The Brutal Telling

by Louise Penny

  “They’ll be gone by the end of the fair tonight,” said Old Mundin. “Then I need to get going again. Fall’s a great time of year to get into the forests and find wood. I do most of my woodwork through the winter.”

  “I’d like to see your workshop.”

  “Any time.”

  “How about now?”

  Old Mundin stared at his visitor and Gamache stared back.

  “Now?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Well . . .”

  “It’s okay, Old,” said The Wife. “I’ll watch the booth. You go.”

  “Is it okay if we take Charles?” Old asked Gamache. “It’s hard for The Wife to watch him and look after customers.”

  “I insist he comes along,” said Gamache, holding out his hand to the boy, who took it without hesitation. A small shard stabbed Gamache’s heart as he realized how precious this boy was, and would always be. A child who lived in a perpetual state of trust.

  And how hard it would be for his parents to protect him.

  “He’ll be fine,” Gamache assured The Wife.

  “Oh, I know he’ll be. It’s you I worry about,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” said Gamache, reaching out to shake her hand. “I don’t know your name.”

  “My actual name is Michelle, but everyone calls me The Wife.”

  Her hand was rough and calloused, like her husband’s, but her voice was cultured, full of warmth. It reminded him a little of Reine-Marie’s.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “It started out as a joke between us and then it took. Old and The Wife. It somehow fits.”

  And Gamache agreed. It did fit this couple, who seemed to live in their own world, with their own beautiful creations.

  “Bye.” Charles gave his mother the new one-fingered wave.

  “Old,” she scolded.

  “Wasn’t me,” he protested. But he didn’t rat on Ruth, Gamache noticed.

  Old strapped his son into the van and they drove out of the fair parking lot.

  “Is ‘Old’ your real name?”

  “I’ve been called ‘Old’ all my life, but my real name is Patrick.”

  “How long have you lived here?”

  “In Three Pines? A few years.” He thought for a moment. “My God, it’s been eleven years. Can hardly believe it. Olivier was the first person I met.”

  “How do people feel about him?”

  “Don’t know about ‘people,’ but I know how I feel. I like Olivier. He’s always fair with me.”

  “But not with everyone?” Gamache had noticed the inflection.

  “Some people don’t know the value of what they’ve got.” Old Mundin was concentrating on the road, driving carefully. “And lots of people just want to stir up trouble. They don’t like being told their antique chest is really just old. Not valuable at all. Pisses them off. But Olivier knows what he’s doing. Lots of people set up antique businesses here, but not many really know what they’re doing. Olivier does.”

  After a moment or two of silence as both men watched the countryside go by, Gamache spoke. “I’ve always wondered where dealers find their antiques.”

  “Most have pickers. People who specialize in going to auctions or getting to know people in the area. Mostly elderly people who might be interested in selling. Around here if someone knocks on your door on a Sunday morning it’s more likely to be an antique picker than a Jehovah’s Witness.”

  “Does Olivier have a picker?”

  “No, he does it himself. He works hard for what he gets. And he knows what’s worth money and what isn’t. He’s good. And fair, for the most part.”

  “For the most part?”

  “Well, he has to make a profit, and lots of the stuff needs work. He gives the old furniture to me to restore. That can be a lot of work.”

  “I bet you don’t charge what it’s worth.”

  “Now, worth is a relative concept.” Old shot Gamache a glance as they bumped along the road. “I love what I do and if I charged a reasonable amount per hour nobody’d be able to buy my pieces, and Olivier wouldn’t hire me to repair the great things he finds. So it’s worth it to me to charge less. I have a good life. No complaints here.”

  “Has anyone been really angry at Olivier?”

  Old drove in silence and Gamache wasn’t sure he’d heard. But finally he spoke.

  “Once, about a year ago. Old Madame Poirier, up the Mountain road, had decided to move into a nursing home in Saint-Rémy. Olivier’d been buzzing around her for a few years. When the time came she sold most of her stuff to him. He found some amazing pieces there.”

  “Did he pay a fair price?”

  “Depends who you talk to. She was happy. Olivier was happy.”

