Brutal Telling

by Louise Penny

  “So her kids think Olivier screwed her? And by extension, them?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Seems so.” He knocked on the door. After a moment a querulous voice called through it.

  “Who is it?”

  “Chief Inspector Gamache, madame. Of the Sûreté du Québec.”

  “I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

  Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged glances.

  “We need to speak to you, Madame Poirier. It’s about the body found in the bistro in Three Pines.”

  “So?”

  It was very difficult conducting an interview through an inch of chipping wood.

  “May we come in? We’d like to talk to you about Olivier Brulé.”

  An elderly woman, small and slender, opened the door. She glared at them then turned and walked rapidly back into the house. Gamache and Beauvoir followed.

  It was decorated as Beauvoir had imagined. Or, really, not decorated. Things were put up on the walls as they’d arrived, over the generations, so that the walls were a horizontal archaeological dig. The farther into the house they went, the more recent the items. Framed flowers, plasticized place mats, crucifixes, paintings of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and yes, spoons, all marched across the faded floral wallpaper.

  But the place was clean, spotless and smelled of cookies. Photos of grandchildren, perhaps even great-grandchildren, sat on shelves and tabletops. A faded striped tablecloth, clean and ironed, was on the kitchen table. And in the center of that table was a vase containing late summer flowers.

  “Tea?” She lifted a pot from the stove. Beauvoir declined but Gamache accepted. She returned with cups of tea for them all. “Well, go on.”

  “We understand Olivier bought some furniture from you,” said Beauvoir.

  “Not just some. He bought the lot. Thank God. Gave me more than anyone else would, despite what my kids mighta told you.”

  “We haven’t spoken to them yet,” said Beauvoir.

  “Neither have I. Not since selling the stuff.” But she didn’t seem upset. “Greedy, all of them. Waiting for me to die so they can inherit.”

  “How did you meet Olivier?” Beauvoir asked.

  “He knocked on the door one day. Introduced himself. Asked if I had anything I’d like to sell. Sent him running the first few times.” She smiled at the memory. “But there was something about him. He kept coming back. So I eventually invited him in, just for tea. He’d come about once a month, have tea, then leave.”

  “When did you decide to sell to him?” Beauvoir asked.

  “I’m coming to that,” she snapped, and Beauvoir began to appreciate how hard Olivier must have worked for that furniture.

  “One winter was particularly long. Lots of snow. And cold. So I decided to hell with this, I’d sell up and move into Saint-Rémy, to that new seniors’ home. So I told Olivier and we walked through the house. I showed him all that crap my parents left me. Old armoires and dressers. Big pine things. And painted all sorts of dull colors. Blues and greens. Tried to scrape it off some of them, but it was no good.”

  Beside him Beauvoir heard the Chief inhale, but that was the only sign of pain. Having spent years with Gamache he knew his passion for antiques, and knew that you never, ever strip old paint. It was like skinning something alive.

  “So you showed it all to Olivier? What did he say?”

  “Said he’d take the lot, including what was in the barn and attic without even seeing it. Tables and chairs been there since before my grandparents. Was going to send it to the dump, but my lazy sons never showed up to do it. So serves them right. I sold the lot to Olivier.”

  “Can you remember how much you got?”

  “I remember exactly. It was three thousand two hundred dollars. Enough to pay for all of this. Sears.”

  Gamache looked at the legs of the table. Prefabricated wood. There was an upholstered rocker facing the new television, and a dark wood-veneer cabinet, with decorative plates.

  Madame Poirier was also looking at the contents of the room, with pride.

  “He came by a few weeks later and you know what he’d brought? A new bed. Plastic still on the mattress. Set it up for me too. He still comes by sometimes. He’s a nice man.”

  Beauvoir nodded. A nice man who’d paid this elderly woman a fraction of what that furniture was worth.

  “But you’re not in the seniors’ home? Why not?”

  “After I got the new furniture the place felt different. More mine. I kinda liked it again.”

  She showed them to the door and Beauvoir noticed the welcome mat. Worn, but still there. They said good-bye and headed for her eldest son’s place a mile down the road. A large man with a gut and stubble opened the door.

  “Cops,” he called into the house. It, and he, smelled of beer and sweat and tobacco.

  “Claude Poirier?” Beauvoir asked. It was a formality. Who else would this man be? He was nearing sixty, and looked every moment of it. Beauvoir had taken the time before leaving the Incident Room to look up the Poirier family. To see what they were walking into.

  Petty crimes. Drunk and disorderly. Shoplifting. Benefit fraud.

  They were the type who took advantage, found fault, pointed fingers. Still, it didn’t mean that sometimes they weren’t right. Like about Olivier. He’d screwed them.

