The Brutal Telling (19 page)

Lovely and lasting, thanks to people like Old Mundin.

“What brought you to Three Pines? Why not a larger city? There’d be more work, surely, in Montreal or even Sherbrooke.”

“I was born in Quebec City, and you’d think there’d be lots of work there for an antique restorer, but it’s hard for a young guy starting out. I moved to Montreal, to an antique shop on Notre Dame, but I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out for the big city. So I decided to go to Sherbrooke. Got in the car, headed south, and got lost. I drove into Three Pines to ask directions at the bistro, ordered
café au lait
, sat down and the chair collapsed.” He laughed, as did Gamache. “I offered to repair it and that was that.”

“You said you’d been here for eleven years. You must’ve been young when you left Quebec City.”

“Sixteen. I left after my father died. Spent three years in Montreal, then down here. Met The Wife, had Charles. Started a small business.”

This young man had done a lot with his eleven years, thought Gamache. “How did Olivier seem on Saturday night?”

“As usual. Labor Day’s always busy but he seemed relaxed. As relaxed as he ever gets, I suppose.” Mundin smiled. It was clear there was affection there. “Did I hear you say the man wasn’t murdered at the bistro after all?”

Gamache nodded. “We’re trying to find out where he was killed. In fact, while you were at the fair I had my people searching the whole area, including your place.”

“Really?” They were at the barn door and Mundin turned to stare into the gloom. “They’re either very good, or they didn’t actually do anything. You can’t tell.”

“That’s the point.” But the Chief noticed that, unlike Peter, Old Mundin didn’t seem at all concerned.

“Now, why would you kill someone one place, then move them to another?” asked Mundin, almost to himself. “I can see wanting to get rid of a body, especially if you killed him in your own home, but why take him to Olivier’s? Seems a strange thing to do, but I guess the bistro’s a fairly central location. Maybe it was just convenient.”

Gamache let that statement be. They both knew it wasn’t true. Indeed, the bistro was a very inconvenient place to drop a body. And it worried Gamache. The murder wasn’t an accident, and the placement of the body wasn’t either.

There was someone very dangerous walking among them. Someone who looked happy, thoughtful, gentle even. But it was a deceit. A mask. Gamache knew that when he found the murderer and ripped the mask off, the skin would come too. The mask had become the man. The deceit was total.

“We had a great time at the fair. I got you this.” Gabri shut the door and turned on the lights in the bistro. He offered the stuffed lion to Olivier, who took it and held it softly in his lap.

“
Merci.
”

“And did you hear the news? Gamache says the dead man wasn’t killed here. And we’ll be getting our pokers back. I’d like to get my poker back, wouldn’t you?” he asked, archly. But Olivier didn’t even respond.

Gabri moved through the gloomy room, turning on lamps, then lit a fire in one of the stone hearths. Olivier continued to sit in the armchair, staring out the window. Gabri sighed, poured them each a beer and joined him. Together they sipped, ate cashews and looked out at the village, quiet now in the last of the day, and the end of the summer.

“What do you see?” asked Gabri at last.

“What d’you mean? I see what you see.”

“Can’t be. What I see makes me happy. And you’re not happy.”

Gabri was used to his partner’s moods. Olivier was the quiet one, the contained one. Gabri might appear the more sensitive, but they both knew Olivier was. He felt things deeply, and kept them there. Gabri was covered in the flesh wounds of life, but Olivier’s wounds were in the marrow, deep and hidden and perhaps even mortal.

But he was also the kindest man Gabri had met, and he’d met, it must be said, quite a few. Before Olivier. That had all changed as soon as he’d clapped eyes on the slim, blond, shy man.

Gabri had lost his quite considerable heart.

“What is it?” Gabri leaned forward and took Olivier’s slender hands. “Tell me.”

“It’s just no fun anymore,” said Olivier at last. “I mean, why even bother? No one’s going to want to come back here. Who wants to eat in a restaurant where there’s been a body?”

“As Ruth says, we’re all just bodies anyway.”

“Great. I’ll put that in the ads.”

“Well, at least you don’t discriminate. Dead, predead. They’re all welcome here. That might be a better slogan.”

Gabri saw a quiver at the ends of Olivier’s lips.

“
Voyons
, it was great news that the police say the man wasn’t killed here. That makes a difference.”

“You think?” Olivier looked at him hopefully.

“Do you know what I really think?” Now Gabri was dead serious. “I think it wouldn’t matter. Peter, Clara, Myrna? Do you think they’d stop coming even if that poor man had been murdered here? The Parras? Monsieur Béliveau? They’d all come if a mountain of bodies was found here. Do you know why?”

“Because they like it?”

“Because they like you. They love you. Listen, Olivier, you have the best bistro, the finest food, the most comfortable place. It’s brilliant. You’re brilliant. Everyone loves you. And you know what?”

“What?” asked Olivier, grumpily.

“You’re the kindest, most handsome man in the world.”

