Murder in Nice (6 page)

“
Even now, I’m ashamed to
say it. I’ve tried for years to redeem myself to Lanie. But she
wouldn’t listen.”

“
I don’t understand. What
happened? I remember you were the coolest mom I knew. You
understood me better than my own mother did. I can’t tell you how
fondly I remember our talks around your kitchen table.”

“
That was right after the
divorce. I wasn’t doing very well at all.”

“
I thought you were
awesome.”

“
Well, I wasn’t. In fact,
what I was mostly was drunk. Lanie and I were fighting daily. She
blamed me for her father leaving. She was probably right. Once…no,
more than once, I told her I wished her father had gotten custody
of her but I needed the child support money so that’s why she was
with me.”

“
Annie, don’t do this to
yourself. It was a bad time for you. I’m sure Lanie understood that
when she became an adult.”

“
I told her I wished
you
were my
daughter.”

“
Oh.”

“
Not just once. Several
times. Whenever you came over, you and I would talk—just as I
imagined in my fantasies that Lanie and I might some
day.”

“
I…I had no
idea.”

“
No, you wouldn’t. The more
I drank, the more I began to think that
you
were the daughter I really
deserved, and Lanie was just part of my punishment. I was messed
up. Eventually I got help and kicked the booze, but by then the
damage to Lanie was done.”

“
She must have hated
me.”

“
No, she hated herself for
not
being
you. For
failing me. For failing her father.”

“
I can’t believe this. My
friendship with Lanie did end abruptly, and I never knew
why.”

“
Well, now you do. You
probably also never knew how important you were to me during that
time, did you?”

Maggie shook her head, stunned at Annie’s
confession.

“
You are the last person to
owe me anything,” Annie said. “I ruined my relationship with my
only child, and her friendship with you—a friendship she could have
really used during that time.”

“
It was a terrible time for
both of you,” Maggie said numbly.

“
I need you to find the
person who did this to Lanie,” Annie said. “I can’t believe I’m
asking but I have to know and I need
you
to be the one to do it. I used you
to hurt Lanie and I never fixed that in her lifetime.”

Annie grabbed a tissue and held it to her
face, her eyes squeezed shut until the moment of intense grief
passed.

“
Can you see why I need you
to step in now and set this right? It’s not even your mess to clean
up. And it’s too late for me and Lanie. I know that. But she’s been
gone three whole days and I still haven’t reached for a drink.
There may be some hope for me to survive this, but if there is…I’m
begging you, Maggie, if you ever cared for Lanie—or for me—find out
who did this to her. Help me finally do right by her.”

*****

Janet rapped sharply on the
hotel room door. It was late afternoon; a good time to catch people
in, as it was a good time to take a nap and escape the heat of the
day. Although she was sure
some
people
weren’t bothering with
sleep.

The door opened a crack and Janet felt a
tightness in her jaw. Did he think she would try to force her way
in?

“
I need a minute of your
time,” she said tersely. “If you’re alone, that is.”

“
As a matter of fact, I’m
not,” Randall said, his eyes droopy and veined with red. “What do
you want?”

“
I want,” Janet hissed,
trying to keep her voice low, “to remind you that Jim and I are not
the only ones to be hurt by loose lips.”

“
Jesus, Janet,” Randall
said, “spit it out before I shut the door.”

“
You told Lanie about me
and Jim.”

She dared him to deny it. She literally
quivered with anticipation. A part of her wanted him to try.

“
I didn’t, as it happens,
but so what? Nobody cares but you.”

“
Oh, believe me, Bob,
you’re wrong about that. Jim cares a great deal.”

“
Well, he should have
thought of that then shouldn’t he?” Randall began to push the door
shut and she surprised herself by stepping a foot into the room and
wedging it against the door.

“
I wish the rest of the
world knew you the way I do,” she said in a loud whisper. “I wish
your
little friend
knew what you were capable of.”

“
Funny, Janet, I was going
to say the same thing about you.”

She saw by the way his eyes went suddenly
blank that he didn’t care who he hurt. Especially her. For a
moment, the stark look startled her because she hadn’t expected
that kind of honesty from him. She pulled her foot back just in
time as he slammed the door in her face. She stood there for a
moment, hearing her own breath, the sound of the door echoing
softly in her head, until she realized one of her fingernails had
been too close to the door jamb.

A thread of blood traced down her finger to
her wrist.

*****

Maggie walked Annie to their hotel room and
closed the drapes while Annie took a sleeping pill and a bottle of
water to bed. It occurred to Maggie as she slipped out of the room
that Annie was in prime position to swap one addiction for another
if she wasn’t careful. Maggie rode down in the elevator and found a
large wing chair in the lobby with a view of the Mediterranean. She
dialed home and closed her eyes, willing herself to sound calm and
nonchalant when he answered.

“
Allo
,” Laurent said. “Are you on your way,
chérie
?”

“
No, I’m
not
on my way, Laurent,”
she said, already feeling defensive and hoping she didn’t sound it.
“This is a very tense business. A woman has lost her only child.
I’m doing what I can to smooth things over and take some of the
horror out of it for her, but it’s not an easy or fast
process.”

“
When are you coming
home?”

“
Would you please listen to
me? Lanie’s mom is really upset and I’m helping her sort out all
the bureaucratic red tape in getting Lanie’s body shipped home. I
did tell you they’re calling it a suspicious death,
right?”

“
You are not needed for
that.”

“
I’m needed to be
with
her
, Laurent.
She has no one.”

