World of Curiosities

CHAPTER 18

They stopped at Billy’s on the way and picked up the envelope and Post-it note that had come with the letter: I think this might interest you. Patricia Godin.

From there Armand drove to Billy’s ancestral home. The heavens had opened, and by the time they got to the porch, they were soaked.

Billy knocked on the door and looked around while they waited.

The house was, perhaps not surprisingly, made of stones yanked from the ground as it was turned from forest into fields for farming. The floors and beams and even the front door were milled from trees that had grown up and been cut down within sight of where they were standing.

As a child, Billy had held his grandfather’s calloused hand, and together they’d walked through the forest, the old man touching the trees and describing their character. From him, young Billy learned that trees had feelings and personalities of their own.

With his grandmother, little Billy had walked through those fields picking wildflowers, and herbs, and sweetgrass. From her he learned how to make teas and poultices and a surefire cure for warts.

He tried to be happy for the new owners, but still, as he stood on the porch and knocked on what still felt like his own front door, Billy Williams ached.

There was a rattle, and then a man in his late sixties or early seventies stood there, looking surprised.

“Oui?”

“Monsieur Godin?”

“Oui.” He was staring at them, trying to figure out if he knew them. His eyes shifted from Billy to the man with him. Tall, solid in build. Wavy gray hair, and that scar …

“My name is Billy Williams, I—”

“Ah, oui. Of course.” Godin stepped back. “Your family owned this home. Come in.”

Billy stepped inside and looked around. Not much, physically, had changed. The walls, the floors, the beams were where he’d left them. Only the furniture was different.

He introduced Gamache, though by then Monsieur Godin had clearly recognized him. The Chief Inspector was a familiar presence in Québec media and was known to live in the area.

Monsieur Godin turned to Gamache. “Finally. Is this about Patricia?”

Billy raised his brows, but Armand was more adept at hiding surprise, though that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.

Billy began to say, “Is she he—” when Armand interrupted.

“Patricia Godin is your wife?”

Billy looked at his companion. There was a change in Armand’s voice, in his whole demeanor. It was subtle but there.

Monsieur Godin nodded. “Yes. My late wife. I spoke to the local Sûreté detachment when it happened. That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“May we sit down, please?” asked Gamache, and Monsieur Godin guided them into the comfortable living room, where a small fire was muttering in the hearth.

“Can I get you anything? You’re wet. You must be cold. A hot tea or coffee?”

“Not for me, thank you,” said Gamache, and Billy also shook his head, though both men sat close to the fire.

Billy was aware that Armand had been replaced by Chief Inspector Gamache.

“I need to be honest with you,” said Gamache. “We came here to discuss the letter your wife forwarded to Monsieur Williams. I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with what happened to her.”

“Letter? What letter?”

“Perhaps you can tell us about your wife first.”

“So, the local Sûreté didn’t contact you?”

“Non.”

“They said they would, but…” He raised, then dropped his hands. “I contacted them a few times, but then stopped … And then when so much time passed … But when I saw you at the door…” He stared into the fire. Unable, it seemed, to form a complete thought or sentence.

“What happened?” Gamache leaned forward, not a lot but enough to show Monsieur Godin that he had Gamache’s full attention.

“They say she killed herself. Hanged herself, out back. I know it’s not true. Pat would never do that.”

“I’m sorry,” said Gamache and paused a beat before asking, “When was this?”

“April twenty-first. I found her…”

“Five weeks ago,” Billy whispered, and Gamache nodded. He was thinking the same thing. It was exactly the time she’d forwarded the letter to Billy.

“Did she leave a note? Any message explaining?” Gamache asked.

Monsieur Godin shook his head. “She’d had a hysterectomy and the coroner said that had upset her hormones. Made her depressed. That’s bullshit. She had trouble sleeping, but she wasn’t depressed. There’s no way Pat killed herself. And…”

“Yes?”

Godin heaved a sigh. “Even if she had, she wouldn’t have hung herself. That must be a terrible way to go. Wouldn’t she have tried pills?” He was beseeching them. “Wouldn’t you?”

Billy had to agree. If it came to that, he’d try many things before hanging. And there was something else.

