Murder in Nice (11 page)

“
Special
information?”
What the heck was she talking
about?

“
The French coroner told me
after the autopsy…” Annie broke down in tears and Maggie sat up
straight in anticipation. “He…he told me when he gave me
Lanie’s…remains something utterly heartbreaking.”

Maggie remembered that
Annie was weepier than usual when she waved her off on the
airplane, but she assumed it was because everything was coming to
an end. Now her mind raced:
What could be
so heartbreaking after losing your only child?

“
Lanie was
pregnant.”

There you go.

“
Wow, Annie. I am so
sorry.”

Annie sniffled loudly. “So,
of course, I knew it couldn’t be Olivier. Only a monster would
knowingly…” Maggie listened as Annie made an effort to get a grip
of her emotions. When she spoke again, her voice was stronger.
“Olivier agreed to a DNA test. Understandably, his lawyer believed
it would be helpful in establishing that he could not have killed
Lanie. That he had no
motive
. His lawyer told me Olivier was
eager to take the test, the results of which we got
today.”

Oh, don’t tell me…

“
The baby wasn’t
his.”

Seven

The next morning, Maggie was up early, but still
not before Laurent, of course. She found him in the kitchen talking
to Jem, who was in his high chair scrutinizing a mashed-up
peach.

“
I need two coffees,”
Maggie said, kissing the baby and then moving to the counter where
Laurent had just made a full pot.

“
You are expecting a
stressful morning,
chérie
?” Laurent said, smiling as she
drew two mugs from the cabinet.

“
They’re not both for me.
Did you see Haley come through here?”

“
She’s in the northeast
quadrant of the vineyard.”

“
Wow, really? Why, I
wonder?” Maggie poured the coffees. “I don’t know how she takes
hers.”

“
The point is the
effort,
chérie
.”

“
Yeah, good. In that case…”
Maggie reached for the antique china ewer of cream on the counter
and added it to both mugs, along with two spoonfuls of sugar. “Can
you get the door?”

Laurent walked her to the
French doors and gave her shoulder a light squeeze as she passed
through. “
Bonne chance
,” he said, closing the door behind her.

Maggie stood on the terrace for a moment and
squinted into the horizon. The northwest quadrant got the sun first
and there was a bench out there, so she figured that was probably
why Haley went that way. It was also the furthest point from the
house.

Maggie steadied the two coffees and walked
gingerly over the uneven ground until she reached the first of
several long rows of well-tended aisles of grape vines. To her
immediate right on the perimeter was a stand of gnarled olive trees
providing nothing useful but a thought to their historical role.
They’d probably been fruitful during Laurent’s uncle’s time, but
now they weren’t even good for shade.

There was an apple orchard on the far side
of the vineyard but it too was not harvested. Maggie had stepped on
a snake there the summer before and decided on the spot there was
no real need to ever go back.

Laurent’s vineyard was
sectioned into fourths, with the main intersection a wide dirt
tractor road. Although she rarely came into the
vineyard—
Laurent’s kingdom and
domain
—Maggie knew she was nearly to the
northwest quadrant when she came to the road. Her foot caught a
small root and she spilled coffee onto her hand.

“
Ouch! Dammit!” She stopped
and put both coffees down on the ground to wipe off her
hand.

“
Maggie? Is that
you?”

Maggie looked up to see Haley, hidden until
this moment, rise from the bench on the other side of the tractor
road. Laurent must have moved the bench. She didn’t remember it
being so close.

“
Yes, it’s me,” Maggie
said. “How did you know? The early-morning cussing?”

Haley laughed and walked across the road to
meet her. “Pretty much,” she said. Haley was wearing a pair of
loose linen slacks and a short-sleeve cotton top. Appearing fresh
and unaffected by the hot morning, she looked like she absolutely
belonged in the middle of a two-hundred-year-old Provençal
vineyard.

Maggie handed her one of the coffees and in
the bright morning sun immediately saw the bruise under Haley’s
eye. Was that new? Or had it been covered with makeup before?

Why is it you always think the worst when
you see a woman with a black eye?

“
I am so, so, so sorry
about last night, Haley,” Maggie said. “Laurent tells me all the
time that I don’t know what I’m saying half the time but last night
I really put my foot in it. Please forgive me.”

Haley held the coffee and nodded, her smile
firmly in place. “It’s okay, Maggie. I knew you when, remember? You
always spoke your mind. I overreacted.”

“
No, you didn’t at all,”
Maggie said. “It was all me. I let Ben get me riled up but that’s
no excuse.”

Haley looked away and Maggie saw the bruise
was more yellow than purple. So it had happened a few days ago.

Should she say something about it?

“
He’s going through some
changes at work,” Haley said. “And Ben doesn’t like
change.”

“
He really seems…edgy. More
than usual,” Maggie said, grateful to change the subject from her
to her brother.

“
He’ll get through it,”
Haley said, her eyes going to the span of orderly vineyards all
around them.

“
What made you come out
here?” Maggie asked, following her gaze at their surroundings. To
Maggie, it all looked like so many desiccated sticks jammed into
the ground, albeit with a bunch of plump, fat grapes
attached.

“
It’s so beautiful,” Haley
said, her voice holding a tone of surprise that Maggie could even
ask such a question. “I like to take advantage of different scenery
when I’m away from Atlanta. One morning back home—months from
now—when I’m looking out my living room window at the traffic on
Peachtree Road, I’ll remember this moment when the air smelled like
roses and everything was absolutely and perfectly
quiet.”

“
Except for my
cussing.”

Haley laughed. “I might edit that part out
of my memories.”

