by Louise Penny
“As a matter of fact, Constance and Ruth hit it off. They had a certain chemistry.”
“Do you mean chemistry or medication?” asked Lacoste, and Myrna had smiled.
“Are they alike?” Gamache asked.
“Ruth and Constance? Completely different, but for some reason they seemed to like each other.”
Gamache took that in, with some surprise. The old poet, as a matter of principle, disliked everyone. She’d have hated everyone if she could have worked up the energy hate required.
“Who hurt you once, so far beyond repair that you would greet each overture / with curling lip?” said Myrna.
“I’m sorry?” said Gamache, taken aback by the question.
Myrna smiled. “It’s from one of Ruth’s poems. Constance quoted it to me one night when she came back from visiting Ruth.”
Gamache nodded and wondered if, when they eventually found her, Constance would have been hurt beyond repair.
Gamache crossed the bookstore to retrieve his coat. At the door he kissed Myrna on both cheeks.
She held him at arm’s length, looking into his face. “And you? Are you all right?”
He considered the question, and all his possible responses, from flippant to dismissive, to the truth. It was, he knew, very little use lying to Myrna. But neither could he tell her the truth.
“I’m fine,” he said, and saw her smile.
She watched them get into their car and drive up the hill out of Three Pines. Constance had taken that same route, and not returned. But Myrna knew Gamache would come back and bring with him the answer she had to hear.
*
The traffic started to creep forward, and before long the Sûreté officers were over the Champlain Bridge and driving through the city. Inspector Lacoste pulled up in front of a modest home in the Pointe-Saint-Charles quartier of Montréal.
Windows were lit in houses up and down the street. Christmas decorations were on, reflecting red and yellow and green in the fresh snow.
Except for here. This house was a hole in the cheerful neighborhood.
Chief Inspector Gamache checked the address he’d been given. Yes, this was where Constance Ouellet lived. He’d expected something different. Bigger.
He looked at the other homes. A snowman sat on a lawn across the street, his twig arms open in a hug. Gamache could see clearly through the front window. A woman was helping a child with homework. Next door, an elderly couple watched television while decorations on their mantelpiece blinked on and off.
Everywhere there was life. Except at the dark home of Constance Ouellet.
The clock on the dashboard said it was just after five.
They got out of the car. Inspector Lacoste grabbed a flashlight and swung a satchel over her shoulder. The Scene of Crime kit.
The path to Madame Ouellet’s home had not been shoveled and there were no footprints in the snow. They mounted the steps and stood on the small concrete porch, their breaths puffing and disappearing into the night.
Gamache’s cheeks burned in the slight breeze, and he could feel the cold sneak up his sleeves and past the scarf at his neck. The Chief ignored the chill and looked around. The snow on the windowsills was undisturbed. Inspector Lacoste rang the doorbell.
They waited.
A great deal of police work involved waiting. For suspects. For autopsies. For forensic results. Waiting for someone to answer a question. Or a doorbell.
It was, he knew, one of Isabelle Lacoste’s great gifts, and one so easily overlooked. She was very, very patient.
Anyone could run around, not many could quietly wait. As they did now. But that didn’t mean Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Lacoste did nothing. As they waited they took in their surroundings.
The little home was in good repair, the eaves troughs tacked in place, the windows and sills painted and without chips or cracks. It was neat and tidy. Christmas lights had been strung around the wrought-iron rail of the porch, but they remained off. A wreath was on the front door.
Lacoste turned to the Chief, who nodded. She opened the outer door and peered through the semi-circle of cut glass, into the vestibule.
Gamache had been inside many similar homes. They’d been built in the late forties and early fifties for returning veterans. Modest homes in established neighborhoods. Many of the houses had since been torn down, or added to. But some, like this, remained intact. A small gem.
“Nothing, Chief.”
