by Louise Penny
She took a handful of mixed nuts.
“Ah, here’s Gilles,” said Clara, getting up and waving a large, red-bearded man over. He was in his late forties and dressed casually. “I’ve invited him and Odile for dinner,” she said to the Chief Inspector. “You’re coming too.”
“Merci,” he said, shoving himself off the sofa to greet the newcomer.
“Been a while,” said Gilles, shaking Gamache’s hand, then taking a seat. “I was sorry to hear about the Quint.”
Gamache noticed that it wasn’t even necessary to say Ouellet Quints. The five girls had lost their privacy, their parents, and their names. They were just the Quints.
“We’re trying to keep that quiet for now,” said the Chief.
“Well, Odile’s writing a poem about them,” Gilles confided. “She’s hoping to get it into the Hog Breeder’s Gazette.”
“I think that’ll be all right,” said Gamache, and wondered if that was further up the food chain from her previous publishers. Her anthology, he knew, had been published, almost without edits, by the Root Vegetable Board of Québec.
“She’s calling it ‘Five Peas in a Gilded Pod,’” said Gilles.
Gamache was grateful Ruth wasn’t there. “She knows her market. Where is Odile, by the way?”
“At the shop. She’ll try to make it later.”
Gilles made exquisite furniture from fallen trees and Odile sold it from the front of their shop. And wrote poetry that, Gamache had to admit, was barely fit for human consumption, despite the opinion of the Root Vegetable Board.
“Now”—Gilles whacked a huge hand onto Gamache’s knee—“I hear you want me to install a satellite dish? You know they don’t work here, right?”
The Chief stared at him, then over at the Brunels, who were also slightly perplexed.
“You asked me to get in touch with the guy who puts up satellite dishes in the area,” said Clara. “That’s Gilles.”
“Since when?” asked Gamache.
“Since the recession,” said the large, burly man. “The market for handmade furniture tanked, but the market for five hundred television channels has skyrocketed. So I make extra bucks putting up the dishes. It helps that I have a head for heights.”
“To put it mildly,” said Gamache. He turned to Thérèse and Jérôme. “He used to be a lumberjack.”
“Long time ago,” said Gilles, looking into his drink.
“I have to put the casserole in the oven.” Clara rose to her feet.
Gamache got up and they all followed.
“Maybe we can continue this discussion over at Clara’s,” said the Chief, and Gilles rocked himself out of the sofa. “Where it’s a little more private.”
“So,” said Gilles as they walked the short distance to Clara’s home, their feet crunching on the snow. “Where’s your little buddy?”
A few kids were skating on the frozen pond. Gabri scooped up some snow, made it into a ball and tossed it for Henri, who sailed over the snow bank after it.
“Gilligan?” asked Gamache, keeping his voice light. In the darkness he heard Gilles guffaw.
“That’s right, Skipper,” said Gilles.
“He’s on another assignment.”
“So he finally made it off the island,” said Gilles, and Gamache could hear the smile in his deep voice. But the words came as a bit of a shock.
Had he inadvertently made the famed homicide department of the Sûreté an island? Far from saving the careers of promising agents, had he in fact imprisoned them, kept them from the mainland of their peers?
The kids on the pond saw Gabri’s snowball and stopped to make some of their own, throwing them at Gabri, who ducked but too late. Snowballs rained down on all of them and Henri was almost hysterical with excitement.
“You gol’darned kids,” said Gabri. “Dagnabbit.” He shook his fist at them in such a parody of anger that the kids almost peed themselves with laughter.
*
Jean-Guy Beauvoir couldn’t be bothered to shower. He wanted one, but it was just too much effort. As was laundry. He knew he reeked, but he didn’t care.
He’d come in to the office but had done no work. He only wanted to get away from his dreary little apartment. From the piles of dirty clothing, from the rotting food in the fridge, from the unmade bed and food-encrusted dishes.
And from the memory of the home he’d had. And lost.
