by Louise Penny
“Oh, no. I can’t believe I forgot that,” said Morin, turning to Gamache. “Woo isn’t the name of the game, it’s the name of a character in a game. The game is called King of the Monsters.”
“King of the Monsters?” Gamache thought it unlikely the Hermit or his tormentor had a video game in mind. “Anything else?”
“Well, there’s the woo cocktail,” suggested Lacoste. “Made from peach schnapps and vodka.”
“Then there’s woo-woo,” said Beauvoir. “It’s English slang.”
“Vraiment?” said Gamache. “What does it mean?”
“It means crazy.” Beauvoir smiled.
“And there’s wooing a person. Seducing them,” said Lacoste, then shook her head. They weren’t any closer.
Gamache dismissed the meeting, then walking back to his computer he typed in a word.
Charlotte.
Gabri chopped the tomatoes and peppers and onions. He chopped and he chopped and he chopped. He’d already chopped the golden plums and strawberries, the beets and pickles. He’d sharpened his knife and chopped some more.
All afternoon and into the evening.
“Can we talk now?” asked Olivier, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. It smelled so comforting, but felt so foreign.
Gabri, his back to the door, didn’t pause. He reached for a cauliflower and chopped that.
“Mustard pickles,” said Olivier, venturing into the kitchen. “My favorite.”
Clunk, clunk, clunk, and the cauliflower was tossed into the boiling pot to blanch.
“I’m sorry,” said Olivier.
At the sink Gabri scrubbed lemons, then cutting them into quarters he shoved them into a jar and sprinkled coarse salt on top. Finally he squeezed the leftover lemons and poured the juice over the salt.
“Can I help?” asked Olivier, reaching for the top of a jar. But Gabri put his body between Olivier and the jars and silently sealed them.
Every surface of the kitchen was packed with colorful jars filled with jams and jellies, pickles and chutneys. And it looked as though Gabri would keep this up forever. Silently preserving everything he could.
Clara chopped the ends off the fresh carrots and watched Peter toss the tiny new potatoes into boiling water. They’d have a simple dinner tonight of vegetables from the garden with herbs and sweet butter. It was one of their favorite meals in late summer.
“I don’t know who to feel worse for, Olivier or Gabri,” she said.
“I do,” said Peter, shelling some peas. “Gabri didn’t do anything. Can you believe Olivier’s been visiting that guy in the woods for years and didn’t tell anyone? I mean, what else isn’t he telling us?”
“Did you know he’s gay?”
“He’s probably straight and isn’t telling us.”
Clara smirked. “Now that would really piss Gabri off, though I know a couple of women who’d be happy.” She paused, knife in mid-air. “I think Olivier feels pretty horrible.”
“Come on. He’d still be doing it if the old man hadn’t been murdered.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong, you know,” said Clara. “The Hermit gave him everything.”
“So he says.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the Hermit’s dead. Isn’t that convenient?”
Clara stopped chopping. “What’re you saying?”
“Nothing. I’m just angry.”
“Why? Because he didn’t tell us?”
“Aren’t you pissed off?”
“A little. But I think I’m more amazed. Listen, we all know Olivier likes the finer things.”
“You mean he’s greedy and tight.”
“What amazes me is what Olivier did with the body. I just can’t imagine him lugging it through the woods and dumping it in the old Hadley house,” said Clara. “I didn’t think he had the strength.”
“I didn’t think he had the anger,” said Peter.
Clara nodded. Neither did she. And she also wondered what else their friend hadn’t told them. All this, though, had also meant that Clara couldn’t possibly ask Gabri about being called a “fucking queer.” Over dinner she explained this to Peter.
“So,” she concluded, her plate almost untouched, “I don’t know what to do about Fortin. Should I go into Montreal and speak to him directly about this, or just let it go?”
Peter took another slice of baguette, soft on the inside with a crispy crust. He smeared the butter to the edges, covering every millimeter, evenly. Methodically.
