Louise Penny - Brutal Telling

She subsided into an armchair and watched as Beauvoir came in from the kitchen, a pâté-smeared piece of bread in one hand and a beer in the other, and started toward the sofa. He halted suddenly, as though repelled, changed course, and went outside.

Ruth rose and limped to the drinks tray, a malevolent sneer on her face. Scotch replenished she returned to the sofa, like a sea monster slipping beneath the surface once again, still waiting for a victim.

“Any idea when we can reopen the bistro?” Gabri asked as he, Olivier and Myrna joined Agent Lacoste.

“Gabri,” said Olivier, annoyed.

“What? I’m just asking.”

“We’ve done what we need to,” she told Olivier. “You can open up whenever you’d like.”

“You can’t stay closed long, you know,” said Myrna. “We’d all starve to death.”

Peter put his head in and announced, “Dinner!”

“Though perhaps not immediately,” said Myrna, as they headed for the kitchen.

Ruth hauled herself out of the sofa and went to the veranda door.

“Are you deaf?” she shouted at Gamache, Beauvoir and Clara. “Dinner’s getting cold. Get inside.”

Beauvoir felt his rectum spasm as he hurried past her. Clara followed Beauvoir to the dinner table, but Gamache lingered.

It took him a moment to realize he wasn’t alone. Ruth was standing beside him, tall, rigid, leaning on her cane, her face all reflected light and deep crevices.

“A strange thing to give to Olivier, wouldn’t you say?”

The old voice, sharp and jagged, cut through the laughter from the village green.

“I beg your pardon?” Gamache turned to her.

“The dead man. Even you can’t be that dense. Someone did this to Olivier. The man’s greedy and shiftless and probably quite weak, but he didn’t kill anyone. So why would someone choose his bistro for murder?”

Gamache raised his eyebrows. “You think someone chose the bistro on purpose?”

“Well, it didn’t happen by accident. The murderer chose to kill at Olivier’s Bistro. He gave the body to Olivier.”

“To kill both a man and a business?” asked Gamache. “Like giving white bread to a goldfish?”

“Fuck you,” said Ruth.

“ Nothing I ever gave was good for you ,” quoted Gamache. “ It was like white bread to a goldfish. ”

Beside him Ruth Zardo stiffened, then in a low growl she finished her own poem.

“They cram and cram, and it kills them,

and they drift in the pool, belly up,

making stunned faces

and playing on our guilt

as if their own toxic gluttony

was not their fault.”

Gamache listened to the poem, one of his favorites. He looked across at the bistro, dark and empty on a night when it should have been alive with villagers.

Was Ruth right? Had someone chosen the bistro on purpose? But that meant Olivier was somehow implicated. Had he brought this on himself? Who in the village hated the tramp enough to kill him, and Olivier enough to do it there? Or was the tramp merely a convenient tool? A poor man in the wrong place? Used as a weapon against Olivier?

“Who do you think would want to do this to Olivier?” he asked Ruth.

She shrugged, then turned to leave. He watched her take her place among her friends, all of them moving in ways familiar to each other, and now to him.

And to the killer?

EIGHT

The meal was winding down. They’d dined on corn on the cob and sweet butter, fresh vegetables from Peter and Clara’s garden and a whole salmon barbecued over charcoal. The guests chatted amicably as warm bread was passed and salad served.

Myrna’s exuberant arrangement of hollyhock, sweet pea and phlox sat in the center, so that it felt as though they were eating in a garden. Gamache could hear Lacoste asking her dinner companions about the Parras, and then segueing into Old Mundin. The Chief Inspector wondered if they realized they were being interrogated.

Beauvoir was chatting to his neighbors about the Brume County Fair, and visitors. Across the table from Beauvoir sat Ruth, glaring at him. Gamache wondered why, though with Ruth that was pretty much her only form of expression.

Gamache turned to Peter, who was serving arugula, frizzy lettuce and fresh ripe tomatoes.

“I hear the old Hadley house has been sold. Have you met the new owners?”

Peter passed him the salad bowl of deep-burled wood.

“We have. The Gilberts. Marc and Dominique. His mother lives with them too. Came from Quebec City. I think she was a nurse or something. Long retired. Dominique was in advertising in Montreal and Marc was an investment dealer. Made a fortune then retired early before the market went sour.”

“Lucky man.”

“Smart man,” said Peter.

Gamache helped himself to the salad. He could smell the delicate dressing of garlic, olive oil and fresh tarragon. Peter poured them another glass of red wine and handed the bottle down the long table. Gamache watched to see if Peter’s comment held a sting, a subtext. By “smart” did Peter mean “shrewd,” “cunning,” “sly”? But no, Gamache felt Peter meant what he said. It was a compliment. While Peter Morrow rarely insulted anyone, he rarely complimented them either. But he seemed impressed by this Marc Gilbert.

“Do you know them well?”

“Had them around for dinner a few times. Nice couple.” For Peter that was an almost effusive comment.

“Interesting that with all that money they’d buy the old Hadley house,” said Gamache. “It’s been abandoned for a year or more. Presumably they could’ve bought just about any place around here.”

“We were a little surprised as well, but they said they wanted a clean canvas, some place they could make their own. Practically gutted the house, you know. It also has loads of land and Dominique wants horses.”

“Roar Parra’s been clearing the trails, I hear.”

“Slow job.”

As he was talking Peter’s voice had dropped to a whisper, so that the two men were leaning toward each other like co-conspirators. Gamache wondered what they were conspiring about.

“It’s a lot of house for three people. Do they have children?”

“Well, no.”

Peter’s eyes shifted down the table, then back to Gamache. Whom had he just looked at? Clara? Gabri? It was impossible to say.

“Have they made friends in the community?” Gamache leaned back and spoke in a normal tone, taking a forkful of salad.

Peter looked down the table again and lowered his voice even more. “Not exactly.”

Before Gamache could pursue it Peter got up and began clearing the table. At the sink he looked back at his friends, chatting. They were close. So close they could reach out and touch each other, which they occasionally did.

And Peter couldn’t. He stood apart, and watched. He missed Ben, who’d once lived in the old Hadley house. Peter had played there as a child. He knew its nooks and crannies. All the scary places where ghosts and spiders lived. But now someone else lived there and had turned it into something else.

Thinking of the Gilberts, Peter could feel his own heart lift a little.

“What’re you thinking about?”

Peter started as he realized Armand Gamache was right beside him.

“Nothing much.”

Gamache took the mixer from Peter’s hand and poured whipping cream and a drop of vanilla into the chilled bowl. He turned it on and leaned toward Peter, his voice drowned out by the whirring machine, lost to all but his companion.