Still Life

FIVE

With trembling hands, Agent Isabelle Lacoste reached into the plastic bag and carefully withdrew a lethal weapon. In her fingers, wet and numb with cold, she held an arrowhead. The other Surete officers around the room sat in silence, many squinting, trying to get a clear look at the tiny tip, designed to kill.

'We found it and others in the clubhouse,' she said, passing it around. She'd arrived early that morning, leaving her husband to look after the kids and driving through the rain and dark from Montreal. She liked her quiet time at the office, and today the office was a cold and silent former schoolhouse. Inspector Beauvoir had given her the key and as she let herself past the yellow police tape she pulled out her thermos of coffee, dropped her police bag with 'scene of crime' paraphernalia on the floor, switched on the light and looked around. The tongue-in-groove walls were covered with quivers hanging from what must once have been hooks for little coats. At the front of the room the blackboard still dominated, no doubt permanently attached to the wall. On it someone had drawn a target, an 'X' and an arc between the two with numbers written below. Agent Lacoste had done her homework on the Internet the night before and recognised this as a pretty basic archery lesson on wind, distance and trajectory. Still, she took out her camera and photographed it. Pouring herself a coffee, she sat down and drew the diagram in her notebook. She was a careful woman.

Then, before any of the other officers assigned to the search arrived, she did something only she knew about: she went back outside and in the strained light of the rainy morning she walked to the spot where Jane Neal had died. And she told Miss Neal that Chief Inspector Gamache would find out who had done this to her.

Agent Isabelle Lacoste believed in 'do unto others' and knew she'd want someone to do this for her.

She then returned to the unheated archery clubhouse. The other officers had arrived and together they searched the single room, fingerprinting, measuring, photographing, bagging. And then Lacoste, reaching into the back of a drawer in the only desk remaining in the room, had found them.

Gamache held it in the palm of his hand, as though holding a grenade. The arrowhead clearly meant for hunting. Four razors tapered to a fine tip. Now, finally, he could appreciate what had been said in the public meeting. This arrowhead seemed to yearn to cut through his palm. Hurtled from a bow with all the force thousands of years of need could produce, it would without a doubt pass straight through a person. It's a wonder guns were ever invented when you already had such a lethal and silent weapon.

Agent Lacoste wiped a soft towel through her dripping dark hair. She stood with her back to the lively fire perking in the stone fireplace, feeling warm for the first time in hours, and she smelt the homemade soup and bread and watched the deadly weapon progress around the room.

Clara and Myrna stood in line at the buffet table, balancing mugs of steaming French Canadian pea soup and plates with warm rolls from the boulangerie. Just ahead Nellie was piling food on to her plate.

'I'm getting enough for Wayne too,' Nellie explained unnecessarily. 'He's over there, poor guy.'

'I heard his cough,' said Myrna. 'A cold?'

'Don't know. It's gone to his chest. This is the first time I've been out of the house in days, I've been that worried. But Wayne cut Miss Neal's lawn and looked after odd jobs and he wanted to go to the meeting.' The two women watched as Nellie took her huge plate over to Wayne, who sat slouched and exhausted in a chair. She wiped his brow and then got him to his feet. The two of them left the Bistro, Nellie concerned and in charge, and Wayne docile and happy to be led. Clara hoped he'd be all right.

'What did you think of the meeting?' Clara asked Myrna as they edged along.

'I like him, Inspector Gamache.'

'Me too. But it's strange, Jane being killed by a hunting arrow.'

'Though if you think about it, it makes sense. It's hunting season, but I agree the old wooden arrow gave me the shivers. Very weird. Turkey?'

'Please. Brie?' asked Clara.

'Just a sliver. Perhaps a bigger sliver than that.'

'When does a sliver become a hunk?'

'If you're a hunk, size doesn't matter,' Myrna explained.

'I'll remember that next time I go to bed with a hunk of Stilton.'

'You'd cheat on Peter?'

'With food? I cheat on him everyday. I have a very special relationship with a gummy bear who shall remain nameless. Well, actually his name is Ramon. He completes me. Look at that.' Clara pointed to the floral arrangement on the buffe.

