A Trick of the Light

FIFTEEN

Clara came down to breakfast. The place smelled of coffee and toasted English muffins.

When Clara had woken up, surprised she’d even fallen asleep, the bed was empty. It had taken her a moment to remember what had happened the night before.

Their fight.

How close she’d come to getting dressed and leaving him. Taking the car, driving to Montréal. Checking into a cheap hotel.

And then?

And then, something. The rest of her life, she supposed. She hadn’t cared.

But then Peter had finally told her the truth.

They’d talked into the night, and fallen asleep. Not touching, not yet. They were both too bruised for that. It was as though they’d been skinned and dissected. Deboned. Their innards brought out. Examined. And found to be rotten.

They didn’t have a marriage, they had a parody of a partnership.

But they’d also found that maybe, maybe, they could put themselves together again.

It would be different. Would it be better?

Clara didn’t know.

“Morning,” said Peter when she appeared, her hair sticking up on one side, a crust of sleep on her face.

“Morning,” she said.

He poured her a mug of coffee.

Once Clara had fallen asleep, and he’d heard the heavy breathing and a snort, he’d gone down to the living room. He found the newspaper. He found the glossy catalog for her show.

And he’d sat there all night. Memorizing the New York Times review. Memorizing the London Times review. So that he knew them by heart.

So that he too would have a choice of what to believe.

And then he’d stared at the reproductions of her paintings in the catalog.

They were brilliant. But then he already knew that. In the past, though, he’d looked at her portraits and seen flaws. Real or imagined. A brush stroke slightly off. The hands that could have been better. He’d deliberately concentrated on the minutiae so that he wouldn’t have to see the whole.

Now he looked at the whole.

To say he was happy about it would be a lie, and Peter Morrow was determined not to lie anymore. Not to himself. Not to Clara.

The truth was, it still hurt to see such talent. But for the first time since he’d met Clara he was no longer looking for the flaws.

But there was something else he’d struggled with all night. He’d told her everything. Every stinking thing he’d done and thought. So she’d know it all. So there was nothing hidden, to surprise either of them.

Except one thing.

Lillian. And what he’d said to her at the student art show so many years ago. The number of words he could count on his fingers. But each had been a bullet. And each had hit its target. Clara.

“Thanks,” said Clara, accepting the mug of rich, strong coffee. “Smells good.”

She too was determined not to lie, not to pretend everything was fine in the hope that fantasy might become reality. The truth was, the coffee did smell good. That at least was safe to say.

Peter sat down, screwing up his courage to tell her about what he’d done. He took a breath, closed his eyes briefly, then opened his mouth to speak.

“They’re back early.” Clara nodded out the window, where she’d been staring.

Peter watched as a Volvo pulled up and parked. Chief Inspector Gamache and Jean Guy Beauvoir got out and walked toward the bistro.

He closed his mouth and stepped back, deciding now wasn’t the time after all.

Clara smiled as she watched the two men out the window. It amused her that Inspector Beauvoir no longer locked their car. When they’d first come to Three Pines, to investigate Jane’s murder, the officers had made sure the car was always locked. But now, several years later, they didn’t bother.

They knew, she presumed, that people in Three Pines might occasionally take a life, but not a car.

Clara looked at the kitchen clock. Almost eight. “They must’ve left Montréal just after six.”

“Uh-huh,” said Peter, watching Gamache and Beauvoir disappear into the bistro. Then he looked down at Clara’s hands. One held the mug, but the other rested on the old pine table, a loose fist.

Did he dare?

He reached out and very slowly, so as not to surprise or frighten her, he placed his large hand on hers. Cupping her fist in his palm. Making it safe there, in the little home his hand created.

And she let him.

It was enough, he told himself.

No need to tell her the rest. No need to upset her.

“I’ll have,” said Beauvoir slowly, staring at the menu. He had no appetite, but he knew he had to order something. There were blueberry pancakes, crêpes, eggs Benedict, bacon and sausages and fresh, warm croissants on the menu.

He’d been up since five. Had picked up the Chief at quarter to six. And now it was almost seven thirty. He waited for his hunger to kick in.

Chief Inspector Gamache lowered the menu and looked at the waiter. “While he’s trying to decide, I’ll have a bowl of café au lait and some blueberry pancakes with sausages.”

“Merci,” said the waiter, taking Gamache’s menu and looking at Beauvoir. “And you, monsieur?”

