The Brutal Telling

THIRTEEN

“We had a great time at the fair. I got you this.” Gabri shut the door and turned on the lights in the bistro. He offered the stuffed lion to Olivier, who took it and held it softly in his lap.

“Merci.”

“And did you hear the news? Gamache says the dead man wasn’t killed here. And we’ll be getting our pokers back. I’d like to get my poker back, wouldn’t you?” he asked, archly. But Olivier didn’t even respond.

Gabri moved through the gloomy room, turning on lamps, then lit a fire in one of the stone hearths. Olivier continued to sit in the armchair, staring out the window. Gabri sighed, poured them each a beer and joined him. Together they sipped, ate cashews and looked out at the village, quiet now in the last of the day, and the end of the summer.

“What do you see?” asked Gabri at last.

“What d’you mean? I see what you see.”

“Can’t be. What I see makes me happy. And you’re not happy.”

Gabri was used to his partner’s moods. Olivier was the quiet one, the contained one. Gabri might appear the more sensitive, but they both knew Olivier was. He felt things deeply, and kept them there. Gabri was covered in the flesh wounds of life, but Olivier’s wounds were in the marrow, deep and hidden and perhaps even mortal.

But he was also the kindest man Gabri had met, and he’d met, it must be said, quite a few. Before Olivier. That had all changed as soon as he’d clapped eyes on the slim, blond, shy man.

Gabri had lost his quite considerable heart.

“What is it?” Gabri leaned forward and took Olivier’s slender hands. “Tell me.”

“It’s just no fun anymore,” said Olivier at last. “I mean, why even bother? No one’s going to want to come back here. Who wants to eat in a restaurant where there’s been a body?”

“As Ruth says, we’re all just bodies anyway.”

“Great. I’ll put that in the ads.”

“Well, at least you don’t discriminate. Dead, predead. They’re all welcome here. That might be a better slogan.”

Gabri saw a quiver at the ends of Olivier’s lips.

“Voyons, it was great news that the police say the man wasn’t killed here. That makes a difference.”

“You think?” Olivier looked at him hopefully.

“Do you know what I really think?” Now Gabri was dead serious. “I think it wouldn’t matter. Peter, Clara, Myrna? Do you think they’d stop coming even if that poor man had been murdered here? The Parras? Monsieur Béliveau? They’d all come if a mountain of bodies was found here. Do you know why?”

“Because they like it?”

“Because they like you. They love you. Listen, Olivier, you have the best bistro, the finest food, the most comfortable place. It’s brilliant. You’re brilliant. Everyone loves you. And you know what?”

“What?” asked Olivier, grumpily.

“You’re the kindest, most handsome man in the world.”

“You’re just saying that.” Olivier felt like a little boy again. While other kids ran around collecting frogs and sticks and grasshoppers, he’d sought reassurance. Affection. He’d gather up the words and actions, even from strangers, and he’d stuff them into the hole that was growing.

It had worked. For a while. Then he’d needed more than just words.

“Did Myrna tell you to say that?”

“Right. It’s not true at all, just a big lie cooked up by Myrna and me. What’s wrong with you anyway?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Gabri followed Olivier’s stare out the window. And up the hill. He sighed. They’d been through this before.

“There’s nothing we can do about them. Maybe we should just—”

“Just what?” Olivier snapped.

“Are you looking for an excuse to be miserable? Is that it?”

Even by Olivier’s standards that had been an unreasonable reaction. He’d been reassured about the body, he’d been reassured that everyone still loved him. He’d been reassured that Gabri wasn’t running away. So what was the problem?

“Listen, maybe we should give them a chance. Who knows? Their inn and spa might even help us.”

This was not what Olivier wanted to hear. He stood abruptly, almost knocking the chair to the floor. He could feel that bloom of anger in his chest. It was like a superpower. It made him invincible. Strong. Courageous. Brutal.

“If you want to be friends with them, fine. Why don’t you just fuck off?”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant we can’t do anything about them so we might as well be friends.”

“You make this sound like kindergarten. They’re out to ruin us. Do you understand? When they first came I was nice, but then they decided to steal our customers, even our staff. Do you think anyone’s going to come to your tacky little B and B when they can stay there?”

Olivier’s face was red and blotchy. Gabri could see it spread even under his scalp, through the thinning and struggling blond hair.

