The Murder Stone (21 page)

‘How long ago did you come here?’ she asked again.

‘Twenty-four years.’ The number surprised him.

‘About the same time the chef arrived.’

‘Was it?’

‘Did you know each other before coming here?’ she asked the maitre d’.

‘Who? Madame Dubois?’

‘No, Chef Veronique.’

‘Chef Veronique?’ He seemed puzzled and suddenly Agent Lacoste understood. She stole a look at the chef, large, powerful, cubing meat with fast, practised hands.

Her heart constricted as she felt for this woman. How long had the chef felt this way? Had she lived almost a quarter-century in this log lodge on the edge of Lac Massawippi with a man who didn’t return her feelings? What did that do to a person? And what happened to a love that was spread over time and in such isolation? Did it turn into something else?

Something capable of murder?

‘How’re you doing?’

Clara put her arms around her husband. He bent down and kissed her. They were dressing for dinner and it was their first chance to talk.

‘It seems incredible,’ Peter said, flopping into a chair, exhausted. Beauvoir had dropped off the suitcase from Gabri filled with underwear, socks, Scotch and potato chips. No real clothes.

‘We might as well have asked W. C. Fields to pack,’ Peter said, as they sat eating chips and drinking Scotch in their clean underwear. But, actually, it felt good.

Clara had found a Caramilk bar Gabri had thrown into their case and now ate it, discovering that chocolate really went quite well with Scotch.

‘Peter, what do you think Julia was getting at last night when she said she’d figured out your father’s secret?’

‘She was ranting. Trying to cause an upset. It meant nothing.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Honestly, Clara, let it go.’ Peter got up and rummaged through their own carrying case. He pulled out the shirt and slacks he’d worn the night before. Unfortunately they’d scrunched up their clothes and shoved them into the overnight case, expecting not to need them again.

‘Thank God Armand Gamache is here,’ said Clara, eyeing her powder-blue linen dress, her good one. It looked like seersucker.

‘Yeah, what luck.’

‘What’s the matter?’

He turned to her, his hair mussed, his clothing dishevelled. ‘Someone killed Julia. And Gamache will find out who.’

‘Let’s hope.’

They stared at each other, not with strain or animosity, but each waiting for the other to explain.

‘Oh, I understand,’ said Clara. And she did. Armand Gamache would find out who killed Peter’s sister. How had she not thought of this earlier? She’d been caught on the barbed hook of Julia’s murder, thrashing over that shocking event. She hadn’t looked beyond why. To who.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Her normally composed, immaculate husband was falling apart. His stuffing seemed to be coming out. She looked at Peter, trying to find his necktie in the bottom of their case.

‘Found it.’ He held it up. It looked like a noose.

A few doors away Mariana Morrow gazed at her reflection. Yesterday she’d seen a free spirit, a creative, dashing, age-defying woman. Amelia Earhart and Isadora Duncan bound together, before they crashed to earth, of course. Mariana flung her scarf once more round her throat and gave it a little tug. Just to see how being throttled might feel.

Now she saw someone else wrapped and trapped in there. Someone tired. Someone worn. Someone old. Not as old as Julia, but then Julia had stopped ageing. Fuck her. Always ahead of her time. The one who’d married well, the one who was rich and thin. The one who got away. And now the one who’d never get old.

Fuck Julia.

Someone else was indeed bound up in there, with Amelia and Isadora. Someone just peeping out from the layers of too flimsy material.

Mariana tied a scarf to her head and imagined the huge iron chandelier in the dining room crashing down on top of all of them. Except Bean, of course.

‘Must you wear that?’ Thomas asked his wife.

She looked perfectly fine, but that wasn’t the point. Was never the point.

‘Why not?’ she asked, looking at herself in the mirror. ‘It’s sombre but tasteful.’

‘It’s just not right.’

He managed to convey the sense it wasn’t the dress that was wrong. Nor was it necessarily Sandra. But her upbringing. Not her fault. Really. Darling.

It was in the pauses. Never the words, but the hesitations. Sandra had spent the first few years ignoring it, agreeing with Thomas that she was just too sensitive. Then she’d spent a few years trying to change, to be slim enough, sophisticated enough, elegant enough.

Then she’d entered therapy and spent a few years fighting back.

Then she’d surrendered. And started taking it out on others.

