Still Life (Three Pines Mysteries)

by Louise Penny

  She found nothing.

  ‘Over here, I think I have something.’ Peter stood back from the pine box he’d been examining. It stood on sturdy little wooden legs and came to hip height. Wrought iron handles were attached to either side, and two small, square drawers pulled out from the front. From what Peter could see, not a single nail had been used on the honey pine piece, all the joints were dovetail. It was exquisite and very maddening. The main body of the box was accessible by lifting the top, only it wouldn’t lift. Somehow, and for some reason, it had been locked. Peter yanked on the top again, but it wouldn’t lift. Beauvoir shoved him aside and tried it himself, much to Peter’s annoyance, as though there was more than one way to open a lid.

  ‘Maybe there’s a door on the front, like a trick or a puzzle,’ suggested Clara, and they all searched. Nothing. Now they stood back and stared, Clara willing it to speak to her, like so many boxes seemed to recently.

  ‘Olivier would know,’ said Peter. ‘If there’s a trick to it, he’ll know it.’

  Gamache thought for a moment and nodded. They really had no choice. Beauvoir was dispatched and within ten minutes he returned with the antiques dealer.

  ‘Where’s the patient? Holy Mary, Mother of God.’ He raised his eyebrows and stared at the walls, his lean, handsome face looking attractively boyish and quizzical. ‘Who did this?’

  ‘Ralph Lauren. Who do you think?’ said Peter.

  ‘Certainly no one gay. Is that the chest?’ He walked over to where the others were standing. ‘Beautiful. A tea chest, modeled on one the British used back in the 1600s, but this is Quebecois. Very simple yet far from primitive. You want to get in?’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ said Gamache and Clara marveled at his patience. She was about to slap Olivier. The antiques dealer walked around the box, knocked on it in a few places, holding his ear to the polished wood, then came to rest directly in front of it. Putting out his hands he grabbed the top and yanked. Gamache rolled his eyes.

  ‘It’s locked,’ said Olivier.

  ‘Well, we know that,’ said Beauvoir. ‘How do we unlock it?’

  ‘You don’t have a key?’

  ‘If we had a key we wouldn’t need you.’

  ‘Good point. Look, the only way I know is to take the hinges off the back. That could take a while since they’re old and corroded. I don’t want to break them.’

  ‘Please start,’ said Gamache. ‘The rest of us will continue our search.’

  Twenty minutes later Olivier announced he had the last hinge off. ‘It’s fortunate for you I’m a genius.’

  ‘What luck,’ said Beauvoir, and showed a reluctant Olivier to the door. At the chest Gamache and Peter took hold of either side of the large pine top and lifted. It came up and all four of them peered in.

  Nothing. The chest was empty.

  They spent a few minutes making sure there were no secret drawers then the disheartened group flopped back into their seats around the fireplace. Slowly Gamache sat up. He turned to Beauvoir, ‘What did Olivier ask? Who decorated this place?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, how do we know it was Jane Neal?’

  ‘You think she hired someone to do this?’ asked Beauvoir, amazed. Gamache just stared at him. ‘No, you’re thinking someone else who stayed here did it. My God, what an idiot I am,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Yolande. When I interviewed her yesterday she said she’d been decorating here

  ‘That’s right,’ said Clara, leaning forward in her seat, ‘I saw her lugging in a step ladder and bags full of stuff from the Reno Depot in Cowansville. Peter and I talked about whether she planned to move in.’ Peter nodded his agreement.

  ‘So Yolande put up the wallpaper?’ Gamache got up and looked at it again. ‘Her home must be a real monstrosity if this is how she decorates.’

  ‘Not even close,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Just the opposite. Her home is all off-whites and beiges and tasteful colors, like a Decormag model home.’

  ‘No Happy Faces?’ asked Gamache.

  ‘Probably never.’

  Gamache stood up and paced slowly, his head down, hands clasped behind his back. He took a couple of quick strides over to the Port Neuf pottery, speaking as he went, and was standing facing a wall like a naughty schoolboy. Then he turned to face them. ‘Yolande. What does she do? What drives her?’

  ‘Money?’ suggested Peter after a moment’s silence.

  ‘Approval?’ said Beauvoir, coming up beside Gamache, the chief’s excitement transmitting itself to everyone in the room.

  ‘Close, but it goes deeper. In herself.’

