A Trick of the Light cig-7

by Penny, Louise

  “What d’you mean?”

  “We get hurt into it. No pain, no product.”

  “You believe that?” asked Clara.

  “Don’t you? What did the New York Times say about your art?”

  Clara searched her brain. She knew it was good. Something about hope and rising up.

  “Welcome to the bench,” said Ruth. “You’re early. I’d have thought it would take another ten years. But here you are.”

  And for a moment Ruth looked exactly like Clara’s portrait. Embittered, disappointed. Sitting in the sun but remembering, reviewing, replaying every insult. Every unkind word, bringing them out and examining them like disappointing birthday gifts.

  Oh, no no no, thought Clara. Still the dead one lay moaning. Is this how it starts?

  She watched as Ruth again pelted a bird with a chunk of inedible bread.

  Clara got up to leave.

  “Hope takes its place among the modern masters.”

  Clara turned back to Ruth, looking at her, the sun just catching her rheumy eyes.

  “That’s what the New York Times said,” said Ruth. “And the London Times said, Clara Morrow’s art makes rejoicing cool again. Don’t forget, Clara,” she whispered.

  Ruth turned away again and sat ramrod straight, alone with her thoughts and her heavy, stone bread. Glancing, occasionally, into the empty sky.

  EIGHT

  Gabri put a lemonade in front of Beauvoir and a glass of iced tea in front of the Chief Inspector. A wedge of lemon sat on each rim and the glasses were already perspiring in the warm afternoon.

  “Do you want to make a reservation at the B and B?” Gabri asked. “There’s plenty of room, if you’d like.”

  “We’ll discuss it. Merci, patron,” said Beauvoir with a small smile. He still didn’t feel comfortable making friends with suspects, but he couldn’t seem to help it. They got up his nose, to be sure. But they also got under his skin.

  Gabri left and the men drank in silence for a moment.

  Beauvoir had arrived at the bistro first and gone directly to the bathroom. He’d splashed cool water on his face and wished he could take a pill. But he’d promised himself to wait until bedtime for the next one, to help him sleep.

  By the time he returned to the table the Chief was there.

  “Any luck?” he asked Gamache.

  “The dealers admitted they knew Lillian Dyson, though claim not to know her well.”

  “Do you believe them?”

  It was always the question. Who do you believe? And how do you decide?

  Gamache thought about it, then shook his head. “I don’t know. I thought I knew the art world, but I realize now I only saw what they wanted me—what they want everyone—to see. The art. The galleries. But there’s so much more going on behind.” Gamache leaned toward Beauvoir. “For instance, André Castonguay owns a prestigious gallery. Shows artists’ works. Represents artists. But François Marois? What does he have?”

  Beauvoir was quiet, watching the Chief, taking in the gleam in his eye, the enthusiasm as he described what he’d found. Not the physical landscape, but the emotional. The intellectual.

  Many might have thought the Chief Inspector was a hunter. He tracked down killers. But Jean Guy knew he wasn’t that. Chief Inspector Gamache was an explorer by nature. He was never happier than when he was pushing the boundaries, exploring the internal terrain. Areas even the person themselves hadn’t explored. Had never examined. Probably because it was too scary.

  Gamache went there. To the end of the known world, and beyond. Into the dark, hidden places. He looked into the crevices, where the worst things hid.

  And Jean Guy Beauvoir followed.

  “What François Marois has,” Gamache continued, holding Beauvoir’s eyes, “is the artists. But even more than that, what he really has is information. He knows people. The buyers, the artists. He knows how to navigate a complex world of money and ego and perception. Marois hoards what he knows. I think he only lets it out when it either suits his purposes or he has no choice.”

  “Or when he’s trapped in a lie,” said Beauvoir. “As you trapped him this afternoon.”

  “But how much more does he know that he isn’t telling?” asked Gamache, not expecting an answer from Beauvoir, and not getting one.

  Beauvoir glanced at the menu but without interest.

  “Have you chosen?” Gabri asked, his pen at the ready.

  Beauvoir closed the menu and handed it to Gabri. “Nothing, thanks.”

