The Cruelest Month

THIRTY-TWO

Jeanne Chauvet sat with her back to the room and tried to pretend she liked being alone. Tried to pretend she was mesmerized by the warm and lively fire. Tried to pretend she didn’t feel bruised and buffeted by the cold stares of the villagers, almost as violent as the storm outside. Tried to pretend she belonged. In Three Pines.

She’d felt immediately comfortable the moment her little car had glided down du Moulin a few short days ago, the village bathed in bright sun, the trees covered in chartreuse buds, the people smiling and nodding gently to each other. Some even bowed to each other as Gamache had just now in a courtly, courteous way that seemed only to exist in this magical valley.

Jeanne Chauvet had seen enough of the world, this and the others, to know a magical place. And Three Pines was one. She felt as though she’d been swimming all her life, but an island had risen. That night she’d lain in bed in the B. & B., snuggled into the crisp clean linen, and been sung to sleep by the frogs in the pond. Years of tired started to slip away. Not exhaustion, but a weariness as though her very bones had been fossilized, turned to stone, and were dragging her to the weedy bottom.

But that night in bed she knew Three Pines had saved her. From the moment she’d received the brochure through the mail she’d dared to hope.

But then she’d seen Madeleine that Friday night at the séance and her island had sunk, like Atlantis. She was once again in over her head.

She took a sip of Olivier’s strong, rich coffee, made a warm caramel color by the cream, and pretended the villagers, so friendly when she’d first arrived, hadn’t themselves turned to stone, cold and hard and unforgiving. She could almost see them marching toward her, with torches in the hands and terror in their eyes.

All because of Madeleine. Some things never changed. All Jeanne had ever wanted was to belong, and all Madeleine had ever done was take that from her.

‘May we join you?’

Jeanne started and looked up. Armand Gamache and Jean Guy Beauvoir were looking down at her, Gamache with a warm smile on his face, his eyes thoughtful and kind. The other looked grumpy.

He doesn’t want to be here with me, thought Jeanne, though she knew she didn’t have to be a psychic to figure that one out.

‘Please.’ She indicated the soft chairs on either side of the hearth, their faded fabrics warmed by the fire.

‘Are you planning to move anywhere else?’ Gabri huffed.

‘The night is young, patron,’ Gamache smiled. ‘May I offer you something?’ he asked Jeanne.

‘I have my coffee, thank you.’

‘We were about to order some liqueurs. It feels a night for one.’ He looked briefly at the mullioned window, reflecting the warm interior of the bistro. The old panes quivered in another blast, and a slight tinkling told them the hail wasn’t finished.

‘God,’ sighed Gabri, ‘how can we live in a country that does this to us?’

‘I’ll have an espresso and a brandy and Benedictine,’ said Beauvoir.

Gamache turned to Jeanne. For some reason she felt in the company of her father, or perhaps her grandfather, even though the Chief Inspector couldn’t be more than ten years her elder. There was something old world about him, as though he was from another age, another era. She wondered if he found it hard in this world. But she thought not.

‘Yes, please. I’d like a…’ She thought for a moment then turned to look at the row of liqueur bottles on a shelf at the back of the bar. Tia Maria, crème de menthe, cognac. She turned back to Gabri, ‘I’ll have a Cointreau, s’il vous plaît.’

Gamache ordered his own then the three of them discussed the weather, the Eastern Townships, and the conditions of the roads until their drinks arrived.

‘Have you always been psychic, Madame Chauvet?’ asked Gamache once Gabri had reluctantly left.

‘I think so, but it wasn’t until I was about ten that I realized not everyone saw the world as I did.’ She brought the tiny glass to her nose and sniffed. Orange and sweet and somehow warm. Her eyes started watering just from the smell. She brought the Cointreau to her lips and wetted them with the syrupy liquid. Then she lowered the glass and licked her lips. She wanted this to last. The tastes, smells, sights. The company.

‘How’d you find out?’

She didn’t normally talk about these things, but then people didn’t normally ask. She hesitated and looked at Gamache for a long moment. Then she spoke.

‘At a friend’s birthday party. I looked at all the wrapped presents and knew exactly what was in them.’

‘Well, as long as you didn’t say anything,’ said Gamache, then looked at her more closely. ‘But you did, didn’t you?’

Beauvoir was a little miffed by this psychic turn by the chief. After all, he was the one who was supposed to have been born with a caul. He’d spent the late afternoon, after Nichol had hightailed it back to the B. & B., surfing the web for information on cauls. Took him a while to figure out how to spell it. Cowels. Kowls. Calls. Then he remembered that Batman supposedly wore one. So he Googled Batman, and everything fell into place. Every day held its surprises.

At first he thought she meant he’d been born with a silly mask and pointy black ears. But then something even more macabre appeared on his screen.

