Little Death by the Sea (37 page)

She looked back up at Gerard.

“You took this bracelet from Elise in my
apartment?”

He nodded.

Maggie looked back at the bracelet in her
hand.
How was it possible that Elise had kept the bracelet?
Through crack houses, prostitute wharves and slums? All these
years? And something so bourgeoise? So hated a reminder of her
boring, civilized southern past?

She looked at Gerard, her fingers closing
loosely around the packet of charms. “Why did you take it from
her?” she asked quietly.

He smiled wickedly. “Because it was important
to her, yes? She is always loving her beautiful bracelet...it is
from when she was a little girl, no?” He looked at Maggie eagerly
as if expecting her to agree with him.

“How much?” she asked dully.

“One thousand
francs
.” He grinned
broadly and she noticed his yellow stubs of teeth.

She tossed the charms back into his lap. They
fell between them on the sofa.

“Keep them,” she said.

“Eight hundred
francs
!”

“I don’t want them.”

“You are a pig!” Gerard looked at her with a
stunned expression on his face. “I cannot take less than eight
hundred
francs
!”

“And you are
une idiot
. I don’t want
the damn thing. What else have you got to sell?”

“
Mademoiselle
.” His face turned into a
wheedling mask of pathos and need. He placed the bracelet almost
lovingly on Maggie’s knee. “Gerard is needing money tonight.”

“Not my problem.” Maggie forced herself not
to look at the charms. “Gerard is...” he groped for the words.
“Gerard is needing money tonight,” he repeated.

“Did you hit my sister that day?”

“I...no, I did not hit—“

“Liar!”

“Gerard is not lying!”

Maggie stood up abruptly, causing the charms
to tumble to the rug in a muffled jangle.

“You hurt my sister, threatened her, beat
her...and now expect me to give you money? Is that how the French
do things?”

“I did not hit her!”

Whatever drugs he’d done prior to coming to
her hotel were obviously on the verge of kicking in. Gerard sat
transfixed, staring up at Maggie as she stood over him.

“Gerard might get hurt if he doesn’t get
money?” she sat back down. She glanced over at the hotel desk to
double-check the lack of interest they were generating with the
night manager. He continued to stand, hunched over the counter,
reading a magazine and drinking a Coca-Cola. He acted incurious
about anything except, perhaps, his own misery at having to work
tonight.

“
Oui, mademoiselle
,” Gerard said,
scooting himself a little closer to Maggie. “It could mean my
life.”

“Do you have anything else to tell me?” she
asked softly.

“To...to tell you?” Gerard looked at her,
hopefully, his pitted and ravaged face blinked a kind of peace like
a neon light. That would be the drugs, Maggie thought as she
watched him. “Your sister, she is making me hit her. She is very
bad to Gerard. She is hurting my ears! Screaming!”

“You said she was sick that afternoon.”

“Yes, sick. She is not getting her...how to
say it?”

“Her fix? Her drugs? Is that it? Elise was
strung out?”

Gerard smiled sweetly. He cocked his head at
Maggie almost shyly.

“I am thinking so, yes,” he said.

“So, you did hit her a little bit,” Maggie
offered.

“Just a little bit, perhaps.”

He closed his eyes softly, the smile still on
his lips and seemed to go into a sort of trance. Maggie watched him
sleep for a moment. Then, her eyes caught a glimpse of the bracelet
at his feet. Carefully, she bent down and picked it up and slipped
it into her purse.

Gerard’s eyes fluttered open. He grunted and
looked drowsily at Maggie.

“You need to go now,” she said to him.

“Eh?” He snorted and looked around the lobby
without seeming to focus.

“You need to go, Gerard. I’m calling the
gendarmes
to come for you. They are going to put you in jail
to rot for a hundred years where no one will know but me where you
are or what happened to you.”

He looked at her in confusion.

“
Les gendarmes
...?” He struggled
unsteadily to his feet and took a few hesitant steps toward the
door. The night clerk turned, briefly, from his magazine to watch
Gerard.

“You are giving me my money,” he said
loudly.

“No, scumbag,” Maggie said, standing up too.
“I’m giving you a five minute headstart on the police.
Comprenez-vous
?”

He cursed her loudly but continued to move in
the direction of the lobby exit.

