by Louise Penny
Certainly, everything he was hearing about Mr. Ellis pointed to a lonely man who might have taken his own life.
But why come into the village and ask about young men?
No, there were questions still.
“Can you read the note to me again?”
“If you are reading this, my body has been found,” Beauvoir read over the phone. “I am sorry. I hope the discovery did not upset anyone. I tried to go as far away as possible so that no children would find me. My work is finally done. I am tired, but I am at peace. Finally. I know you cannot forgive me, but perhaps you can understand.”
There was silence as both men thought about what the note said.
“It’s a suicide note,” said the chief at last. There was no doubt. Beauvoir was right. Should he be happy, though? Relieved that this poor man at least hadn’t suffered the terror of being murdered?
No. There was nothing to be happy about here. Mr. Ellis had clearly suffered other things in his life. Sufered enough that he could no longer stand the pain.
I am tired, but I am at peace. Finally.
But there was something else he had written.
“Can you read it to me again, please?”
Gamache listened to the now-familiar words. “What did he mean by My work is finally done?”
“Maybe his kids were grown up, or he’d retired. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
“But the note wasn’t addressed to anyone, was it? Not to children or a wife. No one,” said Gamache.
“True. But that isn’t unusual.”
“And the note isn’t signed. That’s more unusual,” said Gamache.
“What are you getting at, chief?”
“I’m just wondering,” said Gamache. At that moment, a shadow fell across the bar where he stood talking on the bistro telephone. Looking up, he saw Myrna beside him. She had a book in her hand and a very serious look on her face.
“Can you call Dr. Harris and see if she has any autopsy results?” Gamache asked Inspector Beauvoir before hanging up and greeting Myrna. Once again he bowed slightly, and waved toward a nearby table.
“You look like you could use a drink,” he said as they sat. It was now past noon. The bistro was filling with lunch customers and the smell of fresh bread and garlic and hearty stews.
“You’ll need one, too, once you see this.”
Gamache ordered Myrna a beer and looked at the book she had placed on the wooden table between them. It had a hard cover. Gamache picked it up and scanned it, as Myrna sipped her beer. It was a murder mystery by a Canadian writer. Barbara Fradkin. It looked very good, and Gamache thought he might buy it, but he wondered why Myrna had come back to the bistro just for this.
He lowered the book and looked at her.
She took it back, turned it over, and placed one very large finger on a large sentence on the back cover.
“Winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Mystery in Canada.”
Gamache’s eyes widened, and he looked at Myrna, who was smiling slightly.
“I knew the name was familiar,” she said. “You kept calling him Mr. Ellis, but the name didn’t click until I was leaving and heard Gabri say ‘Arthur Ellis.’” I went through my books, and there I found it. Arthur Ellis. It’s an award. For murder mysteries.”
“Is it a coincidence?” Gamache asked.
“You tell me.”
Gamache stared at the book. As the head of homicide for the Quebec Provincial Police, he’d come to realize that coincidences almost never happened in murder cases.
“Was Arthur Ellis a mystery writer, too? Is that why the award is named for him?”
“No. This is where things gets strange.”
“Stranger than they already are?” he asked.
“Lots,” said Myrna. “Arthur Ellis was the name of Canada’s official executioner. He hanged people.”
Chapter Eight
Fifteen minutes later, Inspector Beauvoir joined Gamache in the bookstore. As soon as Beauvoir walked through the door, Gamache handed him the book. The chief had on his half-moon reading glasses and looked at the inspector over them.
Beauvoir took the book, and Gamache went back to the computer screen on Myrna’s desk. Myrna herself was reading over the chief’s shoulder.
Inspector Beauvoir looked at the murder mystery in his hand. He was confused.
“Was it a copycat murder? Is the answer in here?” He held up the book. “Did this Barbara Fradkin kill Mr. Ellis?”
Once again, Gamache looked up, this time with a small smile. “I don’t think so, but that book certainly holds a clue. With Myrna’s help, I’ve found Arthur Ellis.”
Gamache got up and offered his seat to his second-in-command. Beauvoir sat and looked at the computer screen. On it was a black-and-white photo of a middle-aged man. It was taken in 1912. He had on round glasses, an old-fashioned hat, and a suit. He looked like a banker.
But he wasn’t.
He was Arthur Ellis.
As Inspector Beauvoir read, his breathing all but stopped. Finally, he sat back from the screen. He looked up at Chief Inspector Gamache and Myrna.
“What does it mean?” he asked, almost to himself. “It can’t be the same Arthur Ellis.”
That would make the man 150 years old. A zombie. A vampire. But not immortal.
For Arthur Ellis had just died. Hanged in the woods.
“It means,” said Gamache, leading the inspector into the bistro, “that we have a mystery on our hands.”
“No shit,” said Beauvoir.
Over a lunch of steak and fries, the two men discussed what they had found.
“So, Arthur Ellis killed people,” said Beauvoir, popping a salted fry into his mouth.
“He executed them,” Gamache corrected. “There is a fine line between the two. He was Canada’s official hangman.”
