They could tell by her face that she had news that would not be good. But neither Clara nor anyone else in the bistro thought it could be quite that bad.
Antoinette was dead. Murdered.
Like everyone else in the room, Clara had gotten to her feet on hearing the news. Then she’d sunk back down, staring at Myrna, who’d also dropped to her seat.
“What’s happening here?” asked Clara.
“It’s the goddamned play,” said Ruth, a few tables over. “She should never have decided to produce it.”
They fell silent again, thinking of the play and its author.
It felt as though a long, elongated shadow had slipped between the bars of Fleming’s cell, stretching toward them. Like a finger. Thin and grotesque.
And last night, it had arrived.
Clara and Myrna went over to join the old poet, who was scribbling in her notebook. Lines of poetry, Clara saw, but couldn’t read the words. Gabri and Olivier were already at the table.
Professor Rosenblatt sat at a corner table, watching them from the outer edge of their universe. Clara motioned to him and he got up and joined them. There seemed safety in numbers, though they all knew safety was comforting but an illusion.
Chief Inspector Lacoste pulled a chair over to their table.
“What happened?” Olivier asked.
She told them what she could.
“Do you have any idea who did this to Antoinette?” Myrna asked.
They spoke in hushed tones.
“Not yet.”
“Or why?” asked Clara.
Again, Lacoste shook her head. “When Antoinette called last night and said she wasn’t coming for dinner, did she say anything else?”
Clara thought about that. “She said she was tired and thought she’d have a quiet evening to herself.”
“What impression did you get?” Lacoste asked.
Clara shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I got no impression at all beyond what she said. She wanted an evening to herself, with Brian away and all.”
“How did you know he was gone for the night?”
“She told me when I called to invite them that afternoon.”
“Did anyone else know he’d be away?” Lacoste looked around the gathering. Everyone was shaking their heads. “Did you know Brian had regular meetings in Montréal?”
“We knew he had to go in every now and then,” said Olivier. “And that they have a small apartment in the city, but I don’t think we knew when he went.”
“Oh, my God, poor Brian,” said Gabri. “Does he know?”
“He found her,” said Lacoste. “This morning.”
“I’ll call him,” said Gabri, getting up and going to the phone. “See if he wants to come stay with us for a few days.”
“Is her death connected to the gun?”
That question was asked by Professor Rosenblatt, who up to now had sat quietly.
“We don’t know,” said Lacoste.
“But how could it be?” asked Myrna. “Antoinette had nothing to do with it, did she?”
“Not that we know of,” said Lacoste.
“It was the play,” Ruth repeated. “It was John Fleming.”
“Someone might’ve killed Antoinette because they were angry about the play,” conceded Lacoste. “And then made it look like robbery. It seems the most likely motive. But it wasn’t John Fleming. He’s in prison. Has been for years.”
“Has he?”
“What’re you saying, Ruth?” Clara asked.
“You of all people should know.” The old poet turned to her. “Creations are creatures, and they have lives of their own. That play is Fleming and Fleming is a murderer.”
“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,” said Rosenblatt, looking down at Ruth’s notebook, “Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”
Ruth glared at him and closed her notebook with such a snap they all jumped.
After breaking the news to Reine-Marie about Antoinette, and talking about it until there seemed little more to say, Armand went into the study and started searching the files for information on Highwater.
It seemed an innocuous little village. Like many communities, it was settled along the border with Vermont and had once thrived with lumber mills and a train station. But, like many small communities, it had shrunk once the railway had closed the station. And now it was almost invisible.
He spent a couple of hours but found absolutely nothing remarkable about Highwater. Absolutely no reason two intelligence agents should spend the day there.
But something was there. Something, or someone, had drawn Mary Fraser and Sean Delorme to Highwater.
He wandered out of the study and his eyes fell on his own copy of the Fleming play. He grabbed a day-old copy of La Presse and settled in. Then he got up to see if Reine-Marie was all right. She was in the kitchen, making dinner.
“Can I help?” he asked, though he knew the answer.
When upset, Reine-Marie liked to chop, to measure, to stir. To follow a recipe. Everything in order. No guessing, no surprises.
It was creative and calming and the outcome was both comforting and predictable.
“No, I’m fine. And yes, I mean that sort of FINE,” said Reine-Marie, making reference to the title of one of Ruth’s poetry books, where FINE stood for Fucked up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Egotistical.
He laughed, kissed her and returned to the living room, picking up a New Yorker. But his eyes were drawn to the play on the table by the door.
Finally he poured a drink for Reine-Marie and one for himself, then he picked up the goddamned play, and read.
He had to remind himself that there was nothing supernatural about what he held in his hands. Nothing malevolent. It contained only the power he gave it.
Armand forced himself to read a few more pages, then looked over at the bookcases lining their walls crammed with cherished volumes.
Where once his grandparents put up crucifixes and images of the benediction on their walls, he and Reine-Marie put up books on theirs. History books. Reference books. Biographies. Fiction, nonfiction. Stories lined the walls and both insulated them from the outside world and connected them to it.
He laid the script on the sofa and got up, browsing the shelves. Reading the familiar titles. Touching the covers.
Renewed, he returned to the play. And plowed onward.
A few minutes later the phone rang and Gamache realized he was gripping the play so tightly it took an effort to let it go.
“Chief?” said Lacoste. There was excitement in her voice.
“Oui?”
“Can you come over to the Incident Room? We’ve found something.”
“About the Lemaitre case?”
“Yes, but something else too.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He asked Reine-Marie to hold dinner for a few more minutes and explained where he was going.
“Invite them back if you’d like,” she called after him. “There’s plenty.”
She was four courses upset and considering an amuse-bouche.
“Adam,” said Gamache, taking the younger man’s hand in a grip that was strong and enveloping. “A sight for sore eyes.”
“Chief,” said Adam Cohen with delight.
“Are you one of the investigators on the Lemaitre case?”
“Oh, God no, sir. They won’t let me near the place,” said Agent Cohen. “Chief Inspector Lacoste barely lets me leave my desk at headquarters.”
“And yet, here you are in Three Pines. You’ll have to come down more often. I normally have to content myself with my son-in-law.”
Gamache gestured toward Jean-Guy Beauvoir.
“I’m afraid your daughter has shown questionable taste, sir.” Agent Cohen lowered his voice in the pretense of a whisper.