A Fatal Grace

by Louise Penny

  ‘We got there at about seven this morning,’ Peter picked up the story, ‘and were joined by a few other volunteers. Myrna Landers, Émilie Longpré, Bea Mayer and Kaye Thompson. We have it down pat by now. Put out the tables and chairs, Clara and I do that, while the others get the coffee going and organize the food.’

  ‘The truth is, by Boxing Day morning most people aren’t actually all that hungry. They pay ten dollars and get an all-you-can-eat breakfast,’ said Clara. ‘Peter and I do the cooking while Em and Kaye serve up. Kaye’s about two hundred years old and still manages to help but now she finds something she can do sitting down.’

  ‘Like bossing everyone around,’ said Peter.

  ‘She never bosses you. That’s my job,’ said Clara. ‘It’s voluntary.’

  ‘Very civic minded.’ Peter smiled with a long-suffering look.

  ‘What did the others do?’ Gamache asked. Lemieux was surprised by the question. He’d run out of notebook soon if they kept going into such detail over something that was hours away from the murder. He tried to write smaller.

  ‘Who’s left?’ Peter turned to Clara. ‘Myrna Landers and Bea Mayer.’

  ‘Bee?’ Lemieux asked.

  ‘Her name’s Beatrice, but everyone calls her Bea.’ Peter spelled Beatrice for Lemieux.

  ‘Actually, everyone calls her Mother,’ said Clara.

  ‘Why?’ asked Gamache.

  ‘See if you can figure it out,’ said Clara. Lemieux looked at the chief to see if he was annoyed by her flippant and familiar tone, but he was smiling.

  ‘What did Myrna and Bea do at the breakfast?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘They cleaned up between sittings and served coffee and tea,’ said Peter.

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ said Clara, ‘Mother’s tea. It’s some herbal brew. Disgusting. I don’t mind tea,’ Clara raised her mug to them, ‘even tisane, but I hate to think what goes into the one Mother offers each year. She’s kind of amazing. No one ever takes it and yet she keeps on trying.’

  There’s a fine line between noble perseverance and insanity, reflected Gamache. ‘Were Madame de Poitiers and her family there?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ said Clara after a moment’s thought. ‘We were cooking the whole time so we didn’t get a chance to look out.’

  ‘Did anything unusual happen at the breakfast?’ Gamache asked.

  Peter and Clara thought about it then shook their heads.

  ‘Peter was curling on Em’s team this year, for the first time, so he left early.’

  ‘By the time I got outside Em and Mother were already at the lake. It’s just down the road then off to the right. It’s about a five-minute walk from the Legion.’

  ‘And your team didn’t wait for you?’

  ‘Well, Georges did. He was the other man on our team. This was his first year curling as well.’

  ‘Georges who?’

  ‘Simenon,’ said Peter and smiled at Gamache’s raised brow. ‘I know. His mother was cursed with the pleasure of reading.’

  ‘And cursed her son,’ said Gamache.

  ‘Georges and I walked over to Lac Brume and found Em and Mother there. Billy Williams had already cleared the ice surface so we could curl and he’d put up the bleachers a few days before Christmas.’

  ‘The ice was frozen enough?’

  ‘Oh, long ago. Besides, it’s close to shore and I think Billy uses his auger to check the ice thickness. He’s a very prudent man is our Billy.’

  ‘What else did you notice at the lake?’

  Peter cast his mind back. He remembered standing at the side of the road looking over the small incline down to the snow-covered lake. Mother and Bea were over by their chairs.

  ‘Chairs,’ said Peter. ‘Mother, Em and Kaye always bring chairs to sit close to the heat lamp.’

  ‘How many chairs were there this morning?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘Three. Two were close to the heat lamp, the other was a little way ahead.’

  ‘So what happened?’ Gamache leaned forward, cradling the warm mug in his large hands, his eyes lively and alert.

  ‘Everyone seemed to arrive at once,’ said Peter. ‘Em and Mother had been sitting on their chairs when Georges and I joined them. We talked strategy for a while then the other team arrived and soon it seemed the bleachers were full.’

  ‘I got there just as the curling started,’ said Clara.

