Louise Penny - Brutal Telling

Four chairs were drawn around a table.

“I thought you could use these,” a voice said from behind them and Marc hurried to take the tray from his mother. On it were four glasses of iced tea and some scones.

“Shall we?” Dominique indicated the table and Gamache held a chair for Carole.

“ Merci ,” the older woman said, and sat.

“To second chances,” said the Chief Inspector. He lifted his iced tea and as they toasted he watched them. The three people who’d been drawn to this sad, violated, derelict house. Who’d given it new life.

And the house had returned the favor.

“Well, there’s more to do,” said Marc. “But we’re getting there.”

“We’re hoping to have our first guests by Thanksgiving,” said Dominique. “If Carole would just get off her derrière and do some work. But so far she’s refused to dig the fence posts or pour concrete.”

“Perhaps this afternoon,” said Carole Gilbert with a laugh.

“I noticed some antiques. Did you bring them from your home?” Gamache asked her.

Carole nodded. “We combined our belongings, but there was still a lot to buy.”

“From Olivier?”

“Some.” It was the most curt answer he’d received so far. He waited for more.

“We got a lovely rug from him,” said Dominique. “The one in the front hall, I think.”

“No, it’s in the basement,” said Marc, his voice sharp. He tried to soften it with a smile, but it didn’t quite work.

“And a few chairs, I think,” said Carole, quickly.

That would account for about one one-hundredth of the furnishings in the rambling old place. Gamache sipped his tea, looking at the three of them.

“We picked up the rest in Montreal,” said Marc. “On rue Notre Dame. Do you know it?”

Gamache nodded and then listened as Marc described their treks up and down the famed street, which was packed with antique shops. Some were not much more than junk shops but some contained real finds, near priceless antiques.

“Old Mundin’s repairing a few items we picked up in garage sales. Don’t tell the guests,” said Dominique with a laugh.

“Why didn’t you get more from Olivier?”

The women concentrated on their scones and Marc poked at the ice in his drink.

“We found his prices a little high, Chief Inspector,” said Dominique at last. “We’d have preferred to buy from him, but . . .”

It was left hanging, and still Gamache waited. Eventually Marc spoke.

“We were going to buy tables and beds from him. Made all the arrangements, then discovered he’d charged us almost double what he’d originally asked for them.”

“Now, Marc, we don’t know that for sure,” said his mother.

“Near enough. Anyway, we canceled the order. You can imagine how that went down.”

Dominique had been silent for most of this exchange. Now she spoke.

“I still think we should have paid it, or spoken to him quietly about it. He is our neighbor, after all.”

“I don’t like being screwed,” said Marc.

“No one does,” said Dominique, “but there are ways of handling it. Maybe we should have just paid. Now look what’s happened.”

“What’s happened?” asked Gamache.

“Well, Olivier’s one of the forces in Three Pines,” said Dominique. “Piss him off and you pay a price. We don’t really feel comfortable going into the village, and we sure don’t feel welcome in the bistro.”

“I hear you approached some of Olivier’s staff,” said Gamache.

Marc colored. “Who told you that? Did Olivier?” he snapped.

“Is it true?”

“What if it is? He pays them practically slave wages.”

“Did any agree to come?”

Marc hesitated then admitted they hadn’t. “But only because he increased their pay. We at least did that for them.”

Dominique had been watching this, uncomfortable, and now she took her husband’s hand. “I’m sure they were also loyal to Olivier. They seem to like him.”

Marc snorted and clamped down on his anger. A man, Gamache realized, ill-equipped for not getting his own way. His wife, at least, appreciated how all this might look and had tried to appear reasonable.

“Now he’s bad-mouthed us to the whole village,” said Marc, not letting it go.

“They’ll come around,” said Carole, looking at her son with concern. “That artist couple have been nice.”

“Peter and Clara Morrow,” said Dominique. “Yes. I like them. She says she’d like to ride, once the horses arrive.”

“And when will that be?” asked Gamache.

“Later today.”

“ Vraiment? That must be fun for you. How many?”

“Four,” said Marc. “Thoroughbreds.”

“Actually, I believe you’ve changed that slightly, haven’t you?” Carole turned to her daughter-in-law.

“Really? I thought you wanted thoroughbreds,” said Marc to Dominique.

“I did, but then I saw some hunters and thought since we lived in the country that seemed appropriate.” She looked at Gamache once again. “Not that I plan to hunt. It’s a breed of horse.”

“Used for jumping,” he said.

“You ride?”

“Not at that level, but I enjoyed it. Haven’t been on a horse in years now.”

“You’ll have to come,” said Carole, though they all knew he almost certainly wasn’t going to squeeze himself into a pair of jodhpurs and climb onto a hunter. But he did smile as he imagined what Gabri would make of that invitation.

“What’re their names?” asked Marc.

Dominique hesitated and her mother-in-law jumped in. “It’s so hard to remember, isn’t it? But wasn’t one called Thunder?”

“Yes, that’s right. Thunder, Trooper, Trojan and what was the other one?” She turned back to Carole.

“Lightning.”

“Really? Thunder and Lightning?” asked Marc.

“Brothers,” said Dominique.

Their iced teas finished and the scones only crumbs they got to their feet and walked back into the house.

“Why did you move here?” Gamache asked, as they walked down to the main floor.

“ Pardon? ” asked Dominique.

“Why did you move to the country and to Three Pines in particular? It’s not exactly easy to find.”

“We like that.”

“You don’t want to be found?” asked Gamache. His voice held humor, but his eyes were sharp.

“We wanted peace and quiet,” said Carole.

“We wanted a challenge,” said her son.

“We wanted a change. Remember?” Dominique turned to her husband then back to Gamache. “We both had fairly high-powered jobs in Montreal, but were tired. Burned out.”

“That’s not really true,” protested Marc.

“Well, pretty close. We couldn’t go on. Didn’t want to go on.”

She left it at that. She could understand Marc’s not wanting to admit what’d happened. The insomnia, the panic attacks. Having to pull the car over on the Ville Marie Expressway to catch his breath. Having to pry his hands off the steering wheel. He was losing his grip.

Day after day he’d gone into work like that. Weeks, months. A year. Until he’d finally admitted to Dominique how he felt. They’d gone away for a weekend, their first in years, and talked.

While she wasn’t having panic attacks, she was feeling something else. A growing emptiness. A sense of futility. Each morning she woke up and had to convince herself that what she did mattered. Advertising.

It was a harder and harder sell.

Then Dominique had remembered something long buried and forgotten. A dream since childhood. To live in the country and have horses.

She’d wanted to run an inn. To welcome people, to mother them. They had no children of their own, and she had a powerful need to nurture. So they’d left Montreal, left the demands of jobs too stressful, of lives too callow. They’d come to Three Pines, with their bags of money, to heal first themselves. Then others.