Louise Penny - A Fatal Grace

‘I think this doesn’t make sense. The murderer had to feed her niacin at the community breakfast, spill anti-freeze behind the chair, make sure she was wearing boots with metal soles or nails, hook up booster cables and wait for the perfect moment, all without being seen. Then clean up after himself? It’s just way too complicated. Why not just shoot her?’

‘I wonder,’ said Gamache.

The photographs from the lab arrived after lunch and the team huddled round anxiously as Gamache opened the envelopes. It was eerie to see the face of someone about to die. Gamache always expected to see in their eyes some foreboding, some premonition, but he’d looked at thousands of pictures just like these and never seen it.

Still, it was eerie. This was as close as they’d ever come to meeting the victim, and Gamache realized that the only photo he’d seen up ’til now was on the cover of her book and that was more a caricature. Now here she was, minutes before her time ran out. It was a shame she didn’t seem to be enjoying herself. Instead she sat lemon-faced and defensive at the community breakfast. All around her people were animated, talking to neighbors, heads thrown back in laughter, but CC de Poitiers sat rigid. Beside her Richard stared down at his plate.

Was he planning murder? Were the sausages the curlers and the pancakes the chairs? Was the bacon the booster cable? And CC? What would she have been on his plate? The knife?

More pictures. Mother Bea and Myrna behind CC. CC posing with a group of suddenly glum villagers, as though CC was a cloud that had moved across their sky.

Then they were at the curling. CC in her chair, trying too hard to look like Audrey Hepburn on holiday in the Alps. But now something interesting appeared. CC’s face was flushed. True, the sudden redness could be from the cold, but beside her Kaye was a delicate pink, not the purple CC’d become.

‘Look.’ Lacoste pointed to a picture. ‘You can just see the blue of the anti-freeze by the chair.’

‘Her mittens are off,’ said Lemieux, pointing to another. They were getting close. Gamache opened the next envelope. All eyes were fixed, all bodies leaning forward across the table as though trying to see the pictures a millisecond sooner. Gamache spread them across the table in a move that spoke of poker nights.

CC was on the ground. Ruth was gesturing. Olivier was bending over the body and Gabri was looking behind him, his eyes sharp and focused.

The next series of pictures showed the heroic and frantic efforts to save this woman no one liked. Clara walking away with Crie, trying to keep the girl from the grisly scene. Gabri beside Richard, holding his arm. Peter and Billy Williams running with CC toward the truck. The last one showed Billy’s truck disappearing round a bend.

The pictures were eloquent, though abbreviated.

‘Some are missing,’ said Gamache, stern-faced. As he headed to the door, Beauvoir and Lemieux in tow, Agent Lacoste ran after him.

‘Mrs Morrow’s been trying to get you. And I’ve done a background search on the women who might have been CC’s mother. Kaye Thompson’s too old. Émilie Longpré had a child, but he died in an accident. Still, she could have had another. Given her up for adoption. But the most interesting thing I found is Beatrice Mayer. Beatrice Louise Mayer.’

With that information newly arrived in his head Gamache walked determinedly to the car, Beauvoir hurrying to catch up, in a reversal of roles Beauvoir found disconcerting.

Saul Petrov sipped coffee and sat in the easy chair by the window in his living room. Two days ago he’d have described the chair, in fact the entire chalet, as tacky. The fabric was dull and threadbare, the carpets worn, the décor dated. A collection of spoons from various Canadian destinations hung on the wall next to a washed-out photo of Niagara Falls.

But when he’d awoken today and wandered relaxed down the scuffed stairs, he’d thought he quite liked the house. And as the sun rose and the fireplace had been lit and the coffee perked Saul realized he really liked the place.

And now he sat in the sun as it streamed through the window and looked at the stunning view of the perfect, unblemished field in front of his rented chalet, the forest beyond and beyond that the mountains, all gray and craggy.

He’d never felt such peace.

Beside him on the table sat a Banff coaster and a roll of undeveloped film.

‘Hello, Clara.’ Gamache spoke loudly into his cell phone. It was so tiny it felt like something found in a Christmas cracker. ‘It’s Gamache. I’m on a cell and it’s coming in and out. You were looking for me?’

‘I…video…Peter.’

‘Pardon?’

‘The video last night.’ Suddenly her voice was crystal clear and Gamache realized they’d crested a hill. But they’d be heading into a valley soon and through a forest and he was sure to lose the signal then. He hoped she got to the point fast.

‘Peter has DVDs now,’ she was saying. Faster, faster, he said to himself, but knew enough not to say out loud. Inevitably, telling someone to do anything faster slowed the whole thing down. The car was just heading down the long slope into the valley. ‘Because his videos are all stretched out of shape. He stops them at his favorite spots and that stretches the tape.’ Faster, faster, thought Gamache, seeing the valley approaching. ‘Do you think CC did too?’ Clara asked, her voice already fading.

‘We’re pretty certain she didn’t throw it away because it was stretched out of shape.’ He wasn’t following her and now he could hear the static begin.

‘…know that. Not too bad…need one.’

Then the line went dead.

Saul saw the car winding up his snowy drive. He picked up the film and held it in his palm as though, by osmosis, it might tell him what to do. As CC always had.

And then he had his answer. He was finally free. He felt light, buoyant for the first time in months. Years. He even felt bright, as though perhaps he could hold his own in a conversation, as though overnight he’d been buffed up, his shine restored.

He was no longer dull.

He smiled gently and gratefully and closed his eyes, feeling the sun warm and red through his lids. He could start again here, in this place with so much light. He could buy this charming, cozy chalet and maybe take pictures of the beauty he saw all around. Maybe he could track down the artist whose portfolio CC had savaged and tell him what had happened. And say he was sorry for his part, and maybe the artist would become his friend.

The men were getting out of the car. Sûreté officers, Saul knew. He looked at the roll in his palm, walked over to the fireplace, and threw it in.

TWENTY-SIX

‘Sit down, please.’ Saul took their heavy coats and stuffed them into the closet, closing the door quickly before they tumbled out. He’d decided this was Day One, the beginning of a new life, and any new life should begin without regret. Saul Petrov had decided to tell everything. Well, almost everything.

Gamache looked around the room, and sniffed. There was a smell of burning, and not of the wood in the fireplace. This was more pungent, less natural. He felt his nerves sharpen and everything seemed to slow down. Was there a fire? An electrical fire perhaps? These old chalets were often slapped together by some backwoods pioneer who knew a great deal about the cycles of nature and almost nothing about wiring. Gamache’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the walls, the outlets, the lamps for wisps of smoke, as his ears searched out a telltale crackling as the electricity leaped and arced and his nose struggled to identify the strange acrid smell.