“It all looks so good,” said Beauvoir. “I’ll have the same thing as the Chief Inspector, thank you.”

“I thought for sure you’d have the eggs Benedict,” smiled Gamache, as the waiter left them. “I thought it was your favorite.”

“I made it for myself just yesterday,” said Beauvoir, and Gamache laughed. They both knew it was more likely he’d had a Super Slice for breakfast. In fact, just lately, Beauvoir had had just coffee and perhaps a bagel.

Through the window they could see Three Pines in the early morning sun. Not many were out yet. A few villagers walked dogs. A few sat on porches, sipping coffee and reading the morning paper. But most still slept.

“How’s Agent Lacoste doing, do you think?” the Chief Inspector asked once their cafés had arrived.

“Not bad. Did you speak with her last night? I asked her to run a few things by you.”

The two men sipped their coffees and compared notes.

Beauvoir looked at his watch as their breakfast arrived. “I asked her to meet us here at eight.” It was ten to, and he looked up to see Lacoste walking across the village green, a dossier in her hand.

“I like being a mentor,” said Beauvoir.

“You do it well,” said Gamache. “Of course, you had a good teacher. Benevolent, just. Yet firm.”

Beauvoir looked at the Chief Inspector with exaggerated puzzlement. “You? You mean you’ve been mentoring me all these years? That sure explains the need for therapy.”

Gamache looked down at his meal, and smiled.

Agent Lacoste joined them and ordered a cappuccino. “And a croissant, s’il vous plaît,” she called after the waiter. Then she placed her dossier on the table. “I read your report of the meeting last night, Chief, and did some digging.”

“Already?” asked Beauvoir.

“Well, I got up early and frankly I didn’t want to hang around the B and B with those artists.”

“Why not?” asked Gamache.

“I’m afraid I found them boring. I had dinner with Normand and Paulette last night, to see if I could get anything else out of them about Lillian Dyson but they seem to have lost interest.”

“What did you talk about?” asked Beauvoir.

“They spent most of dinner laughing about the Ottawa Star review of Clara’s show. They said it would put paid to her career.”

“But who cares what the Ottawa Star thinks?” asked Beauvoir.

“Ten years ago nobody, but now with the Internet it can be read around the world,” said Lacoste. “Insignificant opinions suddenly become significant. As Normand said, people only remember the bad reviews.”

“I wonder if that’s true,” said Gamache.

“Have you gotten anywhere tracing that review Lillian Dyson did?” asked Beauvoir.

“He’s a natural, producing art like it’s a bodily function?” Lacoste quoted, and wished it had been written about Normand or Paulette. Though, she thought for the first time, maybe it had. Maybe the “he” in the review was Normand. That might explain his bitterness, and his delight when someone else got a bad review.

Isabelle Lacoste shook her head. “No luck tracing that review. It was so long ago now, more than twenty years. I’ve sent an agent along to the archives at La Presse. We’ll have to go through the microfiche one at a time.”

“Bon.” Inspector Beauvoir nodded his approval.

Lacoste tore her warm and flaky croissant in half. “I looked into Lillian Dyson’s sponsor, as you asked, Chief,” she said, then took a bite of her croissant before putting it down and picking up the dossier. “Suzanne Coates, age sixty-two. She’s a waitress over at Nick’s on Greene Avenue. Do you know it?”

Beauvoir shook his head, but Gamache nodded. “A Westmount institution.”

“As is Suzanne, apparently. I called this morning before coming here. Spoke to one of the other waitresses. A Lorraine. She confirmed that Suzanne had worked there for twenty years. But she got a little cagey when I asked what her hours were. Finally this Lorraine admitted they all cover for each other when they pick up extra cash working private parties. Suzanne’s supposed to be on the lunch shift, but wasn’t in Saturday. She worked yesterday, though, as usual. Her shift starts at eleven.”

“By ‘working private parties,’ that doesn’t mean—?” asked Beauvoir.

“Prostitution?” asked Lacoste. “The woman’s sixty-two. Though she was in the profession years ago. Two arrests for prostitution and one for break and enter. This was back in the early eighties. She was also charged with theft.”

Both Gamache and Beauvoir raised their brows. Still, it was a long time ago and a long way from those crimes to murder.

