Murder à la Carte (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series) Read online

  Murder à la Carte

  When her boyfriend inherits an ancient vineyard in France, Maggie Newberry quits her job in Atlanta to accompany him for a year abroad. They settle in the tiny village of St-Buvard, but murder has gone long before them and follows close behind.

  Murder à la Carte brings Atlanta copywriter and southern belle Maggie Newberry to the brink of two connected murders—both committed in her home—and both poised to threaten everything she holds dear. Murder à la Carte is a delicious escape into the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of Provence—all tucked nicely within the framework of a tightly woven mystery that will keep you guessing until the very last page.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  Author’s Bio

  Excerpt Murder in Provence

  MURDER À LA CARTE

  Susan Kiernan-Lewis

  My dear, above all please know that I forgive you everything and I hope that you will forgive me also. I believe that this is the best way for both of us. I have no regrets. Never forget that I will love you forever, little one.

  Forever and forever,

  P.

  December 1946

  The long, undulating dirt road dissected the vineyard landscape of ruined, black branches. The field’s vines, stripped of their rich load―picked and bottled months ago― now hung in withered, dark wisps.

  At the end of the road, two rows of pear trees and silver olive trees stood as close as sentinels, the gnarled limbs intertwining as they flanked the pebble drive that led to the house. It rose from a gentle swell of lawn at the end of the drive. A mas, proud and ancient. The windows, mullioned and seeming to tremble in the dying sunlight, gave the house a forlorn, fragile presence. A lone stone lion roared mutely from the slate terrace, one ear chipped, its teeth no longer sharp.

  At the statue’s base, the dying woman clasped a small scrap of paper, the words already clotted into an indecipherable blur by the trickle of blood. The steps, made of porous rock brought down from the mountains a thousand years earlier, soaked up the scarlet stain.

  The killer looked down at the woman briefly before turning to step over the man’s now-still body. And then, to the two small children huddled in terror by their parents’ Citroen.

  The murderer shot them each once in the head, checking afterward to be sure they were dead, and that there would be no further suffering.

  Chapter One

  July 1996

  Laurent spread out the large, unwieldy map on the tabletop. Pushing aside the bottles of Badoît, he gripped the borders of the tattered carte in his large fists as if he intended to steer the thing across the outdoor bistro table and into Aix-en-Provence’s bustling Cours Mirabeau.

  “Ainsi,” he said, clucking his tongue in a manner Maggie found mildly irritating. “Here is St-Buvard, see?” He jabbed a finger at the map.

  She gave a sigh. “I see it, Laurent. I saw it back in Atlanta, I saw it on the airplane, in the taxi cab, on the map you have pinned up over the sink in our hotel room...” Her long, dark, hair spilled past her shoulders and draped around her like a sleek ebony cape, accenting her creamy, pale skin.

  He looked up in confusion. “I do not have any map pinned up―” he began in heavily-accented English, a puzzled look on his face.

  “I’m making a point, darling.” Maggie flapped out a stiff cotton napkin and spread it across her knees. She was glad she had decided to wear slacks tonight. She’d had little idea what the weather would be like in the south of France in October. As it turned out, it was cold.

  “The point being,” she continued, “yes, I see St-Buvard. Very nice red dot, surrounded by lots of inferior little gray dots. Very impressive.”

  The outdoor café they chose for their first night in Aix-en-Provence was a modest bistro, slapped together with whitewashed walls and rickety tables and an assortment of wicker chairs, whose paint was peeling in various stages. Nonetheless, the food was wonderful.

  “I see you are being drôle again, n’est-ce pas?” Laurent picked up his fork and pushed his food toward the rim of his plate. His brown hair was long and intruded into his face. He enacted a familiar gesture by sweeping away his thick fringe from his dark-brown, nearly pupil-less eyes with an impatient hand. Maggie thought him extraordinarily handsome

  Even in early October, the air was fragrant with the scent of lavender and olive trees. The garden scents mingled on the night air with the aromas from the many culinary concoctions being produced in a half a dozen restaurants and bistros along the boulevard. It was a sensation, Maggie felt, one could experience nowhere else in the world― certainly not in Atlanta where she was from.

  Maggie picked up a knuckle of bread and dipped it into the sauce of her rabbit stew. She wasn’t sure why she was cross with Laurent tonight. Possibly it was the residual effects of their long flight. Maybe it was due to the kamikaze taxi driver who had taken them from the airport in Marseille to Aix-en-Provence and had Maggie saying mental good-byes to her loved ones.

  She looked at Laurent as he examined his map which was perched nonchalantly to the right of his bread plate. She watched the serious nod of his head, his heavy brows plaited together in concentration. He was big and looming and gentle. In many ways, his past was a mystery to her. After two years, he was still the most intriguing man she had ever known.

  It had been two years since they had met and fallen in love. They were living in her apartment when the letter announcing Laurent’s inheritance had arrived three months earlier. She and Laurent had already decided to spend a year abroad; the inheritance simply provided the means. Laurent’s bachelor uncle had left him some land near Aix-en-Provence outside the small Provençal village of St-Buvard. The property was described briefly in the letter as covering nearly twenty hectares, most of it planted with grapes.

