‘It’s not a regular statue, is it?’ said Beauvoir, and thought maybe he’d find out where the Musee des Beaux Arts was in Montreal.
‘No, it’s like no other war statue you’re likely to see. The men aren’t heroic. They’re resigned, frightened even.’
Beauvoir could imagine. ‘But wouldn’t that make them even more heroic?’ he asked.
‘I think so,’ said Gamache, turning back to Charles Morrow. Who wore clothing, who had no chains or ropes or noose. At least, not visible. But Armand Gamache knew Charles Morrow was bound as surely as those men. Roped and chained and tied to something.
What was Charles Morrow seeing with those sorrowful eyes?
The owner of the crane company was waiting for them at the reception desk. He was small and square and looked like a pedestal. His steel-grey hair was short and stood on end. A red ridge cut across his forehead where a hard hat had sat, that day and every working day for the past thirty years.
‘It wasn’t my fault, you know,’ he said as he stuck his square hand out to shake.
‘I know,’ said Gamache, taking it and introducing himself and Beauvoir. ‘We think it was murder.’
‘Tabernacle,’ the man exhaled and wiped his beading brow. ‘For real? Wait till the boys hear that.’
‘Did your worker tell you what happened?’ Beauvoir asked, as they took the man into the garage.
‘He’s a horse’s ass. Said the block had shifted and the statue fell off. I told him that was bullshit. The base was solid. They’d poured a concrete foundation with sona tubes sunk six feet into the ground, below frost level, so it doesn’t shift. Ya know what I’m talking about?’
‘Tell us,’ said Gamache.
‘You have to dig down at least six feet around here when you do construction, below the frost line. If you don’t, whatever you build will heave when the ground thaws in the spring. Get it?’
Gamache understood what the worker had meant about his boss. The man was a natural lecturer, though not a natural teacher.
‘Madame Dubois at the Manoir never does anything unless it’s done right. I like that. I’m the same way myself. And she knows a thing or two about building.’ It was his highest compliment.
‘So what did you do?’ asked Beauvoir.
‘Keep your condom on, voyons. I’m getting there. She asked us to put in sona tubes so that the statue wouldn’t fall over, so we did. That was about a month ago. The thing hasn’t even been through a winter yet. Couldn’t have shifted.’
‘You sunk the shafts,’ said Beauvoir, ‘then what?’
A murder investigation, thought Beauvoir, was for the most part asking ‘then what happened?’ over and over. And listening to the answers, of course.
‘We poured the concrete, waited a week. It set. Then we put down that damned base, and yesterday I put the statue on. Huge fucking thing. Had to lift it carefully.’
The men were treated to a fifteen-minute explanation of how hard his job was. Beauvoir replayed the baseball game from the night before, thought about whether his wife would be angry again about his being away from home, had a small argument with the caretaker of his building.
Gamache listened.
‘Who was there when you placed the statue?’
‘Madame Dubois and that other fellow.’
‘Pierre Patenaude?’ asked Gamache. ‘The maitre d’?’
‘Don’t know who he was. In his forties, dark hair, overdressed. Must have been dying in the heat.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Lots of people came by to see. Couple of kids were working in the gardens and watching. The hard part is getting it on right. Don’t want it facing the wrong way.’ The operator laughed then launched into another five-minute monologue about positioning. Beauvoir treated himself to a fantasy involving Pierre Cardin and a shopping spree in Paris. But that got him thinking about the men of Calais, and that got him thinking about Charles Morrow and that brought him back to this long-winded bore.
‘… put the canvas thing over him that Madame Dubois gave me, and left.’
‘How could the statue have come off the pedestal?’
Gamache asked the question as he might ask any, but everyone in the room knew it was the key question. The operator shifted his gaze to the statue, then back.
‘The only way I know is with a machine.’ He was unhappy with his answer, and looked guilty. ‘I didn’t do it.’
‘We know you didn’t,’ said Gamache. ‘But who did? If it wasn’t done by a machine then how?’
‘Maybe it was,’ said the operator. ‘There coulda been a crane there. Not mine, but someone else’s. Maybe.’
‘It’s a possibility,’ said Gamache, ‘but I suspect Julia Martin would have noticed.’
They nodded.
‘What did you think of the statue?’ Gamache asked. Beauvoir looked at him with amazement. Who the hell cares what the crane operator thinks? Might as well ask the fucking pedestal.
The crane operator also looked amazed, but he thought about it.
‘Wouldn’t want it in my garden. Kinda sad, you know? I prefer happy things.’
‘Like pixies?’ asked Beauvoir.
‘Sure, pixies or fairies,’ the crane operator said. ‘People think they’re the same, but they’re not.’
Dear God, not a lecture on pixies and fairies.
Gamache shot Beauvoir a warning look.
‘Course, the bird helped.’
The bird?
Gamache and Beauvoir looked at each other.
‘What bird, monsieur?’ asked Gamache.
‘The one on his shoulder.’
His shoulder?
The crane operator saw their confusion.
‘Yeah, up there.’ He stalked across the floor, his muddy boots thudding on the concrete. Stopping at the statue he pointed.
‘I can’t see anything,’ said Beauvoir to Gamache, who also shook his head.
‘You got to be close to see it,’ said the crane operator, looking around the garage. Spotting a ladder he brought it over and Beauvoir climbed.
‘He’s right. There’s a bird carved here,’ he called down.
Gamache sighed silently. He’d hoped the crane operator had hallucinated. But no. There had to be a bird and it couldn’t be on Morrow’s foot. Beauvoir descended and Gamache stared at the ladder, knowing he had to see for himself.
‘Want a hand?’ smirked Beauvoir with the ease of a man who hadn’t yet found his phobia.
‘Non, merci.‘ Gamache tried to smile, but knew he probably looked maniacal. Eyes bright, hands shaking slightly, lips still trying to form a lie of a smile, he started up the ladder. Two, three, four rungs. Hardly high, but it didn’t have to be. Maybe, like Bean, I’m afraid to leave the ground, he thought with surprise.
He was face to face with Charles Morrow, staring into that grim visage. Then he dropped his eyes and there, etched into the left shoulder, was a tiny bird. But there was something odd about it. Every nerve in his body was begging him to get down. He could feel waves of anxiety wash over him and thought perhaps he’d let go, fling himself off the ladder. Drop onto Beauvoir. Crush him, as Morrow had crushed Julia.
‘You all right up there?’ Beauvoir asked, slightly anxious now.
Gamache forced himself to focus, to see the bird. And then he had it.
No longer trying to appear composed Gamache raced down the ladder, jumping the last two rungs and landing inelegantly at the crane operator’s feet.
‘What kind of a bird is it, do you know?’ Gamache asked.
‘Course I don’t know. It’s a fucking bird. Not a jay, that’s all I know.’
‘Does it matter?’ asked Beauvoir, who knew the chief never asked a question without a reason.
‘It has no feet.’
‘Maybe the guy forgot,’ suggested the operator.
‘Or maybe it was his signature, you know?’ said Beauvoir. ‘The way some artists never do eyes.’
‘Like Little Orphan Annie,’ said the crane operator. ‘Maybe this guy never does feet.’
All three dropped their eyes. Charles Morrow had feet.