by Louise Penny
“But she didn’t say anything?”
“No.”
“Do you want to know what I think?” he asked.
Myrna nodded.
“I think when she first came down it was for a pleasant visit. When she decided to return it was for another reason altogether.”
Myrna held his eyes. “What reason?”
He brought the pictures out of his pocket and selected the one of the four women.
“I think she was bringing this to you. Her most prized, most personal possession. I think she wanted to open the doors, the windows of her home, and let you in.”
Myrna let out a long breath, then took the photograph from him.
“Thank you for that,” she said quietly, and looked at the picture. “Virginie, Hélène, Josephine, Marguerite, and now Constance. All gone. Passed into legend. What is it?”
Gamache had picked up the very first picture ever taken of the Ouellet Quintuplets, when they were newborns, lined up like loaves of bread on the hacked harvest table. Their stunned father standing behind them.
Gamache turned the photograph over and looked at the words almost certainly written by their mother or father. Neatly, carefully. In a hand not used to making note of anything. In a life not very noteworthy, this was worth the effort. They’d written the names of their girls in the order in which they’d been placed on the table.
Marie-Virginie.
Marie-Hélène.
Marie-Josephine.
Marie-Marguerite.
Marie-Constance.
Almost certainly the order in which they were born, but also, he realized, the order in which they died.
SEVENTEEN
Armand Gamache woke to screams and shouts and a short, sharp explosion of sound.
Sitting bolt upright in bed, he went from deep sleep to complete awareness in a split second. His hand shot out and hovered over the nightstand where his gun sat in the drawer.
His eyes were sharp, his focus complete. He was motionless, his body tense.
He could see daylight through the curtains. Then he heard it again. An urgent shout. A cry for help. A command given. Another bang.
There was no mistaking that sound.
He put on his dressing gown and slippers, pulled back the curtain, and saw a pickup hockey game on the frozen pond, in the middle of the village green.
Henri was beside him, alert as well, nudging his nose out the window. Sniffing.
“This place’s going to kill me,” said the Chief Inspector to Henri. But he smiled as he watched the kids, skating furiously after the puck. Shouting instructions to each other. Howling in triumph, and screaming with pain, when a slap shot went in the net.
He stood, mesmerized for a moment, looking out the frosted pane of glass.
It was a brilliant day. A Saturday, he realized. The sun was just up, but the kids looked like they’d been at it for hours and could go on all day, with only short breaks for hot chocolate.
He lowered the window and opened the curtains all the way, then turned around. The house was quiet. It had taken him a moment to remember he wasn’t in Gabri’s bed and breakfast, but in Emilie Longpré’s home.
This room was larger than the one he had at the B and B. There was a fireplace on one wall, the floors were wide-plank pine, and the walls were covered in floral paper that was anything but fashionable. There were windows on two sides, making it bright and cheerful.
He looked at the bedside clock and was shocked to see it was almost eight. He’d overslept. Hadn’t bothered to set the alarm, sure he’d wake up on his own at six in the morning, as he normally did. Or that Henri would nudge him awake.
But both had fallen into a deep sleep and would still be in bed if it weren’t for a sudden breakaway goal in the game below.
After a quick shower, Gamache took Henri downstairs, fed him, put the coffee on to perk, then clipped the leash on Henri for a walk around the village green. As they strolled they watched the hockey game, Henri straining, anxious to join the other kids.
“I’m glad you keep the dumb beast on a leash. He’s a menace.”
Gamache turned to see Ruth and Rosa closing in on them over the frozen road. Rosa wore little knitted boots and seemed to walk with a slight limp, like Ruth. And Ruth appeared to have developed a waddle, like Rosa.
If people really did morph into their pets, thought Gamache, any moment now he’d sprout huge ears and a playful, slightly vacant, expression.
But Rosa was more than a pet to Ruth, and Ruth was more than just another person to the duck.
“Henri is not a dumb beast, madame,” said Gamache.
“I know that,” snapped the poet. “I was talking to Henri.”
The shepherd and the duck eyed each other. Gamache, as a precaution, tightened his grip on the leash, but he needn’t have worried. Rosa thrust out her beak and Henri leapt back and cowered behind Gamache’s legs, looking up at him.
Gamache and Henri raised their brows at each other.
“Pass,” Ruth screamed at the hockey players. “Don’t hog the puck.”
Anyone listening would have heard the implied “dumbass” tacked to the end of that sentence.
A boy passed the puck, but too late. It disappeared into a snow bank. He looked over at Ruth and shrugged.
“That’s OK, Etienne,” said Ruth. “Next time keep your head up.”
“Oui, coach.”
“Fucking kids never listen,” said Ruth, and turned her back on them, but not before a few had seen her and Rosa and stopped play to wave.
“Coach?” asked Gamache, walking beside her.
“It’s French for asshole. Coach.”
Gamache laughed, a puff of humor. “Something else you taught them, then.”
Small puffs came from Ruth’s mouth and he presumed it was a chuckle. Or sulphur.
“Thank you for the coq au vin last night,” said the Chief. “It was delicious.”
