The Brutal Telling

by Louise Penny

  Gamache paused in his thinking. Caesar’s Shift. How had Jérôme Brunel explained it? What had Julius Caesar done with his very first code? He hadn’t used a key word, but a number. He’d shifted the alphabet over by three letters.

  Gamache walked to the mantelpiece and reaching into his breast pocket he withdrew a notebook and pen. Then he wrote. First the alphabet, then beneath it he counted spaces. That was the key. Not the word sixteen but the number. 16.

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C D E F G H I J

  Carefully, not wanting to make a mistake in haste, he checked the letters. The Hermit had printed MRKBVYDDO under the carving of the people on the shore. C, H, A, R . . . Gamache concentrated even harder, forcing himself to slow down. L, O, T, T, E.

  A long sigh escaped, and with it the word. Charlotte.

  He then worked on the code written under the hopeful people on the boat. OWSVI.

  Within moments he had that too.

  Emily.

  Smiling he remembered flying over the mountains covered in mist and legend. Spirits and ghosts. He remembered the place forgotten by time, and John the Watchman, who could never forget. And the totems, captured forever by a frumpy painter.

  What message was Jakob the Hermit sending? Did he know he was in danger and wanted to pass on this message, this clue? Or was it, as Gamache suspected, something much more personal? Something comforting, even?

  This man had kept these two carvings for a reason. He’d written under them for a reason. He’d written Charlotte and Emily. And he’d made them out of red cedar, from the Queen Charlotte Islands, for a reason.

  What does a man alone need? He had everything else. Food, water, books, music. His hobbies and art. A lovely garden. But what was missing?

  Company. Community. To be within the pale. Two chairs for friendship. These carvings kept him company.

  He might never be able to prove it, but Gamache knew without doubt the Hermit had been on the Queen Charlotte Islands, almost certainly when he’d first arrived in Canada. And there he’d learned to carve, and learned to build log cabins. And there he’d found his first taste of peace, before having it disrupted by the protests. Like a first love, the place where peace is first found is never, ever forgotten.

  He’d come into these woods to re-create that. He’d built a cabin exactly like the ones he’d seen on the Charlottes. He’d whittled red cedar, to be comforted by the familiar smell and feel. And he’d carved people for company. Happy people.

  Except for one.

  These creations became his family. His friends. He kept them, protected them. Named them. Slept with them under his head. And they in turn kept him company on the long, cold, dark nights as he listened for the snap of a branch, and the approach of something worse than slaughter.

  Then Gamache heard a twig crack and tensed.

  “May I join you?”

  Standing on the porch was Vincent Gilbert.

  “S’il vous plaît.”

  Gilbert walked in and the two men shook hands.

  “I was at Marc’s place and saw your car. Hope you don’t mind. I followed you.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You looked deep in thought just now.”

  “A great deal to think about,” said Gamache, with a small smile, tucking his notebook back into his breast pocket.

  “What you did was very difficult. I’m sorry it was necessary.”

  Gamache said nothing and the two men stood quietly in the cabin.

  “I’ll leave you alone,” said Gilbert eventually, making for the door.

  Gamache hesitated then followed. “No need. I’m finished here.” He closed the door without a backward glance and joined Vincent Gilbert on the porch.

  “I signed this for you.” Gilbert handed him a hardcover book. “They’ve reissued it after all the publicity surrounding the murder and the trial. Seems it’s a bestseller.”

  “Merci.” Gamache turned over the gleaming copy of Being and looked at the author photo. No more sneer. No more scowl. Instead a handsome, distinguished man looked back. Patient, understanding. “Félicitations,” said Gamache.

  Gilbert smiled, then unfolded a couple of aluminum garden chairs. “I brought these with me just now. The first of a few things. Marc says I can live in the cabin. Make it my home.”

  Gamache sat. “I can see you here.”

  “Away from polite society,” smiled Gilbert. “We saints do enjoy our solitude.”

  “And yet, you brought two chairs.”

