SEVENTEEN
A table was set in the corner of the library, by the windows, and there the three officers sat to eat. They hadn’t dressed for dinner, though Chief Inspector Gamache always wore a suit and tie during investigations and still wore it.
As the various courses arrived they went over their findings.
‘We now believe Julia Martin was murdered last night shortly before the storm. That would be sometime between midnight and one a.m., is that right?’ Gamache asked, sipping his cold cucumber and raspberry soup. There was a bit of dill in it, a hint of lemon and something sweet.
Honey, he realized.
‘Oui. Pierre Patenaude showed me his weather station. Between his readings and a call to Environment Canada we can say the rain began about then,’ Agent Lacoste confirmed as she sipped her vichyssoise.
‘Bon. Alors, what were people doing then?’ His deep brown eyes moved from Lacoste to Beauvoir.
‘Peter and Clara Morrow went to bed shortly after you left the room,’ said Beauvoir, consulting the notebook beside him. ‘Monsieur and Madame Finney had already gone up. The housemaid saw them and wished them goodnight. No one saw Peter and Clara, by the way. Thomas and Sandra Morrow stayed in the library here with his sister Mariana discussing the unveiling for about twenty minutes then they went to bed too.’
‘All of them?’ Gamache asked.
‘Thomas and Sandra Morrow went straight up, but Mariana stayed for a few minutes. Had another drink, listened to some music. The maitre d’ served her and waited until she’d gone to bed. That was about ten past midnight.’
‘Good,’ said the Chief Inspector. They were getting the skeleton of the case, the outline, the facts, who did what when. Or at least what they said they did. But they needed more, much more. They needed the flesh and blood.
‘We need to find out about Julia Martin,’ said Gamache. ‘Her life in Vancouver, how she met David Martin. What her interests were. Everything.’
‘Martin was in the insurance industry,’ said Beauvoir. ‘I bet she was insured to the gills.’
Gamache looked at him with interest.
‘I imagine you’re right. Easy enough to find out.’
Beauvoir lifted his brows then looked behind him. The large comfortable sofas and leather chairs had been rearranged and now a couple of tables were shoved together in the centre of the library. Three sensible chairs sat round the tables, and in front of each, neatly arranged, was a notepad and pen.
This was Agent Lacoste’s solution to the computer problem. No computers. Not even a telephone. Instead they each had a pen and a pad of paper.
‘I’ll start training the pigeons to carry the message. No wait, that’s silly,’ said Beauvoir. ‘There must be a pony express stop nearby.’
‘When I was your age, young man—’ Gamache began, his voice creaky.
‘Not the smoke signal story again,’ said Beauvoir.
‘You’ll figure it out.’ Gamache smiled. ‘I want to go back to last night. The family gathered here.’ Gamache got up from the dinner table and walked to beside the fireplace. ‘Before Julia came in we got to talking.’
Gamache replayed the scene in his head and now he saw them all. Saw Thomas making an apparently innocuous statement to his sister about their conversation. And Mariana asking something, and Thomas replying.
‘He told Julia we were talking about men’s toilets,’ said Gamache.
‘Were you?’ asked Lacoste.
‘Does it matter?’ asked Beauvoir. ‘Men’s, women’s, it’s all the same.’
‘People get arrested for thinking that,’ said Lacoste.
‘It seemed to matter to them,’ said Gamache. ‘We hadn’t specified. Just public washrooms.’
There was silence in the room for a moment.
‘Men’s toilets?’ Lacoste drew her brows together, considering. ‘And that made Julia explode? I don’t get it. Sounds harmless enough.’
Gamache nodded. ‘I agree, but it wasn’t. We need to find out why Julia reacted like that.’
‘It’ll be done,’ said Lacoste, as they sat down again.
‘Perhaps you’d like to chisel it into a stone so you don’t forget,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Though I think I saw some papyrus lying around.’
‘You interviewed the staff,’ Gamache said to Lacoste. ‘It was a hot night, could some of them have snuck away for a swim?’
‘And seen something? I asked and none admitted to it.’
Gamache nodded. It was what worried him the most. That one of the young staff had seen something and either was too afraid to come forward or didn’t want to ‘tell’. Or would do something foolish with the information. He’d warned them, but he knew kids’ brains didn’t seem to have receptacles for advice, or warnings.
‘Did you find the wasps’ nest by the murder site?’ Gamache asked.
‘Nothing,’ said Lacoste, ‘but I warned everyone. So far no problems. Maybe they drowned in the storm. But I did find something interesting while searching the guest rooms. In Julia Martin’s room.’ She got up and brought back a packet of letters, tied with a worn yellow velvet ribbon.
‘They’ve been fingerprinted, don’t worry,’ she said when the chief hesitated to touch the bundle. ‘They were in the drawer by her bed. And I also found these.’
Out of an envelope she brought two crinkled pieces of Manoir Bellechasse notepaper.
‘They’re dirty,’ said Gamache, picking them up. ‘Were they also in the drawer?’
‘No, in the fireplace grate. She’d balled them up and tossed them in.’
‘On a hot night, with no fire? Why wouldn’t she just put them in the wastepaper basket? There was one in the room?’
‘Oh yes. She’d used it to throw away that plastic wrap from the dry cleaners.’
Gamache smoothed out the two pieces of paper and read them as he took a sip of red wine.
I enjoyed our conversation. Thank you. It helped.
Then the other one.
You are very kind. I know you won’t tell anyone what I said. I could get into trouble!
The writing was in careful block print.
‘I’ve sent off a copy for handwriting analysis, but they’re printed. Makes it more difficult, of course,’ said Lacoste.
The Chief Inspector laid his linen napkin over the finds as the main course was brought in. Lobster for him, filet mignon for Beauvoir and a nice Dover sole for Lacoste.
‘Would you say the same person wrote both?’ asked Gamache.
Beauvoir and Lacoste looked again but the answer seemed obvious.
‘Oui,’ said Beauvoir, taking his first forkful of steak. He imagined Chef Veronique handling the meat, whisking the bearnaise sauce. Knowing it was for him.
‘Wonderful meal,’ said Gamache to the waiter as the plates were swept aside a few minutes later and a cheese tray arrived. ‘I wonder where Chef Veronique studied.’
Beauvoir sat forward.
‘She didn’t, at least not formally,’ said Agent Lacoste, smiling at the waiter whom she’d interviewed about murder just hours earlier. ‘I spoke with her this afternoon. She’s sixty-one. No formal training, but picked up recipes from her mother and travelled a bit.’
‘Never married?’ Gamache asked.
‘No. She came here when she was in her late thirties. Spent almost half her life here. But there’s something else. A feeling I had.’
‘Go on,’ said Gamache. He trusted Agent Lacoste’s feelings.
Beauvoir didn’t. He didn’t even trust his own.
‘You know how in closed communities, like boarding schools or convents or the military where people live and work at close quarters, something happens?’
Gamache leaned back in his chair, nodding.
‘These kids might have been here for weeks, maybe a couple of months, but the adults have been here for years, decades. Alone. Just the three of them, year in, year out.’
‘Are you saying they have cabin fever?’ demanded Beauvoir, not liking where this might be going. Gamache looked at him, but said nothing.
‘I’m saying strange things happen to people who live on the shores of a lake together, for years. This is a log cabin. No matter how large, no matter how beautiful. It’s still isolated.’