The Murder Stone

by Louise Penny

  ‘And you shit on us because all we want from Mother is her money. We at least ask for something she can give,’ said Mariana.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ Peter exploded. His rage burst out of him with such force he thought the room would shake and tremble and shatter. ‘I never wanted anything from them. Nothing.’

  He screamed so loud the last word was barely audible. He thought he’d stripped his vocal cords. He looked around the room for something to throw. Mariana was staring at him, frightened. He liked that. But Thomas? Thomas was smiling.

  Peter stepped towards him. He finally knew how to get that smile off his face.

  ‘You want to kill me, don’t you?’ said Thomas, actually walking to meet Peter. ‘I knew it. Always knew you were the unstable one. Everyone thought it was Julia or Mariana—’

  ‘Hey—’

  ‘But it’s always the quiet ones. Isn’t that what your neighbours in that dreary little village will be telling the CBC tomorrow? He always seemed so nice, so normal. Never a harsh word, never a complaint. You going to throw me off the balcony, Peter? Then there’ll only be two of you to inherit. Will that be enough? Or should Mariana start worrying too? All the affection and all the money. The mother-lode.’

  Peter could see himself tilting his head back and opening his mouth, and flames spewing out, like vomit. From the tips of his toes the rage would streak through his body, and shoot out, destroying everything around him. He was Nagasaki and Hiroshima, he was the Bikini Atoll and Chernobyl. He would annihilate everything.

  Instead he clamped his mouth shut and felt the bitterness and bile burn in his throat and chest. He fought to shove the rage back in, stuffing it down there with anger and jealousy and fear and hate, hate, hate.

  But Pandora’s box wouldn’t be shut. Not again. The demons had already escaped and were swirling around the Manoir Bellechasse, feeding and growing. And killing.

  Peter turned a twisted, pinched face on Mariana.

  ‘I might be a puppy, but you’re something much worse, Magilla.’

  He spat the last word in her fearful face. It felt good to see her afraid. Then he turned to Thomas.

  ‘Magilla and Spot,’ he said to the smug face. ‘And do you know what we called you?’

  Thomas waited.

  ‘Nothing. You were nothing to us then and still are. Nothing.’

  Peter walked out, feeling calmer than he had in days. But he knew that was because he was curled up in the back seat, and something else was driving. Something rancid and stinking and horrible. The something he’d hidden all his life. It was finally in charge.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Armand Gamache stood in what little shade the maple tree offered at high noon and stared once again at the white marble cube. The yellow police tape fluttered and the wretched hollow was still in the lawn.

  Why had she been killed? Who benefited by Julia Martin’s death?

  She’d been dead almost two days now and he still didn’t know why she’d been murdered, never mind how. He put his hands behind his back and stood very still, knowing something would come to him.

  ‘Oh, bonjour.’

  What had come to the Chief Inspector was the gardener, Colleen.

  ‘You look deep in thought. I could come back.’

  But she seemed reluctant to leave. He smiled and strolled over to her on the lawn. The two stared for a moment at the spot where Julia Martin had died. Gamache was silent, curious to see what Colleen would say next. After a minute or so she waved at the marble cube.

  ‘The ants are gone. I’m glad. They were giving me nightmares.’

  ‘You’ll sleep easier with each passing day,’ said Gamache.

  Colleen nodded, then looked sadly at the flowers.

  ‘I came to see how they were doing. I should’ve transplanted them earlier.’

  Gamache looked at the flowers. Most were withered now. Beyond saving.

  Then something occurred to him. Something that should have struck him much sooner.

  ‘Why were you out here that morning?’

  ‘Gardening,’ she said.

  He looked at her closely. ‘But it was raining. Pouring. No one else was outside working. Why were you?’

  Did her eyes widen slightly? Were her cheeks suddenly burning? Colleen was a blusher, he knew. Any attention was enough to bring it on. Best not to read too much into it. But still, she suddenly looked both guilty and furtive.

  ‘I was gardening,’ she insisted. ‘It’s best to move plants when it’s wet and cool. They have a better chance to take. These seemed to need all the help they could get.’

