Still 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.

'There,' she shoved it across her desk. 'You'll hear from my lawyer.'

Gamache found Olivier waiting for him in the car. 'Am I late?' he asked, checking his watch. It said 1.10.

'No, a little early, in fact. I just had to pick up some shallots for tonight's dinner.' Gamache noticed a distinct and very pleasant odor in the car. 'And, to be honest, I didn't figure the interview with Yolande would take long.'

Olivier smiled as he pulled the car on to rue Principale. 'How'd it go?'

'Not quite as I expected,' admitted Gamache. Olivier gave a bark of a laugh.

'She's quite a piece of work is our Yolande. Did she cry hysterically?'

'Actually, no.'

'Well, that is a surprise. I would've thought given an audience, and the police at that, she'd make the most of her role as sole survivor. She's a triumph of image over reality. I'm not even sure if she knows what reality is anymore, she's so busy creating this image of herself.'

'Image as what?'

'A success. She needs to be seen as a happy and successful wife and mother.'

'Don't we all?'

Here Olivier gave him an arch and openly gay look. Gamache caught it and realised what he'd said. He raised his eyebrow to Olivier as though returning the look and Olivier laughed again.

'I meant'-Gamache smiled-'we all have our public images.'

Olivier nodded. It was true. Especially true in the gay community, he thought, where you had to be entertaining, clever, cynical and, above all, attractive. It was exhausting looking so bored all the time. It was one of the things that made him flee to the country. He felt in Three Pines he had a shot at being himself. What he hadn't counted on was it taking so long to figure out who 'he' was.

'That's true. But it goes deeper with Yolande, I think. She's like a Hollywood set. This big fake front and all sort of empty and ugly behind. Shallow.'

'What was her relationship with Miss Neal?'

'Well, apparently they were quite close when Yolande was small, but there was a rupture of sorts. No idea what it was. Yolande eventually pisses everyone off, but it must have been pretty big. Jane even refused to see Yolande.'

'Really? Why?'

'Not a clue. Clara might know. Timmer Hadley could certainly have told you, but she's dead.'

There it was again. Timmer's death, so close to Jane's.

'And yet Yolande Fontaine seems to think Miss Neal left everything to her.'

'Well, she might have. For some blood is thicker, etc.'

'She seemed particularly anxious to get into Miss Neal's home before we do. Does that make any sense to you?'

Olivier considered. 'Can't say. I don't think anyone can answer that question since no one has ever been into Jane's home.'

'Pardon?' Gamache thought he must have misheard.

'Funny, I'm so used to it I never even thought to mention it. Yes. That's the only thing that was weird about Jane. She'd have us into the mudroom and kitchen. But never, ever, beyond the kitchen.'

'Surely Clara-'

'Not even Clara. Not Timmer. Nobody.'

Gamache made a note to make that the first activity after lunch. They arrived back with a few minutes to spare. Gamache settled into the bench on the green and watched Three Pines go about its life and its singular death. Ben joined him for a few minutes chat then dragged Daisy back home. Before heading to the Bistro for lunch Gamache reflected on what he'd heard so far, and who would want to kill kindness.

Beauvoir had set up a large stand with paper and magic markers. Gamache took a seat next to him in Olivier's private back room and looked out through the wall of French doors. He could see tables, their umbrellas down, and beyond them the river. Bella Bella. He agreed.

The room filled with hungry and cold Surete officers. Gamache noticed Agent Nichol was sitting by herself and wondered why she chose her isolated position. Beauvoir reported first between bites of a ham sandwich, made with thick-sliced ham carved from what must have been a maple-cured roast, with honey-mustard sauce and slabs of aged cheddar on a fresh croissant.

'We scoured the site and found'-Beauvoir checked his notebook, smearing a bit of mustard on the page-'three old beer bottles.'

Gamache raised his eyebrows. 'That's it?'

'And fifteen million leaves.'

'This is the wound.' Beauvoir drew a circle using a red magic marker. The officers watched without interest. Then Beauvoir raised his hand again and completed the drawing, marking in four lines radiating from the circle, as though marking compass points. Several officers lowered their sandwiches. Now they were interested. It looked like a crude map of Three Pines. Contemplating the macabre image Gamache wondered if the killer could possibly have done that intentionally.

'Would an arrow make this wound?' Beauvoir asked. No one seemed to know.

If an arrow had made that wound, thought Gamache, then where was it? It should be in the body. Gamache had an image from Notre Dame de Bon Secours, the church he and Reine-Marie attended sporadically. The walls were thick with murals of saints in various stages of pain and ecstasy. One of those images floated back to him now. St Sebastien, writhing, falling, his body stuffed full of arrows. Each one pointing out of his martyred body like accusing fingers. Jane Neal's body should have had an arrow sticking out of it, and that arrow should have pointed to the person who did this. There should not have been an exit wound. But there was. Another puzzle.

'Let's leave this and move on. Next report.'

The lunch progressed, the officers sitting around listening and thinking out loud, in an atmosphere that encouraged collaboration. He strongly believed in collaboration, not competition, within his team. He realised he was in a minority within the leadership of the Surete. He believed a good leader was also a good follower. And he invited his team to treat each other with respect, listen to ideas, support each other. Not everyone got it. This was a deeply competitive field, where the person who got results got promoted. And being second to solve a murder was useless. Gamache knew the wrong people were being rewarded within the Surete, so he rewarded the team players. He had a near-perfect solution rate and had never risen beyond the rank he now held and had held for twelve years. But he was a happy man.