Murder in Nice (23 page)

He touched the envelope
through the silk of his jacket lining and looked out the window to
the long undulating horizon of hectare after hectare of lush
vineyard.
These documents will destroy
everything I see now
.
The vineyard, the house, the marriage
.

Maggie’s
happiness
.

He allowed a tremor of guilt to ripple
through his stomach, then shook it off.

In the end, she’ll thank
me
.
It doesn’t
matter that this is now the only way for me to avoid prison. Think
of that! That frog bastard would rather see me rot in jail than
sign a simple piece of paper that would hardly change his life at
all, except to make him richer.

No, Dernier deserved this. It was the bed
he’d made and now he could lie in it. As for Maggie, it was her own
self-absorption and willfulness that put her in the bed next to
him.

Ben hesitated as he turned
to exit the room, his hand resting on the bedpost. Would Maggie and
his father ever forgive him?
It’s true the
old man was fond of Dernier, but after all
…

Ben tightened his grip on the bedpost and
stuck his jaw out.

…
I am
blood
.

Fourteen

Maggie stared at Janet and Jim as they sat in the
breakfast room of the hotel. Jim looked ill and Maggie was frankly
surprised to see him up and about this early. He’d sounded
practically deranged last night. Janet was buttering her croissant
and looking around the cramped dining room as if comparing it to
the Waldorf. Her mouth was twisted into a grimace of
distaste.

Must suck to have to
pretend to be rich
, Maggie thought, sipping
her café crème. She knew she probably should’ve had an espresso
instead. Would’ve saved about a thousand calories, but since she
was putting butter
and
jam on her croissants this morning she thought it best to
accept her current
what-the-hell
dietary attitude and just have the drink she
really wanted.

Olivier sat by the window with Dee-Dee,
which Maggie thought was nice of him. After the duck-maiming
incident in Cassis it appeared that even the other crazies in the
group were giving Dee-Dee a wide berth. She’d brought the
definition of whack-job to a whole new level. Even so, Maggie hated
seeing how haunted and wistful the woman always looked.

Desiree, on the other hand, needed none of
Maggie’s sympathy. She sat with Randall, sipping the espresso that
Maggie knew she should have gotten, wearing six-inch heels and a
skirt so tight there was no way the Frenchwoman could take a full
breath.

The fact was—Jim’s drunken and incoherent
confession aside—Maggie knew Desiree was still her best shot as a
suspect after Olivier. Why else would she follow Maggie to Nice and
steal the one piece of evidence that existed against her? Why else
except to cover her guilt?

When Randall got up and left the dining
room, Maggie walked over to Desiree’s table.

“
Bonne
matin
,” Maggie said. “Did you have a nice
visit in Nice yesterday?”

Desiree stirred a sugar cube into her coffee
cup and didn’t look up. “You are mistaken, Madame,” she said
coldly. “I was in Grasse yesterday.”

“
Sure you were. You know,
it occurred to me that you knew I was going to be in Nice because
you overheard me talking to Mrs. Morrison on the phone about the
maid giving her information.”

“
Perhaps you have started
drinking early? You are babbling.”

“
I know you stole my purse,
Desiree. And I know why you stole it.”

“
False accusations are
taken seriously in France, Madame.”

“
You mean like me accusing
you of killing Lanie?”

Desiree finally looked at Maggie. And
smiled. “Exactly so. If you wish to formally accuse me, I will need
to contact the authorities in my defense. But I don’t think you
want to do that.”

“
You really hated her,
didn’t you?”

“
Oui
. But that doesn’t make me her murderer.”

Maggie couldn’t argue with that—especially
since there seemed to be so many people who disliked Lanie—but she
forced her face to remain impassive.

“
Is this why you have
returned to the tour?” Desiree asked. “To lay blame for the slut’s
death?”

There’s that word
again
.

“
Mind telling me where you
were the night Lanie died?”

“
I was with Bob Randall at
the time of Lanie’s…passing.”

“
You mean the night she was
murdered.”

“
Quoique.” Whatever.
“
I’ll talk to Bob about terminating your
time with us on the tour. I’m sure he will be horrified to discover
your true purpose. Especially from a public relations
standpoint,
n’est-ce pas?”
Desiree stood abruptly and dropped her napkin on
the table. “Meanwhile, please remember what I told you about making
accusations—even ridiculous ones—while you are in
France.”

Maggie took a quick step backward to avoid
being physically shoved out of Desiree’s way during the
Frenchwoman’s dramatic exit. Maggie stood there for a moment,
watching Desiree leave.

It occurred to Maggie that while she did
just learn that Randall and Desiree were each other’s alibis for
Lanie’s murder, she wasn’t at all sure she’d made any real progress
from her brief interview with Desiree—except, unfortunately, to
warn her main suspect that she was on to her.

*****

Laurent watched Adele as she poured the
drinks. He saw that she had left the bedroom door open, the bed
clearly visible and inviting from the salon.

There was nothing he didn’t see. And, of
course, Adele of all people would know that.

“
I wasn’t sure you would
come,” she purred, turning to him and holding out a glass of
pastis
. His eyes were on
hers as he took the drink, but he knew her breasts were falling out
of her silk blouse.

“
How could I not? Your
invitation was irresistible.” He sipped his drink and smiled at her
from where he sat in the main salon. He’d taken a seat on the
couch. Probably only a small tactical error, he realized, unless it
became necessary to reject her, in which case it was a mistake from
which he and his vineyard might not recover.

Adele sat next to him, picked up the remote
control and pointed it at the far wall, which opened to reveal a
television screen.

