Louise Penny - Brutal Telling

Gamache waited.

“They seemed defensive, guarded. They were surprised that the dead man was Czech. Everyone was.”

“What do you think?” asked the Chief.

Beauvoir wiped a weary hand across his face. “I can’t put it all together, but I think it fits somehow.”

“You think there is a connection?” pressed Gamache.

“How can there not be? The dead man was Czech, the sheet music, the priceless violin, and there’s a big Czech community here including two people who could have found the cabin. Unless . . .”

“Yes?”

Beauvoir leaned forward, his nervous hands clasped together on the table. “Suppose we’ve got it wrong. Suppose the dead man wasn’t Czech.”

“You mean, that Olivier was lying?” said Gamache.

Beauvoir nodded. “He’s lied about everything else. Maybe he said it to take us off the trail, so that we’d suspect others.”

“But what about the violin and the music?”

“What about it?” Beauvoir was gaining momentum. “There’re lots of other things in that cabin. Maybe Morin’s right.” Though he said it in the same tone he’d use to say maybe a chimp was right. With a mixture of awe at witnessing a miracle, and doubt. “Maybe the music and violin have nothing to do with it. After all, there were plates from Russia, glass from other places. The stuff tells us nothing. He could’ve been from anywhere. We only have Olivier’s word for it. And maybe Olivier wasn’t exactly lying. Maybe the guy did speak with an accent, but it wasn’t Czech. Maybe it was Russian or Polish or one of those other countries.”

Gamache leaned back, thinking, then he nodded and sat forward. “It’s possible. But is it likely?”

This was the part of investigating he liked the most, and that most frightened him. Not the cornered and murderous suspect. But the possibility of turning left when he should have gone right. Of dismissing a lead, of giving up on a promising trail. Or not seeing one in his rush to a conclusion.

No, he needed to step carefully now. Like any explorer he knew the danger wasn’t in walking off a cliff, but in getting hopelessly lost. Muddled. Disoriented by too much information.

In the end the answer to a murder investigation was always devastatingly simple. It was always right there, obvious. Hiding in facts and evidence and lies, and the misperceptions of the investigators.

“Let’s leave if for now,” he said, “and keep an open mind. The Hermit might have been Czech, or not. Either way there’s no denying the contents of his cabin.”

“What did Superintendent Brunel have to say? Any of it stolen?” asked Beauvoir.

“She hasn’t found anything, but she’s still looking. But Jérôme Brunel’s been studying those letters under the carving and he thinks they’re a Caesar’s Shift. It’s a type of code.”

He explained how a Caesar’s Shift worked.

“So we just need to find the key word?” asked Beauvoir. “Should be simple enough. It’s Woo.”

“Nope. Tried that one.”

Beauvoir went to the sheet of foolscap on the wall and uncapped the magic marker. He wrote the alphabet. Then the marker hovered.

“How about violin?” asked Morin. Beauvoir looked at him again as at an unexpectedly bright chimp. He wrote violin on a separate sheet of paper. Then he wrote Martinù , Bohuslav .

“Bohemia,” suggested Morin.

“Good idea,” said Beauvoir. Within a minute they had a dozen possibilities, and within ten minutes they’d tried them all and found nothing.

Beauvoir tapped his Magic Marker with some annoyance and stared at the alphabet, as though it was to blame.

“Well, keep trying,” said Gamache. “Superintendent Brunel is trying to track down the rest of the carvings.”

“Do you think that’s why he was killed?” asked Morin. “For the carvings?”

“Perhaps,” said Gamache. “There’s not much some people wouldn’t do for things that valuable.”

“But when we found the cabin it hadn’t been searched,” said Beauvoir. “If you find the guy, find the cabin, go there and kill him, wouldn’t you tear the place apart to find the carvings? And it’s not like the murderer had to worry about disturbing the neighbors.”

“Maybe he meant to but heard Olivier returning and had to leave,” said Gamache.

Beauvoir nodded. He’d forgotten about Olivier coming back. That made sense.

“That reminds me,” he said, sitting down. “The lab report came in on the whittling tools and the wood. They say the tools were used to do the sculptures but not to carve Woo. The grooves didn’t match, but apparently the technique didn’t either. Definitely different people.”

It was a relief to have something definite about this case.

“But red cedar was used for all of them?” Gamache wanted to hear the confirmation.

Beauvoir nodded. “And they’re able to be more specific than that, at least with the Woo carving. They can tell by looking at water content, insects, growth rings, all sorts of things, where the wood actually came from.”

Gamache leaned forward and wrote three words on a sheet of paper. He slid it across the table and Beauvoir read and snorted. “You talked to the lab?”

“I talked to Superintendent Brunel.”

He told them then about Woo, and Emily Carr. About the Haida totem poles, carved from red cedar.

Beauvoir looked down at the Chief’s note.

Queen Charlotte Islands , he’d written.

And that’s what the lab had said. The wood that became Woo had started life as a sapling hundreds of years earlier, on the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Gabri walked, almost marched, up rue du Moulin. He’d made up his mind and wanted to get there before he changed it, as he had every five minutes all afternoon.

He’d barely exchanged five words with Olivier since the Chief Inspector’s interrogation had revealed just how much his partner had kept from him. Finally he arrived and looked at the gleaming exterior of what had been the old Hadley house. Now a carved wooden sign hung out front, swinging slightly in the breeze.

Auberge et Spa .

The lettering was tasteful, clear, elegant. It was the sort of sign he’d been meaning to have Old Mundin make for the B and B, but hadn’t gotten around to. Above the lettering three pine trees were carved in a row. Iconic, memorable, classic.

He’d thought of doing that for the B and B as well. And at least his place was actually in Three Pines. This place hovered above it. Not really part of the village.

Still, it was too late now. And he wasn’t here to find fault. Just the opposite.

He stepped onto the porch and realized Olivier had stood there as well, with the body. He tried to shove the image away. Of his gentle, kind and quiet Olivier. Doing something so hideous.

Gabri rang the bell and waited, noting the shining brass of the handle, the bevelled glass and fresh red paint on the door. Cheerful and welcoming.

“ Bonjour ?” Dominique Gilbert opened the door, her face the image of polite suspicion.

“Madame Gilbert? We met in the village when you first arrived. I’m Gabriel Dubeau.”

He put out his large hand and she took it. “I know who you are. You run that marvelous B and B.”

Gabri knew when he was being softened up, having specialized in that himself. Still, it was nice to be on the receiving end of a compliment, and Gabri never refused one.

“That’s right,” he smiled. “But it’s nothing compared to what you’ve done here. It’s stunning.”

“Would you like to come in?” Dominique stood aside and Gabri found himself in the large foyer. The last time he’d been there it’d been a wreck and so had he. But it was clear the old Hadley house no longer existed. The tragedy, the sigh on the hill, had become a smile. A warm, elegant, gracious auberge . A place he himself would book into, for pampering. For an escape.