Murder à la Carte (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series), Page 2

  Soon they passed through steeper terrain, the hills covered in the briar-patch look of vineyards. Maggie saw the workers hunched over, picking the grapes by hand.

  “My God,” she said in amazement. “Don’t these people have machines to do that?”

  “Machines can break the grape,” Laurent said. “Besides, these are small farms. The big machines are trop cher.”

  “How did your uncle do it?”

  “Sais pas,” he said, his eyes glittering with eagerness as he watched the pickers in the fields. “Perhaps he hired people from the village.”

  “Gosh, Laurent, it looks like a big job.” Maggie caught a glimpse of a little girl, no more than six years old, her basket full, her little back bent to the job.

  Laurent smiled and pointed to the map in her lap.

  “We have a turn coming up, Maggie,” he said.

  A quarter of an hour later, they saw the sign announcing St-Buvard. Perched in three tiers on a bosky hilltop, the village was a series of compact, rose-colored buildings protected in its spiraled setting against the fierce mistral. As they drove closer, Maggie realized how tightly spaced the little village was. Its narrow, rock and pebble streets looked more like alleyways than main avenues. And the stone apartments and shops tucked into the dark, looming buildings were perched on the roads without buffer or curb. As they approached, they discovered a crumbling Roman aqueduct ran at the base of the hill that supported St-Buvard―looking to Maggie like some ancient train trestle leading nowhere. Laurent drove through the village, his face flushed with excitement.

  “Voici, St-Buvard!” he said. “There is the boulangerie, and the charcuterie, oh, the post office, chérie...”

  As quaint little Provençal villages go, Maggie had to admit, St-Buvard was classic. Blue and green shuttered windows winked out over the gailystriped awnings of the village shops and narrow cobblestone avenues shot out from the main road. Even the people didn’t look too distrustful or bothered by the arrival of strangers, Maggie thought, as she received a curious half-smile from a young worker hosing down a front walk in his blue combinaison.

  “Ah, the village café!” Laurent said as they drove past an outdoor terrace of small tables which backed up to the dark cavern of a restaurant. “We will be spending much time there, I think.”

  Maggie smiled. St-Buvard was charming. It was old-fashioned and cobblestoned with window boxes of geraniums still blooming in October!--and no other cars on the streets but their own. She half expected to see a horse-drawn cart meet them around the next corner.

  They were through the little village and onto a gravel road that led off into the horizon.

  “This can’t be right,” Maggie said, squinting at the map.

  “Monsieur Alexandre’s vineyard is less than a mile from here,” Laurent said.

  “He’s got a vineyard too?” Maggie asked. She looked into the surrounding fields and pastures and wondered if one of them could be a part of Laurent’s property.

  “Yes, yes,” Laurent said. “But which way?”

  “Well, there’s only to the left or to the right,” Maggie said. “Why don’t we drive a half a mile up each way and see what we find?”

  Laurent rolled his eyes, then pointed to an old man shuffling along the road a hundred yards in front of him.

  “This old fellow’s bound to know,” he said, driving the car abreast with the man. “Excusez-moi,” Laurent called to him.

  The old man turned and looked at Maggie and Laurent in their car. He frowned and said nothing.

  Laurent spoke quickly to him in French.

  The man peered into the car at Maggie.

  “He thinks we’re tourists,” Maggie said, smiling broadly at the man. “Tell him we’re his new neighbors.” She spoke loudly to the man as if he were hard of hearing: “Nous nous neighbors à Domaine St-Buvard? Oui? Comprenez-vous?”

  Laurent grimaced. “Is there a reason why you are speaking bad French to the poor man,” he asked, “when I am sitting right here?”

  The look of horror and fear that swiped the old gentleman’s face was vivid for several seconds before he turned and ran. Within moments, Maggie and Laurent watched him disappear behind an ancient stonewall.

  Maggie spoke first. “Did you see that?”

  “Incroyable,” Laurent said, starting the engine again, “…the effect your French has on the natives.”

  “He was afraid of us.”

  “C’est ridicule,” Laurent said, choosing the left fork and driving slowly. “French villagers are just not as open as Americans.”

