A Trick of the Light cig-7

by Penny, Louise

  “Phhht.” Myrna made a noise. “Ix-nay on the leansing-cay.”

  Beauvoir stared at the women. It wasn’t enough that they were English and had a prayer stick, but now they’d lapsed into pig latin. It was no wonder there were so many murders here. The only mystery was how any got solved, with help like this.

  “I bent down to mound dirt around the prayer stick and this thing appeared,” Myrna explained, as though this was a reasonable thing to be doing at a murder scene.

  “Didn’t you see the police tape?” Beauvoir demanded.

  “Didn’t you see the coin?” Ruth countered.

  Gamache held up his hand and the two stopped bickering.

  On the side now exposed there was writing. What looked like a poem.

  Putting on his half-moon reading glasses he furrowed his brow, trying to read through the dirt.

  No, not a poem.

  A prayer.

  NINE

  For the second time that day Armand Gamache stood from crouching beside this flower bed.

  The first time he’d been staring at a dead woman, this time he’d been staring at a prayer stick. Its bright, cheerful ribbons fluttering in the slight breeze. Catching, according to Myrna, currents of good energy. If she was right, there was a lot around, as the ribbons flapped and danced.

  He straightened up, brushing his knees. Beside him, Inspector Beauvoir was glowering at the spot where the coin had been found.

  Where he’d missed it.

  Beauvoir was in charge of the crime scene investigation, and had personally searched the area directly around the body.

  “You found it just here?” the Chief pointed to the mounded earth.

  Myrna and Clara had joined them. Beauvoir had called Agent Lacoste and she arrived that moment with a crime scene kit.

  “That’s right,” said Myrna. “In the flower bed. It was buried and caked with dirt. Hard to see.”

  “I’ll take that,” said Beauvoir, grabbing the crime scene kit, annoyed at what he took to be a patronizing tone in Myrna’s voice. As though she needed to make excuses for his failure. He bent down to examine the earth.

  “Why didn’t we find it before?” asked the Chief.

  It wasn’t a criticism of his team. Gamache was genuinely perplexed. They were professional and thorough. Still, mistakes happened. But not, he thought, missing a silver coin sitting in a flower bed two feet from the dead body.

  “I know how it was missed,” said Myrna. “Gabri could tell you too. Anyone who gardens could tell you. We’d weeded yesterday morning and mulched the earth in the beds so that it’d be fresh and dark and show off the flowers. Gardeners call it ‘fluffing’ the garden. Making the earth soft. But when we do that the ground becomes very crumbly. I’ve lost whole tools in there. Laid them down and they sort of tumble into a crevice and get half buried.”

  “This is a flower bed,” said Gamache, “not the Himalayas. Could something really be swallowed up in there?”

  “Try it.”

  The Chief Inspector walked to the other side of the flower bed. “Did you mulch here too?” he asked.

  “Everywhere,” said Myrna. “Go on. Try it.”

  Gamache knelt and dropped a one dollar coin into the flower bed. It sat on top of the earth, clearly visible. Picking it back up, he rose and looked at Myrna.

  “Any other suggestions?”

  She gave the dirt a filthy look. “It’s probably settled now. If it was freshly turned it’d work.”

  She got a trowel from Clara’s shed and dug around, turning the earth, fluffing it up.

  “OK, try it now.”

  Gamache knelt again, and again dropped the coin into the flower bed. This time it slid over onto its side, down a small crevice.

  “See,” said Myrna.

  “Well, yes, I do see. I see the coin,” said Gamache. “I’m afraid I’m not convinced. Could it have been there for a while? It might’ve fallen into the bed years ago. It’s made of plastic so it wouldn’t rust or age.”

  “I doubt it,” said Clara. “We would’ve found it long ago. They sure would’ve found it yesterday when they weeded and mulched, don’t you think?”

  “I’ve given up thinking,” said Myrna.

  They walked back to where Beauvoir was working.

  “Nothing more, Chief,” he said, standing abruptly and slapping his knees free of dirt. “I can’t believe we missed it the first time.”

