A Trick of the Light cig-7

by Penny, Louise

  “Lillian?” Madame Dyson looked astonished. “I’ve never seen her drunk in my life. She used to be the designated driver at parties. She’d have a few drinks sometimes, but never many.”

  “We don’t even keep alcohol in the house,” said Monsieur Dyson.

  “Why not?” Gamache asked.

  “We just lost interest, I suppose,” said Madame Dyson. “There were other things to spend our pensions on.”

  Gamache nodded and got up. “May I?” He indicated the pictures on the walls.

  “Please.” Madame Dyson joined him.

  “Very pretty,” he said as they gazed at the photographs. Lillian aged as they walked around the modest room. From cherished newborn to adored teen and into a lovely young woman, with hair the color of a sunset.

  “Your daughter was found in a garden,” he said, trying to make it sound not too gruesome. “It belonged to her friend Clara.”

  Madame Dyson stopped and stared at the Chief Inspector. “Clara? But that’s not possible. Lillian would never have gone there. She’d meet the devil before she’d meet that woman.”

  “Did you say Lillian was killed at Clara’s home?” demanded Monsieur Dyson.

  “Oui. In her backyard.”

  “Then you know who killed Lillian,” said Monsieur Dyson. “Have you arrested her?”

  “I haven’t,” said Gamache. “There are other possibilities. Is there anyone else your daughter talked about since her return to Montréal? Anyone who might wish her harm?”

  “No one as obvious as Clara,” snapped Monsieur Dyson.

  “I know this is difficult,” said Gamache quietly, calmly. He waited a moment before speaking again. “But you need to think about my question. It’s vital. Did she talk about anyone else? Anyone she’d had an upset with recently?”

  “No one,” said Madame Dyson, eventually. “As we said, she never seemed happier.”

  Chief Inspector Gamache and Beauvoir thanked the Dysons for their help and gave them their cards.

  “Please call,” said the Chief, standing at the door. “If you remember anything, or if you need anything.”

  “Who do we speak to about—” Madame Dyson began.

  “I’ll have someone come over and talk with you about arrangements. Is that all right?”

  They nodded. Monsieur Dyson had fought to his feet and stood beside his wife, staring at Gamache. Two men, two fathers. But standing now a continent apart.

  As they walked down the stairs, their steps echoing against the walls, Gamache wondered how two such people could produce the woman Clara had described.

  Wretched, jealous, bitter, mean.

  But then, the Dysons thought the same about Clara.

  There was a lot to wonder about.

  Madame Dyson had been certain her daughter would never go to Clara Morrow’s home. Not knowingly.

  Had Lillian Dyson been tricked into it? Lured there not realizing it was Clara’s place? But if so, why was she killed, and why there?

  TEN

  After having rid the garden of all evil spirits, Myrna, Dominique and Ruth sat down for beers in Myrna’s loft.

  “So what do you think that coin was about?” Dominique asked, relaxing back into the sofa.

  “More evil,” said Ruth and the other women looked at her.

  “What do you mean?” Myrna asked.

  “AA?” demanded Ruth. “Bunch of devil worshipers. It’s a cult. Mind control. Demons. Turning people away from the natural path.”

  “Of being alcoholics?” asked Myrna with a laugh.

  Ruth eyed her suspiciously. “I wouldn’t expect the witch gardener to understand.”

  “You’d be surprised what you can learn in a garden,” said Myrna. “And from a witch.”

  Just then Clara arrived, looking distracted.

  “You OK?” asked Dominique.

  “Just fine. Peter had put a bottle of champagne in the fridge to celebrate. This was the first chance we had to toast the vernissage.” Clara poured herself an iced tea from Myrna’s fridge and came over to join them.

  “That was nice,” said Dominique.

  “Uh-huh,” agreed Clara. Myrna looked at her closely, but said nothing.

  “What were you talking about?” Clara asked.

  “The body in your garden,” said Ruth. “Did you kill her or not?”

