Murder in the Latin Quarter (8 page)

M
aggie's mind
was calm by the time she pushed the button on the elevator in Delphine's lobby. It had taken a two block walk before she'd settled down enough to realize she was actually walking away from Delphine's street and had to turn around. The rotund owner of the little curry kiosk on the corner of Saint-Germain and rue du Bac typically did a brisk business in takeout, from
jambon
sandwiches and Nutella crepes to Tandoori chicken. Maggie tucked the bag of fragrant rice and curry into the back pocket of Mila's stroller and hurried down rue du Bac.

She could honestly say she'd never seen Grace behave as she had at the café. She was practically mewling and starry-eyed. Everyone and everything else had fallen away except André in Grace's eyes.

Maggie couldn't help but think how dangerous it was to give someone that kind of power over you.

It was dark now but the street lamps and the constant stream of people—mostly tourists—kept Maggie company. With the sun dropping, however, she'd had to peel off her sweatshirt to add it to Mila's blanket, and by the time she made it to Delphine's building Maggie was shaking with the cold.

As she wedged the stroller into the tiny elevator and groped for the floor button, she marveled at the fact that she'd never seen any of Delphine's neighbors since the day of the murder.

The elevator climbed laboriously to the fifth floor where Maggie raked open the antique accordion door. The elevator had been so noisy in its ascent that Maggie hadn't heard the commotion that assailed her now as she stepped off the elevator and into the hall.

A man was screaming.

Maggie stopped, her hands gripping the stroller handle as if it would snap off in her hands.

She saw him standing in Delphine's open door. He was dark headed and tall. When he turned and saw Maggie, his lips twisted into a snarl.

Maggie stared at him in disbelief.

It was Gerard Dernier.

M
aggie's heart
raced as she pulled the stroller behind her. It had been so long since she'd seen Gerard, she nearly didn't recognize him. The venom and revulsion etched in his face when he looked at her brought the memories back to her in a nauseating rush.

“What do you want here?” she asked, her voice firm.

“Maggie?” Delphine called shakily from inside the apartment. “Is that you?”

“Are you all right, Delphine?” Maggie called. “Why are you here?” she said to Gerard. She noticed his eyes had gone to her stroller and then back to her. He smelled of dried sweat and urine. His clothes were disheveled as if he'd slept in them and his eyes were half-lidded and groggy.

“I do not need to say to you why I visit my own aunt!” he said loudly.

Mila began to cry at the sound of his voice.

“How dare you come here and create a scene?” Maggie said, feeling her anger overpower her fear. “Get out right now! Go on, go!”

Delphine peered around the doorjamb of her apartment, her eyes were wide with fright, her face bone-white.

“Do you hear me?” Maggie said, raising her voice and wondering if she could count on the neighbors if she needed them. She pulled out her phone and waved it at him. “You have five seconds to get out before I call the cops.”

Gerard looked at her as if he didn't understand. His eyes went to her phone and back again to Mila who was now howling, her cries reverberating off the tiled walls of the hallway.

“Three seconds!” Maggie shouted over Mila's wailing.

Gerard looked back at Delphine and then plunged into the hallway, pushing past Maggie.

“You remember what I said,” he bellowed over his shoulder as he jabbed at the buttons. “You owe it to my mother, you ungrateful cow! You know you do!”

“
One
second!” Maggie shouted.

Gerard wheeled from the elevator door and stumbled down the staircase. Maggie listened to the sound of his feet pounding all the way down—rivaling the pounding of her heart. She turned and unbuckled Mila from her stroller and scooped her up, leaving the stroller in the hallway.

“Are you all right?” she asked Delphine breathlessly as she entered the apartment.

Delphine clutched the door but she nodded. Maggie listened until she thought she heard the heavy front door in the lobby slam shut.

“He's gone,” she said.

