Still Life

'Ahh, sustenance.' Gamache smiled.

'Well this is a pretty small nugget, but who knows. It just struck me as a strange coincidence and I thought you should know. It's about Jane's art.'

'I don't think it's that big a deal,' said Peter, soaked and sullen. Clara shot him a surprised look which wasn't lost on Gamache.

'It's just that Jane painted all her life but never let anyone see her work.'

'That's not so strange, is it?' said Beauvoir. 'Lots of artists and writers keep their work secret. You read about it all the time. Then after their deaths their stuff is discovered and makes a fortune.'

'True, but that's not what happened. Last week Jane decided to show her work at Arts Williamsburg. She just decided Friday morning, and the judging was Friday afternoon. Her painting was accepted.'

'Got accepted and got murdered,' murmured Beauvoir. 'That is odd.'

'Speaking of odd,' said Gamache, 'is it true Miss Neal never invited anyone into her living room?'

'It's true,' said Peter. 'We've gotten so used to it it doesn't seem strange. It's like a limp or a chronic cough, I guess. A small abnormality that becomes normal.'

'But why not?'

'Don't know,' admitted Clara, herself baffled. 'Like Peter said I've gotten so used to it it doesn't seem strange.'

'Didn't you ever ask?'

'Jane? I suppose we did, when we first arrived. Or maybe we asked Timmer and Ruth, but I know for sure we never got an answer. No one seems to know. Gabri thinks she has orange shag carpet and pornography.'

Gamache laughed. 'And what do you think?'

'I just don't know.'

Silence greeted this. Gamache wondered about this woman who had chosen to live with so many secrets for so long, then chosen to let them all out. And died because of it? That was the question.

Maitre Norman Stickley stood at his desk and nodded his hello, then sat down without offering a seat to the three officers in front of him. Putting on large round glasses and looking down at his file he launched into speech.

'This will was drawn up ten years ago and is very simple. After a few small bequests the bulk of her estate goes to her niece, Yolande Marie Fontaine, or her issue. That would be the home in Three Pines, all its contents, plus whatever monies are left after paying the bequests and burial fees and whatever bills the executors incur. Plus taxes, of course.'

'Who are the executors of her estate?' Gamache asked, taking the blow to their investigation in his stride, but inwardly cursing. Something wasn't right, he felt. Maybe it's just your pride, he thought. Too stubborn to admit you were wrong and this elderly woman quite understandably left her home to her only living relative.

'Ruth Zardo, nee Kemp, and Constance Hadley, nee Post, known, I believe, as Timmer.'

The list of names troubled Gamache, though he couldn't put his finger on it. Was it the people themselves? he wondered. The choice? What?

'Had she made other wills with you?' Beauvoir asked.

'Yes. She'd made a will five years before this one.'

'Do you still have a copy of it?'

'No. Do you think I have space to keep old documents?'

'Do you remember what was in it?' Beauvoir asked, expecting to get another defensive, snippy, answer.

'No. Do you-' but Gamache headed him off.

'If you can't remember the exact terms of the first will can you perhaps remember, in broad strokes, her reasons for changing it five years later?' Gamache asked in as reasonable and friendly a tone as possible.

'It's not unusual for people to make wills every few years,' said Stickley, and Gamache was beginning to wonder if this slightly whiny tone was just his way of speaking. 'Indeed, we recommend that clients do this every two to five years. Of course,' said Stickley, as though answering an accusation, 'it's not for the notarial fee, but because situations tend to change every few years. Children are born, grandchildren come, spouses die, there's divorce.'

'The great parade of life.' Gamache jumped in to stop the parade.

'Exactly.'

'And yet, Maitre Stickley, her last will is ten years old. Why would that be? I think we can assume she made this one because the old one was no longer valid. But,' Gamache leaned forward and tapped the long thin document in front of the notary, 'this will is also out of date. Are you certain this is the most recent?'

'Of course it is. People get busy and a will is often not a priority. It can be an unpleasant chore. There are any number of reasons people put them off.'

'Could she have gone to another notary?'

'Impossible. And I resent the implication.'

'How do you know it's impossible?' Gamache persevered. 'Would she necessarily tell you?'

'I just know. This is a small town and I would have heard.' Point finale.

As they were leaving, a copy of the will in hand, Gamache turned to Nichol, 'I'm still not convinced about this will. I want you to do something.'

'Yes, sir,' Nichol was suddenly alert.

'Find out if this is the latest copy. Can you do that?'

'Absolument.' Nichol practically levitated.

'Hello,' Gamache called, poking his head through the door of Arts Williamsburg. After they'd been to the notary they'd walked over to the gallery, a wonderfully preserved and restored former post office. Its huge windows let in what little light the sky offered and that gray light sat on the narrow and worn wood floors and rubbed against the pristine white walls of the small open room, giving it an almost ghostly glow.

'Boniour,' he called again. He could see an old pot-bellied wood stove in the center of the room. It was beautiful. Simple, direct, nothing elegant about it, just a big, black stove that had kept the Canadian cold at bay for more than a hundred years. Nichol had found the light switches and turned them on. Huge canvases of abstract art lunged off the walls. It surprised Gamache. He'd been expecting pretty country watercolors, romantic and salable. Instead he was surrounded by brilliant stripes and spheres ten feet tall. It felt youthful and vibrant and strong.

'Hello.'

Nichol started, but Gamache just turned around and saw Clara coming toward them, a duck barrette clinging to a few strands of hair, getting ready for the final flight.

'We meet again,' she said, smiling. 'After all that talk about Jane's art I wanted to come and see it again, and sit with it quietly. It's a bit like sitting with her soul.'

Nichol rolled her eyes and groaned. Beauvoir noticed this with a start and wondered if he had been that obnoxious and closed-minded when the Chief talked about his feelings and intuition.

'And the smell,' Clara inhaled deeply and passionately, ignoring Nichol, 'every artist responds to this smell. Gets the heart going. Like walking into Grandma's and smelling fresh chocolate-chip cookies. For us it's that combination of varnish, oils and fixative. Even acrylics have a scent, if you've got a good shnozz. You must have smells like that, that cops respond to.'

'Well,' Gamache said, laughing, and remembering yesterday morning, 'when Agent Nichol here picked me up at my home, she brought along Tim Horton's coffee. Double double. That gets my heart racing' – here he brought his hand to his chest and held it there-'totally and exclusively associated with investigations. I can walk into a concert hall, but if I smell Tim Horton's double double I'll start looking at the floor for a body.'

Clara laughed. 'If you like chalk outlines you're going to love Jane's work. I'm glad you've come to see it.'

'Is this it?' Gamache looked around the vibrant room.

'Not even close. This is another artist. Their show is ending in a week, then we hang the members' exhibition. That opens in about ten days. Not this Friday, but next.'

'That's the vernissage?'

'Exactly. Two weeks after the judging.'

'May I see you for a moment?' Beauvoir steered Gamache a few steps away.