The Beautiful Mystery ciag-8

by Louise Penny

  Baskets of fresh baguettes, rounds of cheeses, pitchers of water and bottles of cider sat on the wooden table, and monks sat around it in their black robes, white hoods hanging down their backs. Gamache realized Superintendent Francoeur hadn’t told him why Gilbert of Sempringham had chosen this unique design nine hundred years ago.

  “That’s Brother Raymond,” whispered the Chief, nodding toward a space on the bench between the doctor, Frère Charles, and another monk. “He’s in charge of maintenance.”

  “Got it,” said Beauvoir, and walked quickly to the other side of the table.

  “Do you mind?” Beauvoir asked the monks.

  “Not at all,” said Frère Charles. He looked happy, indeed almost hysterically so, to see the Sûreté agent. It was a welcome Beauvoir rarely received while on a murder investigation.

  Gamache’s lunch companion, on the other hand, looked far from pleased to see him. He looked far from pleased to see the bread, or the cheese. Or the sun in the sky, or the birds outside the window.

  “Bonjour, Frère Simon,” said the Chief, taking his seat. But apparently the abbot’s secretary was maintaining his own strict personal vow of silence. He also seemed to have taken a vow of annoyance.

  Across the table, and a little way down, Gamache could see that Beauvoir was already engaged in conversation with Brother Raymond.

  “The first brothers knew what they were doing,” said Raymond in answer to Beauvoir’s question about the original plans for the abbey. His answer surprised Beauvoir. Not for the content, but for the monk’s voice.

  He spoke in a broad, almost unintelligible, country accent. A twang yanked from the woods and mountains and tiny villages of Québec. It had been planted by the first settlers and voyageurs from France, hundreds of years ago. Rugged men, schooled in what mattered here. Not politesse, but survival. The aristocrats, the learned administrators and mariners might have found the New World, but the hardy peasants had settled it. Their voices had taken deep root in Québec, like some ancient oak. Unchanged, for centuries. So that a historian speaking to these Québécois might feel she’d traveled in time back to medieval France.

  Over the generations most Québécois had lost the accent. But every now and then this voice emerged from a valley, from a village.

  It had become popular to mock such accents, thinking if the voice was rustic the thinking must be backward too. But Beauvoir knew different.

  His grandmother spoke like this, as they’d shelled peas on the rickety old verandah. As she’d talked about her garden. And the seasons. And patience. And nature.

  His gruff grandfather, when he chose to speak, also sounded like a peasant. But he thought and acted like a nobleman. Never failing to help a neighbor. Never failing to share what little he had.

  No, Beauvoir had no inclination to dismiss Frère Raymond. Just the opposite. He felt drawn to this monk.

  Raymond’s eyes were deep brown and despite the robe Beauvoir could see the monk’s body was strappy. His hands were lean and sinewy, from a lifetime of hard work. He was, Beauvoir guessed, in his early fifties.

  “They built Saint-Gilbert to last,” said Frère Raymond, reaching for the cider bottle and pouring some for Beauvoir and himself. “Craftsmanship, that’s what it was. And discipline. But after those first monks? Disaster.”

  What followed was a litany of how every generation of monks had screwed up the monastery in their own special way. Not spiritually. Frère Raymond didn’t seem too concerned with that. But physically. Adding stuff, taking down stuff. Adding it again. Changing the roof. All disasters.

  “And the toilets. Don’t get me started on the toilets.”

  But it was too late. Frère Raymond was started. And Beauvoir began to understand why Frère Charles was almost maniacally pleased to have someone come between him and Brother Raymond. Not because of the voice, but what that voice was saying. Nonstop.

  “They messed those up,” said Brother Raymond. “The toilets were—”

  “A disaster?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Exactement.” Raymond knew he was in the company of a kindred spirit.

  The last few monks arrived and took their seats. Chief Superintendent Francoeur paused in the doorway. The room grew quiet, except for Frère Raymond, who couldn’t seem to stop the locomotive of words.

  “Shit. Great holes of it. I can show you if you like.”

  Brother Raymond looked at Beauvoir with enthusiasm, but Beauvoir shook his head and looked over at Francoeur.