  ‘Anger?’ Peter tried again. He didn’t like being wrong but he was again, he could tell by Gamache’s reaction. After a moment’s silence Clara spoke, thinking out loud, ‘Yolande lives in a world of her own making. The Decormag perfect world, even though her husband’s a criminal and her son’s a thug and she lies and cheats and steals. And she’s not a

  real blonde, in case you hadn’t figured it out. She’s not a real anything from what I can tell. She lives in denial -’

  ‘That’s it ’Gamache almost jumped up and down like a game-show host. ‘Denial. She lives in denial. She coveres things up. That’s the reason for all her make-up. It’s a mak. Her face is a mask, her home is a mask, a sad attempt to paint and paper over something very ugly.’ He turned to face the wall then knelt down, his hand on a seam of wallpaper. ‘People tend to be consistent. That’s what’s wrong here. Had you said’, he turned to Beauvoir, ‘that Yolande had this same wallpaper at hom, that’d be one thing, but she doesn’t. So why would she spend days putting this up?’

  ‘To hide something’ said Clara, kneeling down beside him. His fingers had found a small corner of the wallpaper that was already peeling back

  ‘Exactly.’ Carefully Gamache pulled back one the corner and it rolled off, exposing about a foot of wall, and more wallpaper underneath.

  ‘Could she have put two layers on?’ Clara asked , feeling herself deflating.

  ‘I don’t think she had time,’ said Gamache. Clara leaned in closer.

  ‘Peter, look at this.’ He joined them on his knees and peered at the exposed wall. ‘This isn’t wallpaper,’ he said, looking at Clara, stunned.

  ‘ I didn’t think so,’ said Clara

  ‘Well, what is it, for God’s sake?’ said Gamache.

  ‘It’s Jane’s drawing,’ said Clara. ‘Jane drew this.’

  Gamache looked again and could see it. The bright colors, the childish strokes. He couldn’t tell what is was, not enough had been revealed, but it had indeed been put there by Miss Neal.

  ‘Is it possible?’ he asked Clara as the two stood and looked around the room.

  ‘Is what possible?’ asked Beauvoir. ‘Voyons, what are you talking about?’

  ‘The wallpaper,’ said Gamache. ‘I was wrong. It wasn’t meant to distract, it was meant to cover up. Where you see wallpaper, that’s where she drew.’

  ‘But it’s everywhere,’ protested Beauvoir. ‘She couldn’t—’ He stopped, seeing the look on the chief’s face. Maybe she did. Was it possible, he wondered, joining the others and turning around and around. All the walls? The ceiling? The floors even? He realised he’d far underestimated Les Anglais and their potential for insanity.

  ‘And upstairs?’ he asked. Gamache caught his eye and it was as though the world paused for an instant. He nodded.

  ‘C’est incroyable,’ whispered the two men together. Clara was beyond speech, and Peter was already over at another seam across the room, tugging.

  ‘There’s more here,’ he called, standing up.

  ‘This was her shame,’ said Gamache, and Clara knew the truth of it.

  Within an hour Peter and Clara had spread tarpaulins and moved the furniture. Before leaving, Gamache gave his approval for them to remove the wallpaper and as much of the covering paint as possible. Clara called Ben and he readily volunteered. She was delighted. She would have called Myrna, who would definitely have been a far ha
rder worker than Ben, but this was a job that called for delicacy and the touch of an artist, and Ben had that.

  ‘Any idea how long this’ll take?’ asked Gamache.

  ‘Honestly? Including the ceiling and the floors? Probably a year.’

  Gamache frowned.

  ‘It’s important, isn’t it?’ said Clara, reading his expression.

  ‘Could be. I don’t know, but I think it is.’

  ‘We’ll go as fast as we dare. Don’t want to ruin the images underneath. But I think we can get a lot of the stuff off, enough to see what’s underneath.’

  Fortunately Yolande, proving slapdash to the end, hadn’t prepped the wall, so the paper was peeling off already. Nor had she used primer under the painted bits, to Peter and Clara’s great relief. They started after lunch and continued with only a break for beer and chips mid-afternoon. In the evening Peter rigged up some floodlights and they continued, except Ben who felt maybe his elbow was acting up.

