The Brutal Telling (62 page)

And company.

When Olivier had been taken away Gamache had sat back down and stared at the sack. What could be worse than Chaos, Despair, War? What would even the Mountain flee from? Gamache had given it a lot of thought. What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some to their knees? And Gamache thought he had the answer.

Regret.

Regret for things said, for things done, and not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.

Finally, when he was alone, the Chief Inspector had opened the sack and looking inside had realized he’d been wrong. The worst thing of all wasn’t regret.

C
lara Morrow knocked on Peter’s door.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” he said, and came out wiping the oil paint from his hand. He’d taken to sprinkling his hands with paint so that Clara would think he’d been hard at work when in fact he’d finished his painting weeks earlier.

He’d finally admitted that to himself. He just hadn’t admitted it to anyone else.

“How do I look?”

“Great.” Peter took a piece of toast from Clara’s hair.

“I was saving that for lunch.”

“I’ll take you out for lunch,” he said, following her out the door. “To celebrate.”

They got in the car and headed into Montreal. That terrible day when she’d gone to pick up her portfolio from Fortin, she’d stopped at the sculpture of Emily Carr. Someone else was there eating her lunch and Clara had sat at the far end of the bench and stared at the little bronze woman. And the horse, the dog and the monkey. Woo.

Emily Carr didn’t look like one of the greatest visionary artists ever. She looked like someone you’d meet across the aisle on the Number 24 bus. She was short. A little dumpy. A little frumpy.

“She looks a bit like you,” came the voice beside Clara.

“You think so?” said Clara, far from convinced it was a compliment.

The woman was in her sixties. Beautifully dressed. Poised and composed. Elegant.

“I’m Thérèse Brunel.” The woman reached out her hand. When Clara continued to look perplexed she added, “Superintendent Brunel. Of the Sûreté du Québec.”

“Of course. Forgive me. You were in Three Pines with Armand Gamache.”

“Is that your work?” She nodded toward the portfolio.

“Photographs of it, yes.”

“May I see?”

Clara opened the portfolio and the Sûreté officer looked through, smiling, commenting, drawing in breath occasionally. But she stopped at one picture. It was of a joyous woman facing forward but looking back.

“She’s beautiful,” said Thérèse. “Someone I’d like to know.”

Clara hadn’t said anything. Just waited. And after a minute her companion blinked then smiled and looked at Clara.

“It’s quite startling. She’s full of Grace, but something’s just happened, hasn’t it?”

Still Clara remained silent, staring at the reproduction of her own work.

Thérèse Brunel went back to looking at it too. Then she inhaled sharply and looked at Clara. “The Fall. My God, you’ve painted the Fall. That moment. She’s not even aware of it, is she? Not really, but she sees something, a hint of the horror to come. The Fall from Grace.” Thérèse grew very quiet, looking at this lovely, blissful woman. And that tiny, nearly invisible awareness.

Clara nodded. “Yes.”

Thérèse looked at her more closely. “But there’s something else. I know what it is. It’s you, isn’t it? She’s you.”

Clara nodded.

After a moment Thérèse whispered so that Clara wasn’t even sure the words had been spoken aloud. Maybe it was the wind. “What are you afraid of?”

Clara waited a long time to speak, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because she’d never said it out loud. “I’m afraid of not recognizing Paradise.”

There was a pause. “So am I,” said Superintendent Brunel.

She wrote a number and handed it to Clara. “I’m going to make a call when I get back to my office. Here’s my number. Call me this afternoon.”

Clara had, and to her amazement the elegant woman, the police officer, had arranged for the Chief Curator at the Musée d’art contemporain in Montreal to see the portfolio.

That had been weeks ago. A lot had happened since. Chief Inspector Gamache had arrested Olivier for murder. Everyone knew that had been a mistake. But as the evidence grew so did their doubts. As all of this was happening Clara had taken her work into the MAC. And now they’d asked for a meeting.

“They won’t say no,” said Peter, speeding along the autoroute. “I’ve never known a gallery to invite an artist to a meeting to turn him down. It’s good news, Clara. Great news. Way better than anything Fortin could have done for you.”

And Clara dared to think that was true.

As he drove Peter thought about the painting on his own easel. The one he now knew was finished. As was his career. On the white canvas
Peter had painted a large black circle, almost, but not quite, closed. And where it might have closed he’d put dots.

Three dots. For infinity. For society.

J
ean Guy Beauvoir was in the basement of his home looking down at the ragged strips of paper. Upstairs he could hear Enid preparing lunch.

He’d gone to the basement every chance he got in the last few weeks. He’d flip the game on the television then sit with his back to the TV. At his desk. Mesmerized by the scraps of paper. He’d hoped the mad old poet had written the whole thing on a single sheet of paper and simply torn it into strips so he could fit them together like a jigsaw puzzle. But, no, the pieces of paper wouldn’t fit together. He had to find the meaning in the words.

Beauvoir had lied to the Chief. He didn’t do it often, and he had no idea why he’d done it this time. He’d told the Chief he’d thrown them all out, all the stupid words Ruth had tacked onto his door, shoved into his pocket. Given others to give to him.

He’d wanted to throw them out, but even more than that he’d wanted to know what they meant. It was almost hopeless. Perhaps the Chief could decipher it, but poetry had always been a big fat pile of crap to Beauvoir. Even when presented with it whole. How could he ever assemble a poem?

But he’d tried. For weeks.