  They both looked again at the wilting flowers.

  ‘Most of the other workers were inside, relaxing,’ he pressed. ‘I find it hard to believe you’d choose to be outside in the rain.’

  ‘Well I was.’

  ‘Why, Colleen? Tell me.’

  He sounded so reasonable, so patient, she almost did. But at the last moment she closed her mouth. Instead of chastising or pushing this large man simply waited.

  Colleen’s lip trembled slightly, then her chin puckered and her eyes narrowed. She looked down and her lank hair fell like curtains, hiding her face. What escaped was a sob.

  ‘Nobody. Likes. Me. Here,’ she gasped, fighting to thrust each word out. Shaking and crying, she brought her hands up to her face, to hide the tears that were too obvious. She looked, Gamache realized, exactly as she’d looked a few days earlier. On that very spot. Eventually the sobbing died down and quietly Gamache handed her his handkerchief.

  ‘Merci,’ she sputtered, between ragged gasps.

  ‘People like you, Colleen.’

  She raised her eyes to his.

  ‘I watch and listen,’ he continued. ‘I read people. It’s what I do for a living. Are you listening?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Those young women like you. If one good thing’s come of all this pain, it’s that you’ve found some real friends here.’

  ‘Suppose,’ said Colleen, again looking down. Then Gamache understood.

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen.’

  ‘I have a daughter, you know. Annie. She’s twenty-six. Married now, but much as she loves her husband he wasn’t her first love. She met him one summer when she worked at a golf course. They were both caddies.’

  Colleen’s eyes were on the ground, her sneakered feet toeing the grass.

  ‘Annie used to try to caddy in a foursome with Jonathan, but he wasn’t interested. He had his own friends he hung around with and every night Annie would come home in tears. Even asked if I could speak to him, maybe show him my gun.’

  She smiled a little.

  Gamache’s own smile faded. ‘I think it was the most painful time of her life, and I think she’d say the same thing. It’s terrible to love someone so completely and know they don’t feel the same. It’s very lonely.’

  Colleen nodded and dropped her head again, crying quietly into the balled-up handkerchief. Gamache waited until she’d calmed. She offered him back the soggy square of cotton, but he declined.

  ‘He loves someone else. He was always following her around, wanting to know all about her. Where she was from, what her home was like. All the things I wanted him to ask me, he was asking her.’

  ‘Best not to torture yourself with it,’ he said, gently but firmly. He was lucky, he knew. He’d married his first love. But he’d seen what unrequited love could do.

  She sighed so hard Gamache expected to see the petals of the dying flowers flutter away.

  After the young gardener left Gamache strolled back towards the terrasse, intending to go to the library for lunch and a meeting with his team. But partway there he caught sight of Peter Morrow standing on the wharf, staring at the lake.

  He had a question for Peter. A question he wanted to ask the man in private.

  Changing course he made for the dock, but as he did so he saw Peter reach back and fling something into the lake. A moment later he heard
a plop and two rings appeared on the calm surface. Peter turned abruptly and marched off the dock, his feet thudding on the wood. Head down, he didn’t even notice Gamache until he was almost upon the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Peter, startled and not particularly pleased. Gamache noticed the ill-shaven face, the crumpled and partly tucked shirt, the stains on the slacks. Peter’s courtesy and attire were equally ragged.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Just fine.’ The sarcasm was impossible to miss.

  ‘You seem haggard.’

  ‘I just lost my sister, what do you expect?’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ said Gamache. ‘It was a thoughtless comment.’

  Peter seemed to relax.

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ He brought his hand up and it scraped along his sandpaper face. He seemed surprised not to feel the usual clean shave. ‘It’s a difficult time.’

  ‘What did you throw into the lake?’

  It was meant to help break the tension but it had the opposite effect. Peter’s guard was up again as he turned angry eyes on Gamache.

  ‘Do you have to know everything? Can’t some things be private around you? Or maybe your father never taught you manners.’