“You say it happened out back? A tree?” When Monsieur Godin nodded, Billy asked, “Which one?”

Monsieur Godin stared at him with something akin to disgust. “Does it matter?”

“It might.”

“I can show you, if you want.” This was said to Gamache.

“Please.” Though he was also unsure why Billy would want to know. But he knew Billy Williams, and knew it was not prurient interest.

“I wanted to cut it down,” said Godin as he took them through the kitchen and out onto the back porch. “But the children stopped me. Said it wasn’t the tree’s fault.” He pointed. “That’s the one.”

In the middle of the yard, about twenty meters from the house, there stood a huge maple. Old, gnarled, its limbs thick and solid.

“Mable,” said Billy, as rain pounded the roof overhead and cascaded down, creating a wall of water between them and the tree.

“Mable?” said Gamache and Godin together.

“Mable the maple,” said Billy. “It’s what my grandmother called her. We used to climb all over her. Fell out of her more than once. She was old in my day.” He shook his head and smiled. Then he remembered what had happened, and his smile fell from his face.

“So do our grandchildren,” said Monsieur Godin. “That’s why our son and daughter didn’t want it cut down. But they didn’t see…”

No, thought Armand. They didn’t.

Armand understood now why Billy had asked the question.

He turned to Monsieur Godin. “If she did want to hang herself, would your wife have chosen this tree?”

Godin, still staring at it, shook his head. “No. Never. She wouldn’t do that to the kids. To me. To the tree.”

The three men stared at Mable. Gamache believed him. Which meant, if Madame Godin did not take her own life, someone else did.

And it almost certainly had something to do with the letter. The one in his breast pocket.

“We need to talk, but first I need to make a call.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir was sitting at his desk at Sûreté headquarters in Montréal when the call came through. It was mid-afternoon, and he was going over reports on the various investigations under way.

“Chief? Everything okay?”

“I think I’ve discovered a homicide,” said Gamache.

“Where?” said Jean-Guy, sitting forward and grabbing a pen.

“Just outside Cowansville. I need you to look up the file on a Patricia Godin. She died on April twenty-first of this year.” He gave the address. “It was ruled a suicide.”

“But you think it was murder?”

“I’m almost sure it was. She was cremated, so we can’t exhume her body, but I want the autopsy report and anything you can find from the local Sûreté.”

“They missed it?”

“Yes. They put it down to depression caused by a hysterectomy.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Oh, Jesus” was right, thought Gamache. He’d hoped they were well beyond the days when women went to a doctor with pain and it was dismissed as hysteria. When “that time of the month” became a euphemism for derangement, and menopause became an illness.

He would have words with the station commander, but first things first.

“How did you discover it?” Beauvoir asked.

When Gamache told him about the letter and the hidden room, Beauvoir was silent for a moment, then asked, “So you think someone killed her to stop her from reading the letter?”

“Maybe,” said Gamache. “But it was too late. The letter had already arrived, and she’d forwarded it.”

“So why kill her? Because she’d read it? Then why not kill Billy? Why not try to get the letter back? Presumably the murderer would have found out from Madame Godin where she sent it.”

“True. Before we go too far, we need to make sure it was murder.”

“I’ll get you the information and come down.”

Rejoining Monsieur Godin and Billy in front of the fire, he brought out the Stone letter.

“Did you ever see this?”

Monsieur Godin looked at it, then shook his head. “It’s strange, old. And that stuff about bricking up the room. But why are you showing it to me? Does it have anything to do with Pat?”

“We don’t know. We do know the letter came here first, then your wife forwarded it to Monsieur Williams here.”

“So? An old letter came here by mistake and she sent it on. People do.”

“Did your wife mention this letter?”

“Non. How could this have anything to do with her death?” He held Gamache’s eyes. “That is what you’re thinking.”

Gamache now showed him the Post-it note. “Is this your wife’s handwriting?”

“No.” It was so unequivocal, Gamache raised his brows. Seeing this, Godin got up. “Pat had terrible handwriting. I can show you.”

