Little Death by the Sea Read online

  “Says who?”

  Was she mistaken or was he becoming a lot less cheerful?

  “Says someone who saw him there.”

  “Well, why not just ask the someone who saw him there what they saw?”

  “Look, will you help me find the guy, or not? I just want to ask him a few questions.”

  “Boy’s slow. Wouldn’t harm a fly.”

  “I’m not assuming he would. I just want to talk to him.”

  The old fellow rubbed his hands across his eyes and then scratched the back of his neck.

  “The police have already talked to him. This wouldn’t be about that, again, would it?”

  “It was my sister that was killed.”

  “Ahhh.” He nodded his head, holding his chin in one fist and propping the fist-holding arm by the elbow with his other hand. It was an interesting contortion.

  “And I was wondering if I could ask him what it was he saw.”

  “Well, he saw nothing.”

  “Okay.” She waited.

  “Didn’t see a thing. That’s what he told the police.”

  “But he was there that day? I mean, he was seen there the afternoon of—“

  “I have no idea.”

  “Look,” Maggie had about had her limit of exasperating old cusses who wouldn’t cooperate. “You’re his boss. Don’t you keep some sort of schedule of the stuff that gets delivered? You know, Mrs. Brown’s order blah blah blah sent out 3:l5? Stuff like that?”

  “I don’t know a Mrs. Brown.”

  “It was just an example.”

  “I don’t keep records, Miss...”

  “Newberry.”

  “Miss Newberry, when someone calls in an order I just put it together and then ring it up and have Alfie take it to the address. I don’t have to write it down.”

  “His name’s Alfie?”

  “That’s right.” He looked less smug now. Obviously he hadn’t intended to name his boy for her.

  “And you don’t think I need to see him.”

  “I don’t think it would do Alfie any good.”

  “Is he, what? A teenager?”

  “Alfie? No.” The man looked at Maggie uncertainly as if he couldn’t trust her to be putting him on. “He’s in his late thirties, I’d say. If there’s nothing else I can help you with, Miss Newberry, I’d better get back to my pharmacy.”

  “Right.”

  He smiled briefly, automatically, then turned and disappeared behind a towering stack of what looked like blue Milk of Magnesia bottles.

  Maggie stood for another moment in the middle of the aisle, smelling all the conflicting fragrances and odors and then left the shop. She hesitated in front of it, not sure of what to do next. The sun had burned off the briefly pleasant morning and was now relentlessly attacking anything and everything that cowered below. She pushed up the sleeves to her thin sweat shirt and was sorry she wasn’t wearing her sunglasses.

  Squinting down the sidewalk, she saw the lumbering gait of a nice looking man with a vacant look in his pleasant eyes coming toward her and the grocery shop.

  Alfie.

  4

  She settled down on the cool stone bench under the large sycamores in front of her apartment building. The bench, coated with moss and graffiti, was used primarily for Maggie’s elderly neighbors to rest themselves as they made their laborious pilgrimages from pharmacy to lonely apartment room. Maggie had never noticed the pretty stone bench before.

  Alfie had thick brown hair which crept into his green eyes, although a nervous hand tried repeatedly to prevent it from doing so. He smiled uncertainly at Maggie, pleased with her attention, obviously distrustful of it.

  “Just a few questions, that’s all. If that’s okay.” Maggie smiled and motioned for Alfie to sit next to her. She offered him one of the two cans of Cokes she’d pulled out of the machine in front of the grocery store.

  Alfie continued to hover near her and the bench but refused to alight.

  Maggie placed one of the Cokes on the bench next to her, keeping a wary eye on the store façade. So far, its proprietor was still busy whipping up medicinal concoctions behind his pharmaceutical counter. Maggie had little doubt that once he became aware of it, he would attempt to put an end to her interview with his delivery boy.

  “What’s the name of the old guy you work for?” That’s it, she thought. Get him to commiserate about the old workhorse and he’ll feel like we’re on the same side.

  “Mister Duffy?” Alfie squinted hard at the question.

  “Yeah, Mr. Duffy. You like him?”

