The Complete Maggie Newberry Provençal Mysteries 1-4 Page 14

"This is Maggie," she said.

  "Don't tell me, you were going to call as soon the wedding invitations were printed."

  Brownie. Maggie felt a lead ball settle neatly in the pit of her stomach.

  "Hey, Brownie," she said softly. "How's it going?"

  "Going okay, how 'bout you?"

  "Oh, you know..." God, she'd dreaded this phone call. "I'm working through the thing with Elise. You coming to the service? It's tomorrow."

  "Yeah, I talked with your mom."

  Oh dear.

  "She told me about your boyfriend."

  "Brownie, I...."

  "Hey, it's okay." He sounded so sweet and normal. "I wished you'd have told me, though. I mean, hearing it from your mom and all..."

  "I know, Brownie, I'm sorry. I just didn't know how to handle it, I guess. I didn't want to hurt your feelings..."

  "Hey, forget it, Maggie. Okay? Don't worry about it. I just wanted to make sure you were all right and to tell you I'll see you at the service tomorrow."

  "Thanks, Brownie," she said.

  "Take care of yourself, Newberry."

  "Yeah, you too," she said, hanging up.

  Maggie sat back in her chair and stared at the wall. Between her conversation with Gerry and the one she'd just finished with Brownie, she could begin to feel like crap very quickly if she allowed it.

  She took in a breath and let it out. She wouldn't allow it.

  She checked the time to make sure she could get her copy assignment finished and on Dierdre's desk before the end of day, then picked up the phone and punched in the number for the Fulton County Police Department.

  While she waited to be put through to Jack Burton, she picked up the office condolence card and glanced at the signatures inside. Pokey's was practically unreadable. Funny, you'd think an art director would be too visual to end up with a turkey-scrawl for a signature, she thought. Patti's was very precise, almost begrudging, or did Maggie project that?

  "Jack Burton." The voice on the line was strained.

  "Yes, Detective Burton? This is Maggie Newberry," she said. "You're investigating the death of my sister, Elise Newberry?"

  "Yes, Miss Newberry."

  "I...well, I'm calling to see if there's any more information on her, you know, her death. If you have anything else you can tell me."

  "Not really, Miss Newberry, we always--"

  "Is it possible I might have a copy of your report?"

  There was heavy sigh on the line.

  "Look, it's really a lot easier for everyone involved if you just let the police handle this, okay? We're doing a thorough investigation--"

  "I know you are and I appreciate it too, but I was still hoping--”

  "We have no suspects at this time. I'm sorry, Miss Newberry. Really. I'd suggest you contact a support group or therapist to help work through this. Relatives of victims of violent crime have a tougher time than those people touched by other kinds of deaths. I can connect you back with the switchboard to be transferred to a department which can give you those numbers, if you'd like."

  "Okay, good. Thanks." Maggie pulled a brochure with copy points on her current copy assignment out of her desk drawer and set it next to her computer.

  "I wish you luck, Miss Newberry. And remember, we're doing our very best for you."

  "Thanks again, Detective," she said, flipping on her computer. "I appreciate it."

  "Hold while I switch you." The line went soft as he rang the front switchboard. When she got a new operator, she asked to speak to David Kazmaroff in Homicide.

  3

  Maggie sat in one of the wicker chairs that lined the little office courtyard. It was too hot to sit out there for long, but she was putting off the moment when she had to re-enter the artificially-climated building. She was sure the air conditioning was drying out her skin and helping her ingest chemicals and tobacco smoke from the offices upstairs. She smiled wryly at the thought. She ingested plenty of tobacco smoke right in her own home.

  Laurent had packed a small lunch for her: stuffed courgettes and roasted peppers. She carefully peeled the peppers--in glistening red and green strips--off the wax paper in which he'd wrapped them, swirls of golden-green oil dribbled off the paper in testimony to how bad they were for maintaining her size eight trousers. The peppers were exquisite, melting in her mouth with just the essence of their flavor and without the pepper's usual bite. How does he do that, she wondered?

