Murder in the Latin Quarter (5 page)

T
he sun was dipping
behind the Musée de Cluny as Maggie pushed her stroller down the Boulevard Saint-Germain. She hung a left on the Boulevard Saint-Michel at the McDonald's restaurant. She knew her new-found friendship with Delphine would probably take a quick nosedive if she were to bring dinner back from there. She remembered there was a decent Thai restaurant a block from Grace's that did takeout.

“Well! Fancy meeting you here.”

She turned to see Grace striding toward her from the direction of her apartment.

“Hey,” Maggie said. “You didn't need to send a posse out. Haven't you been getting my texts?”

“Sorry, darling. I left my cell at André's. Did you have an interesting day? Beatrice told me about the poor dead woman at your aunt's. I couldn't believe it.”

“I was hoping to tell you all about it over a glass of wine,” Maggie said with a frown.

“Oh, worst timing ever, darling! I promised André I'd meet him and a few of his friends. They're children's clothing buyers,” she added hastily. “You know how it is. There is no nine to five for startups.”

Maggie couldn't believe what she was hearing. Grace was totally bullshitting her. She'd eat her shoe if Grace was meeting anyone except André. She bit her lip from saying something she'd regret.

“I'm moving out for a few days,” she said tersely.

Grace stopped walking. She was well past Maggie and heading in the direction of the Sorbonne when she turned around.

“Oh, Maggie, no! I know I've been a little unavailable lately—”

“It's not that,” Maggie said. “Laurent's aunt needs some live-in help until she can replace her nurse.”

Grace frowned. “In that case, I'm sure Beatrice would be happy to take Mila while you're gone.”

“But
I
wouldn't be happy,” Maggie said with impatience. “Listen, I'll catch up with you later, okay? I need to get back before it's too late. And keep your phone on you, will you?”

“I promise, darling,” Grace said with a wide smile.

“Oh!” Maggie said, turning back again. “Delphine mentioned she's having a birthday party at her house in a couple of days. She said I could invite you if you wanted to come.”

“Can André come?”

“I suppose so. But
I
haven't even met him yet.”

“I know, darling! I hate that. How about tomorrow evening, six o'clock at Les Deux Magots? Can you make it?
Sans
the little darling?” Grace waggled her fingers in the direction of the stroller.

Maggie's phone began to ring.

“Tomorrow night!” Grace called before turning and hurrying down the sidewalk.

Maggie felt a stiffness develop in her jaw and she fought back a creeping bad mood.

“Hello?” she said into her phone without looking at the screen first.

“Where are you?” Laurent asked.

Maggie turned and wedged the phone between her shoulder and her chin to put both hands back on the stroller handle and begin walking again.

“About four minutes from Grace's apartment. How's Jemmy?”

“He is fine. Your phone was off today?”

“Okay, Laurent, no, it wasn't off. I had it on vibrate. I was at your aunt's today.”

“I knew it!”

“Yes, and it's a good thing, too. She's very upset about the murder that took place practically in her living room and she has nobody to come stay with her while she—”

Laurent interrupted her with a loud Gallic snort.

“There are agencies for such things,” he said. “And care facilities.”

“What is your problem?” Maggie said in frustration. “She's your
aunt
. She's a sweet little old lady who has no family left and she's all alone in a very scary situation. Did she lock you in closets when you were little or something?”

“I rarely saw the woman.”

“Well, what is the deal? You're nicer to people who cut and wrap your fish than you are to your own aunt!”

“I just do not want you to be a bother to her. I know how you are, Maggie.”

“Okay, that is BS. She
wants
someone to bother with her.”

“Are you at Grace's yet?”

“I'm just about to go in. But she's out again for the night.”

“
Incroyable
!”

“What can I say? She's in love.”

Maggie allowed a moment of silence between them as she stood outside Grace's apartment. The cathedral Notre-Dame was majestic in the gloom, lit up with the careful spot lighting that seemed to highlight all of Paris's architectural masterpieces. A city as beautiful as this one needed to be dramatically illuminated even after the sun went down.

“I am sorry,
chérie
,” Laurent said with a sigh. “Your men are missing you.”

Maggie picked up Mila from the stroller, holding her on her hip. Her heart swelled with longing for Laurent. She could imagine him, probably sitting in the courtyard in the back of their
mas
.

“Your girls miss you, too,” she said softly. “But I really want to do this, Laurent. Our kids don't just have
my
family—they come from your family too and I want them to know that.”