“What’re you talking about? I don’t care if people come, you know that. We don’t need the money. I just do it for fun.”

Olivier struggled to control himself now. To not take that one step too far. The two men glared so that the space between them throbbed.

“Why?” Olivier finally said.

“Why what?”

“If the dead man wasn’t killed here, why was he put here?”

Gabri felt his anger lift, evaporated by the question.

“I heard from the police today,” said Olivier, his voice almost monotone. “They’re going to speak to my father tomorrow.”

Poor Olivier, thought Gabri, he did have something to worry about after all.

Jean Guy Beauvoir got out of the car and stared across the road at the Poirier home.

It was ramshackle and in need of way more than just a coat of paint. The porch was sloping, the steps looked unsound, pieces of boarding were missing from the side of the house.

Beauvoir had been in dozens of places like this in rural Quebec. Lived in by a generation born there too. Clotilde Poirier probably drank coffee from a chipped mug her mother had used. Slept on a mattress she’d been conceived on. The walls would be covered with dried flowers and spoons sent by relatives who’d escaped to exotic places like Rimouski or Chicoutimi or Gaspé. And there’d be a chair, a rocking chair, by the window, near the woodstove. It would have a slightly soiled afghan on it and crumbs. And after clearing up the breakfast dishes Clotilde Poirier would sit there, and watch.

What would she be watching for? A friend? A familiar car? Another spoon?

Was she watching him now?

Armand Gamache’s Volvo appeared over the hill and came to a stop behind Beauvoir. The two men stood and stared for a moment at the house.

“I found out about the Varathane,” said Beauvoir, thinking this place could use a hundred gallons or so of the stuff. “The Gilberts didn’t use it when they did the renovations. I spoke to Dominique Gilbert. She said they want to be as green as possible. After they had the floors sanded they used tung oil.”

“So the Varathane on the dead man’s clothing didn’t come from the old Hadley house,” said the Chief, disappointed. It had seemed a promising lead.

“Why’re we here?” Beauvoir asked as they turned back to survey the gently subsiding home and the rusting pickup truck in the yard. He’d received a call from the Chief to meet him here, but he didn’t know why.

Gamache explained what Old Mundin had said about Olivier, Madame Poirier and her furniture. Specifically the Chippendale chairs.

“So her kids think Olivier screwed her? And by extension, them?” asked Beauvoir.

“Seems so.” He knocked on the door. After a moment a querulous voice called through it.

“Who is it?”

“Chief Inspector Gamache, madame. Of the Sûreté du Québec.”

“I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged glances.

“We need to speak to you, Madame Poirier. It’s about the body found in the bistro in Three Pines.”

“So?”

It was very difficult conducting an interview through an inch of chipping wood.

“May we come in? We’d like to talk to you about Olivier Brulé.”

An elderly woman, small and slender, opened the door. She glared at them then turned and walked rapidly back into the house. Gamache and Beauvoir followed.

It was decorated as Beauvoir had imagined. Or, really, not decorated. Things were put up on the walls as they’d arrived, over the generations, so that the walls were a horizontal archaeological dig. The farther into the house they went, the more recent the items. Framed flowers, plasticized place mats, crucifixes, paintings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and yes, spoons, all marched across the faded floral wallpaper.

But the place was clean, spotless and smelled of cookies. Photos of grandchildren, perhaps even great-grandchildren, sat on shelves and tabletops. A faded striped tablecloth, clean and ironed, was on the kitchen table. And in the center of that table was a vase containing late summer flowers.

“Tea?” She lifted a pot from the stove. Beauvoir declined but Gamache accepted. She returned with cups of tea for them all. “Well, go on.”

“We understand Olivier bought some furniture from you,” said Beauvoir.

“Not just some. He bought the lot. Thank God. Gave me more than anyone else would, despite what my kids mighta told you.”

“We haven’t spoken to them yet,” said Beauvoir.

“Neither have I. Not since selling the stuff.” But she didn’t seem upset. “Greedy, all of them. Waiting for me to die so they can inherit.”

“How did you meet Olivier?” Beauvoir asked.

“He knocked on the door one day. Introduced himself. Asked if I had anything I’d like to sell. Sent him running the first few times.” She smiled at the memory. “But there was something about him. He kept coming back. So I eventually invited him in, just for tea. He’d come about once a month, have tea, then leave.”

