Murder à la Carte (5 page)

“Yes, I guess so!” He laughed. “I live right outside of St-Buvard. Surprised, huh?”

“You do?” Maggie tried to think of anything outside of St-Buvard that didn’t look like a vineyard or a sheep yard.

“Yeah, in a little
mas
walking distance from town. Not that I ever walk it, though.”

“That’s terrific.” Maggie felt her mood elevate
. An American-speaking friend practically in the same village?

“...if you and your boyfriend wanted to meet us for dinner at the café. Nothing fancy, but the food is typical of the area. You know, delicious, stupendous―all those boring things you’ve come to expect from French country cooking.”

“I...when? Tonight did you say?”

“If that’s cool with you. Don’t have any opera tickets you’re stuck with, do you?”

“Yeah, right,” Maggie relaxed against the wall of the living room and watched the village men in their uniform blue
combinaisons
bend and move through the fields. Her eye caught Laurent at the perimeter of the field videotaping the men at work. “What do people do around here for fun, anyway?” she asked.

“Well, there’s mostly eating,” he said and they both laughed. “Seriously, you go out and you eat a lot and drink a lot and try to weave your way home without ending up in a country ditch somewhere and...oh, yes, sex is very important out here.”

“It is?”

“You mean you haven’t found that out yet?”

She laughed again.

“I mean, what else is there to do?” he said. “You gotta hook up with someone for those cold winter nights. Wait’ll you get a load of the
mistral
.”

“I’ve heard it’s awful.”

“But since you already have someone to keep you warm at night, I guess you’ll be wanting to concentrate on food.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Say, nine o’clock? Believe it or not that’s early for Aix standards, but things get a little sleepy the further into the burgs you go.”

“Nine sounds great.”

“No problems committing for the big guy?”

“As you say, what else is there to do?”

Connor laughed. “Now you got it. See you tonight.”

Maggie hung up the phone and smiled. Before the phone rang she’d planned to work in the kitchen, at least to take a look at the shiny plate of aubergines intended for tonight’s dinner. Instead, she turned and went upstairs. There was a delicious, crisp bite to the air as she flung open the windows in the large bathroom. She glanced at the digital clock in the bath. It was three o’clock. With no dinner to think about making and a whole lovely afternoon to herself, it was definitely a moment to break out the bath crystals.

Careful not to prance nude in front of the open bath window, Maggie shed her clothes and slipped into the hot tub of foamy, fragrant water. Now then, she thought, as she eased back inside the large, claw-footed ceramic tub and closed her eyes, maybe things were starting to happen for them here. She could hear the subdued murmurings of the men as they worked, like the gentle rumblings of a distant radio program.

4

Laurent stood waiting for her by the hood of the car. He had showered, dressed in clean, if wrinkled, cotton trousers and a heavy cotton pullover and brushed his thick, still-damp hair behind his ears.

It was a fine
mas
, he knew. His uncle had lived well for many years. Uncle Nicolas had never married but there was plenty of room for a large family at Domaine St-Buvard.
Tant pis,
Laurent thought, surveying the broad flagstone steps that led to the large wooden front door.
It is a good house for children.

“I’m here, I’m here.” Maggie stepped out the front door, a scarf entangled more than tied around her neck. She was dressed in an ankle-length, black jersey knit skirt and black sweater. Laurent smiled appreciatively. She looked very French, he thought, with her dark swinging hair and pale skin and dark clothes. But she was wonderfully American with her noise and her ideas. He smiled even more broadly. And her lovemaking.

“What are you grinning at?” She squinted at him as she approached. “The buttons are
supposed
to be in the back. Is that why you’re smiling?”

“I’m smiling,
chérie,”
he said, gallantly swinging open the car door for her, “because I am thinking what a lucky man I am.”

Maggie grinned. “Really?”

“
Bien vrai.
  Get in.”

She scooted across the seat to the passenger side and arranged her skirts around her.

“I’m starving,” she said. “I can’t get used to eating at bedtime, you know?”

“You need to do as we French do,” Laurent said, getting in beside her.

“Yeah, I know. Eat bigger lunches, right?”

“Something like that.”