  They’d quickly wrapped up their lives in America. Laurent had begun a one-man self-education program on grapes and wine-growing in the Provençal region. All the intense study had worried Maggie as she had no desire to become a permanent expatriate. But Laurent insisted it was just so he would know the operation well enough to get a good price for it when it came time to sell. They would live in the area and try to work the vineyard―if it was even workable―or at least keep it from falling into ruin, and then sell the property when their year was up.

  There were good-byes to friends, to her mother and father. Maggie had taken a year’s leave of absence from her job at the advertising agency where she worked as a copywriter, with the understanding that there might well be no position to return to when her year abroad was up. She thought it worth the risk. In fact, she thought it might even push her into doing something else for a living when she returned. Time to start thinking about the environment, not how many truckers you can sell multi-directional flashing back-up lights to.

  And so she found herself in France. She was going to hammer away at her wobbly language skills, and enjoy a romantic adventure in one of the most romantic areas of the world.

  She looked at Laurent, now hunched ov
er his map. They’d been through so much together. And although his passionate French nature could have him in thralls of ecstasy about a just-picked melon or a sauce that refused to curdle, she was still surprised at the high voltage between them. She felt a sudden surge in her love for him.

  “How’s your lamb?” she asked.

  “It’s good to be back,” he said flatly.

  That means he’s had to put up with bad American food these last couple of years.

  “My rabbit’s a little tough,” she said sweetly.

  “I do not believe it.” He looked up and his eyes smiled at her although his lips did not. “It is a long trip for us both,” he continued, pouring her a large glass of red wine. “And we have many things to—”

  He was interrupted by a scream from a table on the other side of the restaurant. A group of four sat at the table, although one of the party―a young, scowling girl―now sat sprawled between two of the chairs. A man at the table, blond and unevenly shaven, jumped up, knocking his chair back against the hard stone with an ear-splitting clatter. He grinned roguishly as he grabbed the girl’s hands and jerked her abruptly, but not unkindly, to her feet, then made a charade of dusting her off with his hands. The other couple at the table laughed and looked self-consciously around the restaurant.

  The retrieved girl pushed the blond young man away and slumped down, pouting, into her seat. She crossed her arms and looked away. Her friends burst into laughter. Angrily, she snatched up a cigarette and lit it.

  “Tais-toi!” she said crossly to them. Then, noting Maggie staring, she stuck out her tongue at her.

  “Did you see that?” Maggie said indignantly to Laurent, who had returned to his map. “Oh, look, just study your map, will you?” Maggie pushed her dish away.

  Laurent looked up at her questioningly.

  “St-Buvard,” she continued, now beginning to enjoy the pique she had earlier been trying to stifle. “You said yourself, it’s French for ‘Saint Blotter,’ for crying out loud. What kind of a name is ‘Blotter’ for a town? And who would canonize a stupid blotter―?”

  “Excuse me.” A voice spoke to her from behind.

  Maggie started, knocking over the tumbler of Badoît with her elbow. Laurent pulled his map away as if acid had just been released onto the tablecloth.

  “Oh, no! Now I’ve made it even worse,” the young man said in an American accent, as he began to mop up the mess with his napkin. Maggie could hear his table of rowdies across the room cresting new plateaus of mirth.

  “My little group of brigands over there...” he gestured back toward his table. “...we felt we were intruding on your quiet dinner, you see. And then!” He slapped a hand against a slim thigh covered in expensive cotton and shook his head. Maggie had the mild impression that this was rehearsed, performed many times in the past.

  “And then,” he said, “I heard you speak and I said to myself, ‘an American!’ I have to speak to them.”

  “Bonsoir,” Laurent said gruffly. “I am not American.”

  The young man threw back his head and laughed. “No shit!”

  Laurent, unsure of how to respond, simply smiled.

  “I guess I was really talking about votre femme here. She’s the one I heard.” He turned to Maggie. “You are American, n’est-ce pas? Look, mind if I join you?” He scooted up another chair next to Maggie and seated himself. A little taken aback by his forwardness, Maggie, nonetheless, found herself charmed by him.

  “Connor MacKenzie,” the young man said. “Sculptor, artiste, and lover extraordinaire. Although,” he smiled and lowered his voice, as even Laurent looked up, “I don’t usually mention that last fact to married women. Bums ‘em out, you know what I mean?”

  Maggie cleared her throat. “I’m not married, Mr. MacKenzie,” she said.

  “Jeez! You sound like my dental hygienist, God, call me Connor, or shit-head or something. Whadya mean ‘not married?’ Since when? Hey, big guy,” he spoke to Laurent, who had not yet become re-engrossed in his map. “Y’a-t-il un problème? Es tu malade?” What’s the deal? You sick?

  Maggie decided she was enjoying the evening after all. She eased back in her seat and watched Laurent who had never, in her memory, sat still for the hot-seat treatment. He didn’t now either.

  “Why are you in Aix?” Laurent asked the young man bluntly. “You are not working here?”

