Murder in Nice (3 page)

“
Allo
, Zouzou is ready for her lunch,” Laurent announced as he came
back out to the patio, this time with a three-year-old girl in his
arms, her face creased from her nap.

Grace stood up and took her
from Laurent. “
Merci, Oncle
Laurent,” she said. “Are you hungry,
petal?”

“
You have cheese in your
hair,” Laurent said to Maggie as he reached for Jem.

“
I know. My lover finds it
particularly alluring.”

“
Oui
,” Laurent said, his eyes glittering with meaning. “He
does.”

“
Come on, join us,
Laurent,” Grace said. “Oh, my goodness, is that fried calamari?
Wherever did you get it?”

“
Try the lemon
pepper
aioli
,”
Maggie said, scooping a small fritter into the golden sauce. “It’s
the reason I married him, I kid you not.”

“
We need more wine,”
Laurent said, scanning the table with a frown.

“
We have plenty,” Maggie
said. “Come and sit down. Tell us all about how plump and sweet our
grapes are at the moment.”

“
I see you are being
witty,” Laurent said, pouring himself a glass of wine.

Grace laughed. “Yes, tell us, Laurent.
Maggie says the harvest looks awesome this year. I don’t know ripe
grapes from tennis balls, but they do look pretty on the hills
surrounding the house.”

Laurent sat down and Maggie couldn’t help
notice that his usual zeal for talking endlessly about the vineyard
seemed to be lacking. She knew for a fact the harvest was better
than it had ever been. Something wasn’t right if Laurent wasn’t
clapping his hands together in delight, ready to recount every
minute detail of the vines’ growth pattern.

“
It will be a good harvest
this year,” he said simply, sipping his wine.

“
Yay,” Maggie said, leaning
over and taking Jemmy’s hands and making them clap together. “A
‘good harvest’ means many trips to Paris for Mommy and a nice
private
école maternelle
in Aix for Jemmy.” She shot a covert glance at
Laurent to see his reaction but, not surprisingly, his expression
was impossible to read.

“
That’s great, Laurent,”
Grace said. “It’s earlier this year than last, isn’t it? Or am I
imagining that?”

Maggie watched Laurent’s eyes and for a
moment she thought she saw a shadow pass across his face. An
earlier ripening generally meant a better quality product. So why
did the thought of it seem to make him solemn?

“
Non
,” he said. “It’s true. We will harvest sooner this
year.”

Maggie exchanged a look with Grace.
Something was definitely not right.

Two

“
Will you call her? What will you say?” Haley Newberry glanced
at her husband from where she sat on the bed. He seemed tired, as
if he hadn’t shaken off his jet lag, although they’d been in France
for over week already.

“
The truth,” Ben said. He
stood at the balcony overlooking the
Promenade des Anglais
. “That we’re
coming earlier than planned.”

“
I hope you’ll at least
present it as a request,” Haley said.

He turned to look at her. “Why? They sit on
a farm counting their money and watching the grapes grow. How could
our coming a week early possibly be a problem?”

She hated seeing him like this. Tense.
Distracted. Hard.

“
You’re right,” she said.
“It probably won’t be. You’ve never met her husband, have
you?”

Ben turned away again. “You know I haven’t.
What was the point?”

Right
, Haley thought sadly.
Because it’s
not like you cared about deepening the relationship with your
sister.

“
Does she think it odd that
we’re visiting now?”

Ben went to the dresser and picked up his
cell phone. “I have no idea what she thinks.”

“
She was good friends with
Lanie, you know.”

“
A thousand years ago.” He
punched in a number and turned back to the balcony view.

Haley waited. It was hard to imagine death
in the midst of such intense beauty. The azure-blue of the
Mediterranean seemed to frame everything around it with a storybook
semblance that belied everyday woes like hangnails or
indigestion…or death.

“
Hello, Maggie. This is
your brother, Ben. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad
time.”

Haley allowed herself one more glimpse of
the sea over Ben’s shoulder and then retreated to the bathroom for
her shower.

*****

Maggie waved her hand to command quiet from
Laurent and Grace in the kitchen where they were feeding the
children their breakfast. She handed a spoon of stewed apricots to
Laurent and settled on a barstool.

“
Hey, Ben,” she said,
“we’re really looking forward to your visit next week.”

“
That’s why I’m calling.
There’s been a change of plans.”

“
Oh?”

Maggie was surprised to realize the thought
that he might be canceling prompted a surge of relief. She looked
at Laurent, who was studying her over Jem’s head.

“
Yes, there’s been an
accident here on the tour,” Ben said. “Haley and I are having to
drop out.”

“
An accident?” Maggie
focused her full attention to the phone call, but still saw Grace
out of the corner of her eye turn her body toward
Maggie.

“
Actually you know her,”
Ben said. “Lanie Morrison? I think Haley mentioned in her email to
you that she was one of the tour guides?”

“
Lanie had an
accident?”

Maggie detected the brief hesitation before
her brother answered. “She did,” he said. “She was found this
morning. She was…unresponsive.”

Maggie stood up.
“She’s
dead
?”

Laurent tapped Maggie on
the wrist to get her attention. He mouthed
qui?

“
Lanie Morrison,” Maggie
said to him. “The one I went to school with. Ben says she was found
dead this morning.”

“
And so of course the
remainder of the tour is cancelled,” Ben said on the line. “Haley
and I were hoping we might come to Domaine St-Buvard earlier than
planned.”

“
Yes, of course,” Maggie
said, trying to process this news. “How did she die?”

“
I really don’t
know.”

“
Well, how did you find out
about it?”

“
Maggie, I’m happy to
answer any questions you have when Haley and I arrive, which, if
it’s all the same to you, will be tomorrow evening.”