“And you’re sure you’re okay with this? I know you weren’t too impressed with Connor last time we―”

“It is fine,
mon ange,”
he said, as the little rented car roared to life. “It will be an interesting night,
je suis sûr.”

“Well, it’s better than staying home and wishing we had cable.”

Laurent smiled again. Everything in his world was in the right place, going at the right speed.

“Did the grape picking go okay?” She scanned the darkened scenery outside the car as they drove the two miles to the village. 

“It went very well. Perhaps, it will take only a few more days.”

“Who was the one weird guy? You know, the one with the ferocious black hair who smoked like a fiend?”

Laurent shrugged. “They called him Gaston. That’s all I know.”

“Will he be back? To pick the field?”

Laurent looked at her. “Why?”

“No reason,” she said. “I just like to know when I’ve got Richard Speck picking grapes in my fields, that’s all.”

“Richard...?”

“Never mind, darling. He was just a little spooky. No big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

Le Café Canard
  was a brightly-lit terrace full of café tables and chairs roped off by three lines of outdoor lights. Maggie thought for a moment that the restaurant looked like one of the marquees for a big film premiere in West Hollywood. The café was a single oasis of light and laughter in the dark hole that had become the village of St-Buvard after sundown.

As they stood on the terrace of the café, Connor hopped up and gestured to them from a large table in the middle of the patio.

“Great! You’re here.
Garçon!”
  He swung his attention to the patiently attendant waiter. “
Garçon,
two more bottles of Moët,
s’il vous plaît
and
merci.”
He sat down in his seat with a thud. “Welcome to our fold, newcomers.”

Laurent regarded the scene with his usual look of benign amusement. With Connor at the table sat the girl they had met in Aix scowling in front of a full ashtray and a small saucer of olives. To her left was a man and woman. The man made no immediate impression on Maggie, but the woman with him was fair and exquisitely beautiful in any language. She smiled directly at Maggie as she and Laurent joined the group.

Connor made the introductions while the waiter poured the extra champagne glasses.

“You have met my
belle
Lydie, I believe,” he said cheerfully. “Oh, she of the nose-dive
á la Les Deux―”

“Le Mien,”
Lydie said crossly. “It was―”

“Oh, whatever. And this bright couple to your right is― yes, you guessed it, more Americans! Gracie and Windsor Van Sant―”

“Only Gracie doesn’t like to be called ‘Gracie,’” the beautiful blonde woman said to Maggie. “Hi, I’m Grace. I can’t believe more Americans have moved to St-Buvard. We’ll outnumber the French soon!”

“Maggie Newberry,” Maggie said, returning her smile.

“My husband, Windsor.”

 Windsor Van Sant was a handsome, short man with dark hair and icy, blue eyes.

“Laurent Dernier,” Laurent said as he shook hands with the couple.

“That’s right. You two aren’t married, is that right?” Grace leaned back into her chair with a cracker loaded with the
tapenade
. “Connor said you were pretty wicked. Moving into a small, old-fashioned village―”

“Roman
Catholic
village,” interjected Connor giving the cold Lydie a playful squeeze on her bare shoulder.

“Really?” Maggie looked at Laurent. “Is that a problem? If people knew we weren’t married? I didn’t think they’d care.”

Laurent said nothing but helped himself to the
tapenade
.

“The debauched French, right?” Grace smiled at her. “That may be true in Paris or Nice, but it gets downright hairy in these adorable little backwaters. Isn’t that true, Lydie?”

Lydie ignored the question and took another sip of her champagne.

“Oh, well.” Maggie looked again at Laurent. Visions of what the French did to World War II collaborators came vividly to mind in the form of shorn heads and lots of gooey black tar. “Oh, well,” she repeated.

“Any plans to change your situation for the more socially accepted kind?” Connor said with a smile.

Maggie reached for her own champagne. “At least not until I start to show,” she said impulsively.

Instantly the table became quiet. Even Laurent looked at her with a sideways glance.

“You’re pregnant?” Connor looked surprised. She noticed that all eyes were on her.

“It’s a joke,” she said, feeling her face flush with embarrassment.
Obviously, a really, really bad joke. 

