A Fatal Grace

by Louise Penny

  ‘Shall I tell you mine?’ Gabri offered.

  ‘Please, dear Lord, let the house explode now,’ said Ruth.

  ‘I used to dream I was straight.’

  The simple and devastating sentence sat in the middle of their circle.

  ‘I used to dream I was popular,’ said Ruth into the silence. ‘And pretty.’

  ‘I used to dream I was white,’ said Myrna. ‘And thin.’

  Peter remained mute. He couldn’t remember any fantasies he’d had as a child. Coping with reality had taken up too much of his mind.

  ‘And you?’ Ruth asked Gamache.

  ‘I used to dream I’d saved my parents,’ he said, remembering the little boy looking out the living-room window, leaning over the back of the sofa, resting his cheek on the nubbly fabric. Sometimes, when the winter wind blew, he could still feel it rough against his cheek. Whenever his parents went out for dinner he’d wait, looking into the night for the headlights. And every night they came home. Except one.

  ‘We all have our fantasies,’ said Myrna. ‘Was CC any different?’

  ‘There is one difference,’ said Gamache. ‘Do you still want to be white and thin?’

  Myrna laughed heartily. ‘No way. Would never occur to me now.’

  ‘Or straight?’ he asked Gabri.

  ‘Olivier would kill me.’

  ‘Eventually, for better or worse, our childhood fantasies disappear or are replaced by others. But not CC. That’s the difference. She seemed to believe them, even to the extent of choosing the name de Poitiers. We don’t even know what her real name was.’

  ‘I wonder who her parents were?’ said Gabri. ‘She was in her late forties, right? So they’d probably be in their seventies at least. Like you.’ Gabri turned to Ruth, who waited a moment then spoke.

  ‘Long dead and buried in another town,

  my mother hasn’t finished with me yet.’

  ‘From a poem?’ Gamache asked when Ruth had finished. It sounded familiar.

  ‘You think?’ said Ruth with a snarl.

  ‘When my death us do part

  Then shall forgiven and forgiving meet again,

  Or will it be, as always was, too late?’

  ‘Oh, thank God. I thought we’d be without your poetry for one night,’ said Gabri. ‘Please, continue. I don’t feel quite suicidal enough.’

  ‘Your poetry is remarkable,’ said Gamache. Ruth looked more stricken by his kind words than Gabri’s insults.

  ‘Fuck off.’ She shoved Gamache aside and made for the door.

  ‘The Shit’s hit the Fan,’ said Gabri.

  Gamache remembered where he’d heard the poem. He’d read it in the car on his way down to start the case. He carefully retrieved The Lion in Winter from the video machine.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said to Clara and Peter. ‘I have to get back to Inspector Beauvoir. Do you have one of your portfolios?’ he asked Clara. ‘I’d like to take it.’

  ‘Sure.’ She led him into her studio and over to her crowded desk. Turning the lamp on she riffled the stacks of papers. He watched her until his eyes wandered, drawn to something shining on the bookcase behind her desk. He stood still for a moment, almost afraid that if he moved the object would flitter away. Silently, slowly, he edged forward, creeping up on it. As he moved he put his hand into his pocket and withdrew a handkerchief. Reaching out, his hand steady and true, he delicately hugged the object in the handkerchief and picked it off its stand. Even through the cloth it felt almost warm.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ said Clara, as he drew back and held the object under the lamp. ‘Peter gave it to me for Christmas.’

  In his palm Gamache held a glowing ball. A scene was painted on it. Three pine trees with snow heavy on the branches. Underneath was the word Noël, and below that, very lightly, was something else. A single capital letter.

  L.

  Gamache had found the Li Bien ball.

  Peter Morrow looked as though he’d been cornered, and he had. When asked Clara had happily declared that the lovely ornament was the very first Christmas gift Peter had ever bought for her. Up until this year, she’d explained, they’d been too poor.

  ‘Or too cheap,’ said Ruth.

  ‘Where did you get it?’ Gamache asked, his voice polite, but with a firmness that demanded an answer.

  ‘I forget,’ Peter tried, but seeing the determination in Gamache’s eye he changed his mind. ‘I wanted to buy you something.’ Peter turned to Clara, trying to explain.