“They are too young. Delphine will be long—”

“I know that,” Maggie said as she shoved the stroller into the foyer of Grace's apartment building and parked it against the mailboxes. “But for the few days I'm with Delphine I thought I might interview her. It would be so cool for Jemmy and Mila to have these stories later when they're older.”

“
Peut-être
,” Laurent said.

Maggie heard the sounds of a young boy on the other line. “Is that my Jemmy?”

“
Maman
?” The little voice piped up and filled Maggie with delight. Mila heard her brother too and began kicking her legs in excitement.

T
he tall
, slope-shouldered man stood behind the postcard carousel and watched her as she talked on the phone. She was so focused on her conversation she didn't even look up a single time. He could probably stand much closer to her—even hear her conversation—and she wouldn't notice him.

But it didn't pay to take too many risks. He'd learned that the hard way.

He watched her as if mesmerized. She had a baby with her. The way she hesitated on her walk to the apartment made him believe this wasn't her address. She was either renting or visiting a friend.

Who was she talking to? She'd thrown her head back and laughed at least once. Surely she had not a care in this world. By the looks of her, she was still well off financially.

The memories of his last meeting with her created a roiling fester of fury that took all his power to tamp down.

It was because of her that he'd had to leave France and hide. He'd hidden in pock-holed dumps that rats wouldn't live in—from Marrakesh to Bagdagh. He'd lived in terror and dread for every moment of four full years until he'd finally received word that the man who hunted him had died.

With crippling trepidation he'd returned to France but the axe had not fallen.

He watched Maggie Newberry push the buttons to release the building's security code and then disappear inside. He touched the thick ridge of a scar that jagged from his left eye to the tip of his chin—a reminder of his years on the run.

Because of her.

He turned and began coughing into his hands until he saw blood on his palms and the proprietor of the souvenir shop came out to wave him away. He staggered into the street, wiping the blood from his lips and looking at the building where she had entered.

He'd be back.

After everything she'd done to him. After everything she'd taken from him.

He would definitely be back.

D
elphine stood
at the window and looked down the narrow road as it spilled out into the small park. She suddenly caught sight of Maggie, walking through the park pushing the stroller.

Even from this distance Delphine could see how confidently Maggie moved. She noticed the dinner bag Maggie carried and hoped she thought to get wine. Being the wife of a
vigneron
, Delphine imagined
that
would be second nature by now.

Amazing.
Laurent a respectable vigneron
. It was an image that wouldn't fully form in her mind. A husband and father? And yet Maggie seemed an intelligent girl. Surely, she wouldn't have married a hoodlum. Delphine was trying to remember the last time she'd seen Laurent when the phone rang. She hesitated.

Twice last week there had been a late evening call and a hang up. She moved to the living room and picked up the telephone receiver.

“Yes?”

“Well, you sound good,” Victor said into the line. “But I am shocked you are not in bed. Do the police have any clues at all?”

Delphine sat on the couch. “I am fine, Victor. The police believe it was a burglary.”

“Was anything stolen?”

“Not that I can see. Poor Isla must have interrupted him before he could take anything.”

“And so he killed her? Does that make sense?”

“I know very little of these things, Victor,” Delphine said, her good mood beginning to deflate. “I just know what the police told me.”

“Are you sure you're up for the party?

Delphine shifted the phone to her other shoulder. “Yes, I am looking forward to it. Very much. Stop worrying.”

“I don't like you alone there. Would you like for me to sleep in your guest room until you find another nurse?”

“I have a friend staying with me.”

Victor dropped the phone on his end and Delphine nearly laughed out loud.

“Friend? What friend?” he sputtered.

“It is the wife of my nephew.”

“Noel Lorraine?”

“No,
chèri
, my
grand
-nephew Laurent Dernier. He has a vineyard near Aix and an American wife. Can you imagine?”

“How did that happen?”

“The wife? Or my meeting her?”

“Both, I suppose.”

“The hospital called my nephew when I became ill this week.”

“I am not listed as your emergency contact?”

“Of course not, Victor. And since Laurent's wife was in Paris visiting …”

“An American, you say?”

“Yes, but she's absolutely charming, and oh, Victor! She has my great grandniece with her!”

Victor laughed and she felt all the tension leave the conversation.

What was it about babies that just made everything better?

“A baby in the house,” he said. “Yes, that is the best medicine of all. I must meet them.”

