“An AA beginner’s chip. Bob told me everyone takes one. Do you have one?”
Suzanne nodded.
“May I see it?”
“I forgot. I gave it away.”
The two men stared and her color rose.
“To who?” Gamache asked.
Suzanne hesitated.
“To who?” Beauvoir demanded, leaning forward.
“I don’t know, I can’t think.”
“What you can’t think of is a lie. We want the truth. Now,” snapped Beauvoir.
“Where is your beginner’s chip?” asked Gamache.
“I don’t know. I gave it to one of my sponsees, years ago. We do that.”
But the Chief Inspector thought the chip was much closer than that. He suspected it was in an evidence bag, having been found caked in dirt where Lillian fell. He suspected that was one of the many reasons Suzanne Coates had come to Three Pines. To try to find her missing chip. To see how the investigation was going. To perhaps try to derail it.
But not, certainly, to tell them the truth.
Peter walked down the dirt road and noticed their car parked a little askew, on the grass border.
Clara was home.
He’d sat in St. Thomas’s Anglican Church for much of the afternoon. Repeating the prayers he remembered as a child, which pretty much boiled down to the Lord’s Prayer, the dinner prayer, “Bless, oh Lord, this food to our use…,” and Vespers, but then he remembered that was Christopher Robin and not one of the apostles.
He’d prayed. He’d sat quietly. He’d even sung something from the hymnal.
His bottom hurt and he felt neither joyful nor triumphant.
And so he left. If God was in St. Thomas’s He was hiding from Peter.
God and Clara both avoiding him. It was not, by most standards, a good day. Though as he walked down into the village he had to think Lillian would have traded places with him.
There were worse things than not meeting God. Meeting Him, for instance.
As he approached their home he noticed Denis Fortin just leaving. The two men waved to each other as Peter walked up the path.
He found Clara in the kitchen, staring at a wall.
“I just saw Fortin,” said Peter, coming up behind her. “What did he want?”
Clara turned around and the smile froze on Peter’s face.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“I’ve done something terrible,” she said. “I need to speak to Myrna.”
Clara went to walk around him, making for the door.
“No, wait, Clara. Talk to me. Tell me about it.”
“Did you see her face?” Beauvoir asked, as he hurried to catch up with Gamache.
The two men were walking across the village green, having left Suzanne sitting on the verandah. The rocking chair stilled. The watercolor on her lap, of Gabri’s exuberant garden, crunched and ruined. By her own hand. The hand that made it had destroyed it.
But Beauvoir had also seen Gamache’s face. The hardening, the chill in his eyes.
“Do you think that beginner’s chip was hers?” asked Beauvoir, falling into step beside the Chief.
Gamache slowed. They were almost on the bridge once again.
“I don’t know.” His face was set. “Thanks to you we know she lied about being in Three Pines on the night Lillian died.”
“She says she never left the kitchen,” said Beauvoir, surveying the village. “But it would’ve been easy for her to sneak around back of the shops and into Clara’s garden.”
“And meet Lillian there,” said Gamache. He turned and looked toward the Morrow home. They were standing on the bridge. A few trees and lilac bushes had been planted, to give Clara and Peter’s garden privacy. Even guests on the bridge wouldn’t have seen Lillian there. Or Suzanne.
“She must have told Lillian about Clara’s party, knowing that Clara was on Lillian’s apology list,” said Beauvoir. “I bet she even encouraged Lillian to come down. And arranged to meet her in the garden.” Beauvoir looked around again. “It’s the closest garden to the bistro, the most convenient. That explains why Lillian was found there. It could’ve been anyone’s, it just happened to be Clara’s.”
“So she lied about telling Lillian about the party,” said Gamache. “And she lied about not knowing who the party was for.”
“I can guarantee you, sir. Everything that woman says is a lie.”
Gamache nodded. It was certainly beginning to look like that.
“Lillian might have even gotten a lift with Suzanne—” said Beauvoir.
“That won’t work,” said Gamache. “She had her own car.”
“Right,” said Beauvoir, thinking, trying to see the sequence of events. “But she might have followed Suzanne down.”
Gamache considered that, nodding. “That would explain how she found Three Pines. She followed Suzanne.”
“But no one saw Lillian at the party,” said Beauvoir. “And in that red dress, if she was here someone would have seen her.”
Gamache considered that. “Maybe Lillian didn’t want to be seen, until she was ready.”
“For what?”
“To make an amend to Clara. Maybe she stayed in her car until an appointed hour, when she’d arranged to meet her sponsor in the garden. Perhaps with the promise of a final word of support before going out to make a difficult amend. She must have thought Suzanne was doing her a great favor.”
“Some favor. Suzanne killed her.”
Gamache stood there and thought, then shook his head. It fit, maybe. But did it make sense? Why would Suzanne kill her sponsee? Kill Lillian? And in a way that was so premeditated. And so personal. To wrap her hands around Lillian’s neck, and break it?
What could have driven Suzanne to do that?
Was the victim not quite the woman Suzanne described? Was Beauvoir right again? Maybe Lillian hadn’t changed, but was the same cruel, taunting, manipulative woman Clara had known. Had she pushed Suzanne over the edge?
Did Suzanne have a great fall, but this time did she reach up and take Lillian with her? By the throat.
Whoever killed Lillian had hated her. This was not a dispassionate crime. This was thought out and deliberate. As was the weapon. The murderer’s own hands.
“I made such a terrible mistake, Peter.”
Gamache turned toward the voice, as did Beauvoir. It was Clara, and it came from behind the lush screen of leaves and lilacs.
“Tell me, you can tell me,” said Peter, his voice low and reassuring, as though trying to coax a cat from under the sofa.
“Oh, God,” said Clara, taking rapid, shallow breaths. “What’ve I done?”
“What did you do?”
Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged looks and both edged quietly closer to the stone wall of the bridge.
“I went to visit Lillian’s parents.”
Neither Sûreté officer could see Peter’s face, or Clara’s for that matter, but they could imagine it.
There was a long pause.
“That was kind,” said Peter, but his voice was uncertain.
“It wasn’t kind,” snapped Clara. “You should’ve seen their faces. It was like I’d found two people almost dead and then decided to skin them. Oh, God, Peter, what’ve I done?”
“Are you sure you don’t want a beer?”
“No, I don’t want a beer. I want Myrna. I want…”
Anybody but you.
It wasn’t said, but everyone heard it. The man in the garden and the men on the bridge. And Beauvoir found his heart aching for Peter. Poor Peter. So at a loss.
“No wait, Clara,” Peter’s voice called. It was clear Clara was walking away from him. “Just tell me, please. I knew Lillian too. I know that you were once good friends. You must’ve loved the Dysons too.”
“I did,” said Clara, stopping. “I do.” Her voice was clearer. She’d turned to face Peter, to face the officers hidden behind the trees. “They were only ever kind to me. And now I’ve done this.”