The Murder Stone

by Louise Penny

  ‘She’s from Saskatchewan. Just arrived. Very nice, but you know.’ Elliot, a man of the world, shrugged. He seemed to have recovered his equanimity, or at least his charm, and had resigned himself to continue working despite his flare-up with the maître d’. Gamache wondered, though, how much was genuine acceptance and how much was an act.

  A hummingbird zoomed past and stopped at a foxglove. ‘Merci.’ The Chief Inspector smiled and reached out for the tray.

  ‘S’il vous plaît,’ said Elliot, ‘I’ll carry it. Where would you like to sit?’ He looked around the deserted terrasse.

  ‘Well, actually, I was going to the dock.’

  The two walked across the lawn, their feet making a path through the light morning dew. The world was waking up, hungry. Chipmunks raced and yipped under the trees, birds hopped and called and insects buzzed quietly in the background. Elliot placed the tray on the arm of the second Adirondack chair, poured a delicate bone china cup of coffee and turned to leave.

  ‘There is one thing I’ve wanted to ask you.’

  Did the lithe back tighten in the trim white jacket? Elliot paused for a moment then turned back, an expectant smile on his handsome face.

  ‘What did you think of Madame Martin?’

  ‘Think? All I do here is wait tables and clean up. I don’t think.’

  Still the smile, but Gamache had the answer to his earlier question. Anger seethed under the charming exterior.

  ‘Stop playing the fool with me, son.’ Gamache’s voice was steady but full of warning.

  ‘She was a guest, I’m an employee. She was polite.’

  ‘You talked?’

  Now Elliot really did hesitate and colour slightly. With time, Gamache knew, his blush would disappear. He’d be confident instead of cocky. He’d be beyond embarrassment. And he’d be far less attractive.

  ‘She was polite,’ he repeated, then seemed to hear how lame he sounded. ‘She wanted to know if I liked working here, what I planned to do after the summer. That sort of thing. Most guests don’t see the staff, and we’re taught to be discreet. But Madame Martin noticed.’

  Was there an invisible world, Gamache wondered. A place where diminished people met, where they recognized each other? Because if he knew one thing about Julia Martin it was that she too was invisible. The sort others cut off in conversation, cut in front of in grocery lines, overlook for jobs though their hand might be raised and waving.

  Julia Martin might be all that, but this young man was anything but invisible. No, if they had something in common it wasn’t that. Then he remembered.

  ‘You and Madame Martin had something in common,’ he said.

  Elliot stood on the dock, silent.

  ‘You’re both from British Columbia.’

  ‘Is that right? We didn’t talk about that.’

  He was lying. He did it well, a skill that came with practice. But his eyes instead of shifting met Gamache’s and held them, too long, too hard.

  ‘Thank you for the coffee,’ said Gamache, breaking the moment. Elliot was perplexed, then smiled and left. Gamache watched his retreat and thought of what Elliot had said. Madame Martin noticed. And he thought that was probably true.

  Is that what killed her? Not something buried in the past, but something fresh and vigorous? And deadly. Something she’d seen or heard here at the Manoir?

  Settling into the chair on the wooden dock Gamache sipped coffee and stared at the lake and the forested mountains all around. He cradled the delicate cup in his large hands and let his mind wander. Instead of forcing himself to focus on the case he tried to open his mind, to empty it. And see what came to him.

  What came to him was a bird, a footless bird. Then Ulysses and the whirlpool, and Scylla, the monster. The white pedestal.

  He saw young Bean, earthbound and trapped among the stuffed heads in the attic. They might have been Morrows, meant more as trophies than children. All head, all stuffed and staring.

  But mostly he saw Charles Morrow, looming over this case. Hard, burdened, bound.

  ‘Am I disturbing you?’

  Gamache twisted in the chair. Bert Finney was standing on the shore, at the foot of the dock. Gamache struggled out of the chair and lifted the tray, indicating the seat next to him. Monsieur Finney hobbled forward, all gangling arms and legs like a puppeteer’s poor first attempt. And yet he stood erect. It looked an effort.