  “I’m fine, merci, patron,” said the Chief, handing the menu back and watching Clara leave Ruth and walk toward Myrna’s bookstore.

  * * *

  Clara hugged her friend and felt the thick rolls of Myrna under the brilliant yellow caftan.

  Finally they pulled apart and Myrna looked at her friend.

  “What brought that on?”

  “I was just talking to Ruth—”

  “Oh, dear,” said Myrna and gave Clara another hug. “How many times have I told you to never speak to Ruth on your own? It’s far too dangerous. You don’t want to go wandering around in that head all alone.”

  Clara laughed. “You’ll never believe it, but she helped me.”

  “How?”

  “She showed me my future, if I’m not careful.”

  Myrna smiled, understanding. “I’ve been thinking about what happened. The murder of your friend.”

  “She wasn’t a friend.”

  Myrna nodded. “What do you think about a ritual? Something to heal.”

  “The garden?” It seemed a little late to heal Lillian, and privately Clara doubted she’d have wanted to bring her back to life anyway.

  “Your garden. And whatever else might need healing.” Myrna looked at Clara with a melodramatic gaze.

  “Me? You think finding a woman I hated dead in my garden might have screwed me up?”

  “I hope it has,” said Myrna. “We could do a smudging ritual to get rid of whatever bad energy and thoughts are still hanging around your garden.”

  It sounded silly, Clara knew, said so boldly like that. As though wafting smoke over a place where murder had happened could have any effect. But they’d done smudging rituals before and it was very calming, very comforting. And Clara needed both right now.

  “Great,” she said. “I’ll call Dominique—”

  “—and I’ll get the stuff.”

  By the time Clara got off the phone Myrna was back down from her apartment above the bookshop. She carried a gnarled old stick, some ribbons and what looked like a huge cigar. Or something.

  “I think I have smudge envy,” said Clara, pointing to the cigar.

  “Here,” said Myrna, handing Clara the tree limb. “Take this.”

  “What is it? A stick?”

  “Not just a stick. It’s a prayer stick.”

  “So I probably shouldn’t beat the crap out of the critic for the Ottawa Star with it,” Clara said, following Myrna out of the bookshop.

  “Perhaps not. And don’t beat yourself with it either.”

  “What makes it a prayer stick?”

  “It’s a prayer stick because I say it is,” Myrna said.

  Dominique was coming down du Moulin and they waved to each other.

  “Wait a second.” Clara veered off to speak to Ruth, still sitting on the bench. “We’re going into the back garden. Want to join us?”

  Ruth looked at Clara holding the stick, then at Myrna with the cigar made of dried sage and sweetgrass.

  “You’re not going to do one of those profane witch ritual things are you?”

  “We certainly are,” said Myrna from behind Clara.

  “Count me in.” Ruth struggled to her feet.

  The police were gone. The garden was empty. No one to even stand watch over the place where a life was lost. Where a life was taken. The yellow “crime scene” tape fluttered and circled part of the lawn grass and one of the perennial beds.

  “I’ve always thought this garden w
as a crime,” said Ruth.

  “You have to admit, it’s gotten better since Myrna started helping,” said Clara.

  Ruth turned to Myrna. “So that’s who you are. I’ve been wondering. You’re the gardener.”

  “I’d plant you,” said Myrna, “if you weren’t a toxic waste site.”

  Ruth laughed. “Touché.”

  “Is this where the body was found?” Dominique asked, pointing to the circle.

  “No, the tape is part of Clara’s garden design,” snapped Ruth.

  “Bitch,” said Myrna.

  “Witch,” said Ruth.

  They were beginning to like each other, Clara could see.

  “Do you think we should cross it?” asked Myrna. She hadn’t expected the yellow tape.

  “No,” said Ruth, batting the tape down with her cane and stepping over it. She turned back to the others. “Come on in, the water’s fine.”

  “Except it’s very hot,” said Clara to Dominique.

  “And there’s a shark in it,” said Dominique.

