The Brutal Telling (6 page)

Beauvoir wondered just how pathetic a woman had to be to allow herself to be called The Wife. It actually sounded slightly biblical, Old Testament.

Gabri put some beers, Cokes and a couple of bowls of mixed nuts on the table. Outside the villagers had finally gone home. It looked wet and bleak, but inside they were snug and warm. It was almost possible to forget this wasn’t a social occasion. The Scene of Crime agents seemed to have dissolved into the woodwork, only evident when a slight scratching or mumbling could be heard. Like rodents, or ghosts. Or homicide detectives.

“Tell us about last night,” said Chief Inspector Gamache.

“It was a madhouse,” said Gabri. “Last big weekend of the summer so everyone came by. Most had been to the fair during the day so they were tired. Didn’t want to cook. It’s always like that on Labor Day weekend. We were prepared.”

“What does that mean?” asked Agent Lacoste, who’d joined them.

“I brought in extra staff,” said Olivier. “But it went smoothly. People were pretty relaxed and we closed on time. At about one in the morning.”

“What happened then?” asked Lacoste.

Most murder investigations appeared complex but were really quite simple. It was just a matter of asking “And then what happened?” over and over and over. And listening to the answers helped too.

“I usually do the cash and leave the night staff to clean up, but Saturdays are different,” said Olivier. “Old Mundin comes after closing and delivers the things he’s repaired during the week and picks up any furniture that’s been broken in the meantime. Doesn’t take long, and he does it while the waiters and kitchen staff are cleaning up.”

“Wait a minute,” said Beauvoir. “Mundin does this at midnight on Saturdays? Why not Sunday morning, or any other reasonable time? Why late at night?”

It sounded furtive to Beauvoir, who had a nose for things secretive and sly.

Olivier shrugged. “Habit, I guess. When he first started doing the work he wasn’t married to The Wife so he’d hang around here Saturday nights. When we closed he’d just take the broken furniture then. We’ve seen no reason to change.”

In a village where almost nothing changed this made sense.

“So Mundin took the furniture. What happened then?” asked Beauvoir.

“I left.”

“Were you the last in the place?”

Olivier hesitated. “Not quite. Because it was so busy there were a few extra things to do. They’re a good bunch of kids, you know. Responsible.”

Gamache had been listening to this. He preferred it that way. His agents asked the questions and it freed him up to observe, and to hear what was said, how it was said, and what was left out. And now he heard a defensiveness creep into Olivier’s calm and helpful voice. Was he defensive about his own behavior, or was he trying to protect his staff, afraid they’d fall under suspicion?

“Who was the last to leave?” Agent Lacoste asked.

“Young Parra,” said Olivier.

“Young Parra?” asked Beauvoir. “Like Old Mundin?”

Gabri made a face. “Of course not. His name isn’t ‘Young.’ That’d be weird. His name’s Havoc.”

Beauvoir’s eyes narrowed and he glared at Gabri. He didn’t like being
mocked and he suspected this large, soft man was doing just that. He then looked over at Myrna, who wasn’t laughing. She nodded.

“That’s his name. Roar named his son Havoc.”

Jean Guy Beauvoir wrote it down, but without pleasure or conviction.

“Would he have locked up?” asked Lacoste.

It was, Gamache and Beauvoir both knew, a crucial question, but its significance seemed lost on Olivier.

“Absolutely.”

Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged glances. Now they were getting somewhere. The murderer had to have had a key. A world full of suspects had narrowed dramatically.

“May I see your keys?” asked Beauvoir.

Olivier and Gabri fished theirs out and handed them to the Inspector. But a third set was also offered. He turned and saw Myrna’s large hand dangling a set of keys.

“I have them in case I get locked out of my place or if there’s an emergency.”

“
Merci
,” said Beauvoir, with slightly less confidence than he’d been feeling. “Have you lent them to anyone recently?” he asked Olivier and Gabri.

“No.”

Beauvoir smiled. This was good.

“Except Old Mundin, of course. He’d lost his and needed to make another copy.”

“And Billy Williams,” Gabri reminded Olivier. “Remember? He normally uses the one under the planter at the front but he didn’t want to have to bend down while he carried the wood. He was going to take it to get more copies made.”

Beauvoir’s face twisted into utter disbelief. “Why even bother to lock up?” he finally asked.

“Insurance,” said Olivier.

Well, someone’s premiums are going up, thought Beauvoir. He looked at Gamache and shook his head. Really, they all deserved to be murdered in their sleep. But, of course, as irony would have it, it was the ones who locked and alarmed who were killed. In Beauvoir’s experience Darwin was way wrong. The fittest didn’t survive. They were killed by the idiocy of their neighbors, who continued to bumble along oblivious.

“You didn’t recognize him?” asked Clara as she sliced some fresh bread from Sarah’s Boulangerie.

There was only one “him” Myrna’s friend could be talking about. Myrna shook her head and sliced tomatoes into the salad, then turned to the shallots, all freshly picked from Peter and Clara’s vegetable garden.

“And Olivier and Gabri didn’t know him?” asked Peter. He was carving a barbecued chicken.

