The Brutal Telling

SEVEN

Olivier and Gabri strolled across the village green. It was seven in the evening and lights were beginning to glow in windows, except at the bistro, which was dark and empty.

“Christ,” came a growl through the dusk. “The fairies are out.”

“Merde,” said Gabri. “The village idiot’s escaped from her attic.”

Ruth Zardo limped toward them followed by Rosa.

“I hear you finally killed someone with your rapier wit,” said Ruth to Gabri, falling into step.

“Actually, I hear he read one of your poems and his head exploded,” said Gabri.

“Would that that were true,” said Ruth, slipping her bony arms into each of theirs, so that they walked across to Peter and Clara’s arm in arm. “How are you?” she asked quietly.

“Okay,” said Olivier, not glancing at the darkened bistro as they passed.

The bistro had been his baby, his creation. All that was good about him, he put in there. All his best antiques, his finest recipes, great wines. Some evenings he’d stand behind the bar, pretending to polish glasses, but really just listening to the laughter and looking at the people, who’d come to his bistro. And were happy to be there. They belonged, and so did he.

Until this.

Who’d want to come to a place where there’d been a murder?

And what if people found out he actually knew the Hermit? What if they found out what he’d done? No. Best to say nothing and see what happened. It was bad enough as it was.

They paused on the walk just outside Peter and Clara’s house. Inside they saw Myrna putting her effusive flower arrangement on the kitchen table, already set for supper. Clara was exclaiming at its beauty and artistry. They couldn’t hear the words, but her delight was obvious. In the living room Peter tossed another log on the fire.

Ruth turned from the comforting domestic scene to the man beside her. The old poet leaned in to whisper in his ear, so that not even Gabri could hear. “Give it time. It’ll be all right, you know that, don’t you?”

She turned to glance again through the glow at Clara hugging Myrna and Peter walking into the kitchen and exclaiming over the flowers as well. Olivier bent and kissed the old, cold cheek and thanked her. But he knew she was wrong. She didn’t know what he knew.

Chaos had found Three Pines. It was bearing down upon them and all that was safe and warm and kind was about to be taken away.

Peter had poured them all drinks, except Ruth who’d helped herself and was now sipping from a vase filled with Scotch and sitting in the middle of the sofa facing the fire. Rosa was waddling around the room, barely noticed by anyone anymore. Even Lucy, Peter and Clara’s golden retriever, barely looked at Rosa. The first time the poet had shown up with Rosa they’d insisted she stay outside, but Rosa set up such a quacking they were forced to let her in, just to shut the duck up.

“Bonjour.”

A deep, familiar voice was heard from the mudroom.

“God, you didn’t invite Clouseau, did you?” asked Ruth, to the empty room. Empty except for Rosa, who raced to stand beside her.

“It’s lovely,” said Isabelle Lacoste as they walked from the mudroom into the airy kitchen. The long wooden table was set for dinner with baskets of sliced baguette, butter, jugs of water and bottles of wine. It smelled of garlic and rosemary and basil, all fresh from the garden.

And in the center of the table was a stunning arrangement of hollyhocks and climbing white roses, clematis and sweet pea and fragrant pink phlox.

More drinks were poured and the guests wandered into the living room and milled around nibbling soft runny Brie or orange and pistachio caribou pâté on baguette.

Across the room Ruth was interrogating the Chief Inspector.

“Don’t suppose you know who the dead man was.”

“Afraid not,” said Gamache evenly. “Not yet.”

“And do you know what killed him?”

“Non.”

“Any idea who did it?”

Gamache shook his head.

“Any idea why it happened in the bistro?”

“None,” admitted Gamache.

Ruth glared at him. “Just wanted to make sure you’re as incompetent as ever. Good to know some things can be relied upon.”

“I’m glad you approve,” said Gamache, bowing slightly before wandering off toward the fireplace. He picked up the poker, and examined it.

“It’s a fireplace poker,” said Clara, appearing at his elbow. “You use it to poke the fire.”

She was smiling and watching him. He realized he must have looked a little odd, holding the long piece of metal to his face as though he’d never seen one before. He put it down. No blood on it. He was relieved.

“I hear your solo show is coming up in a few months.” He turned to her, smiling. “It must be thrilling.”

“If putting a dentist’s drill up your nose is thrilling. Yes.”