“When did you decide to sell to him?” Beauvoir asked.

“I’m coming to that,” she snapped, and Beauvoir began to appreciate how hard Olivier must have worked for that furniture.

“One winter was particularly long. Lots of snow. And cold. So I decided to hell with this, I’d sell up and move into Saint-Rémy, to that new seniors’ home. So I told Olivier and we walked through the house. I showed him all that crap my parents left me. Old armoires and dressers. Big pine things. And painted all sorts of dull colors. Blues and greens. Tried to scrape it off some of them, but it was no good.”

Beside him Beauvoir heard the Chief inhale, but that was the only sign of pain. Having spent years with Gamache he knew his passion for antiques, and knew that you never, ever strip old paint. It was like skinning something alive.

“So you showed it all to Olivier? What did he say?”

“Said he’d take the lot, including what was in the barn and attic without even seeing it. Tables and chairs been there since before my grandparents. Was going to send it to the dump, but my lazy sons never showed up to do it. So serves them right. I sold the lot to Olivier.”

“Can you remember how much you got?”

“I remember exactly. It was three thousand two hundred dollars. Enough to pay for all of this. Sears.”

Gamache looked at the legs of the table. Prefabricated wood. There was an upholstered rocker facing the new television, and a dark wood-veneer cabinet, with decorative plates.

Madame Poirier was also looking at the contents of the room, with pride.

“He came by a few weeks later and you know what he’d brought? A new bed. Plastic still on the mattress. Set it up for me too. He still comes by sometimes. He’s a nice man.”

Beauvoir nodded. A nice man who’d paid this elderly woman a fraction of what that furniture was worth.

“But you’re not in the seniors’ home? Why not?”

“After I got the new furniture the place felt different. More mine. I kinda liked it again.”

She showed them to the door and Beauvoir noticed the welcome mat. Worn, but still there. They said good-bye and headed for her eldest son’s place a mile down the road. A large man with a gut and stubble opened the door.

“Cops,” he called into the house. It, and he, smelled of beer and sweat and tobacco.

“Claude Poirier?” Beauvoir asked. It was a formality. Who else would this man be? He was nearing sixty, and looked every moment of it. Beauvoir had taken the time before leaving the Incident Room to look up the Poirier family. To see what they were walking into.

Petty crimes. Drunk and disorderly. Shoplifting. Benefit fraud.

They were the type who took advantage, found fault, pointed fingers. Still, it didn’t mean that sometimes they weren’t right. Like about Olivier. He’d screwed them.

After the introductions Poirier launched into his long, sad litany. It was all Beauvoir could do to keep him focused on Olivier, so long was this man’s list of people who’d done him wrong. Including his own mother.

Finally the two investigators lurched from the stale house, taking deep breaths of fresh late afternoon air.

“Do you think he did it?” asked Gamache

“He’s certainly angry enough,” said Beauvoir, “but unless he could transport a body to the bistro using the buttons on his remote, I think he’s off the suspect list. Can’t see him getting off that stinking sofa long enough.”

They walked back to their cars. The Chief paused.

“What’re you thinking?” Beauvoir asked.

“I was remembering what Madame Poirier said. She was about to take all those antiques to the dump. Can you imagine?”

Beauvoir could see that the thought gave Gamache actual pain.

“But Olivier saved them,” said the Chief. “Strange how that works. He might not have given Madame enough money, but he gave her affection and company. What price do you put on that?”

“So, can I buy your car? I’ll give you twenty hours of my company.”

“Don’t be cynical. One day you might be elderly and alone and you’ll see.”

As he followed the Chief’s car back to Three Pines Beauvoir thought about that, and agreed that Olivier had saved the precious antiques, and spent time with the crabby old woman. But he could have done it and still given the old woman a fair price.

But he hadn’t.

Marc Gilbert looked at Marc the horse. Marc the horse looked at Marc Gilbert. Neither seemed pleased.

“Dominique!” Marc called from the door of the barn.

“Yes?” she said, cheerily, walking across the yard from the house. She’d hoped it would take Marc a few days to find the horses. Actually, she’d hoped he never would. But that was in the same league as the Mrs. Keith Partridge dream. Unlikely at best.

