Louise Penny - Cruelest Month

‘Don’t be a fool, Armand,’ Brébeuf had said. ‘It’s what they want.’

‘I’m not a fool, Michel. I know what I’m doing.’

Both men hung up, Gamache grateful his friend would help, and Brébeuf knowing Gamache was indeed a fool.

The morning meeting was brief and tense.

Agent Lacoste reported on her conversation with Madeleine’s doctor. She’d had an appointment two weeks before she was killed. The doctor confirmed that Madeleine’s cancer had returned and spread to her liver. She’d told Madame Favreau. She’d arranged for palliative treatments, but those hadn’t started by the time she was killed.

She’d come to the appointment alone. And yes, the doctor had the impression that while the diagnosis was devastating it wasn’t a complete surprise.

Agent Nichol hadn’t returned from Kingston yet and there wasn’t a report from the lab on the contents of the ephedra bottle, though there was one on fingerprints. Sophie’s and only Sophie’s.

‘Well, that seems to cinch it,’ said Lemieux. ‘She killed Madeleine Favreau out of jealousy. Came home, saw the opportunity with the séance, slipped her a few pills over dinner, and waited for the Hadley house to do the rest.’

Everyone was nodding. Through the window of the old railway station Gamache could see Ruth and Gabri walking slowly across the Commons and onto the village green. It was early, with the first freshness of day still holding the village. Behind Ruth came a bouncy little ball, spreading its wings. Alone.

‘Sir?’

‘I’m sorry, I beg your pardon.’

Everyone stared at Gamache. This was the most unsettling thing to happen yet. In all the years Beauvoir had known him Gamache had never, ever looked away from a conversation or meeting. He held their eyes and made them feel they were the only people on earth. He made his team feel precious and protected.

But today his attention wandered.

‘What were you saying?’ Gamache asked, turning back to the group.

‘It seems clear Sophie Smyth is the murderer. Should we bring her in?’

‘You can’t.’

The voice came from behind them. There, next to the immense red fire engine, stood a very small woman. Hazel. Though barely recognizable. Grief had finally caught her. Now she looked shrunken, her eyes large and desperate.

‘Please. Please don’t.’

Gamache went to her, nodding to Beauvoir, and together they led Hazel into the tiny back room used for storage by the Three Pines volunteer fire department.

‘Do you know something, Hazel, that would help us?’ asked Gamache. ‘Something that would convince us your daughter didn’t kill Madeleine, because it certainly looks like it.’

‘She didn’t do it. I know that. She couldn’t have.’

‘Madeleine was given ephedra. Sophie had ephedra, and she was there.’ Gamache spoke very slowly and clearly though he doubted much of this was going in.

‘I can’t go on much longer,’ she whispered. ‘And I can’t lose Sophie too. If you arrest her I’ll die.’

Gamache believed it.

Jean Guy Beauvoir looked at Hazel. The exact same age as Madeleine though you’d never know it. She now seemed a fossil, something coughed up by the mountains around Three Pines. One of Gilles Sandon’s murmuring stones. No, not a stone. They were strong. This woman was more like what they’d been trying not to step on during their walk. And were about to crush now.

‘When the ephedra was found on Sophie you said, “Sophie, you promised,”’ said Beauvoir. ‘What did you mean?’

‘I said that?’ Hazel thought, trying to remember what she could possibly have meant. ‘Yes, I did. Madeleine had found a bottle of ephedra pills in Sophie’s bathroom a couple of years ago. It was just after one of the athletes had died and it was all over the news. Probably what gave Sophie the idea of using diet pills.’

It was like dragging a memory from the bottom of the sea, yanking it up with great effort.

‘She sent away for them from some internet company. Madeleine found the bottle and took it away.’

‘How did Sophie react?’

‘Like any nineteen-year-old. She was angry. Mostly angry she said about her privacy being violated, but I think she was mostly embarrassed.’

‘Did it affect their relationship?’ Gamache asked.

‘Sophie loved Madeleine. She could never kill her,’ said Hazel. She had one message left and she’d say it over and over. Her daughter was no killer.

‘We won’t talk to Sophie just yet,’ said Gamache. He reached out and lifted Hazel’s head so that she was looking him in the eyes. ‘Do you understand?’

Hazel looked into his deep brown eyes and willed him never to look away. But, of course, he did. And she was alone again.

They called Clara to collect Hazel, to keep her company for the day. Clara showed up and led Hazel back to the Morrows’ house where she listened to her then asked if Hazel would like to lie down. Hazel had never felt so tired and gratefully she put her head on the sofa. Clara raised her legs, got a blanket, tucked her in and watched until she was certain the suddenly old woman, younger actually than herself, was asleep.

Then Clara walked slowly back to her studio and started painting again. More slowly now, the lines firm and deliberate. An image was appearing, but more than the features, something else was coming to life on the canvas.

‘Sophie Smyth is well liked at Queens. Even volunteers at the help center. She works part time at the bookstore on campus and seems like a regular student.’

Yvette Nichol had returned. She sat at the conference table sipping the Double Double coffee she’d bought for herself.

‘Grades?’ asked Beauvoir.

‘Decent, not phenomenal. I was too late to speak to the office but I talked to her roommates and some classmates and they said Sophie’s a solid student.’

‘Illnesses?’ asked Gamache. He noticed Agent Lemieux was uncharacteristically silent, his arms crossed tightly, almost violently, across his chest.

‘None,’ said Nichol. ‘Not a sore throat, not a bruise, not a limp. Never visited the infirmary or the Kingston Hospital. As far as her friends know she never even took a day off school, unless she was skipping class for fun.’

‘Perfectly healthy,’ said Gamache, almost to himself.

‘So that Landers woman was right,’ said Nichol. ‘Sophie put on an act when she was home, trying to get Mom’s attention away from Madeleine.’

‘You dropped the pill bottle off?’ asked Beauvoir.

‘Of course,’ said Nichol, eating her cream-filled doughnut, oblivious of the hungry stares around her.

‘Could you call and see if they have the results yet?’ Gamache asked Beauvoir.

While he did Gamache handed out assignments then walked to his desk. All eyes were on him, he knew. Watching, he supposed, in case he exploded or dissolved. Instead he looked at them. Lacoste, Lemieux, Nichol. So young. So eager. So human. And he smiled.

Lemieux smiled back. Eventually Lacoste did too, though not very happily. Nichol looked as though she’d been insulted.

Gamache found what he was looking for. Whoever had gone into the B. & B. and taken the yearbooks hadn’t taken them all. The most important one was still on his desk. The one Nichol found at Hazel’s home. Madeleine’s graduation yearbook. He sat and read it, going immediately to the back of the book and the grad photos. But it wasn’t Hazel or even Madeleine he wanted to see. It was another girl. A cheerleader.

‘I have the results,’ said Beauvoir, throwing himself into a seat at the conference table and slapping his notebook down. ‘The ephedra from Sophie’s pills is probably not the stuff that killed Madeleine.’

Gamache leaned forward and put the yearbook down. ‘No?’