  “Well, we have it now.” Gamache looked at the coin in the evidence bag Lacoste was holding. It wasn’t money, wasn’t currency of any country. At first he’d wondered if it might be from the Middle East. What with the camel. After all, Canadian currency had a moose on it, why shouldn’t Saudi currency have a camel?

  But the words were English. And there was no mention of a denomination.

  Just the camel on one side and the prayer on the other.

  “You’re sure it doesn’t belong to you or Peter?” he asked Clara.

  “I’m sure. Ruth briefly claimed it, but Myrna said it couldn’t possibly belong to her.”

  Gamache turned to the large, caftaned woman beside him, his brows raised.

  “And how do you know that?”

  “Because I know what it is and I know Ruth would never have one. I assumed you recognized it.”

  “I have no idea what it is.” They all looked again at the coin sitting in the Baggie.

  “May I?” Myrna asked and when Gamache nodded Lacoste handed her the bag. Myrna looked through the plastic.

  “God,” she read. “Grant me the serenity,

  To accept the things I cannot change,

  Courage to change the things I can,

  And wisdom to know the difference.”

  “It’s a beginner’s chip,” she said. “From Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s given to people who’re just getting sober.”

  “How do you know that?” the Chief asked.

  “Because when I was in practice I suggested a number of clients join AA. Some of them later showed me what they called their beginner’s chip. Just like that.” She gestured to the bag back in Lacoste’s hand. “Whoever dropped it is a member of AA.”

  “I see what you mean about Ruth,” said Beauvoir.

  Gamache thanked them and watched as Clara and Myrna walked back to the house, to join the others.

  Beauvoir and Agent Lacoste were talking, going over notes and findings. Inspector Beauvoir would be giving her some instructions, Gamache knew. Leads to follow while they were in Montréal.

  He wandered around the garden. One mystery was solved. The coin was an AA beginner’s chip.

  But who dropped it? Lillian Dyson as she fell? But even if she did his experiment showed it would just sit on the earth. They’d have seen it right away.

  Did her killer lose it? But, if he was going to break her neck with his bare hands he wouldn’t be holding a coin. Besides, the same thing held true for the killer. If he dropped it, why didn’t they find it? How did it get buried?

  The Chief Inspector stood quietly in the warm, sunny garden and imagined a murder. Someone sneaking up behind Lillian Dyson in the dark. Grabbing her around the neck, and twisting. Quickly. Before she could call out, cry out. Struggle.

  But she would have done something. She’d have flailed her arms out, even for a moment.

  And he saw clearly that he’d made a mistake.

  Walking back to the flower bed he called Beauvoir and Lacoste, who quickly joined him.

  From his pocket he again brought out the one dollar coin. Then he tossed it into the air and watched as it fell to the freshly turned soil, sat briefly on top of a chunk of dirt, then slipped off to be buried by earth that crumbled in after it.

  “My God, it did bury itself,” said Lacoste. “Is that what happened?”

  “I think so,” said the Chief, watching as Lacoste picked the coin back up and handed it to him. “When I first tried it I was kneeling down, close to the dirt. But if it fell during the murder it would have dropped from a
standing position. Higher up. With greater force. I think when the murderer grasped her neck her arms shot out, almost a spasm, and the coin was flung away from her body. It would have hit with enough impact to dislodge the loose earth.”

  “That’s how it got buried and how we missed it,” said Agent Lacoste.

  “Oui,” said Gamache, turning to leave. “And it means that Lillian Dyson had to have been holding it. Now, why would she be standing in this garden holding an AA beginner’s chip?”

  But Beauvoir suspected the Chief was also thinking something else. That Beauvoir had fucked up. He should have seen the coin and not have it found by four crazy women worshiping a stick. That wasn’t going to sound good in court, for any of them.

  * * *

  The women had left, the Sûreté officers had left. Everyone had left and now Peter and Clara were finally alone.

  Peter took Clara in his arms and hugging her tight he whispered, “I’ve been waiting all day to do this. I heard about the reviews. They’re fantastic. Congratulations.”