Godin returned with a shopping list his wife had made and stuck to the fridge with a magnet. He clearly wasn’t yet ready to throw out anything she’d touched.

Godin was right. Her handwriting was almost unintelligible.

“Merci,” said Armand, taking the list. “Do you mind if I keep this?”

Godin shook his head and watched as the Chief Inspector placed it in a baggie, along with the Post-it.

Gamache had one more question. “Do you have Billy Williams’s address?”

“His?” Monsieur Godin pointed to Billy. “If you need it, why not just ask him?”

“Non,” said Gamache, almost smiling. “I mean, would your wife be able to forward mail to him?”

“I doubt it.” He turned to Billy. “We had your parents’ address in the seniors’ home, but that was years ago and I know they’ve since passed away. We never had yours. Besides, nothing’s arrived for your family in years.”

“Merci.” Gamache got to his feet. He now had a pretty good idea why Madame Godin was killed. Like most murders, it had started long ago, and in the most banal of ways.

When she and her husband had bought a home. This home.

He picked up the envelope and looked at the crossed-out address and the new one, Billy’s, added. In the hand of her killer.

Patricia Godin was murdered not to stop the letter, but to make sure it was sent on. To the people who needed to see it.

Then he looked at the Post-it note, also written, he was sure, by her killer.

I think this might interest you.

It was almost, Gamache thought, as though the words were meant for him.

“You weren’t kidding.”

As soon as Jean-Guy Beauvoir arrived in Three Pines, Gamache had taken him up to Myrna’s loft to see the no-longer-hidden room.

The two men stood in front of the painting and were joined by Myrna, who now felt a certain ownership over it.

“Quite something, isn’t it?” she said, with a mixture of pride and uncertainty.

Jean-Guy was shaking his head, trying to get his mind around it. Then he leaned closer and pointed.

“Why put a poster in the painting?” asked Jean-Guy.

“Why put anything?” asked Myrna. “Why remake a masterpiece?”

“They remade Total Recall,” said Jean-Guy.

“Let it go,” said Armand gently. “You can still watch the original.”

The three of them stared at this remake and wondered. Why. Though the two Sûreté officers also wondered if, and how, this could have anything to do with the death of Patricia Godin.

“How did they get it up here?” asked Beauvoir, looking around.

“Billy and Olivier are going over the plans for the building and trying to work out the how,” said Gamache. The why would take longer.

“They’re down in the bookstore now,” said Myrna. “Looking at the ceiling. If it didn’t come through this wall, and obviously it didn’t, then it was either the roof or the ceiling.”

“But how could they have gotten it in here without you seeing?” asked Jean-Guy. “I mean, it would take a damned big hole to get that”—he gestured toward the painting—“in.”

“And it would take time,” said Gamache. “Were you away recently? I don’t remember you going anywhere.”

“Not recently, no. I went to Charlevoix with Clara, whale watching, for a week. When you were in Paris.”

“Did anyone stay here?” Gamache asked.

“No. Ruth offered to look after the store, but that didn’t seem like a good idea, so I just closed it.”

“And no work was done on the place while you were away? Renovations?”

“Olivier? Do improvements? Have you met the man?”

“Can you give us the dates?” Beauvoir asked.

She went to look up the days she and Clara were away, while Jean-Guy walked around the rest of the newly discovered room. “I’ll get the Scene of Crime team to fingerprint and swab the items.”

“Good. And we need everything moved to someplace secure.”

“I’m having the Old Train Station set up as an Incident Room.” Jean-Guy looked around. “But honestly, patron, I’m not sure how this relates to the death of Patricia Godin.”

“Neither am I. The only link is the letter.” And it was, they both knew, a flimsy link.

Myrna was coming back with the information, so they said no more about murder, preferring to keep that to themselves for now. Besides, they still needed proof it was murder.

Armand gave Jean-Guy the Stone letter along with the envelopes and Post-it. “I’ll make copies,” said Beauvoir, “and send the originals to the lab.”

When he left, Myrna said, “Something’s changed.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Come on, Armand. Jean-Guy’s here. You’re whispering. There’s activity at the Old Train Station. What’s happened? Is it something to do with—?” She jerked her head toward the hole in the wall.

