A Fatal Grace (46 page)

The door opened even before Gamache and Reine-Marie knocked.

‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ said Peter.

‘It’s a lie,’ shouted Ruth from inside the cozy cottage. ‘We started drinking and eating without you.’

‘Actually, she never stopped,’ whispered Peter.

‘I heard that,’ shouted Ruth. ‘Just because it’s the truth doesn’t make it less insulting.’

‘
Bonne année
,’ said Clara, kissing the Gamaches on both cheeks and taking their coats. This was her first time meeting Reine-Marie and she was exactly as Clara had imagined. Smiling and warm, kind and elegant in her tailored and comfortable skirt and shirt with camelhair sweater and silk scarf. Gamache wore a tweed jacket and tie and flannels. Beautifully cut and worn with easy elegance.

‘Happy New Year.’ Reine-Marie smiled. She was introduced to Olivier and Gabri, Myrna and Ruth.

‘How’re Mother and Kaye?’ Peter asked, leading them into the living room.

‘Recovering,’ said Gamache. ‘Still very weak, and feeling adrift without Em.’

‘It’s unbelievable,’ said Olivier, perching on the arm of Gabri’s chair. The fire crackled and a tray of drinks was on the piano. The Christmas tree made the always inviting room even cheerier.

‘The oysters are on the piano, away from Lucy,’ Clara explained. ‘Only a Morrow would have a dog who loves oysters.’

‘We saw the barrel as we came in,’ Reine-Marie admitted, remembering the wooden keg full of oysters sitting in the snow near the Morrows’ front door. She hadn’t seen one of those in years, since her own childhood in the countryside. Barrels of oysters on New Year’s Day. A Québecois tradition.

After getting plates of oysters on the half shell, thin slices of pumpernickel lightly buttered and wedges of lemon, the two joined the others in front of the hearth.

‘How’s Crie?’ Clara asked, settling in beside Peter.

‘She’s in a psychiatric unit. Won’t stand trial for a while, if ever,’ said Gamache.

‘How did you know she’d killed her mother?’ asked Myrna.

‘I thought it was the three women,’ Gamache admitted, sipping his wine. ‘They completely fooled me. But then I remembered those baby sealskin boots.’

‘Wicked,’ said Ruth with a slurp.

‘In her letter Émilie described the niacin, the anti-freeze, the booster cables. But she left out one crucial thing.’ Gamache had their undivided attention. ‘Had they done all the things they describe in that letter, CC would still be alive. In her letter Émilie didn’t mention the boots. But CC had to have been wearing the Inuit mukluks with the metal claws. They were the key to this whole murder. I told Émilie about them yesterday and she was sickened. More than that, she was surprised. She’d heard CC clicking down the path after the Christmas Eve service, but she couldn’t see her. She had no idea what had caused the sound.’

‘None of us did,’ said Clara. ‘It sounded like a monster, with claws.’ As she listened to Gamache a familiar Christmas carol moved through her mind. Sorr’wing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb. Ironically, Clara realized, it was from ‘We Three Kings’.

‘I realized the women couldn’t have killed CC. But they knew who had,’ Gamache said, his listeners, even Lucy, silent and staring. ‘Mother told us everything. Kaye would only give us her name, rank and serial number, which was actually her phone number. Couldn’t get a straight answer out of her.’

Gabri turned to Reine-Marie. ‘I don’t give him straight answers either.’

‘Nor should you,
mon beau Gabri
,’ said Reine-Marie.

‘According to Mother, Kaye saw it all, and what she didn’t see they figured out later. For instance, they didn’t see Crie slip niacin into her mother’s tea. But they did see her spill windshield washer fluid behind the chair. And Émilie saw her hanging around Billy Williams’s truck. None of these things meant anything at first but when Kaye saw Crie deliberately put the chair off balance, and hook up booster cables to it, her curiosity was piqued, though she didn’t expect murder. CC was concentrating on what was happening on the ice, of course, but when she grabbed the chair and was electrocuted Kaye knew at once what had happened. After all, she’d worked all her life in a logging camp. She knew about generators and boosters. Before going to help CC Kaye unhooked the cables and tossed them aside. In all the excitement they were stepped on and buried under the snow. While you were all working on CC Kaye started gathering up the cable. Em saw her and asked what she was doing. Kaye didn’t have time to tell her everything; all she said was she had to get the booster cable back into Billy’s truck. Émilie didn’t need more of an explanation.’

