How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel

by Louise Penny

  “Madame Gamache is in Paris?”

  “For Christmas. I’ll be joining them next week.”

  “Bet you can hardly wait.”

  “Oui,” he said, and went back to his book. Hiding, she thought, the magnitude of his longing. And how much he was missing his wife.

  The sound of a door opening brought Gamache out of the surprisingly riveting history of the tabby. He looked up to see Myrna coming through the door connecting her bookstore to the bistro.

  She carried a bowl of soup and a sandwich, but stopped as soon as she saw them. Then her face broke into a smile as bright as her sweater.

  “Armand, I didn’t expect you to actually come down.”

  Gamache was on his feet, as was Lacoste. Myrna put the dishes on her desk and hugged them both.

  “We’re interrupting your lunch,” he said apologetically.

  “Oh, I only nipped out quickly to get it, in case you called back.” Then she stopped herself and her keen eyes searched his face. “Why’re you here? Has something happened?”

  It was a source of some sadness for Gamache that his presence was almost always greeted with anxiety.

  “Not at all. You left a message and this is our answer.”

  Myrna laughed. “What service. Did you not think to phone?”

  Gamache turned to Lacoste. “Phone. Why didn’t we think of that?”

  “I don’t trust phones,” said Lacoste. “They’re the devil’s work.”

  “Actually, I believe that’s email,” said Gamache, returning to Myrna. “You gave us an excuse to get out of the city for a few hours. And I’m always happy to come here.”

  “Where’s Inspector Beauvoir?” Myrna asked, looking around. “Parking the car?”

  “He’s on another assignment,” said the Chief.

  “I see,” said Myrna, and in the slight pause Armand Gamache wondered what she saw.

  “We need to get you both some lunch,” said Myrna. “Do you mind if we eat it here? More private.”

  A bistro menu was produced, and before long Gamache and Lacoste also had the spécial du jour, soup and a sandwich. Then all three sat in the light of the bay window, Gamache and Lacoste on the sofa and Myrna in the large easy chair, which retained her shape permanently and looked like an extension of the generous woman.

  Gamache stirred the dollop of sour cream into his borscht, watching the deep red turn soft pink and the chunks of beets and cabbage and tender beef mix together.

  “Your message was a little vague,” he said, looking up at Myrna across from him.

  Beside him, Isabelle Lacoste had decided to start with her grilled tomato, basil, and Brie sandwich.

  “I take it that was intentional,” said the Chief.

  He’d known Myrna for a number of years now, since he’d first come to the tiny village of Three Pines on a murder investigation. She’d been a suspect then, now he considered her a friend.

  Sometimes things changed for the better. But sometimes they didn’t.

  He placed the yellow slip of paper on the table beside the basket of baguette.

  Sorry to bother you, but I need your help with something. Myrna Landers

  Her phone number followed. Gamache had chosen to ignore the number, partly as an excuse to get away from headquarters, but mostly because Myrna had never asked for help before. Whatever it was might not be serious, but it was important to her. And she was important to him.

  He ate the borscht while she considered her words.

  “This really is probably nothing,” she started, then met his eyes and stopped. “I’m worried,” Myrna admitted.

  Gamache put down his spoon and focused completely on his friend.

  Myrna looked out the window and he followed her gaze. There, between the mullions, he saw Three Pines. In every way. Three huge pines dominated the little village. For the first time he realized that they acted as a windbreak, taking the brunt of the billowing snow.

  But still, a thick layer blanketed everything. Not the filthy snow of the city. Here it was almost pure white, broken only by footpaths and the trails of cross-country skis and snowshoes.

  A few adults skated on the rink, pushing shovels ahead of them, clearing the ice while impatient children waited. No two homes around the village green were the same, and Gamache knew each and every one of them. Inside and out. From interrogations and from parties.

  “I had a friend visit last week,” Myrna explained. “She was supposed to come back yesterday and stay through Christmas. She called the night before to say she’d be here in time for lunch, but she never showed.”

