A Trick of the Light (17 page)

And finally they ended at the beginning. At the yellow tape. The hole in the garden where a life had disappeared.

“Now here’s a good one,”
Ruth quoted one of her own poems as she stared at the spot.

“You’re lying on your deathbed.

You have one hour to live.

Who is it, exactly, you have needed

all these years to forgive?”

Myrna pulled bright ribbons from her pocket and gave one to each of them saying, “We tie our ribbon to the prayer stick and send out good thoughts.”

They glanced at Ruth, waiting for the cynical comment. But none came. Dominique went first, fastening her pink ribbon to the gnarled stick.

Myrna went next, tying her purple ribbon and closing her eyes briefly to think good thoughts.

“Won’t be the first time I’ve tied one on,” Ruth admitted with a smile. Then she fastened her red ribbon, pausing to rest her veined hand on the prayer stick, like a cane, and look to the sky.

Listening.

But there was only the sound of bees. Bumbling.

Finally, Clara tied on her green ribbon, knowing she should think kind thoughts of Lillian. Something, something. She searched inside, peering into dark corners, opening doors closed for years. Trying to find one nice thing to say about Lillian.

The other women waited while the moments went by.

Clara closed her eyes and reviewed her time with Lillian, so many years ago. It whipped past, the early, happy memories blighted by the horrible events later on.

Stop, Clara commanded her brain. This was the route to the park bench. With the inedible stone bread.

No. Good things did happen and she needed to remember that. If not to release Lillian’s spirit, then to release her own.

Who is it, exactly, you have needed

all these years to forgive?

“You were kind to me, often. And you were a good friend. Once.”

The gem bright ribbons, the four female ribbons, fluttered and intertwined.

Myrna bent to pat the garden soil more firmly around the prayer stick.

“What’s this?”

She stood up, holding something caked in dirt. Wiping it off, she showed it to the others. It was a coin, the size of an Old West silver dollar.

“That’s mine,” said Ruth, reaching for it.

“Not so fast, Miss Kitty. Are you sure?” asked Myrna. Dominique and Clara took turns examining it. It was a coin, but not a silver dollar. In fact, it was coated in silver paint but it seemed plastic. And there was writing on it.

“What is it?” Dominique handed it back to Myrna.

“I think I know. And I’m pretty sure it isn’t yours,” Myrna said to Ruth.

*   *   *

Agent Isabelle Lacoste had joined Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir on the
terrasse.
She ordered a Diet Coke and gave them an update.

The Incident Room was up and running in the old railway station. Computers, phone lines, satellite links installed. Desks, swivel chairs, filing cabinets, all the hardware in place. It happened quickly, expertly. The homicide division of the Sûreté was used to going into remote communities to investigate murder. Like the Army Corps of Engineers, they knew time and precision counted.

“I’ve found out about Lillian Dyson’s family.” Lacoste pulled her chair forward and opened her notebook. “She’d divorced. No children. Her parents are both alive. They live on Harvard Ave in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.”

“How old are they?” Gamache asked.

“He’s eighty-three, she’s eighty-two. Lillian was an only child.”

Gamache nodded. This was, of course, the worst part of any case. Telling the living about the death.

“Do they know?”

“Not yet,” said Lacoste. “I wondered if you—”

“I’ll go into Montréal this afternoon and speak to them.” Where possible he told the family himself. “We should also search Madame Dyson’s apartment.” Gamache took the guest list from his breast pocket. “Can you get agents to interview everyone on this list? They were at the party last night or the
vernissage,
or both. I’ve marked the people we’ve already spoken to.”

Beauvoir put out his hand for the list.

It was his role, they knew, to coordinate the interviews, assemble the evidence, assign agents.

The Chief Inspector paused, then handed the list to Lacoste. Effectively handing control of the investigation to her. Both agents looked surprised.

“I’d like you with me in Montréal,” he said to Beauvoir.

“Of course,” said Beauvoir, perplexed.