'I did that this morning,' said Myrna, happy that Clara had noticed. Clara noticed most things, Myrna realised, and had the wit to mostly mention just the good.

'I thought perhaps you had. Anything in it?'

'You'll see,' said Myrna, with a smile. Clara leaned into the arrangement of annual monarda, helenium and artist's acrylic paint brushes. Nestled inside was a package wrapped in brown waxed paper.

'It's sage and sweetgrass, ' said Clara back at the table, unwrapping the package. 'Does this mean what I think?'

'A ritual,' said Myrna.

'Oh, what a fine idea.' Clara reached over and touched Myrna's arm.

'From Jane's garden?' Ruth asked, inhaling the musky, unmistakable aroma of sage, and the honey-like fragrance of the sweetgrass.

'The sage, yes. Jane and I cut it in August. The sweet- grass I got from Henri a couple of weeks ago, when he cut back his hay. It was growing around Indian Rock.'

Ruth passed them to Ben who held them at arm's length.

'Oh, for God's sake, man, they won't hurt you.' Ruth snatched them up and whipped them back and forth under Ben's nose. 'As I recall, you were even invited to the Summer Solstice ritual.'

'Only as a human sacrifice,' said Ben.

'Come on, Ben, that's not fair,' said Myrna. 'We said that probably wouldn't be necessary.'

'It was fun,' said Gabri, swallowing a deviled egg. 'I wore the minister's frocks.' He lowered his voice and darted his eyes around, in case the minister should have actually.

'Best use they've been put to,' said Ruth.

'Thank you,' said Gabri.

'It wasn't meant as a compliment. Weren't you straight before the ritual?'

'As a matter of fact, yes.' Gabri turned to Ben. 'It worked. Magic. You should definitely go to the next one.'

'That's true,' said Olivier, standing behind Gabri and massaging his neck. 'Ruth, weren't you a woman before the ritual?'

'Weren't you?'

'And you say this', Gamache held the arrowhead up so the tip was pointing to the ceiling, 'was found in an unlocked drawer along with twelve others?' He examined the hunting tip with its four razor edges coming to an elegant and lethal point. It was a perfect, silent, killing device.

'Yes, sir,' said Lacoste. She'd firmly claimed the spot directly in front of the fire. From where she stood in the back room of the Bistro she could see out the French doors as rain, almost sleet, whipped against the glass. Her hands, now free of lethal weapons, cradled a mug of hot soup and a warm roll stuffed with ham, melting brie and a few leaves of arugula.

Gamache carefully placed the arrowhead on to Beauvoir's open palm. 'Can this be put on to the end of any arrow?'

'What do you have in mind?' Beauvoir asked the boss.

'Well, that clubhouse is full of target-shooting arrows, right?'

Lacoste nodded, her mouth full.

'With little stubby heads, like bullet tips?'

'Phreith,' Lacoste managed, nodding.

'Can those tips be removed and this put on?'

'Yes,' said Lacoste, swallowing hard.

'Forgive me.' Gamache smiled. 'But how do you know?'

'I read up on it on the Internet last night. The tips are made to be interchangeable. 'Course you have to know what you're doing or you'll cut your fingers to ribbons. But, yes, take one out, put the other in. That's the design.'

'Even the old wooden ones?'

'Yes. I suspect these hunting heads came originally from the old wooden arrows in the clubhouse. Someone took them off and replaced them with the target heads.'

Gamache nodded. Ben had told them that he'd picked up the old wooden arrows from families who were upgrading their hunting equipment. The arrows would have come originally with hunting heads and he'd have to replace them with the target ones.

'Good. Get them all to the lab.'

'Already on their way,' said Lacoste, taking a seat next to Nichol, who moved her chair slightly away.

'What time is our appointment with Notary Stickley about the will?' Gamache asked Nichol. Yvette Nichol knew very well it was at one-thirty, but saw an opportunity to prove she'd heard his little lecture that morning.

'I forget.'

'I'm sorry?'

Ha, she thought, he gets it. He'd given her one of the key statements in response. She quickly went through the other statements, the ones that lead to promotion. I forget, I'm sorry, I need help and what was the other one?

'I don't know.'

Now Chief Inspector Gamache was looking at her with open concern.

