Little Death by the Sea (38 page)

Truly, the French are not like the rest of
us, Maggie thought with a touch of admiration in her heart for her
new friend. She said farewell and wished she could believe the same
philosophy.

5

It was still early evening but Maggie didn’t
begrudge the taxi ride. After all, Montmartre was not necessarily a
safe place to be at any time. She paid the driver and stepped out
onto
Rue Caulaincourt
. She walked quickly and with purpose.
The Moulin Rouge windmill sliced through the thick night air,
beckoning the streetlife inside in a slow, insidious, come-hither
gesture. People bumped into her as she walked, she held her purse
tightly to her stomach, hurrying faster now to find the little
alleyway.

When she found it again, it yawned before
her, dark and unwelcoming. Maggie took a breath and turned into the
cobblestone avenue that led to Elise’s old apartment.

She’d said good-bye to Michele and had felt a
genuine sense of loss. The woman had cared about Elise. She seemed
to care about Maggie too. Maggie was starting to recognize just how
rare that feeling could be.

The shuttered windows stared down at her like
jack-o-lantern eyes from the apartments that lined the little
street. She glanced up at the landlady’s window. Like the others,
it was closed to the world. No sign of light or life behind it.

Maggie slowed her pace as she passed beneath
Elise’s window and looked up. Nothing. She turned the corner at the
end of the alley and stopped. There it was. Montmartre
Cemetery.

From where Maggie stood, she could see
oversized granite urns and what looked like miniature Washington
monuments punctuating the row after row of plain stones—which
looked like a field of gray surfboards jammed into the ground. The
wind picked up as she stared at the semi-darkened graveyard.
Little, luminescent stubs of white crosses jutted out from the hard
ground. Stone angels and fierce cherubs guarded long-dead babies
under ghostly great trees, their leaves having long dropped onto
the patient graves and markers.

Maggie crossed the street and entered the
cemetery through the arched gateway which led to a stone trellis
and a pergola, as gay as a garden wedding.

The eerie obelisks and weathered tombstones,
washed in the light of dusk, shot irregular shadows in every
direction, like spirits leaping out in confusion and panic. Maybe
this wasn’t such a hot idea, Maggie thought.

She moved between the headstones, careful not
to trample the flowers that attentive mourners had placed next to
the graves, and took a seat on one of the many wrought iron
benches, its scroll work was intricate and lovely. She thought for
a moment of the ancient artisan commissioned to create these
graveyard thrones. She wondered what his thoughts had been as he
worked.

The cemetery did not frighten her, although
it did give her a vague sense of unease. Lost or earth-bound souls
were not much of a consideration for Maggie. Never had been, she
mused, as she thought of her father telling her and Elise ghost
stories when they were girls. Elise seemed to want to believe in
witches and spirits and supernatural things. Elise had paid close
attention to her father’s stories, jumping in the appropriate
spots, eyes widening in exquisite fright to his delight. Maggie
hadn’t seen the point. If someone was dead, he was dead. She’d
thought so then. She thought so now. Elise had always told her she
had no imagination.

Maggie turned to find the window of Elise’s
apartment, the window where her sister had painted her watercolors,
written her letters. Gone forever, Maggie thought. Elise gone, her
little girl gone. And here she was, Maggie, sitting directly in the
scene Elise had painted maybe a hundred times. Maggie touched a
nearby headstone and felt its hard smoothness. It was marble, and
icy-cold, but looked like old chalk, crumbling and dirty.

Why had she come here? To say good-bye to
Elise? Why not the Elise who had lived in the Latin Quarter? At
least that was an Elise she might have understood.

Maggie’s eyes filled and she opened her purse
to search for a tissue. And, of course, the Latin Quarter Elise was
an Elise who hadn’t felt at all understood. She was an Elise who’d
packaged herself in such a way as to be accepted by her family—but
who had compromised herself to do it. This was the real Elise,
Maggie realized, the one who had lived in Montmartre and taken
drugs and brutal lovers. Wild and free and too different to be
honestly loved by her family, this Elise had painted. And died.
For, surely, Michele was right: Elise had died here long before she
ever went to Atlanta.