  “Come on, Laurent,” Maggie said. “I didn’t ask him if he liked it with the woman on top. I just said we were his new neighbors.”

  “For a Frenchman,” Laurent said, smiling, “it is often the same thing.”

  “Oh, very funny. Hey, look! Is that a driveway?”

  Laurent slowed for a copse of trees that hid a sharp turn in the road as well as a gently sloping driveway. An old sign, the faded letters of which were nearly obscured by time and the crowding olive trees, read Domaine Alexandre. Maggie felt a chill run through her as Laurent turned down the tree-lined drive. It looked like an entranceway to a grand country estate. When the house finally appeared from over a slight rise in the road, it was no massive château or vainglorious estate. The dramatic entranceway led to a simple farmhouse, a mas, of rough fieldstone and wood, draped in verdant cascades of ivy.

  Large black poodles ran out from under the bushes near the house and bounded up to the car, barking loudly. Laurent drove to the front door the only massive thing about the otherwise unimpressive little house and shut off the engine. Within moments, the dogs were herded off by a slight man wielding a tremendous stick.

  “Allez! Allez!” he yelled, waving his stick precariously close to their windshield. He turned abruptly and examined the car and its passengers.

  His face was weatherworn and reddened from years in the Provençal sun. He wore clean, dark trousers, a white shirt, a dark blue tie and a cloth cap on the back of his head. He held the remainder of a cheroot clamped between a set of crooked, yellow teeth. Maggie guessed his age at about sixty. His face looked older, but his lithe, spare body moved with the ease of a younger man.

  “Monsieur Alexandre?” Laurent began to open his car door.

  “Bien sûr!” the older man called, nodding his head vigorously and, still wagging his stick, gestured for Laurent to remain in the car. Quickly, he jerked open the door to the back seat and settled himself inside. He patted the back of Laurent’s shoulder and smiled a large gappy grin at Maggie.

  “Conduirez-vous,” he said to Laurent. Drive.

  Jean-Luc directed them to a small country restaurant about five miles from his farm. Maggie, seeing her chance for a better breakfast, was pleased, and even Laurent, with all his impatience, seemed not to mind too much.

  On entering the restaurant, Jean-Luc led them to a large table in the back. The restaurant’s owners regarded them suspiciously but warmed up when Jean-Luc ordered four bottles of wine―two whites, a red and a rosé. Maggie noticed that the wine labels were hand-written and difficult to read.

  Jean-Luc poured their glasses and held his own up as if to indicate he would make a toast. He did not. They drank their wine solemnly and then Jean-Luc and Laurent began to talk in fast, low-rumbling French. Their words were unintelligible to Maggie. Jean-Luc gestured with much animation as he spoke, his sentences punctuated often with “Zut!” and “Ach!” and once even a soft “putain,” before looking in Maggie’s direction and smiling apologetically. Maggie watched the recalcitrant restaurant owners as they brought plate after plate of food to the table. A large crock of pâté was deposited in front of Maggie, followed by a steaming loaf of bread, a couple of spit-roasted pheasants (golden-brown and fragrant with rosemary), a chafing dish with white fish, redolent in the garlicky aîoli sauce of the area. There followed a puffball of pastry, braided and baked to perfection, a large salad of greens glistening with olive oi
l and liberally sprinkled with basil, parsley, tarragon, oregano, chives and wild thyme, and, finally, little raviolis stuffed with a creamy, sharp cheese. It wasn’t yet ten-thirty in the morning.

  Maggie watched as Laurent finished off his third glass of rosé and allowed his new friend to pour him a glass of the headier red. Before she had time to give him a nudge under the table, they were joined by a couple whom Jean-Luc introduced as Eduard and Danielle Marceau.

  The Marceaus were also Laurent’s neighbors and winegrowers as well. Madame Marceau was a few years younger than her husband, a youthful fifty-something with severely coifed blonde hair that was obviously created from a bottle purchased at the village pharmacie. Her face must have been pretty once, but was now harshly lined from too much wind and sun. She smiled at Maggie and Laurent through razor-thin lips. Holding her hands folded neatly in her lap, she allowed her husband to do all of the talking.