'I see. Did you happen to write it down?'

She considered trying out the last phrase but couldn't bring herself to say, 'I need help.' Instead she lowered her head and blushed, feeling she'd somehow been set up.

Gamache looked in his own notes. 'It's at one-thirty. With any luck we'll get into Miss Neal's home after we sort out the will.'

He had called his old friend and classmate Superintendent Brebeuf earlier. Michel Brebeuf had been promoted beyond Gamache, into a job they'd both applied for, but it hadn't affected their relationship. Gamache respected Brebeuf and liked him. The Superintendent had sympathised with Gamache, but couldn't promise anything.

'For God's sake, Armand, you know how it works. It was just stinking bad luck she actually found someone dense enough to sign the injunction. I doubt we'll find a judge willing to overturn a colleague.'

Gamache needed evidence, either that it was murder or that the home didn't go to Yolande Fontaine. His phone rang as he contemplated the interview with the notary.

'Oui, allo?' He got up to take the call in a quiet part of the room.

'I think a ritual would be perfect,' said Clara, picking at a piece of bread but not really hungry. 'But I have this feeling it should just be women. And not necessarily just Jane's close friends, but any women who'd like to take part.'

'Damn,' said Peter, who'd been to the Summer Solstice ritual and had found it embarrassing and very strange.

'When would you like it?' Myrna asked Clara.

'How about next Sunday?'

'One week to the day Jane died,' said Ruth.

Clara had spotted Yolande and her family arriving at the Bistro and knew she'd have to say something. Gathering her wits she walked over. The Bistro grew so silent Chief Inspector Gamache heard the sudden drop off in noise next door after he'd hung up from the call. Tiptoeing around the back he stood just inside the servers' entrance. From there he could see and hear everything, but not be observed. You don't get to be that good at this job, he thought, without being a sneak. He then noticed a server standing patiently behind him with a tray of cold cuts.

'This should be good,' she whispered. 'Black forest ham?'

'Thank you.' He took a slice.

'Yolande,' Clara said, extending her hand. 'I'm sorry for your loss. Your aunt was a wonderful woman.'

Yolande looked at the extended hand, took it briefly and then released it, hoping to give the impression of monumental grief. It would have worked had she not been playing to an audience well acquainted with her emotional range. Not to mention her real relationship with Jane Neal.

'Please accept my condolences,' Clara continued, feeling stiff and artificial.

Yolande bowed her head and brought a dry paper napkin to her dry eye.

'At least we can re-use the napkin,' said Olivier, who was also looking over Gamache's shoulder. 'What a pathetic piece of work. This is really awful to watch. Pastry?'

Olivier was holding a tray of mille feuilles, meringues, slices of pies and little custard tarts with glazed fruit on top. He chose one covered in tiny wild blueberries.

'Thank you.'

'I'm the official caterer for the disaster that's about to happen. I can't imagine why Clara is doing this, she knows what Yolande has been saying behind her back for years. Hideous woman.'

Gamache, Olivier and the server stared at the scene unfolding in the silent bistro.

'My aunt and I were extremely close, as you know,' Yolande said straight into Clara's face, appearing to believe every word she said. 'I know you won't be upset if I mention that we all think you took her away from her real family. All the people I talk to agree with me. Still, you probably didn't realise what you were doing.' Yolande smiled indulgently.

'Oh my God,' Ruth whispered to Gabri, 'here it comes.'

Peter was gripping the arms of his chair, wanting with all his being to leap up and scream at Yolande. But he knew Clara had to do that herself, had to finally stand up for herself. He waited for Clara's response. The whole room waited.

Clara took a deep breath and said nothing.

'I'll be organising my aunt's funeral,' Yolande plowed on. 'Probably have it in the Catholic church in St Remy. That's Andre's church.' Yolande reached out a hand to take her husband's, but both his hands were taken up clutching a huge sandwich, gushing mayo and meat. Her son Bernard yawned, revealing a mouth full of half-chewed sandwich and strings of mayo glopping down from the roof of his mouth.

'I'll probably put a notice in the paper which I'm sure you'll see. But maybe you can think of something for her headstone. But nothing weird, my aunt wouldn't have liked that. Anyway, think about it and let me know.'