  The three women joined Ruth. If anyone could contaminate a site it was Ruth, and the damage was probably already done. Besides, they were there to decontaminate it.

  “So what do we do?” Dominique asked as Clara planted the prayer stick into the flower bed beside where Lillian’s body was found.

  “We’re going to do a ritual,” Myrna explained. “It’s called smudging. We light this,” Myrna held up the dried herbs, “and then we walk around the garden with it.”

  Ruth was staring at the cigar of herbs. “Freud might have a little something to say about your ritual.”

  “Sometimes a smudge stick is just a smudge stick,” said Clara.

  “Why’re we doing this?” Dominique asked. This was clearly a side to her neighbors she hadn’t seen before and it didn’t seem an improvement.

  “To get rid of the bad spirits,” said Myrna. It did, when said so baldly, sound a little unlikely. But Myrna believed it, with all her considerable heart.

  Dominique turned to Ruth. “Well, I guess you’re screwed.”

  There was a pause and then Ruth snorted in laughter. Hearing that Clara wondered whether turning into Ruth Zardo would be such a bad thing.

  “First, we form a circle,” said Myrna. And they did. Myrna lit the sage and sweetgrass and walked from Clara to Dominique to Ruth, wafting the perfumed smoke over each woman. For protection, for peace.

  Clara inhaled and closed her eyes as the soft smoke swirled around her for a moment. Taking, said Myrna, all their negative energy. The bad spirits, outside and in. Absorbing them. And making room for healing.

  Then they walked around the garden, not just the dreadful place Lillian had died, but the entire garden. They took turns drifting smoke into the trees, into the babbling Rivière Bella Bella, into the roses and peonies and black-centered irises.

  And finally they ended at the beginning. At the yellow tape. The hole in the garden where a life had disappeared.

  “Now here’s a good one,” Ruth quoted one of her own poems as she stared at the spot.

  “You’re lying on your deathbed.

  You have one hour to live.

  Who is it, exactly, you have needed

  all these years to forgive?”

  Myrna pulled bright ribbons from her pocket and gave one to each of them saying, “We tie our ribbon to the prayer stick and send out good thoughts.”

  They glanced at Ruth, waiting for the cynical comment. But none came. Dominique went first, fastening her pink ribbon to the gnarled stick.

  Myrna went next, tying her purple ribbon and closing her eyes briefly to think good thoughts.

  “Won’t be the first time I’ve tied one on,” Ruth admitted with a smile. Then she fastened her red ribbon, pausing to rest her veined hand on the prayer stick, like a cane, and look to the sky.

  Listening.

  But there was only the sound of bees. Bumbling.

  Finally, Clara tied on her green ribbon, knowing she should think kind thoughts of Lillian. Something, something. She searched inside, peering into dark corners, opening doors closed for years. Trying to find one nice thing to say about Lillian.

  The other women waited while the moments went by.

  Clara closed her eyes and reviewed her time with Lillian, so many years ago. It whipped past, the early, happy memories blighted by the horrible events later on.

  Stop, Clara commanded her brain. This was the route to the park bench. With the inedible stone bread.

  No. Good things did happen and she needed to remember that. If not to release Lillian’s spirit, then to release her own.

  Who is it, exactly, you have needed

  all these years to forgive?

  “You were kind to me, often. And you were a good friend. Once.”

  The gem bright ribbons, the four female ribbons, fluttered and intertwined.

  Myrna bent to pat the garden soil more firmly around the prayer stick.

  “What’s this?”

  She stood up, holding something caked in dirt. Wiping it off, she showed it to the others. It was a coin, the size of an Old West silver dollar.

  “That’s mine,” said Ruth, reaching for it.

  “Not so fast, Miss Kitty. Are you sure?” asked Myrna. Dominique and Clara took turns examining it. It was a coin, but not a silver dollar. In fact, it was coated in silver paint but it seemed plastic. And there was writing on it.

  “What is it?” Dominique handed it back to Myrna.

  “I think I know. And I’m pretty sure it isn’t yours,” Myrna said to Ruth.