“That bad?”

“Oh, well, you know. It’s only torture.”

“Have you finished all the paintings?”

“They’re all done, at least. They’re crap, of course, but at least they’re finished. Denis Fortin is coming down himself to discuss how they’ll be hung. I have a specific order in mind. And if he disagrees I have a plan. I’ll cry.”

Gamache laughed. “That’s how I got to be Chief Inspector.”

“I told you so,” Ruth hissed at Rosa.

“Your art is brilliant, Clara. You know that,” said Gamache, leading her away from the crowd.

“How’d you know? You’ve only seen one piece. Maybe the others suck. I wonder if I made a mistake going with the paint by numbers.”

Gamache made a face.

“Would you like to see them?” Clara asked.

“Love to.”

“Great. How about after dinner? That gives you about an hour to practice saying, ‘My God, Clara, they’re the best works of art ever produced by anyone, anywhere.’ ”

“Sucking up?” smiled Gamache. “That’s how I made Inspector.”

“You’re a Renaissance Man.”

“I see you’re good at it too.”

“Merci. Speaking of your job, do you have any idea who that dead man is?” She’d lowered her voice. “You told Ruth you didn’t, but is that true?”

“You think I’d lie?” he asked. But why not, he thought. Everyone else does. “You mean, how close are we to solving the crime?”

Clara nodded.

“Hard to say. We have some leads, some ideas. It makes it harder to know why the man was killed not knowing who he was.”

“Suppose you never find out?”

Gamache looked down at Clara. Was there something in her voice? An imperfectly hidden desire that they never find out who the dead man was?

“It makes our job harder,” he conceded, “but not impossible.”

His voice, while relaxed, became momentarily stern. He wanted her to know they’d solve this case, one way or another. “Were you at the bistro last night?”

“No. We’d gone to the fair with Myrna. Had a disgusting dinner of fries, burgers and cotton candy. Went on a few rides, watched the local talent show, then came back here. I think Myrna might’ve gone in, but we were tired.”

“We know the dead man wasn’t a villager. He seems to have been a stranger. Have you seen any strangers around?”

“People come through backpacking or bicycling,” said Clara, sipping her red wine and thinking. “But most of them are younger. I understand this was quite an old man.”

Gamache didn’t tell her what the coroner had said that afternoon.

“Roar Parra told Agent Lacoste he’d seen someone lurking in the woods this summer. Does that sound familiar?” He watched her closely.

“Lurking? Isn’t that a bit melodramatic? No, I haven’t seen anyone and neither has Peter. He’d have told me. And we spend a lot of time outside in the garden. If there was someone there we’d have seen him.”

She waved toward their backyard, in darkness now, but Gamache knew it was large and sloped gently toward the Rivière Bella Bella.

“Mr. Parra didn’t see him there,” said Gamache. “He saw him there.”

He pointed to the old Hadley house, on the hill above them. The two of them took their drinks and walked out the door to the front veranda. Gamache was wearing his gray flannels, shirt, tie and jacket. Clara had a sweater, and needed it. In early September the nights grew longer and cooler. All around the village lights shone in homes, and even in the house on the hill.

The two looked at the house in silence for a few moments.

“I hear it’s sold,” said Gamache, finally.

Clara nodded. They could hear the murmur of conversation from the living room, and light spilled out so that Gamache could see Clara’s face in profile.

“Few months ago,” she said. “What are we now? Labor Day? I’d say they bought it back in July and have been doing renovations ever since. Young couple. Or at least, my age, which seems young to me.”

Clara laughed.

It was hard for Gamache to see the old Hadley house as just another place in Three Pines. For one thing, it never seemed to belong to the village. It seemed the accusation, the voyeur on the hill, that looked down on them. Judged them. Preyed on them. And sometimes took one of the villagers, and killed them.

Horrible things had happened in that place.

Earlier in the year he and his wife Reine-Marie had come down and helped the villagers repaint and repair the place. In the belief that everything deserved a second chance. Even houses. And the hopes someone would buy it.

And now someone had.

“I know they hired Roar to work on the grounds,” said Clara. “Clean up the gardens. He’s even built a barn and started reopening the trails. There must have been fifty kilometers of bridle paths in those woods in Timmer Hadley’s time. Grown over, of course. Lots of work for Roar to do.”

