The Brutal Telling

by Louise Penny

  Had one of them made it out, come across to the New World, and found the Hermit?

  “But why did he come here?” asked Agent Morin.

  “Why not?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Well, there’s a big Czech population here. If he was bringing all sorts of stolen goods, stuff he’d taken from people in Czechoslovakia, wouldn’t he stay as far away from them as possible?”

  They appealed to Gamache, who was listening, and thinking. Then he sat forward and drew the photographs of the carvings to him. Particularly the one of the happy people building a new village, in their new home. Without the young man.

  “Maybe Olivier isn’t the only one who lies,” he said, getting up. “Maybe the Hermit wasn’t alone when he came here. Maybe he had accomplices.”

  “Who are still in Three Pines,” said Beauvoir.

  Hanna Parra was clearing up lunch. She’d made a hearty soup and the place smelled of her mother’s home in her Czech village. Of broth and parsley and bay leaves, and garden vegetables.

  Her own gleaming metal and glass home couldn’t be more different from the wooden chalet she’d grown up in. Full of wonderful aromas, and a hint of fear. Fear of attracting attention. Of standing out. Her parents, her aunts, her neighbors, had all lived comfortable lives of conformity. The fear of being found different, though, created a thin film between people.

  But here everything really was transparent. She’d felt light as soon as they’d arrived in Canada. Where people minded their own business.

  Or so she thought. Her hand hovered over the marble counter as some glint in the sun caught her eye. A car rolling up the drive.

  Armand Gamache stared at the glass and metal cube in front of him. He’d read reports of the interviews with the Parras, including descriptions of their home, but still it took him aback.

  The house gleamed in the sun. Not blinding, but it seemed to glow as though it lived in a world slightly different from theirs. A world of light.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Gamache, almost under his breath.

  “You should see inside.”

  “I think I should,” Gamache nodded and the two men strolled across the yard.

  Hanna Parra let them in and took their coats. “Chief Inspector, this is a pleasure.”

  Her voice was slightly accented but her French was perfect. Someone who’d not just learned the language but loved it. And it showed with every syllable. Gamache knew it was impossible to split language from culture. That without one the other withered. To love the language was to respect the culture.

  That was why he’d learned English so well.

  “We’d like to speak to your husband and son as well, if possible.”

  He spoke gently but somehow the very civility of the man lent his words weight.

  “Havoc’s out in the woods, but Roar’s here.”

  “Where in the woods, madame?” Beauvoir asked.

  Hanna seemed slightly flustered. “Out back. Cutting deadwood for the winter.”

  “Can you get him in, please?” said Beauvoir. His attempts at politeness simply made him seem sinister.

  “We don’t know where he is.”

  The voice came from behind them and both men turned to see Roar standing in the doorway to the mudroom. He was four-square, stocky and powerful. His hands were on his hips and his elbows out, like a threatened animal trying to make itself appear larger.

  “Then perhaps we can speak to you,” said Gamache.

  Roar didn’t budge.

  “Please, come into the kitchen,” said Hanna. “It’s warmer there.”

  She led them deeper into the house and shot Roar a warning look as she passed.

  The kitchen was filled with natural warmth from the sun that spilled in.

  “Mais, c’est formidable,” Gamache said. Out of the floor-to-ceiling windows he could see field then forest and in the distance St. Thomas’s steeple, in Three Pines. It felt as though they were living in nature, that the house was no intrusion at all. It was unexpected, certainly unusual. But it wasn’t foreign. Just the opposite. This home belonged here. It was perfect.

  “Félicitations.” He turned to the Parras. “This is a magnificent achievement. It must’ve been something you’d dreamed of for a long time.”

  Roar dropped his arms and indicated a seat at the glass table. Gamache accepted.

  “We talked about it for a while. It wasn’t my first choice. I wanted something more traditional.”

  Gamache looked at Hanna, who’d taken the chair at the head of the table. “Must’ve taken some convincing,” he smiled.