Watching him Clara felt she’d surely scream or explode, or at the very least grab the fucking baguette and toss it until it was a grease stain on the wall.
Still Peter smoothed the knife over the bread. Making sure the butter was perfect.
What should he tell her? To forget it? That what Fortin said wasn’t that bad? Certainly not worth risking her career. Just let it go. Besides, saying something almost certainly wouldn’t change Fortin’s mind about gays, and might just turn him against Clara. And this wasn’t some tiny show Fortin was giving her. This was everything Clara had dreamed of. Every artist dreamed of. Everyone from the art world would be there. Clara’s career would be made.
Should he tell her to let it go, or tell Clara she had to speak to Fortin? For Gabri and Olivier and all their gay friends. But mostly for herself.
But if she did that Fortin might get angry, might very well cancel her show.
Peter dug the tip of the knife into a hole in the bread to get the butter out.
He knew what he wanted to say, but he didn’t know if he’d be saying it for his sake, or for Clara’s.
“Well?” she asked, and heard the impatience in her voice. “Well?” she asked more softly. “What do you think?”
“What do you think?”
Clara searched his face. “I think I should just let it go. If he says it again maybe then I’ll say something. It’s a stressful time for all of us.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
Clara looked down at her uneaten plate. She’d heard the hesitation in Peter’s voice. Still, he wasn’t the one risking everything.
Rosa quacked a little in her sleep. Ruth eased the little flannel night-shirt off the duck and Rosa fluttered her wings then went back to sleep, tucking her beak under her wing.
Olivier had come to visit, flushed and upset. She’d cleared old New Yorkers off a chair and he’d sat in her front room like a fugitive. Ruth had brought him a glass of cooking sherry and a celery stick smeared with Velveeta and sat with him. For almost an hour they sat, not speaking, until Rosa entered the room. She waddled in wearing a gray flannel blazer. Ruth saw Olivier’s lips press together and his chin pucker. Not a sound escaped. But what did escape were tears, wearing warm lines down his handsome face.
And then he told her what had happened. About Gamache, about the cabin, about the Hermit and his belongings. About moving the body and owning the bistro, and the boulangerie and almost everything else in Three Pines.
Ruth didn’t care. All she could think of was what she’d give in exchange for words. To say something. The right thing. To tell Olivier that she loved him. That Gabri loved him and would never, ever leave. That love could never leave.
She imagined herself getting up and sitting beside him, and taking his trembling hand and saying, “There, there.”
There, there. And softly rubbing his heaving back until he caught his breath.
Instead she’d poured herself more cooking sherry and glared.
Now, with the sun set and Olivier gone, Ruth sat in her kitchen in the white plastic garden chair at the plastic table she’d found at the dump. Sufficiently drunk, she pulled the notebook close and with Rosa quietly quacking in the background, a small knit blanket over her, Ruth wrote:
She rose up into the air and the jilted earth let out a sigh.
She rose up past telephone poles and rooftops of houses where the earthbound hid.
She rose up but remembered to politely wave good-bye . .
And then kissing Rosa on the head she limped up the stairs to bed.
TWENTY-EIGHT
When Clara came down the next morning she was surprised to find Peter in the garden, staring into space. He’d put on the coffee, and now she poured a couple of cups and joined him.
“Sleep well?” she asked, handing him a mug.
“Not really. You?”
“Not bad. Why didn’t you?”
It was an overcast morning with a chill in the air. The first morning that really felt as though summer was over, and autumn on the way. She loved the fall. The brilliant leaves, the lit fireplaces, the smell of woodsmoke through the village. She loved huddling at a table outside the bistro, wrapped in sweaters and sipping café au lait.
Peter pursed his lips and looked down at his feet, in rubber boots to protect against the heavy dew.
“I was thinking about your question. What to do about Fortin.”
Clara grew still. “Go on.”
