The Brutal Telling (7 page)

“I know there’s been a murder. I’m not an idiot.”

Beside her the duck shook its head and flapped its wings. Beauvoir had grown so used to seeing her with the bird it was no longer surprising. In fact, though he’d never admit it, he was relieved Rosa was still alive. Most things, he suspected, didn’t last long around this crazy old fart.

“We need to use this building again,” he said and turned away from them.

Ruth Zardo, despite her extreme age, her limp, and her diabolical temperament, had been elected head of the volunteer fire department. In hopes, Beauvoir suspected, that she’d perish in the flames one day. But he also suspected she wouldn’t burn.

“No.” She whacked her cane on the concrete floor. Rosa didn’t jump but Beauvoir did. “You can’t have it.”

“I’m sorry, Madame Zardo, but we need it and we plan to take it.”

His voice was no longer as gracious as it had been. The three stared at each other, only Rosa blinking. Beauvoir knew the only way this nut-case could triumph was if she started reciting her dreary, unintelligible verse. Nothing rhymed. Nothing even made sense. She’d break him in an instant. But he also knew that of all the people in the village, she was the least likely to quote it. She seemed embarrassed, even ashamed, by what she created.

“How’s your poetry?” he asked and saw her waver. Her short, shorn hair was white and thin and lay close to her head, as though her bleached skull was exposed. Her neck was scrawny and ropy and her tall body, once sturdy he suspected, was feeble. But nothing else about her was.

“I saw somewhere that you’ll soon have another book out.”

Ruth Zardo backed up slightly.

“The Chief Inspector is here too, as you probably know.” His voice was kind now, reasonable, warm. The old woman looked as though she was seeing Satan. “I know how much he’s looking forward to talking to you about it. He’ll be here soon. He’s been memorizing your verses.”

Ruth Zardo turned and left.

He’d done it. He’d banished her. The witch was dead, or at least gone.

He got to work setting up their headquarters. He ordered desks and
communications equipment, computers and printers, scanners and faxes. Corkboards and fragrant Magic Markers. He’d stick a corkboard right on top of that poster of the sneering, mad old poet. And over her face he’d write about murder.

T
he bistro was quiet.

The Scene of Crime officers had left. Agent Isabelle Lacoste was kneeling on the floor where the body had been found, thorough as ever. Making absolutely sure no clues were missed. From what Chief Inspector Gamache could see Olivier and Gabri hadn’t stirred: they still sat on the faded old sofa facing the large fireplace, each in his own world, staring at the fire, mesmerized by the flames. He wondered what they were thinking.

“What are you thinking?” Gamache went over and sat in the large armchair beside them.

“I was thinking about the dead man,” said Olivier. “Wondering who he was. Wondering what he was doing here, and about his family. Wondering if anyone was missing him.”

“I was thinking about lunch,” said Gabri. “Anyone else hungry?”

From across the room Agent Lacoste looked up. “I am.”

“So am I,
patron
,” said Gamache.

When they could hear Gabri clanking pots and pans in the kitchen, Gamache leaned forward. It was just him and Olivier. Olivier looked at him blankly. But the Chief Inspector had seen that look before. It was, in fact, almost impossible to look blank. Unless the person wanted to. A blank face to the Chief Inspector meant a frantic mind.

From the kitchen came the unmistakable aroma of garlic and they could hear Gabri singing, “What shall we do with a drunken sailor?”

“Gabri thought the man was a tramp. What do you think?”

Olivier remembered the eyes, glassy, staring. And he remembered the last time he’d been in the cabin.

Chaos is coming, old son. It’s taken a long time, but it’s finally here
.

“What else could he’ve been?”

“Why do you think he was killed here, in your bistro?”

“I don’t know.” And Olivier seemed to sag. “I’ve been racking my brains trying to figure it out. Why would someone kill a man here? It makes no sense.”

“It does make sense.”

“Really?” Olivier sat forward. “How?”

“I don’t know. But I will.”

Olivier stared at the formidable, quiet man who suddenly seemed to fill the entire room without raising his voice.

“Did you know him?”

“You’ve asked me that before,” snapped Olivier, then gathered himself. “I’m sorry, but you have, you know, and it gets annoying. I didn’t know him.”

Gamache stared. Olivier’s face was red now, blushing. But from anger, from the heat of the fire, or did he just tell a lie?

“Someone knew him,” said Gamache at last, leaning back, giving Olivier the impression of pressure lifted. Of breathing room.

“But not me and not Gabri.” His brow pulled together and Gamache thought Olivier was genuinely upset. “What was he doing here?”

“ ‘Here’ meaning Three Pines, or ‘here’ meaning the bistro?”

“Both.”

But Gamache knew Olivier had just lied. He meant the bistro, that was obvious. People lied all the time in murder investigations. If the first victim of war was the truth, some of the first victims of a murder investigation were people’s lies. The lies they told themselves, the lies they told each other. The little lies that allowed them to get out of bed on cold, dark mornings. Gamache and his team hunted the lies down and exposed them. Until all the small tales told to ease everyday lives disappeared. And people were left naked. The trick was distinguishing the important fibs from the rest. This one appeared tiny. In which case, why bother lying at all?

