Murder à la Carte Read Free Page A

he liked it with the woman on top. I just said we were his new neighbors.”
    “For a Frenchman,” Laurent said, smiling, “it is often the same thing.”
    “Oh, very funny. Hey, look! Is that a driveway?”
    Laurent slowed for a copse of trees that hid a sharp turn in the road as well as a gently sloping driveway. An old sign, the faded letters of which were nearly obscured by time and the crowding olive trees, read Domaine Alexandre . Maggie felt a chill run through her as Laurent turned down the tree-lined drive. It looked like an entranceway to a grand country estate. When the house finally appeared from over a slight rise in the road, it was no massive château or vainglorious estate. The dramatic entranceway led to a simple farmhouse, a mas , of rough fieldstone and wood, draped in verdant cascades of ivy.
    Large black poodles ran out from under the bushes near the house and bounded up to the car, barking loudly. Laurent drove to the front door the only massive thing about the otherwise unimpressive little house and shut off the engine. Within moments, the dogs were herded off by a slight man wielding a tremendous stick. 
    “ Allez! Allez!” he yelled, waving his stick precariously close to their windshield. He turned abruptly and examined the car and its passengers.
    His face was weatherworn and reddened from years in the Provençal sun. He wore clean, dark trousers, a white shirt, a dark blue tie and a cloth cap on the back of his head. He held the remainder of a cheroot clamped between a set of crooked, yellow teeth. Maggie guessed his age at about sixty. His face looked older, but his lithe, spare body moved with the ease of a younger man.
    “Monsieur Alexandre?” Laurent began to open his car door.
    “ Bien sûr!” the older man called, nodding his head vigorously and, still wagging his stick, gestured for Laurent to remain in the car. Quickly, he jerked open the door to the back seat and settled himself inside. He patted the back of Laurent’s shoulder and smiled a large gappy grin at Maggie.
    “Conduirez-vous,” he said to Laurent. Drive .
    Jean-Luc directed them to a small country restaurant about five miles from his farm. Maggie, seeing her chance for a better breakfast, was pleased, and even Laurent, with all his impatience, seemed not to mind too much.
    On entering the restaurant, Jean-Luc led them to a large table in the back. The restaurant’s owners regarded them suspiciously but warmed up when Jean-Luc ordered four bottles of wine―two whites, a red and a rosé . Maggie noticed that the wine labels were hand-written and difficult to read.
    Jean-Luc poured their glasses and held his own up as if to indicate he would make a toast. He did not. They drank their wine solemnly and then Jean-Luc and Laurent began to talk in fast, low-rumbling French. Their words were unintelligible to Maggie. Jean-Luc gestured with much animation as he spoke, his sentences punctuated often with “Zut!” and “Ach!” and once even a soft “ putain,” before looking in Maggie’s direction and smiling apologetically. Maggie watched the recalcitrant restaurant owners as they brought plate after plate of food to the table. A large crock of pâté was deposited in front of Maggie, followed by a steaming loaf of bread, a couple of spit-roasted pheasants (golden-brown and fragrant with rosemary), a chafing dish with white fish, redolent in the garlicky aîoli sauce of the area. There followed a puffball of pastry, braided and baked to perfection, a large salad of greens glistening with olive oil and liberally sprinkled with basil, parsley, tarragon, oregano, chives and wild thyme, and, finally, little raviolis stuffed with a creamy, sharp cheese. It wasn’t yet ten-thirty in the morning.
    Maggie watched as Laurent finished off his third glass of rosé and allowed his new friend to pour him a glass of the headier red. Before she had time to give him a nudge under the table, they were joined by a couple whom