  “So who was angry?”

  Old Mundin said nothing. Gamache waited.

  “Her kids. They said Olivier’d insinuated himself, taken advantage of a lonely old woman.”

  Old Mundin pulled into a small farmhouse. Hollyhocks leaned against the wall and the garden was full of black-eyed Susans and old-fashioned roses. A vegetable garden, well tended and orderly, was planted at the side of the house.

  The van rolled to a halt and Mundin pointed to a barn. “That’s my workshop.”

  Gamache unbuckled Charles from the child seat. The boy was asleep and Gamache carried him as the two men walked to the barn.

  “You said Olivier made an unexpected find at Madame Poirier’s place?”

  “He paid her a flat fee for all the stuff she no longer needed. She chose what she wanted to keep and he bought the rest.”

  Old Mundin stopped at the barn door, turning to Gamache.

  “There was a set of six Chippendale chairs. Worth about ten thousand each. I know, because I worked on them, but I don’t think he told anyone else.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. You’d be surprised how discreet I need to be in my work.”

  “Do you know if Olivier gave Madame Poirier any extra money?”

  “I don’t.”

  “But her kids were angry.”

  Mundin nodded curtly and opened the barn door. They stepped into a different world. All the complex aromas of the late summer farm had disappeared. Gone was the slight scent of manure, of cut grass, of hay, of herbs in the sun.

  Here there was only one note—wood. Fresh sawn wood. Old barn wood. Wood of every description. Gamache looked at the walls, lined with wood waiting to be turned into furniture. Old Mundin smoothed one fine hand over a rough board.

  “You wouldn’t know it, but there’s burled wood under there. You have to know what to look for. The tiny imperfections. Funny how imperfections on the outside mean something splendid beneath.”

  He looked into Gamache’s eyes. Charles stirred slightly and the Chief Inspector brought a large hand up to the boy’s back, to reassure him.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about wood but you seem to have different sorts. Why’s that?”

  “Different needs. I use maple and cherry and pine for inside work. Cedar for outside. This here’s red cedar. My favorite. Doesn’t look like much now, but carved and polished . . .” Mundin made an eloquent gesture.

  Gamache noticed two chairs on a platform. One was upside down. “From the bistro?” He walked over to them. Sure enough one had a loose arm and the leg of the other was wobbly.

  “I picked those up Saturday night.”

  “Is it all right to talk about what happened at the bistro in front of Charles?”

  “I’m sure it is. He’ll understand, or not. Either way, it’s okay. He knows it’s not about him.”

  Gamache wished more people could make that distinction. “You were there the night of the murder.”

  “True. I go every Saturday to pick up the damaged furniture and drop off the stuff I’ve restored. It was the same as always. I got there just after midnight. The last of the customers was leaving and the kids were beginning to clean up.”

  Kids, thought Gamache.
And yet they weren’t really that much younger than this man. But somehow Old seemed very, well, old.

  “But I didn’t see a body.”

  “Too bad, that would’ve helped. Did anything strike you as unusual at all?”

  Old Mundin thought. Charles woke up and squirmed. Gamache lowered him to the barn floor where he picked up a piece of wood and turned it around and around.

  “I’m sorry. I wish I could help, but it seemed like any other Saturday night.”

  Gamache also picked up a chunk of wood and smoothed the sawdust off it.

  “How’d you start repairing Olivier’s furniture?”

  “Oh, that was years ago. Gave me a chair to work on. It’d been kept in a barn for years and he’d just moved it into the bistro. Now, you must understand . . .”

  What followed was a passionate monologue on old Quebec pine furniture. Milk paint, the horrors of stripping, the dangers of ruining a fine piece by restoring it. That difficult line between making a piece usable and making it valueless.

  Gamache listened, fascinated. He had a passion for Quebec history, and by extension Quebec antiques, the remarkable furniture made by pioneers in the long winter months hundreds of years ago. They’d made the pine furniture both practical and beautiful, pouring themselves into it. Each time Gamache touched an old table or armoire he imagined the habitant shaping and smoothing the wood, going over it and over it with hardened hands. And making something lovely.

