by Louise Penny
Mid to late twenties, not fat, but not thin either. Not pretty, but not dirt ugly either. Not tall, but not short either.
She would appear to be completely average, completely unremarkable. Except for one thing.
The young woman radiated well-being.
As Ruth watched an older woman approached the group and put an arm around the younger woman’s waist and kissed her.
Reine-Marie Gamache. Ruth had met her a few times.
Now the wizened old poet looked at Beauvoir with heightened interest.
Peter Morrow was chatting up a few gallery owners. Minor figures in the art world but best to keep them happy.
He knew André Castonguay, of the Galerie Castonguay, was there and Peter was dying to meet him. He’d also noticed the critics for the New York Times and Le Figaro. He glanced across the room and saw a photographer taking Clara’s picture.
She looked away for a moment and caught his eye, shrugging. He lifted his wine in salute, and smiled.
Should he go over and introduce himself to Castonguay? But there was such a crowd around him, Peter didn’t want to look pathetic. Hovering. Better to stay away, as though he didn’t care, didn’t need André Castonguay.
Peter brought his attention back to the owner of a small gallery, who was explaining they’d love to do a show for Peter, but were all booked.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the rings around Castonguay part, and make way for Clara.
You asked how I feel when I see this painting,’ said Armand Gamache. The two men were looking at the portrait. ‘I feel calm. Comforted.’
François Marois looked at him with amazement.
‘Comforted? But how? Happy maybe that you aren’t so angry yourself? Does her own immense rage make yours more acceptable? What does Madame Morrow call this painting?’ Marois removed his glasses and leaned into the description stenciled on the wall.
Then he stepped back, his face more perplexed than ever.
‘It’s called Still Life. I wonder why.’
As the art dealer concentrated on the portrait Gamache noticed Olivier across the room. Staring at him. The Chief Inspector smiled a greeting and wasn’t surprised when Olivier turned away.
He at least had his answer.
Beside him Marois exhaled. ‘I see.’
Gamache turned back to the art dealer. Marois was no longer surprised. His veneer of civility and sophistication had slipped, and a genuine smile broke through.
‘It’s in her eyes, isn’t it.’
Gamache nodded.
Then Marois cocked his head to one side, looking not at the portrait but into the crowd. Puzzled. He looked back to the painting, then again into the crowd.
Gamache followed his gaze, and wasn’t surprised to see it resting on the elderly woman speaking with Jean Guy Beauvoir.
Ruth Zardo.
Beauvoir was looking vexed, annoyed, as one so often does around Ruth. But Ruth herself was looking quite pleased.
‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ asked Marois, his voice excited and low as though not wanting to let anyone else in on their secret.
Gamache nodded. ‘A neighbor of Clara’s in Three Pines.’
Marois watched Ruth, fascinated. It was as though the painting had come alive. Then he and Gamache both turned back to the portrait.
Clara had painted her as the forgotten and belligerent Virgin Mary. Worn down by age and rage, by resentments real and manufactured. By friendships soured. By entitlements denied and love withheld. But there was something else. A vague suggestion in those weary eyes. Not even seen really. More a promise. A rumor in the distance.
Amid all the brush strokes, all the elements, all the color and nuance in the portrait, it came down to one tiny detail. A single white dot.
In her eyes.
Clara Morrow had painted the moment despair became hope.
François Marois stepped back half a pace and nodded gravely.
‘It’s remarkable. Beautiful.’ He turned to Gamache then. ‘Unless, of course, it’s a ruse.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Gamache.
‘Maybe it isn’t hope at all,’ said Marois, ‘but merely A Trick of The Light.’
THREE
The next morning Clara rose early. Putting on rubber boots and a sweater over her pajamas, she poured herself a coffee and sat in one of the Adirondack chairs in their back garden.
The caterers had cleaned up and there was no evidence of the huge barbecue and dance the night before.