And now she found him cross-armed in the dim barn.

“What are these?”

“They’re horses,” she said. Though, it must be said, she suspected Macaroni might be a moose.

“I can see that, but what kind? These aren’t hunters, are they?”

Dominique hesitated. For an instant she wondered what would happen if she said yes. But she guessed that Marc, while not a horse expert, wouldn’t buy that.

“No, they’re better.”

“How better?”

His sentences were getting shorter, never a good sign.

“Well, they’re cheaper.”

She could see that actually had a slight mollifying effect. Might as well tell him the full story. “I bought them from the slaughterhouse. They were going to be killed today.”

Marc hesitated. She could see him struggling with his anger. Not trying to let it go, but trying to hold on to it. “Maybe there was a reason they were going to be . . . you know.”

“Killed. No, the vet’s been to see them and he says they’re fine, or will be.”

The barn smelled of disinfectant, soap and medication.

“Maybe physically, but you can’t tell me he’s okay.” Marc waved at Marc the horse, who flared his nostrils and snorted. “He isn’t even clean. Why not?”

Why did her husband have to be so observant? “Well, no one could get close to him.” Then she had an idea. “The vet says he needs a very special touch. He’ll only let someone quite exceptional near him.”

“Is that right?” Marc looked at the horse again, and walked toward him. Marc, the horse, backed up. Her husband reached out his hand. The horse put his ears back, and Dominique grabbed her husband away just as Marc the horse snapped.

“It’s been a long day and he’s disoriented.”

“Hmm,” said her husband, walking with her out of the barn. “What’s his name?”

“Thunder.”

“Thunder,” said Marc, trying the name out. “Thunder,” he repeated as though riding the steed and urging him on.

Carole greeted them at the kitchen door. “So,” she said to her son. “How’re the horses? How’s Marc?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” He looked at her quizzically and took the drink she offered. “And how’s Carole?”

Behind him Dominique gestured frantically at her mother-in-law who was laughing and just about to say something when she saw her daughter-in-law’s motions and stopped. “Just fine. Do you like the horses?”

“Like is a strong word, as is ‘horses,’ I suspect.”

“It’ll take a while for us all to get used to each other,” said Dominique. She accepted the Scotch from Carole and took a gulp. Then they walked out the French doors and into the garden.

As the two women talked, more friends than mother and daughter-in-law, Marc looked at the flowers, the mature trees, the freshly painted white fences and the rolling fields beyond. Soon the horses, or whatever they were, would be out there. Grazing.

Once again he had that hollow feeling, that slight rip as the chasm widened.

Leaving Montreal had been a wrench for Dominique, and leaving Quebec City had been difficult for his mother. They left behind friends. But while Marc had pretended to be sorry, had gone to the going-away parties, had claimed he would miss everyone, the truth was, he didn’t.

They had to be part of his life for him to miss them, and they weren’t. He remembered that Kipling poem his father loved, and taught him. And that one line. If all men count with you, but none too much.

And they hadn’t. Over forty-five years not a single man had counted too much.

He had loads of colleagues, acquaintances, buddies. He was an emotional communist. Everyone counted equally, but none too much.

You’ll be a man, my son. That was how the poem ended.

But Marc Gilbert, listening to the quiet conversation and looking over the rich, endless fields, was beginning to wonder if that was enough. Or even true.

The officers gathered round the conference table and Beauvoir uncapped his red Magic Marker. Agent Morin was beginning to appreciate that the small “pop” was like a starter’s gun. In the short time he’d been with homicide he’d developed a fondness for the smell of marker, and that distinctive sound.

He settled into his chair, a little nervous as always, in case he should say something particularly stupid. Agent Lacoste had helped. As they’d gathered up their papers for the meeting she’d seen his trembling hands and whispered that maybe he should just listen this time.

He’d looked at her, surprised.

“Won’t they think I’m an idiot? That I have nothing to say?”

“Believe me, there’s no way you’re going to listen yourself out of this job. Or any job. Just relax, let me do the talking today, and we’ll see about tomorrow. Okay?”

He’d looked at her then, trying to figure out what her motives might be. Everyone had them, he knew. Some were driven by kindness, some not. And he’d been at the Sûreté long enough to know that most in the famous police force weren’t guided by a desire to be nice.