  Alfie nodded vigorously. Whatever light she thought she saw behind his eyes was quickly becoming extinguished.

  “ Mister Duffy pays me money. He’s great.”

  “Yeah, that’s good.” So, I can forget that ploy. “Well, listen, Alfie, I live here, you know?” She waved to the apartment building looming up behind her in a backdrop of granite and slate-stone. “You deliver here sometimes, right?”

  Alfie nodded again as he reached out and took the can of Coke she’d placed for him on the bench.

  “I deliver the groceries that Mr. Duffy gives me.”

  “Okay, that’s great.” Oh, man, this is impossible. Even if he did see something, how would he make sense of it? How would she? And how could she trust his observation? Might as well cut to the chase, she reasoned. She didn’t have time to develop a relationship with him just to get a few questions answered. “So, listen, Alfie, were you delivering groceries in my building the day the girl was killed?”

  He reacted violently, as if he’d been electrically shocked.

  “I didn’t see nobody! I told ‘em--!”

  He’d raised his voice and Maggie darted a nervous look at the store front. All she needed was for ol’ man Duffy to come charging out here.

  “Okay, okay, Alfie, that’s fine! No problem. Okay? Calm down. It’s just that, she was my sister, you know? And I wondered if anybody saw anything that might help me find out who hurt her.”

  He stared at her. Maybe it was the sibling connection...Did Alfie have a sister? Or the fact that she wasn’t accusing him nor was she keeping it a mystery why she was asking him questions. Whatever the reason, he seemed to calm down, even to be looking at her a little less distrustfully.

  “Do you have a sister, Alfie?”

  He shook his head a little.

  “I have my mom,” he said.

  “Yeah. Mom’s are good.” Maggie got up from the bench. “Keep the Coke.” He had begun to hand it back to her. She patted him lightly on the shoulder of his thin jacket. Incredible, in all this heat. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  “I didn’t see nothing.”

  “I know you didn’t, Alfie. That’s okay. It doesn’t matter.” As she turned away from him she caught the image of Mr. Duffy standing in the front window watching them.

  5

  “You are ready to eat, cherie?”

  Maggie smiled to herself as she rummaged in the bottom of her clothes closet. She loved the ‘cherie’ bit.

  “In a minute!” she called. She raised herself onto her knees and arched her back. The cops had been through every inch of her apartment with a flea-comb, and although not the tidiest of people, they hadn’t ransacked the place either. The chance of finding a clue behind a team of thorough experts was pretty slim, but then, she couldn’t think of anything else to do. She tossed a woolen sweater onto a heap on the floor of her bedroom that she had mentally marked “winter stuff”. She wasn’t sure why she should bother packing it away now, after all, chilly weather was only a mere four months away. On the other hand, she wanted to make room for Laurent and his lean wardrobe. This was a chance to pry open a part of her life and slip him into it, to let him know she was willing to share her underwear drawer with him. (Well, certainly he couldn’t take it as a lack of love if she arranged it so they both had their own separate underwear drawers.)

  “It is getting cold, Maggie!” There was an extra sharpness to hi
s voice and Maggie noted that few things could flap the man except where it involved his stomach and the making, presenting and consuming of food.

  “Coming! Coming!” She hopped up and raked the multiple dust buffaloes from her knees. In an instant, she saw the cardigan. Wedged under a pair of spectator pumps that she hadn’t worn in years, it was a thin cashmere gray cardigan and Elise had been wearing it the night she dropped back into Maggie’s life.

  Quickly, she scooped up the sweater and met Laurent in the dining room. He was already seated.

  “I’m sorry, Laurent, but I think I’ve found something. It’s Elise’s sweater.” She tossed the sweater down next to her and sat in her chair. “MMM-mm! Qu’est-ce que-c’est?”

  The aroma of garlic and sizzling peppers wafted delicately through the apartment.

  “Peppers and a little...how can you say...?”

  “I have no idea.” Maggie settled into her chair, marveling over the steaming and colorful plateful of peppers and thin slices of rosy lamb cutlets. “God, Laurent, maybe you should be a chef somewhere? This is wonderful!”