  At about seven a tired and bedraggled Peter and Clara decided to break for food and joined Ben by the fireplace. He’d at least managed to lay it and light it, and now they found him, his feet on the hassock, sipping red wine and reading Jane’s latest copy of The Guardian Weekly. Gabri arrived with Szechwan take-out. He’d heard rumors of the activity and wanted desperately to see for himself. He’d even rehearsed.

  The huge man, made even more enormous by his coat and scarves, swept into the room. Stopping dead in the center, and making sure he held his audience, he looked around and declared, ‘Either that wallpaper goes, or I do.’

  His appreciative audience roared their approval, took the food and kicked him out feeling that Jane and Oscar Wilde made one dead person too many in the room.

  They worked into the night, and finally gave it up around midnight, too tired to trust themselves anymore and both slightly nauseous from inhaling paint remover. Ben had long since gone home.

  The next morning, in the light of day, they saw they’d done about four square feet upstairs and a quarter of one wall downstairs. It looked as though Gamache had been right. Jane had covered every inch of her home. And Yolande had covered that. By midday a little more had been uncovered. Clara stood back to admire the few feet of wallpaper she’d stripped and Jane’s work underneath. Enough was emerging now to make it quite exciting. There seemed to be a pattern and purpose to Jane’s work. But what that purpose might be wasn’t clear, yet.

  ‘For God’s sake, Ben, is that all you’ve done?’ A disheartened Clara couldn’t help herself. Upstairs Peter had managed to get a couple of feet done, but Ben had hardly done anything, though, granted, what he had done was brilliant. Crystal clear and beautiful. But not enough. If they were going to solve the murder they needed to uncover all the walls. Quickly. Clara could feel her anxiety rising and knew she was becoming obsessed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ they both said at once then Ben stood up and looked down at her, hang-dog. ‘I’m sorry, Clara. I’m slow, I know, but I’ll get better. Practice.’

  ‘Never mind.’ She put her arm around his slim waist. ‘It’s Miller time. We can get back to work soon enough.’ Ben perked up and put his arm around her shoulder. The two of them walked by Peter, leaving him to watch their retreating backs and walk down the stairs alone.

  By that night a fair amount of the living-room walls had been exposed. They called Gamache, who brought beer and pizza and Beauvoir.

  ‘The answer’s here,’ said Gamache, simply, reaching for another beer. They ate in front of the fireplace in the living room, the aroma of three extra large ‘All Dressed’ from Pizza Pizza just masking the mineral spirits they’d used to remove the paint. ‘In this room, with this art. The answer’s here, I can feel it. It’s too much of a coincidence that Jane would invite you all here on the same night her art’s being shown, then be murdered within hours of telling everyone this.’

  ‘We have something to show you,’ said Clara, brushing off her jeans and standing up. ‘We’ve uncovered more of the walls. Shall we start upstairs?’

  Grabbing pieces of pizza they trooped upstairs. In Peter’s room the lighting was too dark to really appreciate what Jane had done, but Ben’s work was different. Though tiny, the area he’d uncovered was astonishing. Brilliant, bold strokes leapt from the walls as people and animals came alive. And, in some cases, people as animals.

  ‘Is that Nellie and Wayne?’ Gamache was looking at a patch of wall. There, clear as day, was a stick-figure woman leading a cow. It was a very thick stick, and a skinny, happy cow, with a beard.

  ‘Wonderful,’ Gamache murmured.

  They went back into the darkness downstairs. Peter had turned off the industrial floodlights he’d hooked up earlier in the day to allow them to work. Through dinner they’d eaten by firelight and the warm glow of a couple of table lamps. The walls had been in darkness. Now Peter went to the switch and flooded the room with light.

  Gamache screwed his eyes tight shut. After a few moments he opened them.

  It was like being in a cave, one of those wondrous caves explorers sometimes found filled with ancient symbols and depictions. Running caribou and swimming people. Gamache had read all about them in National Geographic, now he felt as though he’d been magically transported into one, here in the heart of Quebec, in a settled and even staid old village. As with cave drawings, Gamache knew the history of Three Pines and its people was depicted here. Slowly, hands clasped behind his back, Gamache walked around the walls. They were covered floor to ceiling with village scenes and rural scenes and classrooms and children and animals and adults singing and playing and working. A few of the scenes were of accidents, and there was at least one funeral.

