Murder on the Ile Sordou by M. L. Longworth Read Free Book Online Page A

name came from my family’s flour business.”
    â€œ
Bien sûr
,” Sylvie replied. “Here comes the waitress,” she said. “No laughing this time!”
    Verlaque ordered the wines, and Marie-Thérèse took the wine list from him, almost dropped it, and left.
    â€œHow’s dessert?” Verlaque said to the Hobbses, leaning back in his chair.
    â€œWonderful!” Bill Hobbs yelled.
    â€œThe cookies have lavender in them,” Shirley Hobbs added. She held one up.
    â€œExcellent!” Verlaque said, turning back to Marine and Sylvie.
    â€œThey’re very enthusiastic,” Marine said.
    â€œYes, not at all affected,” Verlaque agreed. “My poor friend Clément isn’t having as much fun as our Americans.” He glanced around the room. “Nor is the movie star-slash-dog-food-salesman.”
    â€œSee, you’re just as curious as us,” Sylvie said.
    â€œAs
you
,” Verlaque replied. “Marine could care less.”
    Marine sighed. She hated when Antoine put her on a pedestal, or when he assumed what she was thinking. The maddening thing was, he was usually right.
    Marie-Thérèse came back, holding a bottle of white wine in her hand. She bit her lip and tried to remember her lesson with Émile and Serge; she could have killed Serge right now. She had looked for him at his post in the bar, as he usually opened the wines, but he was nowhere to be seen. She had rushed into the kitchen and Émile had calmed her down, and told her to open the wine herself. They had practiced it numerous times. “Pour a little, then taste,” Émile repeated twice.
    She tilted the bottle gently toward
him
—Chubby Man, she’d already named him in her head—and showed him the label. Both Émile and Serge had warned her that it could be the woman who chose the wine, but Marie-Thérèse knew that in this case it was definitely the man deciding. He looked at the label, and nodded, smiling up at her, and she took the bottle by its neck and cut off the lead wrapper. She slipped the piece of foil in her apron and then slowly twisted the screw into the cork, pleased that it was going in straight, and easily. Pulling up on the corkscrew, the cork came slowly out, letting off a tiny “pop” sound, and Marie-Thérèse almost cried tears of relief.
    She poised the bottle over the monsieur’s wineglass, from a set of glasses that Marie-Thérèse had been warned were handblown in Austria and were the world’s best. Serge had joked that they were also so fragile they could break if you looked at them the wrong way. She knew he hated them, and she did too. Shaking, she began to pour a little white wine into Chubby Man’s glass, and just then she looked up and saw her boss, M. Le Bon, come into the dining room. She was sure that Émile was watching her too, through those little round windows that looked like mirrors. And then her head went all fuzzy. Her face was hot, and red, as she strained to remember the next step. And then she had it; Émile’s kind voice in her head, saying, “We pour a small bit in the glass, and then we taste.” Marie-Thérèse silently repeated the phrase as she finished pouring. And, before Antoine Verlaque had time to reach out for his glass, Marie-Thérèse had grabbed it and lifted it to her mouth and tasted the Cagliari. “It’s good!” she said, putting his empty glass down with a confident thump.

Chapter Five

    Stranger Than Fiction
    M axime Le Bon froze in his tracks. Émile Villey, taking advantage of a small pause between cooking lamb chops and sea bream, had indeed been looking out the
hublot
onto the dining room. He held his head in his hands and went back to the stove. Taking a juice glass off of a shelf, he poured it half full with a good cognac he used for cooking and downed it in one sip.
    Antoine Verlaque was, for one of the first times in