  ‘Please.’ Gamache pointed to the chair.

  ‘I’d rather stand.’

  The old man was shorter than the Chief Inspector, though not by much and Gamache thought he’d probably have been taller before age and gravity got him. Now Bert Finney pulled himself even more erect and faced Gamache. His eyes were less wilful this morning, and his nose less red. Or perhaps, Gamache thought, I’ve grown accustomed to him as one grows accustomed to chipping paint or a dent in a car. For the first time Gamache noticed there was a pair of binoculars hanging like an anchor round Finney’s bony neck.

  ‘I’m afraid I shocked you last night. I didn’t mean to.’ Finney looked directly at Gamache, or at least his wandering eyes paused on him.

  ‘You surprised me, it’s true.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  It was said with such dignity, such simplicity, it left Gamache speechless for a moment.

  ‘It’s been a while since I’ve heard people talk about my father. Did you know him personally?’ Gamache again indicated the chair and this time Finney bent into it.

  ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Please. Black.’

  Gamache poured a cup for Monsieur Finney and refreshed his own, then brought over the basket with croissants and rested it on the generous arm of his chair, offering one to his unexpected guest.

  ‘I met him at the end of the war.’

  ‘You were a prisoner?’

  Finney’s mouth twisted into what Gamache thought was a smile. Finney stared across the water for a moment then closed his eyes. Gamache waited.

  ‘No, Chief Inspector, I’ve never been a prisoner. I wouldn’t allow it.’

  ‘Some people have no choice, monsieur.’

  ‘You think not?’

  ‘How did you know my father?’

  ‘I’d just returned to Montreal and your father was giving speeches. I heard one of them. Very passionate. I spoke to him afterwards and we struck up an acquaintance. I was so sorry to hear he’d been killed. Car accident, was it?’

  ‘With my mother.’

  Armand Gamache had trained his voice to sound neutral, as though delivering news. Just facts. It was a long time ago. More than forty years. His father was now dead longer than he’d lived. His mother as well.

  But Gamache’s right hand lifted slightly off the warming wood and curled upward, as though lightly holding another, a larger, hand.

  ‘Terrible,’ said Finney. They sat quietly, each in his own thoughts. The mist was slowly burning off the lake and every now and then a bird skimmed the surface, hungry for insects. Gamache was surprised how companionable it felt, to be alone with this quiet man. This man who knew his father, and hadn’t yet said what most people did. This man, Gamache realized, who would be almost exactly his father’s age, had he lived.

  ‘It feels like our own world, doesn’t it?’ Finney said. ‘I love this time of day. So pleasant to sit and think.’

  ‘Or not,’ said Gamache and both men smiled. ‘You came here last night too. You have a lot to think about?’

  ‘I do. I come here to do my sums. It’s a natural place for it.’

  It seemed an unnatural place for counting to Gamache. And Finney didn’t seem to have a notebook or ledger. What had Peter said the night before? The old accountant had married his mother for the money, and killed Julia for money as well. And now the elderly man was sitting on a dock in a remote lake, counting. Greed didn’t lessen with age, Gamache knew. If anything it grew, fuelled by fear of not having enough, of things left undone. Of dying destitute. Though it might not be money he was counting. It might be bir
ds.

  ‘You birdwatch?’

  ‘I do,’ said Finney, bringing his hand up to finger the binoculars. ‘I have quite a life-list. Sparrows, of course, and cardinals. Black-crested bulbul and white-throated babbler. Marvellous names. I’ve seen most of the birds here before, but you never know what you might find.’

  They sipped their coffee and ate their croissants, batting away hungry flies. Dragonflies skimmed the water around the dock, graceful and bright as the sun caught their wings and luminous bodies.

  ‘Do you know of a bird without feet?’

  ‘Without feet?’ Instead of laughing Finney considered the question carefully. ‘Why would a bird have no feet?’

  ‘Why indeed?’ said Gamache, but chose not to elaborate. ‘Who do you think killed your stepdaughter?’

  ‘Besides Charles?’

  Gamache remained silent.

