Help others.
That’s what the guru had told him to do. Years he’d been at the ashram in India and the guru had finally acknowleged his presence. Almost a decade he’d spent there, in exchange for two words.
Help others.
So that’s what he did. He returned to Quebec and joined Brother Albert at LaPorte. To help others. It never, ever occurred to him that they’d help him. After all, how could people that damaged have anything to offer the great healer and philosopher?
It had taken years, but he’d woken up one morning in his cottage in the grounds of LaPorte and something had changed. He’d gone down to breakfast and realized he knew everyone’s name. And everyone spoke to him, or smiled. Or came up and showed him something they’d found. A snail, a stick, a blade of grass.
Mundane. Nothing. And yet the whole world had changed, as he slept. He’d gone to bed helping others, and woken up healed himself.
That afternoon, in the shade of a maple tree, he’d started writing Being.
“I’d kept an eye on Marc. Watched his successes in Montreal. When they sold their home and bought down here I knew the signs.”
“Signs of what?” Gamache asked.
“Burnout. I wanted to help.”
Help others.
He was just beginning to appreciate the power of those two simple words. And that help came in different forms.
“By doing what?” asked Gamache.
“By making sure he was all right,” Gilbert snapped. “Look, they’re all upset up there about the body. Marc did a stupid thing moving it, but I know him. He’s not a murderer.”
“How do you know?”
Gilbert glared at him. His rage back in full force. But Armand Gamache knew what was behind that rage. What was behind all rage.
Fear.
What was Vincent Gilbert so afraid of?
The answer was easy. He was afraid his son would be arrested for murder. Either because he knew his son had done it, or because he knew he hadn’t.
A few minutes later a voice cut across the crowded bistro, aimed at the Chief Inspector, who’d arrived seeking a glass of red wine and quiet to read his book.
“You bugger.”
More than one person looked up. Myrna sailed across the room and stood next to Gamache’s table, glaring down at him. He got up and bowed slightly, indicating a chair.
Myrna sat so suddenly the chair gave a little crack.
“Wine?”
“Why didn’t you tell me why you wanted that?” She gestured toward Being in his hand. Gamache grinned.
“Secrets.”
“And how long did you think it’d remain a secret?”
“Long enough. I hear he was over here having a drink. Did you meet him?”
“Vincent Gilbert? If you can call ogling and sputtering and fawning ‘meeting,’ then yes. I met him.”
“I’m sure he’ll have forgotten it was you.”
“Because I’m so easily mistaken for someone else? Is he really Marc’s father?”
“He is.”
“Do you know, he ignored me when I tried to introduce myself? Looked at me like I was a crumb.” The wine and a fresh bowl of cashews had arrived. “Thank God I told him I was Clara Morrow.”
“So did I,” said Gamache. “He might be growing suspicious.”
Myrna laughed and felt her annoyance slip away. “Old Mundin says it was Vincent Gilbert in the forest, spying on his own son. Was it?”
Gamache wondered how much to say, but it was clear this was not much of a secret anymore. He nodded.
“Why spy on his own son?”
“They were estranged.”
“First good thing I’ve heard about Marc Gilbert,” said Myrna. “Still, it’s ironic. The famous Dr. Gilbert helps so many kids, but is estranged from his own.”
Gamache thought again about Annie. Was he doing the same thing to her? Was he listening to the troubles of others, but deaf to his own daughter? He’d spoken to her the night before and reassured himself she was fine. But fine and flourishing were two different things. It had clearly gotten bad when she was willing to listen to Beauvoir.
“Patron,” said Olivier, handing Gamache and Myrna menus.
“I’m not staying,” said Myrna.
Olivier hovered. “I hear you found out where the dead man lived. He was in the forest all along?”
Lacoste and Beauvoir arrived just then and ordered drinks. With one last gulp of wine, and taking a large handful of cashews, Myrna got up to leave.
“I’m going to be paying a lot more attention to the books you buy,” she said.
“Do you happen to have Walden?” Gamache asked.
“Don’t tell me you found Thoreau back there too? Anyone else hiding in our woods? Jimmy Hoffa perhaps? Amelia Earhart? Come by after dinner and I’ll give you my copy of Walden.”
She left and Olivier took their orders then brought warm rolls smothered in melting monarda butter and spread with pâté. Beauvoir produced a sheaf of photographs of the cabin from his satchel and handed them to the Chief.
“Printed these out as soon as we got back.” Beauvoir took a bite of his warm roll. He was starving. Agent Lacoste took one as well and sipping on her wine she looked out the window. But all she could see was the reflection of the bistro. Villagers eating dinner, some sitting at the bar with beer or whiskey. Some relaxing by the fire. No one paying attention to them. But then she met a pair of eyes in the reflection. More specter than person. She turned just as Olivier disappeared into the kitchen.
A few minutes later a plate of escargots bathed in garlic butter was placed in front of Beauvoir with a bowl of minted sweetpea soup for Lacoste and cauliflower and stilton soup with pear and date relish for Gamache.
“Hmm,” said Lacoste, taking a spoonful. “Fresh from the garden. Yours too, probably.” She nodded to Beauvoir’s snails. He smirked but ate them anyway, dipping the crusty bread into the liquid garlic butter.
Gamache was looking at the photographs. Slowly he lowered the pictures. It was like stumbling across King Tut’s tomb.
“I have a call in to Superintendent Brunel,” he said.
“The head of property crime?” asked Lacoste. “That’s a good idea.”
Thérèse Brunel was an expert in art theft and a personal friend of Gamache.
“She’s going to die when she sees that cabin,” Beauvoir laughed. Olivier removed their dishes.
“How could the dead man have collected all these things?” Gamache wondered. “And gotten them in there?”
“And why?” said Beauvoir.
“But there were no personal items,” said Lacoste. “Not a single photograph, no letters, bank books. ID. Nothing.”
“And no obvious murder weapon,” said Beauvoir. “We sent the fireplace poker and a couple of garden tools to be tested, but it doesn’t look promising.”
“But I did find something after you left.” Lacoste put a bag onto the table and opened it. “It was way under the bed, against the wall. I missed it the first time I looked,” she explained. “I fingerprinted it and took samples. They’re on the way to the lab.”
On the table was a carved piece of wood, stained with what looked like blood.
Someone had whittled a word in the wood.
Woe.
TWENTY
Agent Morin wandered round inside the cabin, humming. In one hand he gripped the satellite phone, in the other he gripped a piece of firewood. Not for the woodstove, which was lit and throwing good heat. Nor the fireplace, also lit and light. But in case anything came at him out of the shadows, out of the corners.
He’d lit all the oil lamps and all the candles. The dead man seemed to have made them himself, from paraffin left over after the preserves had been sealed.