Murder in Nice (20 page)

“
I…I work for Ordeur,” he
said finally. “I work for the American company that’s signed up all
the growers from your co-op.”

Laurent’s face never changed, not even to
reflect his surprise that Newberry had chosen to tell the truth.
“Why are you here?” he repeated.

“
I’m here to ask you to
reconsider signing the long-term contract with us.”

“
Reconsider.’”

Laurent looked at the
contract on the desk before them. Ben Newberry hadn’t been about to
ask Laurent to
reconsider
signing it. He’d been about to sign it
himself.

Laurent picked up the contract and ripped it
in two. He let the pieces float to the floor. “I would have
challenged the signature in court,” he said with a shrug. “You must
be an inferior kind of counsel back in Atlanta.”

“
Look,” Ben said, gritting
his teeth and snatching up the scraps of paper, “you’ve got to sign
this or sell your holdings to Ordeur. They’ll give you a great
price. You’ll never have to work again.”

Laurent held up a hand to indicate he’d
heard enough.

“
If you don’t sign it,” Ben
continued, his eyes beginning to dart around the room in
desperation, “I’ll go to prison. Is that what you want? I may not
be Maggie’s favorite person but ask her if she wants her only
brother to go to jail.”

“
One hour.” Laurent turned
and left the room.

“
What the hell?!” Ben
blurted in frustration to Laurent’s retreating back.

*****

Grace held Zouzou’s hand and squatted next
to what could only be described as a stuffed monkey wearing a
lampshade. While this wasn’t the first flea market she’d ever been
to, it had been many, many years since the last. This particular
market in Arles was only held once a month, so it held the promise
of many undiscovered finds. Or so that’s what Haley had told Grace
this morning when she begged that they might take the children and
go.

“
Grace, did you find
something?” Haley called.

Grace stood and saw Haley several yards away
with Jemmy in his stroller. Haley was looking at a large white
pitcher. Even from here, Grace could see the chips in the rim of
it. She could also see the delight on Haley’s face.

“
You’ll never get that in
your suitcase,” Grace said as she and Zouzou walked over to join
her.

Furniture was stacked on top of
itself—bistro chairs, painted end tables, full dining room sets
that looked like they belonged in a Victorian mansion. Since this
was Provence, there was an abundance of fabric, tablecloths and
pottery, blunt and dark yellow with contrasting stripes of deep
blue in platters, vases and saltcellars.

To Grace it looked more like an enlarged
yard sale than a proper monthly event. It certainly had nothing on
the markets in Paris, of course, or even the monthly one in Aix
that stretched the full length of the Cours Mirabeau on both sides
of the street, around the dolphin fountain and back up again. But
Haley had made the argument that it was nearby and because it was
so deep in the country they were more likely to find real
treasures.

Well,
Haley
was likely to. Grace wasn’t
interested in previously owned goods no matter how well maintained
they might be.

“
I can ship it back,” Haley
said, but she put it back down on an antique marble table. “Can you
believe all this stuff?”

“
Truly, I cannot,” Grace
said dryly. She stood next to a rack of vintage Arlesian clothing:
blouses, colorful shawls, and wide, flouncing skirts no one in
their right mind would be caught dead or dying in.

“
I adore the cicadas,”
Haley said, picking up a fragile looking ceramic one and turning it
over in her hand. “They’re so unusual and so representative of the
region.”

“
Yes, and they look like
big colorful roaches,” Grace said. “Oh, please, let’s do hang some
in the kitchen where people eat.”

“
You’re funny, Grace,”
Haley said, digging in her purse for her wallet. “You really have
never been here before? How is that possible?”

“
Well, it never occurred to
me, frankly. And of course Maggie wouldn’t have the patience for
it.”

“
Why doesn’t that surprise
me?” They both laughed.

After Haley paid for the cicada, she spotted
a child’s peasant skirt in layers of red, yellow and blue
chintz.

“
Oh, Zouzou would look
precious in that!” she said, picking up the skirt. “Would you like
it, darling?”