  “They are good, aren’t they,” said Clara. “Yipppeee. Can you believe it?”

  “Are you kidding?” asked Peter, breaking from the embrace and striding across the kitchen. “I had no doubt.”

  “Oh, come on,” laughed Clara, “you don’t even like my work.”

  “I do.”

  “And what do you like about them?” she teased.

  “Well, they’re pretty. And you covered up most of the numbers with the paint.” He’d been poking in the fridge and now he turned around, a bottle of champagne in his hand.

  “My father gave this to me on my twenty-first birthday. He told me to open it when I’d had a huge personal success. To toast myself.” He unwrapped the foil around the cork. “I put it in the fridge yesterday before we left, so we could toast you.”

  “No wait, Peter,” said Clara. “We should save that.”

  “What? For my own solo show? We both know that won’t happen.”

  “But it will. If it happened for me, it—”

  “—can happen for anyone?”

  “You know what I mean. I really think we should wait—”

  The cork popped.

  “Too late,” said Peter with a huge smile. “We had a call while you were out.”

  He carefully poured their glasses.

  “From who?”

  “André Castonguay.” He handed her a glass. Time enough later to tell her about all the other calls.

  “Really? What did he want?”

  “Wanted to talk to you. To us. To both of us. Santé.”

  He tipped his glass and clinked hers. “And congratulations.”

  “Thank you. Do you want to meet with him?”

  Clara’s glass hung in the air, not quite touching her lips. Her nose felt the giddy popping of the champagne bubbles. Finally released. Like her, they’d waited years and years, decades, for this moment.

  “Only if you do,” said Peter.

  “Can we wait? Let all of this settle down a bit?”

  “Whatever you’d like.”

  But she could hear the disappointment in his voice.

  “If you feel strongly, Peter, we can meet with him. Why don’t we? I mean, he’s right here now. Might as well.”

  “No, no, that’s OK.” He smiled at her. “If he’s serious he’ll wait. Honestly, Clara, this is your time to shine. And neither Lillian’s death nor André Castonguay can take that away.”

  More bubbles popped, and Clara wondered if they were popping on their own or had been pricked by tiny, almost invisible needles like the one Peter had just used. Reminding her, even as they toasted her success, of the death. The murder, in their own garden.

  She tipped the glass up and felt the wine on her lips. But over the flute she was staring at Peter, who suddenly looked less substantial. A little hollow. A little like a bubble himself. Floating away.

  I was much too far out all my life, she thought as she drank. And not waving, but drowning.

  What were the lines just before that? Clara slowly lowered her glass to the counter. Peter had taken a long sip of the champagne. More of a swig, really. A deep, masculine, almost aggressive gulp.

  Nobody heard him, the dead man,

  But still he lay moaning.

  Those were the lines, thought Clara, as she stared at Peter.

  The champagne on her lips was sour, the wine turned years before. But Peter, who’d taken a huge gulp, was smiling.

  As though nothing was wrong.

  When had he died? Clara wondered. And why hadn’t she noticed?

  * * *

  “No, I understand,” said Inspector Beauvoir.

  Chief Inspector Gamache looked across at Beauvoir in the driver’s seat. Eyes staring ahead at the traffic as they approached the Champlain Bridge into Montréal. Beauvoir’s face was placid, relaxed. Noncommittal.

  But his grip was tight on the wheel.

  “If Agent Lacoste is going to be promoted to inspector I want to see how she’ll handle the added responsibility,” said Gamache. “So I gave the dossier to her.”

  He knew he didn’t have to explain his decisions. But he chose to. These weren’t children he was working with, but thoughtful, intelligent adults. If he didn’t want them to behave like children he’d better not treat them like that. He wanted independent thinkers. And he got them. Men and women who’d earned the right to know why a decision was taken.

  “This is about giving Agent Lacoste more authority, that’s all. It’s still your investigation. She understands that, and I need you to understand that as well, so there’s no confusion.”

  “Got it,” said Beauvoir. “I just wish you’d mentioned it to me beforehand.”