  “OK,” said Clara. “I’m only going to say this once so I hope you remember. Are you paying attention?”

  They nodded, except Ruth.

  “Ruth?”

  “What?”

  “You asked a question. I’m about to answer it.”

  “Too late. I’ve lost interest. Aren’t we getting anything to eat?”

  “Pay attention.” Clara looked at all of them and spoke clearly and slowly. “I. Did. Not. Kill. Lillian.”

  “Do you have a piece of paper?” Dominique asked. “I’m not sure I can remember all that.”

  Ruth laughed.

  “So,” said Myrna. “Let’s just assume we believe you. For the moment. Who did?”

  “It had to be someone else at the party,” said Clara.

  “But who, Sherlock?” Myrna asked.

  “Who hated her enough to kill her?” Dominique asked.

  “Anyone who met her,” said Clara.

  “But that’s not fair,” said Myrna. “You hadn’t seen her in more than twenty years. And it’s possible she was simply mean to you. It happens sometimes. We trigger something in someone else, bring out the worst in each other.”

  “Not Lillian,” said Clara. “She was generous in her disdain. She hated everyone and everyone eventually hated her. Like you said before. The frog in the frying pan. She’d turn up the heat.”

  “I hope that isn’t a dinner suggestion,” said Ruth, “because that’s what I had for breakfast.”

  They looked at her and she grinned. “Well, maybe it was an egg.”

  They turned back to Myrna.

  “Maybe it wasn’t a frying pan,” Ruth continued. “But a glass. And now that I think of it, it wasn’t an egg at all.”

  They turned back to Ruth.

  “It was Scotch.”

  They focused back on Myrna, who explained the psychological phenomenon.

  “I think I always hated myself for staying so long, for letting Lillian hurt me so much before I actually left. Never again.”

  Clara was surprised when Myrna said nothing.

  “Gamache probably thinks I did it.” Clara finally broke the silence. “I’m screwed.”

  “I’d have to agree,” said Ruth.

  “Of course you’re not,” said Dominique. “In fact, just the opposite.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You have something the Chief Inspector doesn’t,” said Dominique. “You know the art world and you know most of the people at your party. What’s the biggest question you have?”

  “Besides who killed her? Well, what was Lillian doing here?”

  “Excellent,” said Dominique, getting up. “Good question. Why don’t we ask?”

  “Who?”

  “The guests still here in Three Pines.”

  Clara thought for a moment. “Worth a try.”

  “Waste of time,” said Ruth. “I still think you did it.”

  “Watch it, old woman,” said Clara. “You’re next.”

  * * *

  The forensics team met Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir at Lillian Dyson’s apartment in Montréal. While they took prints and collected specimens, Gamache and Beauvoir looked around.

  It was a modest apartment on the top floor of a triplex. None of the buildings were tall in the Plateau Mont Royal district so while petite, Lillian’s apartment was bright.

  Beauvoir walked briskly into the main room and got to work but Gamache paused. To get a feel for the place. It smelled stale. Of oil paint and unopened windows. The furniture was old without being vintage. The kind you found in the Sally Ann, or on the side of the road.

  The
floors were parquet with dull area rugs. Unlike some artists who cared about the aesthetics of their home, Lillian Dyson appeared indifferent to what was within these walls. What she was not indifferent to was what was on the walls.

  Paintings. Luminous, dazzling paintings. Not bright or splashy, but dazzling in their images. Had she collected them? Perhaps from an artist friend in New York?

  He leaned in to read the signature.

  Lillian Dyson.

  Chief Inspector Gamache stepped back and stared, astonished. The dead woman had painted these. He moved from painting to painting, reading the signatures and the dates, just to be sure. But he knew there was no doubt. The style was so strong, so singular.

  They were all created by Lillian Dyson, and all within the last seven months.

  These were like nothing he’d ever seen before.

