The Beautiful Mystery ciag-8

by Louise Penny

“None,” said Captain Charbonneau.

  “Someone is lying,” said Beauvoir. “Or all of them are.”

  “There is another possibility,” said Gamache. He brought the yellowed page toward him, from the middle of the table. Examining it for a moment he lowered it again and looked into their faces.

  “Maybe the murder had nothing to do with the prior himself. Maybe there really was no conflict. Maybe he was killed because of this.”

  The Chief placed the page on the table again. And again he saw the body, as he’d first seen it. Curled into a shady corner in the bright garden. He hadn’t known then, but he did now, that at the very center of that dead body was a piece of paper. Like a pit in a peach.

  Was this the motive?

  “None of the monks noticed anything odd this morning?” Gamache asked.

  “Nothing. Everyone seemed to be doing what they were meant to do.”

  The Chief nodded and thought. “And Frère Mathieu? What was he meant to be doing?”

  “Be here, in his study. Working on the music,” said Beauvoir. “And that’s the only interesting thing that came up. Frère Simon, the abbot’s secretary, says he returned to the abbot’s office right after Lauds, then he had to go to his work at the animalerie. But on his way he stopped by here.”

  “Why?” Gamache sat forward and removed his glasses.

  “To deliver a message. The abbot apparently wanted to meet with the prior this morning after the eleven A.M. mass.” The words sounded strange on Beauvoir’s tongue. Abbots and priors and monks, oh my.

  They weren’t part of the vocabulary of Québec anymore. Not part of daily life. In just a generation those words had gone from respected to ludicrous. And soon they’d disappear completely.

  God might be on the side of the monks, thought Beauvoir, but time wasn’t.

  “Frère Simon says when he came to make the appointment, no one was in.”

  “That would’ve been at about twenty past eight,” said the Chief, making a note. “I wonder why the abbot wanted to see the prior?”

  “Pardon?” asked Inspector Beauvoir.

  “The victim was the abbot’s right-hand man. It seems likely he and the abbot had regularly scheduled meetings, like we do.”

  Beauvoir nodded. He and the Chief met every morning at eight, to go over the previous day and to review all the homicide cases currently being investigated by Gamache’s department.

  But it was just possible a monastery wasn’t quite the same as the homicide department of the Sûreté. And it was just possible the abbot wasn’t quite the same as the Chief Inspector.

  Still, it seemed a good bet the abbot and prior would have held regular meetings.

  “That would mean,” said Beauvoir, “that the abbot wanted to talk to the prior about something other than normal monastery business.”

  “It could. Or that it was urgent. Unexpected. Something had suddenly come up.”

  “Then why not ask to see the prior right away?” asked Beauvoir. “Why wait until after the eleven o’clock mass?”

  Gamache thought about that. “Good question.”

  “So, if the prior didn’t return to his office after Lauds, where did he go?”

  “Maybe he went straight to the garden,” said Charbonneau.

  “Possibly,” the Chief said.

  “Then wouldn’t Frère Simon, the abbot’s secretary, have seen him?” asked Beauvoir. “Or passed him in the corridor?”

  “Maybe he did,” said the Chief. He lowered his voice and stage-whispered to Beauvoir. “Maybe he lied to you.”

  Beauvoir stage-whispered back, “A religious? Lie? Someone’s going to Hell.” He looked at Gamache with exaggerated concern, then smiled.

  Gamache smiled back and rubbed his face. They were collecting a lot of facts. And probably more than a few lies.

  “Frère Simon’s name keeps coming up,” said Gamache. “What do we know about his movements this morning?”

  “Well, this is what he says,” Beauvoir flipped a few pages in his notebook and stopped. “Right after Lauds, at quarter past eight, he returned to the abbot’s office. There the abbot asked him to make an appointment for after the eleven o’clock mass with the prior. The abbot left to look at the geothermal and Frère Simon left to do his job at the animal place. On his way he stopped by here, looked in. No prior. So he went away.”

  “Was he surprised?” asked Gamache.