  “You’re right, I should have. I’m sorry. In fact, I’ve been thinking it makes sense for you to supervise Agent Lacoste. Act as a mentor. If she’s going to be promoted to inspector and become your second in command you’ll have to train her.”

  Beauvoir nodded and his grip loosened on the wheel. They spent the next few minutes discussing the case and Lacoste’s strengths and weaknesses before lapsing into silence.

  As he watched the graceful span of the bridge across the St. Lawrence River approach, Gamache’s mind turned elsewhere. To something he’d been considering for a while now.

  “There is something else.”

  “Oh?” Beauvoir glanced over to his boss.

  Gamache had been planning to speak to Beauvoir about this quietly. Perhaps over dinner that night, or a walk on the mountain. Not when they were hurtling down the autoroute at 120 kilometers an hour.

  Still, the opening was there. And Gamache took it.

  “We need to talk about how you’re doing. There’s something wrong. You aren’t getting better, are you.”

  It was not a question.

  “I’m sorry about the coin. It was stupid—”

  “I’m not talking about the coin. That was just a mistake. It happens. God knows it’s just possible I’ve made a few in my life.”

  He saw Beauvoir smile.

  “Then what are you talking about, sir?”

  “The painkillers. Why’re you still taking them?”

  There was silence in the car as Québec whizzed by their windows.

  “How’d you know about that?” asked Beauvoir, finally.

  “I suspected. You carry them with you, in your jacket pocket.”

  “Did you look?” asked Beauvoir, an edge to his voice.

  “No. But I’ve watched you.” As he did now. His second in command had always been so lithe, so energetic. Cocky. He was full of life and full of himself. It could annoy Gamache. But mostly he’d watched Beauvoir’s vitality with pleasure and some amusement, as Jean Guy threw himself headlong into life.

  But now the young man seemed drained. Dour. As though every day was an effort. As though he was dragging an anvil behind him.

  “I’ll be fine,” said Beauvoir, and heard how empty that sounded. “The doctor and therapists
say I’m doing well. Every day I feel better.”

  Armand Gamache didn’t want to pursue it. But he had to.

  “You’re still in pain from your wounds.”

  Again, this wasn’t a question.

  “It’ll just take time,” said Beauvoir, glancing over to his Chief. “I really am feeling much better, all the time.”

  But he didn’t look it. And Gamache was concerned.

  The Chief Inspector was silent. He himself had never been in better shape, or at least, not for many, many years. He was walking more now, and the physiotherapy had brought back his strength and agility. He went to the gym at Sûreté Headquarters three times a week. At first it had been humiliating, as he’d struggled to lift weights about the size of honey-glazed doughnuts, and to stay on the elliptical for more than a few minutes.

  But he’d kept at it, and kept at it. And slowly his strength had not just returned, but surpassed where he’d been before the attack.

  There were still some residual effects, physically. His right hand trembled when he was tired or overstressed. And his body ached when he first woke up, or got up after sitting for too long. There were a few aches and pains. But not nearly as much as the emotional, which he struggled with every day.

  Some days were very good. And some, like this, were not.

  He’d suspected Jean Guy was struggling, and he knew recovery was never a straight line. But Beauvoir seemed to be slipping further and further back.

  “Is there something I can do?” he asked. “Do you need time off to focus on your health? I know Daniel and Roslyn would love to have you visit them in Paris. Maybe that would help.”

  Beauvoir laughed. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  Gamache grinned. It would be hard to imagine what could ruin a trip to Paris, but a week in the small flat with his son, daughter-in-law and two young grandchildren sure took a run at it. He and Reine-Marie now rented a flat close-by when they visited.

  “Merci, patron. I’d rather hunt cold-blooded killers.”

  Gamache laughed. The skyline of Montréal was looming in the foreground now, across the river. And Mont Royal rose in the middle of the city. The huge cross on top of the mountain was invisible now, but every night it sprang to life, lit as a beacon to a population that no longer believed in the church, but believed in family and friends, culture and humanity.