Murder in Nice (26 page)

Olivier ran a hand over his face. It
occurred to Maggie that between helping Janet home from dinner when
she’d overindulged and assuaging Dee-Dee’s nearly constant
hysteria, Olivier had stepped in to being the caretaker of the
group. Had he always had that role, even when Lanie was alive?

“
Perhaps when she sees her
lover shackled and dragged off to prison,” he said, “she will step
forward.”

“
Sounds a little too human
for Desiree. On the other hand, if Randall
is
indicted for this, can Desiree hope
to win the co-anchor spot? She’ll have blown the whole point of the
attack.”

“
I don’t think she thought
this out very well,” Olivier said.

“
Plus, if Randall’s found
guilty, can you imagine the social media bloodbath? It’ll be the
death of his show, just like Dee-Dee said. ‘
Popular travel guru found guilty of attack with a deadly
bull
.’”

Olivier stood up. “I need coffee. Can I
bring you one?”

Maggie shook her head and
pulled out her phone. “No, thanks,” she said as he turned and left
the waiting room. She couldn’t believe she still hadn’t heard back
from Laurent. He wasn’t normally good at communicating by text
message, but he usually got back to her in
some
way.

Did his mysterious phone call yesterday have
something to do with the problem with the vineyard?

In the back of her mind Maggie heard the
musical ding of the elevator’s arrival on her floor, but it wasn’t
until the shadow fell across her knees that she thought to look
up.

“
I cannot believe you have
the nerve to show your face here,” Maggie said to Desiree as the
Frenchwoman stood wringing her hands in front of her.

“
Where’s Bob?” Desiree
asked. “He’s not answering his phone.”

“
Maybe he’s busy having it
dusted for fingerprints.”

“
Where is he?”

“
Aren’t you interested in
how
Dee-Dee
is
doing?”

“
I know she’s fine,”
Desiree said with an impatient snarl. “I called the
hospital.”

“
How thoughtful.” Maggie
peered around the back of her. “Where’s the stuffed animals and
bouquet of flowers? Where’s the card?
Sorry
I tried to kill you. No hard feelings
.”

Desiree’s face blanched and she started to
turn away but Maggie jumped up and grabbed her arm.

“
Did your little stunt not
turn out the way you thought, Desiree? The cops are booking Randall
right now for criminal assault.”

“
You lie!”

“
Why don’t you ask Bob? If
he’s still talking to you, that is.”

Desiree wrenched out of Maggie’s grasp. “It
was an accident!”

“
What was? Her surviving
the attack?”

“
I need to talk to Bob.”
Desiree brought her hands to her face and, very
uncharacteristically, began to chew on a nail. “I didn’t think she
would be hurt. I just meant to scare her. You must believe
me.”

“
Actually, it’s really more
the
police
you need
to convince. But you’re good at that, aren’t you?”

A look of confusion on Desiree’s face turned
to a reddening glare. “Why do you persist in believing I killed
Lanie? I told you, I was with Bob that night.”

“
I wouldn’t put too much
stock in that alibi after today.”

“
Besides, everyone on the
tour knows who killed Lanie.”

“
May I join the party of
people who know?”

Desiree sat down next to Maggie and gripped
her fingers tightly together in her lap. “The day Lanie died she
stood up at lunch and announced to everyone that Jim Anderson was
not what he seemed.”

Was this the big secret Janet alluded
to?

“
Go on.”

“
It appears that Monsieur
Anderson is not wealthy, as he pretends to be.”

“
And you’re saying he was
so mad that Lanie publicly revealed this that he killed
her?”

“
Non
, it was when she announced to all that he was sexually
incapable
that he became
enraged.”

Maggie frowned.

“
Monsieur Anderson
was
enraged
,”
Desiree said. “Ask anyone who was there.”

“
This happened the day she
died?”

“
Oui
.”

Maggie looked up and saw the elevator doors
open to reveal Olivier stepping free of them. He saw Desiree
sitting with Maggie and quickly joined them.

“
What are you doing here?”
he said to Desiree. The Frenchwoman stood and straightened her
blouse free of wrinkles, attempting to retain some
dignity.

“
Be so kind as to tell Bob
that I will be with the others.” She straightened her shoulders and
walked woodenly to the elevator, where she got on and
disappeared.

“
She has some nerve,”
Olivier said, shaking his head.

“
I’m not sure I don’t
believe her,” Maggie said.

He looked at her in surprise. “You think she
wasn’t responsible for the assault on Dee-Dee?”

“
No, I’m fairly sure she
was. But she actually sounded kind of sorry.”

Olivier snorted. “She is full of guile.”

“
Were you…can I ask if you
were at lunch with the tour group the day Lanie died?”

Olivier rolled his eyes. “Desiree told you
that Lanie embarrassed Monsieur Anderson at lunch.”

“
She did. But I find it
hard to believe it was enough to make anyone want to commit
murder.”

Olivier hesitated and seemed to debate
responding.

“
Am I missing
something?”

“
I don’t want you to think
badly of Lanie.”

“
Look, Olivier, was she
blackmailing Jim Anderson?”

“
Lanie could be…impetuous,”
Olivier said. “She had a big heart but often she spoke before
thinking.”

Maggie found it difficult to be patient but
she forced herself to smile encouragingly at him until he
continued.

“
She
was
blackmailing him,” he said
reluctantly. “In a way.”

“
I don’t know a whole lot
about blackmail,” Maggie said, “but it seems to me if you publicly
announce that your intended victim has no money and can’t get it
up, you’ve pretty much blown the thing you had to blackmail him
with,” Maggie said. “Unless there was more.”