  Lovely and lasting, thanks to people like Old Mundin.

  “What brought you to Three Pines? Why not a larger city? There’d be more work, surely, in Montreal or even Sherbrooke.”

  “I was born in Quebec City, and you’d think there’d be lots of work there for an antique restorer, but it’s hard for a young guy starting out. I moved to Montreal, to an antique shop on Notre Dame, but I’m afraid I wasn’t cut out for the big city. So I decided to go to Sherbrooke. Got in the car, headed south, and got lost. I drove into Three Pines to ask directions at the bistro, ordered café au lait, sat down and the chair collapsed.” He laughed, as did Gamache. “I offered to repair it and that was that.”

  “You said you’d been here for eleven years. You must’ve been young when you left Quebec City.”

  “Sixteen. I left after my father died. Spent three years in Montreal, then down here. Met The Wife, had Charles. Started a small business.”

  This young man had done a lot with his eleven years, thought Gamache. “How did Olivier seem on Saturday night?”

  “As usual. Labor Day’s always busy but he seemed relaxed. As relaxed as he ever gets, I suppose.” Mundin smiled. It was clear there was affection there. “Did I hear you say the man wasn’t murdered at the bistro after all?”

  Gamache nodded. “We’re trying to find out where he was killed. In fact, while you were at the fair I had my people searching the whole area, including your place.”

  “Really?” They were at the barn door and Mundin turned to stare into the gloom. “They’re either very good, or they didn’t actually do anything. You can’t tell.”

  “That’s the point.” But the Chief noticed that, unlike Peter, Old Mundin didn’t seem at all concerned.

  “Now, why would you kill someone one place, then move them to another?” asked Mundin, almost to himself. “I can see wanting to get rid of a body, especially if you killed him in your own home, but why take him to Olivier’s? Seems a strange thing to do, but I guess the bistro’s a fairly central location. Maybe it was just convenient.”

  Gamache let that statement be. They both knew it wasn’t true. Indeed, the bistro was a very inconvenient place to drop a body. And it worried Gamache. The murder wasn’t an accident, and the placement of the body wasn’t either.

  There was someone very dangerous walking among them. Someone who looked happy, thoughtful, gentle even. But it was a deceit. A mask. Gamache knew that when he found the murderer and ripped the mask off, the skin would come too. The mask had become the man. The deceit was total.

  THIRTEEN

  “We had a great time at the fair. I got you this.” Gabri shut the door and turned on the lights in the bistro. He offered the stuffed lion to Olivier, who took it and held it softly in his lap.

  “Merci.”

  “And did you hear the news? Gamache says the dead man wasn’t killed here. And we’ll be getting our pokers back. I’d like to get my poker back, wouldn’t you?” he asked, archly. But Olivier didn’t even respond.

  Gabri moved through the gloomy room, turning on lamps, then lit a fire in one of the stone hearths. Olivier continued to sit in the armchair, staring out the window. Gabri sighed, poured them each a beer and joined him. Together they sipped, ate cashews and looked out at the village, quiet now in the last of the day, and the end of the summer.

  “What do you see?” asked Gabri at last.

  “What d’you mean? I see what you see.”

  “Can’t be. What I see makes me happy. And you’re not happy.”

  Gabri was used to his partner’s moods. Olivier was the quiet one, the contained one. Gabri might appear the more sensitive, but they both knew Olivier was. He felt things deeply, and kept them there. Gabri was covered in the flesh wounds of life, but Olivier’s wounds were in the marrow, deep and hidden and perhaps even mortal.

  But he was also the kindest man Gabri had met, and he’d met, it must be said, quite a few. Before Olivier. That had all changed as soon as he’d clapped eyes on the slim, blond, shy man.

  Gabri had lost his quite considerable heart.

  “What is it?” Gabri leaned forward and took Olivier’s slender hands. “Tell me.”

  “It’s just no fun anymore,” said Olivier at last. “I mean, why even bother? No one’s going to want to come back here. Who wants to eat in a restaurant where there’s been a body?”