“You’re just saying that.” Olivier felt like a little boy again. While other kids ran around collecting frogs and sticks and grasshoppers, he’d sought reassurance. Affection. He’d gather up the words and actions, even from strangers, and he’d stuff them into the hole that was growing.

It had worked. For a while. Then he’d needed more than just words.

“Did Myrna tell you to say that?”

“Right. It’s not true at all, just a big lie cooked up by Myrna and me. What’s wrong with you anyway?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

Gabri followed Olivier’s stare out the window. And up the hill. He sighed. They’d been through this before.

“There’s nothing we can do about them. Maybe we should just—”

“Just what?” Olivier snapped.

“Are you looking for an excuse to be miserable? Is that it?”

Even by Olivier’s standards that had been an unreasonable reaction.
He’d been reassured about the body, he’d been reassured that everyone still loved him. He’d been reassured that Gabri wasn’t running away. So what was the problem?

“Listen, maybe we should give them a chance. Who knows? Their inn and spa might even help us.”

This was not what Olivier wanted to hear. He stood abruptly, almost knocking the chair to the floor. He could feel that bloom of anger in his chest. It was like a superpower. It made him invincible. Strong. Courageous. Brutal.

“If you want to be friends with them, fine. Why don’t you just fuck off?”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant we can’t do anything about them so we might as well be friends.”

“You make this sound like kindergarten. They’re out to ruin us. Do you understand? When they first came I was nice, but then they decided to steal our customers, even our staff. Do you think anyone’s going to come to your tacky little B and B when they can stay there?”

Olivier’s face was red and blotchy. Gabri could see it spread even under his scalp, through the thinning and struggling blond hair.

“What’re you talking about? I don’t care if people come, you know that. We don’t need the money. I just do it for fun.”

Olivier struggled to control himself now. To not take that one step too far. The two men glared so that the space between them throbbed.

“Why?” Olivier finally said.

“Why what?”

“If the dead man wasn’t killed here, why was he put here?”

Gabri felt his anger lift, evaporated by the question.

“I heard from the police today,” said Olivier, his voice almost monotone. “They’re going to speak to my father tomorrow.”

Poor Olivier, thought Gabri, he did have something to worry about after all.

J
ean Guy Beauvoir got out of the car and stared across the road at the Poirier home.

It was ramshackle and in need of way more than just a coat of paint. The porch was sloping, the steps looked unsound, pieces of boarding were missing from the side of the house.

Beauvoir had been in dozens of places like this in rural Quebec. Lived in by a generation born there too. Clotilde Poirier probably drank coffee from a chipped mug her mother had used. Slept on a mattress she’d been conceived on. The walls would be covered with dried flowers and spoons sent by relatives who’d escaped to exotic places like Rimouski or Chicoutimi or Gaspé. And there’d be a chair, a rocking chair, by the window, near the woodstove. It would have a slightly soiled afghan on it and crumbs. And after clearing up the breakfast dishes Clotilde Poirier would sit there, and watch.

What would she be watching for? A friend? A familiar car? Another spoon?

Was she watching him now?

Armand Gamache’s Volvo appeared over the hill and came to a stop behind Beauvoir. The two men stood and stared for a moment at the house.

“I found out about the Varathane,” said Beauvoir, thinking this place could use a hundred gallons or so of the stuff. “The Gilberts didn’t use it when they did the renovations. I spoke to Dominique Gilbert. She said they want to be as green as possible. After they had the floors sanded they used tung oil.”

“So the Varathane on the dead man’s clothing didn’t come from the old Hadley house,” said the Chief, disappointed. It had seemed a promising lead.

“Why’re we here?” Beauvoir asked as they turned back to survey the gently subsiding home and the rusting pickup truck in the yard. He’d received a call from the Chief to meet him here, but he didn’t know why.

Gamache explained what Old Mundin had said about Olivier, Madame Poirier and her furniture. Specifically the Chippendale chairs.

“So her kids think Olivier screwed her? And by extension, them?” asked Beauvoir.

“Seems so.” He knocked on the door. After a moment a querulous voice called through it.

“Who is it?”

“Chief Inspector Gamache, madame. Of the Sûreté du Québec.”

“I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged glances.

“We need to speak to you, Madame Poirier. It’s about the body found in the bistro in Three Pines.”

“So?”

It was very difficult conducting an interview through an inch of chipping wood.

“May we come in? We’d like to talk to you about Olivier Brulé.”

An elderly woman, small and slender, opened the door. She glared at them then turned and walked rapidly back into the house. Gamache and Beauvoir followed.

It was decorated as Beauvoir had imagined. Or, really, not decorated. Things were put up on the walls as they’d arrived, over the generations, so that the walls were a horizontal archaeological dig. The farther into the house they went, the more recent the items. Framed flowers, plasticized place mats, crucifixes, paintings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and yes, spoons, all marched across the faded floral wallpaper.

But the place was clean, spotless and smelled of cookies. Photos of grandchildren, perhaps even great-grandchildren, sat on shelves and tabletops. A faded striped tablecloth, clean and ironed, was on the kitchen table. And in the center of that table was a vase containing late summer flowers.