They all had delineated roles within the homicide division. It was one of the things the Chief insisted on. That there be no confusion, no cracks. No overlap. They all knew what their jobs were, knew what was expected. Worked as a team. No rivalry. No in-fighting.

Chief Inspector Gamache was the undisputed head of homicide.

Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir was his second in command.

Agent Lacoste, up for promotion, was the senior agent. And below them were more than a hundred agents and investigators. And several hundred support staff.

The Chief made it clear. In confusion, in fractures, lay danger. Not just internal squabbles and politics, but something real and threatening. If they weren’t clear and cohesive, if they didn’t work together as a team, a violent criminal could escape. Or worse. Kill again.

Murderers hid in the tiniest of cracks. And Chief Inspector Gamache was damned if he was going to let his department provide one.

But now the Chief had broken one of his own cardinal rules. He handed the investigation, the day-to-day operations, over to Agent Isabelle Lacoste instead of Beauvoir.

Lacoste took the list, scanned it, and nodded. “I’ll get on it right away, Chief.”

Both men watched Agent Lacoste leave, then Beauvoir leaned forward.

“OK,
patron.
What’s this about?” he whispered. But before Gamache could answer they saw four women heading their way. Myrna in the lead, with Clara, Dominique and Ruth in her wake.

Gamache rose and bowed slightly to the women. “Would you like to join us?”

“We won’t stay long, but we wanted to show you something. We found this in the flower bed by where the woman was killed.” Myrna handed him the coin.

“Really?” said Gamache, surprised. He looked down at the dirty coin in his palm. His people had done a thorough search of the whole garden, of the whole village. What could they have missed?

There was the image of a camel on the face of it, just visible beneath the smears.

“Who’s touched this?” Beauvoir asked.

“We all did,” said Ruth, proudly.

“Do you not know what to do with evidence at a crime scene?”

“Do you not know how to collect evidence?” Ruth asked. “If you did we wouldn’t have found it.”

“This was just lying in the garden?” Gamache asked. With the tip of his finger, careful not to touch it more than necessary, he flipped it over.

“No,” said Myrna. “It was buried.”

“Then how did you find it?”

“With the prayer stick,” said Ruth.

“What’s a prayer stick?” Beauvoir asked, afraid of the answer.

“We can show you,” Dominique offered. “We put it in the flower bed where the woman was murdered.”

“We were doing a ritual cleansing—” said Clara, before being cut off by Myrna.

“Phhht.”
Myrna made a noise. “Ix-nay on the leansing-cay.”

Beauvoir stared at the women. It wasn’t enough that they were English and had a prayer stick, but now they’d lapsed into pig latin. It was no wonder there were so many murders here. The only mystery was how any got solved, with help like this.

“I bent down to mound dirt around the prayer stick and this thing appeared,” Myrna explained, as though this was a reasonable thing to be doing at a murder scene.

“Didn’t you see the police tape?” Beauvoir demanded.

“Didn’t you see the coin?” Ruth countered.

Gamache held up his hand and the two stopped bickering.

On the side now exposed there was writing. What looked like a poem.

Putting on his half-moon reading glasses he furrowed his brow, trying to read through the dirt.

No, not a poem.

A prayer.

NINE

For the second time that day Armand Gamache stood from crouching beside this flower bed.

The first time he’d been staring at a dead woman, this time he’d been staring at a prayer stick. Its bright, cheerful ribbons fluttering in the slight breeze. Catching, according to Myrna, currents of good energy. If she was right, there was a lot around, as the ribbons flapped and danced.

He straightened up, brushing his knees. Beside him, Inspector Beauvoir was glowering at the spot where the coin had been found.

Where he’d missed it.

Beauvoir was in charge of the crime scene investigation, and had personally searched the area directly around the body.

“You found it just here?” the Chief pointed to the mounded earth.

Myrna and Clara had joined them. Beauvoir had called Agent Lacoste and she arrived that moment with a crime scene kit.

“That’s right,” said Myrna. “In the flower bed. It was buried and caked with dirt. Hard to see.”