Olivier made a face. “There was more.”

“
I’m listening.”

He sighed heavily. Maggie
saw his shoulders sag with weariness. “When Lanie spoke out
publicly at lunch that day, she was giving Monsieur Anderson a
message that it was just…a taste of what she
could
reveal if she…I hate talking
about her like this. And I’m not convinced she would have gone
through with it.”

“
What did she have on
him?”

“
It was true that Monsieur
Anderson has no money and it is also true that he can’t get it
up…with women.”

“
I see.”

“
I blame myself because it
was I who told this fact to Lanie.”

“
Jim came on to
you
? Because you probably
know the rumor is he and Lanie slept together.”

Olivier laughed roughly. “It is not true. It
is in fact ridiculous.”

“
Did you tell the police
this?”

“
Non
! Of course not. Never.”

“
But if you could discredit
the motive they feel like they have for you…”

“
You mean because people
think I was jealous of an affair between Lanie and Jim
Anderson?”

“
Exactly. The police see
the so-called affair as a motive for you. It would help your case
if Jim’s true sexual preference was revealed.”

“
I know, but I don’t want
the world to see this side of her,” he said miserably. “A
blackmailer.”

Maggie nodded but didn’t speak. Was this
love or what? To be willing to go to prison so the world didn’t
discover some unsavory fact about your dear one? She would
definitely have to ask Laurent if he’d do this for her.

As far as putting Jim at
the top of her list of suspects, Maggie had already come to the
unfortunate conclusion that regardless of how much she personally
disliked Desiree—and was absolutely convinced the woman followed
her to Nice and stole her purse—the jump drive likely wouldn’t have
held up as evidence. The recording could have been made at any time
of the day and there was no confirmation from any other source that
a screaming altercation had happened
at the
time of the murder
. It was, in fact,
because
the rooms and
hallways had been so silent at the time of the murder that the cops
were particularly stymied.

While she knew everything she had discovered
was just gossip and hearsay at this point, she realized the
information on Jim was officially the best lead she’d had in the
case so far.

Olivier leaned in so closely Maggie could
smell the coffee on his breath.

“
Please don’t let Desiree
fool you into thinking she did not want my beloved dead,” he
said.

“
I’m sure she wanted her
out of the way,” Maggie said gently, “but who can say if she’s
crazy enough to actually commit murder?”

“
She
is
crazy enough.”

“
I don’t like her either,
Olivier, but—”

“
Non
, I have proof that she is capable of it.”

“
What kind of
proof?”

“
I overheard Randall
talking with her when I joined the tour last spring. It was late
one night and I was checking on my camera by the bus. They didn’t
know I was there.” He leaned in even closer and Maggie saw his eyes
glitter with intensity. “Desiree said she spent the last three
years in the
Centre pénitentiaries de
Fresnes.
”

Maggie’s stomach tensed. “I don’t suppose
you heard what for?”

“
Manslaughter.”

*****

Grace watched the sun drop along the horizon
of the vineyard from her bedroom window. She didn’t bother looking
for Laurent wandering the carefully organized lanes. He still
hadn’t returned from wherever he’d run off to this morning.

To see Madame Mystery Lady
again? Grace had to admit, if Laurent
was
having an affair he didn’t spend
very much time with his lover. Except for that one very public
liaison at Le Canard in St-Buvard—and of course wherever he’d gone
off to today—he’d stuck pretty close to home.

The affair was looking more and more like a
non-affair. Thank God she hadn’t said anything to Maggie about it.
The vineyard, on the other hand, was a different matter. Even Grace
could tell the grapes were so ripe and juicy they were practically
falling off the vines, and yet Laurent had not called in his
pickers.

Was it a money issue? She knew handpicking
was more expensive than mechanical harvesting, but Laurent and
always hired pickers to do his harvest. In fact, now that she
thought about it, everyone in Laurent’s co-op hired pickers.
Usually the little village of St-Buvard was abuzz with excitement
by now of the impending harvest—from the influx of immigrant
pickers, mostly from Hungary and Romania, to the anticipated
inpouring of money to the village—certainly the bar and café.

Why was this year different?

She turned away from her
window and smoothed out the nonexistent creases in her lemon yellow
Yves Saint Laurent slacks, which she wore with her favorite vintage
Charles Jourdan heels—the result of a very pleasant shopping
weekend in Nice three years ago. She could still remember the
little boutiques that lined the narrow street of the
Vieux Nice
neighborhood.
She’d just found out she was pregnant with Zouzou after months of
agonizing infertility treatments.

Unavoidably, Grace thought of Windsor. He
had been so happy then. They both had. He’d accompanied her that
weekend. They’d stashed their four-year-old daughter, Taylor, with
the nanny—the only one who could really handle her anyway—and had
one last wonderful fling on the French Riviera. She touched the hem
of her tunic.

Before it all went to hell.

Her eye fell on her leather carry-on, open
on the bed.

Was she really going to do
this? Her stomach lurched painfully at the thought.
Shouldn’t I pay attention to gut reactions?
She smiled ruefully.
Maggie practically lives by them
.

A light tap at the door made her turn her
head. “Come in.”

Haley opened the door and Grace felt a
comforting warmth infuse her at the sight of her new friend’s
face.

“
Madame Pernon’s
grandniece, Margo, is here to help me watch the kids this evening.
You okay?” Haley moved into the room and Grace saw her eyes go to
the suitcase on the bed. “So you’ve decided?” Haley
asked.

“
I don’t know.
Maybe.”