The Murder Stone

by Louise Penny

  Normally when Mrs Morrow called her Claire, Clara was livid. For the first decade she’d presumed Peter’s mother simply didn’t hear well and genuinely thought her name was Claire. Sometime in the second decade of her marriage to Peter, Clara realized her mother-in-law knew perfectly well what her name was. And what her profession was, though she continued to ask about her job at some mythical shoe store. It was, of course, possible Peter had actually told his mother Clara worked in a shoe store. Anything, she knew, was possible with the Morrows. Especially if it meant keeping the truth from each other.

  ‘A drink, perhaps?’ she asked.

  ‘My husband will look after me, thank you.’

  Clara was dismissed. She glanced at her watch. Past noon. Could they leave soon? She hated herself for the thought, but she hated staying even more. And another thought she hated still more. That Julia’s death was a massive inconvenience. More than that, it was a pain in the ass. There. She’d said it.

  She wanted to go home. To be surrounded by her own things, her own friends. To work on her solo show. In peace.

  She felt like shit.

  Turning to look back she saw Bert Finney with his eyes closed.

  Sleeping.

  He’s fucking sleeping. The rest of us are trying to deal with this tragedy and he’s napping. She opened her mouth to invite Peter onto the terrasse. She longed for some fresh air, maybe a little walk through the mist. Anything to escape this stifling atmosphere.

  But Peter had gone again. Into his own world. He was focused only on the movement of his pencil. Art had been his sanity growing up. The only place where nothing happened unless he made it happen. Lines appeared and disappeared according to his will alone.

  But when does the lifeboat become the prison ship? When does the drug start working against you? Had her beloved, gentle, wounded husband escaped too far?

  What was that called? She tried to remember conversations with her friend Myrna in Three Pines. The former psychologist sometimes talked about that. People who were delusional, disconnected.

  Insane.

  No, she shoved the shard of a word away. Peter was wounded, hurt, brilliant for having found a coping mechanism that soothed as well as provided an income. He was one of the most respected artists in Canada. Respected by everyone, except his own family.

  Mrs Morrow was rolling in money and yet she’d never once bought a painting by her own son, even when they were all but starving. She’d offered to give them money, but Peter had side-stepped that mine.

  Clara watched as Mariana Morrow wandered to the piano. Thomas had abandoned it and was now reading a newspaper. Mariana sat, swept her shawl over her shoulder and held her hands over the keys.

  This should be good, thought Clara, awaiting the clunks and bangs. Anything to break the crackling silence. Mariana’s hands hovered, bouncing slightly, as though playing airpiano. For God’s sake, shouted Clara’s mind. Can’t they do anything for real?

  Clara glanced around and saw Bean alone.

  ‘What’re you reading?’ she asked, joining the serious child on the window seat.

  Bean showed Clara the book. Myths Every Child Should Know.

  ‘Wonderful. Did you find it in the library?’

  ‘No, Mommy gave it to me. It was hers. See.’ Bean showed Clara the first page, inscribed, For Mariana on her birthday, from Mother and Father.

  Clara felt tears sting her eyes again. Bean stared at her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Clara, dabbing her eye with a cushion. ‘I’m being silly.’

  But Clara knew why she wept. Not for Julia, not for Mrs Morrow. She wept for all the Morrows, but mostly for parents who gave gifts and wrote ‘from’. For parents who never lost children because they never had them.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Bean.

  It had been Clara’s intention to comfort Bean.

  ‘It’s just very sad,’ said Clara. ‘I’m sorry about your aunt. How about you? Are you all right?’

  Bean’s mouth opened and music came out. Or so it seemed for an instant.

  Turning round Clara stared at the piano. Mariana had dropped her hands to the keys, and they were doing the most remarkable thing. They were finding the notes. In the right order. The music was astonishing. Fluid and passionate and natural.

  It was gorgeous, but it was also typical. She should have known. The untalented brother was a brilliant painter. The mess of a sister was a virtuoso pianist. And Thomas? She’d always presumed he was as he seemed. A successful executive in Toronto. But this family was fuelled by deceit. What was he, really?

