The Brutal Telling

  It was spectacular. From its position on the hill the house looked over the valley. He could see the Rivière Bella Bella wind its way through the village and out around the next mountain toward the neighboring valley. The trees at the top of the mountain were changing color. It was autumn up there already. Soon the reds and auburns and pumpkin oranges would march down the slopes until the entire forest was ablaze. And what a vantage point to see it all. And more.

  Standing at the window he could see Ruth and Rosa walking around the village green, the old poet tossing either stale buns or rocks at the other birds. He could see Myrna working in Clara’s vegetable garden and Agent Lacoste walking over the stone bridge toward their makeshift Incident Room in the old railway station. He watched as she stopped on the bridge and looked into the gently flowing water. He wondered what she was thinking. Then she moved on. Other villagers were out doing their morning errands, or working in their gardens, or sitting on their porches reading the paper and drinking coffee.

  From there he could see everything. Including the bistro.

  Agent Paul Morin had arrived before Lacoste and was standing outside the railway station, making notes.

  “I was thinking about the case last night,” he said, watching her unlock the door then following her into the chilly, dark room. She flipped on the lights and walked over to her desk. “I think the murderer must’ve turned on the lights of the bistro, don’t you? I tried walking around my house at two o’clock this morning, and I couldn’t see anything. It was pitch-black. In the city you might get streetlights through the window, but not out here. How’d he know who he was killing?”

  “I suppose if he’d invited the victim there, then it was pretty clear. He’d kill the only other person in the bistro.”

  “I realize that,” said Morin, drawing his chair up to her desk. “But murder’s a serious business. You don’t want to get it wrong. It was a massive hit to the head, right?”

  Lacoste typed her password into her computer. Her husband’s name. Morin was so busy consulting his notes and talking she was sure he hadn’t noticed.

  “I don’t think that’s as easy as it looks,” he continued, earnestly. “I tried it last night too. Hit a cantaloupe with a hammer.”

  Now he had her full attention. Not only because she wanted to know what had happened, but because anyone who’d get up at two in the morning to smack a melon in the dark deserved attention. Perhaps even medical attention.

  “And?”

  “The first time I just grazed it. Had to hit it a few times before I got it just right. Pretty messy.”

  Morin wondered, briefly, what his girlfriend would think when she got up and noticed the fruit with holes smashed in it. He’d left a note, but wasn’t sure that helped.

  I did this, he’d written. Experimenting.

  He perhaps should have been more explicit.

  But the significance wasn’t lost on Agent Lacoste. She leaned back in her chair and thought. Morin had the brains to be quiet.

  “So what do you think?” she finally asked.

  “I think he must have turned the lights on. But it’d be risky.” Morin seemed dissatisfied. “It doesn’t make sense to me. Why kill him in the bistro when you have thick forests just feet away? You could slaughter tons of people in there and no one would notice. Why do it where the body would be found and you could be seen?”

  “You’re right,” said Lacoste. “It doesn’t make sense. The Chief thinks it might have something to do with Olivier. Maybe the murderer chose the bistro on purpose.”

  “To implicate him?”

  “Or to ruin his business.”

  “Maybe it was Olivier himself,” said Morin. “Why not? He’d be just about the only one who could find his way around without lights. He had a key to the place—”

  “Everyone had a key to the place. Seems there were sets floating all over the township, and Olivier kept one under the urn at the front door,” said Lacoste.

  Morin nodded and didn’t seem surprised. It was still the country way, at least in the smaller villages.

  “He’s certainly a main suspect,” said Lacoste. “But why would he kill someone in his own bistro?”

  “Maybe he surprised the guy. Maybe the tramp broke in and Olivier found him and killed him in a fight,” said Morin.

  Lacoste was silent, waiting to see if he’d work it all the way through. Morin steepled his hands and leaned his face into them, staring into space. “But it was the middle of the night. If he saw someone in the bistro wouldn’t he have called the cops, or at least woken his partner? Olivier Brulé doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d grab a baseball bat and rush off alone.”

