Still Life (Three Pines Mysteries)

by Louise Penny

  ‘Mr Croft, may we see those bows and arrows now?’ Beauvoir asked.

  ‘How dare you—’ Croft was vibrating with rage.

  ‘It’s not a question of “dare”.’ Beauvoir looked him hard in the face. ‘At the meeting this morning Chief Inspector Gamache made it clear that unpleasant things would be asked of each and every one of you. That’s the price you’ll pay for finding out who killed Miss Neal. I understand your anger. You don’t want your children traumatised by this. But, frankly, I think they already are. I’m giving you a choice. We can speak with your son here, or we can speak with him at the St Rémy station.’

  Beauvoir paused. And paused. And in his mind dared Nichol to offer cookies. Finally he continued. ‘The rules of normal life are suspended when there’s a violent death. You two and your family are among the first casualties. I have no illusions about what we do, and we do it as painlessly as possible -’ Matthew Croft sputtered in disgust’—which is why I’ve offered you the choice. Now, the bows and arrows please.’

  Matthew Croft took a deep breath, ‘This way.’

  He led them out of the kitchen on to the screen porch.

  ‘Mrs Croft,’ Gamache said, and poked his head back into the kitchen just as Suzanne Croft was stepping toward the basement door, ‘would you join us, please?’

  Suzanne Croft’s shoulders sagged.

  ‘There.’ It was all Matthew Croft could do to be civil. ‘That’s a recurve and that’s a compound, and there’re the arrows.’

  ‘Are these two the only bows you have?’ Beauvoir asked, picking up the arrows and noting they were the target-shooting kind.

  ‘Yes, they are,’ said Croft without hesitation.

  They looked exactly as they had been described, only larger. Beauvoir and Gamache lifted each bow in turn. They were heavy, even the simple recurve.

  ‘Could you put the string on the recurve, please?’ Beauvoir asked.

  Matthew grabbed the recurve, took a long string with loops on either end, put the ‘stick’ between his legs and bent the bow down until the string could reach the little notch at the top. Gamache could see it took some strength. Suddenly, there stood a ‘Robin Hood’ bow.

  ‘May I?’

  Croft handed Gamache the bow and as he took it he noticed dust. But no dirt. Gamache then turned his attention to the compound. It looked more like a traditional bow than he’d expected. He picked it up, noticing the wisps of cobwebs between some of the strings. This bow too hadn’t been used in some time. And it was far heavier than he’d expected. He turned to Mrs Croft.

  ‘Do you bow hunt or target shoot?’

  ‘I sometimes target shoot.’

  ‘Which bow do you use?’

  After a breath of hesitation Suzanne Croft pointed to the recurve.

  ‘Would you mind taking off the string?’

  ‘Why?’ Matthew Croft stepped forward.

  ‘I’d like to see your wife do it.’ Gamache turned to Suzanne, ‘Please.’

  Suzanne Croft picked up the recurve, and swiftly putting it around her leg she leaned on the bow and popped the string off. She’d clearly done this many times before. Then Gamache had an idea.

  ‘Could you restring the bow, please?’

  Suzanne shrugged and replaced the now straight bow around her leg and leaned on the upper part. Not much happened. Then she gave a huge thrust down and slipped the string over the top, recreating the recurve. She handed it to Gamache without a word.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, puzzled. He’d had a hunch, but it didn’t seem to be right.

  ‘Would you mind if we shot a few arrows?’ Beauvoir asked.

  ‘Not at all.’

  After putting their outside rain gear on again all five trooped into the light drizzle. Fortunately the heavy rain had let up. Matthew had put up a round archery target made of hay encased in canvas with target circles painted in red. He picked up the recurve, put a new wooden target arrow in the slot and pulled the string back. Croft spent a moment aiming then he released the arrow. It hit the second ring. Croft then handed the bow to Gamache who handed it with a slight smile to Beauvoir. Beauvoir took it with relish. He’d been raring to try it, and even daring to imagine himself getting bull‘s-eye after bull’s-eye until the Canadian Archery team invited him to compete in the Olympics. This so-called sport looked like a no-brainer, especially since he was a crack shot with a gun.