“Bon,” he said. Walking back down the stairs, he gestured to the right and watched Lacoste step into the deep snow. Gamache himself walked around the other side, noting that the snow there was also unmarred by footprints. He sank up to his shins. The snow tumbled down into his boots and he felt the chill as it turned to ice water and soaked his socks.
Like Lacoste, he looked into the windows, cupping his hands around his face. The kitchen was empty and clean. No unwashed dishes on the counter. He tried the windows. All locked. In the tiny backyard he met Lacoste coming around the other side. She shook her head, then stood on tiptoes and looked in a window. As he watched, she turned on her flashlight and shone it in.
Then she turned to him.
She’d found something.
Wordlessly, Lacoste handed the flashlight to Gamache. He shone it through the window and saw a bed. A closet. An open suitcase. And an elderly woman lying on the floor. Far beyond repair.
*
Armand Gamache and Isabelle Lacoste waited in the small front room of Constance Ouellet’s home. Like the exterior, the interior was neat, though not antiseptic. There were books and magazines. A pair of old slippers sat by the sofa. This was no showroom reserved for special guests. Constance clearly used it. A television, the old box variety, was in a corner, and a sofa and two armchairs were turned to face it. Like everything else in the room, the chairs were well-made, once expensive but now worn. It was a comfortable, welcoming room. What his grandmother would have called a genteel room.
After they saw the body through the window, Gamache had called Marc Brault, then the two Sûreté officers had waited in their car for the Montréal force to arrive and take over. And when they did, the familiar routine started, only without the help of Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Lacoste. They were relegated to the front room, guests at the investigation. It felt odd, as though they were playing hookey. He and Lacoste filled the time by wandering around the modest room, noting the décor, the personal items. But touching nothing. Not even sitting.
Gamache noticed that three of the seats looked as though transparent people were still sitting in them. Like Myrna’s armchair in the bookstore, they held the shape of the people who’d used them, every day, for years and years.
There was no Christmas tree. No decorations inside the home, but why would there be? thought Gamache. She was planning to go to Three Pines for the holidays.
Through the drawn curtains, Gamache saw a glow of headlights and heard a car stop, then a door slam and the measured crunch of boots on snow.
Marc Brault let himself into the home and found Gamache and Lacoste in the front room.
“I didn’t expect to see you, Marc,” said Gamache, shaking the hand of the head of the Montréal homicide squad.
“Well, I was about to head home, but since you called in the report I thought I should come along, in case someone needed to arrest you.”
“How kind, mon ami,” smiled Gamache.
Brault turned to Lacoste. “We’re shorthanded. The holidays. Would you like to help my team?”
Lacoste knew when she was being politely dismissed. She left them and Brault turned his intelligent eyes on Gamache.
“Now, tell me about this body you found.”
“Her name’s Constance Ouellet,” said Gamache.
“Is she the woman you were worried about this afternoon? The one you thought might be the suicide?”
“Oui. She was expected yesterday for lunch. My friend waited a day, hoping she’d show up, then she called me.”
“Did you know the dead woman?”
It was an odd experience, Gamache realized, to be interrogated. For that’s what this was. Gentle. Friendly. But an interrogation.
“Not personally, no.”
Marc Brault opened his mouth to ask another question, then hesitated. He studied Gamache for a moment.
“Not personally, you say. But did you know her any other way? By reputation?”
Gamache could see Brault’s sharp mind working, listening, analyzing.
“Yes. And so did you, I think.” He waited a moment. “She’s Constance Ouellet, Marc.” He repeated the name. He’d tell Brault who she was, if necessary, but he wanted his colleague to come to it himself, if he could.
He saw his friend scan his memory, just as Gamache had done. And he saw Brault’s eyes widen.
He’d found Constance Ouellet. Brault turned and stared out the door, then he left, walking rapidly down the hall. To the bedroom and the body.
*
Myrna hadn’t heard anything from Gamache, but she didn’t expect to so soon. No news was good news, she told herself. Over and over.