  ‘But?’ Clara could see where this was going.

  ‘Well, I was driving to Williamsburg to shop – ’

  ‘The Paris of the North,’ explained Gabri to Myrna.

  ‘Famous for its shops,’ agreed Myrna.

  ‘ – when I passed the dump, and—’

  ‘The dump?’ Clara exclaimed. ‘The dump?’

  Now Lucy the dog started snaking between Clara’s legs, upset by the frequency Clara had achieved.

  ‘Careful, you’ll shatter the ball,’ said Ruth.

  ‘The dump.’ Clara’s voice deepened and she lowered her head, her eyes glowering at Peter who wished, as Ruth had earlier, that maybe the house could just explode now.

  ‘The Jacques Cousteau of dumpster diving has struck treasure again,’ said Gabri.

  ‘You found this,’ Gamache held the Li Bien ball up, ‘in the Williamsburg dump?’

  Peter nodded. ‘I was just looking, just for fun. It was a mild day so everything wasn’t frozen together. I wasn’t there long and that thing just caught my eye. You can see why. Even now just by lamplight it’s glowing; you can imagine what it looked like in broad daylight. It was like a beacon. It was calling to me.’ He looked at Clara to see if maybe that would work. ‘I think I was meant to find it. Destiny.’

  She remained unconvinced of the divinity of his gift.

  ‘When was this?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Remember, Mr Morrow.’ They all looked at Gamache now. The man seemed to have grown and now radiated an authority and insistence that silenced even Ruth. Peter thought a moment.

  ‘It was a few days before Christmas. I know, it was the day after your book launch,’ he said to Ruth. ‘The twenty-third of December. Clara was home and could walk Lucy while I went Christmas shopping.’

  ‘Christmas garbage sifting, don’t you mean?’ said Clara.

  Peter sighed and said nothing.

  ‘Where was it in the dumpster?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘Right on the edge, as though someone had reached up and placed it there, not just thrown it in.’

  ‘Did you find anything else?’

  Gamache watched Peter closely to see if he was lying. Peter shook his head. Gamache believed him.

  ‘What is it? Why’s it so important?’ Myrna asked.

  ‘It’s called a Li Bien ball,’ said Gamache, ‘and it belonged to CC. She built her whole spiritual philosophy around it. In her book she described it, exactly like this, and said it was the only thing she had left from her mother. In fact, she said her mother painted it.’

  ‘It has three pine trees on it,’ continued Myrna.

  ‘And an initial,’ said Clara. ‘L.’

  ‘So that’s why CC moved here,’ said Gabri.

  ‘Why?’ said Peter, who’d been thinking of his own world of trouble ahead and not really concentrating on the conversation.

  ‘Three pines?’ said Gabri, walking over to the window and gesturing out. ‘Three pines. Three Pines?’

  ‘Three pines three times,’ said Ruth. ‘You’re clicking your heels, Dorothy.’

  ‘We’re not in Kansas any more,’ said Gabri. ‘We’re in?’ he beseeched Peter.

  ‘Three Pines,’ said Peter, finally getting it. ‘CC’s mother was from here?’

  ‘And her initial was L,’ said Myrna.

  Émilie Longpré lay in bed. It was early, not yet ten, but she was tired. She picked up her book and tried to read but it was heavy in her hands.

She struggled to hold it, wanting to finish the story, wanting to know how it ended. She was afraid she’d run out of time before she ran out of book.

  Now the hardcover lay heavy in her lap, feeling a little like David in her womb. She’d lain in this same bed, Gus beside her doing his crosswords and mumbling to himself. And her baby inside her.

  And now she had only a book to keep her company. No, she roused herself. Not just a book. She had Bea and Kaye. They were with her too, and would be until the end.

  Em saw the book, heavy with words, rise and fall on her stomach. She looked down at the bookmark. Halfway through. She was only halfway there. Émilie picked up the book again, this time holding it in both hands, and read some more, losing herself in the story. She hoped it would have a happy ending. That the woman would find love and happiness. Or maybe just herself. That would be enough.