  After the introductions Poirier launched into his long, sad litany. It was all Beauvoir could do to keep him focused on Olivier, so long was this man’s list of people who’d done him wrong. Including his own mother.

  Finally the two investigators lurched from the stale house, taking deep breaths of fresh late afternoon air.

  “Do you think he did it?” asked Gamache

  “He’s certainly angry enough,” said Beauvoir, “but unless he could transport a body to the bistro using the buttons on his remote, I think he’s off the suspect list. Can’t see him getting off that stinking sofa long enough.”

  They walked back to their cars. The Chief paused.

  “What’re you thinking?” Beauvoir asked.

  “I was remembering what Madame Poirier said. She was about to take all those antiques to the dump. Can you imagine?”

  Beauvoir could see that the thought gave Gamache actual pain.

  “But Olivier saved them,” said the Chief. “Strange how that works. He might not have given Madame enough money, but he gave her affection and company. What price do you put on that?”

  “So, can I buy your car? I’ll give you twenty hours of my company.”

  “Don’t be cynical. One day you might be elderly and alone and you’ll see.”

  As he followed the Chief’s car back to Three Pines Beauvoir thought about that, and agreed that Olivier had saved the precious antiques, and spent time with the crabby old woman. But he could have done it and still given the old woman a fair price.

  But he hadn’t.

  Marc Gilbert looked at Marc the horse. Marc the horse looked at Marc Gilbert. Neither seemed pleased.

  “Dominique!” Marc called from the door of the barn.

  “Yes?” she said, cheerily, walking across the yard from the house. She’d hoped it would take Marc a few days to find the horses. Actually, she’d hoped he never would. But that was in the same league as the Mrs. Keith Partridge dream. Unlikely at best.

  And now she found him cross-armed in the dim barn.

  “What are these?”

  “They’re horses,” she said. Though, it must be said, she suspected Macaroni might be a moose.

  “I can see that, but what kind? These aren’t hunters, are they?”

  Dominique hesitated. For an instant she wondered what would happen if she said yes. But she guessed that Marc, while not a horse expert, wouldn’t buy that.

  “No, they’re better.”

  “How better?”

  His sentences were getting shorter, never a good sign.

  “Well, they’re cheaper.”

  She could see that actually had a slight mollifying effect. Might as well tell

him the full story. “I bought them from the slaughterhouse. They were going to be killed today.”

  Marc hesitated. She could see him struggling with his anger. Not trying to let it go, but trying to hold on to it. “Maybe there was a reason they were going to be . . . you know.”

  “Killed. No, the vet’s been to see them and he says they’re fine, or will be.”

  The barn smelled of disinfectant, soap and medication.

  “Maybe physically, but you can’t tell me he’s okay.” Marc waved at Marc the horse, who flared his nostrils and snorted. “He isn’t even clean. Why not?”

  Why did her husband have to be so observant? “Well, no one could get close to him.” Then she had an idea. “The vet says he needs a very special touch. He’ll only let someone quite exceptional near him.”

  “Is that right?” Marc looked at the horse again, and walked toward him. Marc, the horse, backed up. Her husband reached out his hand. The horse put his ears back, and Dominique grabbed her husband away just as Marc the horse snapped.

  “It’s been a long day and he’s disoriented.”

  “Hmm,” said her husband, walking with her out of the barn. “What’s his name?”

  “Thunder.”

  “Thunder,” said Marc, trying the name out. “Thunder,” he repeated as though riding the steed and urging him on.

  Carole greeted them at the kitchen door. “So,” she said to her son. “How’re the horses? How’s Marc?”

  “I’m fine, thank you.” He looked at her quizzically and took the drink she offered. “And how’s Carole?”

  Behind him Dominique gestured frantically at her mother-in-law who was laughing and just about to say something when she saw her daughter-in-law’s motions and stopped. “Just fine. Do you like the horses?”

  “Like is a strong word, as is ‘horses,’ I suspect.”

  “It’ll take a while for us all to get used to each other,” said Dominique. She accepted the Scotch from Carole and took a gulp. Then they walked out the French doors and into the garden.

  As the two women talked, more friends than mother and daughter-in-law, Marc looked at the flowers, the mature trees, the freshly painted white fences and the rolling fields beyond. Soon the horses, or whatever they were, would be out there. Grazing.

  Once again he had that hollow feeling, that slight rip as the chasm widened.

  Leaving Montreal had been a wrench for Dominique, and leaving Quebec City had been difficult for his mother. They left behind friends. But while Marc had pretended to be sorry, had gone to the going-away parties, had claimed he would miss everyone, the truth was, he didn’t.