  “Pfut! In France, tout le monde they cook comme ça. Everyone cooks.”

  “Yeah, but it’s rarer over here. I’m serious, would that be something you’d want to do?”

  “Peut-etre.” he said dismissively, tucking into his own meal.

  Maggie couldn’t always fill in all the blanks about Laurent. She watched him now, enjoying his own cooking, his eyes flitting up from time to time to smile at her but concentrating, for the most part, on his meal. He was intense and passionate in bed, but remarkably phlegmatic otherwise. She was even aware that sometimes his words of sympathy or commiseration about Elise sounded rehearsed to her, almost false. It was, of course, his inability to express himself in English with any real depth or focus, she told herself. Still, it needled away at her in some part of her mind that resisted glossing, like an artist’s hesitation to accept pretty pictures painted on stressed, twice-used canvasses. She hadn’t even examined too closely why she felt she had loved him so quickly, why she felt she needed to be with him, wanted him. It was as if thinking about it might reveal something to her that would make her continue to love him when she knew she shouldn’t at all.

  “So what did you do all day?” She took a savoring mouthful and even closed her eyes to enjoy it more fully.

  “I arranged my socks and shirts and cut and cleaned the peppers...and oh, I talked with your papa and when you are working tomorrow, I will go with him to his club.”

  “Really?” Maggie stopped chewing.

  “Is it a surprise to you?”

  “Well, Dad never brings my friends to his club. I mean, I don’t think he’s even brought Brownie. He must’ve really taken to you.”

  “Taken to...?”

  “Never mind. That’s great.” Maggie looked at Laurent strangely. What in him had resonated with her father?

  “And who did you talk with today besides our neighbors?”

  Smiling inwardly at the “our neighbors” reference, Maggie pushed a red pepper with her fork. The butter made a trail across her plate.

  “I talked to the delivery guy, you know, the one that that guy Bill said he saw? And he didn’t know anything, or maybe he did but I couldn’t really get through to him, I don’t think. He’s...not retarded, exactly, but a little...”

  “He is your killer, you are thinking?”

  “No, no. He’s just some poor guy who might have been here at the time.” She shrugged. “But, at any rate, he wasn’t much help. And then I went around to talk to the night watchman but he was asleep, because, of course, he works nights, and his wife wouldn’t let me wake him to ask him questions. So, I thought—“

  “We will go and talk with him together.”

  “Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.” Behind him, she could still see the wreath of blue cigarette smoke from his Gitanes enveloping the bouquet of daisies and carnations he’d brought home.

  “You know, I’m convinced Gerard did it.” She spoke quietly, not looking up from her plate.

  “Perhaps he did.”

  “The cops don’t think so.” She looked at him. “Or else why haven’t they made an arrest?”

  Laurent cleared his throat.

  “Well, maybe they think—“

  “I’ll tell you, though, he had the motive and the opportunity, you know? This wasn’t random. Gerard knew where she was. He must’ve changed his mind about letting her go and then, when she wouldn’t go with him, they fought and he killed her. It makes so much sense to me. I don’t see why the cops don’t arrest him.”

  “Oh! You have the parcel for you!” Laurent replaced his napkin and stood up. He looked around the living room without moving.

  “I got the mail, there was nothing—“ she said, frowning.

  “Not the mail. When you said the police, I am remembering—“

  “The cops brought something?” Maggie stood up too and wandered into the living room.

  “Ah! Voila!” Laurent moved directly to the small box sitting underneath a carton of cigarettes on the coffee table. He handed it to her.

  Maggie took the package in her hands. Her name, but not her address was hand-printed on the outside. It was tied with twine which pulled apart when she tugged at it.

  “Is important?”

  Maggie pulled the paper off to reveal a small packet of stationary. A note, folded over, was jammed in between the pages. She opened it with the fingers of one hand, aware that Laurent was reading over her shoulder:

  This should be the last of it. Only prints on it belong to your sister.

  Sorry there isn’t any more at this time.

