Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

'What did Jane do?'

'She went away to school. Came back a couple of years later with her teaching degree and took over at the school here. School House Number 6.'

Gamache noticed a slight shadow at his arm and looked up. A man in his mid-thirties was standing there. Blond, trim, well-dressed in a casual way as though he'd walked out of a Lands End catalogue. He looked tired, but eager to help.

'I'm sorry I was so long. I'm Olivier Brule.'

'Armand Gamache, I'm the Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Surete du Quebec.'

Unseen by Gamache, Ruth's eyebrows rose. She'd underestimated the man. He was the big boss. She'd called him Inspector Clouseau, and that was the only insult she could remember. After Gamache arranged for lunch, Olivier turned to Ruth, 'How are you?' he touched Ruth lightly on the shoulder. She winced as though burned.

'Not bad. How's Gabri?'

'Not good. You know Gabri, he wears his heart on his sleeve.' In fact, there were times Olivier wondered whether Gabri hadn't been born inside out.

Before Ruth left, Gamache got the bare outline of Jane's life. He also got the name of her next of kin. A niece named Yolande Fontaine, a real estate agent working out of St Remy. He looked at his watch: 12.30. St Remy was about fifteen minutes away. He could probably make it. As he fished in his pocket for his wallet he saw Olivier just leaving and wondered if he couldn't do two things at once.

Grabbing his hat and coat from the rack he noticed a tiny white tag hanging from one of the hooks. It twigged. The thing that was out of place, unusual. He turned around, putting on his coat, and peered at the tables and chairs and mirrors and all the other antiques in the Bistro. Every one of them had a tag. This was a shop. Everything was for sale. You could eat your croissant and buy your plate. He felt a wave of pleasure at solving the little riddle. A few minutes later he was in Olivier's car heading for St Remy. It wasn't hard to convince Olivier to give him a lift. Olivier was anxious to help.

'Rain on the way,' said Olivier, bumping along the gravel road.

'And turning colder tomorrow,' Gamache added. Both men nodded silently. After a couple of kilometers, Gamache spoke. 'What was Miss Neal like?'

'It's just so unbelievable that anyone would kill her. She was a wonderful person. Kind and gentle.'

Unconsciously, Olivier had equated the way people lived with the way they died. Gamache was always impressed with that. Almost invariably people expected that if you were a good person you shouldn't meet a bad end, that only the deserving are killed. And certainly only the deserving are murdered. However well hidden and subtle, there was a sense that a murdered person had somehow asked for it. That's why the shock when someone they knew to be kind and good was a victim. There was a feeling that surely there had been a mistake.

'I've never met anyone uniformly kind and good. Didn't she have any flaws? Anyone she rubbed the wrong way?'

There was a long pause and Gamache wondered whether Olivier had forgotten the question. But he waited. Armand Gamache was a patient man.

'Gabri and I have only been here twelve years. I didn't know her before that. But I have to say, honestly, I've never heard anything bad about Jane.'

They arrived in St Remy, a town Gamache knew slightly, having skied at the mountain that grew behind the village when his children were young.

'Before you go in, do you want me to tell you about her niece Yolande?'

Gamache noticed the eagerness in Olivier's voice. Clearly there were things to tell. But that treat would have to wait.

'Not now, but on the way back.'

'Great.' Olivier parked the car and pointed to the real estate office in the little mall. Where nearby Williamsburg was self-consciously quaint, St Remy was just an old Townships town. Not really planned, not designed, it was working-class, and somehow more real than the far prettier Williamsburg, the main town in the area. They arranged to meet back at the car at 1.15. Gamache noticed that even though Olivier had a few things in the back seat he didn't lock the car. Just strolled away.

A blonde woman with a great big smile greeted Chief Inspector Gamache at the door.

'M. Gamache, I'm Yolande Fontaine,' her hand was out and pumping before he'd even slipped his into it. He felt a practiced eye sweep over him, assessing. He'd called to make sure she was in the office before leaving Three Pines and clearly he, or his Burberry, measured up.

'Now, please have a seat. What kind of property are you interested in?' She maneuvered him into an orange-upholstered cupped chair. Bringing out his warrant card he handed it across the desk and watched the smile fade.

'What's that goddamned kid done now? Tabernacle. Her impeccable French had disappeared as well, replaced by street French, twangy and harsh, the words covered in grit.

'No, Madame. Is your aunt Jane Neal? Of Three Pines?'

'Yes. Why?'

'I'm sorry, but I have bad news. Your aunt was found dead today.'

'Oh, no,' she responded, with all the emotion one greets a stain on an old T-shirt. 'Heart?'

'No. It wasn't a natural death.'

Yolande Fontaine stared as though trying to absorb the words. She clearly knew what each individual word meant, but put together they didn't make any sense.

'Not natural? What does that mean?'

Gamache looked at the woman sitting in front of him. Lacquered nails, blonde hair puffed up and soldered into place, her face made up as though for a ball, at noon. She'd be in her early thirties, he figured, but perversely the heavy make-up made her look about fifty. She didn't appear to be living a natural life.

'She was found in the woods. Killed.'

'Murdered?' she whispered.

'We don't know. I understand you're her closest relative. Is that right?'

'Yes. My mother was her younger sister. She died of breast cancer four years ago. They were very close. Like this.' Here Yolande attempted to cross her fingers but the nails kept knocking into each other making it look like a finger puppet version of All Star Wrestling. She gave up and looked at Gamache knowingly.

'When can I get into the house?' she asked.

'I'm sorry?'

'In Three Pines. Aunt Jane always said it would be mine.' Gamache had seen enough grief in his time to know that people handle it in different ways. His own mother, upon waking up next to her husband of fifty years dead in the bed, called her hairdresser first to cancel her appointment. Gamache knew better than to judge people based upon what they do when presented with bad news. Still, it was an odd question.

'I don't know. We haven't even been in yet.'

Yolande became agitated.

'Well, I have a key. Can I go in before you, just to kind of tidy up?'

He wondered briefly whether this was a real estate agent's learned response.

'No.'

Yolande's face became hard and red, matching her nails. This was a woman not used to hearing 'no', and a woman without mastery of her anger.

'I'm calling my lawyer. The house is mine and I do not give you permission to enter. Got it?'

'Speaking of lawyers, do you happen to know who your aunt used?'

'Stickley. Norman Stickley.' Her voice brittle. 'We use him too from time to time for house transactions around Williamsburg.'

'May I have his co-ordinates, please?'

While she wrote them down in a florid hand Gamache glanced around and noticed some of the listings on the 'For Sale' board were estates, beautiful, sprawling ancestral homes. Most were more modest. Yolande had a lot of condos and trailer homes. Still, someone had to sell them, and it probably took a far better salesperson to sell a trailer home than a century home. But you'd have to sell a lot of trailers to make ends meet.