Zouzou jumped up and down and clapped her
hands. Grace knew the child didn’t care, but she did love getting
presents.

“
May I buy it for her,
Grace? I can’t wait to see her in it.”

“
Sure. Thank you, darling.
That’s very thoughtful.” Grace looked out over the crowd of
shoppers at the market. They looked to be mostly tourists—the
professional antique dealers had likely gotten first pick before
the market opened. A blond head in the crowd caught her eye for a
moment and she held her breath until he turned and she saw it
wasn’t Gabriel. He’d called twice since their lunch in Aix. Once,
she had let the call go to voice mail and the other, just this
morning…

“
Penny for them, Grace?”
Haley said as she helped Zouzou slip her new skirt over her shorts.
“Oh, my, you are so beautiful, Zouzou!” she said to the little
girl. “Isn’t she, Grace?”

Grace looked at her daughter, already
pirouetting in the new skirt to show it off.

“
Yes, just lovely,” Grace
said, smiling absently.

“
You okay, Grace?” Haley
smiled, but her eyes were soft with concern and Grace tried to
remember the last time she’d had a conversation with someone who
cared that much about how she was feeling. Seeing it now almost
made her want to cry.

“
Yes, fine,” she said,
watching Zouzou bend over Jemmy’s stroller to give him a kiss. “Did
I mention to you that I went on my first date since the
divorce?”

Haley’s mouth fell open and she grabbed
Grace by the arm and shook it. “No, you did not. We are going to
find a café right this minute so you can tell me everything.”

A warm flush of relief seeped into Grace at
Haley’s words. “There’s really nothing much to tell,” she said.

“
The hell there isn’t. Come
on, kids, Mommy and Aunt Haley need an espresso with some major
pastries on the side. When did this happen? Where did you meet
him?”

Grace took Zouzou by the hand and led the
way out of the crowd. She found herself feeling excited about the
prospect of talking about Gabriel. Maybe it would help her sort out
her feelings about him. As she stood at the curb facing the
intersection, she felt a surprise twinge of guilt.

This is normally the kind of thing Maggie
and I would do.

But Maggie hadn’t called or answered her
phone for the last two nights. Which, considering Grace wasn’t
totally sure what to do with the information about Laurent and his
mystery woman, wasn’t as upsetting as it might be.

As she stood on the curb with Haley and the
children waiting to cross the street to a bustling outdoor cafe,
Grace felt a burst of intimacy and affection and, without thinking,
turned to Haley.

“
Can I tell you a secret?”
she said.

*****

Two more maids joined Maggie and Ooli where
they sat at the outdoor table. Even for late summer, Maggie felt a
breeze coming off the Mediterranean. One of the maids set a large
platter of chicken wings down on the table. Maggie watched the
women eat and gossip and laugh and felt like she was watching the
scene from another planet or dimension.

Ben visited Lanie’s room.

Ben was sleeping with Lanie.

Ben lied.

She sat with her hands in her lap, unwilling
to move one step in front of the other when a sudden cold knot
twisted in her stomach.

Lanie’s baby…

“
Madame?”

Maggie turned to see Ooli standing in front
of her.

“
You come with me,
yes?”

Maggie grabbed the handle of her luggage.
“Come with you?” she asked, shaking her head to clear it.

“
I have not yet told you
the most important part.”

There’s
more
? Maggie felt a tightening in her chest
as she followed Ooli down the long alleyway to the street behind
the hotel. “Where are we going?” she asked.

Ooli dropped back a step and took Maggie’s
arm so the two were walking abreast on the sidewalk. “I was just
about to destroy it,” she said conspiratorially. “One more day and,
pftutt, it would be gone.”

“
What
would be gone?”

At least they were walking in the right
direction. The train station was only six blocks away. She’d be
home in time for dinner. Laurent would be so pleased.

“
The evidence,” Ooli
whispered in Maggie’s ear.

Had she found the wine bottle?