Beauvoir shook his head, remembering the photo of the mild-looking man. Had he really killed, executed, hundreds of men and women in the early 1900s? Hired by the Canadian government to hang them?
“Hell of a job.” Beauvoir wondered how that went down at dinner parties. Or on first dates.
“He came from a long line of executioners,” said the chief, taking a sip of beer. “Learned it from his father in England. His family had been hanging people for three hundred years.”
“Lucky us, to get him,” said Beauvoir.
“Arthur Ellis wasn’t his real name,” said Gamache. “He wanted to hide who he really was. He knew people hated and feared the executioner. They wanted someone to do the job, but they didn’t want to know that person.”
Beauvoir nodded. He’d read the story on the Web, just as the chief inspector had. He knew the rest. That after a long, successful career, Arthur Ellis had made a mistake.
A Terrible mistake.
He was to hang a woman in Montreal, in 1935. But he got her weight wrong, and instead of breaking her neck, the drop took her head off.
It was his last execution. He couldn’t do the job anymore. He died three years later in Montreal. A broken, lonely man.
The waiter took away their empty plates.
Beauvoir leaned forward. “How is it that Arthur Ellis was found hanging in the woods outside Three Pines this morning?”
That was the question.
The chief inspector put down his mug of beer. “I don’t know. The official hangman chose Arthur Ellis as an alias a hundred years ago. I think our dead man chose the same alias. He chose Arthur Ellis for a reason.”
Beauvoir looked into the deep, thoughtful eyes of his boss. And he knew Gamache was right.
“He was here to execute someone?” Beauvoir asked.
Gamache stood up, paid, and made for the door.
“I think so.”
They walked across the bridge to the old railway station, where Gamache’s team had set up an office. Phones were ringing, and urgent messages awaited both men.
Ten minutes later, Beauvoir pulled a chair up to the chief inspecto
r’s desk. Gamache removed his reading glasses, finished his phone call, and looked at his inspector.
“Dr. Harris found bruises under the rope marks on the body,” said Gamache. “The man was strangled, probably by a belt. Then he was hanged. She’s confirmed it. Our man was murdered.”
“And I know who he was,” said Beauvoir. “His name was James Hill. Ontario’s motor vehicles branch confirmed it. We traced his licence plate.”
“Good. We’re getting there.”
For the rest of the afternoon, Inspector Beauvoir tracked down all the information he could on James Hill. Where he worked, lived. His family. His friends.
Chief Inspector Gamache went on his own hunt.
Myrna and Gabri had both said this James Hill had asked about young men in Three Pines. And a young man had appeared at the Bed and Breakfast the night before. Unexpectedly. At about the same time that James Hill was killed.
As the chief inspector crossed the village green, he could see geese in graceful formation overhead, flying south for the winter. But Gamache’s mind was elsewhere. On something not nearly so natural.
Who was James Hill here to execute? And who had got to him first?
Chapter Nine
Paul Goulet turned out to be a nice young man. He had a ready smile and warm eyes.
“How can I help you, Chief Inspector?”
They stood on the wide porch of the Bed and Breakfast. Paul was in his bicycling outfit of very tight pants and a very tight top. Armand Gamache was glad those clothes didn’t exist when he was twenty years old. And he vowed never to wear them now. Not that his wife Reine-Marie would allow it. The two of them often went for slow, quiet bike rides around the mountain in Montreal, sometimes taking a picnic.
But when Gamache saw what Goulet was wearing, he suddenly knew why bicyclists went so fast these days. He would, too, if he were wearing basically nothing.
“It’s a pretty village, isn’t it,” said Paul. “What’s it called again?”
“Three Pines.”
“Because of them?” He pointed to the three tall pine trees at the far end of the village green.
“Yes. It’s an old code. Three pine trees planted together means safety. It was used as a signal centuries ago. It marked a sanctuary.”
Paul Goulet was silent, and Gamache turned to look at him. If the chief inspector had not been standing so close, he would never have noticed the two warm lines that appeared on the young man’s cheeks.
Gamache waited until the tears stopped.
“Why does that idea move you so much?” the chief asked.
“Who doesn’t long for safety?”
“The man who already has it. Are you looking for safety?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t think so, until you told me that story.”
“Why are you here?” Gamache asked quietly.
“I took a week off to bike around. No plans, just a map of the bike paths. I arrived last night and found this place.”
He seemed almost in awe at the pretty, gentle village.
“You’re with the police, you say?” he looked at Gamache. “Has something happened?”
“There’s been a death.” Gamache watched Paul for a reaction. He seemed polite, interested. But nothing more.
“I’m sorry. Someone from here?”
“No, a visitor. Like you. A man named James Hill.”
Still Paul Goulet looked blank. Chief Inspector Gamache knew how difficult that was. A person’s face almost always had some expression on it.
A blank face was a wall. Put there on purpose, to hide something.
“Where are you from?” Gamache asked.
“Ottawa. I go to school there.”
“What are you taking?”
“A general degree. Haven’t decided on a career yet.”
Paul Goulet smiled. It was an easy grin. Gamache hoped this young man was not involved in the death, but he was far from sure.