Gabri approached carrying a tray with four steaming plates. Within minutes they were sitting around the fireplace eating fettuccine with shrimp and scallops sautéed in garlic and olive oil. Fresh bread was produced and glasses of dry white wine poured.

As they ate they talked about the Labor Day long weekend, about the chestnut trees and conkers. About kids returning to school and the nights drawing in.

The bistro was empty, except for them. But it seemed crowded to the Chief Inspector. With the lies they’d been told, and the lies being manufactured and waiting.

After lunch, while Agent Lacoste made arrangements for them to stay overnight at Gabri’s B and B, Armand Gamache walked slowly in the opposite direction. The drizzle had stopped for the moment but a mist clung to the forests and hills surrounding the village. People were coming out of their homes to do errands or work in their gardens. He walked along the muddy road and turning left made his way over the arched stone bridge that spanned the Rivière Bella Bella.

“Hungry?” Gamache opened the door to the old train station and held out the brown paper bag.

“Starving,
merci
.” Beauvoir almost ran over, and taking the bag he pulled out a thick sandwich of chicken, Brie and pesto. There was also a Coke and
pâtisserie
.

“What about you?” asked Beauvoir, his hand hesitating over the precious sandwich.

“Oh, I’ve eaten,” the Chief said, deciding it would really do no good describing his meal to Beauvoir.

The men drew a couple of chairs up to the warm pot-bellied stove and as the Inspector ate they compared notes.

“So far,” said Gamache, “we have no idea who the victim was, who killed him, why he was in the bistro and what the murder weapon was.”

“No sign of a weapon yet?”

“No. Dr. Harris thinks it was a metal rod or something like that. It was smooth and hard.”

“A fireplace poker?”

“Perhaps. We’ve taken Olivier’s in for tests.” The Chief paused.

“What is it?” Beauvoir asked.

“It just strikes me as slightly odd that Olivier would light fires in both grates. It’s rainy but not that cold. And for that to be just about the first thing he’d do after finding a body . . .”

“You’re thinking the weapon might be one of those fireplace pokers? And that Olivier lit the fires so that he could use them? Burn away evidence on them?”

“I think it’s possible,” said the Chief, his voice neutral.

“We’ll have them checked,” said Beauvoir. “But if one turns out to be the weapon it doesn’t mean Olivier used it. Anyone could’ve picked it up and smashed the guy.”

“True. But only Olivier lit the fires this morning, and used the poker.”

It was clear as Chief Inspector he had to consider everyone a suspect. But it was also clear he wasn’t happy about it.

Beauvoir waved to some large men at the door to come in. The Incident Room equipment had arrived. Lacoste showed up and joined them by the stove.

“I’ve booked us into the B and B. By the way, I ran into Clara Morrow. We’re invited to dinner tonight.”

Gamache nodded. This was good. They could find out more at a social event than they ever could in an interrogation.

“Olivier gave me the names of the people who worked in the bistro last night. I’m off to interview them,” she reported. “And there are teams searching the village and the surrounding area for the murder weapon, with a special interest in fireplace pokers or anything like that.”

Inspector Beauvoir finished his lunch and went to direct the setup of the Incident Room. Agent Lacoste left to conduct interviews. A part of Gamache always hated to see his team members go off. He warned them time and again not to forget what they were doing, and who they were looking for. A killer.

The Chief Inspector had lost one agent, years ago, to a murderer. He was damned if he was going to lose another. But he couldn’t protect them all, all the time. Like Annie, he finally had to let them go.

I
t was the last interview of the day. So far Agent Lacoste had spoken to five people who’d worked at the bistro the night before, and gotten the
same answers. No, nothing unusual happened. The place was full all evening, it being both a Saturday night and the long Labor Day weekend. School was back on Tuesday and anybody down for the summer would be heading back to Montreal on Monday. Tomorrow.

Four of the waiters were returning to university after the summer break the next day. They really weren’t much help since all they seemed to have noticed was a table of attractive girls.

The fifth waiter was more helpful, since she hadn’t simply seen a roomful of breasts. But it was, by all accounts, a normal though hectic evening. No dead body that anyone mentioned, and Lacoste thought even the breast boys would have noticed that.

She drove up to the home of the final waiter, the young man nominally in charge once Olivier had left. The one who’d done the final check of the place and locked up.

The house was set back from the main road down a long dirt driveway. Maples lined the drive and while they hadn’t yet turned their brilliant autumn colors, a few were just beginning to show oranges and reds. In a few weeks this approach, Lacoste knew, would be spectacular.

Lacoste got out of the car and stared, amazed. Facing her was a block of concrete and glass. It seemed so out of place, like finding a tent pitched on Fifth Avenue. It didn’t belong. As she walked toward it she realized something else. The house intimidated her and she wondered why. Her own tastes ran to traditional but not stuffy. She loved exposed brick and beams, but hated clutter, though she’d given up all semblance of being house-proud after the kids came. These days it was a triumph if she walked across a room and didn’t step on something that squeaked.