'Again, I'm so sorry about Jane.'

When she'd gone over to speak with Yolande, Clara had known this would happen. Known that Yolande, for some unfathomable reason, could always get to her. Could hurt her where most others couldn't reach. It was one of life's little mysteries that this woman she had absolutely no respect for, could lay her flat. She thought she'd been ready for it. She'd even dared to harbour a hope that maybe this time would be different. But of course it wasn't.

For many years Clara would remember how it felt standing there. Feeling again like the ugly little girl in the schoolyard. The unloved and unlovable child. Flatfooted and maladroit, slow and mocked. The one who laughed in the wrong places and believed tall stories, and was desperate for someone, anyone, to like her. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The polite attention and the balled up fist under the school desk. She wanted to run to Jane, who'd make it better. Take her in those full, kindly arms and say the magic words, 'There, there.'

Ruth Zardo would also remember this moment and turn it into poetry. It would be published in her next volume called, 'I'm FINE':You were a moth brushing against my cheek in the dark.I killed you, not knowing you were only a moth, with no sting.

But more than anything, Clara would remember Andre's toxic laugh ringing in her ears as she silently made her way back to her table, so far away. A laugh such as a maladjusted child might make on seeing a creature hurt and suffering. It was a familiar sound.

'Who was on the phone?' Beauvoir asked when Gamache slipped back into his seat. Beauvoir was unaware the boss had gone anywhere other than the washroom.

'Dr Harris. I didn't know she lives close to here, in a village called Cleghorn Halt. She said she'd bring her report by on her way home, at about five.'

'I've assigned a team to set up the Incident Room and I've sent a team back to the woods to do another search. I figure the arrow is in one of three places, stuck into the ground in the woods, picked up by the killer and probably destroyed by now, or, with any luck, it's among the arrows Lacoste found in the clubhouse.'

'Agreed.'

Beauvoir handed out the assignments, and sent a couple of agents to interview Gus Hennessey and Claude LaPierre about the manure incident. He would interview Philippe Croft himself. Then he joined Gamache outside and the two strolled around the village green, head to head under their umbrellas.

'Miserable weather,' said Beauvoir, lifting the collar of his jacket and shrugging his shoulders against the driving rain.

'More rain on the way and turning colder,' Gamache said automatically, and suddenly realised the villagers were getting into his head, or at least their incessant forecasts were.

'What do you think of Agent Nichol, Jean Guy?'

'I can't figure out how she got into the Surete, with an attitude like that, not to mention recommended for a promotion to homicide. No skill as a team member, almost no people skills, no ability to listen. It's amazing. I have to think it backs up what you've been saying for years, that the wrong people are promoted.'

'Do you think she can learn? She's young, right? About twenty-five?'

'That's not so young. Lacoste isn't much older. I'm far from convinced it's an issue of age and not personality. I think she's going to be like this, and worse, at fifty if she isn't careful. Can she learn? Undoubtedly. But the real question is can she unlearn? Can she get rid of her bad attitudes?' He noticed the rain dripping from the chief inspector's face. He wanted to wipe it away, but resisted the impulse.

Even as he spoke, Beauvoir knew he'd made a mistake. It was like honey to a bear. He could see the chief's face change, from the somber problem-solving mode into mentor mode. He'd try to fix her. God, here it comes, thought Beauvoir. He respected Gamache more than any other human being, but saw his flaw, perhaps a fatal flaw, as a desire to help people, instead of just firing them. He was far too compassionate. A gift Beauvoir sometimes envied, but mostly watched with suspicion.

'Well, maybe her need to be right will be tempered by her curiosity.'

And maybe the scorpion will lose its sting, thought Beauvoir.

'Chief Inspector?' The two men looked up and saw Clara Morrow running through the rain, her husband Peter fighting with their umbrella and struggling to keep up. 'I've thought of something odd.'

'Ahh, sustenance.' Gamache smiled.

'Well this is a pretty small nugget, but who knows. It just struck me as a strange coincidence and I thought you should know. It's about Jane's art.'

'I don't think it's that big a deal,' said Peter, soaked and sullen. Clara shot him a surprised look which wasn't lost on Gamache.