“
Is her mother coming
over?”

“
Pardon?”

“
Lanie’s mother. Ann
Morrison. I assume she’s coming to Nice to bring…Lanie
home?”

“
I don’t know about any of
that. Will you or someone meet us at the train station? And is
Arles the closest one?”

“
What? Oh, yeah. Arles.
Call us when you’re about an hour out and one of us will be there
with the car.”

“
Very good.” He hung
up.

Maggie sat and stared at her phone. “God,
he’s a jerk.”

“
Lanie died?” Grace asked,
holding Zouzou on her hip, a spoon in one of the child’s chubby
fists.

“
That’s what he said.”
Maggie shook her head. “She was only thirty-five. How did she die,
I wonder?” She looked at Laurent. “As I understood it from Haley,
this was Lanie’s chance to earn a permanent slot on Bob Randall’s
television show.”

“
Maybe she had health
issues?” Grace asked.

“
Maybe.” Maggie looked
around the kitchen. “Can you guys finish up breakfast without
me?”

“
Why?” Laurent asked,
frowning.

“
I just want to look at
something on the Internet,” Maggie said as she gave Jem a quick
kiss and hurried into the living room where her laptop was. Booting
up quickly, she typed in the name
Ann
Morrison
and found the phone number she was
looking for.

*****

If it had been tricky
finding reasons to leave Domaine St-Buvard
before
Jem was born, it was positively
onerous now, Maggie thought as she accelerated on the A8 heading
toward Nice and the coast. Unlike Laurent, she needed a break from
time to time from the constant monotony of rural life. Having Grace
live with them helped immensely.
But even a
glass of wine and your best girlfriend is no substitute for a
weekend shopping trip to Paris
, she thought
with a smile.

Maggie reviewed her conversation yesterday
with Lanie’s mother. Annie Morrison had been distraught, of course,
but her relief was palpable over the phone line when Maggie offered
to meet her at the Nice Côte d’Azur airport. Maggie had never met
Lanie’s father. He and Annie had divorced years ago and he’d long
since passed away. For reasons she couldn’t put her finger on,
Maggie wasn’t surprised to hear that Annie had never remarried.

It took three hours to
drive to the coast from Domaine St-Buvard, and as Maggie drove she
reran the tapes in her head of her efforts to convince Laurent that
she needed to go. Not surprisingly, he resisted the idea. She knew
he didn’t mind taking care of Jem.
That
little duty he embraced with
enthusiasm. Maggie was lucky to pry the child out of Laurent’s
arms. Her husband had always begun his day patrolling his
vineyards, only now he did it with Jem tucked in one arm. Thinking
of the image of Laurent and Jem outlined against the horizon this
morning as they returned from their vineyard walk reopened a kernel
of worry in Maggie.

There was definitely something going on with
the vineyard and with Laurent. Normally, he would return from his
walk with a spring in his step. He used to say it was like visiting
a special lover—you always felt great afterward.

Maggie shook her head and
grinned in spite of herself.
The
French
.

But lately there had been no spring in
anybody’s step and no cheerful mood spreading into the late morning
and the afternoon. Lately there had just been motions being gone
through and items ticked off a vast to-do list.

Not at all Laurent’s style.

Maybe Grace would have some luck finding out
what was up, Maggie thought. This was actually a perfect
opportunity for her to use her quiet skills to find out those
things Laurent worked to keep hidden—Laurent, who was the most
closed, private and secretive of men. But then, Maggie thought with
a smile, he’d never really been up against a true Southern belle in
her prime before.

She took the airport exit and parked the
car, focusing on the task at hand. She hoped Lanie’s mother would
lean on her. Annie admitted on the phone that she spoke no French,
had in fact never been to France. Maggie hurried to the receiving
line of the incoming flight from Atlanta and scanned the crowd for
sight of her, wondering if she’d have trouble recognizing her. The
last time she’d seen her, nearly eleven years ago now, the woman
had been seriously overweight.

Annie was easy to pick out in the crowd, and
Maggie realized with a sinking heart it was not because Annie was
heavy. While everyone else was moving quickly—to locate luggage,
greet loved ones, find ground transportation—one woman was
trudging, head down, through the throng as if looking for something
on the ground. Maggie’d had plenty of time on the drive over to
imagine the horror of losing your only child. Now that she was a
mother herself, the thought was especially harrowing. She couldn’t
imagine what Annie was going through. And she didn’t want to.

“
Annie!” she called to the
heavyset woman walking toward her. Annie lifted her head, her face
flushed for a moment, but the light that flickered in her eyes
quickly extinguished when she saw Maggie.

For a moment she thought it might be…

Maggie moved to her side and put her arms
around her. As soon as she did, Annie began to weep, her shoulders
shaking in Maggie’s embrace. Seeing the naked pain of Annie’s grief
was almost unbearable. But when Maggie reminded herself of what
Annie was attempting to bear, she held her tighter and let her cry
as long as she needed to.

An hour later, they were driving up the
coast to Nice. Annie spoke very little. When Maggie’s hand wasn’t
on the gearshift, Annie was reaching for it.

“
Where did you book?”
Maggie asked gently.

“
I…Lanie’s hotel,” Annie
said, her voice raspy and hoarse from hours of crying.

“
The Soho,” Maggie said.
“Do you want to check in first?”

Annie shook her head. “No. I want to see my
baby.”

Her words raked a chord of
pain across Maggie’s heart.
They’ll always
be our babies
, she thought as she pictured
Jem laughing and clapping his hands; her gut twisted
painfully.

She drove to the
Bureau du Coroner
off
the
Rue de la Prèfecture
and parked in the public parking lot. Hand in
hand, she and Annie walked into the police morgue where Lanie
awaited them.