It was brutally competitive, and nowhere more so than the scramble to get into homicide. The most prestigious posting. And the chance to work with Chief Inspector Gamache.

He was barely in, and barely hanging on. One wrong move and he’d slide right out the door, and be forgotten in an instant. He wasn’t going to let that happen. And he knew, instinctively, this was a pivotal moment. Was Agent Lacoste sincere?

“All right, what’ve we got?”

Beauvoir was standing by the paper tacked to the wall next to a map of the village.

“We know the victim wasn’t murdered at the bistro,” said Lacoste. “But we still don’t know where he was killed or who he was.”

“Or why he was moved,” said Beauvoir. He reported on their visit to the Poiriers, mère et fils. Then Lacoste told them what she and Morin had learned about Olivier Brulé.

“He’s thirty-eight. Only child. Born and raised in Montreal. Father an executive at the railway, mother a homemaker, now dead. An affluent upbringing. Went to Notre Dame de Sion school.”

Gamache raised his brows. It was a leading Catholic private school. Annie had gone there too, years after Olivier, to be taught by the rigorous nuns. His son Daniel had refused, preferring the less rigorous public schools. Annie had learned logic, Latin, problem solving. Daniel had learned to roll a spliff. Both grew into decent, happy adults.

“Olivier got an MBA from the Université de Montréal and took a job at the Banque Laurentienne,” Agent Lacoste continued, reading from her notes. “He handled high-end corporate clients. Apparently very successfully too. Then he quit.”

“Why?” asked Beauvoir.

“Not sure. I have a meeting at the bank tomorrow, and I’ve also set up an appointment with Olivier’s father.”

“What about his personal life?” Gamache asked.

“I talked to Gabri. They started living together fourteen years ago. Gabri’s a year younger. Thirty-seven. He was a fitness instructor at the local YMCA.”

“Gabri?” asked Beauvoir, remembering the large, soft man.

“Happens to the best of us,” said Gamache.

“After Olivier quit the bank they gave up their apartment in Old Montreal and moved down here, took over the bistro and lived above it, but it wasn’t a bistro then. It’d been a hardware store.”

“Really?” asked Beauvoir. He couldn’t imagine the bistro as anything else. He tried to see snow shovels and batteries and lightbulbs hanging from the exposed beams or set up in front of the two stone fireplaces. And failed.

“But listen to this.” Lacoste leaned forward. “I got this by digging into the land registry records. Ten years ago Olivier bought not just his bistro, but the B and B. But he didn’t stop there. He bought it all. The general store, the bakery, his bistro and Myrna’s bookstore.”

“Everything?” asked Beauvoir. “He owns the village?”

“Just about. I don’t think anyone else knows. I spoke to Sarah at her boulangerie and to Monsieur Béliveau at the general store. They said they rented from some guy in Montreal. Long-term leases, reasonable rates. They send their checks to a numbered company.”

“Olivier’s a numbered company?” asked Beauvoir.

Gamache was taking all this in, listening closely.

“How much did he pay?” asked Beauvoir.

“Seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the lot.”

“Good God,” said Beauvoir. “That’s a lot of bread. Where’d he get the money? A mortgage?”

“No. Paid cash.”

“You say his mother’s dead, maybe it was his inheritance.”

“Doubt it,” said Lacoste. “She only died five years ago, but I’ll look into it when I’m in Montreal.”

“Follow the money,” said Beauvoir. It was a truism in crime investigations, particularly murder. And there was suddenly a great deal of money to follow. Beauvoir finished scribbling on his sheets on the wall, then told them about the coroner’s findings.

Morin listened, fascinated. So this was how murderers were found. Not by DNA tests and petrie dishes, ultraviolet scans or anything else a lab could produce. They helped, certainly, but this was their real lab. He looked across the table to the other person who was just listening, saying nothing.

Chief Inspector Gamache took his deep brown eyes off Inspector Beauvoir for a moment and looked at the young agent. And smiled.

Agent Lacoste headed for Montreal shortly after the meeting broke up. Agent Morin left for home and Beauvoir and Gamache walked slowly back over the stone bridge and into the village. They strolled past the darkened bistro and met Olivier and Gabri on the wide veranda of the B and B.

