Cruelest Month

by Louise Penny

  ‘Did you know?’ Lemieux asked Beauvoir as his hands were yanked behind him and cuffs clamped on.

  ‘Of course I knew,’ Beauvoir lied. He hadn’t known until he’d confronted the chief on the side of the road. Until they told each other everything. Then it had come out. Nichol was working for them. He was glad he hadn’t thrown her into the spring-bloated Rivière Bella Bella, as all his instincts had told him to do. That caul really couldn’t be completely trusted.

  ‘I knew she wasn’t Francoeur’s spy. Too obvious,’ said Gamache, handing the gun to Beauvoir. ‘I spoke to her almost a year ago, told her my plan and she agreed to play along. She’s a courageous young woman.’

  ‘Don’t you mean psychotic?’ asked Lemieux.

  ‘Not likeable, I’ll grant you, but that’s what I was counting on. As long as you thought I suspected her, you were free to do what you wanted. And I was free to watch you. I told Nichol to be as annoying as she could to everyone, but to focus on you in particular. To rattle you. Your armor’s your likeability. If we could keep you off balance you might say or do something stupid. And you did. That day here you sneaked up on me. No agent of mine would ever draw his gun on me. You did it to shake me up. Instead you put beyond doubt that you were the spy. But I made a massive mistake.’ Gamache turned to Brébeuf. ‘I thought the near enemy was Francoeur. It never occurred to me it would be you.’

  ‘Matthew 10:36. A man’s foes shall be they of his own household,’ quoted Brébeuf, softly. The hysteria gone, the anger gone, the fear gone. Everything gone.

  ‘But so shall his friends.’ Gamache watched as Beauvoir and Nichol herded Brébeuf and Lemieux to the door.

  Fourteen days, thought Michel Brébeuf. Fourteen days of happiness. It was true. But what he’d forgotten until this very moment was that most of them had been with this man.

  ‘What the hell did you hit me with?’ Lemieux demanded.

  ‘A rock,’ said Nichol, preening. ‘One fell out of Inspector Beauvoir’s coat the other day and I picked it up. I threw it at you just as you fired.’

  Armand Gamache walked down the dim corridor. Something odd was happening to the old Hadley house. It was becoming familiar. He could move about without turning on his flashlight. But he stopped partway along.

  Something very large was coming toward him.

  Reaching into his coat he took out his flashlight and flicked the switch. There in front of him was a multi-headed creature.

  ‘We’ve come to rescue you,’ said Gabri, from behind Myrna. Jeanne was in the lead followed by Clara and the rest.

  ‘Onward pagan soldiers,’ said Jeanne with a relieved smile.

  The candle was burning low. They took their seats, the same ones they’d always taken, as though this was an old and comfortable ritual, a rite of spring.

  ‘You were about to tell us who killed Madeleine,’ said Odile.

  Gamache waited until everyone was settled then he spoke.

  ‘How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.’

  He let the terrible words sink in.

  ‘Someone here had grown bitter looking at the joyous world Madeleine had created for herself. Do you know where that quote comes from?’

  ‘Shakespeare,’ said Jeanne. ‘As You Like It.’

  Gamache nodded. ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘It was the school play our final year. You produced it.’ She turned to Hazel. ‘And Madeleine starred.’

  ‘Madeleine starred,’ repeated Gamache. ‘Always. Not because she tried but because she couldn’t help it.’

  ‘She was the sun,’ said Sandon, softly.

  ‘And someone flew too close,’ agreed Gamache. ‘Someone here is Icarus. Too close to the sun for too long. Finally the sun did what it always does. It sent this person plunging to the ground. But it took time. It took years. It actually took decades.

  ‘The murderer had created a fine life. Friends, a comfortable social life circle. It was a rich and happy time. But the ghosts of our past always find us. In this case the ghost wasn’t a person, but an emotion, long buried and even forgotten. But it was potent. Blinding, staggering, scorching jealousy.’ He turned to Jeanne. ‘If you thought it was hard being on Madeleine’s cheerleading squad, imagine being her best friend.’

  All eyes turned to Hazel.