  Myrna’s voice was calm. Precise. A perfect witness, as Gamache had come to realize. Nothing superfluous. No interpretation. Just what had happened.

  But her hand holding the spoon shook slightly, so that borscht splashed tiny red beads onto the wood table. And her eyes held a plea. Not for help. They were begging him for reassurance. To tell her she was overreacting, worrying for nothing.

  “About twenty-four hours then,” said Isabelle Lacoste. She’d put down her sandwich and was paying complete attention.

  “That’s not much, right?” said Myrna.

  “With adults we don’t generally start to worry for two days,” said Gamache. “In fact, an official dossier isn’t opened until someone’s been missing for forty-eight hours.” His tone held a “but,” and Myrna waited. “But if someone I cared about had disappeared, I wouldn’t wait forty-eight hours before going looking. You did the right thing.”

  “It might be nothing.”

  “Yes,” said the Chief. And while he didn’t say the words she longed to hear, his very presence was reassuring. “You called her, of course.”

  “I waited until about four yesterday afternoon, then called her home. She doesn’t have a cell phone. I just got the answering machine. I called”—Myrna paused—“a lot. Probably once an hour.”

  “Until?”

  Myrna looked at the clock. “The last time was eleven thirty this morning.”

  “She lives alone?” Gamache asked. His voice had shifted, from serious conversation into inquiry. This was now work.

  Myrna nodded.

  “How old is she?”

  “Seventy-seven.”

  There was a longer pause as the Chief Inspector and Lacoste took that in. The implication was obvious.

  “I called the hospitals, both French and English, last night,” said Myrna, rightly interpreting their train of thought. “And again this morning. Nothing.”

  “She was driving out here?” Gamache confirmed. “Not taking the bus, and not being driven by someone else?”

  Myrna nodded. “She has her own car.”

  She was watching him closely now, trying to interpret the look in his deep brown eyes.

  “She’d have been alone?”

  She nodded again. “What’re you thinking?”

  But he didn’t answer. Instead he reached in his breast pocket for a small notebook and pen. “What’s the make and model of your friend’s car?”

  Lacoste also brought out a pad and pen.

  “I don’t know. It’s a small car. Orangy color.” Seeing that neither wrote that down, Myrna asked, “Does that help?”

  “I don’t suppose you know the license plate number?” asked Lacoste, without much hope. Still, it needed to be asked.

  Myrna shook her head.

  Lacoste brought out her cell phone.

  “They don’t work here, you know,” said Myrna. “The mountains.”

  Lacoste did know that, but had forgotten that there remained pockets of Québec where phones were still attached to the walls. She got up.

  “May I use your phone?”

  “Of course.” Myrna indicated the desk, and when Lacoste moved away, she looked at Gamache.

  “Inspector Lacoste is calling our traffic patrol, to see if there were any accidents on the autoroute or the roads around here.”

  “But I called the hospitals.”

  When Gamache did
n’t respond Myrna understood. Not every accident victim needed a hospital. They both watched Lacoste, who was listening on the phone, but not taking notes.

  Gamache wondered if Myrna knew that was a good sign.

  “We need more information, of course,” he said. “What’s your friend’s name?”

  He picked up his pen and pulled his notebook closer. But when there was just silence he looked up.

  Myrna was looking away from him, into the body of her bookstore. He wondered if she’d heard the question.

  “Myrna?”

  She returned her gaze to him, but her mouth remained shut. Tight.

  “Her name?”

  Myrna still hesitated and Gamache tilted his head slightly, surprised.

  Isabelle Lacoste returned and, sitting down, she smiled at Myrna reassuringly. “No serious car accidents on the highway between here and Montréal yesterday.”

  Myrna was relieved, but it was short-lived. She returned her attention to Chief Inspector Gamache, and his unanswered question.

  “You’ll have to tell me,” he said, watching her with increased curiosity.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t understand, Myrna,” he said. “Why don’t you want to tell me?”

