The Cruellest Month (32 page)

Since she didn’t see Chief Inspector Gamache in the bistro Dr Harris decided to sit on the bench on the green and get some air. As she bent to sit down something beneath the bench caught her eye. She picked it up, examined it, and smiled.

Across the road Ruth Zardo’s door opened and the elderly woman came out. She stood there for a moment and Harris had the impression Ruth was talking to some invisible person. Then she clumped down the steps and at the bottom said a few more words into the air.

Finally lost it, thought Dr Harris. Fried her brain with verse and worse.

Ruth turned and did something that horrified Dr Harris, who knew the misanthrope slightly. She smiled and waved at the young doctor. Dr Harris waved back and wondered what malevolent scheme Ruth had hatched to make her so happy. Then she saw it.

As Ruth limped across the road two tiny birds formed a very small tail behind her. One was spreading its wings and flapping, the other was limping a little and falling behind. Ruth stopped and waited, then started again, more slowly.

‘Quite a family,’ said Gamache, landing in the seat beside Dr Harris.

‘Look what I found.’

Dr Harris opened her fist and there in the cradle of her palm sat a tiny egg. A robin’s egg blue, but not actually a robin’s egg. It was also green and pink in a pattern so intricate and delicate Gamache had to put on his half-moon glasses to appreciate it.

‘Where on earth did you find that?’

‘Right here, under the bench. Can you believe it? It’s wood, I think.’ She handed it to him. He brought it up to his face and stared at it until his eyes crossed.

‘Beautiful. I wonder where it came from.’

Dr Harris was shaking her head. ‘This place. How do you explain a village like Three Pines where poets take ducks for walks and art seems to fall from the skies?’

On the mention of skies both of them looked at the storm cloud, now almost halfway up the sky.

‘I wouldn’t expect many Rembrandts from that,’ said Gamache.

‘No. More abstract than classic, I think.’

Gamache laughed. He liked Dr Harris.

‘Poor Ruth. You know she smiled at me just now.’

‘Smiled? Do you think she’s dying?’

‘No, but I think the little one is.’

Dr Harris pointed to the smaller of the ducks, struggling across the grass to the pond. The two sat on their bench and watched. Ruth went over to the straggler and walked very slowly beside it, the two limping along like mother and child.

‘What killed Madeleine Favreau, doctor?’

‘Ephedra. She had five or six times the recommended level of ephedra in her system.’

Gamache nodded. ‘That’s what the toxicology said, of course. Could it have been given to her over dinner?’

‘Had to have been. It works fairly quickly. I don’t think it’d be a problem slipping it into any of the food.’

‘But there’s more, isn’t there,’ said Gamache. ‘Not everyone who dies from ephedra has a look of horror on their faces.’

‘True. You want to know what really killed her?’

Gamache nodded.

Sharon Harris looked up from his strong, calm face and nodded to the hillside.

‘That killed her. The old Hadley house.’

‘Come along, doctor. Houses don’t kill.’ Gamache tried to sound convincing.

‘Perhaps not, but fear does. Do you believe in ghosts, Chief Inspector?’ When he was silent she went on. ‘I’m a doctor, a scientist, but I’ve been in homes that scare the hell out of me. I’ve been invited to parties in perfectly fine places. New houses even, and felt a dread. Felt a presence.’

She’d debated with herself all the way over. Should she tell him everything? Should she admit this? But she knew she had to. To find a killer, she had to expose herself. But she knew she’d never admit these things to any other Sûreté officer.

‘Do you believe in haunted houses?’ Gamache asked.

Dr Harris was suddenly eleven and creeping through the pine forest toward the Tremblay place. It was buried in the woods, abandoned, dark, brooding.

‘Someone was killed there once,’ her friend had hissed into her ear. ‘A kid. Strangled and stabbed.’

She’d heard he’d been beaten to death by his uncle, but someone else had said he’d died of starvation.

However he went, he was still there. Waiting. Waiting to possess the body of some other kid. To come alive again, and avenge his death.

They’d crept to within yards of the Tremblay place. It was night and the dark woods closed in and all things familiar and comforting during the day became unfamiliar. Branches cracked and footsteps approached and something creaked and little Sharon Harris had fled, running, tumbling through the forest, trees reaching out and scraping flesh from her face and behind her she heard panting. Was it her friend, abandoned by her? Or the dead boy, reaching out? She could feel his freezing hands on her shoulders, desperate to take a life.

The faster she ran the more terrified she became until she finally broke through the trees sobbing and petrified, and alone.

Even today, as she leaned in to the mirror, she could see the tiny scars made by the trees and her own terror. And she remembered that night she’d left her best friend to be taken instead of her. Of course, the friend had burst through the trees a moment later, also sobbing. And they both knew that dead boy had indeed stolen something. He’d stolen the trust between friends.

Sharon Harris believed houses could be haunted, but she knew for sure people were.

‘Do I believe in haunted houses, Chief Inspector? Are you really asking me that? A doctor and a scientist?’

‘I am,’ he smiled.

‘Do you believe it?’

‘Now, you know me, doctor. I believe everything.’

She hesitated for a moment, then decided, what the hell.

‘That place is haunted.’ She didn’t have to look, they both knew what she meant. ‘By what, I don’t know. Madeleine Favreau knows, but she had to die to find out. Me? I don’t want to know that badly.’

The two sat quietly on the bench in the very center of the peaceful village. Around them, as they talked about ghosts and demons and death, people walked their dogs and chatted and gardened. Gamache waited for Dr Harris to continue, and watched as Ruth tried to coax the tiny balls of fluff into the pond.