  “Oh, you know that quote too?” said Gilbert. “I had three chairs in my house: one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

  “My favorite quote from Thoreau is also from Walden,” said Gamache. “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.”

  “In your job you can’t let many things alone, can you?”

  “No, but I can let them go, once they’re done.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Gamache sat quietly for a moment then spoke. “Because some things are harder to let go than others.”

  Vincent Gilbert nodded but said nothing. While the Chief Inspector stared into space the doctor pulled out a small Thermos from a knapsack and poured them each a cup of coffee.

  “How are Marc and Dominique?” Gamache asked, sipping the strong black coffee.

  “Very well. The first guests have arrived. They seem to be enjoying it. And Dominique’s in her element.”

  “How’s Marc the horse?” He was almost afraid to ask. And the slow shaking of Vincent’s head confirmed his fears. “Some horse,” murmured Gamache.

  “Marc had no choice but to get rid of him.”

  Gamache saw again the wild, half-blind, half-mad, wounded creature. And he knew the choice had been made years ago.

  “Dominique and Marc are settling in, and have you to thank for that,” Gilbert continued. “If you hadn’t solved the case they’d have been ruined. I take it from the trial that was Olivier’s intention in moving the body. He wanted to close the inn and spa.”

  Gamache didn’t say anything.

  “But it was more than that, of course,” said Gilbert, not letting it go. “He was greedy, I suppose.”

  And still Gamache said nothing, not wanting to further condemn a man he still considered a friend. Let the lawyers and judges and jury say those things.

  “The Hungry Ghost,” said Gilbert.

  That roused Gamache, who twisted in his garden chair to look at the dignified man next to him.

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s a Buddhist belief. One of the states of man from the Wheel of Life. The more you eat the hungrier you get. It’s considered the very worst of the lives. Trying to fill a hole that only gets deeper. Fill it with food or money or power. With the admiration of others. Whatever.”

  “The Hungry Ghost,” said Gamache. “How horrible.”

  “You have no idea,” said Gilbert.

  “You do?”

  After a moment Gilbert nodded. He no longer looked quite so magnificent. But considerably more human. “I had to give it all up to get what I really wanted.”

  “And what was that?”

  Gilbert considered for a long time. “Company.”

  “You came to a cabin in the woods to find company?” smiled Gamache.

  “To learn to be good company for myself.”

  They sat quietly until Gilbert finally spoke. “So Olivier killed the Hermit for the treasure?”

  Gamache nodded. “He was afraid it’d be found. He knew it was only a matter of time, once your son moved here and Parra started opening the trails.”

  “Speaking of the Parras, did you consider them?”

  Gamache looked at the steaming mug of coffee warming his large hands. He’d never tell this man the full story. It wouldn’t do to admit that Havoc Parra in particular had been their main suspect. Havoc worked late. He could have f
ollowed Olivier to the cabin after closing the bistro. And while Havoc’s whittling tools had tested negative maybe he used others. And wasn’t the Hermit Czech?

  Or if not Havoc then his father Roar, who cut the trails and was almost certainly heading straight for the cabin. Maybe he found it.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  A wide trail of “maybe’s” led directly to the Parras.

  But Gamache also chose not to tell Gilbert that he had also been a suspect, as had his son and daughter-in-law. The cabin was on their land. Why had they bought the ruined old house when they could have had any place? Why had they ordered the trails reopened so quickly? It was almost the first thing they did.

  And why had the saintly Dr. Gilbert and the body both appeared at the same time?

  Why, why, why.

  A wide trail of “why’s” led directly to the front door of the old Hadley house.

  They all made good suspects. But all the actual evidence pointed to Olivier. The fingerprints, the murder weapon, the canvas sack, the carvings. They’d found no whittling tools in Olivier’s possession, but that meant nothing. He would have gotten rid of them years ago. But they had found nylon line in the B and B. The same weight and strength used for the web. Olivier’s defense argued it was the standard ply and proved nothing. Gabri testified that he’d used it for gardening, to tie up honeysuckle.