  Her paintings were lush and bold. Cityscapes, Montréal, made to look and feel like a forest. The buildings were tall and wonky, like strong trees growing this way and that. Adjusting to nature, rather than the other way around. She managed to make the buildings into living things, as though they’d been planted and watered and nurtured, and had sprung from the concrete. Attractive, the way all vital things were attractive.

  It was not a relaxing world she painted. But neither was it threatening.

  He liked them. A lot.

  “More in here, Chief,” called Beauvoir, when he noticed Gamache staring at the paintings. “Looks like she turned her bedroom into a studio.”

  Chief Inspector Gamache walked by the forensics team, lifting fingerprints and taking samples, and joined Beauvoir in the small bedroom. A single bed, made up nicely, was shoved against the wall and there was a chest of drawers, but the rest of the modest room was taken up with brushes soaking in tins, canvases leaning against the walls. The floor was covered in a tarpaulin and the room smelled of oil and cleaner.

  Gamache walked over to the canvas sitting on the easel.

  It was unfinished. It showed a church, in bright red, almost as though it was on fire. But it wasn’t. It simply glowed. And beside it swirled roads like rivers and people like reeds. No other artist he knew was painting in this style. It was as though Lillian Dyson had invented a whole new art movement, like the Cubists or the Impressionists, like the post-modernists and Abstract Expressionists.

  And now there was this.

  Armand Gamache could barely look away. Lillian was painting Montréal as though it was a work of nature, not man. With all the force, the power, the energy and beauty of nature. And the savagery too.

  It seemed clear she’d been experimenting with this style, growing into it. The earliest works, from seven months ago, showed some promise but were tentative. And then, sometime around Christmas, there seemed to have been a breakthrough and the flowing, audacious style took hold.

  “Chief, look at this.”

  Inspector Beauvoir was standing next to the nightstand. There was a large blue book on it. The Chief Inspector brought a pen from his pocket and opened the book to the bookmark.

  There was a sentence highlighted in yellow and underlined. Almost violently.

  “The alcoholic is like a tornado,” read Chief Inspector Gamache, “roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead.”

  He let the book fall closed. On its royal blue cover in bold white print was Alcoholics Anonymous.

  “I guess we know who belonged to AA,” said Beauvoir.

  “I guess so,” said Gamache. “I think we need to ask these people some questions.”

  After everything had been gone over by the forensics team the Chief Inspector handed Beauvoir one of the booklets from the drawer. It was dog-eared, dirty, well used. Inspector Beauvoir flipped through it then read the front.

  Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting List.

  Inside a meeting for Sunday night was circled. Beauvoir could guess what they’d be doing at eight that night.

  * * *

  The four women paired up, figuring they’d be safer in twos.

  “You obviously haven’t watched many horror films,” said Dominique. “Women are always in pairs. One to die horribly and the other to shriek.”

  “Dibs on the shrieking,” said Ruth.

  “I’m afraid, dear one, that you’re the horror,” said Clara.

  “Well, that’s a relief. Are you coming?” Ruth asked Dominique, who stared back with mock-loathing at Myrna and Clara.

  Myrna watched them go then turned to Clara.

  “How’s Peter?”

  “Peter? Why’d you ask?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  Clara studied her friend. “You never just wonder. What is it?”

  “You didn’t exactly look happy when you arrived. You said the two of you toasted your vernissage. Is that all that happened?”

  Clara remembered Peter standing in their kitchen, drinking sour champagne. Toasting her solo show with rancid wine, and a smile.

  But she wasn’t yet ready to talk about it. Besides, Clara thought as she looked at her friend, she was afraid of what Myrna might say.

  “It’s just a difficult time for Peter,” she said instead. “I think we all know that.”

  And she watched Myrna’s gaze intensify, then relent.

  “He’s doing his best,” said Myrna.

  It was, thought Clara, a diplomatic answer.

  Across the village green they could see Gabri and Olivier sitting on the porch of their B and B, sipping beer. Relaxing before the late afternoon rush at the bistro.

  “Mutt and Jeff.” Gabri waved the two women over.

