The Brutal Telling

by Louise Penny

  “So you didn’t see what was in there.”

  “Don’t tell me, the toilet paper was money too.”

  “Actually it was. One- and two-dollar bills.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I’m not. And I found this.” She held a book in her hand. “A first edition. Signed by E. B. White. It’s Charlotte’s Web.”

  Beauvoir stared at it. He had no idea what she was talking about.

  “It was my favorite book as a child. Charlotte the spider?” she asked. “Wilbur the pig?”

  “If they didn’t get blown up I didn’t read it.”

  “Who leaves a signed first edition in an outhouse?”

  “Who leaves money there?” Beauvoir suddenly felt an urge to go.

  Salut, patron,” waved Gabri from the living room. He was folding tiny outfits and putting them into a box. “So, the cabin in the woods. Was it where the guy lived? The dead man?”

  “We think so.” Gamache joined him. He watched Gabri fold the small sweaters.

  “For Rosa. We’re collecting them from everyone to give to Ruth. Is this too big for Rosa?” He held up a boy’s blazer. “It’s Olivier’s. He says he made it himself but I can’t believe that, though he’s very good with his hands.” Gamache ignored that.

  “It’s a little big. And masculine, for Rosa, don’t you think?” he said.

  “True.” Gabri put it in the reject pile. “In a few years it might fit Ruth though.”

  “Did no one ever mention a cabin before? Not old Mrs. Hadley?”

  Gabri shook his head but continued working. “No one.” Then he stopped folding and put his hands in his lap. “I wonder how he survived? Did he walk all the way to Cowansville or Saint-Rémy for food?”

  One more thing we don’t know, thought Gamache as he went up the stairs. He showered and shaved and called his wife. It was getting dark and in the distance he could hear the shriek from the forest. The ATVs returning. To the village and to the cabin.

  In the living room of the B and B, Gabri had been replaced by someone else. Sitting in the comfortable chair by the fire was Vincent Gilbert.

  “I’ve been over to the bistro but people kept bothering me, so I came here to bother you. I’ve been trying to get out of my son’s way. Funny how coming back from the dead isn’t as popular as it once was.”

  “Did you expect him to be happy?”

  “You know, I actually did. Amazing, isn’t it, our capacity for self-deceit.”

  Gamache looked at him quizzically.

  “All right, my capacity for it,” snapped Gilbert. He studied Gamache. Tall, powerfully built. Probably ten pounds overweight, maybe more. Go to fat if he’s not careful. Die of a heart attack.

  He imagined Gamache suddenly clutching his chest, his eyes widening then closing in pain. Staggering against the wall and gasping. And Dr. Vincent Gilbert, the celebrated physician, folding his arms, doing nothing, as this head of homicide slipped to the ground. It comforted him to know he had that power, of life and death.

  Gamache looked at this rigid man. In front of him was the face he’d seen staring, glaring, from the back of that lovely book, Being. Arrogant, challenging, confident.

  But Gamache had read the book, and knew what lay behind that face.

  “Are you staying here?” They’d told Gilbert not to leave the area and the B and B was the only guesthouse.

  “Actually, no. I’m the first guest at Marc’s inn and spa. Don’t think I’ll ask for a treatment, though.” He had the grace to smile. Like most stern people, he looked very different when he smiled.

  Gamache’s surprise was obvious.

  “I know,” agreed Gilbert. “It was actually Dominique who invited me to stay, though she did suggest I might want to be . . .”

  “Discreet?”

  “Invisible. So I came into town.”

  Gamache sat in an armchair. “Why did you come looking for your son now?”

  It had escaped no one that both Gilbert and the body had shown up at the same time. Again Gamache saw the cabin, with its two comfortable chairs by the fire. Had two older men sat there on a summer’s night? Talking, discussing? Arguing? Murdering?

  Vincent Gilbert looked down at his hands. Hands that had been inside people. Hands that had held hearts. Repaired hearts. Got them beating again, and restored life. They trembled, unsteady. And he felt a pain in his chest.

  Was he having a heart attack?