She closed her eyes and could feel the young June sun on her upturned face and could hear birdcalls and the Rivière Bella Bella gurgling past at the end of the garden. Below that was the thrum of bumblebees climbing in and over and around the peonies. Getting lost.
Bumbling around.
It looked comical, ridiculous. But then so much did, unless you knew.
Clara Morrow held the warm mug in her hands and smelt coffee, and the fresh-mown grass. The lilacs and peonies and young, fragrant roses.
This was the village that had lived beneath the covers when Clara was a child. That was built behind the thin wooden door to her bedroom, where outside her parents argued. Her brothers ignored her. The phone rang, but not for her. Where eyes slid over and past her and through her. To someone else. Someone prettier. More interesting. Where people butted in as though she was invisible, and interrupted her as though she hadn’t just spoken.
But when as a child she closed her eyes and pulled the sheets over her head, Clara saw the pretty little village in the valley. With the forests and flowers and kindly people.
Where bumbling was a virtue.
As far back as she could remember Clara wanted only one thing, even more than she’d wanted the solo show. It wasn’t riches, it wasn’t power, it wasn’t even love.
Clara Morrow wanted to belong. And now, at almost fifty, she did.
Was the show a mistake? In accepting it had she separated herself from the rest?
As she sat, scenes from the night before came to mind. Her friends, other artists, Olivier catching her eye and nodding reassuringly. The excitement at meeting André Castonguay and others. The curator’s happy face. The barbecue back in the village. The food and drink and fireworks. The live band and dancing. The laughter.
The relief.
But now, in the clear light of day, the anxiety had returned. Not the storm it had been at its worst, but a light mist that muted the sunshine.
And Clara knew why.
Peter and Olivier had gone to get the newspapers. To bring back the words she’d waited a lifetime to read. The reviews. The words of the critics.
Brilliant. Visionary. Masterful.
Dull. Derivative. Predictable.
Which would it be?
Clara sat, and sipped, and tried not to care. Tried not to notice the shadows lengthening, creeping toward her as the minutes passed.
A car door slammed and Clara spasmed in her chair, surprised out of her reverie.
‘We’re hoo-ome,’ Peter sang.
She heard footsteps coming around the side of their cottage. She got up and turned to greet Peter and Olivier. But instead of the two men walking toward her, they were standing still. As though turned into large garden gnomes.
And instead of looking at her, they were staring into a bed of flowers.
‘What is it?’ Clara asked, walking toward them, picking up speed as their expressions registered. ‘What’s wrong?’
Peter turned and dropping the papers on the grass he stopped her from going further.
‘Call the police,’ said Olivier. He inched forward, toward a perennial bed planted with peonies and bleeding hearts and poppies.
And something else.
Chief Inspector Gamache straightened up and sighed.
There was no doubt. This was murder.
The woman at his feet had a broken neck. Had she been at the foot of a flight of stairs he might have thought it an accident. But she was lying face up beside a flower bed. On
Eyes open. Staring straight into the late morning sun.
Gamache almost expected her to blink.
He looked around the pleasant garden. The familiar garden. How often had he stood back there with Peter and Clara and others, beer in hand, barbecue fired up. Chatting.
But not today.
Peter and Clara, Olivier and Gabri were standing down by the river. Watching. Between Gamache and them was the yellow tape, the great divide. On one side the investigators and on the other, the investigated.
‘White female,’ the coroner, Dr Harris, said. She was kneeling over the victim, as was Agent Isabelle Lacoste. Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir was directing the Scene of Crime team for the Sûreté du Québec. They were methodically going over the area. Collecting evidence. Photographing. Carefully, meticulously doing the forensics.
‘Middle-aged,’ the coroner’s voice carried on. Clinical. Factual.
Chief Inspector Gamache listened as the information was reeled off. He, better than most, knew the power of facts. But he also knew few murderers were ever found in facts.
‘Dyed blond hair, graying roots just showing. Slightly overweight. No ring on the ring finger.’
