The Brutal Telling

by Louise Penny

  Both Clara and Myrna had a finely honed gay-dar. It was, they both knew, imperfect, but it probably would have picked up the Fortin blip. But nothing. Only the immense, unmistakable object that was Gabri, sailing away.

  “What should I do?” Clara asked.

  Myrna remained silent.

  “I need to speak to Gabri, don’t I?”

  “It might help.”

  “Maybe tomorrow.”

  As she left she thought about what Myrna had said. Fortin was offering her everything she’d ever wanted, the only dream she’d had since childhood. Success, recognition as an artist. All the sweeter after years in the wilderness. Mocked and marginalized.

  And all she had to do was say nothing.

  She could do that.

  No, I didn’t kill him.”

  But even as Olivier said it he realized the disaster of what he’d done. In lying at every turn he’d made the truth unrecognizable.

  “He was already dead when I arrived.”

  God, even to his own ears it sounded like a lie. I didn’t take the last cookie, I didn’t break the fine bone china cup, I didn’t steal the money from your purse. I’m not gay.

  All lies. All his life. All the time. Until he’d come to Three Pines. For an instant, for a glorious few days he’d lived a genuine life. With Gabri. In their little rented wreck of an apartment above the shop.

  But then the Hermit had arrived. And with him a trail of lies.

  “Listen, it’s the truth. It was Saturday night and the place was hopping. The Labor Day long weekend’s always a madhouse. But by midnight or so there were only a few stragglers. Then Old Mundin arrived with the chairs and a table. By the time he left the place was empty and Havoc was doing the final cleanup. So I decided to visit the Hermit.”

  “After midnight?” Gamache asked.

  “That’s normally when I went. So no one could see.”

  Across from Olivier the Chief Inspector slowly leaned back, distancing himself. The gesture was eloquent. It whispered that Gamache didn’t believe him. Olivier stared at this man he’d considered a friend and he felt a tightening, a constriction.

  “Weren’t you afraid of the dark?”

  Gamache asked it so simply, and in that instant Olivier knew the genius of the man. He was able to crawl into other people’s skins, and burrow beyond the flesh and blood and bone. And ask questions of deceptive simplicity.

  “It’s not the dark I’m afraid of,” said Olivier. And he remembered the freedom that came only after the sun set. In city parks, in darkened theaters, in bedrooms. The bliss that came with being able to shed the outer shell and be himself. Protected by the night.

  It wasn’t the dark that scared him, but what might come to light.

  “I knew the way and it only took about twenty minutes to walk it.”

  “What did you see when you arrived?”

  “Everything looked normal. There was a light in the window and the lantern on the porch was lit.”

  “He was expecting company.”

  “He was expecting me. He always lit the lantern for me. I didn’t realize there was anything wrong until I was in the door and saw him there. I knew he was dead, but I thought he’d just fallen, maybe had a stroke or a heart attack and hit his head.”

  “There was no weapon?”

  “No, nothing.”

  Gamache leaned forward again.

  Were they beginning to believe him, Olivier wondered.

  “Did you take him food?”

  Olivier’s mind revved, raced. He nodded.

  “What did you take?”

  “The usual. Cheese, milk, butter. Some bread. And as a treat I took some honey and tea.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “The groceries? I don’t know. I was in shock. I can’t remember.”

  “We found them in the kitchen. Open.”

  The two men stared at each other. Then Gamache’s eyes narrowed in a look that Olivier found harrowing.

  Gamache was angry.

  “I was there twice that night,” he mumbled into the table.

  “Louder, please,” said the Chief.

  “I returned to the cabin, okay?”

  “It’s time now, Olivier. Tell me the truth.”

  Olivier’s breath came in short gasps, like something hooked and landed and about to be filleted.

  “The first time I was there that night the Hermit was alive. We had a cup of tea and talked.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  Chaos is coming, old son, and there’s no stopping it. It’s taken a long time, but it’s finally here.