“
Why have I not heard of
this person before now if she is so important to you?”

“
That is a very interesting
story and I’m going to tell you as soon as I get home.”

“
I have time
now.”

“
Well, okay. Let’s see…I
guess it’s not so much that she was important to me as the other
way around. Without knowing it, I was used as a sort of wedge
between her and Lanie when…look, it doesn’t matter, Laurent. Why
can’t you take my word for the fact that she needs me?”

“
Incroyable
! Your
child
needs you.”

“
Jemmy has
you
—he’s probably sitting
on your lap right this minute—and I’m only talking about another
twenty-four hours. Annie has no one.”

“
If you tell me you have
agreed to investigate this woman’s death, I am putting Jem in his
car seat and driving to Nice tonight to bring you home.”

“
Jeez, Laurent, way to
overreact. Did I say I was investigating it? Did I even hint at
that? The police have someone in custody that they are very happy
with and I have no reason to doubt their choice.”

“
So this is just about
helping your friend’s mother navigate the red tape?”

“
Yes, that is it. Almost
completely.”

“
Almost?”

“
Completely.”

There was a pause. “Twenty-four hours?”

“
I promise. Put the baby on
the phone; I’ll promise him, too.”

“
He isn’t old enough to
know your ways yet.”

“
Laurent Dernier, you take
that back.”

He made a sound of disgust.

“
Oh, I meant to mention
that my brother and Haley are on their way,” she said. “He said
he’d call you when he’s an hour out from Arles. Okay?”

Laurent grunted, which Maggie decided to
take as an affirmative.

“
Meanwhile, can you tell me
what cute thing Jemmy’s done since I’ve been gone?”

An hour
later, Maggie hurried up the broad stone steps of the Soho lobby to
the front desk. It was after three in the afternoon but there were
no guests in the lobby or standing by the desk. The concierge, a
tall man with a long jaw and small eyes that missed nothing,
watched her approach from under heavy eyebrows.

“
Excuse me,” Maggie said to
him in French. “I’m in Room 205.”

The man didn’t respond.

So it’s like that, is
it?
It had been a long time since Maggie
had bumped up against an imperious or outright rude service person
in France. Even in Paris, most of them nowadays seemed to know on
which side their
beignet
was buttered. And the south of France especially
was usually a little more accommodating to tourists and
foreigners.

“
Mademoiselle Morrison died
in your hotel two days ago,” Maggie said bluntly. If she expected
the man to blanch or soften, she was disappointed. He continued to
wait for her to get to the point. “A glass of wine was found in her
room. Did she order it through room service that night?”

The man smiled faintly, surprising Maggie.
It was the look from a man wondering how long before someone asked
him the million-dollar question.

“
Oui
,” he said.

“
And did she order just a
glass or did she order a bottle?”

“
A bottle,” he said. “A
Côtes du Rhône.”

“
No bottle was found in her
room.”

He shrugged. “The valet did not wait for her
to drink the whole bottle.”

“
So is that your smart-ass
way of telling me he delivered the bottle and left it with
her?”

“
As you wish,
Madame.”

“
You’ve been a peach,”
Maggie said, turning away abruptly. “Thanks.”

So Lanie had been bashed in the head with
her own wine bottle. Maggie took the elevator to the second floor,
her mind racing. That meant whoever had interrupted Lanie in her
bath had probably not come there intending to kill her but somehow
things escalated and the killer used whatever weapon he could
find.

In this case, a bottle of killer Côtes du
Rhône.

Where was the bottle? Surely the cops had
gone through all the rubbish bins and garbage cans around the
hotel. Would they think to look at a wine bottle as the weapon?
Maggie sighed. There must be a hundred bottles a day tossed in the
hotel garbage, not even counting the ones the guests brought in
themselves.

As Maggie turned the corner from the
elevator, she slowed and then stopped. She could easily see the
room she shared with Annie at the end of the hall. And she could
also see a woman kneeling in front of the keyhole.

At first she thought the person was
attempting to spring the lock on the door, but as she stood there
she saw the woman was trying to peer through the ancient keyhole
into the room. Maggie took several quiet steps on the balls of her
feet until she was close by and then cleared her throat.

The woman jumped to her feet and whirled
around to face Maggie.

It was Dee-Dee Bell. Even in the
semi-darkened hallway, Maggie saw that the woman’s blouse was
food-stained and her hair had yet to be combed that day.

“
Oh, my goodness, you
startled me!” Dee-Dee said, her hand to her throat. Maggie was
close enough to smell her breath. She took an involuntary step
back.

“
Did you drop something,
Miss Bell?” she said sharply, her irritation ratcheting up as she
waited for an explanation.

“
What? Oh! Yes, I did. I
dropped my room key but, well, here it is! I found it.”

“
Okay, that’s bullshit. You
were trying to look inside my room. What’s going on?”

“
I don’t know what you’re
talking about. I dropped my key.”

“
Where is it, then?” Maggie
peered at the woman’s hands.

Dee-Dee scowled at Maggie and took a step
toward her. “I made a mistake, okay? Give me a break. I thought
this was Desiree’s room. Hers is right next door. Okay?”

“
How is that any better
than you trying to peek inside my room?”

“
Well, it’s better, Miss
whoever you are—and I don’t really know why I’m answering your
questions—because I have a reason for looking in Desiree’s
room.”

“
A reason.”

“
Yes, if you must know, I
thought I saw a man go in here.”