Maggie pulled out of her purse the glittering
goldtone scarf ring Brownie had given to her at Nicole’s birthday
party. She thought of that little girl and her heart squeezed. What
is Nicole’s real name? she wondered. Who is she? Maggie sat on the
hard little bench, her lap full of the contents of her purse, and
felt a light breeze touch her skin. It was getting late.

Shaking herself, she began to put everything
back into her purse. Plenty of time for all of those questions, she
told herself. Her time in Paris was through. She’d done what she
had come to do. And more, she thought, as a picture of Laurent came
to mind. She held the little scarf ring in her hand for a moment
and thought of Brownie. Poor Brownie wanted to help so much. He
wanted to be a part of her world so very much.

Suddenly, looking at the little gold-painted
scarf ring, Maggie felt a realization so swift, so undeniable, that
she nearly gasped when it hit her. She held the scarf ring tightly
in her fingers and stared at it.

She knew who Elise’s murderer was.

Chapter 21

1

Darla stared at the map propped up against
her coffee cup. Gerry had drawn loopy black lines on the map of
Auckland City to indicate areas where they might live in, where he
would work, where Haley might attend school. Darla touched a spot
on the map.
Kohimarama
.. She traced the line across Hobson
Bay. One Tree Hill.
Onehunga
.
Te Papapa
. Her finger
came to a stop at
Manukau
Harbor.

“Finding everything all right?” Gerry dried
his hands on a dishtowel and leaned over the back of his wife’s
chair. He smelled of soap and coffee beans.

Darla withdrew her finger and placed her
hands in her lap.

“See, this is
Waitemata
Harbor.” He
jabbed at an expanse of blue that divided the city of Auckland. “If
I take the Bates’ job, I’ll be able to see the water from my
office. They’ve got a regatta every Wednesday in full view. That’s
what the headhunter said. Pretty neat, eh?”

Darla sighed loudly.

“Or maybe you don’t think so.” Gerry tossed
the kitchen towel down onto the table and pulled his jacket from
the back of one of the kitchen chairs.

Darla lifted up a corner of the map and felt
under it for her cooling coffee. Gerry pulled on his suit jacket,
jerking the cuffs down and pushing the front together, although not
buttoning it.

“If we get a place in
Remuera
, for
example, there’s a good school for Haley there.”

“Your headhunter said so.” Darla spoke softly
as she brought the coffee cup to her lips.

“Interesting name,
Remuera
.
Maori
, I suppose. Wonder what it means, don’t you?” Gerry
adjusted his tie, jutting his chin out like a startled turkey
stretching at a sudden sound.

“When will you be back?” Darla picked up the
map and began to fold it. Gerry watched the precise movements which
demonstrated an unusual deliberateness for his wife—usually so fast
and slap-dash.

He shrugged and peered around the corner of
the kitchen into the living room as if searching for something.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” he said. “I’ll get
there around eight or so, I guess. Meet with Bryant for
dinner...God, it’s going to be a late night.”

“You think he’ll buy you out of Selby’s?” The
map crinkled noisily in her fingers. He thought it was taking her a
long time to get it all folded up.

“We shall see,” he said breezily. “Seen my
briefcase?”

She said nothing. Holding the map tightly in
her hand, she sat and looked vacantly at the kitchen wall opposite
her.

“Should be back, everything wrapped up, by
tomorrow afternoon,” he repeated, “I’ll call you, of course.”

“Going to wrap up everything before Maggie’s
had a say?”

Gerry stopped hunting for his briefcase and
looked at his wife. He needed to get this over and done with, he
thought. The sooner moved, the sooner adjusted.

“She knows I’m talking to a guy.”

“She know you intend to sign on the dotted
line?”

“I’m not sure I do intend to.”

She turned in her chair and looked at him. He
thought she looked frightened. I’m doing this for you, Darla!

“Okay, I do intend to,” he said. “But it
can’t be helped. Maggie knows that. She knows how important this is
to me. I wouldn’t sell her down the river.” He pulled up a chair
and sat down next to his wife. “If this guy isn’t right for
Selby’s, I won’t sell. You believe that, don’t you?”

She stared into his eyes, then dropped the
map onto the table and put her hand up to his freshly-shaved
cheek.