  Detective John B. Burton

  Maggie opened the stationary pad to the first page.

  “It’s a letter,” she murmured. “Elise was writing someone named ‘Michele’.” She flipped a few pages. “It’s not finished.”

  “Est-ce que tu la connais?”

  “Huh?”

  “Do you know this ‘Michele’?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s written in French, though.” She handed the pad to him. “What’s she say?”

  Laurent scanned the tiny, controlled hand on the page. The writing looked cramped and pent up as if Elise knew she had a lot to say and only a small space or time to say it.

  “She says—“

  “Don’t paraphrase it, Laurent, I need to know word for word what she says to this ‘Michele.’” Maggie tugged at Laurent’s shirt and directed him back to the table.

  “”Maggee, the dinner will be cold,” Laurent protested, although allowing himself to be maneuvered to his seat.

  “It’ll just take a second. Come on, it’s short. What does she say?”

  Laurent sighed and squinted at the letter.

  “Dear Michelle,” he read aloud. “I have been missing you very much and hope that this letter finds you well and happy. I am with my sister now and I believe she will take good care of me. I wish you could meet her, Michelle. She is very...” Laurent looked up at Maggie. “I am not knowing this word in English.” He shrugged.

  “What word? Show me the word.” Maggie jumped up and stood over his shoulder. He pointed to the word.

  “I think, peut-etre, it means, ohh, exotique? n’est-ce pas? Or, different?”

  “She thought I was exotic?” Maggie looked out onto Peachtree Street.

  “But, she has the good heart and I am glad to see her face, oh, she says ‘her dear face,’ I’m thinking,” Laurent said. “...and I am glad to see her dear face again.” He stopped reading and put the letter down. He touched her. “C’est fini, ma petite,” he said.

  Maggie picked up the letter carefully and returned to her seat. She read the words in French, not understanding them, and felt a tiny prism of awe at Elise’s obvious comfort with them.

  “Who is this woman? she asked suddenly, looking up at Laurent. “Who is this Michelle...” She flipped the envelope over and read, “...Zouk? T
hat Elise would write her? Will the police contact her, I wonder?”

  Laurent shrugged and replaced his napkin in his lap.

  “Perhaps she is an old friend? The address is for Paris, I think?”

  Maggie nodded absentmindedly, still holding the letter in front of her. Laurent resumed his meal alone.

  All at once, she jumped up and then crouched under the dining room table.

  “Laurent!” she shouted. “Take a look at this!”

  Within seconds she was kneeling by his side as he sat at the table, the wadded up remains of Elise’s gray sweater clutched in her hands.

  “Mageee, please—“

  “No, look!” She thrust the filthy cardigan into his lap and peeled back the label at the neck with her fingers. In large silver script, the words Chez Zouk, shouted up at them.

  “This Michelle must have a boutique or something,” she said. “Elise bought her clothes from her, don’t you see?”

  Laurent touched the label and then looked at Maggie.

  “C’est important?”

  “Well, I...” Maggie slumped back onto her heels, pulling the sweater across her knees as she did so. “I think so. I mean, it’s a connection, right?”

  Laurent nodded, chewing his lamb slowly and watching her.

  “I’ve got an address,” Maggie said quietly, thinking hard. “And I’ve got a name of a friend. Maybe even one that’s not a drug addict or a total loser.” Maggie stroked the soft sweater.

  She looked up at Laurent.

  “I need to go to Paris,” she said.

  Chapter 11

  1

  “We hope you know that we’re all thinking of you and that we’re so terribly, terribly sorry about your sister.” Gerry spoke softly from the head of the conference room table supported by muted murmurs from the rest of the office workers.

  “Thank you,” Maggie said, letting her eyes fill without embarrassment.

  “We sent flowers to your parents,” Dierdre said, clearly uncomfortable, looking down at her doodling as she spoke. “Since we didn’t know when the funeral was going to be.”

  Maggie cleared her throat and smiled shakily at her co-workers. “It’s going to be a memorial service. Just for...just for family. And thank you again for your caring.”