'It's just that Jane painted all her life but never let anyone see her work.'

'That's not so strange, is it?' said Beauvoir. 'Lots of artists and writers keep their work secret. You read about it all the time. Then after their deaths their stuff is discovered and makes a fortune.'

'True, but that's not what happened. Last week Jane decided to show her work at Arts Williamsburg. She just decided Friday morning, and the judging was Friday afternoon. Her painting was accepted.'

'Got accepted and got murdered,' murmured Beauvoir. 'That is odd.'

'Speaking of odd,' said Gamache, 'is it true Miss Neal never invited anyone into her living room?'

'It's true,' said Peter. 'We've gotten so used to it it doesn't seem strange. It's like a limp or a chronic cough, I guess. A small abnormality that becomes normal.'

'But why not?'

'Don't know,' admitted Clara, herself baffled. 'Like Peter said I've gotten so used to it it doesn't seem strange.'

'Didn't you ever ask?'

'Jane? I suppose we did, when we first arrived. Or maybe we asked Timmer and Ruth, but I know for sure we never got an answer. No one seems to know. Gabri thinks she has orange shag carpet and pornography.'

Gamache laughed. 'And what do you think?'

'I just don't know.'

Silence greeted this. Gamache wondered about this woman who had chosen to live with so many secrets for so long, then chosen to let them all out. And died because of it? That was the question.

Maitre Norman Stickley stood at his desk and nodded his hello, then sat down without offering a seat to the three officers in front of him. Putting on large round glasses and looking down at his file he launched into speech.

'This will was drawn up ten years ago and is very simple. After a few small bequests the bulk of her estate goes to her niece, Yolande Marie Fontaine, or her issue. That would be the home in Three Pines, all its contents, plus whatever monies are left after paying the bequests and burial fees and whatever bills the executors incur. Plus taxes, of course.'

'Who are the executors of her estate?' Gamache asked, taking the blow to their investigation in his stride, but inwardly cursing. Something wasn't right, he felt. Maybe it's just your pride, he thought. Too stubborn to admit you were wrong and this elderly woman quite understandably left her home to her only living relative.

'Ruth Zardo, nee Kemp, and Constance Hadley, nee Post, known, I believe, as Timmer.'

The list of names troubled Gamache, though he couldn't put his finger on it. Was it the people themselves? he wondered. The choice? What?

'Had she made other wills with you?' Beauvoir asked.

'Yes. She'd made a will five years before this one.'

'Do you still have a copy of it?'

'No. Do you think I have space to keep old documents?'

'Do you remember what was in it?' Beauvoir asked, expecting to get another defensive, snippy, answer.

'No. Do you-' but Gamache headed him off.

'If you can't remember the exact terms of the first will can you perhaps remember, in broad strokes, her reasons for changing it five years later?' Gamache asked in as reasonable and friendly a tone as possible.

'It's not unusual for people to make wills every few years,' said Stickley, and Gamache was beginning to wonder if this slightly whiny tone was just his way of speaking. 'Indeed, we recommend that clients do this every two to five years. Of course,' said Stickley, as though answering an accusation, 'it's not for the notarial fee, but because situations tend to change every few years. Children are born, grandchildren come, spouses die, there's divorce.'

'The great parade of life.' Gamache jumped in to stop the parade.

'Exactly.'

'And yet, Maitre Stickley, her last will is ten years old. Why would that be? I think we can assume she made this one because the old one was no longer valid. But,' Gamache leaned forward and tapped the long thin document in front of the notary, 'this will is also out of date. Are you certain this is the most recent?'

'Of course it is. People get busy and a will is often not a priority. It can be an unpleasant chore. There are any number of reasons people put them off.'

'Could she have gone to another notary?'

'Impossible. And I resent the implication.'

'How do you know it's impossible?' Gamache persevered. 'Would she necessarily tell you?'

'I just know. This is a small town and I would have heard.' Point finale.

As they were leaving, a copy of the will in hand, Gamache turned to Nichol, 'I'm still not convinced about this will. I want you to do something.'

'Yes, sir,' Nichol was suddenly alert.

'Find out if this is the latest copy. Can you do that?'

'Absolument.' Nichol practically levitated.