  “He always asked about people who’d come to the village. He peppered me with questions about the outside world.”

  “The outside world?”

  “You know, out here. He hadn’t been more than fifty feet from his cabin in years.”

  “Go on,” said Gamache. “What happened then?”

  “It was getting late so I left. He offered to give me something for the groceries. At first I refused, but he insisted. When I got out of the woods I realized I’d left it behind, so I went back.” No need to tell them about the thing in the canvas bag. “When I got there he was dead.”

  “How long were you gone?”

  “About half an hour. I didn’t dawdle.”

  He saw again the tree limbs snapping back and felt them slapping him, smelled the pine needles, and heard the crashing through the woods, like an army, running. Racing. He’d thought it was just his own noise, magnified by fear and the night. But maybe not.

  “You saw and heard nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What time was that?” Gamache asked.

  “About two I guess, maybe two thirty.”

  Gamache laced his fingers together. “What did you do once you realized what had happened?”

  The rest of the story came out quickly, in a rush. Once he’d realized the Hermit was dead, another idea had come to Olivier. A way the Hermit might help. He’d put the body in the wheelbarrow and taken him through the woods to the old Hadley house.

  “It took a while, but I finally got him there. I’d planned to leave him on the porch, but when I tried the door it was unlocked, so I laid him in the front hall.”

  He made it sound gentle, but he knew it wasn’t. It was a brutal, ugly, vindictive act. A violation of a body, a violation of a friendship, a violation of the Gilberts. And finally, it was a betrayal of Gabri and their lives in Three Pines.

  It was so quiet in the room he could almost believe himself alone. He looked up and there was Gamache, watching him.

  “I’m sorry,” said Olivier. He scolded himself, desperate not to be the gay guy who cried. But he knew his actions had taken him far beyond cliché, or caricature.

  And then Armand Gamache did the most extraordinary thing. He leaned forward so that his large, certain hands were almost touching Olivier’s, as though it was all right to be that close to someone so vile, and he spoke in a calm, deep voice.

  “If you didn’t kill the man, who else could have? I need your help.”

  In that one sentence Gamache had placed himself next to Olivier. He might still be on the outer reaches of the world, but at least he wasn’t alone.

  Gamache believed him.

  Clara stood outside Peter’s closed studio door. She almost never knocked, almost never disturbed him. Unless it was an emergency. Those were hard to come by in Three Pines and were generally Ruth-shaped and difficult to avoid.

  Clara had walked around the garden a few times, then come inside and walked around the living room, and then the kitchen in ever decreasing circles until finally she found herself here. She loved Myrna, she trusted Gamache, she adored Gabri and Olivier and many other friends. But it was Peter she needed.

  She knocked. There was a pause, then the door opened.

  “I need to talk.”

  “What is it?” He came out immediately and closed the door behind him. “What’s wrong?”
/>
  “I met Fortin, as you know, and he said something.”

  Peter’s heart missed a beat. And in that missed beat lived something petty. Something that hoped Fortin would change his mind. Would cancel Clara’s solo show. Would say they’d made a mistake and Peter was really the one they wanted.

  His heart beat for Clara every hour of every day. But every now and then it stumbled.

  He took her hands. “What’d he say?”

  “He called Gabri a fucking queer.”

  Peter waited for the rest. The part about Peter being the better artist. But Clara just stared at him.

  “Tell me about it.” He led her to a chair and they sat.

  “Everything was going so well. He loved my ideas for hanging the show, he said FitzPatrick would be there from MoMA, and so would Allyne from the Times. And he thinks even Vanessa Destin Browne, you know, from the Tate Modern. Can you believe it?”

  Peter couldn’t. “Tell me more.”

  It was like throwing himself over and over at a wall of spikes.

  “And then he called Gabri a fucking queer, behind his back. And said it made him want to vomit.”

  The spiked wall turned smooth, and soft.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Peter dropped his eyes, then looked up. “I probably wouldn’t have either.”