Facts were necessary. They pointed the way, and helped form the net. But the killer himself was tracked by following not only facts but feelings. The fetid emotions that had made a man into a murderer.
‘Neck snapped at the second vertebra.’
Chief Inspector Gamache listened and watched. The routine familiar. But no less horrifying.
The taking of one life by another never failed to shock him, even after all these years as head of homicide for the storied Sûreté du Québec. After all these murders. All these murderers.
He was still amazed what one human could do to another.
Peter Morrow stared at the red shoes just poking out from behind the flower bed. They were attached to the dead woman’s feet, which were attached to her body, which was lying on his grass. He couldn’t see the body now. It was hidden by the tall flowers, but he could see the feet. He looked away. Tried to concentrate on something else. On the investigators, Gamache and his team, bending, bowing, murmuring, as though in common prayer. A dark ritual, in his garden.
Gamache never took a note, Peter noticed. He listened and nodded respectfully. Asked a few questions, his face thoughtful. He left the note-taking to others. In this case, Agent Lacoste.
Peter tried to look away, to focus on the beauty in his garden.
But his eyes kept being dragged back to the body in his garden.
Then, as Peter watched, Gamache suddenly and quite swiftly turned. And looked at him. And Peter immediately and instinctively dropped his eyes, as though he’d done something shameful.
He instantly regretted it and raised his eyes again, but by then the Chief Inspector was no longer staring at them. Instead, he was approaching them.
Peter considered turning away, in a casual manner. As though he’d heard a deer in the forest on the other side of the Rivière Bella Bella.
He started to turn, then stopped himself.
He didn’t need to look away, he told himself. He’d done nothing wrong. Surely it was natural to watch the police.
Wasn’t it?
But Peter Morrow, always so sure, felt the ground shifting beneath him. He no longer knew what was natural. No longer knew what to do with his hands, his eyes, his entire body. His life. His wife.
‘Clara,’ said Chief Inspector Gamache, extending his hand to her, then kissing Clara on both cheeks. If the other investigators found it odd that their Chief would kiss a suspect, they didn’t show it. And Gamache clearly didn’t care.
He went around the group, shaking hands with all of them. He came to Olivier last, obviously giving the younger man a chance to see it coming. Gamache extended his hand. And everyone watched. The body momentarily forgotten.
Olivier didn’t hesitate. He shook Gamache’s hand but couldn’t quite look him in the eye.
Chief Inspector Gamache gave them a small almost apologetic smile, as though the body was his fault. Was that how dreadful things started? Peter wondered. Not with a thunder clap. Not with a shriek. Not with sirens, but with a smile? Something horrible come calling, wrapped in civility and good manners.
But the something horrible had already been, and gone. And had left a body behind.
‘How are you doing?’ asked Gamache, his eyes returning to Clara.
It wasn’t a casual question. He looked genuinely concerned.
Peter could feel himself relax as the body was lifted from his shoulders. And given to this sturdy man.
Clara shook her head. ‘Stunned,’ she said at last, and glanced behind her. ‘Who is she?’
‘You don’t know?’
He looked from Clara to Peter, then over to Gabri and finally Olivier. Everyone shook their heads.
‘She wasn’t a guest at your party?’
‘She must have been, I suppose,’ said Clara. ‘But I didn’t invite her.’
‘Who is she?’ asked Gabri.
‘Did you get a look at her?’ Gamache persisted, not quite ready to answer the question.
They nodded.
‘After we called the police I went back into the garden, to look,’ said Clara.
‘Why?’
‘I had to know if I knew her. See if she was a friend or neighbor.’
‘She wasn’t,’ said Gabri. ‘I was preparing breakfast for our B and B guests when Olivier called to tell me what had happened.’
‘So you came over?’ asked Gamache.
‘Wouldn’t you?’ asked the large man.
‘I’m a homicide detective,’ said Gamache. ‘I sort of have to. You don’t.’
‘I’m a nosy son-of-a-bitch,’ said Gabri. ‘I sort of have to too. And like Clara, I needed to see if we knew her.’