  “Bert and Ernie,” said Myrna as she and Clara climbed the steps onto the verandah.

  “Your artist friends are still here,” said Olivier, rising and kissing the women on both cheeks.

  “Staying on for a few more days, apparently.” Gabri was none too pleased. His idea of a perfect B and B was an empty B and B. “Gamache’s people said the others could leave, so they did. I think they found it boring. Apparently only one murder isn’t enough to hold their attention.”

  Myrna and Clara left them to monitor the village, and walked into the B and B.

  * * *

  “So what have you been working on?” Clara asked Paulette. They’d been chatting for a few minutes. About the weather, of course. And Clara’s show. Given equal weight by Paulette and Normand. “Still doing that wonderful series on flight?”

  “Yes, in fact a gallery in Drummondville is interested and there’s a juried show in Boston we might enter.”

  “That’s terrific.” Clara turned to Myrna. “Their series on wings is stunning.”

  Myrna almost gagged. If she heard the word “stunning” once more she really would vomit. She wondered what it was code for. Crappy? Hideous? So far Normand had described Clara’s works, which he clearly didn’t like, as stunning. Paulette had said Normand was planning some powerful pieces which, she assured them, they’d find stunning.

  And, of course, they were both simply stunned by Clara’s success.

  But then, they’d admitted to being stunned by Lillian’s murder.

  “So,” said Clara, nonchalantly picking at a bowl of licorice allsorts on the table in the sitting room, “I was just sort of wondering how Lillian came to be here yesterday. Do you know who invited her?”

  “Didn’t you?” asked Paulette.

  Clara shook her head.

  Myrna leaned back and listened closely as they speculated about who might have been in contact with Lillian.

  “She’d been back in Montréal for a few months, you know,” said Paulette.

  Clara hadn’t known.

  “Yeah,” said Normand. “Even came up to us at a vernissage and apologized for being such a bitch years ago.”

  “Really?” asked Clara. “Lillian did that?”

  “We figure she was just sucking up,” said Paulette. “When she left we were nobodies but now we’re pretty well established.”

 
“Now, she needs us,” said Normand. “Needed us.”

  “For what?” asked Clara.

  “She said she’d gone back to doing some art. Wanted to show us her portfolio,” said Normand.

  “And what did you say?”

  They looked at each other. “We told her we didn’t have time. We weren’t rude, but we didn’t want anything to do with her.”

  Clara nodded. She’d have done the same thing, she hoped. Been polite, but distant. It was one thing to forgive, it was another to climb back into the cage with that bear, even if it was wearing a tutu and smiling. Or, what was the analogy Myrna had used?

  The frying pan.

  “Maybe she crashed the party. Lots of people did,” said Normand. “Like Denis Fortin.”

  Normand said the gallery owner’s name lightly, slipping it into the conversation, like a sharp word thrust between bones. A word meant to wound. He watched Clara. And Myrna watched him.

  She sat forward, curious to see how Clara would handle this attack. Because that was what it was. Civil and subtle and said with a smile. A sort of social neutron bomb. Meant to keep the structures of polite conversation standing, while slaying the person.

  Having listened to this couple for half an hour now, Myrna could say she wasn’t exactly stunned by this attack. And neither was Clara.

  “But he was invited,” Clara said, matching Normand’s light tone. “I personally asked Denis to come.”

  Myrna almost smiled. Clara’s coup de grâce was calling Fortin by his first name, as though she and the prominent gallery owner were buddies. And, yes, yes, there it was.

  Both Normand and Paulette were stunned.

  Still, two very troubling questions remained unanswered.

  Who did invite Lillian to Clara’s party?

  And why did she accept?

  ELEVEN

  “Honestly, you’re the worst investigator in history,” said Dominique.

  “At least I was asking questions,” snapped Ruth.

  “Only because I couldn’t get a word in.”

  Myrna and Clara had joined the other two women in the bistro and were now sitting in front of a fire, lit more for effect than necessity.