“Gerard will hurt you!” he shrieked.

The desk clerk, now looking bulkier and
younger than Maggie had originally thought, moved from behind the
desk counter to approach Gerard. He spread his hands out in a
questioning gesture.

“
Qu’est-ce qui le prend
?” he said to
Maggie. What’s his problem?

Ignoring him, Maggie spoke directly to
Gerard:

“Gerard will hurt no one,” she said.

For a moment, she thought he would attack
her, but, in the end, he was probably too far gone for that kind of
energetic performance. He screamed another round of French curses
at her and then allowed himself to be crowded out of the lobby in a
shuffling dance of pushes and threats by the stout night
concierge.

When he had gone, the clerk gave Maggie a
sour look and spoke roughly to her in a language she was, finally,
glad she’d never bothered to learn. She smiled contritely until he
turned away and back to his magazine. The clock over his shoulder
showed that it was nearly two in the morning.

Maggie shouldered her purse and walked to the
elevator. Now, she thought gravely, she could leave. She had seen
what she had to see, she had talked to the devil himself and found
out what she needed to know. The elevator doors opened for her and,
stepping inside, she thought of the other little girl, Nicole, who
had died without her maman on a warm summer’s night in the South of
France. Pushing the number of her room floor, Maggie closed her
mind to the image. She would put her grief away into a little box
and push it to the back of her mind to be brought out later—later
when she was stronger, when she was less tired. Much later.

2

“I guess all this sort of puts the final nail
in your plans to bail out of Dodge City, huh?” Maggie chewed on a
croissant and leaned against the interior of the phone booth. The
morning sun was bright in her eyes. She blinked and wished she’d
brought a cup of hot coffee with her. Or had broken down and made
all her phone calls from her room—and hang the cost.

“The movers come in two weeks,” Gerry said.
“And I’m meeting a guy in Savannah tomorrow morning who’s
interested in buying my share of the business. Don’t worry,” he
said quickly. “You’ll be brought in on all that if it comes
together. And...” he took a long breath as if overwhelmed with the
speed of things himself.”... we land in Auckland the week after
that. Haley is thrilled, really excited.”

Yeah, I’ll just bet, Maggie thought, watching
some French workmen construct a makeshift awning over a shop across
the street from her phone booth. She took another bite of her
croissant and noticed the oil the bun was leaving on her
fingers.

“And Darla?” she said through her
mouthful.

“Darla might not be excited about it, but
she’s committed to going. This has really gotten to her too, Mags.
When we got the contract on the house here? That sort of pushed her
over the edge, I think. Then it really started to feel real for
her.”

“How was the memorial service for Dierdre?”
Maggie said, switching the subject. “I felt bad about not being
there.”

“It was nice. I read some stuff. A poem by
Houseman. Her brother talked about her, you know, gave the
eulogy.”

“I wished I’d been there.”

“You were missed. It was really sad.
Everybody cried through it.”

“But nice.”

“Yeah, well, you know.”

There was a pause.

“Got a job, yet, down there?” she asked.

“Got a bunch of interviews and they’re as
good as got. New Zealand’s economy has been in bad shape for awhile
now, but their advertising community is pretty healthy. Plus, they
respect outsiders, probably more than they should. They put Yanks
and the Brits in all their top spots.”

“So, you’re expecting to do well on the
job-market scene.”

“I am,” he said briskly.

“Gerry, I am not indicting you for moving to
New Zealand, so I would appreciate it if you would take that
defensive tone out of your voice when you talk to me. Is that
possible?”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. But, I
mean, I have to have a certain mind-set to pull this thing off, you
know? I can’t relax or the whole thing will fall apart, and no,
Darla is not leading cheers from the sidelines about all this.
She’s going to New Zealand with the same attitude that the penal
colonists went to Van Dieman’s Island, okay?”

“And you still believe—“

“With my whole heart.”

Maggie sighed. One of the French workmen
reminded her of Laurent. He stood on the bottom rung of the ladder
and yanked on a long rope pulley. She watched the gray striped
awning flap open over the metal scaffolding.

“Well, that’s important,” she said.

“Glad you think so.”