  “Merci, mon frère,” he whispered. “But I’ve seen enough shits.”

  Frère Raymond snorted. “Me too.”

  And then he grew quiet.

  Superintendent Francoeur had a way of dominating a room. Beauvoir watched as one by one the monks turned to the Superintendent.

  He’s fooled them too, thought Beauvoir. Surely men of God would see behind the fake front. They’d see the meanness, the pettiness. They’d see he was a nasty piece of shit. A disaster.

  But they didn’t seem to. Just as many in the Sûreté didn’t either. They were fooled by Francoeur’s bravado. His manliness, his swagger.

  Beauvoir could see the testosterone-filled world of the Sûreté being taken in. But not the quiet and thoughtful monks.

  But they too seemed in awe of this man, who’d arrived so swiftly. Flying in and landing, almost on top of them. Nothing effete, nothing tentative about Francoeur. He’d practically fallen from the sky. Into their abbey. Into their laps.

  And judging by the look on their faces, they seemed to admire him for that.

  But not all of them, Beauvoir realized. His blueberry-picking companion from that morning, Frère Bernard, was looking at Francoeur with suspicion, as were a few others.

  Perhaps these monks weren’t quite as naïve as Beauvoir had feared. But then he had it. The abbot’s men were looking at Francoeur with wariness. Their faces polite but veiled.

  It was the prior’s men who were practically swooning.

  Francoeur’s gaze swept the room and came to rest on the abbot. And the empty chair beside him. The air seemed to leave the room as all eyes swung from the Superintendent to the chair. Then back again.

  Dom Philippe sat perfectly still at the head of the table. Neither inviting the Superintendent to join him, nor discouraging it.

  Finally Francoeur gave a small, respectful bow to the monks and walked purposefully down the long table. To the head. And took his place, on the right-hand side of the abbot.

  The prior’s seat. Filled. The void filled, the vacuum filled.

  Beauvoir returned his attention to Frère Raymond and was surprised to see a look of admiration on the lean and weathered face as he too watched the Superintendent.

  “The prior’s place, of course,” said Raymond. “The king is dead. Long live the king.”

  “The prior was king? I thought the abbot would be considered that.”

  Frère Raymond gave Beauvoir a keen, assessing look. “In name only. The prior was our real leader.”

  “You’re one of the prior’s men?” asked Beauvoir, surprised. He’d have thought this man would be loyal to the abbot.

  “Absolutely. I can only take incompetence so long. He,” Frère Raymond jerked his shaved head toward the abbot, “is ruining the abbey. The prior was going to save it.”

  “Ruining? How?”

  “By doing nothing.” Raymond kept his voice low, but his annoyance scraped out anyway. “The prior had handed him the means to make all the money we’d ever need, to finally fix the abbey, so that it’d stand a thousand years, and Dom Philippe turned it away.”

  “But I thought lots of work had been done. The kitchens, the roof, the geo. The abbot wasn’t exactly doing nothing.”

  “But he wasn’t doing what was really needed. We could’ve survived just fine for a while without a new kitchen, or geothermal.”

  Frère Raymond paused. It was as though a void had suddenly opened up in the flow of words. Beauvoir stared. And waited. As Frèr
e Raymond teetered on the edge. Of silence. Or more words.

  Beauvoir decided to give him a little push.

  “What can’t you survive without?”

  The monk lowered his voice further. “The foundations are rotten.”

  Now Beauvoir wasn’t sure if Frère Raymond was speaking metaphorically, as les religieux tended to do, or for real. But he thought this monk, with this accent, probably didn’t go in for metaphors.

  “What do you mean?” Beauvoir also whispered.

  “How many ways are there to interpret that?” Raymond asked. “The foundations are rotten.”

  “Is that a big job?”

  “Are you kidding? You’ve seen the monastery. If the foundations go, the monastery collapses.”

  Beauvoir stared at the intense monk, whose eyes were boring into him.

  “Collapses? The monastery will fall down?”

