The Brutal Telling (15 page)

“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 and 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.

They’d certainly healed this wound of a house.

“We saw an ad for this place in the
Gazette
one Saturday, drove down and bought it,” said Dominique.

“You make it sound simple,” said Gamache.

“It was, really, once we decided what we wanted.”

And looking at her, Gamache could believe it. She knew something powerful, something most people never learned. That people made their own fortune.

It made her formidable.

“And you, madame?” Gamache turned to Carole Gilbert.

“Oh, I’ve been retired for a while.”

“In Quebec City, I understand.”

“That’s correct. I quit work and moved there after my husband died.”

“
Désolé
.”

“No need to be. It was many years ago. But when Marc and Dominique invited me here I thought it sounded like fun.”

“You were a nurse? That will come in handy in a spa.”

“I hope not,” she laughed. “Not planning on hurting people, are you?” she asked Dominique. “God help anyone who asks for my help.”

They strolled once more into the living room and the Chief Inspector stopped by the floor-to-ceiling windows, then turned into the room.

“Thank you for the tour. And the tea. But I do have some questions for you.”

“About the murder in the bistro,” said Marc, and stepped slightly closer to his wife. “It seems so out of character for this village, to have a murder.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said Gamache, and wondered if anyone had told them the history of their own home. Probably wasn’t in the real estate agent’s description.

“Well, to begin with, have you seen any strangers around?”

“Everyone’s a stranger,” said Carole. “We know most of the villagers by now, at least to nod to, but this weekend the place is filled with people we’ve never seen.”

“This man would be hard to miss; he’d have looked like a tramp, a vagrant.”

“No, I haven’t seen anyone like that,” said Marc. “Mama, have you?”

“Nobody.”

“Where were you all on Saturday night and early Sunday morning?”

“Marc, I think you went to bed first. He usually does. Dominique and I watched the
Téléjournal on Radio-Canada
then went up.”

“About eleven, wouldn’t you think?” Dominique asked.

“Did any of you get up in the night?”

“I did,” said Carole. “Briefly. To use the washroom.”

“Why’re you asking us this?” Dominique asked. “The murder happened down in the bistro. It has nothing to do with us.”

Gamache turned around and pointed out the window. “That’s why I’m asking.”

They looked. Down in the village a few cars were being packed up. People were hugging, reluctant children were being called off the village green. A young woman was walking briskly up rue du Moulin, in their direction.

“You’re the only place in Three Pines with a view over the whole village, and the only place with a direct view into the bistro. If the murderer turned on the lights, you’d have seen.”

“Our bedrooms are at the back,” Dominique pointed out. Gamache had already noted this in the tour.

“True. But I was hoping one of you might suffer from insomnia.”

“Sorry, Chief Inspector. We sleep like the dead here.”

Gamache didn’t mention that the dead in the old Hadley house had never rested well.

The doorbell rang just then and the Gilberts started slightly, not expecting anyone. But Gamache was. He’d noted Agent Lacoste’s progress round the village green and up rue du Moulin.

Something had happened.

“May I see you in private?” Isabelle Lacoste asked the Chief after she’d been introduced. The Gilberts took the cue. After watching them disappear Agent Lacoste turned to Gamache.

“The coroner called. The victim wasn’t killed in the bistro.”

Myrna knocked softly on the bistro door, then opened it.

“You okay?” she asked softly into the dim light. It was the first time since she’d lived in Three Pines she’d seen the bistro dark during the day. Even at Christmas Olivier opened.

Olivier was sitting in an armchair, staring. He looked over at her and smiled.

“I’m fine.”

“Ruth’s FINE? Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical?”

“That’s about right.”

Myrna sat across from him and offered a mug of tea she’d brought from her bookshop. Strong, hot, with milk and sugar. Red Rose. Nothing fancy.

“Like to talk?”

She sat quietly, watching her friend. She knew his face, had seen the tiny changes over the years. The crow’s-feet appear at his eyes, the fine blond hair thin. What hadn’t changed, from what she could tell, was what was invisible, but even more obvious. His kind heart, his thoughtfulness. He was the first to bring soup to anyone ill. To visit in the hospital. To read out loud to someone too weak and tired and near the end to do it for themselves. Gabri, Myrna, Clara, they all organized villagers to help, and when they arrived they’d find Olivier already there.

And now it was their turn to help him.

“I don’t know if I want to open again.”

Myrna sipped her tea and nodded. “That’s understandable. You’ve
been hurt. It must’ve been a terrible shock to see him here. I know it was for me, and it’s not my place.”

You have no idea, thought Olivier. He didn’t say anything, but stared out the window. He saw Chief Inspector Gamache and Agent Lacoste walking down rue du Moulin from the old Hadley house. He prayed they kept going. Didn’t come in here. With their keen eyes and sharp questions.

“I wonder if I should just sell. Move on.”

This surprised Myrna, but she didn’t show it. “Why?” she asked, softly.

He shook his head and dropped his eyes to his hands, resting in his lap.

“Everything’s changing. Everything’s changed. Why can’t it be like it always was? They took my fireplace pokers, you know. I think Gamache thinks I did it.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t. Olivier, look at me.” She spoke forcefully to him. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. We know the truth about you. And you need to know something about us. We love you. Do you think we come here every day for the food?”

He nodded and smiled slightly. “You mean it wasn’t for the croissants? The red wine? Not even the chocolate torte?”

“Well, yes, okay. Maybe the torte. Listen, we come here because of you. You’re the attraction. We love you, Olivier.”

Olivier raised his eyes to hers. He hadn’t realized, until that moment, that he’d always been afraid their affection was conditional. He was the owner of the bistro, the only one in town. They liked him for the atmosphere and welcome. The food and drink. That was the boundary of their feelings for him. They liked him for what he gave to them. Sold to them.

Without the bistro, he was nothing to them.

How’d Myrna know something he hadn’t even admitted to himself? As he looked at her she smiled. She was wearing her usual flamboyant caftan. For her birthday coming up Gabri had made her a winter caftan, out of flannel. Olivier imagined her in it in her store. A big, warm ball of flannel.

The world, which had been closing in on him for days, released a bit of its grip.

“We’re going to the Brume County Fair. Last day. What do you say? Can we interest you in cotton candy, cream soda, and a bison burger? I hear Wayne’s showing his litter of suckling pigs this afternoon. I know how you love a good piglet.”