  “Didn’t seem surprised or concerned. The prior, like the abbot, pretty much came and went as he liked.”

  Gamache thought about that for a moment. “What did Frère Simon do then?”

  “He worked for twenty minutes or so with the animals, then returned to the abbot’s office to work in the garden. That’s when he found the body.”

  “Do we know for sure Frère Simon went to the animalerie?” asked the Chief.

  Beauvoir nodded. “His story checks. Other monks saw him there.”

  “Could he have left earlier?” asked Gamache. “Say at half past eight?”

  “I wondered the same thing,” Beauvoir smiled. “The other monks working there say it’s possible. They were all busy with their own chores. But it’d be hard for Brother Simon to do what he had to do in so short a time. And all his chores were done.”

  “What were they?” asked Gamache.

  “He let the chickens out of their cages and gave them all fresh food and water. Then he cleaned the cages. Not the sort of thing you can pretend to do.”

  Gamache made a few notes, nodding to himself. “The door to the abbot’s office was locked when we arrived. Is it usually?”

  The men looked at each other. “I don’t know, patron,” said Beauvoir, making a note. “I’ll find out.”

  “Good.”

  It was clearly important. If it was usually locked then someone had had to let the prior in.

  “Anything else?” asked Gamache, looking from Beauvoir to Charbonneau and back again.

  “Nothing,” said Beauvoir, “except that I tried to hook up this piece of shit and of course, it doesn’t work.” He waved a disgusted hand at the satellite dish they’d lugged all that way from Montréal.

  Gamache took a deep breath. That was always a blow to a remote investigation. They brought state-of-the-art equipment into primitive surroundings, and then were surprised when it didn’t work.

  “I’ll keep trying,” said Beauvoir. “There’s no telecommunication tower, so our cell phones won’t work either, but we can still get text on our BlackBerrys.”

  Gamache looked at the time. It was just after four. They had an hour before the boatman left. A murder investigation was never a leisurely pursuit, but there was even more urgency about this one. They were chasing daylight and the boatman’s deadline.

  Once the sun set, they would all be trapped in the monastery. Along with the evidence and the body. And Chief Inspector Gamache didn’t want that.

  * * *

  Dom Philippe made the sign of the cross over his community. They crossed themselves.

  And then he sat. And they sat. Like shadows, mimicking his every move. Or children, he thought. More charitable, and perhaps more accurate.

  Though some of the monks were considerably older than the abbot, he was their father. Their leader.

  He was far from convinced he was a very good one. Certainly not as good as Mathieu. But he was all they had right now.

  “As you know, Frère Mathieu has died,” began the abbot. “Unexpectedly.”

  But it got worse. More words were appearing. Lining up. Crushing forward.

  “He was killed.”

  Dom Philippe paused before that last word.

  “Murdered.”

  Let us pray, he thought. Let us pray. Let us chant. Let us close our eyes and chant the psalms and lose ourselves. Let us retreat to our songs and our cells, and let that police officer worry about this mess.

  But this was not the time for retreating. Nor was it the time for plainchant. It was the time for plain speech.
<
br />   “The police are here. Most of you have been interviewed by them. We must cooperate. We must have no secrets. That means letting them not only into our cells and our workplaces, but into our thoughts and hearts.”

  As he spoke these unfamiliar words he noticed a few nods. And then a few more. And the flat faces of concealed panic began to give way to understanding. To agreement even.

  Should he go further? Dear Lord, he silently pleaded, should I go further? Surely this was far enough. Did the rest really need to be said? And done?

  “I’m lifting the rule of silence.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath. His brother monks looked as though he’d just stripped them of their clothing. Left them naked, exposed.

  “It must be done. You’re free to talk. Not idle chatter. Not gossip. But to help those officers get at the truth.”

  Now their faces were filled with anxiety. Their eyes holding his. Trying to grab his glance.

  And while their fear was painful for him to see, he knew it was far more natural than the guarded, empty expressions he’d seen before.

  And then the abbot took that last, irrevocable step.