‘I did a bit of research this afternoon on ephedra. It’s from the’ – she pulled a notepad from her pocket – ‘gymnosperm shrub.’

‘It’s an herb, isn’t it?’ said Gamache.

‘You knew?’

‘Agent Lemieux told me.’

‘It grows all over the place. It’s an old-fashioned cold remedy and
antihistamine. The Chinese knew about it centuries ago. Called it Ma Huang. Then the pharmaceuticals got hold of it and started making Ephedrine.’

‘You say it grows all over the place—’

‘You’re wondering whether it grows here? It does. There’s one over there.’ She pointed to a huge tree on a front lawn. Gamache got up and walked over to it, bending down to pick up a leathery, brown leaf, fallen in the autumn.

‘It’s a ginkgo tree,’ said Dr Harris, joining him and picking up a leaf of her own. It was an unusual shape, more of a fan than a classic leaf, with thick veins, like sinews. ‘It’s part of the gymnosperm family.’

‘Could someone extract ephedra from this?’ Gamache showed her his leaf.

‘I don’t know whether it comes from the leaf or the bark or something else. What I do know is that being from the same family doesn’t necessarily mean it has ephedra in it. But as I said before, the combination of ephedra and a scare wasn’t enough.’

They turned and walked back to the bench, Gamache rubbing the leaf between his fingers, feeling its skeleton in his hand.

‘Something else had to happen?’ he asked.

‘Something else had to exist,’ Dr Harris nodded.

‘What?’ Gamache asked, hoping she wasn’t going to say a ghost.

‘Madeleine Favreau had to have had a heart condition.’

‘Did she?’

‘She did,’ said Dr Harris. ‘According to my autopsy, she had fairly severe heart damage, almost certainly from her breast cancer.’

‘Breast cancer damages the heart?’

‘Not the cancer, but the treatment. The chemo. Breast cancer in younger women can be extremely aggressive so doctors give high doses of chemo to fight it. The women are normally consulted before it’s done, but the equation is simple. Feel wretched for months, lose your hair, risk a heart problem or almost certainly die of breast cancer.’

‘Jesus wept,’ whispered Gamache.

‘I think so.’

‘You’re looking very serious.’ Ruth Zardo had walked up to their bench. ‘Fucking up the Favreau case?’

‘Probably.’ Gamache rose and bowed to the old poet. ‘Do you know Dr Harris?’

‘Never met.’ They shook hands. This was about the tenth time Sharon Harris had been introduced to Ruth.

‘We’ve been admiring your family.’ Gamache nodded toward the pond.

‘Do they have names?’ Dr Harris asked.

‘The big one’s Rosa and the little one’s Lilium. They were found among the flowers by the pond.’

‘Beautiful,’ said Dr Harris, watching Rosa plop into the pond. Lilium took a step and stumbled. Ruth, her back to the birds, somehow sensed something was wrong and limped rapidly to the pond, lifting the little one out, soaking but alive.

‘That was close,’ said Ruth, dabbing gently at the duckling’s face with her sleeve. Sharon Harris wondered if she should say something. Surely Ruth had noticed how frail Lilium was?

‘Storm’s almost here.’ Dr Harris looked to the sky. ‘I really don’t want to be on the road in that. But I have one more piece of information you need.’

‘What is it?’ Gamache accompanied her to her car as Ruth walked home, Rosa quacking behind and Lilium in the palm of her hand.

‘I don’t think this contributed to her death, not directly anyway, but it is puzzling. Madeleine Favreau’s breast cancer had returned. And badly. There were lesions on her liver. Not large, but I’d say she wouldn’t have seen Christmas.’

Gamache paused to digest this information.

‘Would she have known?’

‘I don’t know. It’s possible she didn’t, but honestly? The women I know who’ve had breast cancer get so in tune with their bodies, it’s almost psychic. It’s a powerful connection. Descartes was wrong, you know. There is no division between mind and body. These women know. Not the initial diagnosis, but if it comes back? They know.’

Sharon Harris got in her car and drove off just as the first huge drops of rain fell and the winds picked up and the sky over the tiny village grew purple and impenetrable. Armand Gamache made it to the bistro before the heavens opened. Settling into a wing chair he ordered a Scotch and a licorice pipe and gazing out the window as the storm closed in around Three Pines he wondered who would want to kill a dying woman.

   THIRTY-ONE   

‘
G
ood book?’

Myrna leaned over Gamache’ s shoulder. He’ d been so absorbed in his book he hadn’ t even seen her coming.

‘ I don’ t know,’ he admitted, and handed it to her. He’ d emptied his pockets of the books he’ d gathered. He felt like a mobile library. Where other investigators gathered fingerprints and evidence, he gathered books. Not everyone would agree it was a move in the right direction.

‘ Terrible storm.’ Myrna flopped into the large chair opposite and ordered a red wine. ‘ Thank heaven I don’ t have to go outside. In fact, if I wanted I’ d never have to go outside again. Everything I need is here.’

She opened her arms happily, her colorful caftan draping over the arms of her chair.

‘ Food from Sarah and Monsieur Béliveau, company and coffee here—’

‘ Your red wine, your highness,’ said Gabri, lowering the bulbous glass to the dark wood table.

‘ You may go now.’ Myrna inclined her head in a surprisingly regal gesture. ‘ I have wine and Scotch and all the books I could want to read.’

She lifted her glass and Gamache lifted his.

‘ Santé.’ They smiled at each other, sipped, and stared at the torrential rain streaming down the leaded glass windows.

‘ Now, what have we here?’ Myrna put on her reading glasses and examined the small leather volume Gamache had given her. ‘ Where’ d you find this?’ she finally asked, letting her glasses drop on their rope to land on the plateau of her bosom.