  “She might still turn up, and I don’t want to cause her embarrassment.”

  Gamache, who knew Myrna well, knew she wasn’t telling the truth. He stared at her for a moment, then decided to try another tack.

  “Can you describe her for us?”

  Myrna nodded. As she spoke Myrna saw Constance sitting exactly where Armand Gamache was now. Reading and occasionally lowering her book to gaze out the window. Talking to Myrna. Listening. Helping to make dinner upstairs, or sharing a Scotch with Ruth in front of the bistro fireplace.

  She saw Constance getting into her car and waving. Then driving up the hill out of Three Pines.

  And then she was gone.

  Caucasian. Francophone. Approx. five foot four. Slightly overweight, white hair, blue eyes. 77 years of age.

  That’s what Lacoste had written. That’s what Constance came down to.

  “And her name?” Gamache asked. His voice, now, was firm. He held Myrna’s eyes and she held his.

  “Constance Pineault,” she said at last.

  “Merci,” said Gamache quietly.

  “Is that her nom de naissance?” asked Lacoste.

  When Myrna didn’t answer Lacoste clarified, in case the French phrase had been lost on the Anglophone woman. “The name she was born with or her married name?”

  But Gamache could tell that Myrna understood the question perfectly well. It was the answer that confused her.

  He’d seen this woman afraid, filled with sorrow, joyful, annoyed. Perplexed.

  But he’d never seen her confused. And it was clear by her reaction that it was a foreign state for her too.

  “Neither,” she finally said. “Oh, God, she’d kill me if I told anyone.”

  “We’re not ‘anyone,’” said Gamache. The words, while carrying a mild reproach, were said softly, with care.

  “Maybe I should wait some more.”

  “Maybe,” said Gamache.

  He got up and fed two pieces of wood into the stove in the center of the room, then brought back a mug of tea for Myrna.

  “Merci,” she said, and held it between her hands. Her lunch, partly eaten, would not now be finished.

  “Inspector, would you mind trying the home number once more?”

  “Absolument.” Lacoste got up and Myrna scribbled the number on a piece of paper.

  They heard the beep, beep, beeps from across the room as she punched in the numbers. Gamache watched for a moment, then turned to Myrna, lowering his voice.

  “Who is she if not Constance Pineault?”

  Myrna held his eyes. But they both knew she’d tell him. That it was inevitable.

  “Pineault’s the name I know her by,” she said quietly. “The name she uses. It was her mother’s maiden name. Her real name, her nom de naissance, is Constance Ouellet.”

  Myrna watched him, expecting a reaction, but Armand Gamache couldn’t oblige.

  Across the room, Isabelle Lacoste was listening on the phone. Not talking. The phone rang and rang and rang, in an empty home.

  The home of Constance Ouellet. Constance Ouellet.

  Myrna was studying him closely.

  He could have asked. Was tempted to ask. And he certainly would, if he had to. But Gamache wanted to get there on his own. He was curious to see if the missing woman lurked in his memory and, if she did, what his memory said about her.

  The name did sound familiar. But it was vague, ill-defined. If Madame Ouellet lived in his memory, she was several mountain ranges away from today. He cast his mind back, moving rapidly over the terrain.

  He bypassed his own personal life and concentrated on the collective memory of Québec. Constance Ouellet must be a public figure. Or had been. Someone either famous or notorious. A household name, once.

  The more he looked, the more certain he became that she was in there, hiding in some recess of his mind. An elderly woman who didn’t want to come out.

  And now she was missing. Either by choice, or by someone else’s design.

  He brought his hand up to his face as he thought. As he got closer and closer.

  Ouellet. Ouellet. Constance Ouellet.

  Then he inhaled and his eyes narrowed. A faded black and white photo drifted into view. Not of a seventy-seven-year-old woman, but of a smiling, waving girl.

  He’d found her.

  “You know who I’m talking about,” said Myrna, seeing the light in his eyes.

  Gamache nodded.