  “Completely. Not today. Not tomorrow. I’d say we have about ten years. But it’ll take that long to repair. The foundations have supported the weight of the walls for hundreds of years,” said Raymond. “It’s amazing what those first monks did. Way ahead of their time. But they hadn’t counted on the terrible winters. The cycles of freezing and thawing and what that does. And something else.”

  “What?”

  “The forest. Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups is fixed in place, but the forest keeps moving. Toward us. Roots are breaking through the foundations. Cracking them, making them weak. Then water got in. The foundations are crumbling and rotting.”

  Rotting, thought Beauvoir. It wasn’t a metaphor, but it could be.

  “When we arrived we noticed many of the trees around the monastery have been cut down recently,” said Beauvoir. “Is this why?”

  “Too little too late. The damage is done, the roots are already here. It’ll take millions to repair. And all sorts of skilled workers. But he,” now Raymond jerked his knife toward the abbot, “thinks two dozen aging monks can do the work. He’s not only incompetent, he’s delusional.”

  Beauvoir would have to agree. He watched the abbot in what appeared to be polite conversation with the Superintendent, and for the first time, wondered about his sanity.

  “What does he say when you tell him it’s impossible for you to fix the foundation yourselves?”

  “He tells me I should do as he does. Pray for a miracle.”

  “And you don’t believe there’ll be one?”

  Now Brother Raymond turned completely, to look at Beauvoir face on. The anger, so evident a moment earlier, all gone.

  “Just the opposite. I told the abbot he could stop praying. That the miracle had happened. God gave us voices. And the most beautiful chants. And an age when they can be sent around the world. To inspire millions, while making millions. If that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.”

  Beauvoir sat back and looked at this monk, who not only believed in prayer and miracles, but believed God had granted them one. The silent order would make money with their voices, and save the abbey.

  But the abbot was too blind to see that what he prayed for he already had.

  “Who else knows about the foundations?”

  “No one. I only discovered the problem a couple of months ago. Did some tests, then told the abbot, expecting him to tell the community.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  Frère Raymond shook his head and lowered his voice further, glancing around at his brother monks. “He ordered the trees to be cut, but told the brothers it was for firewood, in case the geothermal ever fails.”

  “He lied?”

  The monk shrugged. “It’s a good idea to have an emergency supply of wood, in case. But it wasn’t the real reason. None of them knows that. Only the abbot. And me. He had me promise not to tell anyone.”

  “Do you think the prior knew?”

  “I wish he had. He’d have saved us. It would be so easy. One more recording. And maybe a concert tour. We’d have enough to save Saint-Gilbert.”

  “But then Frère Mathieu was killed,” said Beauvoir.

  “Murdered,” agreed the monk.

  “By who?”

  “Come on, son. You know as well as I do.”

  Beauvoir shot a look at the head of the table, where the abbot had risen to his feet. There was a shuffling as the other monks, and Sûreté officers, also got up.

  The abbot gave the benediction over the food. When he’d finished, they all sat, and one of the monks walked to a podium, cleared his throat with a little cough, then began to sing.

  Again, thought Beauvoir with a sigh, and looked longingly at the fresh bread and cheese, so tantalizingly close. But mostly, as the monk sang, Beauvoir thought about this straight-talking, no-crap monk beside him. Who was one of the prior’s men. And who considered the abbot a disaster. And worse. A murderer.

  When the monk finally stopped singing, other monks brought vats of warm soup to the table, made from the vegetables Beauvoir had helped harvest that morning.

  Beauvoir took a hunk of warm baguette and smoothed whipped butter onto it, and watched it melt. Then he cut a slab of blue and Brie from the cheese board making the rounds. As Brother Raymond continued his liturgy of the faults in the monastery, Beauvoir took a spoonful of soup, with carrots, peas, parsnips and potatoes bumping together in the fragrant broth.

  While he found it difficult stopping the near biblical flood of words from his companion, Beauvoir noticed that the Chief was having difficulty coaxing just a few words out of Brother Simon.

  * * *

  Gamache had met many suspects who refused to speak. Mostly they sat cross-armed and belligerent across a hacked-up old table in some far-flung Sûreté outpost.