“I am so sorry, Maggie,” Delphine said as she released the door and let Maggie close it.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Maggie said. She put a hand on Delphine's arm to propel her toward the living room. She jostled Mila, who was still whimpering but no longer crying. “Let me get Mila sorted out with a new diaper and I'll be right in, okay?”

Delphine went to the living room sofa and sat down wearily.

Maggie took Mila into her bedroom and changed her and put her sleeper pajamas on her. Although she had alternately been nursing and bottle feeding Mila up until her Paris trip, she realized she was relying more and more on giving her formula. Tonight would be no exception.

She went into the living room where Delphine was seated, staring at her hands in her lap.

“Take the baby?” Maggie asked, holding Mila out to her.

Delphine looked up, her face brightening, and she nodded. She took the child.

“I'll get her bottle made up and fetch our dinner from the hallway,” Maggie said. “And then you can tell me all about it.”

She felt her phone vibrating in the pocket of her jeans and pulled it out to glance at the screen. It was Laurent. Maggie hesitated for a second and then pushed the button to send the call to voicemail.

A
n hour later
, Mila was asleep on the sofa next to Delphine. Maggie had created a picnic of Indian food on the coffee table and opened a bottle of Pinot Noir.

If there was ever a time for a drink
…

“How long had you been giving him money?” she asked.

Delphine shook her head. “Forever,” she said.

“Why? There'll never be an end to it.”

“Oh, I know.”

“I can't believe how he was shouting at you like that. Does he come here much?”

“No, not often. And never like that. Shouting and angry. I feel so bad.”

Maggie noticed Delphine had eaten little of her dinner.

“Well, you shouldn't. Gerard is a low-life scum ball at the best of times. But to come here and bully you…” Maggie shook her head and tried not to remember the Gerard she'd known years ago in Atlanta. The one who'd hurt her sister and lost their child one sultry night in the south of France.

“You know him?” Delphine asked, looking up from her hands for the first time since Mila fell asleep.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Maggie said. “He was…once with my sister. They had a child together.”

Delphine sucked in a quick breath and Maggie put a hand out to steady her. She probably shouldn't have told her that. The Nicole who lived in Atlanta as Elise's daughter was no blood relation to anyone they knew. If Maggie told Delphine the truth, that the real Nicole died before she was four years old…well, there was no point in that.

“There is a child?”

“Yes,” Maggie said, reluctantly. “A girl. She lives in Atlanta with my parents.”

“What is her name?” Delphine spoke dreamily as if she could somehow envision the child.

“Nicole. Margaret Nicole.”

Delphine looked at Maggie. “Named after you?”

“So it would seem.”

“And your sister? Why does the little girl not live with her?”

“Elise died,” Maggie said, her face flushing at the thought of Elise…and of Gerard and all that he'd done to her before she died.

“I am sorry.”

“Can you tell me what happened to Gerard? Was he like that as a child? Or did something happen to turn him like that?”

Delphine folded her unused napkin in her lap and reached for her wine. “I do not know.”

“Why didn't he and Laurent live with their parents?”

Delphine shrugged. “Money, I believe.”

Maggie struggled to keep her face impassive.
No mother just hands over her children, I don't care how broke she is.

“Jacqueline and Marc had two sons,” Delphine said.

Maggie nodded. “Robert and Nicolas.”

“
Oui
. Nicolas never married but Robert found his Suzanne.”

That was Laurent's mother
. Maggie felt her excitement grow.

“What was she like?”

“I didn't know her well. I'm sorry.”

“What happened to her and Robert?”

“What ever happens? Robert drank too much. He couldn't keep a job. He depended on Jacqueline and Marc for support. The more he drank, the more he needed them, the more he resented them.”

That's an old story,
Maggie thought.
But it rings true.

“Laurent never talks of his father. Or his mother.”

“Suzanne died of cancer when he was seven years old.”

“Oh.” Maggie's heart squeezed at the thought of Laurent at seven and motherless. She put a hand to her mouth and felt a lump develop in her throat.