“Strange, isn’t it?” Myrna paused and looked at her friends. Peter—tall, graying, elegant and precise. And beside him his wife Clara. Short, plump, hair dark and wild, bread crust scattered into it like sparkles. Her eyes were blue and usually filled with humor. But not today.

Clara was shaking her head, perplexed. A couple of crumbs fell to the counter. She picked them up absently, and ate them. Now that the initial shock of discovery was receding, Myrna was pretty sure they were all thinking the same thing.

This was murder. The dead man was a stranger. But was the killer?

And they probably all came to the same conclusion. Unlikely.

She’d tried not to think about it, but it kept creeping into her head. She picked up a slice of baguette and chewed on it. The bread was warm, soft and fragrant. The outer crust was crispy.

“For God’s sake,” said Clara, waving the knife at the half-eaten bread in Myrna’s hand.

“Want some?” Myrna offered her a piece.

The two women stood at the counter eating fresh warm bread. They’d normally be at the bistro for Sunday lunch but that didn’t seem likely
today, what with the body and all. So Clara, Peter and Myrna had gone next door to Myrna’s loft apartment. Downstairs the door to her shop was armed with an alarm, should anyone enter. It wasn’t really so much an alarm as a small bell that tinkled when the door opened. Sometimes Myrna went down, sometimes not. Almost all her customers were local, and they all knew how much to leave by the cash register. Besides, thought Myrna, if anyone needed a used book so badly they had to steal it then they were welcome to it.

Myrna felt a chill. She looked across the room to see if a window was open and cool, damp air pouring in. She saw the exposed brick walls, the sturdy beams and the series of large industrial windows. She walked over to check, but all of them were closed, except for one open a sliver to let in some fresh air.

Walking back across the wide pine floors, she paused by the black pot-bellied woodstove in the center of the large room. It was crackling away. She lifted a round lid and slipped another piece of wood in.

“It must have been horrible for you,” said Clara, going to stand by Myrna.

“It was. That poor man, just lying there. I didn’t see the wound at first.”

Clara sat with Myrna on the sofa facing the woodstove. Peter brought over two Scotches then quietly retired to the kitchen area. From there he could see them, could hear their conversation, but wouldn’t be in the way.

He watched as the two women leaned close, sipping their drinks, talking softly. Intimately. He envied them that. Peter turned away and stirred the Cheddar and apple soup.

“What does Gamache think?” asked Clara.

“He seems as puzzled as the rest of us. I mean really,” Myrna turned to face Clara, “why was a strange man in the bistro? Dead?”

“Murdered,” said Clara and the two thought about that for a moment.

Clara finally spoke. “Did Olivier say anything?”

“Nothing. He seemed just stunned.”

Clara nodded. She knew the feeling.

The police were at the door. Soon they’d be in their homes, in their kitchens and bedrooms. In their heads.

“Can’t imagine what Gamache thinks of us,” said Myrna. “Every time he shows up there’s a body.”

“Every Quebec village has a vocation,” said Clara. “Some make cheese, some wine, some pots. We produce bodies.”

“Monasteries have vocations, not villages,” said Peter with a laugh. He placed bowls of rich-scented soup on Myrna’s long refectory table. “And we don’t make bodies.”

But he wasn’t really so sure.

“Gamache is the head of homicide for the Sûreté,” said Myrna. “It must happen to him all the time. In fact, he’d probably be quite surprised if there wasn’t a body.”

Myrna and Clara joined Peter at the table and as the women talked Peter thought of the man in charge of the investigation. He was dangerous, Peter knew. Dangerous to whoever had killed that man next door. He wondered whether the murderer knew what sort of man was after him. But Peter was afraid the murderer knew all too well.

I
nspector Jean Guy Beauvoir looked around their new Incident Room and inhaled. He realized, with some surprise, how familiar and even thrilling the scent was.

It smelled of excitement, it smelled of the hunt. It smelled of long hours over hot computers, piecing together a puzzle. It smelled of teamwork.

It actually smelled of diesel fuel and wood smoke, of polish and concrete. He was again in the old railway station of Three Pines, abandoned by the Canadian Pacific Railway decades ago and left to rot. But the Three Pines Volunteer Fire Department had taken it over, sneaking in and hoping no one noticed. Which, of course, they didn’t, the CPR having long forgotten the village existed. So now the small station was home to their fire trucks, their bulky outfits, their equipment. The walls retained the tongue-in-groove wood paneling, and were papered with posters for scenic trips through the Rockies and life-saving techniques. Fire safety tips, volunteer rotation and old railway timetables competed for space, along with a huge poster announcing the winner of the Governor General’s Prize for Poetry. There, staring out at them in perpetuity, was a madwoman.

She was also staring at him, madly, in person.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Beside her a duck stared at him too.

Ruth Zardo. Probably the most prominent and respected poet in the
country. And her duck Rosa. He knew that when Chief Inspector Gamache looked at her he saw a gifted poet. But Beauvoir just saw indigestion.

“There’s been a murder,” he said, his voice he hoped full of dignity and authority.