  ‘According to the yearbooks, you were a fine basketball player, Hazel, but Mad was better. She was the captain. Always the captain. You were on the debating team, but Mad was the captain.’

  He picked up the yearbook and found their grad pictures.

  ‘She never got mad,’ he read the caption under young Hazel’s photograph, then closed the book. ‘Never got mad. I took that to mean you never got angry, but it meant something more, didn’t it?’

  Hazel’s eyes were on her hands.

  ‘She never got Madeleine. Never caught up. And never understood. Never “got it”. Kept trying and kept failing, because you started seeing it as a competition and she never did. You were dogged by a best friend who was slightly better at everything. Once high school was out you broke away and the friendship faded. But years later, after a bout of breast cancer, Madeleine wanted to find old friends. By then you’d made a good life for yourself. A modest home in a lovely community. A daughter. Friends. A potential romance. You were involved in the ACW. But you’d learned something from high school. This afternoon at a meeting in Montreal a colleague said something to me. It was about…’ Gamache hesitated for a moment, ‘another case.’

  Gamache heard the voice again, deep, commanding, authoritative. And accusing Gamache of only taking in the weak, the waste, the people no one else wanted. So that he’d always be better than them. To boost his own ego. He knew that wasn’t true. Not that he didn’t have an ego, but he knew that the people on his team were the best, not the worst. They’d proved it time and again.

  But still Francoeur’s accusation had resonated. Driving back to Three Pines it clicked. It wasn’t the Arnot case. It was this case. It was Hazel.

  ‘You surround yourself with people who are wounded, handicapped in some way. Needy. You befriend people who are sick, or in bad marriages, alcoholics, the obese, the troubled. Because it makes you feel superior. You’re kind to them, in a condescending way. Did you ever hear Hazel refer to anyone other than “Poor” so-and-so?’

  They looked at each other and shook their heads. It was true. Poor Sophie, Poor Mrs Blanchard, Poor Monsieur Béliveau.

  ‘The near enemy,’ said Myrna.

  ‘Exactly. Pity for compassion. Everyone thought you were a saint but it served a purpose for you. Made you feel needed and better than all the people you helped. When you met up with Madeleine again she was still ill. You liked that. Meant you could nurse her, look after her. Be in charge. She was sick and needy and you weren’t. But then she did something you hadn’t counted on. She got better. Better than ever. A Madeleine not only shiny and bright and alive, but full of gratitude and the desire to grab life. But the life she grabbed was yours. Little by little she was taking over again. Your friends, your job at the ACW. You could see it coming, the day when you again faded into the background. And then Madeleine crossed the line. She took the two things you cherished most. Your daughter and Monsieur Béliveau. Both turned their attentions to her. Your enemy was back and living in your home and eating off your plates and feeding off your life.’

  Hazel was slumped in her chair.

  ‘What was it like for you?’

  She looked up.

  ‘What do you think it was like? All through high school coming second in everything. I was the best volleyball player on the team, until Mad joined.’

  ‘But second best is still great,’ said Gabri, who’d have loved to come in the top ten in any athletic event, even the Wellington Boot Toss at the fair.

  ‘You think so? Try it all the time. At everything. And having people like you saying exactly that, all my life. Second best is good. Second best is fine. Well it isn’t.
Even in the school play. I was finally in charge. The producer. But who got all the credit when the play was a success?’

  She needn’t tell them. A picture, bright and brutal, was forming. How many condescending smiles could one person take? How many fleeting glances as the person searched for the real star?

  Madeleine.

  How bitter a thing it is, thought Clara.

  ‘Then out of the blue Madeleine called. She was ill, she wanted to see me. I searched my heart and couldn’t find any more hatred. And when we met she looked so tired and pathetic.’

  Everyone could see the reunion. The roles finally reversed. And Hazel making the one, spectacular mistake. Inviting Madeleine to live with her.

  ‘Madeleine was wonderful. She brightened up the house.’ Hazel smiled at the memory. ‘We laughed and talked and did everything together. I introduced her around and got her involved in committees. She was my best friend again, but this time an equal. I started to fall in love with her again. It was the most wonderful time. Do you have any idea what that feels like? I didn’t even know I was lonely until Mad was there again, and suddenly my heart was full. But then people began calling just for her, and Gabri asked her to take over the ACW, even though I was vice-president.’