“Gerard was barely four years old. Robert couldn't care for them,” Delphine said. “Jacqueline was forced to take them both.”

“I see.”

“They were both wild horrible boys. Years later, as poor Jacqueline lay dying, she knew that Gerard was in prison and that Laurent was swindling rich tourists in the south of France. A liar for a living.”

“He's not like that now.”

“But he was like that then. He and Gerard broke her heart.”

Maggie silently cleared away the dinner cartons. She checked her phone but Laurent hadn't tried to call again. She poured the last of the wine into their glasses and sat back down with Delphine.

“Victor came by while you were gone,” Delphine said.

“Oh. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to meet him.”

“He is still so upset about Isla's death, he's insisting on putting new locks on the door and a video camera in the hallway.”

“Sounds like he cares for you very much.”

Delphine laughed without mirth. “People like Victor, if they can't have what they want try to control other areas. It helps assuage the helplessness.”

“I can see that.”

“My sister had regrets,” Delphine said suddenly. “As we all do. She was angry with Laurent and Gerard, but she blamed herself.”

“I don't know anyone without regrets,” Maggie said.

“Do you believe that some wrong things can never be put right again?”

“I guess so.”

“When I told you about Camille,” Delphine said as she reached for her wine, “I neglected to mention something.”

Maggie's heart ached to see how sad Delphine looked. She hated to think she was the one to remind Delphine of that terrible time.

“What was that?” Maggie asked.

“Camille had a daughter.” Delphine looked at Maggie. “Six years old when her mother died.”

“What happened to her?”

“I…I heard she was adopted by a family here in Paris.”

“What about Camille's family?”

Delphine shook her head. “They were so ashamed. They wanted nothing to do with the child.”

“Jeez. That's unbelievable.”

“I heard a rumor once that the family moved south with her. But nothing after that.”

Maggie reached out and took Delphine's hand. The old woman looked surprised at Maggie's gesture. Then the lines in her face softened and she smiled.

“I know it's hard to believe by looking at me now but when I was young, I was beautiful.”

“I believe it. I saw the pictures.”

Delphine gazed out the darkened window in the salon. “It will seem ludicrous to you, I know, but in my mind, I am still that young girl—slim and coquettish.”

Mila whimpered and turned on her side. Delphine put a hand on the baby's back and a smile came over her face and spread to her eyes. Delphine's eyes lifted to the window again as if seeing a visage there of another time when she was a young girl waiting for life to happen.

“When the Germans came,” she said, “so proud and confident, how could anyone blame a young girl for falling in love?”

“That must have been an unpopular point of view,” Maggie said.

Delphine's eyes widened as if snapping out of a dream and in a flash, she glanced behind Maggie toward the hallway before looking away again.

“I was just a girl. I did not voice my thoughts.”

“Did you know Camille was carrying on with the German?”

Delphine finished off her wine and stood up, her hand on her back as if to ease a sore muscle.

“I must go to bed now,
chérie
,” she said. “Gerard's visit has exhausted me.”

“Of course. Can I help you?” Maggie stood up with Mila. The baby slept soundly in her arms.

Delphine touched the peach soft cheek of the child and smiled.

“I cannot tell you how much you have already helped me.”

A
fter Maggie put
Mila down in the makeshift crib in the guest room and tidied up the kitchen, she stood in the living room and listened to the creaking sounds of the old building. It was too dark outside to see the trees or even the ribbon of river that was visible by day from the window.

She texted Laurent. <
Sorry I missed your call. All is well here. Talk to you tomorrow? Love you. Kiss Jemmy 4 me
.>

She looked back out the window.
So there was a child
. Camille was gone but she'd left a child behind. A child who would be in her late seventies by now.

As Maggie looked out the window, she felt her conviction grow. There was a reason she was here with Delphine and now she knew what it was.

She needed to find Camille's daughter. She needed to find her and to help give Delphine the peace she'd been searching for all her life.