  He looked up and saw this large, steady man watching him. And he thought if he was having a heart attack this man would probably help.

  How to explain his time at LaPorte, living with men and women with Down’s syndrome? At first he’d thought his job was to simply look after their bodies.

  Help others.

  That’s what the guru had told him to do. Years he’d been at the ashram in India and the guru had finally acknowleged his presence. Almost a decade he’d spent there, in exchange for two words.

  Help others.

  So that’s what he did. He returned to Quebec and joined Brother Albert at LaPorte. To help others. It never, ever occurred to him that they’d help him. After all, how could people that damaged have anything to offer the great healer and philosopher?

  It had taken years, but he’d woken up one morning in his cottage in the grounds of LaPorte and something had changed. He’d gone down to breakfast and realized he knew everyone’s name. And everyone spoke to him, or smiled. Or came up and showed him something they’d found. A snail, a stick, a blade of grass.

  Mundane. Nothing. And yet the whole world had changed, as he slept. He’d gone to bed helping others, and woken up healed himself.

  That afternoon, in the shade of a maple tree, he’d started writing Being.

  “I’d kept an eye on Marc. Watched his successes in Montreal. When they sold their home and bought down here I knew the signs.”

  “Signs of what?” Gamache asked.

  “Burnout. I wanted to help.”

  Help others.

  He was just beginning to appreciate the power of those two simple words. And that help came in different forms.

  “By doing what?” asked Gamache.

  “By making sure he was all right,” Gilbert snapped. “Look, they’re all upset up there about the body. Marc did a stupid thing moving it, but I know him. He’s not a murderer.”

  “How do you know?”

  Gilbert glared at him. His rage back in full force. But Armand Gamache knew what was behind that rage. What was behind all rage.

  Fear.

  What was Vincent Gilbert so afraid of?

  The answer was easy. He was afraid his son would be arrested for murder. Either because he knew his son had done it, or because he knew he hadn’t.

  A few minutes later a voice cut across the crowded bistro, aimed at the Chief Inspector, who’d arrived seeking a glass of red wine and quiet to read his book.

  “You bugger.”

  More than one person looked up. Myrna sailed across the room and stood next to Gamache’s table, glaring down at him. He got up and bowed slightly, indicating a chair.

  Myrna sat so suddenly the chair gave a little crack.

  “Wine?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me why you wanted that?” She gestured toward Being in his hand. Gamache grinned.

  “Secrets.”

  “And how long did you think it’d remain a secret?”

  “Long enough. I hear he was over here having a drink. Did you meet him?”

  “Vincent Gilbert? If you can call ogling and sputtering and fawning ‘meeting,’ then yes. I met him.”

  “I’m sure he’ll have forgotten it was you.”

  “Because I’m so easily mistaken for someone else? Is he really Marc’s father?”

  “He is.”

  “Do you know, he ignored me when I tried to introduce myself? Looked at me like I was a crumb.” The wine and a fresh bowl of cashews had arrived. “Thank God I told him I was Clara Morrow.”

  “So di
d I,” said Gamache. “He might be growing suspicious.”

  Myrna laughed and felt her annoyance slip away. “Old Mundin says it was Vincent Gilbert in the forest, spying on his own son. Was it?”

  Gamache wondered how much to say, but it was clear this was not much of a secret anymore. He nodded.

  “Why spy on his own son?”

  “They were estranged.”

  “First good thing I’ve heard about Marc Gilbert,” said Myrna. “Still, it’s ironic. The famous Dr. Gilbert helps so many kids, but is estranged from his own.”

  Gamache thought again about Annie. Was he doing the same thing to her? Was he listening to the troubles of others, but deaf to his own daughter? He’d spoken to her the night before and reassured himself she was fine. But fine and flourishing were two different things. It had clearly gotten bad when she was willing to listen to Beauvoir.

  “Patron,” said Olivier, handing Gamache and Myrna menus.

  “I’m not staying,” said Myrna.

  Olivier hovered. “I hear you found out where the dead man lived. He was in the forest all along?”

  Lacoste and Beauvoir arrived just then and ordered drinks. With one last gulp of wine, and taking a large handful of cashews, Myrna got up to leave.