  Eduard Marceau was as pale and flabby as Jean-Luc was ruddy and firm. Maggie marveled at the contrast in the two men: one of them obviously didn’t have to go out and pick his own grapes, she decided.

  Eduard extended a pudgy hand to Maggie and Laurent.

  “Bienvenue!” he said cheerfully. His wife nodded in agreement. “We are happy to be meeting you at long last. Oui, Danielle?” He patted his wife’s hand, then turned to Maggie. “You are to forgive Jean-Luc for talking away with your husband not in English, yes? He is a rough country character with no manners, eh?” He smiled broadly at Jean-Luc, who poured Maggie a large bowlful of the strong red wine as if to compensate for his rudeness.

  “I am très sorry, Madame,” Jean-Luc said to her, smiling through the picket fence of his teeth. “I am so desiring to talk business with your husband.”

  “Eh? What’s this?” Eduard boomed out a little too heartily. “Talking business already? They have just arrived!”

  “They haven’t even seen the house, Jean-Luc,” Danielle said meekly.

  “What’s the house look like?” Maggie turned to the older woman and took a large sip of her wine. She noticed the old girl wasn’t drinking.

  “Of course, you see?” Eduard shook his head at Jean-Luc. “They haven’t even seen the property yet and you are working your wiles, you old devil! Let the man eat his lunch!”

  “What sort of business, exactement,” Laurent said pleasantly, sniffing the bouquet of his wine, “are you referring to, Monsieur Marceau?”

  “Call me Eduard, please,” Marceau said, tearing a piece of bread apart.

  “Eduard.”

  Marceau smiled and reached for his own glass of wine. “There is so much time for all of that, Monsieur Dernier...Laurent, that I think we will not bore the women, eh? First, let us enjoy a good meal and become a little of what we were to your uncle. Good neighbors.”

  “Friends,” added Madame Marceau.

  “You knew my uncle well?” Laurent asked, spooning into the huge spinach pastry, its steamy, fragrant contents spilling across the stark whiteness of his plate.

  “We were neighbors,” Jean-Luc said, helping himself to one of the pheasants. “Not really friends, but you get to know your neighbor. We helped each other when there was a call for it.”

  “For nearly ten years,” Eduard said.

  “So your property connects with Laurent’s?” Maggie asked, swallowing a mouthful of cod soaked in aïoli.

  “Both of our properties touch yours,” Jean-Luc said to Laurent. “I am placed on the east, yes?” He positioned a chunk of bread next to Laurent’s wine glass to indicate where his house was located, and then moved the pâté below it. “And Eduard is just to the south, comme ça.”

  “Neighbors,” Laurent said.

  “Comme il faut,” Danielle said, then smiled at Maggie. “My English is not being too good.”

  “That’s okay,” Maggie said. “My French sucks.” Danielle showed no sign of understanding the idiom. “At any rate, can you tell me about the house? Can we live in it or is it falling down?”

  “Live in it?” Jean-Luc looked questioningly at Laurent. “The agent said you were interested in selling Domaine St-Buvard.”

  “I totally the love name.” Maggie grinned and looked at Laurent. “I’ve got to get stationery printed up. Seriously.”

  “We are interested in selling it,” Laurent said, refilling his wine glass again. “Probably. Just not immediately.”

  “Ah,” Eduard said and glanced briefly at Jean-Luc. “Well, you will be anxious to see it, I’m sure. And yes, Madame―”

  “Maggie,” Maggie said happily, deciding she quite liked this old gentleman winemaker and his wife. “Vous m’appelez ‘Maggie.’” She was sure she got that totally wrong but the second glass of wine made her care a lot less.

  “Bon, Maggie. The house is not falling down.” Eduard said. “It is not a château, vous savez? But it is a good house. Don’t you agree, chérie?” He turned to his wife, who nodded vigorously at Maggie.

  “We would love to accompany you on your visit,” he added, “bien sûr, but Danielle and I have business in Aix this afternoon. Tant pis.” He shrugged, then reached over and took the last roasted pheasant.

  3

  The house was a good house.

