Free Murder in Nice by Susan Kiernan-Lewis Page B

Did you,
Ben?”
    “ How would I know? I barely
remember what the woman looked like, for crap’s sake,” he
snarled.
    “ Well, you know Lanie,” Haley said to Maggie.
“If she were there,
we would’ve known.” She turned to Grace. “Lanie wasn’t the shy type
even back in high school.”
    “ Those are usually the most
fun types,” Grace said.
    “ I’m afraid Lanie didn’t
have a very fun high school experience,” Haley said sadly.
“Wouldn’t you agree, Maggie?”
    Maggie squirmed. The embarrassing fact was
that right after she and Lanie parted ways, Maggie had become
obsessed with a new student named Jeremy (or was it Joshua?) who
had absorbed the whole of her concentration until he graduated—the
year before her—and left her briefly heartbroken. She simply hadn’t
thought much about Lanie that year.
    “ I guess so,” she said. “I
know Annie said the two of them were going through a lot because of
Annie’s divorce.” She decided not to mention Annie’s
drinking.
    “ Oh, Laurent,” Haley said.
“What is it that smells so heavenly?”
    Laurent emerged from the kitchen and set
down a large, heavy casserole on a platter stacked high with
thick-sliced homemade toast.
    “ Oh, it’s brandade ,” Grace said.
“And Laurent’s is killer. Did you double-dose it with
garlic?”
    Laurent rolled his eyes as
if to imply, what else? The table laughed.
    “ Yeah, I hope you’re not
sensitive to garlic,” Maggie said, picking up one of the pieces of
toast. “Laurent brought on early labor for a friend of ours after
she ate his bourride .” Maggie used a spoon to dip into the steaming casserole and
settled a large dollop on top of her toast, which she held
carefully over her plate.
    “ What in the world is it?”
Haley asked, reaching for a piece of toast. “It smells like…like
the best thing I’ve ever smelled in my life.”
    “ Wait until you taste it,”
Grace said. “It’s salt cod, right, Laurent?”
    Haley’s hand froze over the dish. “Fish?
This is fish?”
    “ Well,” Maggie said, “it’s
fish pulverized with olive oil and potatoes and artichokes and
about a ton of garlic. We normally only have it in winter and,
believe me, you can weed half a hectare after lunching on
this.”
    Haley nibbled on her toast and eyed the
casserole unhappily.
    “ What’s the matter, dear?”
Grace said.
    “ She doesn’t eat fish,” Ben
said, scooping up a large serving onto his plate. “I don’t suppose
you have any chicken tenders for her?”
    “ Ben, stop it,” Haley said
under her breath, her gaze dropping to her lap.
    Maggie knew Laurent’s policy on picky eaters
and she knew he would be pretty seriously disgusted by Haley’s
inability to behave as he felt a guest ought to. Even so, she also
knew he had strong views on how a host should behave, which is why
she wasn’t surprised to see him remove Haley’s plate and retreat to
the kitchen.
    “ There is leftover pizza
from lunch,” he said over his shoulder.
    “ You are an embarrassment
to me,” Ben said between his teeth.
    “ Oh, settle down, Ben,”
Maggie said, smiling encouragingly to Haley. “It’s no big
deal.”
    Grace helped herself to
the brandade and
passed the breadbasket to Haley. “Fresh from the boulangerie two villages
over,” she said brightly.
    “ Thanks,” Haley said
softly, taking the basket.
    Ben ate his brandade, ignoring Haley’s
discomfort.
    This was going to be a long visit.
    “ So, Maggie,” Grace said,
“how was Annie? Is she going to be okay, do you think?”
    Maggie waited until Laurent
placed a plate with two pieces of pissaladière in front of Haley. She
noted that Haley didn’t look much happier with the pizza than she
had the fish.
    “ Well, she’s pretty
devastated, obviously. I don’t know what kind of support system she
has back home, but she does have a parish and I think she mentioned
she’s active in it.”
    “ That’s good,” Grace
said.
    “ She asked me to look into
the