  “I’m going to be paying a lot more attention to the books you buy,” she said.

  “Do you happen to have Walden?” Gamache asked.

  “Don’t tell me you found Thoreau back there too? Anyone else hiding in our woods? Jimmy Hoffa perhaps? Amelia Earhart? Come by after dinner and I’ll give you my copy of Walden.”

  She left and Olivier took their orders then brought warm rolls smothered in melting monarda butter and spread with pâté. Beauvoir produced a sheaf of photographs of the cabin from his satchel and handed them to the Chief.

  “Printed these out as soon as we got back.” Beauvoir took a bite of his warm roll. He was starving. Agent Lacoste took one as well and sipping on her wine she looked out the window. But all she could see was the reflection of the bistro. Villagers eating dinner, some sitting at the bar with beer or whiskey. Some relaxing by the fire. No one paying attention to them. But then she met a pair of eyes in the reflection. More specter than person. She turned just as Olivier disappeared into the kitchen.

  A few minutes later a plate of escargots bathed in garlic butter was placed in front of Beauvoir with a bowl of minted sweetpea soup for Lacoste and cauliflower and stilton soup with pear and date relish for Gamache.

  “Hmm,” said Lacoste, taking a spoonful. “Fresh from the garden. Yours too, probably.” She nodded to Beauvoir’s snails. He smirked but ate them anyway, dipping the crusty bread into the liquid garlic butter.

  Gamache was looking at the photographs. Slowly he lowered the pictures. It was like stumbling across King Tut’s tomb.

  “I have a call in to Superintendent Brunel,” he said.

  “The head of property crime?” asked Lacoste. “That’s a good idea.”

  Thérèse Brunel was an expert in art theft and a personal friend of Gamache.

  “She’s going to die when she sees that cabin,” Beauvoir laughed. Olivier removed their dishes.

  “How could the dead man have collected all these things?” Gamache wondered. “And gotten them in there?”

  “And why?” said Beauvoir.

  “But there were no personal items,” said Lacoste. “Not a single photograph, no letters, bank books. ID. Nothing.”

  “And no obvious murder weapon,” said Beauvoir. “We sent the fireplace poker and a couple of garden tools to be tested, but it doesn’t look promising.”

  “But I did find something after you left.” Lacoste put a bag onto the table and opened it. “It was way under the bed, against the wall. I missed it the first time I looked,” she explained. “I fingerprinted it and took samples. They’re on the way to the lab.”

  On the table was a carved piece of wood, stained with what looked like blood.

  Someone had whittled a word in the wood.

  Woe.

  TWENTY

  Agent Morin wandered round inside the cabin, humming. In one hand he gripped the satellite phone, in the other he gripped a piece of firewood. Not for the woodstove, which was lit and throwing good heat. Nor the fireplace, also lit and light. But in case anything came at him out of the shadows, out of the corners.

  He’d lit all the oil lamps and all the candles. The dead man seemed to have made them himself, from paraffin left over after the preserves had been sealed.

  Morin missed his television. His cell phone. His girlfriend. His mother. He brought the phone up to his mouth again, then lowered it for what felt like the hundredth time.

  You can’t call the Chief Inspector. What’ll you say? You’re scared? To be alone in a cabin in the woods? Where a man was murdered?

  And he sure couldn’t call his mother. She’d find a way to reach the cabin, and the team would find him next morning, with his mother. Ironing his shirts and frying bacon and eggs.

  No, he’d rather die.

  He wandered around some more, poking things here and there, but being very, very careful. Elmer Fudd–like he crept round, picking up glass and peering at odds and ends. A pane of amber at the kitchen window, an engraved silver candlestick. Eventually he took a sandwich from the brown paper bag and unfolded the waxed paper. Ham and Brie on baguette. Not bad. He took the Coca-Cola, snapped it open, then he sat by the fire. The chair was exceptionally comfortable. As he ate he relaxed and by the time he got to the pastry he was feeling himself again. He reached for the fiddle by his side, but thought better of it. Instead he took a book at random from the shelves and opened it.