Peter had thought about it most of the night. Had got up and gone downstairs, pacing around the kitchen and finally ending up in his studio. His refuge. It smelled of him. Of body odor, and oil paint and canvas. It smelled faintly of lemon meringue pie, which he couldn’t explain. It smelled like no other place on earth.
And it comforted him.
He’d gone into his studio last night to think, and finally to stop thinking. To clear his mind of the howl that had grown, like something massive approaching. And finally, just before sunrise, he knew what he had to say to Clara.
“I think you should talk to him.”
There. He’d said it. Beside him Clara was silent, her hands grasping the warm cup of coffee.
“Really?”
Peter nodded. “I’m sorry. Do you want me to come with you?”
“I’m not even sure I’m going yet,” she snapped and walked a couple of paces away.
Peter wanted to run to her, to take it back, to say he was wrong. She should stay there with him, should say nothing. Should just do the show.
What had he been thinking?
“You’re right.” She turned back to him, miserable. “He won’t mind, will he?”
“Fortin? No. You don’t have to be angry, just tell him how you feel, that’s all. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“I can just say that maybe I misheard. And that Gabri is one of our best friends.”
“That’s it. Fortin probably doesn’t even remember saying it.”
“I’m sure he won’t mind.” Clara walked slowly inside to call Fortin.
“Denis? It’s Clara Morrow. Yes, that was fun. Really, is that a good price? Sure, I’ll tell the Chief Inspector. Listen, I’m going to be in Montreal today and thought maybe we could get together again. I have . . . well, a few thoughts.” She paused. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. That sounds great. Twelve thirty at the Santropole on Duluth. Perfect.”
What have I done? Peter asked himself.
Breakfast at the B and B was a somber affair of burned toast, rubber eggs and black bacon. The coffee was weak and the milk seemed curdled, as did Gabri. By mutual, unspoken consent they didn’t discuss the case, but waited until they were back at the Incident Room.
“Oh, thank God,” said Agent Lacoste, as she fell on the Tim Hortons double double coffees Agent Morin had brought. And the chocolate-glazed doughnuts. “I never thought I’d prefer this to Gabri’s breakfasts.” She took a huge bite of soft, sweet doughnut. “If this keeps up we might have to solve the case and leave.”
“There’s a thought,” said Gamache, putting on his half-moon reading glasses.
Beauvoir went over to his computer to check messages. There, taped to the monitor, was a scrap of paper with familiar writing. He ripped it off, scrunched it up and tossed it to the floor.
Chief Inspector Gamache also looked at his screen. The results of his Google search of “Charlotte.”
Sipping his coffee he read about Good Charlotte, the band, and Charlotte Brontë, and Charlotte Church and Charlotte’s Web, the city of Charlotte in North Carolina and Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island and the Queen Charlotte Islands on the other side of the continent, off British Columbia. Most of the places were named after Queen Charlotte, he discovered.
“Does the name Charlotte mean anything to you?” he asked his team.
After thinking for a moment, they shook their heads.
“How about Queen Charlotte? She was married to King George.”
“George the Third? The crazy one?” Morin asked. The others looked at him in amazement. Agent Morin smiled. “I was good at history in school.”
It helped, thought Gamache, that school for him wasn’t all that long ago. The phone rang and Agent Morin took it. It was the Martinù Conservatory, in Prague. Gamache listened to Morin’s side of the conversation until his own phone rang.
It was Superintendent Brunel.
“I arrived to find my office looking like Hannibal’s tent. I can barely move for your Hermit’s items, Armand.” She didn’t sound displeased. “But I’m not calling about that. I have an invitation. Would you like to join Jérôme and me for lunch at our apartment? He has something he’d like to show you. And I have news as well.”
It was confirmed he’d meet them at one o’clock at the Brunel apartment on rue Laurier. As he hung up the phone rang again.
“Clara Morrow for you, sir,” said Agent Morin.
“Bonjour, Clara.”