“He said he saw the stranger in the woods while he worked. Said he’d felt himself being watched for a while but only caught sight of someone once. He’d tried to run after him but the guy disappeared.”

Gamache’s gaze shifted from the old Hadley house down to Three Pines. Kids were playing touch football on the village green, eking out every last moment of their summer vacation. Snippets of voices drifted to them from villagers sitting on other porches, enjoying the early evening. The main topic of conversation, though, wouldn’t be the ripening tomatoes, the cooler nights, or getting in the winter wood.

Into the gentle village something rotten had crawled. Words like “murder,” “blood,” “body,” floated in the night air, as did something else. The soft scent of rosewater and sandalwood from the large, quiet man beside Clara.

Back inside Isabelle Lacoste was pouring herself another watered-down Scotch from the drinks tray on the piano. She looked around the room. A bookcase covered an entire wall, crammed with books, broken only by a window and the door to the veranda through which she could see the Chief and Clara.

Across the living room Myrna was chatting with Olivier and Gabri while Peter worked in the kitchen and Ruth drank in front of the fireplace. Lacoste had been in the Morrow home before, but only to conduct interviews. Never as a guest.

It was as comfortable as she’d imagined. She saw herself going back to her husband in Montreal and convincing him they could sell their home, take the kids out of school, chuck their jobs and move here. Find a cottage just off the village green and get jobs at the bistro or Myrna’s bookshop.

She subsided into an armchair and watched as Beauvoir came in from the kitchen, a pâté-smeared piece of bread in one hand and a beer in the other, and started toward the sofa. He halted suddenly, as though repelled, changed course, and went outside.

Ruth rose and limped to the drinks tray, a malevolent sneer on her face. Scotch replenished she returned to the sofa, like a sea monster slipping beneath the surface once again, still waiting for a victim.

“Any idea when we can reopen the bistro?” Gabri asked as he, Olivier and Myrna joined Agent Lacoste.

“Gabri,” said Olivier, annoyed.

“What? I’m just asking.”

“We’ve done what we need to,” she told Olivier. “You can open up whenever you’d like.”

“You can’t stay closed long, you know,” said Myrna. “We’d all starve to death.”

Peter put his head in and announced, “Dinner!”

“Though perhaps not immediately,” said Myrna, as they headed for the kitchen.

Ruth hauled herself out of the sofa and went to the veranda door.

“Are you deaf?” she shouted at Gamache, Beauvoir and Clara. “Dinner’s getting cold. Get inside.”

Beauvoir felt his rectum spasm as he hurried past her. Clara followed Beauvoir to the dinner table, but Gamache lingered.

It took him a moment to realize he wasn’t alone. Ruth was standing beside him, tall, rigid, leaning on her cane, her face all reflected light and deep crevices.

“A strange thing to give to Olivier, wouldn’t you say?”

The old voice, sharp and jagged, cut through the laughter from the village green.

“I beg your pardon?” Gamache turned to her.

“The dead man. Even you can’t be that dense. Someone did this to Olivier. The man’s greedy and shiftless and probably quite weak, but he didn’t kill anyone. So why would someone choose his bistro for murder?”

Gamache raised his eyebrows. “You think someone chose the bistro on purpose?”

“Well, it didn’t happen by accident. The murderer chose to kill at Olivier’s Bistro. He gave the body to Olivier.”

“To kill both a man and a business?” asked Gamache. “Like giving white bread to a goldfish?”

“Fuck you,” said Ruth.

“Nothing I ever gave was good for you,” quoted Gamache. “It was like white bread to a goldfish.”

Beside him Ruth Zardo stiffened, then in a low growl she finished her own poem.

Gamache listened to the poem, one of his favorites. He looked across at the bistro, dark and empty on a night when it should have been alive with villagers.

Was Ruth right? Had someone chosen the bistro on purpose? But that meant Olivier was somehow implicated. Had he brought this on himself? Who in the village hated the tramp enough to kill him, and Olivier enough to do it there? Or was the tramp merely a convenient tool? A poor man in the wrong place? Used as a weapon against Olivier?

“Who do you think would want to do this to Olivier?” he asked Ruth.

She shrugged, then turned to leave. He watched her take her place among her friends, all of them moving in ways familiar to each other, and now to him.

And to the killer?