  ‘But you hated the job,’ said Gabri.

  ‘I did. But I hated being left out more. Everyone does, don’t you know that?’

  Clara thought of all the wedding invitations she hadn’t received and how she’d felt. Partly relieved at not having to go to the party and bring a gift they couldn’t afford, but mostly offended at being left out. Forgotten. Or worse. Remembered but not included.

  ‘Then she took Monsieur Béliveau,’ Gamache said.

  ‘When Ginette was dying she’d often say he and I would make a good couple. Keep each other company. I began to hope, to think maybe that was true.’

  ‘But he wanted more than just company,’ said Myrna.

  ‘He wanted her,’ said Hazel, the bitterness seeping out. ‘And I started to see I’d made a terrible mistake. But I couldn’t see how to get out of it.’

  ‘When did you decide to kill her?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘When Sophie came home for Christmas, and kissed her first.’

  The simple, devastating fact sat in their sacred circle, like the dead little bird. Gamache was reminded of the one thing they were told over and over: don’t go into the woods in spring. You don’t want to get between a mother and her baby.

  Madeleine had.

  Finally Gamache spoke. ‘You’d kept Sophie’s ephedra from a few years ago. Not because you planned to use it then, but because you don’t throw anything away.’

  Not furniture, not books, not emotions, thought Gamache. Hazel let nothing go.

  ‘According to the lab, the pills used were too pure to be the recent manufacture. At first I thought the ephedra was from your store,’ he said to Odile. ‘But then I remembered there’d been another bottle of pills. A few years ago. Hazel said Madeleine had found it and confiscated them, but that wasn’t true, was it, Sophie?’

  ‘Mom?’ Sophie sat wide-eyed, stunned.

  Hazel reached for her hand, but Sophie quickly withdrew it. Hazel looked more affected by that than anything else.

  ‘You found them. And you used them on Madeleine for me?’

  Clara tried to ignore the inflection, the hint of satisfaction in Sophie’s voice.

  ‘I had to. She was taking you away. Taking everything.’

  ‘You first tried to kill her at the Friday night séance,’ said Gamache, ‘but you didn’t give her enough.’

  ‘But she wasn’t even there,’ said Gabri. ‘No, but her casserole was,’ said Gamache, turning to Monsieur Béliveau. ‘You said you couldn’t sleep that night and thought it was because you were upset by the séance. But the séance wasn’t all that frightening. It was the ephedra that kept you awake.’

  ‘Est-ce que c’est vrai?’ Monsieur Béliveau asked Hazel, astonished. ‘You put that drug in the casserole and gave it to us? You could have killed me.’

  ‘No, no.’ She reached out to him but he quickly leaned away. One by one everyone was backing away from Hazel. Leaving her in the one place she most feared. Alone. ‘I’d never take the risk. I knew from news reports that ephedra only kills if you have a heart condition and I knew you didn’t.’

  ‘But you knew Madeleine did,’ said Gamache.

  ‘Madeleine had a bad heart?’ asked Myrna.

  ‘It was brought on by her chemotherapy,’ confirmed Gamache. ‘She told you about it, didn’t she, Hazel?’

  ‘She didn’t want to tell anyone else because she didn’t want to be treated like a sick person. How’d you know?’

  ‘The coroner’s report said she had a bad heart and her doctor confirmed it,’ said Gamache.

  ‘No, I mean how’d you know that I knew? I didn’t tell anyone, not even Sophie.’

  ‘Aspirin.’

  Hazel sighed. ‘I thought I’d been clever there. Hiding Mad’s pills in among all the rest.’

  ‘Inspector Beauvoir noticed them when you were looking for something to give Sophie for her ankle. You have a cupboard full of old pills. What struck him was that you didn’t give Sophie the aspirin. Instead you kept searching for another bottle.’

  ‘The ephedra was hidden in the aspirin bottle?’ asked Clara, lost.

  ‘We thought so. We had the contents analyzed. It was aspirin.’

  ‘So what was the problem?’ asked Gabri.

  ‘Its strength,’ said Gamache. ‘It was low dose. Way below normal. People with heart conditions often take a low dose aspirin once a day.’