No, not lost. It had been taken from him. Stolen from him. By Gamache. The one man he’d trusted had taken everything from him. Everyone from him.
Beauvoir got to his feet and walked stiffly to the elevator, then to his car.
His body ached and he was alternately famished and nauseous. But he couldn’t be bothered to pick up anything from the cafeteria or any of the fast food joints he passed on his way.
He pulled into a parking spot, turned the car off, and stared.
Now he was hungry. Starving. And he stank. The whole car reeked. He could feel his clammy undershirt sticking to him. Molding itself there, like a second skin.
He sat in the cold, dark car and stared at the one lit window. Hoping for a glimpse of Annie. Even just a shadow.
Was a time he could conjure up her scent. A lemon grove on a warm summer day. Fresh and citrony. But now all he smelt was his own fear.
*
Annie Gamache sat in the dark, staring out the window. She knew this was unhealthy. It wasn’t something she’d ever admit to her friends. They’d be appalled and look at her as though she was pathetic. And she probably was.
She’d kicked Jean-Guy out of their home when he refused to go back to rehab. They’d fought and fought, until there was nothing left to say. And then they fought some more. Jean-Guy insisted there was nothing wrong. That her father had made up the whole drug thing, as payback for him joining Superintendent Francoeur.
Finally, he’d left. But he hadn’t actually gone. He was still inside her, and she couldn’t get him out. And so she sat in her car and stared at the dark window of his tiny apartment. Hoping to see a light.
If she closed her eyes she could feel his arms around her, smell his scent. When she’d kicked him out she’d bought a bottle of his cologne and put a dab on the pillow next to hers.
She closed her eyes and felt him inside her skin. Where he was vibrant and smart and irreverent and loving. She saw his smile, heard his laugh. Felt his hands. Felt his body.
Now he was gone. But he hadn’t left. And she sometimes wondered if that was him, beating on her heart. And she wondered what would happen if he stopped.
Every night she came here. Parked. And stared at the window. Hoping to see some sign of life.
*
“It’s hardly the first time you’ve had a ball in the face,” said Ruth to Gabri. “Stop complaining.”
Ruth was in Clara’s living room when they arrived. Not really waiting for them. In fact, she’d looked pissed off when everyone came in.
“I was hoping for a quiet night,” she muttered, swirling the ice cubes around in her glass so forcefully they created a Scotch vortex. Gamache wondered if one day the old poet would be sucked right into it. Then he realized she already had.
Henri ran to Rosa, who was seated on the footstool beside Ruth. Gamache grabbed his collar as he took off, but needn’t have worried. Rosa hissed at the shepherd then turned away. If she could have raised one of her feathers to him, she would have.
“I didn’t think ducks hissed,” said Myrna.
“Are we sure it’s a duck?” Gabri whispered.
Thérèse and Jérôme wandered over, fascinated.
“Is that Ruth Zardo?” Jérôme asked.
“What’s left of her,” said Gabri. “She lost her mind years ago, and never did have a heart. Her bile ducts are keeping her alive. That,” said Gabri, pointing, “is Rosa.”
“I can see why Henri’s lost his heart,” said Thérèse, looking at the smitten shepherd. “Who doesn’t like a good duck?”
Silence met that remark
by the elegant older woman. She smiled and raised her brow just a little, and Clara started to laugh.
The casserole was in the oven and they could smell the rosemary chicken. People poured their own drinks and broke into groups.
Thérèse, Jérôme and Gamache took Gilles aside.
“Did I understand correctly? You used to be a lumberjack?” Thérèse asked.
Gilles became guarded. “Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Doesn’t matter,” said the burly man. “Personal reasons.”
Thérèse continued to stare at him, with a look that had dragged uncomfortable truths from hardened Sûreté officers. But Gilles held firm.
She turned to Gamache, who remained mute. While he knew those reasons, he wouldn’t break Gilles’s confidence. The two large men held eyes for a moment and Gilles nodded a slight thanks.
“Let me ask you this, then,” said Superintendent Brunel, taking another tack. “What’s the tallest tree up there?”