Thomas went back to struggling with his cufflink. His large fingers fumbled at the tiny silver clasp which seemed to have shrunk. He could feel his tension rising, the stress starting at his toes spreading up his legs and through his loins and exploding in his chest.

Why wouldn’t this cufflink go in? What was wrong?

He needed them tonight. They were his crucifix, his talisman, his rabbit’s foot, his stake and hammer and garlic.

They protected him, and reminded the others who he was.

The eldest son, the favourite son.

He finally got the post through and secured the cufflink, noticing it gleaming next to the frayed cuff. Then they made their way down the hall, Thomas in a snit and Sandra brightening up, remembering the cookies plastered to the dining room ceiling, like stars.

‘I don’t think you need do that, my dear,’ said Bert Finney, hovering behind his wife. ‘Not tonight. Everyone will understand.’

She was dressed in a loose-fitting frock, her earrings in, her pearl necklace on. Only one thing missing.

Her face.

‘Really.’ He reached out and almost touched her wrist, but stopped just in time. They locked eyes in the harsh bathroom mirror. His bulbous nose pocked and veined, his hair thinning and unkempt, his mouth full of teeth as though he’d chewed them but hadn’t yet swallowed. But for once his eyes, liquid almost, were steady. And trained on her.

‘I must,’ she said. ‘For Julia.’

She dipped the soft round pad into the foundation. Bringing her hand up she hesitated for a moment, looking at her reflection, then began applying her mask.

Irene Finney finally knew what she believed. She believed Julia to be the kindest, most loving, most generous of her children. She believed Julia loved her too, and came back just to be with her. She believed had Julia not died they’d have shared their lives. Loving mother and loving daughter.

Finally, a child who wouldn’t disappoint and disappear.

With each savage stroke of her make-up, Irene Finney filled the void with a child not loved then lost, but first lost, then loved.

Bean Morrow sat alone at the table. Waiting. But not alone or lonely. Bean had brought Hercules, Ulysses, Zeus and Hera. And Pegasus.

Alone in the dining room of the Manoir Bellechasse, feet planted on the ground, Bean climbed aboard the rearing, mighty stallion. Together they galloped down the grass of the Bellechasse and just as lawn turned into lake Pegasus took off. Together they circled the lodge then headed out across the lake, over the mountains. Bean wheeled and soared and swung, high in the sunlit silence.

SEVENTEEN

A table was set in the corner of the library, by the windows, and there the three officers sat to eat. They hadn’t dressed for dinner, though Chief Inspector Gamache always wore a suit and tie during investigations and still wore it.

As the various courses arrived they went over their findings.

‘We now believe Julia Martin was murdered last night shortly before the storm. That would be sometime between midnight and one a.m., is that right?’ Gamache asked, sipping his cold cucumber and raspberry soup. There was a bit of dill in it, a hint of lemon and something sweet.

Honey, he realized.

‘Oui. Pierre Patenaude showed me his weather station. Between his readings and a call to Environment Canada we can say the rain began about then,’ Agent Lacoste confirmed as she sipped her vichyssoise.

‘Bon. Alors, what were people doing then?’ His deep brown eyes moved from Lacoste to Beauvoir.

‘Peter and Clara Morrow went to bed shortly after you left the room,’ said Beauvoir, consulting the notebook beside him. ‘Monsieur and Madame Finney had already gone up. The housemaid saw them and wished them goodnight. No one saw Peter and Clara, by the way. Thomas and Sandra Morrow stayed in the library here with his sister Mariana discussing the unveiling for about twenty minutes then they went to bed too.’

‘All of them?’ Gamache asked.

‘Thomas and Sandra Morrow went straight up, but Mariana stayed for a few minutes. Had another drink, listened to some music. The maitre d’ served her and waited until she’d gone to bed. That was about ten past midnight.’

‘Good,’ said the Chief Inspector. They were getting the skeleton of the case, the outline, the facts, who did what when. Or at least what they said they did. But they needed more, much more. They needed the flesh and blood.

‘We need to find out about Julia Martin,’ said Gamache. ‘Her life in Vancouver, how she met David Martin. What her interests were. Everything.’

‘Martin was in the insurance industry,’ said Beauvoir. ‘I bet she was insured to the gills.’

Gamache looked at him with interest.

‘I imagine you’re right. Easy enough to find out.’

Beauvoir lifted his brows then looked behind him. The large comfortable sofas and leather chairs had been rearranged and now a couple of tables were shoved together in the centre of the library. Three sensible chairs sat round the tables, and in front of each, neatly arranged, was a notepad and pen.