“You don’t know ostracism until you try being pregnant here without a wedding band, is all,” Grace said, her face momentarily drained of its color.

What is going on here?
Maggie wondered in confusion. She looked at Laurent who appeared to be trying to memorize the menu.

“Well, being a small town and all...I guess it’s understandable,” she mumbled.

“Do you plan on making St-Buvard your home?” Windsor Van Sant refilled everyone’s champagne glass and smiled at her as if he were being forced to make conversation.

“Well, for a year or so we do,” Maggie said.

“And then?” Grace asked.

“Well, we’ve both got jobs...and lives, back in Atlanta.”

“Really?” Connor scooted his chair closer to the table. “You work for a living?”

“Yes, Connor,” Maggie said, remembering her pleasant bantering with him on the phone. “It’s that dreaded word again. Laurent works as an assistant chef in a very posh country club in Atlanta and I work in an advertising agency.” She was immediately pelted with groans and laughter. 

“An advertising agency?” Connor nearly choked on his wine. “You mean, like selling widgets and gee-gaws to the gullible American people?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Maggie said sweetly. “That’s exactly what I do.”

“And you want to go back to doing it? Like, on purpose?”

“Come on, Connor,” Grace said. “We can’t all have a lovely big trust fund to roll around on and make ourselves comfy, now, can we? Forget him, Maggie,” she said with a wink. “His idea of work involves buttoning up his own shirt fronts.”

Connor plucked at his knit shirt and mouthed to Maggie behind Grace’s back:
Pull-overs. No buttons.

Maggie laughed. She liked him. She liked them all, with the possible exception of Mademoiselle Lydie. Throughout the rest of the evening, Laurent and Maggie learned that the little group had known each other for about six months. Windsor had created and written the software for a popular computer word processing program. He’d promptly sold his product while retaining a percentage of the profits. He and Grace and their four year-old daughter, Taylor, had come to St-Buvard a year ago and now lived in a
château
on the other side of town. Taylor attended school in Aix and, her parents boasted, was fluent in both French and English.

Maggie had intended to keep her volume of food consumption to smaller portions tonight, but she still found herself wiping up smears of savory sauce with crust after crust of French bread, while her plate was filled and refilled as the hours brought the evening slowly to a close. At one point, she looked around the little bistro and realized that their table was the only one still occupied.

Connor poured himself a large cognac from the bottle on the table and leaned back in his chair. His eyes glittered.

“Speaking of the St-Buvardians...” he said.

“Were we?” Grace addressed Connor but gave Maggie a playful wink.

Connor ignored her.

“They’re worst than hillbillies, you know?” he said to the satisfying giggle of Grace Van Sant. “The in-breeding, I suppose.”

“Oh, Connor, shut up,” Grace said, still laughing. “That’s disgusting.”

“The truth often is,” Windsor offered, hoping for his share of the laughter.

Connor nodded earnestly. “You see?” he said. “It’s true. Everybody in this town is related to everybody else.”

“Like who and who?” Maggie asked, reaching for another scoop of
Daube à l’avignonnaise.

“Well,” Connor leaned back and looked at Lydie―who refused to look back. “Well, like your neighbor, ol’ Jean-Luc?” He smiled when he saw that he’d caught Laurent’s interest. “And old Mademoiselle Renoir?”

“The
boulangerie
woman?” Maggie looked at Laurent and then again at Connor. “You mean Madame Renoir?”

“Madame
,
mademoiselle―she’s big and fat and bakes buns, right?”

Maggie nodded

“She’s his niece.”

“Really?”

 “And the woman at the
pharmacie?
“ Connor continued. “Have you met her yet?”

Maggie and Laurent both shook their heads.

“She’s, like, married to her own half-son.”

“
Step
-son, Connor,” Grace corrected, rolling her eyes, a laugh bubbling to her lips.

“Half-son, step-son―it’s still incest
, n’est-ce pas?”
Connor tore off a piece of bread and popped it into his mouth. His eyes were devilish.

“What about the beautiful young Babette, eh, Mister Funny?” It was the first sentence Lydie had spoken all evening and Maggie found herself reacting as sharply as if a ventriloquist’s dummy had jumped up and demanded the floor.