Provence - To Die For by Jessica Fletcher Read Free Book Online Page A

planes and trains and cars behind me so I could begin my “vacation.” You’d think that someone who traveled quite a bit for business would just as soon stay put when the opportunity arose. But my natural curiosity about other cultures, and the opportunity to live in a foreign country—even for so short a time as two months—was an exciting prospect. Combined with ample time to walk and read and cook and sharpen my French skills, away from the hustle-bustle of small-town Maine life and the technological intrusions I’d allowed to take up residence in my home, this was going to be a wonderful new experience. Chef Bertrand had said Provence was marvelous all the time, and I believed him. I would not be deterred by a little rain or cold. After all, Cabot Cove was probably wetter and colder, and I fared very well there.
    I walked across the concrete patio that led to an entrance flanked by a pair of empty urns. Faint stem prints from long-removed vines had left a delicate tracery on the wall around the door. Martine had sent me a key. I inserted it into the keyhole and followed her written instructions on how to jiggle it in the lock. The lock cooperated and the door swung inward with a soft groan. I pulled my suitcase into the house behind me and turned on a light. Yesterday’s rain in Avignon had skipped St. Marc—if the state of the dusty drive was any indication—but the solid bank of dark clouds in the sky above Martine’s house promised wet weather to come, and permitted only a pale light to pass through the windows. I parked my suitcase next to the door, threw my coat and handbag over the back of a chair, and took in my new accommodations.
    The downstairs of the farmhouse consisted of a single long space. The kitchen stood to the right of the front door and the living room to its left, separated only by a deep beam that seemed to indicate where one room stopped and the other began. The low ceiling was made up of alternating stripes of wooden beams with some kind of mud or stucco filling the gaps between them. The walls were painted a light mustard, the perfect backdrop for Martine’s large, colorful canvases, which filled most of the wall space that wasn’t occupied by the fireplace or windows. The floor was an expanse of dark square tiles, although in the living room they had been covered with a profusion of colorful rugs, Oriental, shag, and broad-loom. Facing sofas on either side of a massive stone hearth were covered in the same small blue-and-yellow-print fabric and strewn with an assortment of pillows, no two alike. None of it matched but somehow it all worked together. The artist’s eye, I thought. What other decorating surprises did Martine have in store for me?
    A flight of wooden stairs off the kitchen gave access to the second floor, which was a mirror of the first except for the steeply sloping ceilings. The same dark tiles ran from one end of the room to the other. Martine had covered the walls with smaller paintings here; most appeared to be hers, but there was a smattering of work by other artists as well. The upstairs consisted of two small bedrooms, each. with a double bed under a pile of quilts; a good-sized bathroom stood between them. The first room was obviously Martine’s; I took the other down the hall. I turned on the bedside lamp and nearly tripped over the duffel bag I’d sent ahead. It had arrived—thank goodness—and someone had lugged it upstairs for me. I hoped it hadn’t been Martine. I could barely lift the thing, and she was a small woman.
    I hung up my suit jacket in the empty wardrobe and went downstairs to find the key to the duffel. At the base of the stairs, next to the back door, were a series of hooks about eye level that I hadn’t noticed on my way up. Hanging from one was what we used to call a “barn jacket” in my youth. I had a similar boxy, flannel-lined jacket pegged up by my kitchen door at home, and had left it there for Martine. Apparently she’d done