  “He did,” she said, returning his smile. Hers was polite, without warmth or humor. “Took years. There’d been a cabin on the property and we lived there until Havoc was about six, but he was growing and I wanted a place that felt like ours.”

  “Je comprends, but why this?”

  “You don’t like it?” She didn’t sound defensive, only interested.

  “Just the reverse. I think it really is magnificent. It feels as though it belongs here. But you must admit, it’s unusual. No one else has a place quite like it.”

  “We wanted something completely different from where we grew up. We wanted a change.”

  “We?” asked Gamache.

  “I came around,” said Roar, his voice hard, his eyes wary. “What’s all this about?”

  Gamache nodded and sat forward, splaying his large hands on the cool surface of the table. “Why did your son work for Olivier?”

  “He needs the money,” said Hanna. Gamache nodded.

  “I understand. But wouldn’t he make more money working in the woods? Or working construction? Surely a waiter is paid very little, even with the tips.”

  “Why’re you asking us?” Hanna asked.

  “Well, I would ask him, if he were here.”

  Roar and Hanna exchanged glances.

  “Havoc takes after his mother,” said Roar finally. “He looks like me, but has his mother’s temperament. He likes people. He enjoys working in the woods but prefers working with people. The bistro suits him perfectly. He’s happy there.”

  Gamache nodded slowly.

  “Havoc worked late at the bistro every night,” said Beauvoir. “What time did he get home?”

  “About one, rarely later.”

  “But sometimes later?” Beauvoir asked.

  “Sometimes, I guess,” said Roar. “I didn’t wait up.”

  “I imagine you did.” Beauvoir turned to Hanna.

  “I did,” she admitted. “But I can’t remember him ever coming home after one thirty. If customers were late, especially if there was a party, he’d have to clean up, so he’d be a little later than usual, but never much.”

  “Be careful, madame,” said Gamache quietly.

  “Careful?”

  “We need the truth.”

  “You’re getting the truth, Chief Inspector,” said Roar.

  “I hope so. Who was the dead man?”

  “Why do you people keep asking us that?” asked Hanna. “We didn’t know him.”

  “His name was Jakob,” said Beauvoir. “He was Czech.”

  “I see,” said Roar, his face twisting in anger. “And all Czech people know each other? Do you have any idea how insulting that is?”

  Armand Gamache leaned toward him. “It’s not insulting. It’s human nature. If I lived in Prague I’d gravitate to the Québécois there, especially at first. He came here more than a decade ago and built a cabin in the woods. He filled it with treasures. Do you know where they might have come from?”

  “How would we know?”

  “We think he might have stolen them from people back in Czechoslovakia.”

  “And because they came from Czechoslovakia we’d know about it?”

  “If he’d stolen the things do you really think the first thing he’d do is come to a potluck dinner with the Czech Association?” Hanna demanded. “We don’t know this Jakob.”

  “What did you do before you ca
me here?” Gamache asked them.

  “We were both students. We met at Charles University in Prague,” said Hanna. “I was studying political science and Roar was studying engineering.”

  “You’re a councilor for the area,” said Gamache to Hanna, then turned to Roar. “But you don’t seem to have pursued your interests here. Why not?”

  Parra paused, then looked down at his large, rough hands, picking at a callus. “I was fed up with people. Wanted nothing to do with them. Why do you think there’s a huge Czech community out here, away from cities? It’s because we’re sickened by what people can do. People goaded by others, emboldened. Infected by cynicism and fear and suspicion. By jealousy and greed. They turn on each other. I want nothing to do with them. Let me work quietly in a garden, in the woods. People are horrible creatures. You must know that, Chief Inspector. You’ve seen what they can do to each other.”

  “I have,” Gamache admitted. He stopped talking for a moment, and in that moment lived all the terrible things the head of homicide might see. “I know what people are capable of.” He smiled then, and spoke quietly. “The bad, but also the good. I’ve seen sacrifice, and I’ve seen forgiveness where none seemed possible. Goodness exists, Monsieur Parra. Believe me.”