“I left a note for you,” said Gabri. “Since the bistro’s closed we’re all going out for dinner and you’re invited.”

“Peter and Clara’s again?” asked Gamache.

“No. Ruth,” said Gabri and was rewarded with their stunned looks. He’d have thought someone had drawn a gun on the two large Sûreté officers. Chief Inspector Gamache looked surprised but Beauvoir looked afraid.

“You might want to put on your athletic protector,” Gabri whispered to Beauvoir, as they passed on the veranda steps.

“Well, I’m sure as hell not going. You?” asked Beauvoir when they went inside.

“Are you kidding? Pass up a chance to see Ruth in her natural habitat? Wouldn’t miss it.”

Twenty minutes later the Chief Inspector had showered, called Reine-Marie and changed into slacks, blue shirt and tie and a camel-hair cardigan. He found Beauvoir in the living room with a beer and potato chips.

“Sure you won’t change your mind, patron?”

It was tempting, Gamache had to admit. But he shook his head.

“I’ll keep a candle in the window,” said Beauvoir, watching the Chief leave.

Ruth’s clapboard home was a couple of houses away and faced the green. It was tiny, with a porch in front and two gables on the second floor. Gamache had been in it before, but always with his notebook out, asking questions. Never as a guest. As he entered all eyes turned and as one they made for him, Myrna reaching him first.

“For pity’s sake, did you bring your gun?”

“I don’t have one.”

“What d’you mean, you don’t have one?”

“They’re dangerous. Why do you want it?”

“So you can shoot her. She’s trying to kill us.” Myrna grabbed Gamache’s sleeve and pointed to Ruth who was circulating among her guests wearing a frilly apron and carrying a bright orange plastic tray.

“Actually,” said Gabri, “she’s trying to kidnap us and take us back to 1950.”

“Probably the last time she entertained,” said Myrna.

“Hors d’oeuvre, old fruit?” Ruth spotted her new guest and bore down upon him.

Gabri and Olivier turned to each other. “She means you.”

Incredibly, she actually meant Gamache.

“Lord love a duck,” said Ruth, in a very bad British accent. Behind Ruth waddled Rosa.

“She started speaking like that as soon as we arrived,” said Myrna, backing away from the tray and knocking over a stack of Times Literary Supplements. Gamache could see saltine crackers sliding around on the orange tray, smeared with brown stuff he hoped was peanut butter. “I remember reading something about this,” Myrna continued. “People speaking in accents after a brain injury.”

“Is being possessed by the devil considered a brain injury?” asked Gabri. “She’s speaking in tongues.”

“Cor blimey,” said Ruth.

But the most striking feature of the room wasn’t the hoop lamps, the teak furniture, genteel British Ruth with her dubious offering, nor was it the sofas covered in books and newspapers and magazines, as was the green shag carpet. It was the duck.

Rosa was wearing a dress.

“Duck and cover,” said Gabri. “Literally.”

“Our Rosa.” Ruth had put down the peanut-buttered crackers and was now offering celery sticks stuffed with Velveeta.

Gamache watched and wondered if he’d have to make a couple of calls. One to the Humane Society, the other to the psych ward. But neither Rosa nor Ruth seemed upset. Unlike their guests.

“Would you like one?” Clara offered him a ball covered with what looked like seeds.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We think it’s suet, for the birds,” said Peter.

“And you’re offering it to me?” Gamache asked.

“Well, someone should eat it so it doesn’t hurt her feelings.” Clara nodded to Ruth, just disappearing into the kitchen. “And we’re too afraid.”

“Non, merci,” he smiled and went in search of Olivier. As he passed the kitchen he looked in and saw Ruth opening a can. Rosa was standing on the table watching her.

“Now, we’ll just open this,” she mumbled. “Maybe we should smell it? What do you think?”

The duck didn’t seem to be thinking anything. Ruth smelled the open can anyway. “Good enough.”

The old poet wiped her hands on a towel then reached out and lifted the edge of Rosa’s dress to replace a ruffled feather, smoothing it down.

“May I help?” Gamache asked from the door.

“Well, aren’t you a love.”