“Bonjour. I just wanted to let you know I spoke to Denis Fortin this morning. In fact, we’re having lunch today. He told me he’d found a buyer for the carvings.”
“Is that right? Who?”
“I didn’t ask, but he says they’re willing to pay a thousand dollars for the two. He seemed to think that was a good price.”
“That is interesting. Would you like a lift into town? I’m meeting someone myself.”
“Sure, thank you.”
“I’ll be by in about half an hour.”
When he hung up Agent Morin was off his call.
“They said Martinù had no children. They were aware of the violin, but it disappeared after his death in,” Morin consulted his notes, “1959. I told them we’d found the violin and an original copy of the score. They were very excited and said it would be worth a lot of money. In fact, it would be considered a Czech national treasure.”
There was that word again. Treasure.
“Did you ask about his wife, Charlotte?”
“I did. They were together a long time, but only actually married on his deathbed. She died a few years ago. No family.”
Gamache nodded, thinking. Then he spoke to Agent Morin again. “I need you to look into the Czech community here, especially the Parras. And find out about their lives in the Czech Republic. How they got out, who they knew there, their family. Everything.”
He went over to Beauvoir. “I’m heading into Montreal for the day to talk to Superintendent Brunel and follow some leads.”
“D’accord. As soon as Morin gets the information on the Parras I’ll go up there.”
“Don’t go alone.”
“I won’t.”
Gamache stooped and picked up the scrap of paper on the floor by Beauvoir’s desk. He opened it and read, In the midst of your nightmare,
“In the midst of your nightmare,” he repeated, handing it to Beauvoir. “What do you think it means?”
Beauvoir shrugged and opened the drawer to his desk. A nest of balled-up words lay there. “I find them everywhere. In my coat pocket, pinned to my door in the morning. This one was taped to my computer.”
Gamache reached into the desk and chose a scrap at random.
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
“They’re all like this?”
Beauvoir nodded. “Each crazier than the last. What’m I supposed to do with them? She’s just pissed off because we took over her fire hall. Do you think I can get a restraining order?”
“Against an eighty-year-old winner of the Governor General’s award, to stop her sending you verse?”
When put that way it didn’t sound likely.
Gamache looked again at the balls of paper, like hail. “Well, I’m off.”
“Thanks for your help,” Beauvoir called after him.
“De rien,” waved Gamache and was gone.
In the hour or so drive into Montreal Gamache and Clara talked about the people of Three Pines, about the summer visitors, about the Gilberts, who Clara thought might stay now.
“Old Mundin and Charles were in the village the other day. Old is very taken with Vincent Gilbert. He apparently knew it was him in the woods, but didn’t want to say anything.”
“How would he have recognized him?”
“Being,” said Clara.
“Of course,” said Gamache, merging onto the autoroute into Montreal. “Charles has Down’s syndrome.”
“After he was born Myrna gave them a copy of Being. Reading it changed their lives. Changed lots of lives. Myrna says Dr. Gilbert’s a great man.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t disagree.”
Clara laughed. “Still, I don’t think I’d like to be raised by a saint.”
Gamache had to agree. Most saints were martyrs. And they took a lot of people down with them. In companionable silence they drove past signs for Saint-Hilaire, Saint-Jean and a village named Ange Gardien.
“If I said ‘woo,’ what would you think?” Gamache asked.
“Beyond the obvious?” She gave him a mock-worried look.
“Does the word mean anything to you?”
The fact he’d come back to it alerted Clara. “Woo,” she repeated. “There’s pitching woo, an old-fashioned way of saying courting.”
“Old-fashioned for courting?” He laughed. “But I know what you mean. I don’t think that’s what I’m looking for.”
“Sorry, can’t help.”
“Oh, it probably doesn’t matter.” They were over the Champlain Bridge. Gamache drove up Boulevard Saint-Laurent, turned left then left again and dropped her at the Santropole restaurant for lunch.
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