Strong young arms and legs had lifted Hill’s body into the tree, tied a rope around his neck, and thrown him off.
Paul’s tight suit made it clear that he had strong arms and legs.
“The dead man was going under another name,” Gamache said. “Arthur Ellis.”
“Why would he do that?”
“We don’t know. But someone murdered him.”
“You mean there’s a killer in this village?”
“There’s a killer in every village. In every home. In every heart,” said Gamache, watching Paul closely. “All anyone needs is the right reason.”
The young man stared back but didn’t say anything. Finally he got up.
“If I can help, I will,” he said. “But I can’t see how. Can I go for my bike ride?”
Gamache nodded. “But don’t go far.”
Paul climbed onto his bike and with a shove was off down the dirt road.
After that, Chief Inspector Gamache found the woman who was also staying at the Bed and Breakfast. Her name was Sue Gravel. She was thirty-eight and worked as a secretary in a law firm in Montreal. She’d arrived a few days earlier and was planning to leave the next day.
No, she knew no one in Three Pines. It struck her as a boring place. Nothing to do.
“Then why did you come here?” Gamache asked.
“To relax.”
Gamache smiled. Only an amazing person could really relax. Sue Gravel did not strike the chief inspector as an amazing person.
She complained all the way through the interview. The weather was cold and damp. No shopping. No high-speed internet. And her cell phone didn’t work.
How could you relax here? she demanded.
Gamache did not suggest that she go for a walk or buy a book and sit by the fire in the bistro. He did not suggest that she sit quietly and get to know herself so she could be all the company she needed.
Had this woman killed James Hill? Murder would at least have been something to do. But while he liked the idea of arresting her, Gamache resisted.
He spent the rest of the afternoon interviewing the waiters at the bistro, the clerk at the general store, the young helper at the pastry shop. Then he climbed the slope to the Inn and Spa.
James Hill had chosen to spend his last days on earth here. Had his killer, too?
Chapter Ten
There were no young men among the guests at the Inn and Spa. The average age seemed to be ninety-seven. Except Tom Scott. The man who’d found the body. The man who’d lied about having a wife.
Chief Inspector Gamache sat across from him. Tom picked at a thread coming loose from his sweater.
“Why did you lie about having a wife?”
“Oh, that. I was joking.”
Gamache leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You were not joking.” Each word was said slowly, clearly.
“There is no wife,” admitted Tom Scott. The words hurried from him, like hostages trapped for years. “I made her up. Sometimes I give her a name. Kathy. We go to parties and movies and take long walks together. And we visit friends in the country.”
There was a long, long silence then. Armand Gamache sat still, waiting. The fire in the grate mumbled and popped. Tom Scott had closed his eyes. Gamache knew what he was doing. What all liars did.
He was looking for a way out. A back door. Another lie. A way to make this better.
The silence stretched on. Armand Gamache waited.
“I’m so lonely,” Scott finally whispered. “No one knows. It used to be an ache, a physical pain. Now even that’s gone. And there’s nothing. Nothing. I even tried to pick up that receptionist woman. I didn’t want to do anything. Just talk. I offered her a lift home, but she refused. I was trying to help, and she looked at me like I was crap.”
He sighed and opened his eyes.
“I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’m thirty-eight years old. Not even halfway through my life. I couldn’t see living like this for another month, never mind forty years.”
“What was your plan?” Gamache asked, thoug
h he suspected the answer. It was the April plan.
“I wasn’t sure. I wanted to come to a fancy place. Have the best room, eat the best food. See if I’d be happy then. But it didn’t work. I went for a walk in the woods, trying to think of what to do. I don’t want to live, but I’m too afraid to die.”
“Is that when you found the dead man?”
“Yes.” He looked into Gamache’s eyes. This time with wonder. “Do you think it was a sign from God?”
“Saying what?”
“That I shouldn’t kill myself. That this is what it looks like. It looked horrible.”
“You think God would kill a man to save you?” Gamache asked. His voice wasn’t accusing. It was curious. The ways of the Creator, he knew, were hard to fathom. But not nearly as hard as the ways of the created.
“I think maybe the man was going to kill himself anyway, and maybe the gift was having me find him.”
Gamache smiled then. Sometimes hope takes its time, but it finally appears. If you hold on just long enough. And he saw it now, deep down in Tom Scott’s eyes. A tiny spring.
But that did not mean that Tom Scott wasn’t a killer. A man willing to die could also be willing to kill.
“Did Arthur Ellis ever speak to you?” Gamache asked.
Scott hesitated. “He saw me talking to that receptionist...”
“Angela.”
“Yes, her, and he asked me to stop. We had words.”
“Angry words?”
Scott nodded.
“Anything else?” Gamache asked.
“Before that, we’d talked a little. He wanted to know where I was from.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I was a New Yorker. An investment banker.” Scott managed a weak smile and shrugged. Old habits.
“Did he believe you?”
“I don’t think he cared. Most people don’t.”
But Gamache disagreed. He suspected Arthur Ellis, or James Hill, cared deeply.
Gamache went in search of Angela and found her talking to her husband. He was of medium height and heavy-set. His hair was thick and a brilliant red.