  Clara glanced around and saw Chief Inspector Gamache standing at the door, staring at Mariana.

  The music stopped.

  ‘I’m going to ask you all to stay at the Manoir for at least another day, perhaps longer.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Thank you,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘We’re collecting evidence now and sometime today one of my agents will interview each of you. Until then feel free to wander the grounds. I’d like to speak with you. Will you walk with me?’

  He gestured to Peter, who rose.

  ‘We’d like to go first,’ said Sandra, her eyes anxiously flitting from Peter to Gamache and back.

  ‘Why?’

  This seemed to surprise her. ‘Do I need a reason?’

  ‘It would help. If there’s a pressing need then I’ll ask the Inspector to get to you first. Is there one?’

  Sandra, deflated and compressed by far too many pressing needs all her life, was silent.

  ‘We don’t want to speak to the Inspector,’ said Thomas. ‘We want to speak to you.’

  ‘Flattering as that is, I’m afraid it’ll be Inspector Beauvoir who’ll interview you. Unless you’d prefer Agent Lacoste.’

  ‘Then why does he get you?’ Thomas jerked his head towards Peter.

  ‘This isn’t a competition.’

  Thomas Morrow stared at Gamache with a look designed to wither. A look practised and perfected on secretaries who’d traded self-respect for a salary and trainees too young to know a bully from a boss.

  As he headed out of the screen door Gamache looked back at the Morrows, staring after him like a tableau vivant. Out of that tableau, Gamache knew, a murderer would one day walk. And Gamache would be waiting for him.

  Agent Isabelle Lacoste organized the officers from the local Sûreté detachment and handed out assignments. One team would search the staff rooms and outbuildings, another would search the Manoir and her team would handle the guest rooms.

  She’d warned them to be careful. They were looking for evidence, but they were also looking for a murderer. It was possible he was hiding on the grounds. Unlikely, but possible. Agent Lacoste was a cautious woman, by nature and by training. And now she conducted the search, always with the expectation that the monster was indeed under the bed or waiting in the wardrobe.

  ‘Mariana Morrow?’

  Inspector Beauvoir stepped into the Great Room, feeling a bit like a dental assistant. Time for your filling. And they looked at him with those same dental-patient eyes. Fear for those chosen, annoyance for those left to wait.

  ‘What about us?’ asked Sandra, standing up. ‘We were told we could go first.’

  ‘Oui?’ said Beauvoir. No one had told him, and he thought he knew why. ‘Well, I think I’ll take Mademoiselle Morrow so she can get back to her …’ Beauvoir looked over at the attractive blond child on the window seat, reading. ‘Her child.’

  He led Mariana into the library and sat her on a hard chair he’d brought in. Hardly torture, but he didn’t like his suspects too comfortable. Besides, he wanted the big leather chair for himself.

  ‘Mademoiselle Morrow—’ he began.

  ‘Oh, look, you have sandwiches. We’ve run out.’ She got up and took a large tomato and thick-sliced maple ham sandwich without asking.

  ‘I’m sorry about your sister,’ he said, timing the barb so that her fat, greedy mouth was too full t
o answer. Clearly, you’re not, he’d hoped to imply. But watching her shove the food into her mouth he thought his insult too subtle. He didn’t like this woman. Of all the Morrows, even that impatient one, this one he liked least. Sandra he understood. He hated to wait too. He didn’t like seeing others served first, especially when he’d arrived before them. He didn’t like it when people butted into grocery lines, or cut in on the highway.

  He expected people to play fair. Rules meant order. Without them they’d be killing each other. It began with butting in, with parking in disabled spaces, with smoking in elevators. And it ended in murder.

  True, he had to admit, it was a bit of a stretch but it was descended from the same line. Trace it back far enough and a murderer probably always broke the rules, thinking himself better than the rest. He didn’t like rule-breakers. And he especially didn’t like them when they came wrapped in purple and green and scarlet shawls with children named Bean.