  She'd already called him twice today. Twice to hear his voice and remind herself that he was there, in their apartment, waiting for her. She'd resist calling this afternoon, even though she wanted to discuss with him her conversation with Kazmaroff. It would have to wait until this evening. Laurent would be with her father. At his club. She shook her head. Curiouser and curiouser.

  Living with Laurent was a surprise, she decided. It was not as if she'd ever lived with a man before and so possessed some kind of control sample of cohabitation, but she'd had expectations. Concerns. Probably bred from answering too many Does-He-Love-You quizzes in magazines at the hairdressers. Natural foreboding, even. And Laurent had defied them all. He was there for her. He was accommodating, sweet, loving and strong. Did he have any problems of his own? Maggie wasn't aware of any. Did he disapprove or dislike anything about the way she lived? Not seriously, anyway. Not in a way that wasn't teasing or playful or flattering to her. The fact was, she decided, as frenetic and compulsive as she was normally--even without a murder investigation topping her "To Do" list--Maggie found herself needing the balm of Laurent's soothing, caretaking ways. She hadn't expected to find such a thing, and now couldn't imagine living without it.

  She popped the last pepper in her mouth and savored it. He'd also packed a quarter baguette of French bread in her little brown sack. She nibbled off a corner.

  So, she thought, the police think some drug-dealing homeless person came in off the street, came into Maggie's apartment, came down her hallway and into her apartment. They think Elise's drug history is connected with this guy--whoever he is--and that it was a drug deal that went wrong. Real wrong for Elise. So there you have it, Maggie thought, wiping the smears of grease from her fingers as she packed up the remnants of her lunch.

  "What about Gerard?" she had asked the detective, not wanting to believe the story about a wandering drug dealer.

  "Well, we talked to him," Kazmaroff had said in a drawling, sleepy voice. "Had a pretty good alibi, though. Really good, in fact. Seems he was having a party in his hotel room with half the call girls in the metro area. Lotta people gonna confirm he was with them. So to speak."

  "He was having a party at four in the afternoon? Because you know, Elise was killed at--"

  "Miss Newberry, he has an alibi for the time of the murder." Kazmaroff had been patient with her.

  "Of course," she'd mumbled, embarrassed, but not willing to let go of the idea. "You think these witnesses are pretty reliable, do you, Mr. Kazmaroff?" she had asked pointedly.

  "I think their testimony will stand up in court, yes, Miss Newberry. I'm sorry."

  The heat was becoming unbearable. Maggie removed the scarf from around her throat and smiled wanly at a couple of female layout artists from her office as they approached with their own brown bags and settled into chairs a few feet away from her. She watched them extricate their tuna fish salad sandwiches and little Charles Chips bags from their lunch sacks, and then she stood up and brushed the crumbs off the front of her skirt and went inside.

  In her office, on her computer screen, under the headline "Why Opto-Mark Software Will Get Your Company Flying High," she wrote "Gerard" and "Alfie." Under "Gerard" she wrote: "motive, no opportunity". Under "Alfie" she wrote "no motive, plenty of opportunity." She tapped a pencil eraser against her chin and stared at the screen.

  Slowly, she turned and picked up the telephone and dialed three numbers.

  "Hey, Gar? It's me. Listen, I need to take the rest of the afternoon off, okay? Yeah, it's done, I gave it to Dierdre before lunch.
And tomorrow's the memorial service for Elise, okay? Thanks. Yeah, you too." She switched off her computer and left the office.

  4

  Forgive me, Laurent, she thought, as she pulled into the parking lot of the Hotel Nikko off Peachtree Road, but it's got to be now. Kazmaroff had told her where Gerard Dubois was staying in Atlanta.

  "And that's okay?" she'd asked, "He can just leave during a murder investigation?"

  "He's not a suspect, Miss Newberry," Kazmaroff had repeated.

  Unbelievable! And if he were ever going to be a suspect, she'd better come up with the evidence very soon. She hurried into the lobby, noting how close the hotel was to the Lenox Square parking lot where he'd taken her money and given her Elise. Probably just waltzed back over here afterward and had a six-course snack at her father's expense, she thought angrily.

  She marched up to the front desk, asked for Mr. Dubois' room number and was told that Mr. Dubois had checked out earlier that morning.