  “As Ruth says, we’re all just bodies anyway.”

  “Great. I’ll put that in the ads.”

  “Well, at least you don’t discriminate. Dead, predead. They’re all welcome here. That might be a better slogan.”

  Gabri saw a quiver at the ends of Olivier’s lips.

  “Voyons, it was great news that the police say the man wasn’t killed here. That makes a difference.”

  “You think?” Olivier looked at him hopefully.

  “Do you know what I really think?” Now Gabri was dead serious. “I think it wouldn’t matter. Peter, Clara, Myrna? Do you think they’d stop coming even if that poor man had been murdered here? The Parras? Monsieur Béliveau? They’d all come if a mountain of bodies was found here. Do you know why?”

  “Because they like it?”

  “Because they like you. They love you. Listen, Olivier, you have the best bistro, the finest food, the most comfortable place. It’s brilliant. You’re brilliant. Everyone loves you. And you know what?”

  “What?” asked Olivier, grumpily.

  “You’re the kindest, most handsome man in the world.”

  “You’re just saying that.” Olivier felt like a little boy again. While other kids ran around collecting frogs and sticks and grasshoppers, he’d sought reassurance. Affection. He’d gather up the words and actions, even from strangers, and he’d stuff them into the hole that was growing.

  It had worked. For a while. Then he’d needed more than just words.

  “Did Myrna tell you to say that?”

  “Right. It’s not true at all, just a big lie cooked up by Myrna and me. What’s wrong with you anyway?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Gabri followed Olivier’s stare out the window. And up the hill. He sighed. They’d been through this before.

  “There’s nothing we can do about them. Maybe we should just—”

  “Just what?” Olivier snapped.

  “Are you looking for an excuse to be miserable? Is that it?”

  Even by Olivier’s standards that had been an unreasonable reaction. He’d been reassured about the body, he’d been reassured that everyone still love
d him. He’d been reassured that Gabri wasn’t running away. So what was the problem?

  “Listen, maybe we should give them a chance. Who knows? Their inn and spa might even help us.”

  This was not what Olivier wanted to hear. He stood abruptly, almost knocking the chair to the floor. He could feel that bloom of anger in his chest. It was like a superpower. It made him invincible. Strong. Courageous. Brutal.

  “If you want to be friends with them, fine. Why don’t you just fuck off?”

  “I didn’t mean that. I meant we can’t do anything about them so we might as well be friends.”

  “You make this sound like kindergarten. They’re out to ruin us. Do you understand? When they first came I was nice, but then they decided to steal our customers, even our staff. Do you think anyone’s going to come to your tacky little B and B when they can stay there?”

  Olivier’s face was red and blotchy. Gabri could see it spread even under his scalp, through the thinning and struggling blond hair.

  “What’re you talking about? I don’t care if people come, you know that. We don’t need the money. I just do it for fun.”

  Olivier struggled to control himself now. To not take that one step too far. The two men glared so that the space between them throbbed.

  “Why?” Olivier finally said.

  “Why what?”

  “If the dead man wasn’t killed here, why was he put here?”

  Gabri felt his anger lift, evaporated by the question.

  “I heard from the police today,” said Olivier, his voice almost monotone. “They’re going to speak to my father tomorrow.”

  Poor Olivier, thought Gabri, he did have something to worry about after all.

  Jean Guy Beauvoir got out of the car and stared across the road at the Poirier home.

  It was ramshackle and in need of way more than just a coat of paint. The porch was sloping, the steps looked unsound, pieces of boarding were missing from the side of the house.

  Beauvoir had been in dozens of places like this in rural Quebec. Lived in by a generation born there too. Clotilde Poirier probably drank coffee from a chipped mug her mother had used. Slept on a mattress she’d been conceived on. The walls would be covered with dried flowers and spoons sent by relatives who’d escaped to exotic places like Rimouski or Chicoutimi or Gaspé. And there’d be a chair, a rocking chair, by the window, near the woodstove. It would have a slightly soiled afghan on it and crumbs. And after clearing up the breakfast dishes Clotilde Poirier would sit there, and watch.