  * * *

  Agent Isabelle Lacoste had joined Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir on the terrasse. She ordered a Diet Coke and gave them an update.

  The Incident Room was up and running in the old railway station. Computers, phone lines, satellite links installed. Desks, swivel chairs, filing cabinets, all the hardware in place. It happened quickly, expertly. The homicide division of the Sûreté was used to going into remote communities to investigate murder. Like the Army Corps of Engineers, they knew time and precision counted.

  “I’ve found out about Lillian Dyson’s family.” Lacoste pulled her chair forward and opened her notebook. “She’d divorced. No children. Her parents are both alive. They live on Harvard Ave in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.”

  “How old are they?” Gamache asked.

  “He’s eighty-three, she’s eighty-two. Lillian was an only child.”

  Gamache nodded. This was, of course, the worst part of any case. Telling the living about the death.

  “Do they know?”

  “Not yet,” said Lacoste. “I wondered if you—”

  “I’ll go into Montréal this afternoon and speak to them.” Where possible he told the family himself. “We should also search Madame Dyson’s apartment.” Gamache took the guest list from his breast pocket. “Can you get agents to interview everyone on this list? They were at the party last night or the vernissage, or both. I’ve marked the people we’ve already spoken to.”

  Beauvoir put out his hand for the list.

  It was his role, they knew, to coordinate the interviews, assemble the evidence, assign agents.

  The Chief Inspector paused, then handed the list to Lacoste. Effectively handing control of the investigation to her. Both agents looked surprised.

  “I’d like you with me in Montréal,” he said to Beauvoir.

  “Of course,” said Beauvoir, perplexed.

  They all had delineated roles within the homicide division. It was one of the things the Chief insisted on. That there be no confusion, no cracks. No overlap. They all knew what their jobs were, knew what was expected. Worked as a team. No rivalry. No in-fighting.

  Chief Inspector Gamache was the undisputed head of homicide.

  Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir was his second in command.

  Agent Lacoste, up for promotion, was the senior agent. And below them were more than a hundred agents and investigators. And several
hundred support staff.

  The Chief made it clear. In confusion, in fractures, lay danger. Not just internal squabbles and politics, but something real and threatening. If they weren’t clear and cohesive, if they didn’t work together as a team, a violent criminal could escape. Or worse. Kill again.

  Murderers hid in the tiniest of cracks. And Chief Inspector Gamache was damned if he was going to let his department provide one.

  But now the Chief had broken one of his own cardinal rules. He handed the investigation, the day-to-day operations, over to Agent Isabelle Lacoste instead of Beauvoir.

  Lacoste took the list, scanned it, and nodded. “I’ll get on it right away, Chief.”

  Both men watched Agent Lacoste leave, then Beauvoir leaned forward.

  “OK, patron. What’s this about?” he whispered. But before Gamache could answer they saw four women heading their way. Myrna in the lead, with Clara, Dominique and Ruth in her wake.

  Gamache rose and bowed slightly to the women. “Would you like to join us?”

  “We won’t stay long, but we wanted to show you something. We found this in the flower bed by where the woman was killed.” Myrna handed him the coin.

  “Really?” said Gamache, surprised. He looked down at the dirty coin in his palm. His people had done a thorough search of the whole garden, of the whole village. What could they have missed?

  There was the image of a camel on the face of it, just visible beneath the smears.

  “Who’s touched this?” Beauvoir asked.

  “We all did,” said Ruth, proudly.

  “Do you not know what to do with evidence at a crime scene?”

  “Do you not know how to collect evidence?” Ruth asked. “If you did we wouldn’t have found it.”

  “This was just lying in the garden?” Gamache asked. With the tip of his finger, careful not to touch it more than necessary, he flipped it over.

  “No,” said Myrna. “It was buried.”

  “Then how did you find it?”

  “With the prayer stick,” said Ruth.

  “What’s a prayer stick?” Beauvoir asked, afraid of the answer.

  “We can show you,” Dominique offered. “We put it in the flower bed where the woman was murdered.”

  “We were doing a ritual cleansing—” said Clara, before being cut off by Myrna.