  It proved nothing.

  “But why put that word up in the web, and carve it in wood?” asked Vincent.

  “To frighten the Hermit into giving him the treasure in the sack.”

  It had been a shockingly simple solution. The trail was getting closer every day. Olivier knew time was running out. He had to convince the Hermit to hand it over, before the cabin was found. Because once that happened the Hermit would realize the truth: Olivier had been lying. There was no Mountain. No army of Dread and Despair. No Chaos. Just a greedy little antique dealer, who could never get enough.

  No approaching horror, just another Hungry Ghost.

  Olivier’s last hope of getting the burlap bag from the Hermit was to convince him the danger was imminent. To save his life Jakob had to get rid of the treasure. So that when the Mountain arrived he’d find the Hermit, but no sack.

  But when the story failed to terrify enough, when the trail had come too close, Olivier had brought out his napalm, his mustard gas, his buzz bomb. His Enola Gay.

  He’d put the web up in the corner. And placed the whittled word somewhere in the cabin, for Jakob to find. Knowing that when the Hermit saw it he would—what? Die? Perhaps. But he would certainly panic. Knowing he’d been found. The thing he’d hidden from, the thing he’d fled from. The thing he most feared. Had found him. And left its calling card.

  What had gone wrong? Had the Hermit not seen the web? Had the Hermit’s greed exceeded even Olivier’s? Whatever happened one thing Gamache knew for certain. Olivier, his patience at an end, his nerves frazzled, his rage in full flood, had reached out, clasped the menorah. And struck.

  His lawyer had opted for a jury trial. A good strategy, thought Gamache. A jury could be convinced it was temporary insanity. Gamache himself had argued that Olivier should be tried for manslaughter, not murder, and the prosecution had agreed. The Chief Inspector knew Olivier had done many terrible things to the Hermit, on purpose. But killing him wasn’t one. Imprisoning Jakob, yes. Manipulating and taking advantage of him, yes. Unbalancing an already fragile mind, yes. But not murder. That, Gamache believed, had surprised and appalled even Olivier.

  Such an appropriate word. Manslaughter.

  That’s what Olivier had done. He’d slaughtered a man. Not with that one terrible blow, but over time. Wearing him down, so that the Hermit’s face was scored with worry lines and his soul cringed with every scrape of a twig.

  But it turned into a murder/suicide. Olivier had killed himself in the process. Whittling away what was kind and good about himself, until loathing replaced self-respect. The man he could have been was dead. Consumed by the Hungry Ghost.

  What finally damned Olivier wasn’t speculation but facts. Evidence. Only Olivier could be placed at the cabin. His prints were found here, and on the murder weapon. He knew the Hermit. He sold some of his treasures. He sold the carvings. He stole the burlap bag. And finally, the murder weapon was found hidden in the bistro, along with the bag. His lawyer would try to come up with all sorts of arguments, but this case would hold. Gamache had no doubt.

  But while facts might be enough for a prosecutor, a judge, a jury, they weren’t enough for Gamache. He needed more. He needed motive. That thing that could never be proved because it can’t be seen.

  What drove a man to slaughter?

  And that’s what had sealed it for Gamache. As he’d been walking back to Three Pines, having ordered the Parra place searched yet again, he’d thought about the case. The evidence. But also the malevolent spirit behind it.

  He realized that all the things that pointed to the Parras’ possibly doing it also applied to Olivier. Fear and greed. But what tipped it toward Olivier was that while the Parras had shown little inclination toward greed, Olivier had wallowed in it.

  Olivier was afraid of two things, Gamache knew. Being exposed, and being without.

  Both were approaching, both threatening.

  Gamache sipped his coffee and thought again about those totem poles in Ninstints, rotting, falling, fallen. But they still had a story to tell.

  It was there the idea had been planted. That this murder was about tales told. And the Hermit’s carvings were the key. They weren’t random, individual carvings. They were a community of carvings. Each could stand on its own, but taken together they told an even bigger story. Like the totem poles.