He slipped one scrap between two and moved another to the top.

I just sit where I’m put, composed

of stone and wishful thinking:

that the deity who kills for pleasure

will also heal,

He took a swig of beer.

“Jean Guy,” his wife sang to him. “Luh-hunch.”

“Coming.”

that in the midst of your nightmare,

the final one, a kind lion

will come with bandages in her mouth

and the soft body of a woman,

Enid called again and he didn’t answer but instead stared at the poem. Then his eyes moved to the furry little feet dangling over the shelf above his desk. At eye level, where he could see it. The stuffed lion he’d quietly taken from the B and B. First to his room, for company. He’d sat it in the chair where he could see it from his bed. And he imagined her there. Maddening, passionate, full of life. Filling the empty, quiet corners of his life. With life.

And when the case was over he’d slipped the lion into his bag and brought it down here. Where Enid never came.

The kind lion. With its soft skin and smile. “Wimoweh, a-wimoweh,” he sang under his breath as he read the final stanza.

and lick you clean of fever,

and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck

and caress you into darkness and paradise.

A
n hour later Armand Gamache walked out of the woods and down the slope into Three Pines. On the porch of the bistro he took a deep breath, composed himself, and entered.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did he saw Gabri behind the bar, where Olivier had always stood. The large man had diminished, lost weight. He looked careworn. Tired.

“Gabri,” said Gamache, and the two old friends stared at each other.

“Monsieur,” said Gabri. He shifted a jar of allsorts and another of jelly beans on the polished wood counter, then came around. And offered Gamache a licorice pipe.

Myrna walked in a few minutes later to find Gabri and Gamache sitting quietly by the fire. Talking. Their heads together. Their knees almost touching. An uneaten licorice pipe between them.

They looked up as she entered.

“I’m sorry.” She stopped. “I can come back. I just wanted to show you this.” She held a piece of paper out to Gabri.

“I got one too,” he said. “Ruth’s latest poem. What do you think it means?”

“I don’t know.” She couldn’t get used to coming into the bistro and seeing only Gabri. With Olivier in jail it felt as though something vital was missing, as though one of the pines had been cut down.

It was excruciating, what was happening. The village felt torn and ragged. Wanting to support Olivier and Gabri. Appalled at the arrest. Not believing it. And yet knowing that Chief Inspector Gamache would never have done it unless he was certain.

It was also clear how much it had cost Gamache to arrest his friend. It seemed impossible to support one without betraying the other.

Gabri rose, as did Gamache. “We were just catching up. Did you know the Chief Inspector has another granddaughter? Zora.”

“Congratulations.” Myrna embraced the grandfather.

“I need fresh air,” said Gabri, suddenly restless. At the door he turned to Gamache. “Well?”

The Chief Inspector and Myrna joined him and together they walked slowly round the village green. Where all could see. Gamache and Gabri, together. The wound not healed, but neither was it getting deeper.

“Olivier didn’t do it, you know,” said Gabri, stopping to look at Gamache directly.

“I admire you for standing by him.”

“I know there’s a lot about him that sucks. Not surprisingly, those are some of my favorite parts.” Gamache gave a small guffaw. “But there’s one question I need answered.”

“
Oui
?”

“If Olivier killed the Hermit, why move the body? Why take it to the Hadley house to be found? Why not leave it in the cabin? Or stick it in the woods?”

Gamache noticed the “he” had become an “it.” Gabri couldn’t accept that Olivier had killed, and he certainly couldn’t accept that Olivier had killed a “he” not an “it.”

“That was answered in the trial,” said Gamache, patiently. “The cabin was about to be found. Roar was cutting a path straight for it.”

Gabri nodded, reluctantly. Myrna watched and willed her friend to be able to accept the now undeniable truth.

“I know,” said Gabri. “But why move it to the Hadley house? Why not just take it deeper into the woods and let the animals do the rest?”

“Because Olivier realized the body wasn’t the most damning evidence against him. The cabin was. Years of evidence, of fingerprints, of
hairs, of food. He couldn’t hope to clean it all up, at least not right away. But if our investigation focused on Marc Gilbert and the Hadley house he might stop the progress of the paths. If the Gilberts were ruined there was no need of horse trails.”

Gamache’s voice was calm. No sign of the impatience Myrna knew it could hold. This was at least the tenth time she’d heard the Chief Inspector explain it to Gabri, and still Gabri didn’t believe it. And even now Gabri was shaking his head.

“I’m sorry,” said Gamache, and clearly meant it. “There was no other conclusion.”

“Olivier isn’t a murderer.”

“I agree. But he did kill. It was manslaughter. Unintentional. Can you really tell me you believe he’s not capable of killing out of rage? He’d worked years to get the Hermit to give him the treasure, and feared he might lose it. Are you sure Olivier wouldn’t be driven to violence?”

Gabri hesitated. Neither Gamache nor Myrna dared breathe, for fear of chasing away timid reason fluttering around their friend.

“Olivier didn’t do it.” Gabri sighed heavily, exasperated. “Why would he move the body?”

The Chief Inspector stared at Gabri. Words failed him. If there was any way to convince this tormented man, he would. He’d tried. He hated the thought that Gabri would carry this unnecessary burden, the horror of believing his partner falsely imprisoned. Better to accept the wretched truth than struggle, twisting, to make a wish a reality.

Gabri turned his back on the Chief Inspector and walked onto the green, to the very center of the village, and sat on the bench.