“You will. She's coming to my birthday party. You'll meet her then.”

“I'm relieved you have someone with you,” Victor said, “if disappointed that it cannot be me.”

S
he had made
a good choice with the Thai food, Maggie thought proudly. Like most French people, Delphine was culinarily adventuresome and clapped her hands with delight as Maggie set out the cartons of Pad Thai, panang curry and jasmine rice on her antique dining room table. Mila, having eaten earlier, dozed sleepily in her carrier on the chair next to Maggie's.

“It is a feast,” Delphine said, her eyes sparkling, as Maggie pulled the cork out of the wine she'd brought.

“I love takeout,” Maggie said. “To me it's like having a picnic but Laurent calls it lazy.”

Delphine took the glass of wine Maggie poured for her and frowned. “My nephew cooks?”

“Boy, does he ever.” Maggie hesitated. “I guess you don't know him very well?”

Delphine arched an eyebrow. “I knew
of
him well enough at one time,” she said.

Maggie was surprised. The Laurent that Delphine remembered was clearly not one she approved of.

“It was a gorgeous walk this afternoon along the Boulevard Saint-Germaine to your apartment,” Maggie said, changing the subject. “Has your family always lived in this part of Paris?”

“In the Latin Quarter? Yes,” Delphine said. “But not this neighborhood. I moved here with my husband Louis.”

“Well, it's got serious cool factor. But I guess you know that.”

Delphine looked at Maggie as if making up her mind about something. Her glance turned to Mila, asleep in her carrier, and a smile formed on her lips.

“The Latin Quarter of my childhood,” she said, “was an artist's mecca,
comprends-tu
? Picasso, Man Ray, Hemingway, Gertrude Stein.”

“It's still got a bohemian reputation.”

Delphine snorted. “It is a tourist destination now. But at one time, it was like no other.”

“What do you think changed it?”

Delphine gazed past Maggie's shoulder toward the foyer as if seeing something in her mind's eye.

“The war,” she murmured. “The war changed everything.”

“I can't imagine what it must have been like.”

Mila whimpered in her sleep and Maggie put a calming hand on her until she settled again.

“I was only eighteen when the war broke out,” Delphine said. “A young girl full of life and romantic ideas.”

“Did you meet your husband during the war?”

Delphine shook her head. “Paris in war time was a city of women and old men.”

Maggie tried to remember her history.
Where were all the Frenchmen during the war?

As if reading her mind, Delphine addressed her bowl of noodles and said, “Most of our men were placed in POW camps after the armistice was signed with Germany.”

“The armistice?”

“How is it you Americans refer to us even today? Surrender monkeys?”

Maggie took in a sharp breath and stifled a cough into her napkin. “I…I mean, I've heard the term,” she said, blushing, “but I can't imagine…I would never…”

“Yes, it is all very embarrassing. Even seventy years later,” Delphine said tiredly. “But what the world doesn't know is that we French had no idea our government was making a deal with Germany! Our men fought bravely, valiantly in World War One. Did you know that?”

Maggie shook her head.

“And then the government just handed us over to Hitler in 1940. Not a shot fired! I am sure you knew
that
.”

Maggie could see Delphine was reliving the shame of the memory.

The Nazi occupation of Paris.

“I guess it was pretty tough during that time,” Maggie said.

Delphine nodded. “So much hardship. Always we were without the things that gave life joy. Wine. Cigarettes. Chocolate. Even our bread was made with substitutes that made it mealy and inedible.”

Delphine reached for her glass of wine and contemplated it before drinking. “The Germans in Paris did not lack for anything, of course,” she said.

“That must have been really terrible.”

“And as the years went on and the war refused to end—the sudden executions and constant reprisals—it was horrific. Sometime you must ask my friend Victor Rousseau for his family's story. It wasn't just the Jews who suffered at the hands of the oppressors.”

Maggie cleared the table and put the leftovers in Delphine's refrigerator. Her kitchen was as modern as Maggie's back in St-Buvard—which is to say, very. Laurent might scrimp on basic plumbing but he insisted on having the latest in kitchen appliances.

When Maggie returned to the living room, Delphine sat on the couch with her ankles crossed, her hands in her lap and her mind far away. On impulse, Maggie picked up Mila and brought her to Delphine.

Delphine's eyes lit up and she held out her arms.