She called Clara and asked her around for a drink.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” said Myrna, once they had their glasses of Scotch and were sitting by Myrna’s fireplace in her loft.
“What?” asked Clara, leaning toward her friend. She knew Constance was missing, and like Myrna, she was worried.
“It’s about Constance.”
“What?” She steeled herself for bad news.
“About who she really is.”
“What?” asked Clara. Her panic evaporated, replaced by confusion.
“She went by the name of Constance Pineault, but that was her mother’s maiden name. Her real name was Constance Ouellet.”
“Who?”
“Constance Ouellet.”
Myrna watched her friend. By now, after Gamache’s reaction, she was used to that pause. Where people wondered two things. Who Constance Ouellet was, and why Myrna was making such a big deal about it.
Clara’s brow furrowed and she sat back in her chair, crossing her legs. She sipped her Scotch and looked into the distance.
And then Clara gave a slight jerk as the truth hit her.
*
Marc Brault returned to the front room, walking slowly this time.
“I told the others,” he said, his voice almost dream-like. “We searched her bedroom. You know, Armand, if you hadn’t told us who she was we wouldn’t have known. Not until we ran her through the system.”
Brault looked around the small front room.
“There’s nothing at all to suggest she was one of the Ouellets. Not here, not in the bedrooms. There might be papers or photographs somewhere, but so far nothing.”
The two men looked around the front room.
There were china figurines and books and CDs and crossword puzzles and worn boxes of jigsaw puzzles. Evidence of a personal life, but not of a past.
“Is she the last one?” Brault asked.
Gamache nodded. “I think so.”
The coroner poked his head in and said they were about to leave with the body, and did the officers want one last look? Brault turned to Gamache, who nodded.
The two men followed the coroner down the narrow corridor, to a bedroom at the very back of the home. There, a Scene of Crime team from the Montréal homicide squad was collecting evidence. When Gamache arrived, they stopped and acknowledged him. Isabelle Lacoste, who’d simply been observing the operation, saw their eyes widen when they realized who he was.
Chief Inspector Gamache, of the Sûreté. The man most Québec cops dreamed of working with. With the exception of the very cops who were now assigned to the Chief’s own homicide division. She stepped around the tape marking Madame Ouellet’s body and joined the two men at the door. The little room was suddenly very crowded.
The bedroom, like the front room, had many personal touches, including her suitcase, open and packed, on the neatly made bed. But also like the front room, there wasn’t a single photograph.
“May I?” Gamache asked the Scene of Crime investigator, who nodded. The Chief knelt beside Constance. She wore a dressing gown, buttoned up. He could see a flannel nightie underneath. She’d clearly been killed in the act of packing the night before leaving for Three Pines.
Chief Inspector Gamache held her cold hand and looked into her eyes. They were wide. Staring. Very blue. Very dead. Not surprised. Not pained. Not fearful.
Empty. As though her life had simply run out. Drained, like a battery. It would have been a peaceful scene, except for the blood under her head and the broken lamp, its base covered in blood, beside her body.
“Looks unpremeditated,” said one of the investigators. “Whoever did this didn’t bring a weapon. The lamp came from there.” She pointed to the bedside table.
Gamache nodded. But that didn’t make it unpremeditated. It only meant the killer knew where a weapon could be found.
He looked back down at the woman at his feet and wondered if her murderer had any idea who she was.
*
“Are you sure?” Clara asked.
“Pretty sure,” said Myrna, and tried not to smile.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“Constance didn’t want anyone to know. She’s very private.”
“I thought they were all dead,” said Clara, her voice low.
“I hope not.”
*
“Frankly,” Marc Brault admitted as they prepared to leave the Ouellet home, “this couldn’t come at a worse time. Every Christmas husbands kill wives, employees kill employers. And some people kill themselves. Now this. Most of my squad is going on holiday.”
Gamache nodded. “I’m off to Paris in a week. Reine-Marie’s already there.”