  “Really?” asked Clara, searching his face.

  “Really.” He smiled and squeezed her hands. “You weren’t expecting it.”

  “It was a shock,” said Clara, eager to explain. “What should I do?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Should I just forget about it, or say something to Fortin?”

  And Peter saw the equation immediately. If she confronted the gallery owner she was running the risk of angering him. In fact, it almost certainly would. At the very least it would mar their relationship. He might even cancel her show.

  If she said nothing, she’d be safe. Except that he knew her. It would eat away at Clara’s conscience. A conscience, once aroused, could be a terrible thing.

  Gabri poked his head into the back room.

  “Salut. Why so serious?”

  Olivier, Gamache and Beauvoir all looked at him. None was smiling.

  “Wait a minute, are you telling Olivier about your visit to his father?” Gabri sat down beside his partner. “I wanna hear too. What’d he say about me?”

  “We weren’t talking about Olivier’s father,” said Gamache. Across from him Olivier’s eyes were pleading for a favor Gamache couldn’t grant. “We were talking about Olivier’s relationship with the dead man.”

  Gabri looked from Gamache to Olivier, then over to Beauvoir. Then back to Olivier. “What?”

  Gamache and Olivier exchanged looks and finally Olivier spoke. He told Gabri about the Hermit, his visits to the cabin, and the body. Gabri listened, silent. It was the first time Beauvoir had ever seen him go more than a minute without talking. And even when Olivier stopped, Gabri didn’t start. He sat there as though he might never speak again.

  But then, he did. “How could you be so stupid?”

  “I’m sorry. It was dumb.”

  “It was more than dumb. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about the cabin.”

  “I should’ve told you, I know. But he was so afraid, so secretive. You didn’t know him—”

  “I guess not.”

  “—but if he’d known I’d told anyone he’d have stopped seeing me.”

  “Why did you want to see him anyway? He was a hermit, in a cabin for God’s sake. Wait a minute.” There was silence while Gabri put it all together. “Why’d you go there?”

  Olivier looked at Gamache, who nodded. It would all come out anyway.

  “His place was full of treasure, Gabri. You wouldn’t believe it. Cash stuffed between the logs for insulation. There was leaded crystal and tapestries. It was fantastic. Everything he had was priceless.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “I’m not. We ate off Catherine the Great’s china. The toilet paper was dollar bills.”

  “Sacré. It’s like your wet dream. Now I know you’re kidding.”

  “No, no. It was unbelievable. And sometimes when I visited he’d give me a little something.”

  “And you took it?” Gabri’s voice rose.

  “Of course I took it,” Olivier snapped. “I didn’t steal it, and those things are no use to him.”

  “But he was probably nuts. It’s the same as stealing.”

  “That’s a horrible thing to say. You think I’d steal stuff from an old man?”

  “Why not? You dumped his body at the old Hadley house. Who knows what you’re capable of.”

  “Really? And you’re innocent in all this?” Olivier’s voice had grown cold and cruel. “How do you think we could afford to buy the bistro? Or the B and B? Eh? Didn’t you ever wonder how we went from living in that dump of an apartment—”

  “I fixed it up. It wasn’t a dump anymore.”

  “—to opening the bistro and a B and B? How did you think we could afford it suddenly?”

  “I thought the antique business was going well.” There was silence. “You should’ve told me,” said Gabri, finally, and wondered, as did Gamache and Beauvoir, what else Olivier wasn’t saying.

  It was late afternoon and Armand Gamache walked through the woods. Beauvoir had volunteered to go with him, but he preferred to be alone with his thoughts.

  After they left Olivier and Gabri they’d returned to the Incident Room where Agent Morin had been waiting.

  “I know who BM is,” he said, eagerly following them, barely allowing them to take off their coats. “Look.”

  He took them over to his computer. Gamache sat and Beauvoir leaned over his shoulder. There was a black-and-white, formal, photo of a man smoking a cigarette.