  Lacoste exhaled and looked at Agent Morin. If the light was just right, catching this slight young man’s face just so, he looked like an idiot. But he clearly wasn’t.

  “I know Olivier,” said Lacoste, “and I’d swear he was stunned by what he’d found. He was in shock. Hard to fake and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t faking it. No. When Olivier Brulé woke up yesterday morning he didn’t expect to find a body in his bistro. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t involved somehow. Even unwittingly. The Chief wants us to find out more about Olivier. Where he was born, his background, his family, his schools, what he did before coming here. Anyone who might have a grudge against him. Someone he pissed off.”

  “This is more than being pissed off.”

  “How do you know?” asked Lacoste.

  “Well, I get pissed off, and I don’t kill people.”

  “No, you don’t. But I presume you’re fairly well balanced, except for that melon incident.” She smiled and he reddened. “Look, it’s a huge mistake to judge others by ourselves. One of the first things you learn with Chief Inspector Gamache is that other people’s reactions aren’t ours. And a murderer’s are even more foreign. This case didn’t begin with the blow to the head. It started years ago, with another sort of blow. Something happened to our murderer, something we might consider insignificant, trivial even, but was devastating to him. An event, a snub, an argument that most people would shrug off. Murderers don’t. They ruminate; they gather and guard resentments. And those resentments grow. Murders are about emotions. Emotions gone bad and gone wild. Remember that. And don’t ever think you know what someone else is thinking, never mind feeling.”

  It was the first lesson she’d been taught by Chief Inspector Gamache, and the first one she’d now passed on to her own protégé. To find a murderer you followed clues, yes. But you also followed emotions. The ones that stank, the foul and putrid ones. You followed the slime. And there, cornered, you’d find your quarry.

  There were other lessons, lots of others. And she’d teach him them as well.

  That’s what she’d been thinking on the bridge. Thinking and worrying about. Hoping she’d be able to pass to this young man enough wisdom, enough of the tools necessary to catch a killer.

  “Nathaniel,” said Morin, getting up and going over to his own computer. “Your husband’s name or your son’s?”

  “Husband,” said Lacoste, a little nonplussed. He’d seen after all.

  The phone rang. It was the coroner. She had to speak to Chief Inspector Gamache urgently.

  TEN

  At the Chief Inspector’s request Marc and Dominique Gilbert were giving him a tour of their home, and now they stood in front of a room Gamache knew well. It had been the master bedroom of the old Hadley house, Timmer Hadley’s room.

  Two murders had happened there.

  Now he looked at the closed door, with its fresh coat of gleaming white paint, and wondered what lay beyond. Dominique swung the door open and sunlight poured out. Gamache couldn’t hide his surprise.

  “Quite a change,” said Marc Gilbert, clearly pleased with his reaction.

  The room was, quite simply, stunning. They’d removed all the fretwork and googahs added over the generations. The ornate moldings, the dark mantel, the velvet drapes that kept the light at bay with their weight o
f dust and dread and Victorian reproach. All gone. The heavy, foreboding four-poster bed was gone.

  They’d taken the room back to its basic structure, clean lines that showed off its gracious proportions. The curtains had wide stripes of of sage and gray and let the light stream through. Along the top of each of the large windows was a lintel of stained glass. Original. More than a century old. It spilled playful colors into the room. The floors, newly stained, glowed. The king-size bed had an upholstered headboard and simple, fresh, white bed linen. A fire was laid in the hearth, ready for the first guest.

  “Let me show you the en suite,” said Dominique.

  She was tall and willowy. Mid-forties, Gamache thought, she wore jeans, a simple white shirt and her blonde hair loose. She had an air of quiet confidence and well-being. Her hands were flecked with white paint and her nails cut short.

  Beside her Marc Gilbert smiled, happy to be showing off their creation. And Gamache, of all people, knew this resurrection of the old Hadley house was an act of creation.

