A Trick of the Light cig-7

by Penny, Louise

  He closed his mouth and stepped back, deciding now wasn’t the time after all.

  Clara smiled as she watched the two men out the window. It amused her that Inspector Beauvoir no longer locked their car. When they’d first come to Three Pines, to investigate Jane’s murder, the officers had made sure the car was always locked. But now, several years later, they didn’t bother.

  They knew, she presumed, that people in Three Pines might occasionally take a life, but not a car.

  Clara looked at the kitchen clock. Almost eight. “They must’ve left Montréal just after six.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Peter, watching Gamache and Beauvoir disappear into the bistro. Then he looked down at Clara’s hands. One held the mug, but the other rested on the old pine table, a loose fist.

  Did he dare?

  He reached out and very slowly, so as not to surprise or frighten her, he placed his large hand on hers. Cupping her fist in his palm. Making it safe there, in the little home his hand created.

  And she let him.

  It was enough, he told himself.

  No need to tell her the rest. No need to upset her.

  * * *

  “I’ll have,” said Beauvoir slowly, staring at the menu. He had no appetite, but he knew he had to order something. There were blueberry pancakes, crêpes, eggs Benedict, bacon and sausages and fresh, warm croissants on the menu.

  He’d been up since five. Had picked up the Chief at quarter to six. And now it was almost seven thirty. He waited for his hunger to kick in.

  Chief Inspector Gamache lowered the menu and looked at the waiter. “While he’s trying to decide, I’ll have a bowl of café au lait and some blueberry pancakes with sausages.”

  “Merci,” said the waiter, taking Gamache’s menu and looking at Beauvoir. “And you, monsieur?”

  “It all looks so good,” said Beauvoir. “I’ll have the same thing as the Chief Inspector, thank you.”

  “I thought for sure you’d have the eggs Benedict,” smiled Gamache, as the waiter left them. “I thought it was your favorite.”

  “I made it for myself just yesterday,” said Beauvoir, and Gamache laughed. They both knew it was more likely he’d had a Super Slice for breakfast. In fact, just lately, Beauvoir had had just coffee and perhaps a bagel.

  Through the window they could see Three Pines in the early morning sun. Not many were out yet. A few villagers walked dogs. A few sat on porches, sipping coffee and reading the morning paper. But most still slept.

  “How’s Agent Lacoste doing, do you think?” the Chief Inspector asked once their cafés had arrived.

  “Not bad. Did you speak with her last night? I asked her to run a few things by you.”

  The two men sipped their coffees and compared notes.

  Beauvoir looked at his watch as their breakfast arrived. “I asked her to meet us here at eight.” It was ten to, and he looked up to see Lacoste walking across the village green, a dossier in her hand.

  “I like being a mentor,” said Beauvoir.

  “You do it well,” said Gamache. “Of course, you had a good teacher. Benevolent, just. Yet firm.”

  Beauvoir looked at the Chief Inspector with exaggerated puzzlement. “You? You mean you’ve been mentoring me all these years? That sure explains the need for therapy.”

  Gamache looked down at his meal, and smiled.

  Agent Lacoste joined them and ordered a cappuccino. “And a croissant, s’il vous plaît,” she called after the waiter. Then she placed her dossier on the table. “I read your report of the meeting last night, Chief, and did some digging.”

  “Already?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Well, I got up early and frankly I didn’t want to hang around the B and B with those artists.”

  “Why not?” asked Gamache.

  “I’m afraid I found them boring. I had dinner with Normand and Paulette last night, to see if I could get anything else out of them about Lillian Dyson but they seem to have lost interest.”

  “What did you talk about?” asked Beauvoir.

  “They spent most of dinner laughing about the Ottawa Star review of Clara’s show. They said it would put paid to her career.”

  “But who cares what the Ottawa Star thinks?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Ten years ago nobody, but now with the Internet it can be read around the world,” said Lacoste. “Insignificant opinions suddenly become significant. As Normand said, people only remember the bad reviews.”

  “I wonder if that’s true,” said Gamache.