  ‘I didn’t know her well, you know,’ said Mariana, swallowing and taking a spruce beer from the tray. ‘Mind?’

  But she’d opened it before he could say anything.

  ‘Thanks. Yech.’ She almost spat it out. ‘Oh my God. Am I the first person to ever drink this stuff? Has anyone at the company tried it? It tastes like a tree.’

  She opened and shut her mouth, like a cat trying to get something off its tongue.

  ‘That’s just disgusting. Like a sip?’ She tilted it towards him. He narrowed his eyes and was surprised to see a grin on her unlovely face.

  Poor woman, he thought. So ugly in a family so attractive. While he was no fan of the Morrows he could at least see that they were handsome. Even the dead woman, crushed, had retained some beauty. This one, whole, had none.

  ‘No?’ She took another sip and winced again, but didn’t put it down.

  ‘How well did you know her?’

  ‘She was ten years older than me and had left home before I was twelve. We didn’t have much in common. She was into boys, I was into cartoons.’

  ‘You don’t seem sorry she’s dead. You don’t even seem sad.’

  ‘I’ve been raised in a family of hypocrites, Inspector. I promised myself I wouldn’t be like them. I wouldn’t hide my feelings.’

  ‘Quite easy when there’re none to hide.’

  That silenced her. He’d won the point, but was losing the interview. It was never a good sign when the investigator was doing all the talking.

  ‘Why show all your feelings?’

  Her smiling face grew serious. It didn’t make her more attractive. Now she looked glum and ugly. ‘I grew up in Disney World. It looked good from the outside. It was meant to. But inside everything was mechanical. You never knew what was real. Too much courtesy, too many smiles. I grew frightened of smiles. Never a cross word, but never a supportive one either. You never knew how people really felt. We kept things to ourselves. Still do. Except me. I’m honest about most things.’

  Interesting how important a single word could become.

  ‘What do you mean, most?’

  ‘Well, it’d be foolish to tell my family everything.’

  She seemed suddenly coy, almost flirtatious. It was revolting.

  ‘What haven’t you told them?’

  ‘Little things. Like what I do for a living.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m an architect. I design homes.’

  Beauvoir thought he knew the kinds of homes she designed. Ones that impressed, that were all gaudy and shiny and big. Loud homes, that no one could actually live in.

  ‘What else don’t you tell them?’

  She paused and looked around then leaned forward.

  ‘Bean.’

  ‘Your child?’

  She nodded.

  ‘What about Bean?’ Beauvoir’s pen hovered over his notebook.

  ‘I haven’t told them.’

  ‘Who the father is?’ He’d broken the cardinal rule of interrogation. He’d answered his own question. She shook her head and smiled.

  ‘Of course I haven’t told them that. There’s no answer to that,’ she said cryptically. ‘I haven’t told them what Bean is.’

  Beauvoir felt himself grow cold.

  ‘What is Bean?’

  ‘Exactly. Even you don’t know. But sadly Bean’s nearing puberty and soon it’ll be obvious.’

  It took a moment for Beauvoir to appreciate what she meant. He dropped his pen and it rolled off the table to the carpeted floor.

  ‘You mean you haven’t told your family if Bean’s a boy or girl?’

  Mariana Morrow nodded and took a long pull on her spruce beer.

  ‘It actually doesn’t taste too bad. I guess you can get used to anything.’

  Beauvoir doubted it. For fifteen years he’d been with the Chief Inspector, investigating murders, and he’d never got used to the insanity of the Anglos. It seemed bottomless, and purposeless. What kind of creature kept the sex of her child a secret?

  ‘It’s my little homage to my upbringing, Inspector. Bean is my child and my secret. I can’t tell you how good it feels in a family of know-it-alls to know something they don’t.’

  Fucking Anglos, thought Beauvoir. If he tried that his mother’d thrash him with a rolling pin.

  ‘Can’t they just ask Bean themselves?’

  She roared with laughter, speckles of tomato hitting the pine table in front of him.