  The book closed again as Em’s eyes closed.

  Mother Bea could see the future and it didn’t look good. It never had. Even in the best of times Mother had the gift of seeing the worst. It was a quality that hadn’t served her well. Living in the wreckage of her future sure took the joy out of the present. The only comfort was that almost none of her fears had come true. The planes had never crashed, the elevators never plummeted, the bridges had remained solid spans. All right, her husband had left her, but that wasn’t exactly a disaster. Some might even say it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. She’d forced him away. He’d always complained that there were too many in their relationship. Beatrice, him and God. One had to go.

  It wasn’t much of a choice.

  Now Mother Bea lay in bed, snug in her soft and warm flannel sheets, the duvet heavy around her plump body. She’d chosen God over her husband, but the truth was she’d have chosen a good eiderdown over him too.

  This was her favorite place in the whole wide world. In bed in her home, safe and sound. So why couldn’t she sleep? Why couldn’t she meditate any more? Why couldn’t she even eat?

  Kaye lay in bed issuing orders to the young and frightened infantrymen around her in the trench. Their flat, shallow helmets were askew and their faces dirty with muck and shit and the first flush of whiskers. The first and last, she knew, but chose not to tell them. Instead she gave them a rousing speech and assured them she’d be the first out of the trench when the time came, then led them in a heartfelt chorus of ‘Rule Britannia’.

  They’d all die soon, she knew. And Kaye curled herself into the tightest ball, ashamed of the cowardice she’d carried all her life like a child in the womb, so much in contrast to her father’s obvious courage.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Peter, for the hundredth time.

  ‘It’s not that you got it from the dump, but that you lied about it,’ Clara lied. It was that he’d gotten the goddamned thing from the dump. Once again, he’d given her garbage for Christmas. It hadn’t mattered when they couldn’t afford anything else. She’d make him something, because she was good with her hands, and he’d dumpster dive, because he wasn’t, then they’d both pretend to like their gifts.

  But this was different. They could afford it now, and still he’d chosen to shop at the dump.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, knowing it wasn’t enough but not knowing what was.

  ‘Forget it,’ she said.

  He was smart enough to know that wouldn’t be very smart.

  Gamache sat beside Beauvoir. He’d made up another hot water bottle, though the fever had broken. Gamache could only find one hot water bottle and wondered what had happened to the other. Now he sat, sometimes watching Jean Guy and sometimes reading the heavy book in his lap.

  He’d read Isaiah just to be sure then turned to the Psalms. He’d called their parish priest when he’d gotten back to the B. & B. and Father Néron had given him the reference.

  ‘It was good to see you Christmas Eve, Armand,’ Father Néron had said. Gamache waited for it. ‘And meet your granddaughter. She looks like Reine-Marie, lucky child.’ Gamache waited. ‘It’s so good to see a family together. Too bad you’ll be in Hell and won’t be able to spend eternity with them.’ Ta da.

  ‘Fortunately, mon père, they’ll be in Hell too.’

  Père Néron had laughed. ‘Suppose I’m right and you’re endangering your mortal soul by not coming to church every week?’ he asked.

  ‘Then I’ll miss your cheerful company for eternity, Marcel.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  Gamache had told him.

  ‘Not Isaiah. That’s Psalm 46. Not sure which verse. One of my favorites, actually, but not very popular with the bosses.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, think about it, Armand. If all anyone had to do to get close to God was be still they wouldn’t need me.’

  ‘Suppose the passage is right?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘Then you and I will meet for eternity after all. I hope it is.’

  Now Gamache read the psalm, looking at Beauvoir every now and then over his half-moon glasses. Why had Mother lied and told him it was from Isaiah? She must have known the truth. And even more compelling, why had she misquoted the passage and written on the wall Be Calm, and know that I am God?

  ‘Am I that sick?’

  Gamache looked up and saw Beauvoir staring at him, clear-eyed and smiling.

  ‘Your body isn’t, young man. It’s your soul I lament.’

  ‘There’s truth there, monsignor.’ Beauvoir struggled to his elbow. ‘You wouldn’t believe my wicked dreams. I even dreamt Agent Nichol was with me.’ He lowered his voice for the confession.

