Murder in Aix (The Maggie Newberry Mystery Series Book 5) by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Page B

circumstances.”
    “It is true,”
Lily said, nodding but now seeming to talk to no one in particular. “Florrie
was always the one good with money. I’m afraid Jacques wouldn’t have known what
to do with it.”
    Okay, so that made absolutely no sense at all.
    With that, Lily
turned to Annette, who began to help the woman out of her chair. Maggie didn’t
waste her opportunity to escape. She saw Danielle standing in the now dismissed
and disintegrating receiving line with little Zou-zou in her arms. Her mouth
was open in shock as Maggie motioned her to the door.
          

 
     
     
    Chapter
Eight
     
    Laurent’s
vineyard was as neat and tidy as a hausfrau’s linen closet. Every row was
weeded, every mound raked, every graceful green bough of grapes draped and
staked as meticulously as a careful line of stitches in the earth. Maggie
wasn’t surprised that Laurent gardened they way he cooked—with organized
fervor. Their kitchen rarely had a spoon or sauce pan out of place. As she
stood with him at the furthest point from the house at the north side of his
vineyard, she had to smile when she thought of how his lovemaking, impulsive
and passionate, was nothing like his gardening.
    “You think this
is funny?”
    She sobered up
and shoved her hands in her pockets, squinting down at the carefully raked
ground in front of her as if in studious concentration. She had been careful to
put on a long sleeve sweater to cover the scratch marks she’d received at
Jacques’s wake, but had no real hope that Laurent didn’t know everything that
had happened today. Somehow, he always did.
    “Not at all,” she
said. “I am taking it very seriously.”
    Laurent stood
next to her, his long hair thick and wild around his face, the stiff breeze
pushing it without restraint. He looked a little wild himself, she thought. His
eyes were flashing, and while they constantly surveyed his grapes and fields,
she didn’t mistake for a moment that his thoughts were anywhere but solidly on
her.
    “Have you seen
Grace today?” she asked.
    “I brought a tray
up to her at midday.”
    “Did you speak?”
    “She was
sleeping. I left the tray.”
    “We had words,”
Maggie said. “Before I left with Danielle. I know Grace is upset. I’m afraid I
made her more upset.”
    As soon as she
mentioned leaving with Danielle, she knew she had made a tactical error. The last thing she wanted to do was remind
Laurent that she’d had a drink flung in her face and a crazy woman launch
herself at her. At a condolences call. While eight months pregnant.
    Laurent sighed heavily.
“We must come to an understanding, Maggie,” he said to her, still not looking
at her. “Very little do I deny you, I think, yes?”
    She sighed herself
instead of answering him.
    “But this I must.
You are to stop working on this investigation unless I am with you.”
    “Laurent, we’ve
talked about this before—”
    “ Oui! And always the answer is the same.”
    “So I’d think
you’d get tired of asking the same question.”
    “I am not asking
any questions, Maggie. I am your husband. Am I not?”
    “That is
irrelevant to my working on this case.”
    He made a Gallic
snorting sound that she had heard before. Usually it was over the incompetence
of some groundsman or shopkeeper and it annoyed her to hear it used for her.
    “If I cannot
demand of you to do as I say for your own sake—and certainly not because
you respect your husband’s wishes—then I must demand that you stop bringing
valuable items of mine along with you. Items that may become damaged or lost.”
    “Oh, for heaven’s
sake, Laurent. Are you talking about the baby? Because obviously I can’t leave
the baby behind.”
    “Exactement.”
    “Okay, nice try.
You should’ve gone into law or something. We are at a stalemate, dearest. Est-ce que tu comprends stalemate ?”
    “I thought we had
seen the last of these arguments over your sleuthing ,
Maggie.” He said the word as if it had a bad