“I can’t say yet. I’m sorry.”

Which was, they both knew, an answer in itself. As they made their way downstairs, she said, “I hear there was a dustup in the bistro today at lunch.”

He stopped and turned. “What do you mean?”

“Harriet told me that Sam Arsenault and the minister had words.”

“Robert Mongeau?” He couldn’t imagine the minister getting into an argument with anyone. “What about?”

“You.”

“Moi?”

“Yes. Sam was bad-mouthing you, and Robert defended you. Though it all ended amicably enough.” She paused. “I think Harriet’s got a crush on Sam. Should I be worried?”

Armand remembered the young man putting his arm around Harriet’s waist in a way that spoke less of affection and more of ownership. Or even hostage taking.

“Honestly?” he said. “If it was my daughter, I would be.”

Myrna had known that would be the answer. Ever since she’d interviewed Sam Arsenault on the eve of his sister’s parole hearing, she’d felt something was wrong.

That hadn’t been part of the formal parole hearings, but Armand had wanted her professional opinion before committing Reine-Marie and himself to be Fiona’s sponsors.

So, Dr. Landers had gone to the women’s prison. She’d met Fiona before in Three Pines, when the young woman had stayed with the Gamaches on weekend parole. But that was social. Now she was a psychologist specializing in criminal behavior, interviewing a known murderer.

Fiona readily admitted she’d killed her mother. She also admitted attacking her brother. Dr. Landers found Fiona Arsenault to be open, well-balanced, truthful. Remorseful. And she said as much to Armand and Reine-Marie.

Sam was another matter. It wasn’t anything Myrna could put her finger on, which was strange given her experience with so many different, and often aberrant, personalities. And that was what disconcerted her to the point of ending the interview early. It was like talking to a blank spot.

“I want to say something to Harriet, but I don’t know what, and I have no proof that Sam is…,” said Myrna. What?

Sick.

“There is something else, Armand. Harriet told me Robert said he could see goodness in Sam.”

“Really? He said that?”

“Yes. And according to Harriet, he turned to Fiona, clearly wanting to say the same thing about her.”

Armand waited.

“But he didn’t. He just stared at her, then looked a little confused and looked away.” Myrna paused. “You don’t think…”

Armand knew what she was thinking.

That they were wrong, and Reine-Marie and Jean-Guy, and now it seemed Robert Mongeau, were right. As was the court. That the dangerous one wasn’t Sam. He was manipulative, angry, vengeful. But not murderous.

Maybe the really dangerous one was the one who looked, acted, seemed okay.

Evil is unspectacular and always human, Auden had written. And shares our bed and eats at our own table.

Armand had no proof that Sam was dangerous. Was unwell. But there was a great deal of proof that the sibling who ate at their table had been. And maybe still was.

When Gamache walked into the Old Train Station, familiar from past investigations, he expected to see chaos. The sort of turmoil that accompanies the setting up of an Incident Room.

Instead, he found a young plainclothes officer directing the operation. Though to say she was in plain clothes would be unfair to her clothes. They were anything but plain. They were, however, plaid. And frayed and ripped. A white T-shirt was visible under a sweater that looked eaten not just by moths, but ravens.

Tattoos covered her arms and crawled up her neck.

She stood in the middle of the room, and when not issuing orders, she was clicking her tongue post against her teeth.

It was grating. She was grating. But she was also getting results. Neither senior officer had ever seen an Incident Room come together so quickly. Mostly because the technicians just wanted to get out and away from Agent Amelia Choquet.

“I thought you didn’t like her,” Gamache said, going up to his second-in-command, who seemed to be cowering in a corner.

“I don’t. Who does? I brought her in right after you called me. We needed someone, but with Isabelle on vacation, and this not being officially a homicide yet, I thought it best to bring in someone who at least knows Three Pines and the people.”

It was, Armand thought, a very good idea. They were playing catch-up with this murder. Five weeks old, dismissed as suicide, body cremated.

The quicker they could get a handle on what was important and what was not, the better.

A conference table had been set up, and Jean-Guy pointed toward it. “Can we go over the timeline? I just need to be clear, patron.”

