Still Life Read online

  ‘I learn by watching and listening, sir.’

  ‘And?’

  And what? They sat there, Gamache looking as though he had all day, though she knew he had to conduct the public meeting in Three Pines in just two hours and they still had to drive there. Nichol’s mind froze. And ... and ...

  ‘Think about it. Tonight you can tell me what you’ve come up with. For now, though, let me tell you how I work. And what my expectations of you are.’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘I watch. I’m very good at observing. Noticing things. And listening. Actively listening to what people are saying, their choice of words, their tone. What they aren’t saying. And this, Agent Nichol, is the key. It’s choice.’

  ‘Choice?’

  ‘We choose our thoughts. We choose our perceptions. We choose our attitudes. We may not think so. We may not believe it, but we do. I absolutely know we do. I’ve seen enough evidence, time after time, tragedy after tragedy. Triumph after triumph. It’s about choice.’

  ‘Like choice of schools? Or dinner?’

  ‘Clothes, hairstyle, friends. Yes. It starts there. Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It’s as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. So when I’m observing, that’s what I’m watching for. The choices people make.’

  ‘What can I do, sir?’

  ‘You can learn. You can watch and listen, and do as you’re told. You’re a trainee. Nobody expects you to know anything. If you pretend to know you aren’t going to actually learn.’

  Nichol could feel herself blush and cursed her body, which had betrayed her for as long as she could remember. She was a blusher. Maybe, came some voice from deep down below blushing level, maybe if you stop pretending you’ll also stop blushing. But it was a very weak voice.

  ‘I watched you yesterday. You did some good work. You got us on to the arrow possibility early. Excellent. But you also have to listen. Listen to the villagers, listen to the suspects, listen to gossip, listen to your instincts and listen to your colleagues.’

  Nichol liked the sound of that. Colleagues. She’d never had them before. In the Highway Division of the Sûreté she’d worked more or less on her own, and before that in the local Repentigny force she’d always felt people were waiting to undermine her. It would be nice to have colleagues. Gamache leaned toward her.

  ‘You need to learn that you have choices. There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?’

  She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin.

  ‘They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean.’ Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. ‘I don’t know. I need help. I’m sorry. And one other.’ Gamache thought for a moment but couldn’t bring it to mind. ‘I forget. But we’ll talk more about it tonight, right?’

  ‘Right, sir. And thank you.’ Oddly enough, she realised she meant it.

  After Gamache had left, Nichol brought out her notebook. She hadn’t wanted to take notes while he was talking. She figured it would make her look foolish. Now she quickly wrote: I’m sorry, I don’t know, I need help, I forget.

  When Peter got out of the shower and came into the kitchen he noticed two things. The coffee was brewing and Clara was wrapped around Lucy who herself was a tight ball of Golden Retriever, her nose between her back legs.

  ‘It worked for me last night,’ said Clara, arching her head back to look at Peter’s slippers, and instinctively up his bathrobe.

  Peter knelt down and kissed Clara. Then he kissed Lucy’s head. But the dog didn’t stir. ‘Poor one.’

  ‘I offered her some banana but she didn’t even look up.’

  Everyday for Lucy’s entire dog life Jane had sliced a banana for breakfast and had miraculously dropped one of the perfect disks on to the floor where it sat for an instant before being gobbled up. Every morning Lucy’s prayers were answered, confirming her belief that God was old and clumsy and smelt like roses and lived in the kitchen.

  But no more.

  Lucy knew her God was dead. And she now knew the miracle wasn’t the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.

  After breakfast Peter and Clara both got into their fall clothing and headed across the village green to Ben’s place. The gray clouds were threatening rain and the wind had a dampness and a bite. The aroma of sautéed garlic and onions met them as they stepped on to Ben’s front veranda. Clara knew if she was struck blind she’d always be able to tell when she was in Ben’s home. It smelled of stinky dog and old books. All of Ben’s dogs had smelled, not just Daisy, and it seemed to have nothing to do with age. Clara wasn’t sure if he created or attracted them. But now, suddenly, his place smelled of home cooking. Instead of welcoming it, Clara felt a little queasy, as though one more certainty had been removed. She wanted the old smell back. She wanted Jane back. She wanted everything to stay the same.