  And for a moment it seemed Roar Parra might. He stared wide-eyed at Gamache as though the large, calm man was inviting him into a home he longed to enter. But then he stepped back.

  “You’re a fool, Chief Inspector,” he laughed derisively.

  “But a happy one,” smiled Gamache. “Now, what were we talking about? Ah, yes. Murder.”

  “Whose car’s in the driveway?” The young voice floated to them from the mudroom and a moment later a door slammed shut.

  Beauvoir stood up. Hanna and Roar also rose and stared at each other. Gamache went to the door of the kitchen.

  “It’s my car, Havoc. Can we have a word?”

  “Sure.”

  The young man walked into the kitchen, taking off his cap. His face was sweaty and dirty and he smiled disarmingly. “Why so serious?” Then his expression changed. “There hasn’t been another murder, has there?”

  “Why’d you say that?” asked Gamache, watching him.

  “Well, you all look so glum. I feel like it’s report card day.”

  “In a way it is, I guess. Time to take stock.” Gamache pointed to a chair next to Havoc’s father and the young man sat. Gamache also sat.

  “You and Olivier were the last people in the bistro last Saturday night?”

  “That’s right. Olivier left and I locked up.”

  “And where did Olivier go?”

  “Home, I guess.” Havoc looked amused by the question.

  “We know now that Olivier visited the Hermit late at night. Saturday nights.”

  “Is that right?”

  “That’s right.” The young man’s composure was a little too perfect. A little too practiced, Gamache thought. “But someone else knew about the Hermit. Not just Olivier. There are a couple of ways Jakob could have been found. One was to follow the overgrown horse trails. The other was to follow Olivier. To the cabin.”

  Havoc’s smile faltered. “Are you saying I followed Olivier?” The young man looked from Gamache to his parents, searching their faces, and back again.

  “Where were you just now?”

  “In the woods.”

  Gamache nodded slowly. “Doing what?”

  “Cutting wood.”

  “And yet we heard no saw.”

  “I’d already cut it and was just stacking it.” Now the boy’s eyes moved more quickly from Gamache to his father and back.

  Gamache got up, walked a couple of steps to the door to the kitchen, bent down and picked something up. He sat back down and placed it on the polished table. It was a wood chip. No. A shaving. It curled back on itself.

  “How did you afford this house?” Gamache asked Roar.

  “What do you mean?” Roar asked.

  “It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The materials alone are worth that. Add in designs and specifications for such an unusual house, then labor? You say you built it about fifteen years ago. What happened then that allowed you to do it? Where’d you get the money?”

  “What do you think happened?” Roar leaned in to the Chief Inspector. “You Québécois, so insular. What happened all those years ago? Let’s see. There was a sovereignty referendum in Quebec, there was a huge forest fire in Abitibi, there was an election in the province. Nothing much else to report.”

  The shaving on the table trembled as his words brushed past on their way to Gamache.

  “I’ve had it,” Roar said. “God, how can you not know what happened back then?”

  “Czechoslovakia broke up,” said Gamache. “And became Slovakia and the Czech Republic. That actually happened twenty years ago, but the impact can take time. Those walls came down, and these ones,” he glanced at the bank of glass, “went up.”

  “We could see our families again,” said Hanna. “So many of the things we left behind we could have again. Family, friends.”

  “Art, silver, heirlooms,” said Beauvoir.

  “Do you think those things mattered?” asked Hanna. “We’d lived without them for so long. It was the people we missed, not the things. We barely dared hope it was real. We’d been fooled before. The summer of ’68. And certainly the reports we were seeing in the West were different from the stories we heard from people back home. Here we only heard how wonderful it was. We saw people waving flags and singing. But my cousins and aunts told a different story. The old system was horrible. Corrupt, brutal. But it was at least a system. When it went they were left with nothing. A vacuum. Chaos.”

  Gamache tilted his head slightly at the word. Chaos. Again.