“It was for you? Christ, I thought that librarian woman said it was for the people in Emilie’s home.”
“That’s me and my friends, as you very well know.”
Ruth picked up Rosa and walked in silence for a few paces.
“Are you any closer to finding out who killed Constance?” she asked.
“A little.”
Beside them the hockey game continued, with boys and girls chasing the puck, some skating forward, some wiggling backward. As though life depended on what happened to that piece of frozen rubber.
It might appear trivial, but Gamache knew that this was where so much was learned. Trust and teamwork. When to pass, when to advance and when to retreat. And to never lose sight of the goal, no matter the chaos and distractions around you.
“Why did you take that book by Dr. Bernard?” he asked.
“What book?”
“How many books by a Dr. Bernard do you have?” he asked. “The one on the Ouellet Quints. You took it from Myrna’s bookstore.”
“It’s a bookstore?” Ruth asked, looking over at the shop. “But it says ‘library.’”
“It says librairie,” said the Chief. “French for ‘you’re lying.’”
Ruth snorted with laughter.
“You know perfectly well librairie in French means bookstore,” he said.
“Fucking confusing language. Why not just be clear?”
Gamache looked at her with amazement. “A very good question, madame.”
He spoke without exasperation. He owed Ruth a great deal, not the least of which was patience.
“Yes, I took the book. As I said earlier, Constance told me who she was, so I wanted to read up on her. Morbid curiosity.”
Gamache knew that Ruth Zardo might be morbid but she wasn’t curious. That would demand an interest in others.
“And you figured you’d learn something from Dr. Bernard’s account?”
“Well, I wasn’t going to learn it from her, was I? It was the best I could do. Boring book. Talked mostly about himself. I hate self-center
ed people.”
He let that one pass.
“Had some rude things to say about the parents, though,” she continued. “All couched in polite terms, of course, in case they ever read it, which I suspect they did. Or had it read to them.”
“Why do you say that?” asked Gamache.
“According to Bernard, they were poor and ignorant and dumb as a puck. And greedy.”
“How so?”
“They basically sold their kids to the government, then got huffy when the money ran out. Figured they were owed more.”
Chief Inspector Gamache had himself found the details of the accounting. It showed a large payment, or certainly large for the time, to Isidore Ouellet, disguised as an expropriation of his farm for a hundred times what it was really worth.
The dirt-poor farmer had won the lottery, in the form of five fantastical daughters. And all he’d had to do was sell them to the state.
Gamache had also come across letters. Lots of them. Written over a period of years in laborious longhand, demanding their daughters back, saying they were tricked. Threatening to go public. The Ouellets would tell everyone how the government had stolen their children. Isidore even invoked Frère André, who was dead by then, but an increasingly potent symbol in Québec.
In reading the letters it struck Gamache that what Isidore Ouellet really wanted was not the girls, but more money.
Then there were the letters in response from a newly formed branch of the government called Service de protection de l’enfance. They were addressed to the Ouellets, and while the language was extremely civil, Gamache could see the counter-threat.
If the Ouellets opened their mouths, so would the government.
And they had a great deal to say. They too invoked Brother André. It seemed the saint played for both teams. Or so they hoped.
Eventually the letters from the Ouellets petered out, but not before the tone became more pathetic, more demeaning. Begging. Explaining they had rights and needs.
And then the letters stopped.
“Did Constance tell you about her parents?” Gamache asked. It was their second time around the village green. He looked down at Henri, who was staying close to Gamache’s legs, eyes fixed on Rosa. A spectacularly stupid expression on his face.
Could it be? Gamache wondered. No. Surely not.
He stole another look at Henri, who was all but slobbering as he watched Rosa. It was difficult to tell, but the shepherd either wanted to eat the duck, or had fallen in love with her.
Gamache decided not to explore either thought further. It was far too star-crossed.
“Honestly, you can’t be that stupid,” said Ruth. “I told you yesterday that I knew who Constance was but we didn’t talk about it. You really aren’t listening, are you?”
“To your sparkling conversation? Who wouldn’t? No, I was paying attention, I just wondered if Constance had said something to you, but, alas, she didn’t.”
Ruth shot him a look, her blue eyes bleary but sharp. Like a knife in a cold, shallow stream.
They stopped in front of Emilie Longpré’s home.
“I remember visiting Madame Longpré here,” said Gamache. “She was a remarkable woman.”
“Yes,” said Ruth, and he waited for some snide qualifier, but none came.
“It’s nice to see lights on, and smoke coming from the chimney again,” she said. “It’s been empty far too long. This home was meant for people.” She turned to him. “It wants company. Even company as banal as yours.”
“Merci,” said the Chief, with a small bow. “Might I come over later and pick up the book?”
“What book?”
It was all Gamache could do to not roll his eyes. “The book by Dr. Bernard on the Ouellet Quintuplets.”
“You still want that? You’d better pay that librarian woman for it then, now that she’s changed her place from a library to a bookstore. Is that legal?”
“À bientôt, coach,” said Gamache, and watched Ruth and Rosa limp and waddle next door.