  ‘This is a difficult family, Chief Inspector. A complicated one.’

  ‘You called them “seven mad Morrows in a verchère” the other day.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘What did you mean? Or were you just angry about being left behind?’

  As Gamache had hoped, that roused the elderly man who up until that moment had seemed perfectly at ease. Now he turned in his chair and looked at Gamache. But not with annoyance. He looked amused.

  ‘I remember I told Clara that not everyone makes the boat,’ said Finney. ‘What I didn’t say is that not everybody wants to make the boat.’

  ‘This is a family, Monsieur Finney, and you’ve been excluded. Doesn’t that hurt?’

  ‘Hurt is having your daughter crushed to death. Hurt is losing your father, your mother. Hurt is all sorts of things. It isn’t being forced to stand on a shore, especially this shore.’

  ‘The surroundings aren’t the issue,’ said Gamache quietly. ‘The interior is. Your body can be standing in the loveliest of places, but if your spirit is crushed, it doesn’t matter. Being excluded, shunned, is no small event.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ Finney leaned back again into the deep Adirondack chair. Across the lake a couple of Oh Canada birds called to each other. It was just after seven.

  Bean’s alarms would have gone off by now.

  ‘Did you know that Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were friends?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Gamache, staring straight ahead, but listening closely.

  ‘They were. Thoreau was once thrown in jail for protesting some government law he believed violated freedom. Emerson visited him there and said, “Henry, how did you come to be in here?” Do you know what Thoreau replied?’

  ‘No,’ said Gamache.

  ‘He said, “Ralph, how did you come to be out there?”’ After a moment Finney made a strangled noise. Gamache turned to look. It was laughter. A soft, almost inaudible, chuckle.

  ‘You called them mad. What did you mean?’

  ‘Well now, that’s just my perception, but I’ve seen men go mad before and I’ve thought about it quite a bit. What do we call madness?’

  Gamache was beginning to appreciate that Finney spoke in rhetorical questions.

  ‘Not going to answer?’

  Gamache smiled at himself. ‘Do you want me to? Madness is losing touch with reality, creating and living in your own world.’

  ‘True, though sometimes that’s the sanest thing to do. The only way to survive. Abused people, especially children, do it.’

  Gamache wondered how Finney knew that.

  ‘They’ve lost their minds,’ said Finney. ‘Not always a bad thing. But there’s another expression we use to describe madness.’

  A movement to his left caught Gamache’s eye, a flapping. Looking over he saw Bean running down the lawn. Fleeing? Gamache wondered. But after a moment he realized the child was neither fleeing nor running.

  ‘We say they’ve taken leave of their senses,’ said Finney.

  Bean was galloping, like a horse, a huge swimming towel flapping behind.

  ‘The Morrows are mad,’ Finney continued, either oblivious of the child or used to it, ‘because they’ve taken leave of their senses. They live in their heads and pay no heed to any other information flooding in.’

  ‘Peter Morrow’s an artist and a gifted one,’ said Gamache. ‘You can’t be that good an artist without being in touch with your senses.’

  ‘He is gifted,’ agreed Finney, ‘but how much better would he be if he stopped thinking and started just being? Started listening, smelling, feeling?’

  Finney sipped his now cool coffee. Gamache knew he should get up, but he lingered, enjoying the company of this extravagantly ugly man.

  ‘I remember the first time I intentionally killed something.’

  The statement was so unexpected Gamache looked over to the whittled old man to see what prompted it. Bert Finney pointed a gnarled finger at a point of land. Just drifting round it was a boat with a fisherman, alone in the early morning calm, casting.

  Whiz. Plop. And the far-off ticking, like Bean’s clocks, as the line was slowly reeled in.

  ‘I was about ten and my brother and I went out to shoot squirrels. He took my father’s rifle and I used his. I’d seen him shoot often enough but had never been allowed to do it myself. We snuck out and ran into the woods. It was a morning like this, when parents sleep in and kids get up to mischief. We dodged between the trees and threw ourselves onto the ground, pretending to be fighting the enemy. Trench warfare.’