“
You will see,
chérie
,” she said, “that I
have been very busy since we last worked together.” She turned to
him and smiled coquettishly. “I have been learning new tricks,
yes?”

“
As we all must,” he
said.
This balancing act was not
difficult
.
It is
not unlike so many I have done in the past with hundreds of
thousands of euros in the balance.

And yet the stakes have
never been higher
.

Adele put the remote control down and
snuggled back into the couch, her skirt riding up on her thighs,
her thigh touching his.

A photograph of a wine crushing operation
appeared on the screen.

“
I bought it last spring,”
Adele said softly. “Five brands, including Domaine St-Buvard, owned
individually yet sharing joint leasing of all
equipment.”

Laurent felt his pulse quicken and swallowed
down the rest of his drink.

“
Access to every level of
equipment that, separately, the owners could never afford, includes
representation in a tasting room…”

The photograph on the screen changed to show
a small but tastefully appointed room lined with hanging
wineglasses and stacks of bottles ringing the burnished wood
walls.

“…
as well as connections to
local restaurants and retailers that would be unreachable
independently.”

It will be the saving of
Domaine St-Buvard
. Laurent watched the
slides, one after another, showing the operation that was the
answer to his prayers.
If I can pull it off
without needing to bed Adele.

“
Each winery is
individually licensed,” she continued, “operating under an
alternating proprietorship that allows them to label their wines
as
produced and bottled
by
.” Adele looked up at Laurent and he tore
his eyes from the screen to see her full lips, glistening with
the
pastis
, her
eyes riveted to his, her message as clear as skywriting:
It’s all yours… for a price.

“
Each independent winery
works under an alternative proprietorship,” he repeated.

“
Yes, of course. It’s what
differentiates you from custom crush. You keep control this way
without having to buy all the equipment.”

“
You were always so canny,
Adele,” he said to her, turning toward her on the couch. Her eyes
went from his eyes to his mouth, and she smiled at his praise. “And
the other four brands?” he said.

Adele placed her drink on the counter. She
took his hand and held it against her breast, but before Laurent
could react she touched the wedding ring on his hand.

“
Is this a deal breaker?”
she asked softly.

He held her eyes for several long seconds
and then gently removed his hand from her breast. “You tell me,” he
replied.

She watched him for a moment and then turned
and picked up the remote control from the table.

“
The four other brands,
besides your neighbor Jean-Luc Pernon, are located in the Luberon,
and one in Spain,” she said. “I have arranged for them to come to
St-Buvard to meet with us.” She glanced at Laurent, her expression
veiled. “To meet with you, your American wife, and myself. We will
sign the papers then.”

Laurent picked up Adele’s
hand and kissed it. “
Merci
, Adele,” he said, standing. “I
will not forget this.”

For the first time in four months—virtually
since the moment he knew Ordeur was splintering the co-op—Laurent
felt a weight lift from his shoulders and his heart. And he felt
like laughing.

*****

The Arles Amphitheater was always an
impressive structure Maggie thought as she walked up the smooth
flat stone steps that led into the main arched entranceway. She’d
brought both her parents here when she and Laurent first moved to
Provence.

There was something about walking the same
stone hallways that people had done two thousand years ago that
gave her chills just to think of it. The imposing, ghostly
structure had a way of connecting her with the people of 90 AD
Arles. After all, could they really be so different?

Olivier carried an unwieldy tripod on his
shoulder—the video camera securely attached to it—and entered the
arena ahead of her. Jim and Janet Anderson walked slowly, almost
reluctantly, behind Maggie. The few glances she’d spared in their
direction showed them both looking elderly, even ill. Janet
stumbled at one point on the stairs and Jim did not reach out to
help steady her.

What had she really heard last night? Maggie
wondered. Was Jim being blackmailed by Lanie? And if so, where did
that fit in?

“
Ça va
, Maggie?” Olivier called to her. He was about to disappear
into the dark shadows of the amphitheater. Even the brief walk from
where the car was parked to the structure’s entrance had been hot
enough to make a line of sweat visible on his t-shirt. He was,
nonetheless, smiling.

“
Yep,” she said, waving him
on. Desiree and Randall were still back at the car for some reason,
but it didn’t matter. This was Dee-Dee’s part of the tour and she
would make sure everyone was seated and watching before she
started. When Maggie reached the top step, before entering she
turned to glance over her shoulder. With the arena built right in
the center of town, all she could really see was the first line of
restaurants and shops that faced the amphitheater. She turned and
went inside.

The coolness of the interior gave her relief
from the walk and the heat of the morning. She saw Olivier
disappearing through one of the stone archways that led to the
seats and the viewing area. She remembered when her father first
saw the arena below, ringed by the seating galleries. It literally
took his breath away. Maggie smiled at the memory. She hadn’t seen
her folks since last Christmas. Jem was a newborn then. She
couldn’t wait for them to see him now. Thanksgiving and Atlanta
seemed like a long way away.

Following Olivier through the archway,
Maggie gave herself a moment to take in the impressive sight of the
four tiers of seats ready for an audience to enjoy barbarous
entertainment. She couldn’t look at the arena without thinking that
it wasn’t always used just for bullfights and gladiators.

There had been the odd hungry lion and
Christian, too.

“
Bon
, Maggie,” Olivier said. “I am setting up here so you and the
others should sit over there.” He waved to a tier of stone seats
off to Maggie’s left and up two rows. She saw Dee-Dee, notecards in
hand, rehearsing silently, standing in front of where Olivier was
putting his tripod. He had positioned her with the dramatic oval of
the arena behind her.