  There were nods around the ring. Gamache paused, staring at Hazel.

  ‘Madeleine kept something a secret. Even from you. Perhaps especially from you.’

  ‘She told me everything,’ said Hazel, as though defending her best friend.

  ‘No. One last thing, one huge thing, she kept from you. From everyone. Madeleine was dying. Her cancer had spread.’

  ‘Mais, non,’ said Monsieur Béliveau.

  ‘But that’s impossible,’ Hazel snapped. ‘She’d have said something.’

  ‘Odd that she didn’t. I think she didn’t want to, because she sensed something in you, something that fed on, and created, weakness. Had she told you, though, you wouldn’t have killed her. But by then the plan was in motion. It started with this.’

  He held up the alumni list he’d gotten from the school that afternoon.

  ‘Madeleine was on the alumni of your old high school. So were you.’ Gamache turned to Jeanne, who nodded. ‘Hazel took one of Gabri’s brochures, typed “Where lay lines meet – Easter Special” across the top and mailed it to Jeanne.’

  ‘She stole one of my brochures,’ Gabri said to Myrna.

  ‘Big picture, Gabri.’

  With a struggle he accepted that maybe he wasn’t quite as aggrieved as Madeleine. Or Hazel.

  ‘Poor Hazel,’ said Gabri, and everyone nodded. Poor Hazel.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Akind of shell shock settled over Gamache in the week that followed. His food tasted dull, the paper held no interest. He read and re-read the same sentence in Le Devoir. Reine-Marie tried to engage him in discussions of a trip to the Manoir Bellechasse to celebrate their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. He responded, showed interest, but the clear, sparkling colors of his life had dulled. It was as though his heart was suddenly too heavy for his legs. He lugged himself around, trying not to think about what had happened. But one evening when he was out for a walk with Reine-Marie and Henri, the shepherd had suddenly tugged free and raced across the park toward a familiar man on the other side. Gamache called after him and Henri stopped. But not before the man on the far side had also spotted the dog. And the owner.

  Once more, and for the last time, Michel Brébeuf and Armand Gamache locked eyes. In between so much life happened. Children played, dogs rolled and fetched, young parents marveled at what they’d produced. The air between the
men was ripe with lilac and honeysuckle, the buzz of bees, puppies barking, children laughing. The world stood between Armand Gamache and his best friend.

  And Gamache longed to walk across and hug him. To feel the familiar hand on his arm. The smell of Michel in his nostrils: soap and pipe tobacco. He yearned for his company, his voice, his eyes so thoughtful and full of humor.

  He missed his best friend.

  And to think for years Michel had actually hated him. Why? For being happy.

  How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.

  But today no happiness could be found there, only sorrow and regret.

  As Gamache watched, Michel Brébeuf raised one hand then lowered it and walked away. Gamache was just raising his, but his friend had already turned away. Reine-Marie took his hand, and he picked up Henri’s leash and the three of them continued their walk.

  Robert Lemieux had been charged with assault and attempted murder. He faced a long prison sentence. But Armand Gamache couldn’t bring himself to lay charges against Michel Brébeuf. He knew he should. Knew he was a coward for backing away. But every time he approached Paget’s office to lay the charge he remembered little Michel Brébeuf’s hand on his arm. Telling him in his little boy voice it would be all right. He wasn’t alone.

  And he couldn’t do it. His friend had saved him once. And now it was his turn.

  But Michel Brébeuf had resigned from the Sûreté, a broken man. His house for sale, he and Catherine were leaving their beloved Montreal and all they knew and loved. Michel Brébeuf had placed himself beyond the pale.

  Armand Gamache was invited to take tea with Agent Nichol and her family one Saturday afternoon. He pulled up to the house, tiny and immaculate. He could see the faces at the picture window overlooking the road, though they disappeared as he came up the walk. The door was opened even before he knocked.

  He met Yvette Nichol for the first time. The person, not the agent. She was dressed in simple slacks and a sweater, and he realized it was also the first time he’d seen her without a stain on her clothing. Ari Nikolev, small and thin and worried, wiped his palms on his pants then held his hand out.