  Disappointed, she turned away and stood in the middle of the Hotel Nikko lobby. Now what? Could she catch him at the airport? She tried to calculate how many flights there were daily to Paris out of Atlanta. That is, if he was heading to Paris. Maybe he was going to Nice, instead? Would the carriers even give her a passenger list? She felt overwhelmed by the task. A proper sleuth would probably go to all the trouble, she admonished herself, as she got back into her Mitsubishi and strapped herself in. She gave up and decided to query Delta by phone when she got back to her apartment. What else could she do?

  With considerably more exhaustion than she started out with, Maggie drove down tree-lined Peachtree Road, past the old Sears parking lot, noting that everyone she knew still referred to the intersection that way even though there was a towering, glittering office building in place of the Sears parking lot and had been for some years now. She continued past the Good 'Ol Days outdoor café whose feebly flapping awning looked wilted and bleak in the punishing heat, past the Parthenon, to St. Juniper's Street. She pulled into the street and drove to the first phone booth she saw. It was--not surprisingly for this neighborhood-- filthy, with the glass panels broken out of its door in jagged gaps.

  Although less than a mile from her own apartment building, St. Juniper was abused and kicked around, an older neighborhood made up of small, dilapidated crackerbox houses with blistering paint and stingy-sized garages that had once been proper sheds. Maggie had often seen old people hobble out at the mouth of St. Juniper's Street to go sit in the dismal little park next to St. Phillips Cathedral, the snooty-grand Episcopal church directly across the street.

  She picked up the hanging phone book and carefully flipped the pages to the 'W's. Kazmaroff, bless him, had proven a wealth of useful information. Not only had he told Maggie about Gerard and outlined the police report on Elise's death, but he'd given her Alfie's surname. He'd thrown it out in reference to "St. Juniper's", obviously not thinking she would take it any further. She ran her finger down the list of names. "Wexford, Carole." It was the only Wexford listed on the street.

  Maggie let the book drop from her hands. It swung impotently against the glass on its rusty chain. She looked around the neighborhood. She thought she remembered seeing a few sleazy-types come out of this neighborhood as she'd driven by from time to time -- her idea of what crack addicts and pimps look like these days. Seedy, dirty, looking everywhere at once, going nowhere in particular.

  According to Kazmaroff, the police had questioned Alfie at police headquarters. Mother Carole had waited patiently during the interview and then taken Alfie home. No one had interviewed her.

  Although hardly as exciting as the prospect of a confrontation with Gerard Dubois, Maggie still felt a nervous anticipation when she climbed back into her car. She expected Carole Wexford to be protective of her handicapped son. Maggie also expected that the mother would have a clearer understanding of what her son had seen that afternoon.

  Or done.

  505 St. Juniper's Street was less than a quarter mile from the telephone booth. An attractive little cottage, obviously appreciated and taken care of, with blue-gray cedar siding and a bright red door, the Wexford place stood out among the neighboring houses like a jewel in a basket of seaweed. The other homes were ranch-style homes in varying stages of disrepair. Only the Wexford place had any flowers or shrubs--and few enough of them--lining its broken driveway and bordering the street. Maggie drove up the bumpy driveway, slabs of cement heaving away in chunks and craters looking like a scaled-down model of the aftermath of an earthquake. There was no car in the drive.

  Maggie made her way up the tiny walkway, crowded by overgrown boxwoods and glossy-green azaleas, and knocked on the door. Her approach had apparently been monitored because the door opened immediately.

  "Yes?" The woman was not attractive. She'd obviously tried to make herself up to appear so, but the attempt had not been successful. Her hair, shiny black and worn in dated spikes of jagged shocks, belonged on a much younger woman. Her eyes were framed in varying shades of green and purple eye shadow. Maggie guessed her age at about forty-five or so.

  "My name is Maggie Newberry. Are you Mrs. Wexford?"

  The woman looked at Maggie and then sighed. When she did, it looked like the whole front of her too-short house dress deflated and sagged inward.

  "You can come in," she said, holding the door wide to allow Maggie to enter.