  “Someone in this monastery killed Brother Mathieu,” said Dom Philippe, feeling himself plunging. The problem with words, he knew, was that they could never be taken back. “Someone in this room killed Brother Mathieu.”

  He’d wanted to comfort them, but all he’d managed to do was strip them naked and terrify them.

  “One of us has a confession to make.”

  EIGHT

  It was time to go.

  “You have everything?” Gamache asked Captain Charbonneau.

  “Everything except the body.”

  “Best not to forget that,” agreed the Chief.

  Five minutes later the two Sûreté agents were carrying the covered body of Frère Mathieu on a stretcher from the infirmary. Gamache had looked for the doctor, Frère Charles, to let him know. But there was no sign of the médecin. Nor was there any sign of Dom Philippe.

  He’d disappeared.

  As had the abbot’s secretary, the taciturn Frère Simon.

  As had all the dark-robed monks.

  All gone.

  The monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups felt not simply quiet, but empty.

  As they carried Frère Mathieu through the Blessed Chapel, Gamache scanned the large room. The pews were empty. The long choir benches were empty.

  Even the playful light had left. No more rainbows. No more prisms.

  The absence of light wasn’t simply darkness. There was a gloom about the place, as though something else was gathering at the edges of the day. As cheerful as the light had been, something equally foreboding was waiting to fill the void.

  Balance, thought Gamache, as their feet echoed on the slate floors. As they escorted a murdered monk across the church. Équilibre. Yin and yang. Heaven and Hell. Every faith had them. Opposites. Providing balance.

  They’d had the daylight. And now the night was coming.

  They passed out of the church and into the final, long corridor. Gamache could see the heavy wooden door at the far end. He could see the wrought-iron deadbolt rammed in place.

  The door was locked. But against what?

  They arrived and the Chief looked into the porter’s small office. But it too was empty. No sign of the young monk, Frère Luc. Only a thick book which proved to be more, what else? Chants.

  Music, but no monk.

  “It’s locked, patron,” said Beauvoir, looking into the office. “The front door. Is there a key?”

  Both men searched, but there was nothing.

  Charbonneau opened the peephole and looked out. “I can see the boatman,” he reported, smushing his face against the wooden door. Trying for a better look. “He’s at the dock. Waiting. He’s looking at his watch.”

  All three officers looked at their watches.

  Twenty to five.

  Beauvoir and Charbonneau looked at Gamache.

  “Find the monks,” he said. “I’ll stay here with the body, in case Frère Luc returns. You split up. We haven’t much time.”

  What had seemed an oddity, the sudden absence of monks, was now verging on a crisis. If the boatman left, they’d be stuck there.

  “D’accord,” said Beauvoir, but he looked uneasy.

  Instead of moving off down the corridor Beauvoir stepped toward the Chief and whispered, “Would you like my gun?”

  Gamache shook his head. “I’m afraid my monk is already dead. Not much of a threat.”

  “There are others, though,” said Beauvoir, deadly serious. “Including the one who did this. And the one who locked us in. You’ll be alone here. You might need it. Please.”

  “Then what would you do, mon vieux,” asked Gamache. “If you run into trouble?”

  Beauvoir was silent.

  “I’d rather you keep it. But remember, Jean-Guy, you’re looking for the monks, not hunting them.”

  “Looking not hunting,” Beauvoir repeated in mock earnestness. “Got it.”

  Gamache accompanied them to the end of the corridor, walking briskly to the door into the church. Opening it he looked in. No longer filled with light, it was now filled with long, and growing, shadows.

  “Père Abbé!” Gamache stood at the door and shouted.

  It felt as though he’d lobbed a bomb into the building. The Chief’s commanding voice bounded off the stone walls, magnifying and echoing. But instead of recoiling from it, Gamache yelled again.

  “Dom Philippe!”

  Still nothing. He stepped aside and Beauvoir and Charbonneau hurried in.

  “Quickly, Jean-Guy,” Gamache said as Beauvoir passed. “Carefully.”

  “Oui, patron.”