  Marc was also tall, over six feet. Slightly taller than Gamache, and about twenty pounds lighter. His hair was short, almost shaved, and it looked as though if he grew it in he’d be balding. His eyes were a piercing, buoyant blue and his manner welcoming and energetic. But while his wife was relaxed there was something edgy about Marc Gilbert. Not nervous so much as needy.

  He wants my approval, thought Gamache. Not unusual really when showing off a project this important to them. Dominique pointed out the features of the bathroom, with its aqua mosaic-glass tiles, spa bath and separate walk-in shower. She was proud of their work, but she didn’t seem to need him to exclaim over it.

  Marc did.

  It was easy to give him what he wanted. Gamache was genuinely impressed.

  “And we just put this door in last week,” said Marc. Opening a door from the bathroom they stepped onto a balcony. It looked out over the back of the house, across the gardens and a field beyond.

  Four chairs were drawn around a table.

  “I thought you could use these,” a voice said from behind them and Marc hurried to take the tray from his mother. On it were four glasses of iced tea and some scones.

  “Shall we?” Dominique indicated the table and Gamache held a chair for Carole.

  “Merci,” the older woman said, and sat.

  “To second chances,” said the Chief Inspector. He lifted his iced tea and as they toasted he watched them. The three people who’d been drawn to this sad, violated, derelict house. Who’d given it new life.

  And the house had returned the favor.

  “Well, there’s more to do,” said Marc. “But we’re getting there.”

  “We’re hoping to have our first guests by Thanksgiving,” said Dominique. “If Carole would just get off her derrière and do some work. But so far she’s refused to dig the fence posts or pour concrete.”

  “Perhaps this afternoon,” said Carole Gilbert with a laugh.

  “I noticed some antiques. Did you bring them from your home?” Gamache asked her.

  Carole nodded. “We combined our belongings, but there was still a lot to buy.”

  “From Olivier?”

  “Some.” It was the most curt answer he’d received so far. He waited for more.

  “We got a lovely rug from him,” said Dominique. “The one in the front hall, I think.”

  “No, it’s in the basement,” said Marc, his voice sharp. He tried to soften it with a smile, but it didn’t quite work.

  “And a few chairs, I think,” said Carole, quickly.

  That would account for about one one-hundredth of the furnishings in the rambling old place. Gamache sipped his tea, looking at the three of them.

  “We picked up the rest in Montreal,” said Marc. “On rue Notre Dame. Do you know it?”

  Gamache nodded and then listened as Marc described their treks up and down the famed street, which was packed with antique shops. Some were not much more than junk shops but some contained real finds, near priceless antiques.

  “Old Mundin’s repairing a few items we picked up in garage sales. Don’t tell the guests,” said Dominique with a laugh.

  “Why didn’t you get more from Olivier?”

  The women concentrated on their scones and Marc poked at the ice in his drink.

  “We found his prices a little high, Chief Inspector,” said Dominique at last. “We’d have preferred to buy from him, but . . .”

  It was left hanging, and still Gamache waited. Eventually Marc spoke.

  “We were going to buy tables and beds from him. Made all the arrangements, then discovered he’d charged us almost double what he’d originally asked for them.”

  “Now, Marc, we don’t know that for sure,” said his mother.

  “Near enough. Anyway, we canceled the order. You can imagine how that went down.”

  Dominique had been silent for most of this exchange. Now she spoke.

  “I still think we should have paid it, or spoken to him quietly about it. He is our neighbor, after all.”

  “I don’t like being screwed,” said Marc.

  “No one does,” said Dominique, “but there are ways of handling it. Maybe we should have just paid. Now look what’s happened.”

  “What’s happened?” asked Gamache.

  “Well, Olivier’s one of the forces in Three Pines,” said Dominique. “Piss him off and you pay a price. We don’t really feel comfortable going into the village, and we sure don’t feel welcome in the bistro.”

  “I hear you approached some of Olivier’s staff,” said Gamache.