  Eventually the Chief Inspector had gotten them all to talk. Some had confessed. But at the very least, most had finally said far more than they expected or certainly intended.

  Armand Gamache was very good at coaxing indiscretions out of people.

  But he wondered if he might have met his Waterloo with Frère Simon.

  He’d brought up the subject of the weather. Then, thinking that might be too mundane for the abbot’s secretary, he asked about Saint Cecilia.

  “We found a statue to her in Frère Mathieu’s cell.”

  “Patron saint of music,” said Simon, concentrating on his soup.

  It was at least a start, thought the Chief, as he cut a piece of Camembert and smoothed it onto a hunk of warm baguette. And one mystery solved. Frère Mathieu prayed every night to the patron saint of music.

  Sensing a small opening, Gamache asked about Gilbert of Sempringham. And the design of the robes.

  That brought a reaction. Frère Simon looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. Then went back to eating. As did Gamache.

  The Chief took a sip of the cider.

  “Nice drink,” he said, replacing his glass. “I understand you trade blueberries for it from a monastery in the south.”

  He might as well have been speaking to the Camembert.

  Had this been just a stunningly awkward social occasion, Gamache would have given up and probably turned to the monk on his other side, but this was a murder investigation. He didn’t have that option. So the Chief Inspector turned back to Brother Simon, determined to breach his defenses.

  “Rhode Island Red.”

  Frère Simon’s spoon lowered into the broth, and his head slowly turned. To look at Gamache.

  “Pardon?” he asked. His voice was beautiful, even in that single word. Rich. Melodic. Like a full-bodied coffee, or aged cognac. With all sorts of subtleties and depth.

  Gamache realized, with surprise, that he hadn’t heard more than a dozen words from the abbot’s secretary their whole visit.

  “Rhode Island Red,” Gamache repeated. “A lovely breed.”

  “What do you know about them?”

  “Well, they have fantastic plumage. And are, in my opinion, dismissed far too easily.”

  Gamache, of course, had no idea what he was saying except that it s
ounded good and might appeal to this man. For a small miracle had occurred. The Chief Inspector had remembered a single sentence from all the conversations he’d had with the abbot.

  Frère Simon had a fondness for chickens.

  Gamache, who did not have a fondness for chickens, could remember only one breed. He’d been about to say, “Foghorn Leghorn,” when the first miracle occurred and he remembered just in time that that was a cartoon character not a breed of chicken.

  Camptown racetrack’s five miles long. To the Chief’s horror the cartoon character’s favorite song had insinuated itself into his head. Doo-dah. He fought it off. Doo-dah.

  He turned to Frère Simon, hoping this conversational sally had worked. Doo-dah, doo-dah.

  “It’s true that they have nice temperaments, but be careful. They can get aggressive when annoyed,” said Frère Simon. With those three magic words, “Rhode Island Red,” Gamache hadn’t simply breached the monk’s defenses, the gates were now thrown wide open. And the Chief Inspector was marching in.

  Gamache, though, did pause long enough to wonder what could possibly annoy a chicken. Perhaps the same things that annoyed Frère Simon and the other monks, pressed together in their tiny cells. Not exactly free range. More like battery monks.

  “You have them here?” Gamache asked.

  “Rhode Island Reds? No. They’re hardy, but we find only one breed works well so far north.”

  The abbot’s secretary had turned completely in his seat, toward Gamache. Far from being taciturn any longer, the monk was now almost begging Gamache to ask the question. The Chief, of course, obliged.

  “And what breed is that?” Hoping, praying, Frère Simon wouldn’t ask him to guess.

  “You’ll slap yourself for not knowing,” said Frère Simon, almost giddy.

  “I’m sure I will.”

  “It’s the Chantecler.”

  Frère Simon said it with such triumph Gamache almost did slap himself for not guessing. Before realizing he’d never heard of the breed before.

  “Of course,” he said, “the Chantecler. What a fool I am. A fabulous chicken.”

  “You’re right.”

  For the next ten minutes Gamache listened as Frère Simon gestured, drew pictures with his stubby finger on the wooden table, and spoke nonstop about the Chantecler. And his own prize rooster, Fernando.