined. Windsor, however, was well on his way to becoming totally incapacitated, Maggie noted, and a little cooked wine probably wouldn’t do any noticeable harm to his condition. She wondered, idly and for the first time, if Windsor might not have a drinking problem.

“Can I ask what’s wrong between you and Windsor?”

Grace looked away as if she were hunting for her cigarettes. She hadn’t smoked all evening. 

“It’s nothing, really,” Grace said. “He discovered some unpleasant information recently that...” She took in a large draft of air and sighed audibly. “...that unfortunately puts― he believes―the paternity of the child I’m carrying into some doubt. Maybe I will have just a thimbleful of that mulled wine. How about you?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Kidding? No. Well, about what part?”

“Windsor’s not sure he’s the father of the baby?”

“Right. He’s not sure.”

“And he...and there’s some...” Maggie sought the words.

“What Maggie? There’s some basis to his fears? Some doubt? Is that what you’re asking?”

“I’m sorry, Grace. I know that’s ridiculous.”

“You do?” Grace threw back her head and laughed joylessly. Maggie remembered the little silver bell of a laugh that she hadn’t heard in weeks now. Hearing it now, it reminded her of a good imitation, like a fourth generation tape recording.

“God, I love you, Maggie. You believe in me, you trust me...” Grace touched Maggie’s shoulder gently, forcing Maggie to look at her. “And you forgive my many, many weaknesses.”

“You had an affair.”

“More like a one-night stand.”

“Oh, Grace.” Maggie winced. “How did Windsor find out?” She glanced nervously into the kitchen but Windsor was talking loudly, drunkenly to Laurent.

“Well, he overheard me talking to my mother on the phone. I was saying this real intelligent stuff like it never should have happened and I wouldn’t hurt Windsor for the world...tune into any daytime soap opera and I’m sure you can pick up a pretty accurate recreation.”

“And Windsor heard this?”

Grace shrugged. “I thought he was upstairs napping.” She smiled ruefully at Maggie. “He wasn’t.” She brushed away a few lingering breadcrumbs from her cashmere sweater. “He was upset but he forgave me, you know? Then later, when I came up pregnant, he decided he was more upset than he thought he was. The fear of having to live with my infidelity in the form of a walking-talking little reminder just made him crazy.”

“Do you think the baby’s Windsor’s? God, Grace, this is really terrible.”

Grace turned and looked out the window at the falling snow. A moment passed between them.

“It could be Windsor’s,” she said slowly.

“Should I guess who the one night stand was with?”

Grace closed her eyes briefly. “I don’t suppose you need to. It was Connor.”

“God, Grace.”

“We were drunk, I was pissed off at Win...” She shrugged as if to say, these things happen.

Maggie was silent for a moment and then cleared her throat. “Was it the night y’all came here for dinner?” she asked. “The night Windsor got so drunk he had to sleep it off on our couch and you were mad because that was the night y’all were supposed to...you know...?”

“
C’est ça,”
Grace said, almost cheerily. “Sorry, darling.”

“I’m just sorry to see the two of you so miserable,” Maggie said.

“Yeah, me too.”

“How do you feel? You know, about who the baby’s father might be?”

Grace went to the dining table and picked up their untouched glasses of mulled wine. She returned to the window and handed one of the glasses to Maggie.

“Darling, I would like nothing better than for this child to be Windsor’s and I hope and pray with every fiber in me that still wishes to hold this marriage together that it is his child.”

“But...”

“But I’ve tried so long and so hard to get pregnant, that, frankly, I would be thrilled with the dear little thing even if it belonged to Gaston Lasalle.”

“I guess that’s about as emphatic a case for maternity as I ever heard,” Maggie said, smiling at her friend. “I love you, Grace. And I’d like to be a help to you, someone you can talk to―not someone you feel you have to keep secrets from.”

“I know, darling. I wanted to tell you.”

Maggie gave Grace’s arm a light squeeze. Behind them, they could hear Windsor in the kitchen as he giggled noisily at something Laurent was saying.

2

The Frenchman looked out at the snow coming down and cursed. The snow would make his job harder. He touched the worn, polished banister in his front hallway and wondered if he had the nerve,
l’estomac
, to do what he believed he had to do. The risk was great, the rewards even greater. He nodded grimly as though to give himself encouragement, and began his ascent to bed on this Christmas Eve night. The snow would make him silent, he told himself. And afterward, it would cleanse him.

3

Midnight Mass at the St-Buvard village church brought most of the villagers out into the cold, white night. Maggie huddled next to Laurent in one of the pews closest to the door and watched all the people enter, stomp the dusting of snow from their shoes and workboots, and then find their once-a-year places in the ancient church. She smiled at
Père
Bardot when she and Laurent and Windsor and Grace first arrived. And he smiled back.

Madame Renoir came with Madame Dulcie and her husband. The baker grinned broadly, approvingly, at Maggie and Laurent when she saw them. Maggie saw her stock go up with Madame Dulcie too, perhaps blotting out the late breakfast she’d been caught indulging in that morning. The Dulcies and Madame Renoir inched their way up the aisle to a row of pews directly in front of the pulpit. Maggie assumed these were their regular seats.