Gamache winced, expecting her to throw a cleaver after that. But she just smiled and handed him a plate of olives, each stuffed with a section of canned mandarin orange. He took it and returned to the party. Not surprisingly he was greeted as though he’d joined the dark side. He was very grateful Beauvoir wasn’t there to see Ruth, nuttier and more Anglo than usual, Rosa wearing a dress and himself offering food that would almost certainly kill or cripple anyone foolish enough to eat it.

“Olive?” he asked Olivier.

The two men looked down at the plate.

“Does that make me the mandarin?” asked Gabri.

“You need to get your head out of your own asshole,” said Olivier.

Gabri opened his mouth, but the warning looks on everyone’s faces made him shut it again.

Peter, standing a little way off from the conversation and nursing the glass of water Ruth had offered him, smiled. It was much the same thing Clara had said when he’d told her he’d felt violated by the police search.

“Why?” she’d asked.

“Didn’t you? I mean, all those strangers looking at your art.”

“Isn’t that what we call a show? There were more people looking this afternoon than I’ve had most of my career. Bring on more cops. Hope they brought their checkbooks.” She laughed, and clearly didn’t care. But she could see he did. “What’s the matter?”

“The picture isn’t ready to be seen.”

“Look, Peter, you make it sound as though this is something to do with your art.”

“Well, it is.”

“They’re trying to find a murderer, not an artist.”

And there it had sat, like most uncomfortable truths. Between them.

Gamache and Olivier had wandered away from the group, into a quiet corner.

“I understand you bought your building a few years ago.”

Olivier colored slightly, surprised by the question. He instinctively and furtively scanned the room, making sure they weren’t overheard.

“I thought it was a good investment. I’d saved some money from my job, and business here was good.”

“Must have been. You paid almost three-quarters of a million dollars.”

“I bet it’s worth a million today.”

“Could be. But you paid cash. Was business all that good?”

Olivier shot a look around but no one could hear them. Still he lowered his voice.

“The bistro and B and B are doing very well, for now anyway, but it’s the antiques end that’s been the surprise.”

“How so?”

“Lots of interest in Quebec pine, and lots of great finds.”

Gamache nodded. “We spoke to the Poiriers this afternoon.”

Olivier’s face hardened. “Look, what they say just isn’t true. I didn’t screw their mother. She wanted to sell. Was desperate to sell.”

“I know. We spoke to her too. And the Mundins. The furniture must have been in very bad shape.”

Olivier relaxed a little.

“It was. Years sitting in damp, freezing barns and the attic. Had to chase the mice out. Some were warped almost beyond repair. Enough to make you weep.”

“Madame Poirier says you came by her home later with a new bed. That was kind.”

Olivier dropped his eyes. “Yeah, well, I wanted to thank her.”

Conscience, thought Gamache. This man had a huge and terrible conscience riding herd on a huge and terrible greed.

“You said the bistro and B and B were doing well, for now. What did you mean?”

Olivier looked out the window for a moment, then back at Gamache.

“Hi ho, dinner everyone,” sang Ruth.

“What should we do?” Clara whispered to Myrna. “Can we run for it?”

“Too late. Either Ruth or the duck would get us for sure. The only thing to do is hunker down and pray for daylight. If the worst happens, play dead.”

Gamache and Olivier rose, the last in for dinner.

“I suppose you know what they’re doing up at the old Hadley house?” When Gamache didn’t answer Olivier continued. “They’ve almost completely gutted the place and are turning it into an inn and spa. Ten massage rooms, meditation and yoga classes. They’ll do a day spa and corporate retreats. People’ll be crawling all over the place, and us. It’ll ruin Three Pines.”

“Three Pines?”

“All right,” snapped Olivier. “The bistro and the B and B.”

They joined the others in the kitchen and sat at Ruth’s white plastic garden table.

“Incoming,” warned Gabri as Ruth put a bowl in front of each of them.

Gamache looked at the contents of his bowl. He could make out canned peaches, bacon, cheese and Gummi Bears.

“They’re all the things I love,” said Ruth, smiling. Rosa was sitting next to her on a nest of towels, her beak thrust under the sleeve of her dress.

“Scotch?” Ruth asked.

“Please.” Six glasses were thrust forward and Ruth poured each a Scotch, into their dinners.

About three centuries and many lifetimes later they left, staggering into the quiet, cool night.

“Toodle-oo,” waved Ruth. But Gamache was heartened to hear, just as the door closed: “Fuckers.”