Louise Penny - The Beautiful Mystery

Still, Gamache knew Jean-Guy needed watching. For any cracks in the calm.

For now, though, Gamache turned away from the agents, knowing they had a job to do. And he turned away from the monks, knowing they also had their job.

And he had his.

Gamache looked around the garden.

It was the first chance he’d had to really take it in.

It was square. Roughly forty feet by forty. Not meant for sports or large gatherings. The monks would not be playing soccer here.

Gamache noticed a wicker basket with gardening implements dropped on the ground. There was also a black medical bag, close to the praying monks.

He began to wander, looking at the perennials, at the herbs all marked and named.

Echinacea, meadowsweet, St. John’s wort, chamomile.

Gamache was no gardener, but he suspected these weren’t just herbs or flowers, but medicinal. He looked around again.

Everything here seemed to have a purpose. To be thought out.

Including, he suspected, the body.

There was a purpose to this murder. His job was to find it.

A curved stone bench sat under the maple in the center of the garden. Most of the tree’s autumn leaves had fallen. Most had been raked up, but some were scattered on the grass. And a few, like forlorn hope, clung to the mother tree.

In summer, in full leaf, there would be a magnificent canopy, throwing dappled light over the garden. Not much of this garden would be in full sun. Not much in complete shade.

The abbot’s garden had achieved a balance between light and dark.

But now, in autumn, it seemed to be dying.

But that too was the natural cycle. It would be deviant, abnormal, if all was in perpetual flower.

The walls were, Gamache guessed, at least ten feet high. No one climbed out of the garden. And the only way in was through the abbot’s bedroom. Through the secret door.

Gamache looked back at the monastery. No one inside the monastery could come into, or even see into, the abbot’s garden.

Did they even know it was here? Gamache wondered. Was that possible?

Was this not only a private garden, but a secret one?

Dom Philippe repeated the rosary.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.…”

His head was bowed but his eyes were open, just a slit. He watched the police officers in the garden. Bending over Mathieu. Taking his picture. Prodding him. How Mathieu, always so fastidious, so precise, would have hated this.

To die in the dirt.

“ Holy Mary, mother of God…”

How could Mathieu be dead? Dom Philippe mouthed the rosary, trying to concentrate on the simple prayer. He said the words, and heard his brother monks beside him. Heard their familiar voices. Felt their shoulders against his.

Felt the sunshine on his head, and smelled the musky autumn garden.

But now nothing seemed familiar anymore. The words, the prayer, even the sunshine felt foreign.

Mathieu was dead.

How could I not have known?

“ … pray for us sinners…”

How could I not have known?

The words became his new rosary.

How could I not have known that it would all end in murder?

Gamache had come full circle and stopped in front of the praying monks.

He had the impression as he approached that the abbot had been watching.

One thing was obvious. In the few minutes Gamache had been in the garden, the abbot’s energy had diminished even further.

If the Hail Marys were meant to comfort, it wasn’t working. Or perhaps, without the prayers Dom Philippe would be in worse shape. He seemed like a man on the verge of collapse.

“ Pardon ,” said Gamache.

The two monks stopped their prayers, but Dom Philippe continued, to the end.

“ … now and at the hour of our death .”

And together they intoned, “ Amen .”

Dom Philippe opened his eyes.

“Yes, my son?”

It was the traditional greeting of a priest to a parishioner. Or an abbot to his monks. Gamache, though, was neither. And he wondered why Dom Philippe would use that term with him.

Was it habit? An offer of affection? Or was it something else? A claim to authority. A father’s over a child.

“I have some questions.”

“Of course,” said the abbot while the other two remained silent.

“I understand one of you found Frère Mathieu.”

The monk to the right of the abbot shot Dom Philippe a look, and the abbot gave a very small nod.

“I did.” The monk was shorter than Dom Philippe and slightly younger. His eyes were wary.

“And you are?”

“Simon.”

“Perhaps, mon frère , you can describe what happened this morning.”

Frère Simon turned to the abbot, who nodded again.

“I came in here after Lauds to tidy up the garden. Then I saw him.”

“What did you see?”

“Frère Mathieu.”

“ Oui , but did you know it was him?”

“No.”

“Who did you think it might be?”

Frère Simon lapsed into silence.

“It’s all right, Simon. We need to speak the truth,” said the abbot.

“ Oui, Père Abbé .” The monk didn’t look happy or convinced. But he did obey. “I thought it was the abbot.”

“Why?”

“Because no one else comes in here. Only him and me now.”

Gamache considered that for a moment. “What did you do?”

“I went to see.”

Gamache glanced over at the wicker basket, on its side, the contents tumbling out onto the autumn leaves. The rake thrown down.

“Did you walk, or run?”

Again that hesitation. “I ran.”

Gamache could imagine the scene. The middle-aged monk with his basket. Preparing to garden, to rake up the dead leaves. Entering this peaceful garden to do what he’d done so many times before. Then seeing the unthinkable. A man collapsed at the base of the wall.

Without doubt, the abbot.

And what had Frère Simon done? He’d dropped his tools and run. As fast as his robed legs would take him.

“And when you got to him, what did you do?”

“I saw that it wasn’t Père Abbé at all.”

“Describe for me please everything that you did.”

“I knelt down.” Every word seemed to cause him pain. Either because of the memory, or just their existence. The very act of speaking. “And I moved his hood. It’d fallen across his face. That’s when I saw it wasn’t the abbot.”

It wasn’t the abbot. That was what seemed to matter to this man. Not who it was, but who it wasn’t. Gamache listened closely. To the words. The tone. The space between the words.

And what he heard now was relief.

“Did you touch the body? Move him?”

“I touched his hood and his shoulders. Shook him. Then I went to get the doctor.”

Frère Simon looked at the other monk.

He was younger than the other two, but not by much. The stubble on his close-cropped head was also graying. He was shorter and slightly rounder than the other two. And his eyes, while somber, held none of the anxiety of his companions.

“Are you the doctor?” Gamache asked and the monk nodded. He seemed almost amused.

But Gamache wasn’t fooled. One of Reine-Marie’s brothers laughed in funerals and wept at weddings. A friend of theirs always laughed when someone yelled at him. Not from amusement, but an overflow of strong emotion.

Sometimes the two got mixed up. Especially in people unused to showing emotion.

The medical monk, while appearing amused, might in fact be the most devastated.

“Charles,” the monk offered. “I’m the médecin .”

“Tell me how you found out about the death of the prior.”

“I was with the animals when Frère Simon came to get me. He took me aside and said there’d been an accident—”