Murder in Nice
Authors: Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Tags: #mystery, #travel, #france, #nice, #provence, #aix
MURDER IN NICE
A Maggie Newberry Mystery
Susan
Kiernan-Lewis
Copyright 2014
San Marco Press/Atlanta
Murder in NICE
is the sixth installment in the popular Maggie
Newberry Mystery Series.
The French Riviera is the ultimate travel
destination…unless murder is on the itinerary
When Lanie Morrison—an old high school
friend of Maggie’s—is murdered on the Côte d’Azur while auditioning
for the hit TV travel show “Americans See Europe,” Maggie is forced
to break away from village life and brand-new motherhood to find
her killer.
She soon learns that before she can find out
who murdered Lanie, Maggie will need to uncover the terrible secret
that was literally the death of her friend. When she does, Maggie
learns the hard way that some things were better left alone.
San Marco Press/Atlanta 2014
Prologue
Lanie sipped her glass of
red wine. The majestic Hotel Negresco filled the view from her
small balcony at the Soho Hotel that faced the busy
Promenade des Anglais
.
She noticed the familiar
silhouette of the Negresco even before taking in the curve of the
brilliantly blue Mediterranean as it outlined the dramatic stretch
of umbrella-dotted beach. To be sure, she thought, the view must be
every bit as remarkable from the Negresco—that grand dame of luxury
and British superiority. But, as she’d asked Bob last spring when
they’d booked the tour:
would you rather
stay in a landmark or gaze upon it?
In the end she’d gotten her way, but not
because the idiot cared one way or the other. She shook her head.
How the man had risen to become the preeminent travel guru of the
Western world she would never understand.
The truth was, the man
wouldn’t know a
pourboire
from a po’boy. Lanie retreated from the
balcony.
If one more person comes
simpering up to me to say how nice Nice is
,
I shall vomit on their Louis
Vuittons.
She dropped her robe on the
carpeted floor before walking to the bathroom
,
where she gave her appearance in the
bathroom mirror a quick, satisfied look before turning off the
water cascading into the bathtub. She poured herself another glass
of wine, set the bottle on the floor next to the tub, and slipped
into the soothing, fragrant hot water.
After the tour’s recent drive through
Provence, Lanie was officially sick of the smell of lavender, but
if she wanted bubbles in her tub tonight she would have to endure
it.
God, the French think they
invented the stuff…and everything else decent
. She made a face as she leaned back into the tub and tried to
get comfortable.
As the tension left her shoulders she had to
admit it hadn’t been a terrible trip so far. Bob had promised her
the bulk of the presentations and he’d been true to his word—even
without having to sleep with him. The thought was disgusting. Bob
Randall was heavyset and continually flushed. She couldn’t imagine
how they managed to color correct his face in post-production.
She noticed, however, none of it stopped
that whore Dee-Dee from coming on to him.
The fact was, this trip to
the south of France was critical to all of them—three travel guides
vying for one slot as co-anchor on Randall’s crazy-successful video
travelogue series,
Americans Love
Europe
. The ten-day trip along the Côte
d’Azur was the audition that would launch one of them—her, Dee-Dee
or that skank Frog, Desiree—into the most coveted, career-making
position in travel reporting.
She took a sip of her wine
and let out a sigh. Maybe she
would
sleep with Randall. With everything at stake, now
was probably not the best time to get all moral and pure. If she
was careful, Olivier need never know…
She heard a sound from the bedroom.
She held her breath and looked at the closed
bathroom door, wine glass still in hand. What was it she heard? A
muted creak from a floorboard giving way to a stealthy footstep?
The sound of one of the pigeons venturing from the balcony into the
room in search of crumbs? Did these old hotels creak and groan for
no reason? She strained to listen, but the sound didn’t repeat.
What was it Bob had said? There had been a recent upswing in
attacks against tourists in Nice. Just enough to make her a little
edgy…and ruin a perfectly nice bath. After a moment, she let out
the breath she was holding. She likely hadn’t heard anything at
all, she reasoned.
When she heard the sound again, it
registered in her brain as a definite creak…coming from the
bedroom. She sat up straight in the tub. As she listened to the
accelerated drubbing of her heart pounding in her ears, Lanie
suddenly remembered she had given Bob a key. But was this the sort
of thing he would do? Just enter her room without calling
first?
She stared at the closed bathroom door.
There had been no reason to lock it. Frankly, she was surprised she
had even bothered to shut it. Could she have imagined the sound a
second time? Perhaps it was the noise from the street?
She saw the doorknob of the bathroom door
begin to slowly turn.
“
Hello?” she called,
hearing the panic in her voice. “Who’s there?”
When the door opened a dark figure filled
the space, backlit against the balcony door.
“
Oh, it’s you,” Lanie said
with a sigh. “Did you get lost?”