  “Have you gotten anywhere tracing that review Lillian Dyson did?” asked Beauvoir.

  “He’s a natural, producing art like it’s a bodily function?” Lacoste quoted, and wished it had been written about Normand or Paulette. Though, she thought for the first time, maybe it had. Maybe the “he” in the review was Normand. That might explain his bitterness, and his delight when someone else got a bad review.

  Isabelle Lacoste shook her head. “No luck tracing that review. It was so long ago now, more than twenty years. I’ve sent an agent along to the archives at La Presse. We’ll have to go through the microfiche one at a time.”

  “Bon.” Inspector Beauvoir nodded his approval.

  Lacoste tore her warm and flaky croissant in half. “I looked into Lillian Dyson’s sponsor, as you asked, Chief,” she said, then took a bite of her croissant before putting it down and picking up the dossier. “Suzanne Coates, age sixty-two. She’s a waitress over at Nick’s on Greene Avenue. Do you know it?”

  Beauvoir shook his head, but Gamache nodded. “A Westmount institution.”

  “As is Suzanne, apparently. I called this morning before coming here. Spoke to one of the other waitresses. A Lorraine. She confirmed that Suzanne had worked there for twenty years. But she got a little cagey when I asked what her hours were. Finally this Lorraine admitted they all cover for each other when they pick up extra cash working private parties. Suzanne’s supposed to be on the lunch shift, but wasn’t in Saturday. She worked yesterday, though, as usual. Her shift starts at eleven.”

  “By ‘working private parties,’ that doesn’t mean—?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Prostitution?” asked Lacoste. “The woman’s sixty-two. Though she was in the profession years ago. Two arrests for prostitution and one for break and enter. This was back in the early eighties. She was also charged with theft.”

  Both Gamache and Beauvoir raised their brows. Still, it was a long time ago and a long way from those crimes to murder.

  “I also found her tax information. Her declared income last year was twenty-three thousand dollars. But she’s heavily in debt. Credit card. She has three of them, all maxed out. She seems to consider it not so much a credit limit as a goal. Like most people in debt she’s juggling creditors, but it’s all about to come crashing down.”

  “Does she realize it?” Gamache asked.

  “Hard not to, unless she’s completely delusional.”

  “You haven’t met her,” said Beauvoir. “Delusional is one of her better qualities.”

  * * *

  André Castonguay could smell the coffee.

  He lay in bed, on the comfortable mattress, under the 600-thread-count sheets and goose down duvet. And he wished he was dead.

  He felt like he’d been dropped from a great height. And somehow survived, but was bruised and flattened. Reaching out a shaky hand for the glass of water he gulped down what was left. That felt better.

  Slowly he sat up, letting himself adjust to each new position. Finally he stood and pulled the bathrobe around his soft body. Never again, he said as he trudged to the bathroom and stared at his reflection. Never again.

  But he’d said that yesterday. And the day before. And the day before that.

  * * *

  The Sûreté team spent the morning in the Incident Room, set up in the Canadian National Railway station. The low brick building, a century old, sat across the Rivière Bella Bella from Three Pines. The building was abandoned, the trains having
simply stopped stopping there decades earlier. No explanation.

  For a while the trains still chugged by, winding through the valley and between the mountains. And disappearing around a bend.

  And then, one day, even they stopped. No twelve o’clock express. No three P.M. milk run into Vermont.

  Nothing for the villagers to set their clocks by.

  And so both the trains and time stopped in Three Pines.

  The station sat empty until one day Ruth Zardo had a thought that didn’t include olives or ice cubes. The Three Pines Volunteer Fire Department would take over the space. And so, with Ruth in the vanguard, they’d descended on the lovely old brick building and made themselves at home.

  As the homicide team did now. In one half of the open room sat firefighting equipment, axes, hoses, helmets. A truck. In the other half were desks, computers, printers, scanners. The walls held posters with fire safety tips, detailed maps of the region, photos of past winners of the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, including Ruth, and several large boards with headings like: Suspects, Evidence, Victim, and Questions.