  ‘Are you kidding? A Morrow ask a question? Admit ignorance?’ She leaned forward conspiratorially and despite himself Beauvoir leaned forward to meet her. ‘That’s the brilliance of this. Their own arrogance is my best weapon.’

  Beauvoir leaned back, then. Repulsed. How can a woman, a mother, do such a thing? His own mother would die for him, would kill for him. It was natural. This thing in front of him was unnatural.

  ‘And what will you do when it’s no longer a secret, mademoiselle? When Bean hits puberty, or volunteers the information one day?’ He was damned if he was going to ask Bean’s sex. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of admitting he cared.

  ‘Well, I always have Bean’s name to torture her with.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘My mother.’

  Beauvoir could barely look at this woman, who’d given birth to a biological weapon aimed at her mother. He was beginning to think the wrong Morrow was murdered.

  ‘Why would someone want to kill your sister?’

  ‘By someone you mean one of us, don’t you?’

  It wasn’t actually a question and now Beauvoir chose to stay quiet.

  ‘Don’t look at me. I didn’t know her enough to kill her. She’d been gone for thirty years or more. But I can tell you one thing, Inspector. She could put as much distance between herself and us as she wanted, but she was still a Morrow. Morrows lie, and Morrows keep secrets. It’s our currency. Don’t trust them, Inspector. Don’t trust a word they say.’

  It was the first thing she’d said he’d no trouble believing.

  ‘Julia had a falling out with Father,’ said Peter. ‘I don’t know what it was about.’

  ‘Weren’t you curious?’ asked Gamache. The two tall men had walked down the wet lawn of the Bellechasse and stopped at the shoreline. They looked onto the slate-grey lake and the mist that obscured the far shore. The birds were out, looking for insects, and every now and then a haunting loon called across the lake.

  Peter smiled tightly. ‘Curiosity wasn’t something rewarded in our home. It was considered rude. It was rude to ask questions, rude to laugh too loud or too long, rude to cry, rude to contradict. So, no, I wasn’t curious.’

  ‘So she left home when she was in her early twenties. Thomas would have been a couple of years older and you were?’

  ‘Eighteen,’ said Peter.

  ‘That’s precise.’

  ‘I’m a precise man, as you know,’ said Peter, this time with a genuine smile. He was beginning to breathe again, feel himself again. He looked down and was surprised to see crumbs on his shir
t. He batted them off. Then he picked up a handful of pebbles. ‘Julia would have loved today,’ he said, skimming the stones.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ asked Gamache.

  ‘It’s a Vancouver day. She used to tell me how moody it was. Said it suited her.’

  ‘Was she moody?’

  Peter watched as his pebble took four skips before sinking. ‘She was. But then I always think of her as twenty-one. I didn’t see much of her after she left.’

  ‘Why not?’ Gamache watched his friend closely. There was a definite disadvantage to investigating a friend for murder. But there were advantages too. Like knowing when they were hiding something.

  ‘We’re not a close family. I sometimes wonder what’ll happen after Mother goes. She’s the one we come to see, the others are just there.’

  ‘Maybe it’ll bring you together.’

  ‘Maybe. It might be a blessing. But I don’t think so. I didn’t choose to see Julia, but she didn’t choose to see us either. She was happy in Vancouver with David and she forgot all about us. And frankly, months, years, would go by before I thought about her.’

  ‘What would remind you?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘What would bring her to mind? You say years could go by, but what would make her come back into your head?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  ‘You do know I’m not just making conversation. These questions are important, even if they don’t seem it.’

  Gamache had spoken uncharacteristically sternly and it was true that Peter had forgotten he was speaking with the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec.

  ‘I’m sorry. Why would I think of her?’ He thought about it, then felt a pinch when he realized what the answer was. ‘Because she’d call or write. We’d get postcards from all over. She and David travelled a lot.’

  ‘She reached out to you,’ said Gamache.

  ‘Only when she wanted something. My sister might have appeared nice and kind but she was very canny. She almost always got what she wanted.’

  ‘And what would she want? Not money, surely.’