  They had to be part of his life for him to miss them, and they weren’t. He remembered that Kipling poem his father loved, and taught him. And that one line. If all men count with you, but none too much.

  And they hadn’t. Over forty-five years not a single man had counted too much.

  He had loads of colleagues, acquaintances, buddies. He was an emotional communist. Everyone counted equally, but none too much.

  You’ll be a man, my son. That was how the poem ended.

  But Marc Gilbert, listening to the quiet conversation and looking over the rich, endless fields, was beginning to wonder if that was enough. Or even true.

  The officers gathered round the conference table and Beauvoir uncapped his red Magic Marker. Agent Morin was beginning to appreciate that the small “pop” was like a starter’s gun. In the short time he’d been with homicide he’d developed a fondness for the smell of marker, and that distinctive sound.

  He settled into his chair, a little nervous as always, in case he should say something particularly stupid. Agent Lacoste had helped. As they’d gathered up their papers for the meeting she’d seen his trembling hands and whispered that maybe he should just listen this time.

  He’d looked at her, surprised.

  “Won’t they think I’m an idiot? That I have nothing to say?”

  “Believe me, there’s no way you’re going to listen yourself out of this job. Or any job. Just relax, let me do the talking today, and we’ll see about tomorrow. Okay?”

  He’d looked at her then, trying to figure out what her motives might be. Everyone had them, he knew. Some were driven by kindness, some not. And he’d been at the Sûreté long enough to know that most in the famous police force weren’t guided by a desire to be nice.

  It was brutally competitive, and nowhere more so than the scramble to get into homicide. The most prestigious posting. And the chance to work with Chief Inspector Gamache.

  He was barely in, and barely hanging on. One wrong move and he’d slide right out the door, and be forgotten in an instant. He wasn’t going to let that happen. And he knew, instinctively, this was a pivotal moment. Was Agent Lacoste sincere?

  “All right, what’ve we got?”

  Beauvoir was standing by the paper tacked to the wall next to a map of the village.

  “We know the victim wasn’t murdered at the bistro,” said Lacoste. “But we still don’t know where he was killed or who he was.”

  “Or why he was moved,” said Beauvoir. He reported on their visit to the Poiriers, mère et fils. Then Lacoste told them what she and Morin had learned about Olivier Brulé.

  “He’s thirty-eight. Only child. Born and raised in Montreal. Father an executive at the railway, mother a homemaker, now dead. An affluent upbringing. Went to Notre Dame de Sion school.”

  Gamache raised his brows. It was a leading Catholic private school. Annie had gone there too, years after Olivier, to be taught by the rigorous nuns. His son Daniel had refused, preferring the less rigorous public schools. Annie had learned logic, Latin, problem solving. Daniel had learned to roll a spliff. Both grew into decent, happy adults.

  “Olivier got an MBA from the Université de Montréal and took a job at the Banque Laurentienne,” Agent Lacoste continued, reading from her notes. “He handled high-end corporate clients. Apparently very successfully too. Then he quit.”

  “Why?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Not sure. I have a meeting at the bank tomorrow, and I’ve also set up an appointment with Olivier’s father.”

  “What about his personal life?” Gamache asked.

  “I talked to Gabri. They started living together fourteen years ago. Gabri’s a year younger. Thirty-seven. He was a fitness instructor at the local YMCA.”

  “Gabri?” asked Beauvoir, remembering the large, soft man.

  “Happens to the best of us,” said Gamache.

  “After Olivier quit the bank they gave up their apartment in Old Montreal and moved down here, took over the bistro and lived above it, but it wasn’t a bistro then. It’d been a hardware store.”

  “Really?” asked Beauvoir. He couldn’t imagine the bistro as anything else. He tried to see snow shovels and batteries and lightbulbs hanging from the exposed beams or set up in front of the two stone fireplaces. And failed.

  “But listen to this.” Lacoste leaned forward. “I got this by digging into the land registry records. Ten years ago Olivier bought not just his bistro, but the B and B. But he didn’t stop there. He bought it all. The general store, the bakery, his bistro and Myrna’s bookstore.”

  “Everything?” asked Beauvoir. “He owns the village?”

  “Just about. I don’t think anyone else knows. I spoke to Sarah at her boulangerie and to Monsieur Béliveau at the general store. They said they rented from some guy in Montreal. Long-term leases, reasonable rates. They send their checks to a numbered company.”

  “Olivier’s a numbered company?” asked Beauvoir.

  Gamache was taking all this in, listening closely.

  “How much did he pay?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the lot.”

  “Good God,” said Beauvoir. “That’s a lot of bread. Where’d he get the money? A mortgage?”

  “No. Paid cash.”

  “You say his mother’s dead, maybe it was his inheritance.”