‘So they knew Crie had killed her mother,’ said Myrna. ‘But did they know that CC had killed her own mother?’

‘No. Not until I told Em the other day. No, the death of CC had nothing to do with her killing her own mother. Not in a literal way anyway. Mother would probably say it was karma.’

‘So would I,’ said Clara.

‘Crie killed her mother out of self-defense. She was finally so hurt she couldn’t take it any more. It happens with children sometimes. They either kill themselves, or they kill their abuser. Émilie described Crie as deceptive, though not in an underhanded way. She meant Crie appeared flat, without a spark or talent. But she wasn’t.’

‘We heard her sing on Christmas Eve,’ said Olivier. ‘It was sublime.’

They all nodded.

‘She’s also a straight A student. Quite brilliant, especially in sciences. In fact, for the past few years she’d been in charge of lighting for the school plays.’

‘Losers always are,’ said Ruth. ‘I was too.’

‘This year her class studied, among other things, vitamins and minerals. The B complex. Niacin. She got ninety-four per cent on the Christmas exam. Crie was well equipped to know how to kill her mother.’

‘I wonder whether the notion of an electric chair appealed to her,’ said Myrna.

‘Might have. We may never know. She’s in a near catatonic state.’

‘So you knew it wasn’t the Three Graces, but how did you figure out it was Crie?’ asked Peter.

‘CC’s boots. Only two people knew about them. Richard and Crie. I wanted to believe Richard had done it. He made the perfect suspect, after all.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Myrna sounded slightly offended and the others looked at her with curiosity. ‘He dropped by the shop today with this.’ She reached into her tote and pulled out what looked like a simple light glove. ‘It’s fantastic. Here, hand me that.’ She waved to an open hardcover on the hassock. She slipped the glove on and held the book. ‘Look. It’s easy to hold. He’s done something with the glove, reinforced it somehow. When you’re wearing it, suddenly hardcovers feel even lighter than paperbacks.’

‘Here, let me try,’ said Clara. Sure enough the book sat snugly in her gloved hand, without strain. ‘It’s great.’

‘He heard we didn’t like hardcovers so he’s been working on this.’ Myrna handed it to Reine-Marie, who thought perhaps Richard Lyon had finally created something useful, and maybe even lucrative.

‘He has a crush on you,’ Gabri sang. Myrna didn’t correct him.

‘But you kept insisting Lyon hadn’t left your side the whole time.’ Gamache turned to Myrna.

‘That’s right.’

‘And I believed you. So if not Richard Lyon it had to have been his daughter.’

‘Crie took a hell of a chance,’ said Peter.

‘I agree,’ said Gamache. ‘But she had an advantage. She didn’t care. She had nowhere to go and nothing to lose. She had no plan outside of killing her mother.’

‘Five o’clock. Time to go.’ Ruth stood up and turned to Reine-Marie. ‘You’re the first reason I’ve seen to believe your husband isn’t a complete moron.’

‘
Merci, madame
.’ Reine-Marie inclined her head in a gesture reminiscent of Émilie. ‘
Et bonne année.
’

‘I doubt it.’ Ruth limped out of the room.

Richard Lyon sat in his workroom in the basement, tinkering with his Hardcover Hand, as he’d come to call it. Beside him on the workbench sat a Christmas card, received that morning in the mail. It was from Saul Petrov, apologizing for the affair with CC. He’d gone on to say that he’d had a roll of film of CC in compromising positions that he’d chosen to burn that morning. He’d kept the film with thoughts of blackmailing her one day, if she struck it rich, and had even considered holding on to it to do the same to Lyon. But he’d recently discovered a conscience he’d thought had gone for ever, and now he wanted to tell Lyon that he was sorry. Petrov ended the letter by saying he hoped one day they might be, if not friends, at least friendly, since they would almost certainly be neighbors.