“Up where?”
“On the ridge above the village,” said Jérôme.
Gilles considered the question. “Probably a white pine. They can get to ninety feet or more. About eight stories high.”
“Can they be climbed?” Thérèse asked.
Gilles stared at her as though she’d suggested something disgusting. “Why these questions?”
“Just curious.”
“Don’t treat me like a fool, madame. You’re more than just curious.” He looked from the Brunels to Gamache.
“We’d never ask you to cut down a tree, or even hurt one,” said the Chief. “We just want to know if the tallest trees up there can be climbed.”
“Not by me they can’t,” Gilles snapped.
Thérèse and Jérôme turned away from the former forester and looked at Gamache, perplexed by Gilles’s reaction. The Chief Inspector touched Gilles’s arm and drew him aside.
“I’m sorry, I should have spoken with you privately about this. We need to bring a satellite signal down into Three Pines—”
He held up his hand to ward off Gilles’s protests, yet again, that it couldn’t be done.
“—and we wondered if a dish could be attached to one of the tall trees, and a cable strung down to the village.”
Gilles opened his mouth to protest again, but closed it. His expression went from aggressive to thoughtful.
“You’re thinking someone could climb ninety feet up a pine tree, a frozen pine tree, hauling a satellite dish with him, then not only attach it up there, but adjust it to find a signal? You must love television, monsieur.”
Gamache laughed. “It’s not for television.” He lowered his voice. “It’s for the Internet. We need to get online, and we need to do it as … umm … quietly as possible.”
“Steal a signal?” asked Gilles. “Frankly, you’d be far from the first to try it.”
“Then it’s possible?”
Gilles sighed and gnawed on his knuckles, deep in thought. “You’re talking about turning a ninety-foot tree into a transmission tower, finding a signal, then laying cable back down.”
“You make it sound difficult,” said the Chief, with a smile.
But Gilles wasn’t smiling. “I’m sorry, patron. I’d do anything to help you, but what you’re describing I don’t think can be done. Let’s just say I could climb to the top of the tree with the dish and attach it—there’s too much wind. The dish would blow around up there.”
He looked at Gamache and saw the fact sink in. And it was a fact. There was no way around it.
“The signal would never hold,” Gilles said. “That’s why transmission towers are made of steel, and are stable. That’s absolutely key. It’s a good idea, in theory, but it just won’t work.”
Chief Inspector Gamache broke eye contact and looked at the floor for a moment, absorbing the blow. This wasn’t just a plan, it was the plan. There was no Plan B.
“Can you think of another way to connect to high-speed Internet?” he asked, and Gilles shook his head.
“Why don’t you just go into Cowansville or Saint-Rémi? They have high-speed.”
“We need to stay here,” said Gamache. “Where we can’t be traced.”
Gilles nodded, thinking. Gamache watched him, willing an answer to appear. Finally Gilles shook his head. “People have been trying to get it for years. Legal or bootleg. It just can’t be done. Désolé.”
And that’s how Gamache felt, as he thanked Gilles and walked away.
Desolated.
“Well?” asked Thérèse.
“He says it can’t be done.”
“He just doesn’t want to do it,” said Superintendent Brunel. “We can find someone else.”
Gamache explained about the wind, and saw her slowly accept the truth. Gilles wasn’t being willful, he was being realistic. But Gamache saw something else. While Thérèse Brunel looked disappointed, her husband did not.
Gamache wandered into the kitchen where Clara and Gabri were preparing dinner.
“Smells good,” he said.
“Hungry?” Gabri asked, handing him a platter with pâté de campagne and crackers.
“I am, as a matter of fact,” said the Chief, as he spread a cracker. He could smell the yeasty scent of baking bread. It mingled with the rosemary chicken and he realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “I have a favor to ask. I’ve transferred some old film onto a disk and I’d like to watch it, but Emilie’s home doesn’t have a DVD player.”
“You want to use mine?”