Maggie started to ask another question but
Ooli put her finger to her mouth to indicate she would say no more
and they walked in silence for another block until they came to
what appeared to be a cyber café. Ooli pulled Maggie inside and
settled them both at a table with a computer terminal. When the
waiter approached, she ordered two espressos.

She turned to Maggie and put her hand on
Maggie’s as it rested on the table.

“
You will need to pay me
for this,” she said softly.

“
Oh!” For a moment Maggie
thought she was talking about the coffees, but as she reached for
her billfold, she hesitated. She had one hundred euros in her
wallet along with her train ticket to Arles. “May I see what it is
you have to show me first?”

The waiter set two tiny cups of coffee in
front of them and hurried off. Ooli didn’t seem to take offense at
the suggestion. She pulled her cell phone out of her uniform pocket
and studied it for a moment.

“
Do you have headphones?”
Ooli asked.

Maggie shook her
head.
What in the world was she up
to?

Ooli held the phone to Maggie’s ear and
pressed a button.

Maggie heard static and someone screaming.
She pulled away and then took the phone to position it better. The
recording was brief and, at first, unintelligible. Maggie frowned
in confusion and handed the phone back to Ooli.

“
I was washing the
baseboards in the hallway,” Ooli said. “I saw the woman from Room
209 enter the dead woman’s room, and when the screaming began I
turned on my phone to record it.”

Room 209 was Desiree’s room.

Maggie stared at her and then reached for
the phone again. This time, as she listened, her eyes widened. She
could easily identify Lanie’s voice, if not her words. At one
point, she heard her scream, “Desiree! You must be joking!”

She turned and looked at Ooli who
smiled.

“
Worth fifty euros,
oui
, Madame?”

Maggie nodded as Ooli pulled a patch cord
from a wooden bowl on the table and connected her phone to the
computer. Then she dug out a small plastic jump drive from the same
bowl and inserted it into the back of the computer. After she
transferred the audio file to the jump drive, she erased the master
recording from her phone and sagged with relief.

Desiree was on tape having
a screaming fight with Lanie the night she was
murdered
.
There
could be no doubt as to whom Lanie was fighting with.
She called Desiree by name
.

“
Madame?”

Maggie shook herself out of her
thoughts.

“
I need to return to work,
yes? You will pay our bill?” Ooli handed Maggie the jump drive and
kept her hand out. Maggie dug out a fifty-euro bill and gave it to
her.

“
Thank you, Ooli,” she
said.

Should she go straight to the police
station? She had Massar’s number. Maybe she should call first?

Ooli stood and touched Maggie on the
shoulder. “Please tell the lady I am sorry about her daughter.” She
turned and left the café.

Maggie sat alone, her eyes
on the little plastic jump drive next to her coffee cup until the
waiter approached with the bill. Five minutes later, cell phone in
hand in case Laurent responded with an irate phone call to
the
I may be a few minutes late
text she just sent, Maggie hurried down the
sidewalk toward the police station.

This had to be
case-breaking information!
Ooli intimated
that the police hadn’t interviewed the maids—although it was true
they had all worked to be as invisible as possible.

As Maggie jogged down the sidewalk, careful
not to bump souvenir displays or café tables with her clumsy
wheeled carrier, she glanced at her phone screen. He still hadn’t
responded. That wasn’t entirely surprising. Laurent rarely carried
his phone and he spent much of the day outdoors. It was possible he
hadn’t received her text.

It was also possible he was already in
Arles, doing some market shopping and getting ready to meet her
train.

As she looked away from where she was
walking to glance again at the screen, she felt a sudden
bone-wracking jolt to her shoulder as a strong, unseen arm slammed
into her. Maggie staggered, windmilling her arms to stay upright,
and pitched into a vertical postcard carousel. As she tumbled to
the ground, she felt the strap of her handbag wrench off her
shoulder. Metal prongs from the postcard holders scraped her cheek
as she plunged into the display. She twisted around on her hands
and knees amid the ruined jungle of metal and fluttering cards to
see the back of a running form dart into the crowd.