The Brutal Telling

by Louise Penny

  They’d certainly healed this wound of a house.

  “We saw an ad for this place in the Gazette one Saturday, drove down and bought it,” said Dominique.

  “You make it sound simple,” said Gamache.

  “It was, really, once we decided what we wanted.”

  And looking at her, Gamache could believe it. She knew something powerful, something most people never learned. That people made their own fortune.

  It made her formidable.

  “And you, madame?” Gamache turned to Carole Gilbert.

  “Oh, I’ve been retired for a while.”

  “In Quebec City, I understand.”

  “That’s correct. I quit work and moved there after my husband died.”

  “Désolé.”

  “No need to be. It was many years ago. But when Marc and Dominique invited me here I thought it sounded like fun.”

  “You were a nurse? That will come in handy in a spa.”

  “I hope not,” she laughed. “Not planning on hurting people, are you?” she asked Dominique. “God help anyone who asks for my help.”

  They strolled once more into the living room and the Chief Inspector stopped by the floor-to-ceiling windows, then turned into the room.

  “Thank you for the tour. And the tea. But I do have some questions for you.”

  “About the murder in the bistro,” said Marc, and stepped slightly closer to his wife. “It seems so out of character for this village, to have a murder.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said Gamache, and wondered if anyone had told them the history of their own home. Probably wasn’t in the real estate agent’s description.

  “Well, to begin with, have you seen any strangers around?”

  “Everyone’s a stranger,” said Carole. “We know most of the villagers by now, at least to nod to, but this weekend the place is filled with people we’ve never seen.”

  “This man would be hard to miss; he’d have looked like a tramp, a vagrant.”

  “No, I haven’t seen anyone like that,” said Marc. “Mama, have you?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Where were you all on Saturday night and early Sunday morning?”

  “Marc, I think you went to bed first. He usually does. Dominique and I watched the Téléjournal on Radio-Canada then went up.”

  “About eleven, wouldn’t you think?” Dominique asked.

  “Did any of you get up in the night?”

  “I did,” said Carole. “Briefly. To use the washroom.”

  “Why’re you asking us this?” Dominique asked. “The murder happened down in the bistro. It has nothing to do with us.”

  Gamache turned around and pointed out the window. “That’s why I’m asking.”

  They looked. Down in the village a few cars were being packed up. People were hugging, reluctant children were being called off the village green. A young woman was walking briskly up rue du Moulin, in their direction.

  “You’re the only place in Three Pines with a view over the whole village, and the only place with a direct view into the bistro. If the murderer turned on the lights, you’d have seen.”

  “Our bedrooms are at the back,” Dominique pointed out. Gamache had already noted this in the tour.

  “True. But I was hoping one of you might suffer from insomnia.”

  “Sorry, Chief Inspector. We sleep like the dead here.”

  Gamache didn’t mention that the dead in the old Hadley house had never rested well.

  The doorbell rang just then and the Gilberts started slightly, not expecting anyone. But Gamache was. He’d noted Agent Lacoste’s progress round the village green and up rue du Moulin.

  Something had happened.

  “May I see you in private?” Isabelle Lacoste asked the Chief after she’d been introduced. The Gilberts took the cue. After watching them disappear Agent Lacoste turned to Gamache.

  “The coroner called. The victim wasn’t killed in the bistro.”

  ELEVEN

  Myrna knocked softly on the bistro door, then opened it.

  “You okay?” she asked softly into the dim light. It was the first time since she’d lived in Three Pines she’d seen the bistro dark during the day. Even at Christmas Olivier opened.

  Olivier was sitting in an armchair, staring. He looked over at her and smiled.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Ruth’s FINE? Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical?”

  “That’s about right.”

  Myrna sat across from him and offered a mug of tea she’d brought from her bookshop. Strong, hot, with milk and sugar. Red Rose. Nothing fancy.

  “Like to talk?”