  Olivier had told tales to control and imprison the Hermit. The Hermit had used them to create his remarkable carvings. And Olivier had used those carvings to get wealthier even than he had dreamed.

  But what Olivier hadn’t appreciated was that his stories were actually true. An allegory, yes. But no less real for that. A mountain of misery was approaching. And growing with each new lie, each new tale.

  A Hungry Ghost.

  The wealthier Olivier grew the more he wanted. And what he wanted more than anything was the one thing denied him. The contents of the little canvas sack.

  Jakob had come to Three Pines with his treasures, almost certainly stolen from friends and neighbors in Czechoslovakia. People who had trusted him. Once the Iron Curtain had collapsed and those people could leave, they started asking for their money. Demanding it. Threatening to show up. Perhaps even showing up.

  So he’d taken his treasure, their treasures, and hidden it and himself in the woods. Waiting for it to blow over, for the people to give up. To go home. To leave him in peace.

  Then he could sell it all. Buy private jets and luxury yachts. A townhouse in Chelsea, a vineyard in Burgundy.

  Would he have been happy then? Would it have finally been enough?

  Find out what he loved, and maybe then you’ll find his murderer, Gamache had been told by Esther, the Haida elder. Had the Hermit loved money?

  Perhaps at first.

  But then hadn’t he used money in the outhouse? As toilet paper. Hadn’t they found twenty-dollar bills stuffed into the walls of the log cabin, as insulation?

  Had the Hermit loved his treasure? Perhaps at first.

  But then he’d given it away. In exchange for milk and cheese and coffee.

  And company.

  When Olivier had been taken away Gamache had sat back down and stared at the sack. What could be worse than Chaos, Despair, War? What would even the Mountain flee from? Gamache had given it a lot of thought. What haunted people even, perhaps especially, on their deathbed? What chased them, tortured them and brought some to their knees? And Gamache thought he had the answer.

  Regret.

  Regret for things said, for things done, and not done. Regret for the people they might have been. And failed to be.

  Finally, when h
e was alone, the Chief Inspector had opened the sack and looking inside had realized he’d been wrong. The worst thing of all wasn’t regret.

  Clara Morrow knocked on Peter’s door.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready,” he said, and came out wiping the oil paint from his hand. He’d taken to sprinkling his hands with paint so that Clara would think he’d been hard at work when in fact he’d finished his painting weeks earlier.

  He’d finally admitted that to himself. He just hadn’t admitted it to anyone else.

  “How do I look?”

  “Great.” Peter took a piece of toast from Clara’s hair.

  “I was saving that for lunch.”

  “I’ll take you out for lunch,” he said, following her out the door. “To celebrate.”

  They got in the car and headed into Montreal. That terrible day when she’d gone to pick up her portfolio from Fortin, she’d stopped at the sculpture of Emily Carr. Someone else was there eating her lunch and Clara had sat at the far end of the bench and stared at the little bronze woman. And the horse, the dog and the monkey. Woo.

  Emily Carr didn’t look like one of the greatest visionary artists ever. She looked like someone you’d meet across the aisle on the Number 24 bus. She was short. A little dumpy. A little frumpy.

  “She looks a bit like you,” came the voice beside Clara.

  “You think so?” said Clara, far from convinced it was a compliment.

  The woman was in her sixties. Beautifully dressed. Poised and composed. Elegant.

  “I’m Thérèse Brunel.” The woman reached out her hand. When Clara continued to look perplexed she added, “Superintendent Brunel. Of the Sûreté du Québec.”

  “Of course. Forgive me. You were in Three Pines with Armand Gamache.”

  “Is that your work?” She nodded toward the portfolio.

  “Photographs of it, yes.”

  “May I see?”

  Clara opened the portfolio and the Sûreté officer looked through, smiling, commenting, drawing in breath occasionally. But she stopped at one picture. It was of a joyous woman facing forward but looking back.

  “She’s beautiful,” said Thérèse. “Someone I’d like to know.”