“I’m heading to our chalet in Sainte-Agathe on Friday.” Brault gave his colleague an appraising look. They were out on the sidewalk now. Neighbors had begun to gather and stare. “I don’t suppose…” Marc Brault rubbed his gloved hands together for warmth. “I know you have plenty of your own cases, Armand…”
Brault knew more than that. Not because Chief Inspector Gamache had told him, but because every senior cop in Québec, and probably Canada, knew. The homicide department of the Sûreté was being “restructured.” Gamache, while publicly lauded, was being privately and professionally marginalized. It was humiliating, or would be except that Chief Inspector Gamache continued to behave as though he hadn’t noticed.
“I’ll be happy to take it over.”
“Merci,” said Brault, clearly relieved.
“Bon.” The Chief Inspector signaled to Lacoste. It was time to leave. “If your team can complete the interviews and forensics, we’ll take over in the morning.”
They walked to the car. Some of the neighbors asked for information. Chief Inspector Brault was vague, but reassuring.
“We can’t keep her death quiet, of course,” he said to Gamache, his voice low. “But we won’t announce her real name. We’ll call her Constance Pineault, if the press asks.” Brault looked at the worried faces of the neighbors. “I wonder if they knew who she was?”
“I doubt it,” said Gamache. “She wouldn’t have erased all evidence of who she was, including her name, just to tell her neighborhood.”
“Maybe they guessed,” said Brault. But, like Gamache, he thought not. Who would guess that their elderly neighbor was once one of the most famous people not just in Québec, or Canada, or even North America, but in the world?
Lacoste had started the car and put the heat on to defrost the windshield. The two men stood outside the vehicle. Instead of walking away, Marc Brault lingered.
“Just say it,” said Gamache.
“Are you going to resign, Armand?”
“I’ve been on the case for two minutes and you’re already asking for my resignation?” Gamache laughed.
Brault smiled and continued to watch his colleague. Ga
mache took a deep breath and adjusted his gloves.
“Would you?” he finally asked.
“At my age? I have my pension in place, and so do you. If my bosses wanted me out that badly, I’d be gone like a shot.”
“If your bosses wanted you out that badly,” said Gamache, “don’t you think you’d wonder why?”
Behind Brault, Gamache could see the snowman across the street, its arms raised like the bones of an ill-formed creature. Beckoning.
“Take retirement, mon ami,” said Brault. “Go to Paris, enjoy the holidays, then retire. But first, solve this case.”
SIX
“Where to?” Isabelle Lacoste asked.
Gamache checked the dashboard clock. Almost seven.
“I need to get home for Henri, then back to headquarters for a few minutes.”
He knew he could ask his daughter Annie to feed and walk Henri, but she had other things on her mind.
“And Madame Landers?” Lacoste asked, as she turned the car toward the Chief’s home in Outremont.
Gamache had been wondering about that too.
“I’ll head down later tonight, and tell her in person.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
“Merci, Isabelle, but that isn’t necessary. I might stay over at the B and B. Chief Inspector Brault said he’d send over what files he has. I’d like you to download them tomorrow morning. I’ll find out what I can in Three Pines.”
They didn’t stay long at his home, only long enough for the Chief to pack an overnight bag for himself and Henri. Gamache beckoned the large German shepherd into the backseat of the car and Henri, his satellite ears forward, received this command with delight. He leapt in, then, fearing Gamache might change his mind, immediately curled into as tight a ball as he could manage.
You can’t see me. Yoooou can’t seeeee meeee.
But in his excitement, and having eaten too fast, Henri gave himself away in an all-too-familiar fashion.
In the front seat, both the Chief Inspector and Isabelle Lacoste cracked open their windows, preferring the bitter cold outside to what threatened to melt the upholstery inside.
“Does he do that often?” she gasped.
“It’s a sign of affection, I’m told,” said the Chief, not meeting her eyes. “A compliment.” Gamache paused, turning his head to the window. “A great compliment.”