  Maggie gaped at it from the front drive while Laurent and Jean-Luc toured the vineyard. A large stone terrace splayed out from the front door in three tiers to the curving gravel drive. Oleander and ivy clustered against the fieldstone walls of the farmhouse in thick tangles of dark green. A black wrought-iron railing framed a second-story balcony that jutted out over the front door. The three bedroom windows upstairs were tall and mullioned with bright blue shutters.

  The house looked sturdy. Towering Italian cypress and Tatarian dogwood flanked the front door. Hollyhocks pushed out of the tangle of bushes lining the driveway. A stone lion stood guard at the edge of the terrace, his head bowed, one ear mauled.

  Maggie placed her paper cup of coffee on the hood of the Citroen. Laurent had been so eager to see his vineyard, she thought with amazement, that he hadn’t even stopped to look at where we would be living. She pushed open the heavy, wooden door of the house and stepped into a large foyer flooded with light on a floor of pale, yellowing stone tiles. A large marble staircase emptied into the foyer.

  She walked to the staircase and touched the steps gently.

  Marble steps? Mother will flip.

  The downstairs comprised only two rooms. The living room covered almost the entire ground level. It was forty feet square anchored by a massive fireplace on one wall, and French doors on the opposite wall that led to the garden. The other room downstairs was the kitchen. Not terribly modern, Maggie noted, when she found no dishwasher or disposal, but the sink didn’t appear as if it had seen any world wars and the cooking stove was large and capable-looking. Leave it to the French, she thought, to have a stove as large as a minibus but no automatic dishwasher.

  Behind what Maggie initially thought was the door of a broom closet was a steep staircase that led to the basement, or cave, as Jean-Luc called it. Maggie peered down the stairs into the dark and could make out three odd-shaped pieces of machinery. They stood in the corners like hulking spaceships. Old, stained oaken barrels lined the cave’s limestone walls. Each of the three bedrooms upstairs was large, airy and, of course, had no closets. As she stood at one of the upstairs windows, Maggie watched Laurent and Jean-Luc walk through the vineyard back toward the house. As far as she could see, there were grapevines. Row upon row of grapevines.

  My God, is all this Laurent’s?

  She stood at the window and hugged her arms, enjoying the coolness in the air as the afternoon sun dipped behind a cloud. She watched Laurent as he walked, turned, pointed something out to Jean-Luc then shook his head. She tried to imagine what it felt like to be a visitor in your own country, to see it in all its beauty and familiarity and to know that you would leave it to go home to someone else’s country when your visit was done. She knew that Jean-Luc and the Marceaus thought of them as visito
rs, foreigners―Laurent, for all his native fluency, included.

  She turned and scanned the horizon. It was studded with faded clumps of rusty brown that she knew were more grapevines. She wondered whose fields those were. Maggie found herself feeling that this was going to be a good home for her and Laurent. For this year, she thought resolutely to herself, Domaine St-Buvard is going to be ours. But as she watched Jean-Luc walking shoulder to shoulder with Laurent she felt a vague cloud of doubt descend upon her.

  Chapter Two

  1

  “Vous êtes Madame Dernier, n’est-ce pas? ”

  The rotund woman beamed at Maggie as she scooped up the row of flaky croissants and placed them in a paper bag. Her hair fell in old-fashioned curls around her sweet, chubby face.

  “Oui,” Maggie said, returning the smile. Well, close enough anyway. Her French certainly wasn’t up to explaining her living situation with Laurent. Besides, this was France. It was probably all the same to them anyway.

  “Mais vous m’appellez Maggie, s’il vous plait,” Maggie said, taking the bag of rolls. Please call me Maggie. “Et vous êtes...? ”

  “Madame Renoir.” The pudgy baker rubbed her flour-whitened hands together and gestured to her surroundings. “La boulangerie! ” she said with a big smile.

  Maggie and Laurent had been in their farmhouse for two days, and what few contacts they had made in the village― the post office, the owners of the café, the gas station attendant―seemed to be pleasant enough.

  Maggie was aware of stares from the two other customers in the bakery who were not so much waiting their turns as eavesdropping on her conversation with Madame Renoir. She smiled at them and dug in her purse for the francs for the croissants.

  “Je ne parle pas bien votre langue,” she said to Madame Renoir. I don’t speak your language. “Mais je suis...working on it.” She shrugged and handed over the correct change to the plump baker.