She watched the old post mistress hobble in, then some farmers and their wives, followed by a group of pious-looking teenagers, and Paulette Delacorte, who smiled shyly at them and whose eye unmistakably caught Laurent’s. Next came the pharmacist who had supposedly married her stepson, and Maggie thought of Connor.

Who the hell
was
Connor MacKenzie? she wondered. He was an artist and he was naughty and clever and sweet and conniving and really not to be trusted. Maggie watched the village priest arrange his books and papers around him and prepare for the sermon and wondered why she’d never seen Connor’s treacherous side before? Why she’d always managed to see the harmless, innocuous part of him that didn’t foreshadow any of his plans or schemes. She glanced over at Windsor, who sat between Grace and Laurent as if he’d been zapped with a stun gun. His eyes were glazed and he wobbled even from a sitting position. Connor had betrayed Windsor and taken advantage of Grace’s mood and biological condition. He’d betrayed her too, Maggie thought. From Lydie to Babette to Grace to Windsor and even to herself, it seemed there wasn’t a friend he hadn’t exploited. 

Maggie leaned back into her seat and thought of the happy, working union that Grace and Windsor had when Maggie first met them and the limping travesty that now served as their marriage. Connor’s legacy, Maggie thought. Connor’s good-bye present.

The Mass was long and boring, especially for Maggie, who understood little of the priest’s message to the congregation. Laurent seemed to be entertaining himself with his own private thoughts, Maggie noticed. His eyes darted around the interior of the little church, its cold stonewalls looking more like a dungeon of torture than a house of worship. The alcohol obviously continued to keep him warm and his thoughts occupied; he seemed to be effectively tuning out every word Père Bardot was so carefully delivering from the altar. She snuggled a little closer to him and took his hand in hers. Laurent looked down and patted her knee and then squeezed it, the greater portion of his thoughts still somewhere else.

Later, as they were filing out of the church, smiling and shaking hands with everyone―the air full of many
Joyeux Noëls
―Windsor tripped and fell down on the hard, flagstone floor of the chapel. Complaining that it was because the stones were uneven, Windsor allowed Laurent to help him out the door and down the hill to his car.

As they stood outside the church, Maggie tugged at Grace’s heavy cape. “Want to see Patrick’s grave?” she asked, the snow making a light cap of white on her dark head.

“Maggie, you’re obsessed,” Grace laughed. “It’s past one in the morning.
Christmas
morning at that. I have a child who will be up in four hours. If I’m lucky, four hours!”

“It’s just over there and it’s not muddy tonight. Come on, one quick peek.” Maggie pulled at Grace’s arm. “The guys’ll be forever trying to wedge Windsor into the car. It’ll just take a sec.”

Grace allowed herself to be propelled toward the darkened cemetery. “And then we need never do this again?” she asked hopefully.

“Here, it’s right outside here. I told you he was buried outside the cemetery, didn’t I?”

Grace stumbled a little on the hard ground and stood next to Maggie as they looked down at the headstone.

“Patrick Alexandre,” Grace read. “Yep. That’s him, alright. Let’s go.”

“Isn’t it creepy that he’s placed outside like this?” Maggie said. “I mean, they allow him this close but not inside the sacred walls?”

“It’s canon law,” Grace said, rubbing her shoulders with her gloved hands.

“What do you mean? You know about this stuff?”

“I’m Catholic, Maggie, remember? They make us take tests on all this stuff. I could give lectures on it.”

“And this is his beloved hunting dog, Louise.” Maggie pointed to the smaller grave behind Patrick’s. “See? It says...” Maggie knelt down and brushed a thin dusting of snow off the small marker. “
Douce enfant Louise
.” She frowned. “Huh.
Enfant
. That doesn’t make sense, does it?
Sweet Baby
Louise? Was it a puppy hunting dog?”

“Maggie, don’t be ridiculous,” Grace said, now stomping her feet in the cold. “That’s not a dog’s grave. The church would never allow a dog to be buried so close to consecrated ground.”

Confused, Maggie looked up at Grace.

“Besides,” Grace continued. “Madame Renoir has a perfectly nice doggie graveyard behind the bakery. You’ve never seen it? Her family’s got animals buried in that thing since the early 1900s. I’m serious. We’re talking dead hedgehogs, piglets, dogs, cats...She showed it to Taylor once.”

“Louise is supposed to be his hunting dog,” Maggie said, still kneeling next to the graves. She touched the icy cold stone with a tentative hand.

“Darling,” Grace said with some exasperation. “It says
Douce enfant
.”  Grace shivered and looked at the small marker. “This is a child’s grave.”

4

A sudden puff of wind sent the flattened blue pack of
Gitanes
in the gutter scooting down the empty village street. Eduard watched with disgust as the cigarette pack danced away.
Between the ubiquitous litter of sky-blue cigarette packages and the mounds of dog feces everywhere in Provence
, he thought
, it was little wonder we French spend so much of our time sweeping and hosing down the front walks of shops and businesses. We are a nation of polluters and tidiers,
he thought bitterly. He sat in front of a
pastis
on the crowded terrace of Le Canard on Christmas morning. Far from being closed, the village café was doing its liveliest business of the year. Many farmers were glad to be away from the Christmas Day mayhem in farmhouse kitchens, with in-laws sleeping on pull-away cots in the dining room, and too-sugared children running amok through normally off-limit areas of the house. It was good to have a quiet drink away from the bedlam, the joy, the holiday.