  The first sign of trouble came almost immediately. He almost didn’t get the string all the way back. It was far harder than he imagined. Then the arrow, held tentatively in place between two of his fingers, started jumping all over the bow, refusing to stay snug on the little peg at the front. Finally he was ready to shoot. He released the string and the arrow shot out of the bow and missed the target by a country mile. What didn’t miss was the string itself. A millisecond after being released, it hit Beauvoir’s elbow with such force he thought his arm had been severed. He yelped and dropped the bow, hardly daring to look at his arm. The pain was searing.

  ‘What happened, Mr Croft?’ Gamache snapped, going to Beauvoir. Croft wasn’t exactly laughing, but Gamache could see the pleasure this was giving him.

  ‘Not to worry, Chief Inspector. He’s just got a bruised arm. Happens to all amateurs. The string caught his elbow. As you said, we must all be prepared for unpleasantness.’ Croft gave him a hard look, and Gamache remembered he’d offered the bow to him first. This injury had been meant for him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Beauvoir was cradling his arm and straining to see the arrow. Unless he’d split Croft’s arrow, his own had missed the target. That hurt almost as much as the bruise.

  ‘I’m fine, sir. It was more the surprise than the pain.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gamache turned to Croft. ‘Can you show me how to shoot the arrow without hitting my arm?’

  ‘Probably. You willing to risk it?’

  Gamache just looked expectantly at Croft, refusing to play.

  ‘Right. Take the bow like this.’ Croft stood beside Gamache and held his arm up as Gamache gripped the bow. ‘Now twist your elbow so it’s perpendicular to the ground. There, that’s right,’ said Croft. ‘Now the string will shoot right by your elbow instead of hitting it. It makes a much smaller target. Probably.’

  Gamache grinned. If the string hit, it hit. At least, unlike Beauvoir, he’d be prepared.

  ‘What else should I be doing?’

  ‘Now, with your right hand, put the arrow in so its tip is resting on that little wooden notch on the bow, and fit the back of the arrow on to the string. Good. Now you’re ready to pull back. What you don’t want to do is to have to hold the string back for too long before firing. You’ll see why in a moment. Get yourself lined up, your body like this.’ He turned Gamache so his body was sideways to the target. His left arm was getting tired holding the heavy bow in place.

  ‘Here’s the sight.’

  Croft, incredibly, was pointing to a tiny pin like Gamache took out of his shirts after they’d been dry cleaned. ‘You line the knob of the pin up with the bull’s-eye. Then you draw the string back in one fluid motion, realign the sight, and let go.’

  Croft stood back. Gamache lowered the bow to give his arm a break, took a breath, reviewed the steps in his mind then did it. Smoothly he brought his left arm up, and before placing the arrow he twisted his elbow out of the way of the string. He then placed the arrow on the knob, put the arrow butt in the string, lined the head of the pin up with the bull’s-eye, and pulled back on the string in one fluid motion. Except it wasn’t exactly fluid. It felt as though the Montreal Canadiens were playing tug of war with him, yanking the string in the other direction. With his right arm trembling slightly he managed to get the string all the way back until it was almost to his nose, then he released. By then he didn’t much care whether it took his whole elbow off, he just wanted to let the damn thing go. The arrow flew wildly off, missing the target by at least as much as Beauvoir’s. But the
string also missed. It twanged back into place without even grazing Gamache’s arm.

  ‘You’re a good teacher, Mr Croft.’

  ‘You must have low standards. Look where your arrow went.’

  ‘I can’t see it. Hope it isn’t lost.’

  ‘It isn’t. They never are. Haven’t lost one yet.’

  ‘Mrs Croft,’ said Gamache, ‘your turn.’

  ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘Please, Mrs Croft.’ Chief Inspector Gamache handed her the bow. He was thankful he’d shot the bow and arrow. It had given him a thought.

  ‘I haven’t used it in a while.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Gamache. ‘Just do your best.’ Suzanne Croft lined up her shot, put the arrow in, grabbed the string and pulled. And pulled. And pulled until she started crying and collapsed on to the muddy ground, overwhelmed by an emotion that had nothing to do with failing to shoot the arrow. Instantly Matthew Croft was kneeling beside her, holding her. Swiftly Gamache took Beauvoir’s arm and led him a step or two away. He spoke in an urgent whisper.

  ‘We need to get into that basement. I’d like you to offer them a deal. We won’t take Philippe to the police station, if they take us to the basement right now.’