  ‘Where did you sit?’

  ‘In the stands, between Myrna and Olivier.’

  ‘And where was CC?’

  ‘In one of the chairs by the lamp.’ Clara smiled very slightly.

  ‘What is it?’ Gamache asked.

  Clara blushed a little at being caught in a private moment. ‘I was remembering CC. It was like her to take the best seat. In fact, the one she chose was closest to the lamp. It’s the one Kaye should have had.’

  ‘You didn’t like her, did you?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I thought she was cruel and selfish,’ said Clara. ‘Still, she didn’t deserve to be killed.’

  ‘What did she deserve?’ he asked.

  The question staggered Clara. What did CC deserve? She gave it some thought, staring into the fire, watching the flames leap and pop and play. Lemieux shifted his position and almost said something, but Gamache caught his eye and he shut his mouth.

  ‘She deserved to be left alone. That should have been her punishment for treating people with such disdain, for causing such hurt.’ Clara was trying to keep her voice firm and calm, but she could feel it wavering and quivering and hoped she wasn’t about to cry. ‘CC couldn’t be trusted in the company of others.’

  Gamache was silent, wondering what CC could have done to have hurt this fine woman so much she’d visit such a horror on her. Because Gamache knew, as did Clara, that isolation was far worse than death.

  He knew then that this case wouldn’t be solved easily. Anyone so damaged as to cause this much harm led a life full of secrets and full of enemies. Gamache moved a little closer to the fire. Outside the sun had set and night had fallen on Three Pines.

  ELEVEN

  ‘She wasn’t so bad,’ said Ruth Zardo, slapping the cork back into a bottle of wine. She’d poured herself another while offering her guests none.

  Gamache and Lemieux were sitting in the white resin pre-formed garden chairs Ruth called her dining set in her near freezing kitchen. Ruth wore a couple of moth-eaten sweaters, while the men had kept their parkas on.

  Agent Lemieux rubbed his hands together in a ball-and-socket motion and tried to resist the urge to blow on them. He and Gamache had crossed the village green after interviewing the Morrows and made for the smallest house Agent Lemieux had ever seen. It looked little more than a shack, with two windows on the main floor and a single window up top. The white paint was chipping and one of the porch lights was out.

  The door was opened by a ramrod. Straight and scraggly, everything about her was thin. Her body, her arms, her lips and her humor. As they made their way down the dim corridor lit with low voltage bulbs, he tripped a few times over stacks of books.

  ‘I see the Sûreté is now hiring the handicapped,’ said Ruth, waving her cane at him. ‘Still, he’s got to be better than the last one you brought round. What was her name? Doesn’t matter. Complete disaster. Very rude. Sit if you must but don’t get too comfortable.’

  Lemieux rubbed his hands again, then took up his pen and began writing.

  ‘I’ve heard CC de Poitiers described as cruel and selfish,’ said Gamache, surprised he couldn’t see his breath.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t sound very good.’

  ‘Oh, she wasn’t very good, but she wasn’t so bad either. I mean, really,’ the old poet took a gulp of her wine, then put the glass back on the round plastic table, ‘who isn’t cruel and selfish?’

  Gamache had forgotten the complete joy that was Ruth Zardo. He laughed out loud and caught her eye. She started laughing too.

  Robert Lemieux didn’t g

et it.

  ‘What did you think of Madame de Poitiers?’

  ‘I think she was bitter and petty and yes, very cruel. But I suspect there was a reason for it. We just didn’t know her well enough, yet, to figure it out.’

  ‘How long have you known her?’

  ‘Just over a year. She bought Timmer Hadley’s old place.’ Ruth watched Gamache closely as she said this for a reaction, but she was to be disappointed. His reaction had come half an hour earlier at Clara and Peter’s home. Clara had told him about CC buying the old Hadley place. They’d all sat silently then, and again Agent Lemieux was left to wonder what he was missing.

  The last time Armand Gamache had been in the Hadley place it had almost killed him along with Peter, Clara and Beauvoir. If there was ever a house that wept it was that one.

  Gamache would never forget that basement and the darkness. Even now in front of the cheery fire, with a warm mug in his hands and friends and colleagues around him, Gamache felt a tremor of fear.