  There were a lot of questions, and the team spent the morning trying to answer them. The detailed coroner’s report came in and Inspector Beauvoir handled that, as well as the forensic evidence. He was looking into how she died while Agent Lacoste tried to figure out how she’d lived. Her time in New York City, her marriage, any friends, any colleagues. What she did, what she thought. What others thought of her.

  And Chief Inspector Gamache put them all together.

  He started out at his desk, with a cup of coffee, reading all the reports from the day and night before. From that morning.

  Then picking up the large blue book on his desk he went for a walk. Instinctively he made for the village, but paused on the stone bridge that arched over the river.

  Ruth was sitting on the bench on the village green. Not doing much of anything, apparently, though the Chief Inspector knew differently. She was doing the most difficult thing in the world.

  She was waiting and she was hoping.

  As he watched she tilted her gray head to the skies. And listened. For a distant sound, like a train. Someone coming home. Then her head dropped back down.

  How long, he wondered, would she wait? It was already almost mid-June. How many others, mothers and fathers, had sat right where Ruth was, waiting, hoping? Listening for the train. Wondering if it would stop and a familiar young man would step down, having been spewed back from places with pretty names, like Vimy Ridge or Flanders Fields or Passchendaele? By Dieppe and Arnhem.

  How long did hope live?

  Ruth tilted her head to the sky and listened again, for some far cry. And then she lowered it again.

  An eternity, thought Gamache.

  And if hope lasted forever, how long did hate last?

  He turned around, not wanting to disturb her. But neither did he want to be disturbed. He needed quiet time, to read and think. And so he walked back, past the old railway station and down the dirt road, one of the spokes that radiated out from the village green. He’d taken a lot of walks around Three Pines but never down this particular road.

  Huge maples lined the road, their branches meeting overhead. Their leaves almost blocking out the sun. But not quite. It filtered through and hit the dirt, and hit him and hit the book in his hand in soft dots of light.

  Gamache found a large gray rock, an outcropping by the side of the road. Sitting down he put on his reading glasses, crossed his legs and opened the book.

  An hour later he closed it and stared ahead. Then he got up and walked some more, further down the tunnel of shade and light. In the woods he could see dried leaves and tight little fiddlehead ferns and hear the scrambling of chipmunks and birds. He was aware of all that, though his mind was somewhere else.

  Finally he stopped, turned around and walked back, his steps slow but deliberate.

  SIXTEEN

  “Right,” said Gamache settling into his chair at the makeshift conference table. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Dr. Harris’s full report arrived this morning,” said Beauvoir, standing by the sheets of paper attached to the wall. He wafted an uncapped Magic Marker under his nose. “Lillian Dyson’s neck was snapped, twisted in a single move.” He mimicked wringing a neck. “There was no bruising on her face or arms. Nowhere except a small spot on her neck, where it broke.”

  “Which tells us what?” asked the Chief.

  “That death was fast,” said Beauvoir, writing it down in bold letters. He loved this part. Putting down facts, evidence. Writing them in ink so that fact became truth. “As we thought, she was taken by surprise. Dr. Harris says the killer could have been either a man or woman. Probably not elderly. Some strength and leverage was necessary. The murderer was probably no shorter than Madame Dyson,” said Beauvoir, consulting the notes in his hand. “But since she was five foot five most people would have been taller.”

  “How tall is Clara Morrow?” Lacoste asked.

  The men looked at each other. “About that size, I’d say,” said Beauvoir and Gamache nodded.

  It was, sadly, a pertinent question.

  “There was no other violation,” Beauvoir continued. “No sexual assault. No evidence of recent sexual activity at all. She was slightly overweight but not by much. She’d had dinner a couple of hours earlier. McDonald’s.”

  Beauvoir tried not to think of the Happy Meal the coroner had found.

  “Any other food in her stomach?” asked Lacoste. “The catered food at the party?”

  “None.”

  “Was there any alcohol or drugs in her system?” Gamache asked.

  “None.”