‘Yes,’ Jeanne was saying. ‘I was about halfway through the pile, telling everyone what each parcel held, when the birthday girl burst into tears. I remember to this day looking around the room. All the little girls, my friends, were staring at me. Angry and upset. And behind them their mothers. Afraid.

‘It was never the same after that. I think I’d always seen things but I assumed everyone did. Heard voices, saw spirits. Knew what would happen next. Not for everything. It was selective. But enough.’

Her voice was cheery, but Gamache knew it couldn’t have been easy. He looked over her shoulder to the villagers at their tables, having a relaxing and quiet dinner. But not one had approached Jeanne. The weirdo, the psychic. The witch. They were kind people, he knew. But even kind people can be afraid.

‘It must have been hard,’ said the chief.

‘Others have it harder. Believe me, I know. I’m no one’s victim, Chief Inspector. Besides, I never, ever lose my keys. Can you say that?’

She was looking at Gamache as she said it, but the wide smile on her face faded a little as she turned to look directly at Jean Guy Beauvoir. Her face was so full of understanding, of caring, he almost admitted that he too had never, ever lost his keys.

He’d been born with a caul. He’d called his mother and asked and after a hesitation she’d admitted it.

‘Mais, Maman, why not tell me?’

‘I was too embarrassed. It was a shameful thing at the time, Jean Guy. Even the nuns at the hospital were upset.’

‘But why?’

‘A baby born with a caul is either cursed or blessed. It means you see things, know things.’

‘And did I?’ He felt a fool asking. After all, he should be the one to know.

‘I don’t know. Every time you said something odd we ignored you. After a while you stopped. I’m sorry, Jean Guy. Maybe we were wrong, but I didn’t want you to be cursed.’

Me, or you? he almost asked.

‘But maybe I’d be blessed, Maman.’

‘That’s a curse too, mon beau.’

He’d been delivered of his mother with a veil over his entire head. Something between himself and this world. A membrane that should have stayed with his mother but somehow ended up coming with him. It was rare and upsetting and even today, according to his research, people believed those born with cauls were fated to lead unusual lives. Lives filled with spirits, with the dead and dying. And the ability to divine the future.

Was that why he was in homicide? Was that why he chose to spend all day with the newly dead, and hunt people who created ghosts? For more than ten years he’d mocked and ribbed and criticized the chief for relying so heavily on intuition. And the chief had just smiled and continued while he himself had bowed before the perfection of facts, of things you could touch and see and feel and hear. Now he wasn’t so sure.

‘What brought you here?’ Gamache was asking Jeanne Chauvet.

‘I got a brochure through the mail. It looked wonderful and I needed a rest. I think I told you this before.’

‘Being a psychic’s tiring?’ asked Beauvoir, suddenly interested.

‘Being a receptionist at a car dealership’s tiring. I needed a rest and this just seemed perfect.’

Should she tell them the rest? The writing across the top of the brochure? She’d seen the same one in the vestibule of the B. & B., and there was no writing. Had someone really taken the time to write that strange statement on her brochure just to lure her to Three Pines? Or was she paranoid?

‘Where’re you from?’ Gamache asked.

‘Montreal. Born and raised.’

Gamache handed her the yearbook. ‘Look familiar?’

‘It’s a yearbook. I have one too from my school. Haven’t looked at it in years. Probably lost it by now.’

‘I thought you said you never lose things,’ said Beauvoir.

‘Nothing I don’t want to lose,’ she smiled, handing Gamache back the book.

‘What high school did you go to?’ Gamache asked.

‘Gareth James High School, in Verdun. Why?’

‘Just trying to make connections.’ Armand Gamache swirled his cognac lazily in his glass. ‘People rarely murder people they don’t know. There’s something about this case.’

He let it hang there, not feeling any need to explain. After a moment Jeanne spoke.

‘There’s an intimacy about it,’ she said quietly. ‘No, there’s more. It feels crowded.’

Gamache nodded, still looking into his amber liqueur. ‘The past caught up with Madeleine Favreau on Easter Sunday, in the old Hadley house. You brought something to life.’

‘That’s not fair. I was invited to do the séance. It wasn’t my idea.’

‘You could have said no,’ he said. ‘You’ve just said you know things, sense things, see things. Couldn’t you see something coming?’

Outside the wind howled as Jeanne Chauvet thought back to that night in this very bistro. Someone had suggested another séance. Someone had suggested the old Hadley house. And something had changed. She’d felt it. A dread had crept into their happy, laughing circle.

She’d stolen a look at Madeleine, lovely, laughing Madeleine, looking weary and nervous. Madeleine hadn’t even recognized her.

Jeanne had seen then the thinly masked revulsion Mad felt at the very idea of a séance at the old Hadley house. And that had been enough. A truck could have been bearing down upon them and all Jeanne would see was a way to hurt Madeleine.

It had never occurred to her to decline the second séance.