The dark shape lunged at her. Lanie
scrambled to stand up in the slick, soapy water and collided with
her attacker, falling backward with a splash.
She gasped and tried to gain purchase in the
slippery interior, slick with soap. She clutched at the figure’s
jacket. Her legs slipped out from under her and strong arms pushed
Lanie backward. She tried again to get to her knees, but an
explosion of pain slammed into her head. Bright vibrating stars
obliterated her vision. They faded slowly to black, taking all
sound with them. All, that is, but the soft popping of the lavender
bubbles.
One
“
He needs a hat, Laurent.”
Maggie stood on the threshold of the French doors, her arms
crossed, and watched her husband read the newspaper on the patio
while jiggling the baby absentmindedly on his knee.
“
He’s fine,” Laurent said
without looking up.
“
It’s too hot out here for
him.” Maggie frowned and took a step onto the patio from the
coolness of the house. As she often told her friends back home in
Atlanta, summer in Provence alternated between blazing hot and
so-hot-you-could-die.
“
Bon
,” Laurent said, depositing the baby on the slate flooring
under the table. “He is in the shade now.”
“
Laurent, no!” Maggie
yelped as she ran to the baby and scooped him up off the ground.
“There’s God knows what under there. Scorpions, rat
droppings…”
Laurent had yet to look away from his
newspaper. “As you wish.”
Maggie brushed the baby’s chubby knees in
case any hint of sand or dirt had attached. She snuggled him close
and kissed his neck, which prompted the nine-month-old to
giggle.
“
Besides, you know he
wouldn’t stay put,” she said, speaking more to little Jean-Michael,
or
Jem
as Laurent
had begun calling him. “
Would
you? He would be in the
potager
in a flash ripping up all your
precious radishes and potatoes.”
“
I do not grow potatoes in
the
potager
,”
Laurent said, turning the page of his newspaper.
“
Well, whatever you grow in
there.”
“
Besides, Monsieur Jem is
more than welcome to help his papa in the
potager
. Even ripping up radishes
would be more attention than his
maman
has paid it.”
Laurent's
potager
—parsley and
English thyme interspersed with radicchio, beets, spinach and
radishes—was planted at the door leading into the house, ready to
be plucked as quickly as it took the grill to get hot.
“
Gardening is not my
thing,” Maggie said, kissing Jem’s head and bouncing him on her
hip.
Laurent finally looked up
at her and grinned. “I love to see the two of you
c’est ça
.” He dropped the
paper and held out his arms and Maggie moved to perch on his knee,
baby still in her arms.
She loved the smell of the two of them—her
two men, she thought with a happy sigh. Laurent was citrus and
tobacco—although she rarely saw him smoke—and little Jem had that
indefinable baby-smell that made it impossible not to kiss his
sweet head whenever he was in her arms.
“
Happy,
chérie
?” Laurent murmured into her
neck.
She felt a spasm of warmth race up her spine
as his hands stroked her back through her thin blouse. “You know I
am,” she whispered.
It was true. She loved it here. But she
hadn’t always. There had been many adjustments to living in a
three-hundred-year-old house, not the least of which were the
antiquated bathrooms.
She smiled remembering how hard she’d
lobbied for central air when she first arrived before accepting
that closing the shutters during the hottest part of the day in
summer typically cooled the house sufficiently.
It had been a long and difficult adjustment,
with all profits from the vineyard going back into the
vineyard.
“
Hi, you two. I hope I’m
not interrupting anything.”
Maggie and Laurent looked up to see their
friend and houseguest, Grace Van Sant, standing in the open French
doors. Every time Maggie saw Grace she was amazed at her friend’s
cool beauty. Grace once joked that her mother named her after Grace
Kelly, but to see her now, impeccably dressed, languid in her
blonde elegance and poise, it was no joke.
Fact was, Grace’s mother had nailed it.
Laurent stood up, slowly sliding Maggie to
her feet. He was six foot four, a big man with a gentle touch and a
silent tread. More than once, Maggie had marveled at how his grace
and stealth belied his size.
“
If Grace is back,” Laurent
said, gathering up his newspaper, “it must be time for
lunch.”
Grace walked onto the patio. “Glad I can
serve as such a reliable timepiece for you, Laurent,” she said,
smiling. “Is Zouzou still napping?”
Laurent went into the house as Maggie pulled
the portable baby monitor out of the pocket of her slacks and
flipped it on. The sounds of the toddler’s snores competed with the
static of the device.
“
Kind of defeats the
purpose if you keep it turned off,” Grace remarked
wryly.
“
Totally defeats the
purpose of having a little peace and quiet,” Maggie said, handing
the monitor to Grace, “if you have to listen to every breath and
gurgle as they sleep. No offense, Grace. I assure you Zouzou’s
snorts are more adorable than most.”