Louise Penny - Still Life (Three Pines Mysteries)

As they were leaving, a copy of the will in hand, Gamache turned to Nichol, ‘I’m still not convinced about this will. I want you to do something.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Nichol was suddenly alert.

‘Find out if this is the latest copy. Can you do that?’

‘Absolument.’ Nichol practically levitated.

‘Hello,’ Gamache called, poking his head through the door of Arts Williamsburg. After they’d been to the notary they’d walked over to the gallery, a wonderfully preserved and restored former post office. Its huge windows let in what little light the sky offered and that gray light sat on the narrow and worn wood floors and rubbed against the pristine white walls of the small open room, giving it an almost ghostly glow.

‘Boniour,’ he called again. He could see an old pot-bellied wood stove in the center of the room. It was beautiful. Simple, direct, nothing elegant about it, just a big, black stove that had kept the Canadian cold at bay for more than a hundred years. Nichol had found the light switches and turned them on. Huge canvases of abstract art lunged off the walls. It surprised Gamache. He’d been expecting pretty country watercolors, romantic and salable. Instead he was surrounded by brilliant stripes and spheres ten feet tall. It felt youthful and vibrant and strong.

‘Hello.’

Nichol started, but Gamache just turned around and saw Clara coming toward them, a duck barrette clinging to a few strands of hair, getting ready for the final flight.

‘We meet again,’ she said, smiling. ‘After all that talk about Jane’s art I wanted to come and see it again, and sit with it quietly. It’s a bit like sitting with her soul.’

Nichol rolled her eyes and groaned. Beauvoir noticed this with a start and wondered if he had been that obnoxious and closed-minded when the Chief talked about his feelings and intuition.

‘And the smell,’ Clara inhaled deeply and passionately, ignoring Nichol, ‘every artist responds to this smell. Gets the heart going. Like walking into Grandma’s and smelling fresh chocolate-chip cookies. For us it’s that combination of varnish, oils and fixative. Even acrylics have a scent, if you’ve got a good shnozz. You must have smells like that, that cops respond to.’

‘Well,’ Gamache said, laughing, and remembering yesterday morning, ‘when Agent Nichol here picked me up at my home, she brought along Tim Horton’s coffee. Double double. That gets my heart racing’ - here he brought his hand to his chest and held it there—‘totally and exclusively associated with investigations. I can walk into a concert hall, but if I smell Tim Horton’s double double I’ll start looking at the floor for a body.’

Clara laughed. ‘If you like chalk outlines you’re going to love Jane’s work. I’m glad you’ve come to see it.’

‘Is this it?’ Gamache looked around the vibrant room.

‘Not even close. This is another artist. Their show is ending in a week, then we hang the members’ exhibition. That opens in about ten days. Not this Friday, but next.’

‘That’s the vernissage?’

‘Exactly. Two weeks after the judging.’

‘May I see you for a moment?’ Beauvoir steered Gamache a few steps away.

‘I spoke with Lacoste. She just got off the phone with Timmer Hadley’s doctor. Her death was completely natural, as far as he’s concerned. Kidney cancer. It spread to the pancreas and liver and then it was just a matter of time. She actually survived longer than he expected.’

‘Did she die at home?’

‘Yes, on September second of this year.’

‘Labour day,’ said Nichol, who’d wandered over and been listening in.

‘Ms Morrow,’ Gamache called to Clara who had been keeping a respectful distance, one that allowed her to appear to be out of earshot, while actually hearing their entire conversation, ‘what do you think?’

Oh, oh. Copped. Literally, this time. No use, she realised, being coy.

‘Timmer’s death was expected, but still a bit surprising,’ said Clara, joining their little circle. ‘Well, no, that’s overstating it. It’s just that we took turns sitting with her. That day it was Ruth’s turn. They’d arranged beforehand that if Timmer was feeling good Ruth would steal away to the closing parade of the County Fair. Ruth said Timmer told her she was feeling fine. Ruth gave her her meds, brought a fresh glass of Ensure and then left.’

‘Just left a dying woman alone,’ Nichol stated. Clara answered quietly.

‘Yes. I know it sounds uncaring, even selfish, but we’d all been looking after her for so long and we’d gotten to know her ups and downs. We all slipped away for a half hour at a time, to do her laundry, or shopping, or to cook a light meal. So it wasn’t as unusual as it sounds. Ruth would never have left’—now Clara turned to Gamache - ‘had she had the slightest hint Timmer was in trouble. It was terrible for her when she came back and found Timmer dead.’

‘So it was unexpected,’ said Beauvoir.

‘In that sense, yes. But we since found out from the doctors that it often happens that way. The heart just gives out.’

‘Was there an autopsy?’ Gamache wanted to know.

‘No. No one saw any need. Why are you interested in Timmer’s death?’

‘Just being thorough,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Two elderly women dying within a few weeks of each other in a very small village, well, it begs some questions. That’s all.’

‘But as you said, they were elderly. It’s what you’d expect.’

‘If one hadn’t died with a hole in her heart,’ said Nichol. Clara winced.

‘May I see you for a moment?’ Gamache led Nichol outside. ‘Agent, if you ever treat anyone the way you’ve been treating Mrs Morrow, I’ll have your badge and send you home on the bus, is that clear?’

‘What’s wrong with what I said? It’s the truth.’

‘And do you think she doesn’t know that Jane Neal was killed with an arrow? Do you really not know what you’ve done wrong?’

‘I only spoke the truth.’

‘No, you only treated another human being like a fool, and from what I can see deliberately hurt her. You are to take notes and remain silent. We’ll talk about this further tonight.’

‘But—’

‘I’ve been treating you with courtesy and respect because that’s the way I choose to treat everyone. But never, ever mistake kindness for weakness. Never debate with me again. Got it?’

‘Yes, sir.’ And Nichol pledged to keep her opinions to herself if that was the thanks she got for having the courage to say what everyone was thinking. When asked directly she’d answer in monosyllables. So there.

‘So there’s Jane’s picture,’ said Clara, hauling a medium-size canvas out from the storage room and putting it on an easel. ‘Not everyone liked it.’

Nichol was on the verge of saying, ‘No kidding’, but remembered her pledge.

‘Did you like it?’ Beauvoir asked.

‘Not at first, but the longer I looked the more I liked it. Something sort of shimmered into place. It went from looking like a cave drawing to something deeply moving. Just like that.’ And Clara snapped her fingers.

Gamache thought he’d have to stare at it for the rest of his life before it looked anything other than ridiculous. And yet, there was something there, a charm. ‘There are Nellie and Wayne,’ he said pointing, surprised, to two purple people in the stands.

‘Here’s Peter.’ Clara pointed to a pie with eyes and a mouth, but no nose.

‘How’d she do it? How could she get these people so accurately with two dots for eyes and a squiggly line for a mouth?’

‘I don’t know. I’m an artist, have been all my life, and I couldn’t do that. But there’s more to it than that. There’s a depth. Though I’ve been staring at it for more than an hour now and that shimmering thing hasn’t happened again. Maybe I’m too needy. Maybe the magic only works when you’re not looking for it.’