  She sat quietly, watching her friend. She knew his face, had seen the tiny changes over the years. The crow’s-feet appear at his eyes, the fine blond hair thin. What hadn’t changed, from what she could tell, was what was invisible, but even more obvious. His kind heart, his thoughtfulness. He was the first to bring soup to anyone ill. To visit in the hospital. To read out loud to someone too weak and tired and near the end to do it for themselves. Gabri, Myrna, Clara, they all organized villagers to help, and when they arrived they’d find Olivier already there.

  And now it was their turn to help him.

  “I don’t know if I want to open again.”

  Myrna sipped her tea and nodded. “That’s understandable. You’ve been hurt. It must’ve been a terrible shock to see him here. I know it was for me, and it’s not my place.”

  You have no idea, thought Olivier. He didn’t say anything, but stared out the window. He saw Chief Inspector Gamache and Agent Lacoste walking down rue du Moulin from the old Hadley house. He prayed they kept going. Didn’t come in here. With their keen eyes and sharp questions.

  “I wonder if I should just sell. Move on.”

  This surprised Myrna, but she didn’t show it. “Why?” she asked, softly.

  He shook his head and dropped his eyes to his hands, resting in his lap.

  “Everything’s changing. Everything’s changed. Why can’t it be like it always was? They took my fireplace pokers, you know. I think Gamache thinks I did it.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t. Olivier, look at me.” She spoke forcefully to him. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. We know the truth about you. And you need to know something about us. We love you. Do you think we come here every day for the food?”

  He nodded and smiled slightly. “You mean it wasn’t for the croissants? The red wine? Not even the chocolate torte?”

  “Well, yes, okay. Maybe the torte. Listen, we come here because of you. You’re the attraction. We love you, Olivier.”

  Olivier raised his eyes to hers. He hadn’t realized, until that moment, that he’d always been afraid their affection was conditional. He was the owner of the bistro, the only one in town. They liked him for the atmosphere and welcome. The food and drink. That was the boundary of their feelings for him. They liked him for what he gave to them. Sold to them.

  Without the bistro, he was nothing to them.

  How’d Myrna know something he hadn’t even admitted to himself? As he looked at her she smiled. She was wearing her usual flamboyant caftan. For her birthday coming up Gabri had made her a winter caftan, out of flannel. Olivier imagined her in it in her store. A big, warm ball of flannel.

  The world, which had been closing in on him for days, released a bit of its grip.

  “We’re going to the Brume County Fair. Last day. What do you say? Can we interest you in cotton candy, cream soda, and a bison burger? I hear Wayne’s showing his litter of suckling pigs this afternoon. I know how you love a good piglet.”

  Once, just once, at the annual county fair he’d hurried them over to the pig stalls to look at the babies. And now he was the piglet guy. Still, he quite liked being thought of as that. And it was true, he loved pigs. He had a lot in common with them, he suspected. But he shook his head.

  “Not up to it, I’m afraid. But you go along. Bring me back a stu
ffed animal.”

  “Would you like company here? I can stay.”

  And he knew she meant it. But he needed to be alone.

  “Thanks, but I really am Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical.”

  “Well, as long as you’re fine,” said Myrna, getting up. After years as a psychologist she knew how to listen to people. And how to leave them alone.

  He watched through the window as Myrna, Peter, Clara, Ruth and the duck Rosa got in the Morrows’ car. They waved at him and he waved merrily back. Myrna didn’t wave. She just nodded. He dropped his hand, caught her eye, and nodded.

  He believed her when she’d said they loved him. But he also knew they loved a man who didn’t exist. He was a fiction. If they knew the real Olivier they’d kick him out, of their lives and probably the village.

  As their car chugged up the hill toward the Brume County Fair he heard the words again. From the cabin hidden in the woods. He could smell the wood smoke, the dried herbs. And he could see the Hermit. Whole. Alive. Afraid.

  And he heard again the story. That wasn’t, Olivier knew, just a story.

