Still Life (17 page)

‘We need to get into that basement. I’d like you to offer them a deal. We won’t take Philippe to the police station, if they take us to the basement right now.’

‘But we have to speak with Philippe.’

‘I agree, but we can’t do both and the only way we’ll get to the basement is if we give them something they really want. They want to protect their son. We can’t have both and I think this is the best we can do.’

Beauvoir thought about it while watching Croft console his wife. The Chief Inspector was right. Philippe would probably wait. What was in the basement probably wouldn’t. After that demonstration it was clear Mrs Croft knew her way around a bow and arrow, but she’d never shot that particular bow. There must be another one somewhere, one that she was used to using. And one that Philippe might have used. Probably in the basement. His nose caught the woodsmoke wafting out of the chimney. He hoped it wasn’t too late.

*    *    *

Peter and Clara were walking Lucy along the footpath through the woods across the Bella Bella from their home. Once over the small bridge they released her. She trudged along, showing no interest in the wealth of new scents. The rain had stopped but the thick grass and ground were sodden.

‘Weather network says it’s supposed to clear,’ said Peter, kicking a stone along with his feet.

‘But getting colder,’ agreed Clara. ‘Hard frost’s on the way. Have to get into the garden.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the chill. ‘I have a question for you. It’s advice, really. You know when I went over to Yolande?’

‘At lunch? Yes. Why did you do that?’

‘Well, because she was Jane’s niece.’

‘No, really. Why?’

Damn Peter, thought Clara. He actually knows me. ‘I wanted to be kind –’

‘But you knew what would happen. Why would you choose to walk right into a situation where you know the person is going to be hurtful? It kills me to see you do that, and you do it all the time. It’s like a form of insanity.’

‘You call it insanity, I call it optimism.’

‘Is it optimism to expect people to do something they’ve never done before? Every time you approach Yolande she’s horrible to you. Every time. And yet you keep doing it. Why?’

‘What’s all this about?’

‘Have you ever thought how it makes me feel to watch you do this time after time, and to not be able to do anything except pick up the pieces? Stop expecting people to be something they’re not. Yolande is a horrible, hateful, petty little person. Accept that and stay away from her. And if you choose to walk into her space, be prepared for the consequences.’

‘That’s unfair. You seem to think I’m this moron who had
no idea what was about to happen. I knew perfectly well she’d do that. And I did it anyway. Because I had to know something.’

‘Know what?’

‘I had to hear Andre’s laugh.’

‘His laugh? Why?’

‘That’s what I wanted to talk about. Remember Jane described that horrible laugh when the boys threw manure at Olivier and Gabri?’ Peter nodded. ‘I heard a laugh like that this morning, at the public meeting. It was Andre. That’s why I had to go up to their table, to get him to laugh again. And he did. One thing I’ll say for Yolande and Andre, is that they’re predictable.’

‘But Clara, Andre’s a grown man, he wasn’t one of those masked boys.’

Clara waited. Peter wasn’t normally this obtuse, so it was fun to watch. His furrowed brow eventually cleared.

‘It was Andre’s son Bernard.’

‘Atta boy.’

‘Jane got it wrong, it wasn’t Philippe, Gus and Claude. One of them wasn’t there, but Bernard was.’

‘Should I tell Chief Inspector Gamache? Could he see it as me just bad-mouthing Yolande?’ asked Clara.

‘Who cares? Gamache needs to know.’

‘Good. I’ll go over to the Bistro this afternoon, during his, “at home”.’ Clara picked up a stick and threw it, hoping Lucy would follow. She didn’t.

The Crofts accepted the deal. They really had little choice and now Gamache, Beauvoir, Nichol and the Crofts were making their way down the narrow steps. The entire basement was well organised, not the kind of labyrinth of confusion he’d seen, and sifted through, so often. When he commented on it Croft answered, ‘It’s one of Philippe’s chores, cleaning the basement. We did it together for a few
years, but on his fourteenth birthday I told him it was now all his.’ Then Croft had added, perhaps realising how it sounded, ‘It wasn’t his only birthday present.’

For twenty minutes the two men methodically searched. Then, amid the skis, tennis rackets and hockey gear, hanging on the wall half hidden by goalie pads, they found a quiver. Carefully lifting it off its hook using one of the tennis rackets, Beauvoir looked inside. Five old wooden hunting arrows. What wasn’t in the quiver was a single cobweb. This quiver had been out recently.

‘Whose is this, Mr Croft?’

‘That belonged to my father.’

‘There are only five arrows. Is that usual?’

‘That’s how it came to me. Dad must have lost one.’

‘And yet you said it was rare. I believe you said that hunters almost never lose an arrow.’

‘That’s true, but “almost never” and “never” are two different things.’

‘May I?’ Beauvoir handed him the tennis racket with the quiver hanging from it. Gamache held the racket as high as he could and strained to look at the round leather bottom of the old quiver.

‘Have you got a flashlight?’

Matthew took a bright yellow Eveready from a hook and handed it over. Gamache switched it on and saw six shadowy points on the belly of the quiver. He showed them to Beauvoir.

‘There were six arrows until recently,’ said Beauvoir.

‘Recently? How do you figure that, Inspector?’ Listening to Matthew Croft’s attempt at calm Gamache felt for the man. He was clamping down for control, tighter and tighter. So tight his hands were trembling slightly now and his voice was rising.

‘I know leather, Mr Croft,’ Beauvoir lied. ‘This is thin calves’ leather, used because it’s supple, yet durable. These
arrows, which I assume are hunting arrows – ’ Croft shrugged ‘ – these arrows can sit in this leather-bottomed quiver, tip down and neither dull the tip nor break through the bottom. And, now this is important, Mr Croft, the leather will not keep the form of whatever it holds. It’s so supple it will slowly go back to its original shape. These six blemishes have been made by six arrow tips. Yet only five arrows remain. How is that possible?’