“She is a beauty, your Mila,” Delphine murmured as she took the baby onto her lap. “She looks like her great aunt Georgette.”

Great
, Maggie thought with a wry grin.
She takes after the family skank. Perfect
.

“Shall I make tea?” Maggie asked.

“That would be lovely,” Delphine said, smiling, mesmerized by the sleeping baby.

Maggie found two mugs in the kitchen and filled them with tea bags and boiling water. She checked her phone but there was no message from Laurent. Jemmy would soon be in bed if he wasn't already. She hated to miss her goodnight call with him but she had a feeling Delphine had a story to tell and after two glasses of wine and a dozing baby in her lap, tonight might well be the night.

Maggie set Delphine's tea mug on the table next to her. In the space of the ten minutes it had taken to make the tea, she could see how much more confident Delphine had become with Mila—holding her and rearranging her cotton blanket by her chin.

“It's true there were many hardships,” Delphine said, not looking at Maggie. “I will never forget those four years. Not until my dying day.”

“It must've been awful seeing the Germans everywhere—in your shops and hanging out at your favorite cafés and restaurants.”

“It was. But in some ways it was worse for them.”

“How so?”

Delphine concentrated on Mila's breathing and she was quiet for a moment.

“We ignored them, you see. We treated them like they were ghosts. We pretended—the best we could—like they weren't there. I read later that many of the Germans developed psychological issues from their time in Paris during the occupation.”

“Wow. Way to passively resist, y'all,” Maggie said with a laugh. “You pre-Ghandi'd Ghandi.”

“Now, if you read the history of that time you would think our disgust and shame made our treatment of the Germans easy, but it wasn't. Not at all.”

Maggie had a feeling Delphine was about to get down to the meat of things. She held her tongue and waited.

“Can you imagine how these German victors appeared to the average French girl?”

Maggie shook her head.

“Think of it. Our men were gone—many of them had fled the city. Even the resistance fighters slunk off into the bushes and the shadows. The others were held prisoner in Germany or were hiding in barns in the country. By contrast…”

Oh, I think I know what's coming,
Maggie thought with a start.

“The Germans were young and handsome. Goebbels is said to have sent only their most stunning examples of young German manhood. They walked erect, proudly, their faces open and optimistic—after all they were the victors.” Delphine looked at Maggie and shrugged. “And winners are sexy,
n'est-ce pas
?”

“I just assumed the Germans were all arrogant and making you eat shoe leather and stuff while they saved the good stuff for themselves.”

“Most of them were not at all like that. Their shortages in Germany rivaled ours in Paris.”

But naturally
, Maggie thought,
it just took a few bad apples exterminating whole villages to spoil the reputation of the whole basket
.

“I had three sisters and we had many girlfriends but there were no boys anywhere in Paris,” Delphine continued. “We hated the Germans, of course. But…we were drawn to them, too.”

“I thought collaboration was a big no-no,” Maggie said.

“
Bien sûr
. But have you not learned this essential fact in life, Maggie?”

“Remind me.”

Delphine looked up from Mila and her face held incredible sadness.

“Sometimes the thing you are forbidden to have is the very thing you must have.”

T
hey sat
in companionable silence for the rest of the evening—Delphine reading a novel and Maggie texting on her smartphone. Her mother sent her a text at one o'clock Atlanta time—seven p.m. Paris time:

<
Is your cell phone broken?
>

Maggie winced and texted her back.

<
I am so sorry, Mom! Laurent had a crisis here in Paris he needed me to help with
.>

<
I am aware of that, Maggie, since I have spoken with Laurent.
>

Maggie sighed in frustration. Clearly her mother wasn't going to give up on this summer visit thing.

<
I can't talk right now
> Maggie texted her. <
I'm trying to get the baby down but I promise I'll call you soon. Love to Dad.
>

She turned her phone off without waiting for her mother's reply. It wasn't like Elspeth Newberry to be so insistent. There must be something going on back home—likely it had to do with Maggie's brother Ben and his legal problems—or his wife's. But Maggie didn't know how to convince her mother that the summerlong visit just wasn't viable.

Why was she pushing it so hard?

Maggie saw that Mila—still in Delphine's arms—was waking up and Delphine was falling asleep. As it was Maggie's first night with Delphine, she wanted everything to go as smoothly as possible—and that did not include crying babies in the middle of the night. Feeding Mila now and then keeping her awake for a bit would help ensure a peaceful night for everyone.