'Hello,' Gamache called, poking his head through the door of Arts Williamsburg. After they'd been to the notary they'd walked over to the gallery, a wonderfully preserved and restored former post office. Its huge windows let in what little light the sky offered and that gray light sat on the narrow and worn wood floors and rubbed against the pristine white walls of the small open room, giving it an almost ghostly glow.

'Boniour,' he called again. He could see an old pot-bellied wood stove in the center of the room. It was beautiful. Simple, direct, nothing elegant about it, just a big, black stove that had kept the Canadian cold at bay for more than a hundred years. Nichol had found the light switches and turned them on. Huge canvases of abstract art lunged off the walls. It surprised Gamache. He'd been expecting pretty country watercolors, romantic and salable. Instead he was surrounded by brilliant stripes and spheres ten feet tall. It felt youthful and vibrant and strong.

'Hello.'

Nichol started, but Gamache just turned around and saw Clara coming toward them, a duck barrette clinging to a few strands of hair, getting ready for the final flight.

'We meet again,' she said, smiling. 'After all that talk about Jane's art I wanted to come and see it again, and sit with it quietly. It's a bit like sitting with her soul.'

Nichol rolled her eyes and groaned. Beauvoir noticed this with a start and wondered if he had been that obnoxious and closed-minded when the Chief talked about his feelings and intuition.

'And the smell,' Clara inhaled deeply and passionately, ignoring Nichol, 'every artist responds to this smell. Gets the heart going. Like walking into Grandma's and smelling fresh chocolate-chip cookies. For us it's that combination of varnish, oils and fixative. Even acrylics have a scent, if you've got a good shnozz. You must have smells like that, that cops respond to.'

'Well,' Gamache said, laughing, and remembering yesterday morning, 'when Agent Nichol here picked me up at my home, she brought along Tim Horton's coffee. Double double. That gets my heart racing' – here he brought his hand to his chest and held it there-'totally and exclusively associated with investigations. I can walk into a concert hall, but if I smell Tim Horton's double double I'll start looking at the floor for a body.'

Clara laughed. 'If you like chalk outlines you're going to love Jane's work. I'm glad you've come to see it.'

'Is this it?' Gamache looked around the vibrant room.

'Not even close. This is another artist. Their show is ending in a week, then we hang the members' exhibition. That opens in about ten days. Not this Friday, but next.'

'That's the vernissage?'

'Exactly. Two weeks after the judging.'

'May I see you for a moment?' Beauvoir steered Gamache a few steps away.

'I spoke with Lacoste. She just got off the phone with Timmer Hadley's doctor. Her death was completely natural, as far as he's concerned. Kidney cancer. It spread to the pancreas and liver and then it was just a matter of time. She actually survived longer than he expected.'

'Did she die at home?'

'Yes, on September second of this year.'

'Labour day,' said Nichol, who'd wandered over and been listening in.

'Ms Morrow,' Gamache called to Clara who had been keeping a respectful distance, one that allowed her to appear to be out of earshot, while actually hearing their entire conversation, 'what do you think?'

Oh, oh. Copped. Literally, this time. No use, she realised, being coy.

'Timmer's death was expected, but still a bit surprising,' said Clara, joining their little circle. 'Well, no, that's overstating it. It's just that we took turns sitting with her. That day it was Ruth's turn. They'd arranged beforehand that if Timmer was feeling good Ruth would steal away to the closing parade of the County Fair. Ruth said Timmer told her she was feeling fine. Ruth gave her her meds, brought a fresh glass of Ensure and then left.'

'Just left a dying woman alone,' Nichol stated. Clara answered quietly.

'Yes. I know it sounds uncaring, even selfish, but we'd all been looking after her for so long and we'd gotten to know her ups and downs. We all slipped away for a half hour at a time, to do her laundry, or shopping, or to cook a light meal. So it wasn't as unusual as it sounds. Ruth would never have left'-now Clara turned to Gamache – 'had she had the slightest hint Timmer was in trouble. It was terrible for her when she came back and found Timmer dead.'

'So it was unexpected,' said Beauvoir.

'In that sense, yes. But we since found out from the doctors that it often happens that way. The heart just gives out.'