  “It was terrifying. People were being beaten, murdered, robbed, and there were no cops, no courts.”

  “A good time to smuggle things out,” said Beauvoir.

  “We wanted to sponsor our cousins but they decided to stay,” said Roar.

  “And my aunt wanted to stay with them, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Gamache. “If not people, what about things?”

  After a moment Hanna nodded. “We managed to get some family heirlooms out. My mother and father hid them after the war and told us they were to be kept for barter, for bargaining, if things got bad.”

  “Things got bad,” said Gamache.

  “We smuggled them out and sold them. So that we could build the home of our dreams,” said Hanna. “We struggled with that decision a long time, but finally I realized both my parents would understand and approve. They were only things. Home is what matters.”

  “What did you have?” asked Beauvoir.

  “Some paintings, some good furniture, some icons. We needed a house more than we needed an icon,” said Hanna.

  “Who did you sell them to?”

  “A dealer in New York. A friend of a friend. I can give you his name. He took a small commission but got a fair price,” said Parra.

  “Please. I’d like to speak to him. You certainly made good use of the money.” The Chief Inspector turned to Roar. “Are you a carpenter too?”

  “I do some.”

  “And you?” Gamache asked Havoc, who shrugged. “I’ll need more than that.”

  “I do some.”

  Gamache reached out and slowly pushed the wood shaving along the glass table until it sat in front of Havoc. He waited.

  “I was in the woods whittling,” admitted Havoc. “When I finish my work I like to sit quietly and shave down a piece of wood. It’s relaxing. A chance to think. To cool off. I make little toys and things for Charles Mundin. Old gives me chunks of old wood and showed me how. Most of the stuff I make is crap and I just throw it away or burn it. But sometimes it’s not too bad, and I give it to Charles. Why do you care if I whittle?”

  “A piece of wood was found near the dead man. It was carved into the word Woo. Jakob didn’t do it. We think the murdere
r did.”

  “You think Havoc—” Roar couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I have a search warrant and a team on the way.”

  “What’re you looking for?” asked Hanna, blanching. “Just the whittling tools? We can give them to you.”

  “It’s more than that, madame. Two things are missing from Jakob’s cabin. The murder weapon and a small canvas sack. We’re looking for them too.”

  “We’ve never seen them,” said Hanna. “Havoc, get your tools.”

  Havoc led Beauvoir to the shed while Gamache waited for the search team, who showed up a few minutes later. Beauvoir returned with the tools, and something else.

  Chunks of wood. Red cedar. Whittled.

  It was agreed that Beauvoir would direct the search while Gamache returned to the Incident Room. At the car the two men talked.

  “Which of them did it, do you think?” Beauvoir asked, handing the keys to Gamache. “Havoc could’ve followed Olivier and found the cabin. But it might’ve been Roar. He might’ve found the cabin when he was clearing the trail. Could’ve been the mother, of course. The murder didn’t take a lot of strength. Anger, yes, adrenaline, but not strength. Suppose Jakob stole from the Parra family back in Czechoslovakia then when he came here they recognized him. And he recognized them. So he took off into the woods and hid there.”

  “Or perhaps Jakob and the Parras were in it together,” said Gamache. “Maybe all three convinced friends and neighbors in Czechoslovakia to give them their precious things, then disappeared with them.”

  “And once here Jakob screwed his partners, taking off into the woods. But Roar found the cabin as he cut the trails.”

  Gamache watched the search teams start their methodical work. Before long there wouldn’t be anything they didn’t know about the Parras.

  He needed to gather his thoughts. He handed the car keys to Beauvoir. “I’ll walk.”

  “Are you kidding?” asked Beauvoir, for whom walking was a punishment. “It’s miles.”

  “It’ll do me good, clear my mind. I’ll see you back in Three Pines.” He set off down the dirt road, giving Beauvoir a final wave. A few wasps buzzed in the ripe autumn air but were no threat. They were fat and lazy, almost drunk on the nectar from apples and pears and grapes.