The Hangman (5 page)

Chief Inspector Gamache went on his own hunt.

Myrna and Gabri had both said this James Hill had asked about young men in Three Pines. And a young man had appeared at the Bed and Breakfast the night before. Unexpectedly. At about the same time that James Hill was killed.

As the chief inspector crossed the village green, he could see geese in graceful formation overhead, flying south for the winter. But Gamache’s mind was elsewhere. On something not nearly so natural.

Who was James Hill here to execute? And who had got to him first?

Chapter Nine

Paul Goulet turned out to be a nice young man. He had a ready smile and warm eyes.

“How can I help you, Chief Inspector?”

They stood on the wide porch of the Bed and Breakfast. Paul was in his bicycling outfit of very tight pants and a very tight top. Armand Gamache was glad those clothes didn’t exist when he was twenty years old. And he vowed never to wear them now. Not that his wife Reine-Marie would allow it. The two of them often went for slow, quiet bike rides around the mountain in Montreal, sometimes taking a picnic.

But when Gamache saw what Goulet was wearing, he suddenly knew why bicyclists went so
fast these days. He would, too, if he were wearing basically nothing.

“It’s a pretty village, isn’t it,” said Paul. “What’s it called again?”

“Three Pines.”

“Because of them?” He pointed to the three tall pine trees at the far end of the village green.

“Yes. It’s an old code. Three pine trees planted together means safety. It was used as a signal centuries ago. It marked a sanctuary.”

Paul Goulet was silent, and Gamache turned to look at him. If the chief inspector had not been standing so close, he would never have noticed the two warm lines that appeared on the young man’s cheeks.

Gamache waited until the tears stopped.

“Why does that idea move you so much?” the chief asked.

“Who doesn’t long for safety?”

“The man who already has it. Are you looking for safety?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think so, until you told me that story.”

“Why are you here?” Gamache asked quietly.

“I took a week off to bike around. No plans, just a map of the bike paths. I arrived last night and found this place.”

He seemed almost in awe at the pretty, gentle village.

“You’re with the police, you say?” he looked at Gamache. “Has something happened?”

“There’s been a death.” Gamache watched Paul for a reaction. He seemed polite, interested. But nothing more.

“I’m sorry. Someone from here?”

“No, a visitor. Like you. A man named James Hill.”

Still Paul Goulet looked blank. Chief Inspector Gamache knew how difficult that was. A person’s face almost always had some expression on it.

A blank face was a wall. Put there on purpose, to hide something.

“Where are you from?” Gamache asked.

“Ottawa. I go to school there.”

“What are you taking?”

“A general degree. Haven’t decided on a career yet.”

Paul Goulet smiled. It was an easy grin. Gamache hoped this young man was not involved in the death, but he was far from sure.

Strong young arms and legs had lifted Hill’s body into the tree, tied a rope around his neck, and thrown him off.

Paul’s tight suit made it clear that he had strong arms and legs.

“The dead man was going under another name,” Gamache said. “Arthur Ellis.”

“Why would he do that?”

“We don’t know. But someone murdered him.”

“You mean there’s a killer in this village?”

“There’s a killer in every village. In every home. In every heart,” said Gamache, watching Paul closely. “All anyone needs is the right reason.”

The young man stared back but didn’t say anything. Finally he got up.

“If I can help, I will,” he said. “But I can’t see how. Can I go for my bike ride?”

Gamache nodded. “But don’t go far.”

Paul climbed onto his bike and with a shove was off down the dirt road.

After that, Chief Inspector Gamache found the woman who was also staying at the Bed and Breakfast. Her name was Sue Gravel. She was thirty-eight and worked as a secretary in a law firm in Montreal. She’d arrived a few days earlier and was planning to leave the next day.

No, she knew no one in Three Pines. It struck her as a boring place. Nothing to do.

“Then why did you come here?” Gamache asked.

“To relax.”

Gamache smiled. Only an amazing person could really relax. Sue Gravel did not strike the chief inspector as an amazing person.

She complained all the way through the interview. The weather was cold and damp. No shopping. No high-speed internet. And her cell phone didn’t work.

How could you relax here? she demanded.

Gamache did not suggest that she go for a walk or buy a book and sit by the fire in the bistro. He did not suggest that she sit quietly and get to know herself so she could be all the company she needed.

Had this woman killed James Hill? Murder would at least have been something to do. But while he liked the idea of arresting her, Gamache resisted.

He spent the rest of the afternoon interviewing the waiters at the bistro, the clerk at the general store, the young helper at the pastry shop. Then he climbed the slope to the Inn and Spa.

James Hill had chosen to spend his last days on earth here. Had his killer, too?

Chapter Ten

There were no young men among the guests at the Inn and Spa. The average age seemed to be ninety-seven. Except Tom Scott. The man who’d found the body. The man who’d lied about having a wife.

Chief Inspector Gamache sat across from him. Tom picked at a thread coming loose from his sweater.