  He no longer felt he’d walked into a cave. Now he felt surrounded by life. He took a couple of steps back and could feel tears stinging his eyes. He screwed them shut again, hoping they’d think him bothered by the strong light. And in a way he was. He was overwhelmed by emotion. Sadness and melancholia. And delight. Joy. He was lifted right out of himself. It transcended the literal. This was Jane’s long house. Her home had become her long house, where every one, every event, every thing, every emotion was present. And Gamache knew then the murderer was there as well. Somewhere on those walls.

  The next day Clara took the envelope to Yolande at home. Ringing the gleaming faux-brass bell and hearing the Beethoven chimes, Clara steeled herself. Just this one thing for Jane, just this one thing for Jane.

  ‘Bitch,’ a furious Yolande screamed. There followed a stream of insults and accusations, ending with a promise to sue Clara for everything she had.

  Just this one thing for Jane, just this one thing for Jane. ‘You’re a goddamned thief, tête carrée. That home belongs to me. To my family. How can you sleep at night, you bitch?’

  Just this one thing.

  Clara held up the envelope until it caught Yolande’s attention, and like a child presented with something shiny and new, Yolande stopped screaming and stared, mesmerised by the slim white paper.

  ‘Is that for me? Is that mine? That’s Aunt Jane’s writing, isn’t it?’

  ‘I have a question for you.’ Clara waved it back and forth.

  ‘Give it to me.’ Yolande lunged, but Clara flicked it out of her reach.

  ‘Why did you cover up her drawings?’

  ‘So you found them,’ Yolande spat. ‘Filthy, insane things. Everyone thought she was so wonderful but her family knew she was nuts. My grandparents knew she was crazy since she was a teenager and doing those hideous drawings. They were ashamed of her. All her art looked retarded. My mother said she actually wanted to study art but my grandparents put an end to that. Told her the truth. Told her it wasn’t art. It was an embarrassment. They told her never to ever show anyone her scrawls. We told her the truth. It was our duty. We didn’t want her to get hurt, did we? It was for her own good. And what did we get for it? Thrown out of the family home. She actually had the nerve to say I’d be allowed back the moment I apologised. The only thing I was
sorry about, I told her, was that she ruined our home. Crazy old lady.’

  Clara saw again Jane sitting in the Bistro, crying. Tears of joy that someone, finally, accepted her art. And Clara knew then what it had taken for Jane to expose one of her works.

  ‘She fooled you, didn’t she? You didn’t know your friend was a freak. Well, now you know what we’ve had to put up with.’

  ‘You have no idea, have you? No idea what you’ve thrown away? You’re a stupid, stupid woman, Yolande.’ Clara’s mind went blank, as it always did in confrontations. She was vibrating and on the verge of losing it completely. She paid for her outburst by being forced to listen to a string of accusations and threats. Oddly enough, Yolande’s rage was so deeply unattractive Clara could feel her own anger ease.

  ‘Why that particular wallpaper?’ she asked into Yolande’s purple face.

  ‘Hideous, wasn’t it? It seemed fitting to cover one monstrosity with another. Besides, it was cheap.’

  The door slammed. Clara realised she was still holding the envelope so she slipped it under the door. Done. Just this one thing for Jane. And it wasn’t so hard, after all, standing up to Yolande. All those years she’d stood silent in the face of Yolande’s sly and sometimes outright attacks, and now to find it’s possible to speak out. Clara wondered whether Jane knew this would happen when she addressed the envelope. Knew Clara would be the one to deliver it. Knew Yolande would react the way she always did to Clara. And knew she’d given Clara one last chance to stand up for herself.

  As she walked away from the perfect, silent house, Clara thanked Jane.

  Yolande saw the envelope appear. Tearing it open she found a single playing card. The Queen of Hearts. The same one Aunt Jane had put out on the kitchen table at night when tiny Yolande had visited her and Aunt Jane had promised that in the morning that card would be different. It would have changed.

  She peered into the envelope again. Surely there was something else? Some inheritance from her aunt? A cheque? A key to a safety deposit box? But the envelope was empty. Yolande examined the card, trying to remember whether it was the same one from her childhood. Were the markings on the Queen’s robes the same? Did her face have one eye or two? No, Yolande concluded. This wasn’t the same card. Someone had switched them. She’d been cheated again. As she made for the bucket to clean off the front stoop where Clara had stood, she threw the Queen of Hearts on the fire.