This was Agent Lacoste’s solution to the computer problem. No computers. Not even a telephone. Instead they each had a pen and a pad of paper.

‘I’ll start training the pigeons to carry the message. No wait, that’s silly,’ said Beauvoir. ‘There must be a pony express stop nearby.’

‘When I was your age, young man—’ Gamache began, his voice creaky.

‘Not the smoke signal story again,’ said Beauvoir.

‘You’ll figure it out.’ Gamache smiled. ‘I want to go back to last night. The family gathered here.’ Gamache got up from the dinner table and walked to beside the fireplace. ‘Before Julia came in we got to talking.’

Gamache replayed the scene in his head and now he saw them all. Saw Thomas making an apparently innocuous statement to his sister about their conversation. And Mariana asking something, and Thomas replying.

‘He told Julia we were talking about men’s toilets,’ said Gamache.

‘Were you?’ asked Lacoste.

‘Does it matter?’ asked Beauvoir. ‘Men’s, women’s, it’s all the same.’

‘People get arrested for thinking that,’ said Lacoste.

‘It seemed to matter to them,’ said Gamache. ‘We hadn’t specified. Just public washrooms.’

There was silence in the room for a moment.

‘Men’s toilets?’ Lacoste drew her brows together, considering. ‘And that made Julia explode? I don’t get it. Sounds harmless enough.’

Gamache nodded. ‘I agree, but it wasn’t. We need to find out why Julia reacted like that.’

‘It’ll be done,’ said Lacoste, as they sat down again.

‘Perhaps you’d like to chisel it into a stone so you don’t forget,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Though I think I saw some papyrus lying around.’

‘You interviewed the staff,’ Gamache said to Lacoste. ‘It was a hot night, could some of them have snuck away for a swim?’

‘And seen something? I asked and none admitted to it.’

Gamache nodded. It was what worried him the most. That one of the young staff had seen something and either was too afraid to come forward or didn’t want to ‘tell’. Or would do something foolish with the information. He’d warned them, but he knew kids’ brains didn’t seem to have receptacles for advice, or warnings.

‘Did you find the wasps’ nest by the murder site?’ Gamache asked.

‘Nothing,’ said Lacoste, ‘but I warned everyone. So far no problems. Maybe they drowned in the storm. But I did find something interesting while searching the guest rooms. In Julia Martin’s room.’ She got up and brought back a packet of letters, tied with a worn yellow velvet ribbon.

‘They’ve been fingerprinted, don’t worry,’ she said when the chief hesitated to touch the bundle. ‘They were in the drawer by her bed. And I also found these.’

Out of an envelope she brought two crinkled pieces of Manoir Bellechasse notepaper.

‘They’re dirty,’ said Gamache, picking them up. ‘Were they also in the drawer?’

‘No, in the fireplace grate. She’d balled them up and tossed them in.’

‘On a hot night, with no fire? Why wouldn’t she just put them in the wastepaper basket? There was one in the room?’

‘Oh yes. She’d used it to throw away that plastic wrap from the dry cleaners.’

Gamache smoothed out the two pieces of paper and read them as he took a sip of red wine.

I enjoyed our conversation. Thank you. It helped.

Then the other one.

You are very kind. I know you won’t tell anyone what I said. I could get into trouble!

The writing was in careful block print.

‘I’ve sent off a copy for handwriting analysis, but they’re printed. Makes it more difficult, of course,’ said Lacoste.

The Chief Inspector laid his linen napkin over the finds as the main course was brought in. Lobster for him, filet mignon for Beauvoir and a nice Dover sole for Lacoste.

‘Would you say the same person wrote both?’ asked Gamache.

Beauvoir and Lacoste looked again but the answer seemed obvious.

‘Oui,’ said Beauvoir, taking his first forkful of steak. He imagined Chef Veronique handling the meat, whisking the bearnaise sauce. Knowing it was for him.

‘Wonderful meal,’ said Gamache to the waiter as the plates were swept aside a few minutes later and a cheese tray arrived. ‘I wonder where Chef Veronique studied.’

Beauvoir sat forward.

‘She didn’t, at least not formally,’ said Agent Lacoste, smiling at the waiter whom she’d interviewed about murder just hours earlier. ‘I spoke with her this afternoon. She’s sixty-one. No formal training, but picked up recipes from her mother and travelled a bit.’