  He stomped away towards the Manoir then abruptly changed direction. Gamache saw why. Thomas Morrow came thundering out of the lodge, crossed the stone terrasse and hit the lawn running.

  ‘What’ve you done with them? Peter, I’m going to kill you.’

  Peter started running and then the chase was on. It was clear the Morrows made no habit of running and the sight of two men in late middle age inelegantly chasing each other around a manicured lawn at this Australian-rules reunion might have been funny had one not clearly been intent upon harm and the other not been terrified.

  Gamache, who did make a habit of running, intercepted Thomas just as he was about to tackle Peter. Thomas writhed in Gamache’s arms and suddenly Beauvoir was there, also gripping Thomas and finally wrestling him to the ground. Thomas scrambled up and flung himself again at Peter, who was now hiding behind the Chief Inspector.

  ‘Stop it,’ Gamache ordered, catching Thomas’s shoulders in a jarring grip. He spoke with such authority it stopped Thomas more effectively than a punch.

  ‘Give them to me, Peter,’ Thomas growled, trying to catch Peter’s eyes where he was cowering behind Gamache. ‘So help me, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Enough,’ said the Chief Inspector. ‘Back away, Mr Morrow.’

  His deep voice was hard and even and meant to be obeyed.

  Thomas Morrow backed up.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Gamache looked from brother to brother. In his peripheral vision he saw Lacoste arrive. She and Beauvoir placed themselves behind respective brothers, ready to grab if need be. He also saw Bert Finney creak down the lawn beside Peter’s mother. They stood behind Peter, out of his sight.

  ‘He took my cufflinks.’ Thomas pointed a trembling finger at Peter, but his eyes looked beyond his brother. To their mother.

  ‘That’s ridiculous. Why would I?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t really want me to answer that, do you, Spot? You stole them. They were in my room before you visited and now they’re gone.’

  ‘Is this true?’ a voice behind Peter demanded.

  Peter’s expression went from rage to resignation and he closed his eyes slowly. Then he turned and faced his mother.

  ‘I don’t have them.’

  Mrs Finney stared at him then slowly shook her head. ‘Why? Why would you do this to us, Peter? I don’t know how much more I can take. I’ve just lost my daughter and all you can think to do is fight with Thomas?’

  ‘Mother.’ Peter started forward then stopped.

  ‘You’re in my prayers.’

  It was the insult she reserved for people beyond hope, and Peter knew it.

  ‘Leave it, Thomas. If the cuffs are more important to him than family let him have them. I’ll get you new ones.’

  ‘That wasn’t the point, Mother,’ said Thomas, joining her.

  ‘Not for you, no.’ Mrs Finney walked back up to the Manoir, her husband on one side, her son on the other. And Peter left behind.

  He tried to readjust his clothes then gave up and stopped moving completely. He seemed almost catatonic.

  ‘We need to talk,’ said Gamache, leading him by the elbow to a grove of trees and into the cool and restful shade. He sat Peter on a bench then sat beside him. ‘You threw them into the lake.’

  It wasn’t a question, and Peter seemed almost relieved not to have to lie yet again.

  ‘Why?’

  Peter shook his head and shrugged. Words seemed too heavy, too much of a burden to produce. But Gamache waited. He was a patient man. His father had taught him that. Poetry and patience, and much else beside.

  ‘Thomas always wore them,’ said Peter finally, speaking to his hands clasped weakly between his knees. ‘Clara once said that they were like Wonder Woman’s bracelets, you know?’

  Gamache actually did know. Another perk of having a daughter. He brought his arms up and crossed his wrists. Peter smiled a little.

  ‘Power and protection was Clara’s theory. She says everyone has them, but none more obviously than the Morrows. Mariana wears her shawls, Thomas has his cufflinks, Clara repeats her mantras, Mother wears her makeup, her “mask” as she calls it.’

  ‘And you?’

  Peter raised his hands. ‘Did you not think it strange that this paint wouldn’t come off?’

  Gamache hadn’t even thought about it, but now that he did it was true. All paint would come off skin, if you tried hard enough. None would stain permanently.