  It was by an author he’d never heard of. Some guy named Currer Bell. He started to read about a girl named Jane growing up in England. After a while his eyes, strained from reading by the weak light, grew tired. He thought it was probably time for bed. It must be after midnight.

  He looked at his watch. Eight thirty.

  Reaching over, he hesitated, then picked up the violin. Its wood was deep and seemed warm to the touch. He smoothed his young hand over it, softly, caressing and turning it round in practiced hands. He put it down quickly. He shouldn’t be touching it. He went back to the book, but after a minute or so he found the fiddle in his hands again. Knowing he shouldn’t, begging himself not to, he reached for the horse-hair bow. Knowing there was no going back now, he stood up.

  Agent Morin tucked the violin under his chin and drew the bow across the strings. The sound was deep and rich and seductive. It was more than the young agent could resist. Soon the comforting strains of “Colm Quigley” filled the cabin. Almost to the corners.

  Their main courses had arrived. A fruit-stuffed Rock Cornish game hen, done on the spit, for Gamache; melted Brie, fresh tomato and basil fettuccine for Lacoste; and a lamb and prune tagine for Beauvoir. A platter of freshly harvested grilled vegetables was also brought to the table.

  Gamache’s chicken was tender and tasty, delicately flavored with Pommery-style mustard and vermouth.

  “What does that piece of wood mean?” Gamache asked his team as they ate.

  “Well, it was just about the only thing in the cabin that wasn’t an antique,” said Lacoste. “And what with the whittling tools I’m guessing he made it himself.”

  Gamache nodded. It was his guess as well. “But why woe?”

  “Could that be his name?” Beauvoir asked, but without enthusiasm.

  “Monsieur Woe?” asked Lacoste. “That might also explain why he lived alone in a cabin.”

  “Why would someone carve that for himself?” Gamache put down his knife and fork. “And you found nothing else in the cabin that looked as though it had been whittled?”

  “Nothing,” said Beauvoir. “We found axes and hammers and saws. All well used. I think he must have made that cabin himself. But he sure didn’t whittle it.”

  Woe, thought Gamache, picking up his knife and fork again. Was the Hermit that sad?

 
“Did you notice our photographs of the stream, sir?” Lacoste asked.

  “I did. At least now we know how the dead man kept his groceries cool.”

  Agent Lacoste, on investigating the stream, had found a bag anchored there. And in it were jars of perishable foods. Dangling in the cold water.

  “But he obviously didn’t make his own milk and cheese, and no one remembers seeing him in the local shops,” said Beauvoir. “So that leaves us with one conclusion.”

  “Someone was taking him supplies,” said Lacoste.

  “Everything all right?” asked Olivier.

  “Fine, patron, merci,” said Gamache with a smile.

  “Do you need more mayonnaise or butter?” Olivier smiled back, trying not to look like a maniac. Trying to tell himself that no matter how many condiments or warm buns or glasses of wine he brought it would make no difference. He could never ingratiate himself.

  “Non, merci,” said Lacoste, and reluctantly Olivier left.

  “We at least have prints from the cabin. We should find out something tomorrow,” said Beauvoir.

  “I think we know why he was killed just now,” said Gamache.

  “The paths,” said Lacoste. “Roar Parra was cutting riding paths for Dominique. One path was almost at the cabin. Close enough to see it.”

  “Which Madame Gilbert did,” said Beauvoir. “But we have only her word that she didn’t find the cabin on an earlier ride.”

  “Except that they didn’t have the horses then,” said Lacoste. “They didn’t arrive until the day after the murder.”

  “But she might have walked the old paths,” suggested Gamache, “in preparation for the horses, and to tell Roar which ones he should open.”

  “Roar might have walked them too,” said Beauvoir. “Or that son of his. Havoc. Parra said he was going to help him.”

  The other two thought. Still, there seemed no very good reason why either Parra would walk the old riding paths before clearing them.

  “But why kill the recluse?” Lacoste said. “Even supposing one of the Parras or Dominique Gilbert found him. It makes no sense. Killing for the treasure, maybe. But why leave it all there?”