  The Chief watched as the two men peeled off in different directions. Beauvoir to the right, and Charbonneau to the left. Gamache stood at the door, watching, until both men disappeared.

  “Allô!” called Gamache again, and listened. But the only response he got was his own voice.

  Chief Inspector Gamache propped open the door to the church, then started down the long corridor, to the closed and locked and bolted door. And the body that lay before it like an offering.

  It was counterintuitive to walk deliberately into a dead end. A cul-de-sac. Every training, every instinct, went against it. If anything came at him down this corridor, there was no way out. He knew that was why Beauvoir had offered him his firearm. So that he’d at least have a chance.

  How often had he, in classes at the academy, in sessions with new recruits, ordered them never, ever to get caught in a dead end?

  And yet here he was, walking back down. He’d have to give himself a stern talking to, he thought with a smile. And a failing grade.

  * * *

  Jean-Guy Beauvoir stepped into the long corridor. It was exactly like all the others. Long, with tall ceilings and a door at the far end.

  Emboldened by Gamache, Beauvoir yelled, “Bonjour! Allô?”

  Just before the door had closed he’d heard the Chief’s and Charbonneau’s voices mix together. Calling out, in unison, a single word. “Allô?”

  Then the door closed, and with it the familiar voices disappeared. All sound disappeared. There was silence. Except for the beating of Beauvoir’s heart.

  “Hello?” he repeated, less loudly.

  There were doors down either side. Beauvoir hurried along the corridor, looking into rooms. The dining room. The pantry. The kitchen. All empty. The only sign of life a huge vat of pea soup simmering on a stove.

  Beauvoir opened the last door on the left, before the final door. And there he stopped. Staring. Then he stepped inside and the door softly closed behind him.

  * * *

  Captain Charbonneau opened the doors all the way down the hallway. One after another. All were alike.

  Thirty of them. Fifteen down one side. Fifteen down the other.

  Cells. He’d started off yelling into them, “Hello?” but soon realized ther
e was no need.

  This was obviously the bedroom wing. With the toilets and showers in the middle and the prior’s office at the very beginning of the corridor.

  A large wooden door at the far end was closed.

  The rooms were empty. He’d known that as soon as he’d stepped into the hallway. Not a living soul. But that didn’t mean there weren’t some dead ones.

  And so he’d stooped to look under the first few beds. Dreading what he might find, but needing to look anyway.

  Twenty years he’d been on the force. He’d seen some terrible things. Horrific accidents. Appalling deaths. Kidnappings, assaults, suicides. The disappearance of two dozen monks was far from the most frightening thing he’d experienced.

  But it was the eeriest.

  Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.

  Saint-Gilbert-Among-the-Wolves.

  Who names a monastery that?

  “Père Abbé?” he called, tentatively. “Allô?”

  The sound of his own voice at first calmed him. It was natural, familiar. But the hard, stone walls changed his voice. So that what came back to his ears wasn’t exactly what had left his lips. Close. But not the same.

  The monastery had twisted it. Taking his words and magnifying the feelings. The fear. Making his own voice grotesque.

  * * *

  Beauvoir stepped into the small room. Like the kitchen, there was a vat bubbling away on a stove. But unlike the kitchen, this one wasn’t pea soup.

  It smelled bitter. Heavy. Not a pleasant aroma at all.

  Beauvoir peered into the vat.

  Then he dipped his finger into the thick, warm liquid. And smelled it. Looking around, to see if anyone was watching, he put his finger into his mouth.

  He was relieved.

  It was chocolate. Dark chocolate.

  Beauvoir had never liked dark chocolate. It seemed unfriendly.

  He looked around the empty room. No, not just empty. It was abandoned. The unattended vat glugged gently, like a volcano considering whether to explode.

  And on the wooden counter sat small mounds of very dark chocolate. Long rows of them, like tiny monks. He picked one up, turning it this way and that.

  Then he ate it.

  * * *

  Armand Gamache had spent the past few minutes looking around. Perhaps the monks had hidden a key? But there was no potted palm and certainly no welcome mat to look under.