  ‘Oh, I wanted to surprise you,’ said Ben, coming over to hug Clara. ‘Chili con carne.’

  ‘My favorite comfort food.’

  ‘I’ve never made it before but I have some of my mother’s recipe books and found it in The Joy of Cooking. It won’t bring Jane back, but it might ease the pain.’

  Clara looked at the huge cookbook open on the counter, and felt revolted. It had come from that house. Timmer’s place. The home that repulsed love and laughter and welcomed snakes and mice. She wanted nothing to do with it, and she realised her revulsion stretched even to objects that had come from there.

  ‘But Ben, you loved Jane too. And you found her. It must have been a nightmare.’

  ‘It was.’ He told them briefly about it, his back to them, not daring to face Peter and Clara as though he was responsible. He stirred the ground meat as it cooked while Clara opened the tins of ingredients and listened to Ben. After a moment she handed the can opener to Peter and had to sit down. Ben’s story was playing in her head like a movie. But she kept expecting Jane to get up. As Ben finished Clara excused herself and went through the kitchen into the living room.

  She put another small log on the fire and listened to the quiet murmur of Peter and Ben. She couldn’t make out the words, just the familiarity. Another wave of sadness enveloped her. She’d lost her murmuring partner. The one with whom she made comforting noises. And she felt something else, a wisp of jealousy that Peter still had Ben. He could visit any time, but her best friend was gone. She knew it was unspeakably petty and selfish but there it was. She took a deep breath and inhaled garlic and onions and frying mince and other calming smells. Nellie must have cleaned recently because there was the fresh aroma of detergents. Cleanliness. Clara felt better and knew that Ben was her friend too, not just Peter’s. And that she wasn’t alone, unless she chose to be. She also knew Daisy could best sautéed garlic any day and her smell would re-emerge triumphant.

  St Thomas’s was filling up when Peter, Clara and Ben arrived. The rain was just beginning so there wasn’t much milling about. The tiny parking lot at the side of the chapel was packed, and trucks and cars lined the circular Commons. Inside, the small church was overflowing and warm. It smelled of damp wool and the earth trod in on boots. The three squeezed in and joined the line of people leaning against the back wall. Clara felt some small knobs pushing into her and turning around she saw she’d been leaning against the cork bulletin board. Notices of the semi-annual tea and craft sale, the Brownie meeting, Hanna’s exercise classes Monday and Thursday mornings, the bridge club Wednesdays at 7.30, and old yellowed announcements of ‘new’ church hours, from 1967.

  ‘My name is Armand Gamache.’ The big man had taken center stage. This morning he was dressed in a tweed jacket and gray flannel slacks with a simple and elegant burgundy tie around the neck of his Oxford shirt. His hat was off and Clara saw he was balding, without attempt to hide it. His hair was graying, as was his trimmed moustache. He gave the impression of a county squire addressing the village. He was a man used to being in charge, and he wore it well. The room hushed immediately, save for a persistent cough at the back. ‘I’m the chief inspector of homicide for the Sûreté du Quebec.’ This produced quite a buzz, which he waited out.

  ‘This is my second in command, Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir.’ Beauvoir stepped forward and nodded. ‘There are other Sûreté officers around the room. I expect they’re obvious to you.’ He didn’t mention that most of his team were off turning the archery clubhouse upside down.

  It struck Clara that the person who had killed Jane was probably among the crowd gathered in St Thomas’s. She looked around and spotted Nellie and her husband Wayne, Myrna and Ruth, Olivier and Gabri. Matthew and Suzanne Croft sat in the row behind them. But no Philippe.

  ‘We think the death of Jane Neal was an accident, but so far no one has come forward.’ Gamache paused and Clara noticed how still and focused he could become. His intelligent eyes quietly swept the room before he continued. ‘If this was an accident, and the person who killed her is here, I want you to know a few things.’ Clara didn’t think the room could get any quieter, but it did. Even the coughing stopped, miraculously cured by curiosity.