Now Croft was silent, his jaw clamped shut.

Beauvoir handed the tennis racket and quiver to Nichol with instructions to hold it while he and Gamache continued the search. Now Croft had joined his wife, and side by side they awaited whatever was coming their way. The two men spent the next half-hour searching the basement inch by inch. They’d just about given up when Beauvoir wandered over to the furnace. Once there he actually stepped on it. Sitting practically in plain sight was a recurve bow, and beside it an axe.

A search warrant was sought and issued and the Croft farm was scoured from the attic to the barn to the chicken coop. Philippe was found in his bedroom plugged in to his Sony ‘Discman’. Beauvoir checked the ash bin under the wood-burning furnace and found a metal arrowhead, charred by the fire, but still intact. At this discovery Matthew Croft’s legs gave way and he sank to the cold concrete floor, to a place no rhyming verse existed. He had finally been hurt beyond poetry.

Beauvoir arranged for all the things they’d collected to go to the Sûreté labs in Montreal. Now the team sat around the fire hall once again.

‘What do we do about the Crofts?’ Lacoste wanted to know, sipping a Tim Horton’s double double.

‘Nothing for now,’ replied Gamache, biting into a chocolate donut. ‘We wait for the report to come back from the labs.’

‘They’ll have results for us tomorrow,’ said Beauvoir.

‘About Matthew Croft. Shouldn’t we take him into custody?’ Lacoste spoke up, smoothing back her shiny auburn hair with her wrist, trying not to get chocolate glaze into it.

‘Inspector Beauvoir, what do you think?’

‘You know me, I always want to be on the safe side.’

Gamache was reminded of a cartoon he’d cut from the
Montreal Gazette
years ago. It showed a judge and the accused. The punch line read, ‘The jury has found you “not guilty” but I’m giving you five years just to be on the safe side.’ Everyday he looked at it, chuckled, and knew deep down the truth of it. Part of him yearned for ‘the safe side’, even at the cost of other people’s freedom.

‘What risk are we running by leaving Matthew Croft free?’ Gamache looked around the table.

‘Well,’ ventured Lacoste, ‘there might be more evidence in that house, evidence he could destroy between now and tomorrow.’

‘True, but couldn’t Mrs Croft destroy it just as easily? After all, she was the one who threw the arrow in the furnace and was about to chop up the bow. She’s admitted as much. In fact, if there’s anyone we should bring in it’s her, for destroying evidence. I’ll tell you my thinking.’ He took a paper napkin and wiped his hands, then, leaning forward, he put his elbows on the table. Everyone else, except Nichol, did the same, giving it the appearance of a highly secretive gathering.

‘Let’s say the bow and arrow tip are the ones that killed Jane Neal. Right?’

Everyone nodded. As far as they were concerned they were home free.

‘But which of them did it? Was it Matthew Croft? Inspector Beauvoir, what do you think?’ Beauvoir with all his might wanted Matthew Croft to be the guilty one. Yet, damn it, it didn’t fit.

‘No. He was far too relaxed in the public meeting. His panic didn’t kick in until later. No. If it’d been him he’d have been more evasive earlier. He has very little skill at hiding how he’s feeling.’

Gamache agreed. ‘Scratch Mr Croft. How about Suzanne Croft?’

‘Well, she could have done it. She clearly knew about the bow and arrow during the public meeting, and she destroyed the arrow and would have chucked the bow in the furnace if she’d had time. But, again, it doesn’t fit.’

‘If she killed Jane Neal she’d have destroyed the arrow and the bow long before now,’ said Nichol, leaning into the group. ‘She’d have gone right home and burned the whole lot. Why wait until they know the police are about to arrive?’

‘You’re right,’ said Gamache, surprised and pleased. ‘Go on.’

‘OK. Suppose it’s Philippe. He’s fourteen, right? This is an old bow, not as powerful as the newer ones. Doesn’t take as much strength. So he takes the old wooden bow and the old wooden arrows and he heads off to hunt. But he shoots Miss Neal by mistake. He picks up his arrow and runs back home. But Maman figures it out –’

‘How?’ Gamache asked.

‘How?’ This stopped Nichol. She had to think. ‘He might have had blood on his clothing, or his hands. She’d have gotten it out of him eventually, maybe just before the public meeting. She had to go to hear what the police had, but she’d have kept Philippe back at home. That explains her increasing agitation in the meeting.’

‘Any holes in this theory?’ Beauvoir asked the gathering, trying not to sound hopeful. While he hoped Nichol would prove not a total liability, this was a disastrously good showing. He tried not to look at her, but couldn’t help it. Sure enough she was staring straight at him with a tiny smile. She leaned back in her chair, slowly, luxuriously.

‘Well done, Nichol.’ Gamache rose and nodded to her.

Wait, just wait, she thought, till Dad hears about this.

‘So the Croft family stays put for today, until we get the results of the lab tests,’ said Gamache.

The meeting broke up, each one looking forward to wrapping up the investigation the next day. Still, Armand Gamache knew better than to count on one theory. He wanted to keep the investigation active. Just to be on the safe side.

It was almost five and time to head to the Bistro. But there was something he wanted to do first.

SEVEN

Gamache walked through the bistro, nodding to Gabri who was setting tables. Each business connected to the next in the row of shops and at the back of the bistro he found the door into the next store. Myrna’s Livres, Neufs et Usages.

And there he found himself, holding a worn copy of
Being.
He’d read
Being
when it first came out a few years before. The title always reminded him of the day his daughter Annie had come home from first grade with her English homework which was to name three types of beans. She’d written, ‘green beans, yellow beans and human beans’.