  “Working? Arghh!” Connor turned from their table to his own and shouted back to his friends. “He’s used the ‘W’ word!” He turned back to Laurent and shrugged. “It’s a matter of trust, really. My father...the aforementioned ‘Mac’ made his money in window sashes. Anyway, he died a few years ago and left me one.” He smiled at Maggie. “A trust, that is, not a window sash. No, I don’t work. I just am.” Some of the fun seemed to have gone out of him, as if the late hour and the effort of being witty had finally ganged up on him and won.

  “Allons-y! Connor, come on!” His friends were standing now and obviously ready to move on to the next venue of pleasure. Maggie couldn’t believe that the night would end for Connor’s group with dinner.

  “Anyway, it was nice to have met you,” she said. “I’m Maggie Newberry and this is Laurent Dernier.”

  The name “Dernier” seemed to stop Connor in mid-turn. His smile faltered for a second and then reasserted itself.

  “How long did you say you two were in town for?” he asked.

  Laurent tucked away his map and reached out to pour the last of the Gigondas into Maggie’s wine glass. “You think you know me?” he asked without looking up.

  “Connor! Vas-y!”

  “Un moment!” Connor’s voice was surprisingly sharp to his three French friends, and they, in spite of their obvious impatience, waited for him by the front entrance of the restaurant.

  “We’re going to be staying in St-Buvard,” Maggie said, reaching for her wine and glad for Connor’s hesitation to leave. “Do you know it?”

  Connor grinned and crossed his arms in front of him. “Oh, yes, indeed,” he said. “Know it well.”

  He held out his hand to Maggie, relinquishing her of the burden of trying to figure out the proper farewell response for mutual nationals far from their own nation. She put her wine down and shook his hand.

  “Mademoiselle-Newberry-who-is-not-married-to-Monsieur-Dernier,” he said, as he reached for Laurent’s hand and gave it a solid shake. “I shall be seeing you both again.” With that, he turned and rejoined his friends―all of whom began to murmur and giggle as soon as he was back with them again.

  “Strange fellow,” Laurent said, absently patting the map in his vest pocket.

  “Fun fellow,” Maggie said as she watched Connor and crowd invade the streets of Aix-en-Provence. She had no doubt she would see him again.

  2

  The next morning they were up early and checked out of their tiny hotel room. Laurent allowed only a brief stop at the boulangerie for croissants before climbing into their rented Citroen and pointing it westward toward St-Buvard. The night’s rest had quelled both their tempers, but Maggie began to feel the burgeoning kernels of annoyance return when Laurent vetoed her morning coffee as taking up too much time.

  “We’ve got the rest of our lives to get there, Laurent. A lousy cup of coffee won’t make us miss the ferry or anything.”

  “There is no ferry to St-Buvard.” Laurent started the engine of the little car.

  “Well, there you are.” Maggie fumbled for a seatbelt that didn’t exist. “We don’t even have to wait for the ferry.”

  Laurent deposited the bag of rolls into Maggie’s lap, then peeled out of the car’s parking space. He sped down the early morning avenue.

  Maggie clutched at the car’s door handle but, unable to manage a hold, she braced her arms against the dashboard.

  “Laurent! You’re going too fast!”

  Laurent slowed the car. “We do things differently here,” he said, his eyes on the narrow road ahead. “You must remember that you are in France no
w.”

  “Look, Laurent, let’s start over, okay? We’re on our way now. So let’s just enjoy this and not fuss. Okay?”

  Laurent nodded and patted her knee.

  “Bon,” he said happily. “And you will navigate?”

  “You don’t know this road by heart by now?”

  “We are first going to the home of a neighbor of my uncle. A Monsieur Alexandre. The estate agent said Monsieur Alexandre will show us the house.”

  “And he couldn’t tell you what kind of a house it was? If it was livable or a dump or what?”

  Laurent didn’t answer.

  “You didn’t ask,” Maggie said.

  “I do not want the world to know my business.”

  Maggie studied the scrap of paper with the address scrawled on it. “Asking what kind of condition the house is in wouldn’t be”

  “Monsieur Alexandre will show us the property,” he said simply.

  Maggie fished out a croissant from the paper bag, depositing shingles of pastry all over the car. She offered it to him.

  Laurent shook his head. “I am only saying, chérie,” he said, leaning back into his driver’s seat, “that I feel sure the house will be livable for us. After all, my uncle has lived there all these years, has he not?”

  Maggie watched the scenery go by. The morning sun had climbed high enough by now to highlight the passing purple fields with a golden haze. She rolled down the window and took a deep breath. It was cool and she could smell rosemary and burning wood. The landscape looked mildly bleak with more scrubs and bushes than trees. But the colors of the fields―first purple then gray, then deep green, all suffused with the brilliant Mediterranean light were entrancing.

  Maggie ate a croissant, licking the grease from her fingers. A cup of coffee even in a Styrofoam cup would be perfect about now, she thought with a sigh. Even so, she felt a brief euphoria from the combination of the scent of lavender, the nip in the air, and the palpable excitement in Laurent. The road meandered westward through the countryside. Laurent told Maggie that she would see no cattle grazing in Provence, only sheep and pigs and goats. This was the reason, he informed her, that le boeuf was so expensive on the menus around here. Maggie hadn’t noticed.