Death in the Vines: A Verlaque and Bonnet Provençal Mystery Read Free Page B

Martin’s stall, but her smile faded when she saw the queue.
So…other Aixoises are catching on to Martin’s excellent produce,
she thought. She’d have to wait in line, and lunch would now be at least fifteen minutes late. But if she worked quickly when she got home, and did not stop to have a tea, lunch might be on time. She took one of Martin’s plastic bowls, which was sitting on top of a small mountain of red-skinned potatoes, and began selecting vegetables for the pot-au-feu that she would make this afternoon for the evening’s dinner: turnips, carrots, potatoes, leeks, onions, and garlic. The beef she would buy at the Boucherie du Palais—
Another queue, no doubt
. She and Gilles would have pork chops and green beans for lunch—that was quick and easy, and Gilles loved them. “So do you, don’t you, Coco baby?” she cried, looking down at her dog.
    She looked up, startled, when she realized that someone was speaking to her.
    â€œMadame,” Martin said, smiling, but his eyes could not hide his worry.
    Mme d’Arras composed herself and smiled at Martin.
What lovely big hands he has,
she thought,
but rather dirty
.
I wonder how long he has been calling my name?
She remembered that she had been talking to Coco, but for how long? She handed Martin her bowl of vegetables. “
Voilà,
” she said.
    â€œLooks like a pot-au-feu this evening?” Martin asked.
    â€œIndeed,” she replied. “A delicious dinner, and economical…well, except for the beef.” She looked over at the Boucherie du Palais, hoping to get a glimpse at how long the queue was, but she could not see inside the shop. A good sign, perhaps: it meant that the line wasn’t out the door, as it was on Saturdays.
    Martin carefully weighed the vegetables: he knew that Mme d’Arras watched the scales like a hawk. He looked at her perfectly coiffed blond hair and designer eyeglasses: she was one of those Aixoises whose age was indeterminable, somewhere between sixty and seventy-five. Mme d’Arras was a tough old girl, but he liked her. She had been one of his first customers, when he was the only organic seller in the market. He had waited for years to get the okay from the town hall to have a stand, and the down payment had nearly killed him, but now the stand was paying for itself, especially on Saturdays. He usually sold out of his produce by noon.
    Madame began speaking to another woman in the queue: they were both making a pot-au-feu that evening and were comparing recipes. Whether or not the two women knew each other was beyond Martin’s knowledge; Aix was where he worked and sold the best, but compared with the hamlet he lived in, north of Manosque, this was very foreign—wealthy, privileged—territory. He never knew if Mme d’Arras was genuinely curious, and that’s why she was always turning around to chat with someone, or if she was just a busybody. He decided that her curiosity was probably self-centered, and self-serving, but he was worried about her all the same: she was able to get around and do her shopping, and could obviously remember recipes, but she seemed more and more absentminded these past few weeks—she didn’t hear him when he spoke to her, and her eyes looked glazed over, almost yellow.
    â€œThere you go, Mme d’Arras. That will be seven euros and thirteen centimes, please.” He put a handful of parsley into her basket as well, free of charge.
    Mme d’Arras carefully took out her Hermès change purse, a gift from her nephew, and slowly counted the money.
    Martin smiled and thanked her, and she carried her basket back through the crowd of buyers and sellers, stopping to admire the sunflowers that a farmer was selling. She decided not to buyany, because she was already overloaded with the vegetables—potatoes and onions were heavy—and she continued on to the Boucherie du Palais. Inside the long, narrow