'Was there an autopsy?' Gamache wanted to know.

'No. No one saw any need. Why are you interested in Timmer's death?'

'Just being thorough,' said Beauvoir. 'Two elderly women dying within a few weeks of each other in a very small village, well, it begs some questions. That's all.'

'But as you said, they were elderly. It's what you'd expect.'

'If one hadn't died with a hole in her heart,' said Nichol. Clara winced.

'May I see you for a moment?' Gamache led Nichol outside. 'Agent, if you ever treat anyone the way you've been treating Mrs Morrow, I'll have your badge and send you home on the bus, is that clear?'

'What's wrong with what I said? It's the truth.'

'And do you think she doesn't know that Jane Neal was killed with an arrow? Do you really not know what you've done wrong?'

'I only spoke the truth.'

'No, you only treated another human being like a fool, and from what I can see deliberately hurt her. You are to take notes and remain silent. We'll talk about this further tonight.'

'But-'

'I've been treating you with courtesy and respect because that's the way I choose to treat everyone. But never, ever mistake kindness for weakness. Never debate with me again. Got it?'

'Yes, sir.' And Nichol pledged to keep her opinions to herself if that was the thanks she got for having the courage to say what everyone was thinking. When asked directly she'd answer in monosyllables. So there.

'So there's Jane's picture,' said Clara, hauling a medium-size canvas out from the storage room and putting it on an easel. 'Not everyone liked it.'

Nichol was on the verge of saying, 'No kidding', but remembered her pledge.

'Did you like it?' Beauvoir asked.

'Not at first, but the longer I looked the more I liked it. Something sort of shimmered into place. It went from looking like a cave drawing to something deeply moving. Just like that.' And Clara snapped her fingers.

Gamache thought he'd have to stare at it for the rest of his life before it looked anything other than ridiculous. And yet, there was something there, a charm. 'There are Nellie and Wayne,' he said pointing, surprised, to two purple people in the stands.

'Here's Peter.' Clara pointed to a pie with eyes and a mouth, but no nose.

'How'd she do it? How could she get these people so accurately with two dots for eyes and a squiggly line for a mouth?'

'I don't know. I'm an artist, have been all my life, and I couldn't do that. But there's more to it than that. There's a depth. Though I've been staring at it for more than an hour now and that shimmering thing hasn't happened again. Maybe I'm too needy. Maybe the magic only works when you're not looking for it.'

'Is it good?' Beauvoir asked.

'That's the question. I don't know. Peter thinks it's brilliant, and the rest of the jury, with one exception, was willing to risk it.'

'What risk?'

'This might surprise you, but artists are temperamental so-and-sos. For Jane's work to be accepted and shown, someone else's had to be rejected. That someone will be angry. As will his relatives and friends.'

'Angry enough to kill?' Beauvoir asked.

Clara laughed. 'I can absolutely guarantee you the thought has crossed and even lodged in all our artistic brains at one time or another. But to kill because your work was rejected at Arts Williamsburg? No. Besides, if you did, it would be the jury you'd murder, not Jane. And, come to think of it, no one except the jury knew this work had been accepted. We'd only done the judging last Friday.' It seems so long ago now, thought Clara.

'Even Miss Neal?'

'Well, I told Jane on Friday.'

'Did anyone else know?'

Now Clara was getting a little embarrassed. 'We talked about it over dinner that night. It was a sort of pre-Thanksgiving dinner with our friends at our place.'

'Who was at the dinner?' Beauvoir asked, his notepad out. He no longer trusted Nichol to take proper notes. Nichol saw this and resented it almost as much as she'd resented it when they'd asked her to take notes. Clara ran down the list of names.

Gamache, meanwhile, was staring at the picture.

'What's it of?'

'The closing parade at the county fair this year. There,' and Clara pointed to a green-faced goat with a shepherd's crook, 'that's Ruth.'

'By God, it is,' said Gamache, to Beauvoir's roar of laughter. It was perfect. He must have been blind to miss it. 'But wait,' Gamache's delight suddenly disappeared, 'this was painted the very day, at the very time, Timmer Hadley was dying.'

'Yes.'

'What does she call it?'

'Fair Day.'