  Gamache watched as the elderly man twisted his torso, mimicking the movements of almost eighty years ago.

  ‘Then my brother hushed me and pointed. Two chipmunks were playing at the base of a tree. My brother pointed to my rifle. I lifted it, took aim, and fired.’

  Whiz. Plop. Tick, tick, tick.

  ‘I got him.’

  Bert Finney turned to Gamache, his eyes wild now, going every which way. It was hard to imagine this man being able to shoot anything.

  ‘My brother cheered and I ran up excitedly. Very proud. I could hardly wait to tell my father. But the thing wasn’t dead. It was gravely hurt, I could tell. It cried and clawed the air, then it stopped and just whimpered. I heard a sound and looked over. The other chipmunk was watching.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘I shot it again. Killed it.’

  ‘Was that the last time you killed something?’

  ‘For a long time, yes. My father was disappointed I wouldn’t hunt with him after that. I never told him why. Perhaps I should have.’

  They watched the man in the boat, the man, Gamache guessed, from the cabin across the lake.

  ‘But I eventually killed again,’ said Finney.

  Bean galloped by again then disappeared into the woods.

  ‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,’ said Finney, watching the last flap of the bathing towel as it disappeared into the forest.

  ‘Are they surly bonds?’ asked Gamache.

  ‘For some,’ said Finney, still looking at the spot where Bean had been.

  The fisherman’s rod suddenly arched and the boat rocked slightly as the man, surprised, leaned back in his seat and started reeling in. The line protested, screaming.

  Gamache and Finney watched, willing the fish to flick its head just right. To dislodge the hook tearing its mouth.

  ‘How well did you know Charles Morrow?’

  ‘He was my best friend.’ Finney broke away, reluctantly, from the scene on the lake. ‘We went through school together. Some people you lose track of, but not Charles. He was a good friend. Friendship mattered to him.’

  ‘What was he like?’

  ‘Forceful. He knew what he wanted and he generally got it.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Money, power, prestige. The usual.’ Finney was drawn back to the fisherman and his arching rod. ‘He worked hard and built a strong company. Actually, to be fair, he took over the family company. It was a small but respected investment firm. But Charles built i
t into something else. Opened offices across Canada. He was a driven man.’

  ‘What was it called?’

  ‘Morrow Securities. I remember he came to work one day laughing because little Peter had asked where his gun was. He thought his dad was a security guard. Very disappointed to find out he wasn’t.’

  ‘You worked for him?’

  ‘All my life. He finally sold the company.’

  ‘Why didn’t he pass it on to his children?’

  For the first time Bert Finney appeared uncomfortable.

  The fisherman was leaning over the side of his boat, a net in hand, dipping it into the water.

  ‘I believe he wanted to, but he just didn’t think any of them would be suitable. Peter had far too much imagination, it would have killed him, said Charles, though he believed Peter would’ve been willing to try. He loved that boy’s loyalty and his willingness to help. He was a very kind boy, Charles always said. Julia was already gone, off to BC and engaged to David Martin. Charles had very little time for poor Julia’s husband, so that wasn’t an option. Mariana? Well, he thought she could do it one day. He always said she had the best mind of any of them. Not, perhaps, the best brain. But the best mind. But she was busy having fun.’

  ‘And Thomas?’

  ‘Ah, Thomas. Charles thought he was smart and canny, both important.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But he thought the boy was missing something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Compassion.’

  Gamache thought about that. ‘It doesn’t seem like the first quality you’d look for in an executive.’

  ‘But it is in a son. Charles didn’t want Thomas quite that close.’

  Gamache nodded. He’d finally gotten it out of Finney, but had Finney wanted him to ask, to push? Was this the reason Finney was sitting here? To steer the Chief Inspector towards his stepson?

  ‘When did Charles Morrow die?’

  ‘Eighteen years ago. I was with him. By the time we got him to the hospital he was dead. Heart attack.’

  ‘And you married his wife.’ Gamache wanted it to sound neutral. Not an accusation. And it wasn’t one, it was simply a question. But he also knew a guilty mind was a harsh filter, and heard things unintended.