  Once upon a time a Mountain King watched over a treasure. He buried it deep and it kept him company for millennia. The other gods were jealous and angry, and warned him if he didn’t share his treasure with them they’d do something terrible.

  But the Mountain King was the mightiest of the gods, so he simply laughed knowing there was nothing they could do to him. No attack he couldn’t repulse, and redouble onto them. He was invincible. He prepared for their attack. Waited for it. But it never came.

  Nothing came. Ever.

  Not a missile, not a spear, not a war horse, or rider, or dog, or bird. Not a seed in the wind. Not even the wind.

  Nothing. Ever. Again.

  It was the silence that got to him first, and then the touch. Nothing touched him. No breeze brushed his rocky surface. No ant crawled over him, no bird touched down. No worm tunneled.

  He felt nothing.

  Until one day a young man came.

  Olivier brought himself back to the bistro, his body tense, his muscles strained. His fingernails biting into his palms.

  Why, he asked himself for the millionth time. Why had he done it?

  Before leaving to see the coroner, the Chief Inspector walked over to the large piece of paper tacked to the wall of their Incident Room. In bold red letters Inspector Beauvoir had written:

  WHO WAS THE VICTIM?

  WHY WAS HE KILLED?

  WHO KILLED HIM?

  WHAT WAS THE MURDER WEAPON?

  With a sigh the Chief Inspector added two more lines.

  WHERE WAS HE MURDERED?

  WHY WAS HE MOVED?

  So far in their investigation they’d found more questions than clues. But that’s where answers came from. Questions. Gamache was perplexed, but not dissatisfid.

  Jean Guy Beauvoir was already waiting for him when he arrived at the Cowansville hospital, and they went in together, down the stairs and into the basement, where files and dead people were kept.

  “I called as soon as I realized what I was seeing,” said Dr. Harris after greeting them. She led them into the sterile room, brightly lit by fluorescents. The dead man was naked on a steel gurney. Gamache wished they’d put a blanket over him. He seemed cold. And, indeed, he was.

  “There was some internal bleeding but not enough. This wound,” she indicated the collaped back of the victim’s head, “would have bled onto whatever surface he fell on.”

  “There was almost no blood on the floor of the bistro,” said Beauvoir.

  “He was killed somewhere else,” said the coroner, with certainty.

  “Where?” asked Gamache.

  “Would you like an address?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” said the Chief Inspector, with a smile.

  Dr. Harris smiled back. “Clearly I don’t know, but I’ve found some things that might be suggestive.”

  She walked over to her lab table where a few vials sat, labeled. She handed one to the Chief Inspector.

  “Remember that bit of white I said was in the wound? I thought it might be ash. Or bone, or perhaps even dandruff. Well, it wasn’t any of those things.”

  Gamache needed his glasses to see the tiny white flake inside the vial, then he read the label.

  Paraffin, found in the wound.

  “Paraffin? Like wax?”

  “Yes, it’s commonly called paraffin wax. It’s an old-fashioned material, as you probably know. Used to be used for candles, then it was replaced by other sorts of more stable wax.”

  “My mother uses it for pickling,” said Beauvoir. “She melts it on the top of the jar to create a seal, right?”

  “That’s right,” said Dr. Harris.

  Gamache turned to Beauvoir. “And where was your mother on Saturday night?”

  Beauvoir laughed. “The only one she ever threatens to brain is me. She’s no threat to society at large.”

  Gamache handed the vial back to the coroner. “Do you have any theories?”

  “It was buried deep enough in the wound to have been either on the man’s head before he was killed or on the murder weapon.”

  “A jar of pickles?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Stranger things have been used,” said Gamache, though he couldn’t quite think of any.

  Beauvoir shook his head. Had to be an Anglo. Who else could turn a dill pickle into a weapon?

  “So it wasn’t a fireplace poker?” asked Gamache.