Henri embarrassed himself by crying a little.
Gamache tugged on the leash and the shepherd reluctantly followed.
“And I thought you were in love with the arm of our sofa,” said the Chief, as they entered the warm house. “Fickle brute.”
Thérèse was in the living room in front of the fireplace, reading an old paper.
“From five years ago,” she said, putting it down beside her. “But if I hadn’t looked at the date I’d swear it was today’s.”
“Plus ça change…” said Gamache, joining her.
“The more it changes, the more it stays the same,” Thérèse finished the quote, then thought about it. “Do you believe it?”
“No,” he said.
“You’re an optimist, monsieur.” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Neither do I.”
“Café?” he asked, and went to the kitchen to pour them both a coffee. Thérèse followed him and leaned against the marble counter.
“I feel out of sorts without my phone and emails and laptop,” she admitted, her arms around her body, like an addict in withdrawal.
“Me too,” he said, passing her a mug of coffee.
“When you’ve come here for murder investigations, how did you connect?”
“Not much we could do except tap into the telephone lines and boost them.”
“But that’s still dial-up,” said Thérèse. “Better than nothing, though. I know you also use hubs and mobile satellite dishes when you’re in remote areas. Do they work here?”
He shook his head. “Not very reliable. The valley’s too deep.”
“Or the mountains too high,” said Thérèse with a smile. “Perspective.”
Gamache opened the fridge and found bacon and eggs. Thérèse brought a loaf out of the bread box and began slicing it while the Chief put bacon into a cast-iron skillet.
It sizzled and popped, while Gamache poked it and moved the slices around.
“Morning.” Jérôme entered the kitchen. “I smelled bacon.”
“Almost ready,” said Gamache from the stove. He cracked the eggs into the frying pan while Jérôme put preserves on the table.
A few minutes later they all sat in front of plates of bacon, eggs over easy and toast.
Through the back window, over the sink, Gamache could see Emilie’s garden and the forest beyond covered in snow so bright it looked more blue and pink than white. A more perfect place to hide would be impossible to find. A safer safe house did not exist.
They were safe, the Chief knew, but they were also stuck.
Like the Quints, he thought, as he took a sip of rich, hot coffee. While the rest of the world had been in the depths of the Depression, they’d been scooped up, taken away, and made safe. They were given everything they wanted. Except their freedom.
Gamache looked at his companions, eating bacon and eggs, and spreading homemade jam on homemade bread.
They too had everything they could want. Except their freedom.
“Jérôme?” he began, his voice uncertain.
“Oui, mon ami.”
“I have a medical question for you.” The thought of the Quints reminded him of his conversation the night before with Myrna.
Jérôme lowered his fork and gave Gamache his full attention.
“Go on.”
“Twins,” said Gamache. “Do they generally share the same amniotic sac?”
“In the womb? Identical twins do. Fraternal twins don’t. They have their own egg and their own sac.”
He was clearly curious, but didn’t ask why.
“Why?” But Thérèse did. “A happy announcement for you and Reine-Marie?”
Gamache laughed. “As wonderful as having twins at this stage in life would be, no. I’m actually interested in multiple births.”
“How many?” asked Jérôme.
“Five.”
“Five? Must’ve been IVF,” he said. “Fertility drugs. Multiple eggs so almost c
ertainly not identical.”
“No, no, these are identical. Or were. And there was no IVF at the time.”
Thérèse stared at him. “Are you talking about the Ouellet Quintuplets?”
Gamache nodded. “There were five of them, of course. From a single egg. They split off into twos in the womb and shared amniotic sacs. Except one.”
“What a thorough investigator you are, Armand,” said Jérôme. “You go all the way back to the womb.”
“Well, no one suspects a fetus,” said Gamache. “That’s their great advantage.”
“Though there are a few disadvantages.” Jérôme paused to gather his thoughts. “The Ouellet Quints. We studied them in medical school. It was a phenomenon. Not simply a multiple birth, and identical at that, but the fact all five survived. Remarkable man, Dr. Bernard. I heard him lecture once, when he was a very old man. Still sharp, and still very proud of those girls.”
Gamache wondered if he should say something, but decided against it. There was no need to throw dirt on that idol. Yet.
“What was your question, Armand?”
“The one Quint who was alone in the womb. Would that have made any difference once they were born?”
“What sort of difference?”
Gamache thought about that. What did he mean?
“Well, she would have looked like her sisters, but would she have been different in other ways?”
“It’s not my specialty,” Jérôme qualified, then answered anyway. “But I think it couldn’t help but affect her. Not necessarily in a bad way. It could make her more resilient and self-reliant. The others would have a natural affinity for the girl they shared the sac with. Being that close physically, physiologically for eight months, they couldn’t help but bond in ways that go beyond personality. But the girl who developed on her own? She might have been less dependent on the others. More independent.”
He went back to spreading jam on his toast.
“Or not,” said Gamache, and wondered what life would have been like for a perpetual outsider in a closed community. Would she have yearned for that bond? Seen their closeness, and felt left out?