‘Did you tell anyone else?’ asked Gamache. ‘Did anyone else come into the garden to look?’
They shook their heads.
‘So you all took a good look, and none of you recognized her?’
‘Who was she?’ asked Clara again.
‘We don’t know,’ admitted Gamache. ‘She fell on her purse and Dr Harris doesn’t want to move her yet. We’ll find out soon enough.’
Gabri hesitated then turned to Olivier. ‘Doesn’t she remind you of something?’
Olivier was silent, but Peter wasn’t.
‘The witch is dead?’
‘Peter,’ said Clara quickly. ‘The woman was killed and left in our garden. What a terrible thing to say.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Peter, shocked at himself. ‘But she does look like the Wicked Witch of the West, with her red shoes sticking out like that.’
‘We’re not saying she is,’ Gabri hurried to say. ‘But you can’t deny in that get-up she doesn’t look like anyone from Kansas.’
Clara rolled her eyes and shaking her head she muttered, ‘Jesus.’
But Gamache had to admit, he and his team had talked about the same thing. Not that the dead woman reminded them of the Wicked Witch, but that she clearly was not dressed for a barbecue in the country.
‘I didn’t see her last night,’ said Peter.
‘And we’d remember,’ said Olivier, speaking at last. ‘She’d be hard to miss.’
Gamache nodded. He’d appreciated that as well. The dead woman would have stood out in that brilliant red dress. Everything about the woman screamed ‘look at me’.
He looked back at her and searched his memory. Had he seen anyone in a bright red dress at the Musée last night? Perhaps she’d come straight from there, as presumably many guests did. But none came to mind. Most of the women, with the notable exception of Myrna, wore more muted colors.
Then he had a thought.
‘Excusez-moi,’ he said and walking swiftly back across the lawn he spoke to Beauvoir briefly then returned more slowly, thinking.
‘I read the report on the drive down, but I’d like to hear from you myself how she was found.’
‘Peter and Olivier saw her first,’ said Clara. ‘I was sitting in that chair.’ She waved toward the yellow Adirondack chair, one of two. A coffee mug still sat on the wooden arm. ‘While the guys went to Knowlton to pick up the papers. I was waiting for them.’
‘Why?’ asked the Chief Inspector.
‘The reviews.’
‘Ahh, of course. And that would explain …’ He waved toward the stack of papers sitting on the grass, within the yellow police cordon.
Clara looked at them too. She wished she could say she’d forgotten all about the reviews in the shock of the discovery, but she hadn’t. The New York Times, the Toronto Globe and Mail and the London Times were piled on the ground where Peter had dropped them.
Beyond her reach.
Gamache looked at Clara, puzzled. ‘But if you were that anxious, why not just go online? The reviews would’ve been up hours ago, non?’
It was the same question Peter had asked her. And Olivier. How to explain it?
‘Because I wanted to feel the newspaper in my hands,’ she said. ‘I wanted to read my reviews the same way I read reviews of all the artists I love. Holding the paper. Smelling it. Turning the pages. All my life I’ve dreamed of this. It seemed worth the extra hour’s wait.’
‘So you were alone in the garden for about an hour this morning?’
Clara nodded.
‘From when to when?’ Gamache asked.
‘From around seven thirty this morning until they returned about eight thirty.’ Clara looked at Peter.
‘That’s right,’ said Peter.
‘And when you got back, what did you see?’ Gamache turned to Peter and Olivier.
‘We got out of the car and since we knew Clara was in the garden we decided to just walk around there.’ Peter pointed to the corner of the house, where an old lilac held on to the last flowers of the season.
‘I was following Peter when he suddenly stopped,’ said Olivier.
‘I noticed something red on the ground as we came around the house,’ Peter picked up the story. ‘I think I assumed it was one of the poppies, fallen over. But it was too big. So I slowed down and looked over. That’s when I saw it was a woman.’
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