  ‘Imagine that,’ said Gamache. ‘You’re feeling better.’ He took his cool hand off Beauvoir’s cool head.

  ‘Much. What time is it?’

  ‘Midnight.’

  ‘Go to sleep, sir. I’m fine.’

  ‘Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical?’

  ‘Hope that’s not from my next performance evaluation.’

  ‘No. That’s a bit of poetry.’

  If that’s poetry, thought Beauvoir, wearily subsiding once again into the welcoming bed, I can get to like it.

  ‘Why’re you reading the Bible?’ he mumbled, half asleep already.

  ‘It’s about the writing on the wall at Mother’s meditation center. Psalm 46, verse 10. It should read, Be still, and know that I am God.’

  Beauvoir drifted away, comforted by the voice and the thought.

  TWENTY-THREE

  The bedside clock glowed 5:51. It was still dark and would be for a while. Gamache lay in bed, feeling the fresh freezing air from the slightly open window on his face, and the bed sheets warm around him.

  It was time to get up.

  He showered and dressed quickly in the cool room with its dark wood furniture, white walls and fluffy feather bedding. The room was elegant and way too inviting. Gamache tiptoed down the dark stairs of the B. & B. He’d put his warmest clothing on and got into his huge parka. He’d shoved his tuque and mitts into the sleeve of his parka when he’d come in the night before, and now, thrusting his right arm into the armhole, he hit the blockage. At a practiced shove the pompom of the tuque crowned the cuff followed by his mitts, like a tiny birth.

  Once outside he started walking, his feet munching on the snow. It was a brittle crisp morning but without a breath of wind and Gamache thought the forecast might actually be accurate. It was going to be a cold one, even by Quebec standards. Leaning forward slightly, head down, his mittened hands clasped behind his back, Gamache walked and thought about this baffling case with its embarrassment of suspects and clues.

  Puddles of anti-freeze, niacin, The Lion in Winter, booster cables, Psalm 46:10 and a long lost mother. And that was only what he’d uncovered so far. CC was two days dead and what he really needed was an epiphany.

  Round the Commons the case took him in the dark, though in winter the night was never pitch black. The snow covering the ground had its own glow. Past the homes of sleeping villagers he trudged, smoke from the chimneys rising vertically, past the darkened shops, though a hint of a light in the basement of Sarah’s Boulangerie promised fresh croissants.

  Round and round he went in the astonishing quietude and comfort of the hushed village, his feet crunching on the hardened snow and his breathing loud in his ears.

  Was CC’s mother asleep in one of these houses? Was it an easy sleep she enjoyed, or did her conscience startle her awake, like a home invader intent on violence?

  Who was CC’s mother?

  Had CC found her?

  Did Mom want to be found?

  Was CC motivated by need for family or was there some other, darker, purpose?

  And what about the Li Bien ball? Who’d thrown it away? And why not simply toss it into the frozen dumpster, smashing it into unrecognizable pieces?

  Fortunately Armand Gamache loved puzzles. Just then a dark figure shot off the village green, racing toward him.

  ‘Henri! Viens ici,’ a voice commanded. For a dog with such big ears Henri didn’t seem to hear. Gamache stepped aside and Henri skidded past with great glee.

  ‘Désolée,’ said Émilie Longpré, puffing as she approached. ‘Henri, you have no manners.’

  ‘It’s a privilege to be chosen as Henri’s playmate.’

  They both knew Henri also chose his own frozen poop as a playmate, so the bar wasn’t set so high. Still, Em gave a slight incline of her head, acknowledging his courtesy. Émilie Longpré was a dying breed of Québecoise. Les Grandes Dames, not because they pushed and insisted and bullied, but because of their immense dignity and kindness.

  ‘We’re not used to meeting anyone on our morning walk,’ explained Émilie.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Just past seven.’

  ‘May I join you?’

  He fell in beside her, the three of them making their slow progress round the Commons, Gamache tossing snowballs to an ecstatic Henri as one by one lights appeared in village windows. In the distance Olivier waved as he crossed from the B. & B. to the bistro. A moment later soft light came through the window.

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