“I also found her tax information. Her declared income last year was twenty-three thousand dollars. But she’s heavily in debt. Credit card. She has three of them, all maxed out. She seems to consider it not so much a credit limit as a goal. Like most people in debt she’s juggling creditors, but it’s all about to come crashing down.”

“Does she realize it?” Gamache asked.

“Hard not to, unless she’s completely delusional.”

“You haven’t met her,” said Beauvoir. “Delusional is one of her better qualities.”

André Castonguay could smell the coffee.

He lay in bed, on the comfortable mattress, under the 600-thread-count sheets and goose down duvet. And he wished he was dead.

He felt like he’d been dropped from a great height. And somehow survived, but was bruised and flattened. Reaching out a shaky hand for the glass of water he gulped down what was left. That felt better.

Slowly he sat up, letting himself adjust to each new position. Finally he stood and pulled the bathrobe around his soft body. Never again, he said as he trudged to the bathroom and stared at his reflection. Never again.

But he’d said that yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.

The Sûreté team spent the morning in the Incident Room, set up in the Canadian National Railway station. The low brick building, a century old, sat across the Rivière Bella Bella from Three Pines. The building was abandoned, the trains having simply stopped stopping there decades earlier. No explanation.

For a while the trains still chugged by, winding through the valley and between the mountains. And disappearing around a bend.

And then, one day, even they stopped. No twelve o’clock express. No three P.M. milk run into Vermont.

Nothing for the villagers to set their clocks by.

And so both the trains and time stopped in Three Pines.

The station sat empty until one day Ruth Zardo had a thought that didn’t include olives or ice cubes. The Three Pines Volunteer Fire Department would take over the space. And so, with Ruth in the vanguard, they’d descended on the lovely old brick building and made themselves at home.

As the homicide team did now. In one half of the open room sat firefighting equipment, axes, hoses, helmets. A truck. In the other half were desks, computers, printers, scanners. The walls held posters with fire safety tips, detailed maps of the region, photos of past winners of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, including Ruth, and several large boards with headings like: Suspects, Evidence, Victim, and Questions.

There were a lot of questions, and the team spent the morning trying to answer them. The detailed coroner’s report came in and Inspector Beauvoir handled that, as well as the forensic evidence. He was looking into how she died while Agent Lacoste tried to figure out how she’d lived. Her time in New York City, her marriage, any friends, any colleagues. What she did, what she thought. What others thought of her.

And Chief Inspector Gamache put them all together.

He started out at his desk, with a cup of coffee, reading all the reports from the day and night before. From that morning.

Then picking up the large blue book on his desk he went for a walk. Instinctively he made for the village, but paused on the stone bridge that arched over the river.

Ruth was sitting on the bench on the village green. Not doing much of anything, apparently, though the Chief Inspector knew differently. She was doing the most difficult thing in the world.

She was waiting and she was hoping.

As he watched she tilted her gray head to the skies. And listened. For a distant sound, like a train. Someone coming home. Then her head dropped back down.

How long, he wondered, would she wait? It was already almost mid-June. How many others, mothers and fathers, had sat right where Ruth was, waiting, hoping? Listening for the train. Wondering if it would stop and a familiar young man would step down, having been spewed back from places with pretty names, like Vimy Ridge or Flanders Fields or Passchendaele? By Dieppe and Arnhem.

How long did hope live?

Ruth tilted her head to the sky and listened again, for some far cry. And then she lowered it again.

An eternity, thought Gamache.

And if hope lasted forever, how long did hate last?

He turned around, not wanting to disturb her. But neither did he want to be disturbed. He needed quiet time, to read and think. And so he walked back, past the old railway station and down the dirt road, one of the spokes that radiated out from the village green. He’d taken a lot of walks around Three Pines but never down this particular road.

Huge maples lined the road, their branches meeting overhead. Their leaves almost blocking out the sun. But not quite. It filtered through and hit the dirt, and hit him and hit the book in his hand in soft dots of light.

Gamache found a large gray rock, an outcropping by the side of the road. Sitting down he put on his reading glasses, crossed his legs and opened the book.

An hour later he closed it and stared ahead. Then he got up and walked some more, further down the tunnel of shade and light. In the woods he could see dried leaves and tight little fiddlehead ferns and hear the scrambling of chipmunks and birds. He was aware of all that, though his mind was somewhere else.

Finally he stopped, turned around and walked back, his steps slow but deliberate.