  But in his search he’d stumbled over some other memory, much more recent. And more worrisome. He got to his feet and walked over to the desk just as Lacoste hung up.

  “Nothing, Chief,” she said and he nodded, taking the receiver from her.

  Myrna rose. “What is it?”

  “Just a thought,” he said, and dialed.

  “Marc Brault.” The voice was clipped, official.

  “Marc, it’s Armand Gamache.”

  “Armand.” The voice became friendly. “How’re you doing?”

  “Fine, thank you. Listen, Marc, I’m sorry to bother you—”

  “No bother at all. What can I help you with?”

  “I’m in the Eastern Townships. As we crossed the Champlain Bridge this morning at about quarter to eleven”—Gamache turned his back on Myrna and lowered his voice—“we noticed your people bringing a body up from the south shore.”

  “And you want to know who it was?”

  “I don’t want to pry into your jurisdiction, but yes.”

  “Let me just look.”

  Gamache could hear the clicking of keys as the head of homicide for the Montréal police accessed his records.

  “Right. Not much on her yet.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes. Been there for a couple days, apparently. Autopsy scheduled for this afternoon.”

  “Do you suspect murder?”

  “Not likely. Her car was found up above. Looks like she tried to jump from the bridge into the water and missed. Hit the shore and rolled under the bridge. Some workers found her there this morning.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  Gamache prepared himself. Constance Ouellet.

  “Audrey Villeneuve.”

  “Pardon?” asked Gamache.

  “Audrey Villeneuve, it says here. Late thirties. Husband reported her missing two days ago. Didn’t show up for work. Hmmm…”

  “What?” asked Gamache.

  “It’s interesting.”

  “What is?”

  “She worked for the Ministry of Transport, in their roads division.”

  “Was she an inspector? Could she have fallen by accident?”

  “Let me see…” There was a pause while Chief Inspector Brault read the file. “No. She was a senior clerk. Almost certainly suicide, but t
he autopsy will tell us more. Want me to send it to you, Armand?”

  “No need, but thank you. Joyeux Noël, Marc.”

  Gamache hung up, then turned to face Myrna Landers.

  “What is it?” she asked, and he could see her bracing for what he had to say.

  “A body was brought up from the side of the Champlain Bridge this morning. I was afraid it might be your friend, but it wasn’t.”

  Myrna closed her eyes. Then opened them again.

  “So where is she?”

  FIVE

  Isabelle Lacoste and Chief Inspector Gamache sat in rush hour traffic, on the approach to the Champlain Bridge back into Montréal. It was barely four thirty, but the sun was down and it felt like midnight. The snow had stopped and Gamache looked past Isabelle Lacoste, out the window, and across the six lanes of traffic. To the spot where Audrey Villeneuve had chosen death over life.

  By now her family had been told. Armand Gamache had done enough of that, and it never got easier. It was worse than looking into the faces of the dead. To look into the faces of those left behind, and to see that moment when their world changed forever.

  It was a sort of murder he performed. The mother, the father, the wife or husband. They opened the door to his knock, believing the world a flawed but fundamentally decent place. Until he spoke. It was like throwing them off a cliff. Seeing them plummet. Then hitting. Dashed. The person they’d been, the life they’d known, gone forever.

  And the look in their eyes, as though he’d done it.

  Before they’d left, Myrna had given him Constance’s home address.

  “When she was here, how’d she seem?” Gamache had asked.

  “As she always did. I hadn’t seen her for a while, but she seemed her usual self.”

  “Not worried about anything?”

  Myrna shook her head.

  “Money? Health?”

  Myrna shook her head again. “She was a very private person, as you might expect. She didn’t tell me a lot about her life, but she seemed relaxed. Happy to be here and happy to be coming back for the holidays.”

  “You noticed nothing odd at all? Did she have an argument with anyone here? Hurt feelings?”

  “You suspect Ruth?” asked Myrna, a shadow of a smile on her face.

  “I always suspect Ruth.”