“I love you, Gerry,” she said, beginning to
cry.

He put his arms around her.

“Believe in me, Darla,” he said. “Believe I’m
doing what’s best for all of us.”

She buried her face into his suit jacket.

2

The taxi driver gave Maggie an impatient toot
on his horn. Maggie turned to glare at him from where she stood
outside the hotel in a telephone booth. I’m so sick of these
people! She gripped the telephone receiver a little tighter.

“
Une moment
!” she shouted, forcing a
feigned smile in his direction. Her bag was sitting in the backseat
of the taxi and she wasn’t totally convinced he wouldn’t take off
with it just to show the impertinent American that he could not be
kept waiting.
Weren’t we on the same side during the war
?
she wondered. Didn’t we help liberate bloody Paris?

“Sorry, M’am,” the voice crackled over the
telephone wire to her. “Detective Burton isn’t answering his page
either.”

Maggie shifted the phone receiver to her
other ear.

“I’ve got to talk to him.” She closed her
eyes in agony. “I have got to speak to the detective.”

“You’ll have to leave a message.” The
impersonal drone of the sergeant’s voice served to increase her
agitation.

“A message? God, what kind of...” She took a
deep breath and looked briefly in the direction of the angry taxi
driver. “Look, tell Detective Burton or Detective Kazmaroff that
Margaret Newberry called again, okay?” She paused until she was
sure the man was writing this all down. “Tell him, please, that I
know who killed my sister. And Dierdre Potts, too. Tell him that.
And...and to page me at the Paris airport, okay? I’ll be there in
about thirty minutes and for about an hour once I’m there. Charles
DeGaulle airport in Paris. Okay?”

I must be mad to think that redneck cop is
going to call the airport in Paris, France, she thought, pushing a
hand through her hair. She heard the sound of the taxi driver’s
door slamming shut and she turned back to the phone.

“Look, just give him my message and have him
call me, please.” She hung up on the sergeant’s assurances that he
would give Burton her message. She hurried down the stone steps of
the
Hotel L’Etoile Verte
and greeted the indignant taxi
driver.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she sang breathlessly as she
tugged open the passenger door of his taxi. “
Je me regret! Je
m’excuse
!”

The man grunted and returned to his side of
the car. He poked viciously at his watch as if to indicate that he
would be charging Maggie for the extra time spent waiting for
her.

Maggie climbed into the back seat and tossed
her purse to the far side in an exhausted gesture. She had tried
last night and most of this morning to reach either Jack Burton or
Dave Kazmaroff to tell them of her discovery. The police department
had refused, understandably, to give out their home phone numbers,
and the pair had been unavailable for the last twenty hours or
so.

Maggie told the driver to take her to Charles
DeGaulle Airport and then sank into the stained and lumpy
backseat.

3

She drummed her fingers on the Delta Airlines
countertop, unaware of the annoyed look the pretty flight clerk was
giving her.

“Here’s your passport,
Mademoiselle
,”
the clerk said to her, handing back her American passport. “We hope
you have enjoyed your stay in Paris?”

Maggie looked at her uncomprehendingly.
“Huh?”

“Your flight leaves Gate Five, please. Thank
you,” the clerk said, looking beyond her to the person next in
line.

“Oh, okay, thanks.” Maggie gathered up her
carry-on bag and stuffed her passport and ticket into the side
pocket of her purse. She moved out of line, her ears straining to
catch the sound of her name being paged over the public address
system.

Charles DeGaulle was chaos. Drug-sniffing
German shepherd dogs roamed aggressively at the ends of taut
leashes held by uniformed officials, signs insisted from every
doorway that passengers should not leave their bags unattended for
a single moment, crying children seemed to be everywhere—either
attached to sour-faced mothers or roaming pitifully alone,
presumably in search of sour-faced mothers.

Maggie pushed through the crowd and tried to
remember the excitement and anticipation she had felt just a few
days ago when she had landed here from Atlanta. Then, the airport
had seemed abuzz with hope and promise, a traveler’s way station of
rare adventure about to happen. This morning, she saw the filth on
the floors and the distrust in her fellow traveler’s eyes. It made
her shiver all the way through her double-quilted bomber
jacket.