  ‘It must have been horrible when you realised what you’d done. But you need to come forward and admit it. The longer you wait the harder it will be. For us, for the community and for yourself.’ Chief Inspector Gamache paused and slowly looked around the room, each and every person feeling that he was looking inside them. The room waited. There was a frisson, an idea each person held that maybe the one responsible would get up.

  Clara caught the eye of Yolande Fontaine, who smiled weakly. Clara disliked her intensely, but smiled back. André, Yolande’s scrawny husband, was there picking his cuticles and occasionally nibbling them. Their remarkably unattractive son Bernard sat slack-jawed and sullen, slumped in his pew. He looked bored and was making faces at his friends across the way between mouthfuls of candy.

  Nobody moved.

  ‘We will find you. That’s what we do.’ Gamache took a deep breath, as though changing the subject. ‘We’re investigating this as though it was a murder, though we doubt that. I have the coroner’s preliminary report here.’ He flipped open his palm pilot. ‘It confirms that Jane Neal died between six-thirty and seven yesterday morning. The weapon appears to have been an arrow.’

  This produced more than a few murmurs.

  ‘I say “appears” because no weapon was found. And that’s a problem. It argues against this being just an accident. That, combined with the fact that nobody has taken responsibility, is why we need to treat this as suspicious.’

  Gamache paused and looked at the gathering. A sea of well-meaning faces looked back, with a few rocks of petulance thrown in here and there. They have no idea what’s about to happen to them, thought Gamache.

  ‘This is how it starts. You’ll see us everywhere. We’ll be asking questions, checking backgrounds, talking—not just to you, but your neighbors and your employers and your family and your friends.’

  Another murmur, this one with an edge of hostility. Gamache was pretty sure he heard ‘fascist’ from his lower left side. He stole a look and saw Ruth Zardo sitting there.

  ‘You didn’t ask for any of this to happen but it’s here now. Jane Neal is dead and all of us need to deal with it. We need to do our job and you need to help us, and that means accepting things you wouldn’t normally accept. That’s just life. I’m sorry for it. But it doesn’t change the facts.’

  The murmuring diminished and there were even nods of agreement.

  ‘We all have secrets, and before this is over I’ll know most of yours. If they’re not pertinent then they’ll die with me. But I will find them out. Most days in the late afternoon I’ll be at Mr Brulé’s bistro, reviewing notes. You’re welcome to join me for a drink and a talk.’

  Crime was deeply human, Gamache knew. The cause and the effect. And the only way he knew to catch a criminal was to connect with the human beings involved. Chatting in a café was the most pleasant, and disarming, way to do it.

  ‘Any questions?’

  ‘Are we in danger?’ Hanna Parra, the local elected representative, asked.

  Gamache had been expecting this. It was a tough one since they really didn’t know whether it was an accident or murder.

  ‘I don’t think so. Should you be locking your doors at night? Always. Should you be careful walking in the woods or even around the Common? Yes. Should you not do these things?’

  He paused and saw a whole congregation of concern.

  ‘Did you lock the door last night?’ Clara whispered to Peter. He nodded and Clara gave his hand a relieved squeeze. ‘Did you?’ she asked Ben, who shook his head, ‘No, but I will tonight.’

  ‘That’s up to you,’ Gamache was saying. The reaction I see most is caution for about a week after an event of this sort. Then people go back to the way of life that’s most comfortable. Some continue the precautions all their lives, others revert to their old way of doing things. Most find a middle ground of prudence. There’s no right or better way. Frankly, I would take care right now, but there is absolutely no need for panic.’

  Gamache smiled and added, ‘You don’t look like the panicking kind.’ And they didn‘t, though most did have slightly wider eyes then when they had walked in. ‘Besides, I’ll be staying at the B. & B. here, if you have any concerns.’

  ‘My name’s Old Mundin.’ A man aged about twenty-five got up. He was impossibly handsome with curly dark hair, chiseled, rugged face, and a body that spoke of lots of lifting. Beauvoir shot Gamache a look both amused and confused. Was this man’s name really ‘Old’ Mundin? He wrote it down but without conviction.

