Murder in Aix (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series Book 5)
Read Murder in Aix (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series Book 5) Online
Authors: Susan Kiernan-Lewis
MURDER IN
AIX
A Maggie Newberry Mystery
Susan
Kiernan-Lewis
Murder in Aix
is
the fifth installment in the popular Maggie Newberry mystery series. This book
brings all the sounds, smells
and tastes
of Aix-en-Provence to life as Maggie finds
herself scrambling to prove the innocence of a dear friend arrested for the
murder of an abusive ex-boyfriend–and do it
before
the baby
Maggie’s carrying decides to make his entrance…
San Marco Press/Atlanta
2013
Chapter
One
The
moment Julia asked for the wine list, Maggie knew it was going to be
that
kind of lunch. Not that Maggie had
anything against wine. Her husband was a vintner, for heaven’s sake. They
practically drank the stuff for breakfast. No, it was the fact that her friend
felt the need for a bottle instead of just a glass or two. A bottle she knew
wouldn’t be shared because Maggie was eight months pregnant.
A bottle of wine at lunch in the middle of
the workweek did not bode well.
“You
won’t have any, Maggie?” Julia asked, still squinting at the wine list and not
bothering to look at her. They’d gone through this a few million times before. Julia
already knew the answer.
“Nope.
Not today,” Maggie said, smoothing a hand over the fabric of the sundress that
was stretched tightly across her stomach. “Hopefully, by this time next month.”
The
restaurant was situated just north of the main boulevard,
Cours Mirabeau
, in a tangle of streets known as
Vieil Aix
. This was the old section of Aix-en-Provence,
and the part of France that Maggie found most charming. It had been worth the
traffic and the lengthy walk past all the food markets to get to the little
bistro. As usual, Julia had chosen well.
Julia ordered the
wine and handed the list to the hovering waiter. Now that Maggie knew something
was up—
and something was definitely
up
—she watched her friend closely. When Julia called the day before
to suggest lunch in Aix, she had sounded casual and unstressed.
Had she been drinking then, too?
While
it was true they hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks, they’d stayed
connected by texts and by phone. Maggie felt she was very much up-to-date with Julia
and her current project, an exhaustively comprehensive cookbook on culinary
mushrooms.
Maggie had asked
Julia to choose the restaurant since she was the one who lived in Aix and knew
all the great ones. This one featured a wide, uncrowded terrace with an
unobstructed view of
Place Jeanne d’Arc
.
Maggie could see the tiny leaves from the ubiquitous plane trees littering the
cobblestones of the terrace as prettily as if they’d been hand-placed. She sipped
her
l’eau gaseuse
and tried to
determine what was going on with her friend. “How’re the ‘shrooms coming?”
“It’s
transcendent, Maggie,” Julia said, her eyes glassy with joy at the thought of
her cookbook. “I am immersed totally and completely. I do not remember ever
feeling this way about anything. Ever.”
“We’re still
talking mushrooms?”
“I created this
one dish and the aroma from the sautéed mushrooms—they were wild
morels—was transformative. I literally left my body.”
“No way.”
“I kid you not. If
only you would let me cook them for you,” Julia said, nodding at the waiter as
he poured her wine and retreated. “I didn’t think people still had pregnancy
food issues this far along. I thought that was first trimester stuff.”
“Who knew? I
won’t even let Laurent burn toast in the house. I go into a hormone-induced
rage.”
“That is not
believable,” Julia said, sipping her wine. Maggie noticed she closed her eyes
to savor it as it slid down her throat. “Laurent would
never
burn the toast.”
“Well, I guess we’re
both being hyperbolic today. Laurent will
definitely
burn the toast the day
you
leave your
body over a skillet full of fried mushrooms. Unless, of course, they’re a
different
kind
of mushroom.”
“Oh, funny girl,” Julia
said, her English accent still sharply evident even after ten years in France.
Her eyes crinkled as she smiled at Maggie. Her short blonde hair was a tousle
of curls that belied her age. She was a good twenty years Maggie’s senior but
her youthful air and athletic build, coupled with a smile she was rarely
without, had her often mistaken for her contemporary.
“You’re really not sick
of mushrooms yet?”
“I am not. And trust
me, they are all I eat. My next door neighbor jokes with me that I put them on
my morning cereal instead of berries.”
“And you don’t?”
“What can I say? I
happen to think obsession is good for the soul.”
“How very French of you.”
“It is, isn’t it? Oh! Did
I tell you about the snake I stepped on yesterday?”
“Is this a metaphor?”
“I was doing my thing,
foraging in the lower threshold of a vineyard just north of the city.”
Maggie knew Julia
spent at least half her day tramping about in the forests and meadows
surrounding Aix looking for edible mushroom specimens. Julia was a big believer
in foraging as the only true way to gather wild mushrooms, which she believed
had the deepest flavor.
The server came with
their meals and Julia stopped to produce a moment of praise at the presentation
of the two large dishes of duck baked in a crust of salt and herbs on top of
risotto with eggplant and tomatoes. Maggie, too, allowed a gasp of delight to
escape as her plate was set in front of her.
With the waiter mollified —Maggie
had noticed he was becoming annoyed at the fact the two non-French women were
spending more time talking and less time anticipating the main reason they were
there—to eat—Julia leaned back into her story.