  Marc colored. “Who told you that? Did Olivier?” he snapped.

  “Is it true?”

  “What if it is? He pays them practically slave wages.”

  “Did any agree to come?”

  Marc hesitated then admitted they hadn’t. “But only because he increased their pay. We at least did that for them.”

  Dominique had been watching this, uncomfortable, and now she took her husband’s hand. “I’m sure they were also loyal to Olivier. They seem to like him.”

  Marc snorted and clamped down on his anger. A man, Gamache realized, ill-equipped for not getting his own way. His wife, at least, appreciated how all this might look and had tried to appear reasonable.

  “Now he’s bad-mouthed us to the whole village,” said Marc, not letting it go.

  “They’ll come around,” said Carole, looking at her son with concern. “That artist couple have been nice.”

  “Peter and Clara Morrow,” said Dominique. “Yes. I like them. She says she’d like to ride, once the horses arrive.”

  “And when will that be?” asked Gamache.

  “Later today.”

  “Vraiment? That must be fun for you. How many?”

  “Four,” said Marc. “Thoroughbreds.”

  “Actually, I believe you’ve changed that slightly, haven’t you?” Carole turned to her daughter-in-law.

  “Really? I thought you wanted thoroughbreds,” said Marc to Dominique.

  “I did, but then I saw some hunters and thought since we lived in the country that seemed appropriate.” She looked at Gamache once again. “Not that I plan to hunt. It’s a breed of horse.”

  “Used for jumping,” he said.

  “You ride?”

  “Not at that level, but I enjoyed it. Haven’t been on a horse in years now.”

  “You’ll have to come,” said Carole, though they all knew he almost certainly wasn’t going to squeeze himself into a pair of jodhpurs and climb onto a hunter. But he did smile as he imagined what Gabri would make of that invitation.

  “What’re their names?” asked Marc.

  Dominique hesitated and her mother-in-law jumped in. “It’s so hard to remember, isn’t it? But wasn’t one called Thunder?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Thunder, Trooper, Trojan and what was the other one?” She turned back to Carole.

  “Lightning.”

  “Really? Thunder a
nd Lightning?” asked Marc.

  “Brothers,” said Dominique.

  Their iced teas finished and the scones only crumbs they got to their feet and walked back into the house.

  “Why did you move here?” Gamache asked, as they walked down to the main floor.

  “Pardon?” asked Dominique.

  “Why did you move to the country and to Three Pines in particular? It’s not exactly easy to find.”

  “We like that.”

  “You don’t want to be found?” asked Gamache. His voice held humor, but his eyes were sharp.

  “We wanted peace and quiet,” said Carole.

  “We wanted a challenge,” said her son.

  “We wanted a change. Remember?” Dominique turned to her husband then back to Gamache. “We both had fairly high-powered jobs in Montreal, but were tired. Burned out.”

  “That’s not really true,” protested Marc.

  “Well, pretty close. We couldn’t go on. Didn’t want to go on.”

  She left it at that. She could understand Marc’s not wanting to admit what’d happened. The insomnia, the panic attacks. Having to pull the car over on the Ville Marie Expressway to catch his breath. Having to pry his hands off the steering wheel. He was losing his grip.

  Day after day he’d gone into work like that. Weeks, months. A year. Until he’d finally admitted to Dominique how he felt. They’d gone away for a weekend, their first in years, and talked.

  While she wasn’t having panic attacks, she was feeling something else. A growing emptiness. A sense of futility. Each morning she woke up and had to convince herself that what she did mattered. Advertising.

  It was a harder and harder sell.

  Then Dominique had remembered something long buried and forgotten. A dream since childhood. To live in the country and have horses.

  She’d wanted to run an inn. To welcome people, to mother them. They had no children of their own, and she had a powerful need to nurture. So they’d left Montreal, left the demands of jobs too stressful, of lives too callow. They’d come to Three Pines, with their bags of money, to heal first themselves. Then others.