  ‘But we have to speak with Philippe.’

  ‘I agree, but we can’t do both and the only way we’ll get to the basement is if we give them something they really want. They want to protect their son. We can’t have both and I think this is the best we can do.’

  Beauvoir thought about it while watching Croft console his wife. The Chief Inspector was right. Philippe would probably wait. What was in the basement probably wouldn’t. After that demonstration it was clear Mrs Croft knew her way around a bow and arrow, but she’d never shot that particular bow. There must be another one somewhere, one that she was used to using. And one that Philippe might have used. Probably in the basement. His nose caught the woodsmoke wafting out of the chimney. He hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Peter and Clara were walking Lucy along the footpath through the woods across the Bella Bella from their home. Once over the small bridge they released her. She trudged along, showing no interest in the wealth of new scents. The rain had stopped but the thick grass and ground were sodden.

  ‘Weather network says it’s supposed to clear,’ said Peter, kicking a stone along with his feet.

  ‘But getting colder,’ agreed Clara. ‘Hard frost’s on the way. Have to get into the garden.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the chill. ‘I have a question for you. It’s advice, really. You know when I went over to Yolande?’

  ‘At lunch? Yes. Why did you do that?’

  ‘Well, because she was Jane’s niece.’

  ‘No, really. Why?’

  Damn Peter, thought Clara. He actually knows me.

  ‘I wanted to be kind

  ‘But you knew what would happen. Why would you choose to walk right into a situation where you know the person is going to be hurtful? It kills me to see you do that, and you do it all the time. It’s like a form of insanity.’

  ‘You call it insanity, I call it optimism.’

  ‘Is it optimism to expect people to do something they’ve never done before? Every time you approach Yolande she’s horrible to you. Every time. And yet you keep doing it. Why?’

  ‘What’s all this about?’

  ‘Have you ever thought how it makes me feel to watch you do this time after time, and to not be able to do anything except pick up the pieces? Stop expecting people to be something they’re not. Yolande is a horrible, hateful, petty little person. Accept that and stay away from her. And if you choose to walk into her space, be prepared for the consequences.’

  ‘That’s unfair. You seem to think I’m this moron who had no idea what was about to happen. I knew perfectly well she’d do that. And I did it anyway. Because I had to know something.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘I had to hear André’s laugh.’

  ‘His laugh? Why?’

  ‘That’s what I wanted to talk about. Remember Jane described that horrible laugh when the boys threw manure at Olivier and Gabri?’ Peter nodded. ‘I heard a laugh like that this morning, at the public meeting. It was André. That’s why I had to go up to their table, to get him to laugh again. And he did. One thing I’ll say for Yolande and André, is that they’re predictable.’

  ‘But Clara, André’s a grown man, he wasn’t one of those masked boys.’

  Clara waited. Peter wasn’t normally this obtuse, so it was fun to watch. His furrowed brow eventually cleared.

  ‘It was André’s son Bernard.’

  ‘Atta boy.’

  ‘Jane got it wrong, it wasn’t Philippe, Gus and Claude. One of them wasn’t there, but Bernard was.’

  ‘Should I tell Chief Inspector Gamache? Could he see it as me just bad-mouthing Yolande?’ asked Clara.

  ‘Who cares? Gamache needs to know.’

  ‘Good. I’ll go over to the Bistro this afternoon, during his, “at home”.’ Clara picked up a stick and threw it, hoping Lucy would follow. She didn’t.

  The Crofts accepted the deal. They really had little choice and now Gamache, Beauvoir, Nichol and the Crofts were making their way down the narrow steps. The entire basement was well organised, not the kind of labyrinth of confusion he’d seen, and sifted through, so often. When he commented on it Croft answered, ‘It’s one of Philippe’s chores, cleaning the basement. We did it together for a few years, but on his fourteenth birthday I told him it was now all his.’ Then Croft had added, perhaps realising how it sounded, ‘It wasn’t his only birthday present.’

  For twenty minutes the two men methodically searched. Then, amid the skis, tennis rackets and hockey gear, hanging on the wall half hidden by goalie pads, they found a quiver. Carefully lifting it off its hook using one of the tennis rackets, Beauvoir looked inside. Five old wooden hunting arrows. What wasn’t in the quiver was a single cobweb. This quiver had been out recently.