  "Thank you." Maggie stepped into the house. Too small for a foyer or welcoming hallway, the cottage opened immediately into the living room. Maggie's first impression was an olfactory one. The house smelled of old, fried food, as though years of cooking had trapped the odors in the very fiber of the wallpaper and the thin, gray-colored carpeting that flooded the place. The effect of the pretty cottage on the outside was not carried through on the inside. The atmosphere was stifling, made worse by the blast of Georgio cologne that Maggie caught as she passed Mrs. Wexford.

  "It's about the girl that was killed, isn't it?" The woman motioned Maggie to a small seating arrangement of two wingback chairs and an overstuffed sofa immediately ahead of her.

  "Uh, yes," Maggie said, as she picked out the least stained chair in the room. The house was tidy but not clean. A crusted glob of something perched on the back of one of the chairs. Maggie sat down as if she were using a strange toilet and didn't have anything to paper the seat with first.

  "She was my sister."

  Maggie could see the woman more clearly now and it occurred to her that she might have misjudged her age. The lines cupping Mrs. Wexford's mouth were harsh and indelible. Too many years of pursing lips around a cigarette, Maggie guessed. The face was harder than she'd first thought too. Colder.

  "Alfie already talked to the cops." The woman sat on the sofa. She eyed Maggie warily.

  "I know, they told me. I just thought...I wanted to talk with you for a minute." Maggie tried to keep her eyes from straying around the room. She thought she detected a light, bitter odor of something burning. Like electrical wiring?

  The woman leaned back and her hand went out to a pack of cigarettes resting on a scarred oak side table.

  "I mean," Maggie continued, licking her quickly drying lips, "I'm not sure that Alfie...your son, absolutely understood the questions the po...the cops were asking him, you know? I was hoping, maybe, that the two of you discussed, you know, what happened."

  "What happened?" The woman lit her cigarette and tossed the match in the general vicinity of a large plastic ashtray on the side table.

  "Well, I mean, what Alfie saw the day my sister was killed."

  "He already told the cops he didn't see nothing."

  Maggie felt her weariness return. What was she doing here?

  "I know, but I thought, maybe he told you some things he might not have told...I mean, he communicates with you better than with other people, right?"

  The woman nodded slowly, her eyes holding Maggie's gaze. She took a heavy drag off her cigarette.

  "So, I just thought that maybe
he told you something...even a little something, that maybe he forgot to tell the cops." This is hopeless.

  "Your sister was a goddamn bitch."

  Maggie knew her mouth flew open and she couldn't help it. She simply gaped at the woman.

  "What?" she managed to say.

  "Your sister. She was mean to Alfie. Real mean."

  "Are you sure?" What in the world was this woman talking about? Had Alfie spoken to Elise?

  "You don't understand what 'mean' is?" Carole took another full drag off her cigarette. "You know, Alfie's not right in his brain. You know that, right?"

  Maggie nodded.

  "He had him an accident when he was just four and the doctors all said he was gonna just stay that age forever. Far as I can tell, he has." She stubbed out her cigarette and looked at Maggie with real bitterness. "I reckon Alfie is going to live with me until I keel over and die. Gonna live right there in the room next to mine as long as I live. I can't afford no special sanitarium." She stretched the word out: "san-ee-tor-ee-um."

  "Did Alfie tell you my sister was mean to him?" Maggie knew the police had not questioned Carole Wexford. She knew that what she was hearing was news and she felt herself getting excited.

  "He said she made fun of the way he talked. Said she, like, laughed at him, to his face. He might not seem to have much in the way of feelings to you, Miss Whoever, but he's got as many feelings as you do."

  "It's hard to believe that my sister--"

  "Oh, I'm sure it is," Carole said in a mocking voice. "But she did, all right. Made him cry if you want to know. Made him cry his goddamn heart out in that room." She jabbed an unlit cigarette in the direction of what Maggie assumed were the bedrooms.

  "What exactly happened? Was he delivering groceries in the building? Because I never have groceries delivered to my apartment and I can't imagine my sister doing it. She was sick and had only been in town for--"

  "I ain't sure of the particulars. I know he was there doing his business and she come out into the hall and they talked. And that's when it happened."

  "I see. And Alfie didn't tell the cops this?"