  “His name is Bohuslav Martinù,” said Morin. “He wrote that violin piece we found. His birthday was December the eighth, so the violin must have been a birthday present from his wife. C. Charlotte was her name.”

  Gamache, while listening, was staring at one line in the biography his agent had found. Martinù had been born December 8, 1890. In Bohemia. What was now the Czech Republic.

  “Did they have any children?” Beauvoir asked. He too had noticed the reference.

  “None.”

  “Are you sure?” Gamache twisted in his chair to look at Morin, but the agent shook his head.

  “I double- and triple-checked. It’s almost midnight there but I have a call in to the Martinù Conservatory in Prague to get more information and I’ll ask them, but it doesn’t seem so.”

  “Ask about the violin, would you?” said Gamache, rising and putting his coat back on. He’d headed to the cabin, walking slowly through the woods, thinking.

  A Sûreté officer guarding the cabin greeted him on the porch.

  “Come with me, please,” said Gamache and led the agent to the wheelbarrow sitting by the vegetable patch. He explained it had been used to carry a body and asked the officer to take samples. While she did that, Gamache went into the cabin.

  It would be emptied the next morning, everything taken away for cataloguing, safe keeping. Put away in a dark vault. Away from human hands and eyes.

  But before that happened Gamache wanted to see it all one last time.

  Closing the door behind him he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior. As always, it was the smell that first impressed him. Wood, and woodsmoke. Then the musky undertone of coffee and finally the sweeter scent of coriander and tarragon, from the window boxes.

  The place was peaceful, restful. Cheerful even. While everything in it was a masterpiece, it all seemed at home in the rustic cabin. The Hermit might have known their worth, but he certainly knew their use, and used everything as it was intended. Glasses, dishes, silverware, vases. All put to purpose.

  Gamache picked up the Bergonzi violin and cradling it he sat in the Hermit’s chair by the fir
eplace. One for solitude, two for friendship.

  The dead man had no need, or desire, for society. But he did have company.

  They now knew who had sat in that other comfortable chair. Gamache had thought it was Dr. Vincent Gilbert, but he’d been wrong. It was Olivier Brulé. He’d come to keep the Hermit company, to bring him seeds and staples, and companionship. And in return the Hermit had given him what Olivier wanted. Treasure.

  It was a fair trade.

  But had someone else found him? If not, or if Gamache couldn’t prove it, then Olivier Brulé would be arrested for murder. Arrested, tried and probably convicted.

  Gamache couldn’t shake the thought that it was too convenient that Dr. Vincent Gilbert had arrived just as the Hermit had been killed. Hadn’t Olivier said the dead man was worried about strangers? Maybe Gilbert was that stanger.

  Gamache tipped his head back and thought some more. Suppose Vincent Gilbert wasn’t the one the Hermit was hiding from. Suppose it was another Gilbert. After all, it was Marc who’d bought the old Hadley house. He’d quit a successful job in the city to come here. He and Dominique had plenty of money; they could have bought any place in the Townships. So why buy a broken-down old wreck? Unless it wasn’t the house they wanted, but the forest.

  And what about the Parras? Olivier had said the Hermit spoke with a slight accent. A Czech accent. And Roar was clearing the trail. Heading straight here.

  Maybe he’d found the cabin. And the treasure.

  Maybe they knew he was here somewhere and had been looking. When Gilbert bought the place maybe Roar took the job so that he could explore the woods. Searching for the Hermit.

  And Havoc. What was the case against him? He seemed, by all reports, like a regular young man. But a young man who chose to stay here, in this backwater, while most of his friends had moved away. To university. To careers. Waiting table couldn’t be considered a career. What was such a personable, bright young man doing here?

  Gamache sat forward. Seeing the last night of the Hermit’s life. The crowd at the bistro. Old Mundin arriving with the furniture then leaving. Olivier leaving. Havoc locking up. Then noticing his employer do something unexpected. Something bizarre even.

  Had Havoc seen Olivier turn toward the woods instead of going home?