  ‘Whose is this, Mr Croft?’

  ‘That belonged to my father.’

  ‘There are only five arrows. Is that usual?’

  ‘That’s how it came to me. Dad must have lost one.’

  ‘And yet you said it was rare. I believe you said that hunters almost never lose an arrow.’

  ‘That’s true, but “almost never” and “never” are two different things.’

  ‘May I?’ Beauvoir handed him the tennis racket with the quiver hanging from it. Gamache held the racket as high as he could and strained to look at the round leather bottom of the old quiver.

  ‘Have you got a flashlight?’

  Matthew took a bright yellow Eveready from a hook and handed it over. Gamache switched it on and saw six shadowy points on the belly of the quiver. He showed them to Beauvoir.

  ‘There were six arrows until recently,’ said Beauvoir.

  ‘Recently? How do you figure that, Inspector?’ Listening to Matthew Croft’s attempt at calm Gamache felt for the man. He was clamping down for control, tighter and tighter. So tight his hands were trembling slightly now and his voice was rising.

  ‘I know leather, Mr Croft,’ Beauvoir lied. ‘This is thin calves’ leather, used because it’s supple, yet durable. These arrows, which I assume are hunting arrows—’ Croft shrugged ‘- these arrows can sit in this leather-bottomed quiver, tip down and neither dull the tip nor break through the bottom. And, now this is important, Mr Croft, the leather will not keep the form of whatever it holds. It’s so supple it will slowly go back to its original shape. These six blemishes have been made by six arrow tips. Yet only five arrows remain. How is that possible?’

  Now Croft was silent, his jaw clamped shut.

  Beauvoir handed the tennis racket and quiver to Nichol with instructions to hold it while he and Gamache continued the search. Now Croft had joined his wife, and side by side they awaited whatever was coming their way. The two men spent the next half-hour searching the basement inch by inch. They’d just a
bout given up when Beauvoir wandered over to the furnace. Once there he actually stepped on it. Sitting practically in plain sight was a recurve bow, and beside it an axe.

  A search warrant was sought and issued and the Croft farm was scoured from the attic to the barn to the chicken coop. Philippe was found in his bedroom plugged in to his Sony ‘Discman’. Beauvoir checked the ash bin under the wood-burning furnace and found a metal arrowhead, charred by the fire, but still intact. At this discovery Matthew Croft’s legs gave way and he sank to the cold concrete floor, to a place no rhyming verse existed. He had finally been hurt beyond poetry.

  Beauvoir arranged for all the things they’d collected to go to the Sûreté labs in Montreal. Now the team sat around the fire hall once again.

  ‘What do we do about the Crofts?’ Lacoste wanted to know, sipping a Tim Horton’s double double.

  ‘Nothing for now,’ replied Gamache, biting into a chocolate donut. ‘We wait for the report to come back from the labs.’

  ‘They’ll have results for us tomorrow,’ said Beauvoir.

  ‘About Matthew Croft. Shouldn’t we take him into custody?’ Lacoste spoke up, smoothing back her shiny auburn hair with her wrist, trying not to get chocolate glaze into it.

  ‘Inspector Beauvoir, what do you think?’

  ‘You know me, I always want to be on the safe side.’ Gamache was reminded of a cartoon he’d cut from the Montreal Gazette years ago. It showed a judge and the accused. The punch line read, ‘The jury has found you “not guilty” but I’m giving you five years just to be on the safe side.’ Everyday he looked at it, chuckled, and knew deep down the truth of it. Part of him yearned for ‘the safe side’, even at the cost of other people’s freedom.

  ‘What risk are we running by leaving Matthew Croft free?’ Gamache looked around the table.

  ‘Well,’ ventured Lacoste, ‘there might be more evidence in that house, evidence he could destroy between now and tomorrow.’

  ‘True, but couldn’t Mrs Croft destroy it just as easily? After all, she was the one who threw the arrow in the furnace and was about to chop up the bow. She’s admitted as much. In fact, if there’s anyone we should bring in it’s her, for destroying evidence. I’ll tell you my thinking.’ He took a paper napkin and wiped his hands, then, leaning forward, he put his elbows on the table. Everyone else, except Nichol, did the same, giving it the appearance of a highly secretive gathering.