  “Unless it was a very clean one. There was no evidence of ash. Just that.” She nodded to the vial. “There’s something else.” Dr. Harris pulled a lab chair up to the bench. “On the back of his clothes we found this. Very faint, but there.”

  She handed Gamache the lab report and pointed to a line. Gamache read.

  “Acrylic polyurethane and aluminum oxide. What is that?”

  “Varathane,” said Beauvoir. “We’ve just redone our floors. It’s used to seal them after they’ve been sanded.”

  “Not just floors,” said Dr. Harris, taking back the vial. “It’s used in a lot of woodworking. It’s a finish. Other than the wound to the head the dead man was in good condition. Could’ve expected to live for twenty-five or thirty years.”

  “I see he had a meal a few hours before he was killed,” said Gamache, reading the autopsy report

  “Vegetarian. Organic I think. I’m having it tested,” said the coroner. “A healthy vegetarian meal. Not your usual vagrant dinner.”

  “Someone might’ve had him in for dinner then killed him,” said Beauvoir.

  Dr. Harris hesitated. “I considered that, and it’s a possibility.”

  “But?” said Gamache.

  “But he looks like a man who ate like that all the time. Not just the once.”

  “So either he cooked for himself and chose a healthy diet,” said Gamache, “or he had someone cook for him and they were vegetarian.”

  “That’s about it,” said the coroner.

  “I see no alcohol or drugs,” said Beauvoir, scanning the report.

  Dr. Harris nodded. “I don’t think he was homeless. I’m not sure if anyone cared for this man, but I do know he cared for himself.”

  What a wonderful epitaph, thought Gamache. He cared for himself.

  “Maybe he was a survivalist,” said Beauvoir. “You know, one of those kooks who take off from the city and hide in the woods thinking the world’s coming to an end.”

  Gamache turned to look at Beauvoir. That was an interesting thought.

  “I’m frankly puzzled,” said the coroner. “You can see he was hit with a single, catastrophic blow to the back of his head. That in itself is unusual. To find just one blow . . .” Dr. Harris’s voice trailed off and she shook her head. “Normally when someone gets up the nerve to bludgeon someone to death they’re in the grip of great emotion. It’s like a brainstorm. They’re hysterical and can’t stop. You get multiple blows. A single one like this . . .”

/>   “What does it tell you?” Gamache asked, as he stared at the collapsed skull.

  “This wasn’t just a crime of passion.” She turned to him. “There was passion, yes, but there was also planning. Whoever did this was in a rage. But he was in command of that rage.”

  Gamache lifted his brows. That was rare, extremely rare. And disconcerting. It would be like trying to master a herd of wild stallions, thundering and rearing, nostrils flared and hooves churning.

  Who could control that?

  Their murderer could.

  Beauvoir looked at the Chief and the Chief looked at Beauvoir. This wasn’t good.

  Gamache turned back to the cold body on the cold gurney. If he was a survivalist, it hadn’t worked. If this man had feared the end of the world he hadn’t run far enough, hadn’t buried himself deep enough in the Canadian wilderness.

  The end of the world had found him.

  TWELVE

  Dominique Gilbert stood beside her mother-in-law and looked down the dirt road. Every now and then they had to step aside as a carful of people headed out of Three Pines, to the last day of the fair or into the city early to beat the rush.

  It wasn’t toward Three Pines they gazed, but away from it. Toward the road that led to Cowansville. And the horses.

  It still surprised Dominique that she should have so completely forgotten her childhood dream. Perhaps, though, it wasn’t surprising since she’d also dreamed of marrying Keith from the Partridge Family and being discovered as one of the little lost Romanov girls. Her fantasy of having horses disappeared along with all the other unlikely dreams, replaced by board meetings and clients, by gym memberships and increasingly expensive clothing. Until finally her cup, overflowing, had upended and all the lovely promotions and vacations and spa treatments became insubstantial. But at the bottom of that cup filled with goals, objectives, targets, one last drop remained.