Gamache nodded. He too wanted to be clear.

“In,” Beauvoir started, already consulting his notes, “1862, Pierre Stone is approached to build a wall.”

Beauvoir could barely believe he was saying those words. In a murder investigation they always looked to the past, but never that far past.

“C’est correct,” said Gamache.

“He writes a letter to a woman named Clémence, describing the commission.”

Gamache nodded and looked at the copy of the letter, sitting between them on the table. The original, along with the other documents, had been sent to Montréal for analysis.

“He builds the wall and seals up the room next to what is now Myrna’s loft.”

“The row of buildings was originally put up as workers’ cottages by the owner of the mill,” said Gamache. “The date on the bricks corresponds to the date on Pierre Stone’s letter.”

“So that fits,” said Beauvoir. “But the letter doesn’t. You don’t think Stone wrote it.”

“What letter?” said Agent Choquet. “Is this it?”

They looked up and realized all the technicians had gone and the Incident Room had been set up, complete with coffee machine, mini-fridge, blackboard, desks, computers. And fiber-optic cable, something Inspector Beauvoir rarely managed to get technicians to connect.

She must’ve scared them silly, thought Gamache.

She must’ve scared them shitless, thought Beauvoir.

Both were correct.

Gamache was about to suggest Amelia join them, but she’d already taken a seat and was reading the letter.

“He was a stonemason in the mid-1800s?” she asked. “There’s no way he wrote this.” She shoved it away from her.

“Thank you,” said the Chief Inspector, before turning back to Beauvoir, who was glaring at Agent Choquet. “Continue, Inspector. And you”—Gamache turned to Amelia—“listen.”

Beauvoir actually smiled. It was almost exactly what the Chief had said to him that day years ago, by the shores of that lake.

“Fast-forward to five weeks ago, when the Stone letter arrives at the former home of Pierre Stone, mailed by some unknown person. Patricia Godin reads it, then either she forwards it to Billy Williams or someone else does. Shortly after that, she dies—”

“But don’t you—” Amelia began.

“Listening,” said Gamache. “Listening.”

“The local police put her death down as suicide,” Beauvoir continued.

There was a clicking sound from Agent Choquet. But no actual words.

Beauvoir stared at her, then noticed that Gamache was looking at the table and fighting unsuccessfully to suppress a grin.

“What?” said Beauvoir.

The clicking was Morse code.

Bullshit. Bullshit.

Gamache gave Amelia a stern warning glance and the clicking stopped. “Nothing. Go on.”

“Billy Williams reads the letter and shows it to Ruth. Both think it’s strange, but nothing more. Just some incident from the past, until Fiona mentions the hidden room.”

Gamache sat forward, as did Amelia, who was clearly tempted to talk but managed to remain silent.

“They broke through the wall this morning,” Beauvoir continued. “And found the painting and other items.”

This was too much for Amelia. “Painting? What?”

“Oui.”

“Sealed in a hidden room?”

Amelia Choquet, tattooed and pierced, a former heroin addict and prostitute, was surprised by very little in life except, perhaps, kindness. But this surprised her.

“The painting was made to look old,” said Beauvoir, “but isn’t. Made to look like a copy of a masterpiece, but isn’t.”

Cloaked in cynicism and armored by indifference, Amelia rarely showed interest, but she could not hide it now. “And sealed up a hundred and sixty years ago?”

“We should show her,” said Jean-Guy.

“You do that, I’m going over to Clara’s. I’ll meet you in Myrna’s loft when I’m done.”

Myrna, downstairs in the bookstore, greeted Amelia like another niece. Since Myrna was a purveyor of books, and the young agent was addicted to them, this made the bookseller her pusher, though actually more like her priestess.

“Find anything?” Beauvoir asked Olivier and Billy, who’d just finished examining the ceiling.

“We think there’s a section that’s been repainted,” said Olivier, “but hard to tell.”

Once in the loft, they stood at the jagged hole in the wall.

“Holy shit,” whispered Amelia. She stared at the painting, her concentration so complete she forgot to click her tongue post. But if she had, it would have been three short. Three long. Three short.