“I’ll take that,” said Beauvoir, grabbing the crime scene kit, annoyed at what he took to be a patronizing tone in Myrna’s voice. As though she needed to make excuses for his failure. He bent down to examine the earth.

“Why didn’t we find it before?” asked the Chief.

It wasn’t a criticism of his team. Gamache was genuinely perplexed. They were professional and thorough. Still, mistakes happened. But not, he thought, missing a silver coin sitting in a flower bed two feet from the dead body.

“I know how it was missed,” said Myrna. “Gabri could tell you too. Anyone who gardens could tell you. We’d weeded yesterday morning and mulched the earth in the beds so that it’d be fresh and dark and show off the flowers. Gardeners call it ‘fluffing’ the garden. Making the earth soft. But when we do that the ground becomes very crumbly. I’ve lost whole tools in there. Laid them down and they sort of tumble into a crevice and get half buried.”

“This is a flower bed,” said Gamache, “not the Himalayas. Could something really be swallowed up in there?”

“Try it.”

The Chief Inspector walked to the other side of the flower bed. “Did you mulch here too?” he asked.

“Everywhere,” said Myrna. “Go on. Try it.”

Gamache knelt and dropped a one dollar coin into the flower bed. It sat on top of the earth, clearly visible. Picking it back up, he rose and looked at Myrna.

“Any other suggestions?”

She gave the dirt a filthy look. “It’s probably settled now. If it was freshly turned it’d work.”

She got a trowel from Clara’s shed and dug around, turning the earth, fluffing it up.

“OK, try it now.”

Gamache knelt again, and again dropped the coin into the flower bed. This time it slid over onto its side, down a small crevice.

“See,” said Myrna.

“Well, yes, I do see. I see the coin,” said Gamache. “I’m afraid I’m not convinced. Could it have been there for a while? It might’ve fallen into the bed years ago. It’s made of plastic so it wouldn’t rust or age.”

“I doubt it,” said Clara. “We would’ve found it long ago. They sure would’ve found it yesterday when they weeded and mulched, don’t you think?”

“I’ve given up thinking,” said Myrna.

They walked back to where Beauvoir was working.

“Nothing more, Chief,” he said, standing abruptly and slapping his knees free of dirt. “I can’t believe we missed it the first time.”

“Well, we have it now.” Gamache looked at the coin in the evidence bag Lacoste was holding. It wasn’t money, wasn’t currency of any country. At first he’d wondered if it might be from the Middle East. What with the camel. After all, Canadian currency had a moose on it, why shouldn’t Saudi currency have a camel?

But the words were English. And there was no mention of a denomination.

Just the camel on one side and the prayer on the other.

“You’re sure it doesn’t belong to you or Peter?” he asked Clara.

“I’m sure. Ruth briefly claimed it, but Myrna said it couldn’t possibly belong to her.”

Gamache turned to the large, caftaned woman beside him, his brows raised.

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I know what it is and I know Ruth would never have one. I assumed you recognized it.”

“I have no idea what it is.” They all looked again at the coin sitting in the Baggie.

“May I?” Myrna asked and when Gamache nodded Lacoste handed her the bag. Myrna looked through the plastic.

“God,”
she read.
“Grant me the serenity,

To accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.”

“It’s a beginner’s chip,” she said. “From Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s given to people who’re just getting sober.”

“How do you know that?” the Chief asked.

“Because when I was in practice I suggested a number of clients join AA. Some of them later showed me what they called their beginner’s chip. Just like that.” She gestured to the bag back in Lacoste’s hand. “Whoever dropped it is a member of AA.”

“I see what you mean about Ruth,” said Beauvoir.

Gamache thanked them and watched as Clara and Myrna walked back to the house, to join the others.

Beauvoir and Agent Lacoste were talking, going over notes and findings. Inspector Beauvoir would be giving her some instructions, Gamache knew. Leads to follow while they were in Montréal.

He wandered around the garden. One mystery was solved. The coin was an AA beginner’s chip.

But who dropped it? Lillian Dyson as she fell? But even if she did his experiment showed it would just sit on the earth. They’d have seen it right away.