  The Chief turned to Agent Lacoste. She looked down at her notes, and read.

  “Lillian Dyson’s former husband was a jazz trumpeter in New York. He met Lillian at an art show. He was performing at a cocktail party and she was one of the guests. They gravitated to each other. Both alcoholics, apparently. They got married and for a while both seemed to straighten out. Then it all fell apart. For both of them. He got into crack and meth. Got fired from gigs. They were evicted from their apartment. It was a mess. Eventually she left him and hooked up with a few other men. I’ve found two of them, but not the rest. It seemed casual, not actual relationships. And, it seems, increasingly desperate.”

  “Was she also addicted to crack or methamphetamines?” Gamache asked.

  “No evidence of that,” said Lacoste.

  “How’d she make a living?” the Chief asked. “As an artist or critic?”

  “Neither. Looks like she lived on the margins of the art world,” said Lacoste, going back to her notes.

  “So what did she do?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Well, she was illegal. No work permit for the States. From what I can piece together she worked under the table at art supply shops. She picked up odd jobs here and there.”

  Gamache thought about that. For a twenty-year-old it would’ve been an exciting life. For a woman nearing fifty it would’ve been exhausting, discouraging.

  “She might not have been an addict, but could she have dealt drugs?” he asked. “Or been a prostitute?”

  “Possibly both for a while, but not recently,” said Lacoste.

  “Coroner says there’s no evidence of sexually transmitted disease. No needle tracks or scarring,” said Beauvoir, consulting the printout. “As you know, most low-level dealers are also addicts.”

  “Lillian’s parents thought her husband might have died,” said the Chief.

  “He did,” said Lacoste. “Three years ago. OD’d.”

  Beauvoir put a stroke through the man’s name.

  “Canada Customs records show she crossed the border on a bus from New York City on October sixteenth of last year,” said Lacoste. “Nine months ago. She applied for welfare and got it.”

  “When did she join Alcoholics Anonymous?” asked Gamache.

  “I don’t know,” said Lacoste. “I tried to reach
her sponsor, Suzanne Coates, but there was no answer and Chez Nick says she’s on a couple of days off.”

  “Scheduled?” asked Gamache, sitting forward.

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “Ask, please,” said the Chief, getting to his feet. “When you find her let me know. I have some questions for her as well.”

  He went to his desk and placed a call. He could have given the name and number to Agent Lacoste or Inspector Beauvoir, but he preferred to do this himself.

  “Chief Justice’s office,” said the efficient voice.

  “May I speak with Mr. Justice Pineault, please? This is Chief Inspector Gamache, of the Sûreté.”

  “I’m afraid Justice Pineault isn’t in today, Chief Inspector.”

  Gamache paused, surprised. “Is that right? Is he ill? I saw him just last night and he didn’t mention anything.”

  Now it was Mr. Justice Pineault’s secretary’s turn to pause. “He called in this morning and said he’d be working from home for the next few days.”

  “Was this unexpected?”

  “The Chief Justice is free to do as he likes, Monsieur Gamache.” She sounded tolerant of what was clearly an inappropriate question on his part.

  “I’ll try him at home. Merci.”

  He tried the next number in his notebook. Chez Nick, the restaurant.

  No, the harried woman who answered said, Suzanne wasn’t there. She called to say she wouldn’t be in.

  The woman didn’t sound pleased.

  “Did she say why not?” asked Gamache.

  “Wasn’t feeling well.”

  Gamache thanked her and hung up. Then he tried Suzanne’s cell phone. It had been disconnected. Hanging up, he tapped his glasses on his hand, softly.

  It seemed the Sunday night meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous had gone missing.

  No Suzanne Coates, no Thierry Pineault.

  Was this cause for concern? Armand Gamache knew anyone missing in a murder investigation was cause for concern. But not panic.

  He got up and walked over to the window. From there he could see across the Rivière Bella Bella and into Three Pines. As he watched a car drove up and stopped. It was a two-seater, sleek and new and expensive. A contrast to the older cars in front of the homes.