  He didn’t want to go back into that dark place, but he knew now he’d have to.

  CC de Poitiers had bought it. And that spoke more eloquently about the woman than any number of adjectives.

  ‘She used it only on weekends,’ Ruth continued when her bombshell proved a dud. ‘Came down with her husband and daughter. Now, there were a couple of losers. At least CC had some spark to her. Some life. Those two looked like great lumpen masses of indulgence. Fat and lazy. And dull. Very dull.’

  For Ruth Zardo, dull was one of the greatest insults. It ranked right up there with kind and nice.

  ‘What happened at the curling?’ Gamache asked.

  Talking about CC’s family seemed to have angered Ruth. She became even more curt and abrupt.

  ‘She died.’

  ‘We’re going to need more than two words,’ Gamache said.

  ‘Em’s team was losing, as usual. Then CC died.’ Ruth sat back in her chair and glared at Gamache.

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Madame Zardo,’ he said pleasantly, contemplating her with interest. ‘Do we really have to do this again? Don’t you ever tire of it?’

  ‘Of anger? It’s as good as this.’ She raised her glass to him in a mock salute.

  ‘But why are you angry?’

  ‘Doesn’t murder anger you?’

  ‘But you’re not angry at that,’ he said thoughtfully, almost kindly. ‘Or at least, not exclusively. There’s something else.’

  ‘Clever boy. I bet you heard a lot of that at school. What time is it?’

  Gamache seemed unfazed by the abrupt change of topic. He looked at his watch.

  ‘Quarter to five.’

  ‘I have to go in a few minutes. Appointment.’

  ‘What happened at the curling?’ Gamache tried again. Lemieux held his breath. He didn’t know why, but this seemed an important moment. The old poet stared at Gamache, her face and figure full of loathing. Gamache simply stared back, his face open and thoughtful and strong.

  Ruth Zardo blinked. Literally. It seemed to Lemieux she’d closed her eyes in rage then opened them to a new world. Or at least a new attitude. She took a deep breath and nodded her gray hair. She smiled slightly.

  ‘You bring out the worst in me, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘You mean you’re about to be decent?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘My apologies, madame.’ Gamache rose momentarily from his plastic chair and bowed. She inclined her head toward him.

  Lemieux wasn’t at all sure what had just happened. He thought perhaps it was some weird Anglo code, a dance of aggression and submission. This rarely happened in francophone encounters, in his limited experience. The French, he felt, were far more open about their feelings. The English? Well, they were devious. Never really knew what they were thinking, never mind feeling.

  ‘I was in the stands, next to Gabri. The curling had been going on for a while. Em was losing, as I said before. Poor Em always loses. It got so bad she once called her team Be Calm. At some point Gabri poked me in the side. Someone shouted that there’d been an accident.’

  Ruth described the scene for them, replaying it in her head. Swaying back and forth, trying to get a clear view of what was causing the commotion. All the bulky parkas and tuques and scarves blocking her view, then the stands clearing as people began shuffling, then walking and finally running toward the crowd gathering near the overturned chair.

  Ruth had made her way through, expecting to see Kaye collapsed there, shouting, ‘Fire chief coming through, clear the way.’

  Of course, there wasn’t a fire, nor did Ruth expect to find one. Still, she’d learned that most people, while claiming to hate authority, actually yearned for someone to take charge. To tell them what to do.

  CC was flat on her back. Dead. Ruth knew that immediately. But she still had to try.

  ‘Olivier, you do the massage. Peter? Where’s Peter Morrow?’

  ‘Here, here.’ He was making his way through the crowd, having had to sprint across the lake from the curling rink. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘You give her mouth-to-mouth.’ To his credit Peter didn’t hesitate. He fell to his knees beside Olivier, ready to go, both men staring up at Ruth. But there was one more order she had to give.

  ‘Gabri, find her husband. Clara?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Find the daughter.’

  Then she turned her back on them, certain her orders would be followed, and started counting.

  ‘Did you have any idea what had happened to her?’ Gamache asked, bringing her back to this world.

  ‘None.’