  ‘When a family reunion comes along I stop scrubbing with turpentine and use normal soap. The oil paint stays on. After the reunion, when I’m back in Three Pines, I wash it off.’

  Back in Three Pines, thought Gamache, picturing the peaceful village. Safe.

  ‘Power and protection?’

  Peter nodded. ‘When Thomas or Mariana or Mother or anyone is getting at me I just look down at my hands,’ he did so now, ‘and I’m reminded that there’s one thing I do well. Do better than anyone else in the family.’ Except, came the whisper in his head, Clara. Now Clara is a better artist than you. ‘I think maybe it’s stopped working.’

  ‘And you wanted to get rid of Thomas’s charms too?’

  Peter said nothing. It was close enough to the truth.

  Gamache reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and carefully unfolded an old piece of paper. Peter reached out but Gamache withdrew it, not trusting the man with something so precious.

  Peter’s hand hovered in the air.

  ‘Where’d you get that?’

  Far from being angry or accusatory, his voice was full of wonder. He sounded like a little boy shown a pirate’s treasure map, one hunted for and dreamed of for weeks and months, or, in the case of a grown man, years.

  ‘From the artist who sculpted your father.’

  Peter was barely listening, riveted on the drawing. It showed a noble, lively bird, its head cocked at an impertinent angle, its eyes gleaming. It threatened to fly off the yellowed page. Yet for all its vitality it was unfinished. It had no feet.

  ‘You drew this,’ said Gamache softly, not wanting to break too far into Peter’s reverie.

  Peter seemed to have entered the drawing and disappeared completely. Wherever it had taken him, it seemed a good place. Peter was smiling, his face relaxed for the first time in days.

  ‘You must have been young when you drew this,’ Gamache prompted.

  ‘I was,’ agreed Peter at last. ‘I was maybe eight. I did it for Dad’s birthday.’

  ‘You were eight when you did this?’ Now it was Gamache’s turn to stare at the drawing. It was simple, elegant, not unlike Picasso’s iconic dove. Almost a single line. But he’d captured flight, and life and curiosity.

  ‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,’ whispered Gamache.

 
; Freedom.

  Once, Peter knew, he had flown. Before the world grew too heavy. Now his art, instead of taking flight, did the opposite.

  He looked again at the bird. The very first drawing he’d done on his own, without tracing. He’d given it to his father and his dad had picked him up and hugged him, and taken him all round the restaurant where they were eating, and shown the drawing to perfect strangers. Mother had made him stop but not before Peter had developed two addictions, to art and to praise. And specifically to the praise and approval of his father.

  ‘When my father died I asked Mother if I could have that back,’ said Peter, gesturing to the drawing. ‘She told me he’d thrown it away.’ Peter looked into Gamache’s eyes. ‘Where did you say you found this?’

  ‘The sculptor, the one who did the statue of your father. Your father kept it. What is it?’

  ‘It’s just a bird. Nothing special.’

  ‘It has no feet.’

  ‘I was eight, what do you want?’

  ‘I want the truth. I think you’re lying to me.’

  Gamache rarely lost his temper, and he didn’t now, but his voice held an edge and a warning that even a Morrow couldn’t miss.

  ‘Why would I lie about a forty-year-old drawing of a bird?’

  ‘I don’t know, but I know you are. What kind of a bird is it?’

  ‘A sparrow, a robin, I don’t know.’

  Peter was sounding exasperated. Gamache stood up abruptly and refolding the paper he placed it carefully back in his breast pocket.

  ‘You know I’ll find the truth. Why are you trying to stop me?’

  Peter shook his head and remained seated. Gamache started to walk away then remembered a question he’d meant to ask.

  ‘You say you all have your talismans or mantras. What Clara called your power and protection. You didn’t tell me what Julia’s was.’

  Peter shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Peter.’

  ‘Really.’ Peter stood and faced Gamache. ‘I didn’t know her well enough. She hardly ever came back to reunions. This was unusual.’