It surprised Lyon how much the letter meant, and he thought perhaps he and Petrov might have been friends.

Gamache and Reine-Marie ran into Agent Robert Lemieux as they walked to their car outside the bistro.

‘I plan to see Superintendent Brébeuf,’ said Gamache, shaking the young man’s hand and introducing Reine-Marie, ‘and ask him to assign you to homicide.’

Lemieux’s face opened in astonishment. ‘Oh, my God, sir. Thank you, thank you. I won’t let you down.’

‘I know you won’t.’

Lemieux helped him clear off his car while Reine-Marie used the washroom in the bistro.

‘Poor Madame Zardo.’ Lemieux pointed his snow scraper at Ruth, sitting on her bench on the village green.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, she’s a drunk. One of the villagers said that’s her beer walk.’

‘Do you know what a beer walk is?’

Lemieux started to say yes then wondered. Maybe he’d gotten it wrong. Jumped to a conclusion. Instead he shook his head.

‘Neither did I.’ Gamache smiled. ‘Myrna Landers explained it to me. Ruth Zardo had a dog named Daisy. I met Daisy. The two were inseparable. Two stinky old ladies limping and growling through life. This past autumn Daisy grew weak and disoriented and finally the end was near. Ruth took her old friend on one last afternoon walk. It was five o’clock and they went into the woods where they’d gone each day. She took along a gun and when Daisy wasn’t looking, she shot her.’

‘But that’s awful.’

‘It’s called a beer walk because most farmers before they put their family pets down take a twelve pack with them, get just drunk enough, and do the deed. Ruth was sober. It was an act of love and mercy and formidable courage. Later Olivier and Gabri helped her bury Daisy under the bench here. And every day at five Ruth visits Daisy. Like Greyfriars Bobby.’

Lemieux didn’t understand the reference, but he understood he’d been wrong.

‘You must be careful,’ said Gamache. ‘I’m counting on you.’

‘I’m sorry sir. I’ll do better.’

At Sûreté headquarters the phone rang and the Superintendent picked it up quickly. It was the call he’d been waiting for. After listening for a few moments, he spoke.

‘You’ve done well.’

‘I don’t feel good about this, sir.’

‘And you think I do? It makes me sick. But it has to be done.’

And it was true. The Superintendent was heartsick about the position he found himself in. But he was the only person who could bring Gamache down.

‘Yes, sir. I understand.’

‘Good,’ said Michel Brébeuf. ‘We’re clear. I have another call. Keep me informed.’ He hung up on Agent Robert Lemieux and took the next call.

‘
Bonjour
, Superintendent.’ Gamache’s deep warm voice came down the line.

‘
Bonne année, Armand
,’ said Brébeuf. ‘What can I do for you,
mon ami
?’

‘We have a problem. I need to talk to you about Agent Nichol.’

At home again Yvette Nichol unpacked her suitcase, putting the dirty clothing into her drawers. Her father stood at the doorway, getting up his courage to speak. To start the New Year with the truth about fictional Uncle Saul.

‘Yvette.’

‘What is it?’ She turned round, a dull gray sweater bunched into a ball in her hands. Her voice was petulant, a tone he’d heard her use with others with some satisfaction, but never with himself. Now he noticed the smell of smoke. It seemed to get stronger as he approached her, as though his daughter had been scorched.

‘I’m proud of you,’ he said. She’d told him about the fire, of course. But hearing her on the phone describing it from Three Pines had seemed unreal. Now, actually smelling the smoke, imagining her that close to the flames, he felt overcome with terror. Had he really come that close to losing her? For a lie? A fictitious Uncle Saul?

‘I don’t want to talk about it any more. I told you everything already.’ She turned her back to him. For the first time. In one fluid, vicious, calculated move she changed his life for ever. She turned away from him.

Gutted, barely able to speak, Ari Nikolev tried to find the courage to tell his daughter she’d almost lost her life because of a lie he’d told. And retold. All her life.

She’d hate him, of course. Nikolev, staring at his daughter’s back, had a vision of his life stretching forward for years, bleak and cold. All the warmth and laughter and love turned to ice and buried beneath years of lies and regret. Was the truth worth it?

‘I want—’