“I went straight to the
base of this really ancient olive tree, covered in moss. Honestly, Maggie, you
must come out with me sometime. The colors are so vivid and rich. Anyway, I
must have stood there for a full ten minutes, staring deep into the depths of
the moss until I saw it.”
“The snake?”
“No, silly. Why would I
step on the snake if I saw it first? No, I saw—almost completely
hidden—the
trompette des morts.”
“Oooh.
Death trumpets
. Yummy.” Maggie spooned
into her risotto.
“Well, the name may not
be appealing,” Julia admitted, “but the mushrooms themselves are to die for.
Especially when sautéed with a large knob of butter and a simple seasoning of rosemary.”
“You’ve got to try
this, Julia. It is amazing,” Maggie said as she enjoyed her first taste. “So
when did you step on the snake?”
Julia shrugged and
picked up her fork. “Oh, on the way out. At that point I wasn’t looking down
any more. My basket was full.”
“Non poisonous, I
assume?”
Julia looked up
with a start. “What?”
“The snake. It
wasn’t poisonous?”
“Oh. No, I don’t
think so.”
“Is everything
okay, Julia?”
Julia sighed and
reached for her wine. “Well, yes and no.”
Maggie took a
bite of her duck and waited. Julia would talk when she was ready.
“Jacques called,”
she said, shrugging.
Maggie frowned.
“What did he want?”
“To meet.”
“What did you
tell him?”
“You really don’t want me to see him, do
you?”
“It’s what
you
want that matters.”
Julia sighed
again and shrugged. “I told him okay.”
Maggie knew Julia
had been receiving the occasional note from Jacques asking if he could come by.
It appeared he was getting impatient.
“Look, Maggie,
I’m not getting back together with him if that’s what you’re afraid of. I just
need some closure so I can move on.”
Maggie gave her a
skeptical look, but as Julia had probably figured, there was little she could
say in response to that.
“He’s been ill,” Julia
said. “I actually feel sorry for him. Things don’t seem to be going well for
him these days.”
“When are you
going to see him?”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight
?
As in
after dark
? At
your
place? Tell me you’re not meeting
him alone at your place.”
“I’m making him
dinner.”
Maggie shook her
head.
“We have a few
things to say to each other,” Julia said. “
Private
things.”
“He wants to get
back together with you,” Maggie said.
“Yes, but that
will not happen.”
“Are you sure?”
“So very sure,
dearest. Not to worry on that score.”
Maggie wedged her
bulk behind the steering wheel of her Renault and took a moment to catch her
breath. She hadn’t been able to park very close to the restaurant, but the walk
had been good for her. Still, her legs ached and there was a spasm in her back
she couldn’t seem to ease. She rolled down the window and let the cool breeze
that had been whipping up the dried leaves and flower petals on the Cours
Mirabeau caress her face. She placed a hand on her belly and smiled at the
answering kick into the palm of her hand. Whoever was in there had
not
enjoyed the overdose of garlic at
lunch.
“Settle down,
ma petite
,” Maggie said. As she spoke, a
cloud sifted across the sky and darkened the interior of the car a shade.
Maggie frowned, her hand resting on the stick shift, and thought of Julia’s
excitement over her cookbook project. It was so like her to get so completely
immersed in the recipe book. She was like that about everything—totally
passionate to the point where she nearly lost all sense or perspective. Her
relationship with Jacques Tatois was a good example of that, Maggie thought.
Handsome in a wolfish sort of way, with penetrating blue eyes that seemed to
see only one woman. Unfortunately for Julia, that hadn’t necessarily meant one
woman at a time.
She and Julia had
connected a little under a year ago. Both ex-pats, they had found plenty to
bond over when they met at a wine tasting hosted by Laurent’s co-op in Avignon.
Julia had attended on the arm of her then boyfriend, Jacques Tatois, an
acquaintance of Laurent’s from Paris. Julia and Maggie hit it off immediately.
Grace Van Sant, Maggie’s best friend, had recently moved back to the States,
leaving Maggie feeling abandoned and lonely. Julia stepped neatly into the void
and the two never looked back. In many ways, Maggie mused as she adjusted the
car’s rear view window and prepared to merge into traffic, Julia was actually
closer in temperament and shared interests than Grace had been. Julia was
creative, like Maggie. She was ruled by her passions and was spontaneous, like
Maggie. And unlike Grace, she cared not a fig for fashion or status,
appearances or money. Like Maggie.
Maggie drove
carefully out of the city, mindful of the late afternoon traffic. She wasn’t
late getting back but she knew Laurent would be looking for her. As her
pregnancy had advanced, he had become more and more attentive. She smiled at
the thought.
Yes, meeting Julia
last year had been the saving of Maggie in many ways. And while she still
missed Grace—would
always
miss
Grace—she had effectively replaced her friendship with someone who, just
possibly, was a little more like her in the ways that mattered.
Which is why it was so frustrating to see her even
considering opening herself back up to Jacques!
Maggie’s
cellphone chimed from inside her purse on the passenger’s seat, alerting her of
the receipt of a text message. Knowing she shouldn’t but unable to help herself,
she fished the phone out and glanced at the screen. It was from Grace:
Hoping the weather is warm this week,
darling. I could use the change!