Minutes later, after she had given Gerry a
bare-bones rundown of her time in Paris and then assured him she
would be back in the office by Thursday, she was dialing Detective
John Burton’ office number.

He picked up the phone himself.

“Burton, here,” he snapped into the
phone.

“Detective Burton? This is Margaret
Newberry.”

“Yes, Miss Newberry.” His voice mellowed
noticeably.

“I’m calling you from Paris where I’ve been
doing some investigating of my own...?” She rushed on before the
inevitable lecture and suggestion she contact Victim’s Families
Anonymous could begin. “And I’ve talked with Gerard Dubois.”

There was a slight hesitation on the line.
Then,

“I see,” he said. “Maybe you’d better tell me
about it.”

3

“
Non, non, merci
, Roger, I am happy
you called me.”

Laurent switched the telephone to his other
ear. He stood in Maggie’s small galley kitchen, leaning against the
stove, regarding the red plastic wall clock opposite him. He wore a
pair of faded bluejeans and trainers with a stark-white cotton
T-shirt.

“Well, I thought you’d want to know, old
chap. Bit of a surprise for me, I can tell you...running into the
girl like that.”

“Mmm-mm, yes, I can see that,” Laurent said,
thoughtfully. He stretched out an arm and examined the hairs on it.
His T-shirt strained across his chest as he took in a long
breath.

“Not sure what you’ll want to do about it,”
Roger continued on the other line. “She’s dead keen to get to the
bottom of this Nicole business, I can tell you. I’m afraid you’re
in for it, squire.”

Laurent sighed into the phone.

“Well, thank you for calling, Roger. I will
handle it from here,” he said.

“I know you will, old darling. Listen, I’m to
Cap D’Antibes next month. I don’t suppose you’d be...?”

“Ach,
non
, Roger.” A thin smile found
its way to Laurent’s lips. “Not this time,
mon ami
.”

“Ahhh, well. Never hurts to ask. Take care of
yourself, Laurent. Cheers.”

“
Adieu
, Roger.”

Laurent hung up the phone slowly and then
rubbed a large hand across his face as if to erase his very
features. Ahhh, Maggee, he thought sadly.

4

“No, Michele,” Maggie said, cradling the
telephone against her cheek while she threw another sweater into
her suitcase. “Gerard denied killing Elise. I’m not surprised and
I’m not sure I care any more. I mean, if he did kill her, what am I
supposed to do about it? Make a citizen’s arrest, or something?
There’s no damn evidence or the Atlanta cops would’ve nabbed him.
He’s, like, this mega-loser....so blitzed on dope he probably
couldn’t crack an egg let alone devise a foreign murder. I mean,
this whole trip was nuts.”

The French woman murmured softly on the other
end.

“Do not give up, Maggie,” she said.

“I
am
giving up,” Maggie said.
“Besides, after what I’ve learned about Elise and...and Laurent,
I’m afraid I just don’t have the energy or...passion, if you
will...to try to prove Gerard’s guilt. I guess that makes me a
pretty lame excuse for a sister, but that’s the way it is.”

“Perhaps Gerard did not strangle the life out
of her on that night,
cherie
,” Zouk said. “But he has killed
your sister as surely as if he held the sash that tightened around
her throat. He put an end to her art. He put an end to her family.
He put an end to her friends and time took care of the rest. Elise
was alive with her friends. She could not live without her art. She
was an
artiste
!”

“You don’t get it, Michele,” Maggie said,
tossing her cosmetic bag into her suitcase and snapping it shut. “I
don’t care any more. Okay? Elise lived her life the way she had to
and if she crapped all over her family as a result of it...well,
what’s new about that?”

“I hope you will write me, Maggie, as your
sister did,” Michele said quietly.

“I will.”

“And also to tell me when you find Elise’s
killer.”

Maggie sighed. “I’ll write you, Michele.
Michele?”

“Yes,
cherie
?”

“What do you think of Gerard’s brother,
Laurent?”

“
Cherie
, I do not know the man very
well. Only that he makes his living as le
voleur
...the
con-man. But what is it mattering now? Oh, you must get to the
bottom of this Laurent fellow,
absolutement
! There are too
many questions, eh? But if it is love...” The knowing smile was as
evident to Maggie as if she’d been in the same room with her.