When he nodded she waved a piece of cutlery like a wand in the direction of the living room. “It’s in the room off the living room.”
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” she said. “I’ll set you up. Dinner won’t be for at least half an hour.”
Gamache followed her through to a small room with a sofa and armchair. An old box television sat on a table, with a DVD player beside it. He watched while Clara pressed some buttons.
“What’s on the DVD?” asked Gabri. He stood at the door holding the platter of crackers and pâté. “Let me guess. Your audition for Canada’s Got Talent?”
“It would be very short if it was,” said Gamache.
“What’s going on?” Ruth demanded, pushing through, holding Rosa in one arm and a vase of Scotch in the other.
“The Chief Inspector’s auditioning for Canadian Idol,” Gabri explained. “This’s his audition tape.”
“Well, not—” Gamache began, then gave up. Why bother?
“Did someone say you’re auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance?” asked Myrna, squeezing onto the small sofa between the Chief and Ruth.
Gamache looked plaintively over at Clara. Olivier had arrived and was standing next to his partner. The Chief sighed and pressed the play button.
A familiar black and white graphic swirled toward them on the small screen, accompanied by music and an authoritative voice.
“In a small Canadian hamlet a tiny miracle has occurred,” said the grim newsreel announcer. The first grainy images appeared, and everyone in Clara’s small television room leaned forward.
TWENTY-ONE
“Five miracles,” the melodramatic narration continued, as though announcing Armageddon. “Delivered one bitter winter night by this man, Dr. Joseph Bernard.”
There on the screen stood Dr. Bernard, in full surgical smock, a mask over his nose and mouth. He waved a little maniacally, but Gamache knew that was the effect of the old black and white newsreels, where people lurched and movements were either too static or too manic.
In front of the doctor lay the five babies, wrapped up tight.
“Five little girls, born to Isidore and Marie-Harriette Ouellet.”
The sonorous voice struggled with the Québécois names. The first time they’d been pronounced on the newsreels, but would soon be on everyone’s lips. This was the world’s introduction to—
“Five little princesses. The world’s first surviving quintup
lets. Virginie, Hélène, Josephine, Marguerite, and Constance.”
And Constance, noted Gamache with interest. She would go through life hanging off the end of that sentence. And Constance. An outlier.
The voice became suddenly excitable. “Here’s their father.”
The scene switched to Dr. Bernard standing in a modest farmhouse living room, in front of a woodstove. He was handing a large man one of his own daughters. Like a special favor. Not a gift, though. A loan.
Isidore, cleaned up for the camera and giving a gap-toothed smile, held his child awkwardly in his arms. Unused to infants but, Gamache could see, he was a natural.
*
Thérèse felt a familiar hand on her elbow, and was drawn, reluctantly, away from the television.
Jérôme led her to a corner of Clara’s living room, as far from the gathering as possible, though they could still hear the Voice of Doom in the background. Now the Voice was talking about rustics, and seemed to imply the girls had been born in a barn.
Thérèse looked at her husband inquiringly.
Jérôme positioned himself so that he could see the guests standing around the doorway, focused on the television. He switched his gaze to his wife.
“Tell me about Arnot.”
“Arnot?”
“Pierre Arnot. You knew him.” His voice was low. Urgent. His eyes flickered between the other guests and his wife.
Thérèse could not have been more surprised had her husband suddenly stripped. She stared at him, barely comprehending.
“Do you mean the Arnot case? But that was years ago.”
“Not just the case. I want to hear about Arnot himself. Everything you can tell me.”
Thérèse stared, dumbfounded. “But that’s absurd. Why in the world would you suddenly want to know about him?”
Jérôme’s eyes shot to the other guests, their backs safely turned, before returning to his wife. He lowered his voice still further.
“Can’t you guess?”
She felt her heart drop. Arnot. Surely not.
In the background the bleak voice implied that the hand of God had assisted in the delivery. But the hand of God felt very far from this little room, with the cheery fire and aroma of fresh baking. And the rancid name hanging foul in the air.