  ‘Yes, Mr Mundin?’

  ‘I heard as that Lucy weren’t with Jane when she died. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. I understand that’s very unusual.’

  ‘You’re right there, boy. She went everywhere with that dog. She wouldn’t have gone into the woods without Lucy.’

  ‘For protection?’ Gamache asked.

  ‘No, just because. Why would you have a dog and not take it on your walk? And first thing in the morning, when a dog yearns to run and do its business. No, sir. Makes no sense.’

  Gamache turned to the gathering. ‘Can any of you think why Jane would leave Lucy behind?’

  Clara was impressed by the question. Here was the head of the investigation, a senior Sûreté officer, asking for their opinion. There was suddenly a shift, from mourning and a kind of passivity, to involvement. It became ‘their’ investigation.

  ‘If Lucy was sick or in heat Jane might leave her,’ Sue Williams called out.

  ‘True,’ called Peter, ‘but Lucy’s fixed and healthy.’

  ‘Could Jane have seen some hunters and put Lucy back in the house so they didn’t shoot her by mistake?’ Wayne Robertson asked, then a coughing jag caught him and he sat down. His wife Nellie put her generous arm around him, as though flesh could ward off sickness.

  ‘But’, asked Gamache, ‘would she go back alone into the woods to confront a hunter?’

  ‘She might,’ Ben said. ‘She’s done it before. Remember a couple of years ago when she caught -’ he stopped and grew flustered. Some uncomfortable laughter and a hum followed his aborted remarks. Gamache raised his brows and waited.

  ‘That was me, as you all know.’ A man rose from his seat. ‘My name’s Matthew Croft.’ He was in his mid-thirties, Gamache guessed, medium build, pretty nondescript. Beside him sat a slim, tense woman. The name was familiar.

  ‘Three years ago I was hunting illegally on the Hadley property. Miss Neal spoke to me, asked me to leave.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why were you there at all?’

  ‘My family has been here for hundreds of years and we were raised to believe that private property doesn’t exist in hunting season.’

  ‘That’s not right,’ a voice resonated from the back of the room. Beauvoir busily made notes.

  Croft turned to face the interruption. ‘That you, Henri?’

  Henri Lariviere, the stone artist, rose majestically to his feet.

  ‘It’s the way I was raised,’ Croft continued. ‘I was taught it was only right to be able to hunt where you chose, since your very survival depended upon getting enough meat for the season.’

  ‘Grocery stores, Matthew. Loblaws not good enough?’ Henri said, quietly.

  ‘IGA, Provigo,’ others yelled.

  ‘Me,’ said Jacques Beliveau, the owner of the local general store. Everyone laughed. Gamache was letting this go on, watching, listening, seeing where it would go.

  ‘Yes, times change,’ an exasperated Croft agreed. ‘It’s no longer necessary, but it’s a fine tradition. And a fine philosophy of neighbor helping neighbor. I believe in that.’

  ‘No one says you don’t, Matt,’ said Peter, stepping forward. ‘And I can’t think you have to justify yourself or your actions, especially from years ago.’

  ‘He does, Mr Morrow,’ Gamache broke in just as Beauvoir handed him a note. ‘Jane Neal was probably killed by a hunter trespassing on Mr Hadley’s property. Anyone with a history of this needs to explain.’ Gamache glanced at the note. In block letters Beauvoir had printed, ‘Philippe Croft threw manure. Son?’ Gamache folded the note and put it in his pocket.

  ‘Do you still hunt where you choose, Mr Croft?’

  ‘No, sir, I don’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I respected Miss Neal, and because I finally heard what people have been telling me for years and years. And I agreed. In fact I don’t hunt at all anymore, anywhere.’

  ‘Do you own a bow-hunting set?’

  ‘Yes sir, I do.’

  Gamache looked around the room, ‘I’d like everyone here who owns a bow hunting set, even if you haven’t used it in years, to give your name and address to Inspector Beauvoir here.’

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