  Was it his imagination or had her hard eyes wavered? He kept silent for a moment but nothing else came.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Billy Williams said he had his truck ready to go and we should put her in. Someone had already called the hospital but it would take twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive and twenty minutes to get back. This was faster.’

  She described the horrific journey to Cowansville and it pretty much tallied with what he’d heard earlier from Peter Morrow.

  ‘What time is it?’ she demanded.

  ‘Five to five.’

  ‘Time to go.’ She got up and led the way down the hall, without looking at them, as though her salvation lay beyond her front door. Agent Lemieux heard clinking and rattling in the closets as their heavy feet passed by. Skeletons, he thought. Or bottles. Or both.

  He didn’t like Ruth Zardo and he wondered why the chief seemed to.

  ‘Out.’ Ruth held open the door and they’d barely gotten their boots on before she was shoving them out with an arm far stronger than he’d have thought.

  Gamache reached into his parka pocket and produced not the tuque or mitts Lemieux expected to see, but a book. The chief walked over to the single porch light that split the darkness and placed the book under it for Ruth to see.

  ‘I found this in Montreal.’

  ‘You are brilliant. Let me guess. You found it in a bookstore?’

  ‘Actually, not.’ He decided not to tell her yet.

  ‘And I suppose you’ve chosen this moment to ask me to sign it?’

  ‘You’ve already done that. Could you come and look, please?’

  Agent Lemieux braced for the acerbic response but none came. She limped over and Gamache opened the slim volume.

  ‘You stink, love Ruth,’ Ruth read out loud.

  ‘Who did you give this to?’

  ‘You expect me to remember what I say in every book I sign?’

  ‘You stink, love Ruth,’ Gamache repeated. ‘It’s an unusual inscription, even for you. Please think, Madame Zardo.’

  ‘I’ve no idea, and I’m late.’

  She stepped off her porch and walked across the village green toward the lights of the village shops. But she stopped halfway, and sat down.

  In the dark. In the cold. On a frozen bench in the middle of the green.

  Lemieux was both impressed and amazed by the woman’s gall. She’d kicked them out claiming an appointment then brazenly sat on a bench to do absolutely nothing. It was clearly an insult. Lemieux turned to ask Gamache about it but the chief seemed lost in thought himself. Ruth Zardo was staring at the magnificent lighted trees and the one shining star, and Armand Gamache was staring at her.

  TWELVE

  Lemieux had decided to jog ahead to their car, parked outside the Morrow home, and turn it on. They weren’t heading back yet, but night had fallen and the car would take a few minutes to warm up. If he started it now, by the time they got back in it would be toasty warm and the frosted windows would be clear, both advantages on a chilling December night.

  ‘I don’t get it, sir,’ he said as he returned to Gamache.

  ‘There’s a lot not to get,’ said Gamache with a smile. ‘What in particular is troubling you?’

  ‘This is my first murder case, as you know.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘But it seems to me if you wanted to kill someone there are a whole lot of better ways.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Well, franchement, just about anything other than electrocuting a woman in the middle of a crowd on a frozen lake. It’s nuts.’

  And that’s what worried Gamache. It was nuts.

  ‘I mean, why not shoot her, or strangle her? It’s Quebec in the middle of winter, why not take her for a drive and shove her out the car? We’d be using her as an ice sculpture in the Cowansville Fête des Neiges. It makes no sense.’

  ‘And that’s lesson number one.’ They were walking toward Olivier’s Bistro. Lemieux struggled to stay beside the large man as he strode with measured but long strides toward the brightly lit restaurant. ‘It makes sense.’

  Gamache suddenly stopped and Lemieux had to twist out of the way to avoid ramming into him. The chief looked at the young agent seriously.

  ‘You need to know this. Everything makes sense. Everything. We just don’t know how yet. You have to see through the murderer’s eyes. That’s the trick, Agent Lemieux, and that’s why not everyone’s cut out for homicide. You need to know that it seemed like a good idea, a reasonable action, to the person who did it. Believe me, not a single murderer ever thought, “Wow, this is stupid, but I’m going to do it anyway.” No, Agent Lemieux, our job is to find the sense.’

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