“Why did you lie about having a wife?”

“Oh, that. I was joking.”

Gamache leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You were not joking.” Each word was said slowly, clearly.

“There is no wife,” admitted Tom Scott. The words hurried from him, like hostages trapped
for years. “I made her up. Sometimes I give her a name. Kathy. We go to parties and movies and take long walks together. And we visit friends in the country.”

There was a long, long silence then. Armand Gamache sat still, waiting. The fire in the grate mumbled and popped. Tom Scott had closed his eyes. Gamache knew what he was doing. What all liars did.

He was looking for a way out. A back door. Another lie. A way to make this better.

The silence stretched on. Armand Gamache waited.

“I’m so lonely,” Scott finally whispered. “No one knows. It used to be an ache, a physical pain. Now even that’s gone. And there’s nothing. Nothing. I even tried to pick up that receptionist woman. I didn’t want to do anything. Just talk. I offered her a lift home, but she refused. I was trying to help, and she looked at me like I was crap.”

He sighed and opened his eyes.

“I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’m thirty-eight years old. Not even halfway through my life. I couldn’t see living like this for another month, never mind forty years.”

“What was your plan?” Gamache asked, though he suspected the answer. It was the April plan.

“I wasn’t sure. I wanted to come to a fancy place. Have the best room, eat the best food. See if I’d be happy then. But it didn’t work. I went for a walk in the woods, trying to think of what to do. I don’t want to live, but I’m too afraid to die.”

“Is that when you found the dead man?”

“Yes.” He looked into Gamache’s eyes. This time with wonder. “Do you think it was a sign from God?”

“Saying what?”

“That I shouldn’t kill myself. That this is what it looks like. It looked horrible.”

“You think God would kill a man to save you?” Gamache asked. His voice wasn’t accusing. It was curious. The ways of the Creator, he knew, were hard to fathom. But not nearly as hard as the ways of the created.

“I think maybe the man was going to kill himself anyway, and maybe the gift was having me find him.”

Gamache smiled then. Sometimes hope takes its time, but it finally appears. If you hold on just
long enough. And he saw it now, deep down in Tom Scott’s eyes. A tiny spring.

But that did not mean that Tom Scott wasn’t a killer. A man willing to die could also be willing to kill.

“Did Arthur Ellis ever speak to you?” Gamache asked.

Scott hesitated. “He saw me talking to that receptionist...”

“Angela.”

“Yes, her, and he asked me to stop. We had words.”

“Angry words?”

Scott nodded.

“Anything else?” Gamache asked.

“Before that, we’d talked a little. He wanted to know where I was from.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I was a New Yorker. An investment banker.” Scott managed a weak smile and shrugged. Old habits.

“Did he believe you?”

“I don’t think he cared. Most people don’t.”

But Gamache disagreed. He suspected Arthur Ellis, or James Hill, cared deeply.

Gamache went in search of Angela and found her talking to her husband. He was of medium height and heavy-set. His hair was thick and a brilliant red.

“Hello.” Gamache smiled.

“Chief Inspector, this is my husband, Mike.”

They shook hands.

“Did Mr. Ellis speak to you?” he asked Mike.

“No. He thanked me for opening a door for him once. He seemed polite but quiet. Like he didn’t want company.”

Gamache turned to Angela. “But he spoke to you quite a bit, it seems.”

As usual, she blushed. “Well, I guess I was the one who kept talking to him. He just seemed so alone.”

“Did he tell you anything about himself?”

“Only that he was here for a vacation and that he had a son who would love to live in a place like this. He wondered if there were many jobs for young people.”

“Chief Inspector?” Dominique Gilbert popped her head through the living room door. “There’s a phone call for you.”

“Chief,” came Beauvoir’s voice. “I know why James Hill was here.”

Chapter Eleven

Chief Inspector Gamache met Beauvoir at the bench on the village green. Around them, villagers walked dogs. They did their shopping. Some worked in their gardens. But no one stopped moving. It was too cold.

But the two men on the bench had something worse than cold to worry about. They had murder on their minds.

Gamache pulled his coat tighter around him and looked at his inspector.

“Okay,” said Beauvoir. “We ran James Hill’s fingerprints and licence plate. He lived and worked in Ottawa. With the government. In the Department of Records.”

Armand Gamache shifted a bit on the bench. The Department of Records. It was huge, of course. It kept track of Canada’s official documents. Not people’s private lives, but their public ones. Taxes, passports, court papers. Any time a Canadian came in contact with the government, the records ended up in James Hill’s department.

“He took the job fifteen years ago. Before that, he was living in Thunder Bay.”

“In northwestern Ontario?”

“Exactly. With his wife and daughter. But they were killed twenty years ago. Their car was hit by a pickup truck filled with kids.”

Gamache looked down briefly. He could not imagine surviving the loss of his own wife and daughter. How had James Hill coped?