“
Did Laurent mention the
lemon festival in St-Buvard today? Half the village will be there,
which isn’t saying much, but it’ll still be fun. I mean, if you
like imagining you’re someplace totally out of reality.”

Haley laughed again and Maggie felt her
heart settle. She’d been forgiven.

“
I wouldn’t miss it,” Haley
said with a smile.

*****

St-Buvard was a small
village, Maggie thought with satisfaction, but that didn’t mean it
didn’t hold up its end of the food bargain when it came to
terroir
and pride of
produce. Although not ranking anywhere near the level of an Aix or
Avignon food festival, the St-Buvard
citron
festival was still renowned
throughout Provence.

And after a steady string of murders a few
years earlier, being known for a lemon festival was a nice change
of pace.

Grace, wearing immaculate white linen slacks
and matching top, carried a patent leather red clutch bag under her
arm. She shaded her eyes as she stood next to Maggie. The festival
consisted of nearly fifty stalls, tables and kiosks that had been
erected in the small village square. Laurent had a table near the
entrance of the square for his label. Maggie saw he’d hired two of
the young gypsy boys to hand out samples of the wine.

Next to them, and clearly the apex of the
festival, was a long table with rows of shiny, polished lemons
stacked in pyramids. In front them were displayed lemon pies, lemon
tarts and dozens and dozens of bottles filled with citrus-infused
marinades and oils.

Le
Canard
, the village pub and café, would
serve a full menu today starting with its famous
poulet au citron
and
finishing with
les
tartes au citron
. Even the small
Catholic church of St-Buvard,
Sainte-Mère-Église,
had a small kiosk
of lemon cookies perched on the edge of the flagstone courtyard
that was the main stage for the festival.

Of course there were always
those vendors who came from outside St-Buvard with their lavender
sachets and olives, or even their cheap Paris sweatshirts and
knockoff sunglasses, but for once the locals didn’t seem to mind.
Maggie noticed one stall in particular had a wide banner that
read:
Le meilleur à Aix
.
The best of Aix
—selling a lemon-infused
pastis
and doing a brisk business.

“
Don’t you already have a
veritable dump truck full of lemons from your own trees?” Grace
asked as she sampled a lemon-spritzed bite of
chèvre
on a small toast round. She
nodded at the proprietor, who promptly shoveled half a dozen wheels
of the goat cheese into a small paper bag for Grace.

“
Today’s not about lemons,”
Maggie said, shifting her overly full food basket to her other arm.
“It’s about France’s general obsession with food.”

Grace tucked her cheese into Maggie’s
basket. “Uh oh,” she said. “What’s the matter?”

“
Nothing,” Maggie said
sharply. “Except there’s no way anyone can take off five pounds of
baby weight living in a country where the sole focus is
eating.”

Grace nodded. “Only five pounds?”

“
Shut up.”

“
Are you going to talk
about last night?”

Maggie stopped and frowned. “I didn’t
realize Laurent and I were that noisy.”

“
Funny girl. I’m talking
about Lanie’s surprise pregnancy.”

“
And the fact the
baby
wasn’t
Olivier’s.” Maggie nodded. “Major shock, that’s for sure. Poor
Annie. She begged me to keep her updated on what’s happening with
the case.”

“
How would
you
know what’s
happening?”

“
Exactly.” Maggie
approached a wizened old lady behind a counter where a large pot of
steaming paella sat. “
Bonjour
, Madame Bonet,” she said,
kissing the woman on both cheeks. Grace shook the woman’s hand and
she and Maggie were both promptly handed small bowls of the
fragrant rice dish, which they took to a small bench under a large
sycamore tree.

“
Annie thinks because I can
sort of speak the language that the police will tell me what’s
going on.”

“
You know, darling, Laurent
was out on the terrace with Ben by that point, but I’m almost
positive I heard you tell Annie you would find out who killed her
daughter.”

Maggie took a mouthful of paella and closed
her eyes. The saffron mingled with the sharp briny flavors of the
seafood and melted into a perfect taste sensation.

“
Madame Bonet makes the
best paella,” she said, opening her eyes.

Grace was watching her expectantly.
“Well?”

“
I don’t see how it could
hurt me digging around just a little bit to see what I can find
out, for Annie’s sake.”

“
And you’re sure it doesn’t
have anything to do with the fact your brother thinks you’d be
insane to get involved?”

“
Where does he get off
having an opinion one way or the other? What’s it to
him?”

“
I agree, darling.
Laurent
, on the other
hand, will definitely have an opinion and I think we both know what
it will be. Oh, there’s Haley,” she said, gazing over Maggie’s
shoulder and into the festival throng. “She’s brave, wandering
around by herself with not two words of French to rub together. I
understand you spoke with her this morning?

“
I did. She was very sweet
and I didn’t deserve it.”

“
Where’s your brother? Did
he come with Laurent?”

“
This isn’t his scene.”
Maggie waved to Haley and her sister-in-law broke into a wide grin
and hurried over. She, too, carried a basket full of individually
wrapped parcels of bakery goods, cheeses and lemons.

“
Oh, my God, you can smell
the lemons from your
house
, Maggie,” Haley said. “I’m in
heaven.”

“
Whoa, you have a serious
load of pastries there,” Maggie said. “And I have a certifiable
weakness for macaroons.”

“
Well, you’ll be able to
eat your fill tonight,” Haley said. “By the way, I saw Laurent on
the other side of the square. He looked to be drinking.”

“
Well, he
is
a winemaker,” Maggie
said, smiling at the woman behind a table selling sunflowers. “Kind
of goes with the business.”

“
Yes, but he had the baby,”
Haley said. “
And
Zouzou. In the States, anyone under twenty-one wouldn’t even
be allowed to sit in a bar.”