Gamache and Chernin met first with the coroner, who confirmed that death was due to a blow to Clotilde’s head. Almost certainly a brick.
There was no semen. It appeared she had not been sexually assaulted. Most of the bruises were either older or postmortem.
“Toxicology?” Chernin asked.
“Well, she was loaded. Cocaine, heroin. Amphetamines. Looks like she’d have snorted the living room sofa, given a chance. It’s possible she’d have died of an overdose anyway, had the murderer waited or known. The good thing, I suppose, is that given her state she probably didn’t see it coming, or feel anything.”
“But death was the catastrophic blow to her head?” Chernin asked.
“Yes.”
That at least was definite, though it seemed her life was also catastrophic.
“She was dead when she went into the water?” Chernin confirmed, reviewing the report while Gamache looked down at Clotilde’s body. At her face. At her worried expression.
He thought maybe Dr. Mignon was wrong and that, at the last moment of life, she had seen death coming.
“Yes, but this is where it gets interesting,” said the coroner. “As you know, I’m no specialist, so I didn’t put it into the report. I could never swear to this, but I don’t think she was ever completely submerged.”
Gamache turned around. “What do you mean?”
“I think, by the texture and mottling of her skin, and by the damage done by fish and birds, that she spent at least two days only partly submerged.”
He showed them the marks.
“We need her body sent to the coroner in Montréal,” said the Chief Inspector.
Dr. Mignon stripped off his gloves. “I’ll share my report with your coroner. The children?”
“They’re being cared for” was all Gamache could say.
Mignon shook his head and glanced back at the body. “I hope she was a better mother than she appears. Poor one. I can’t imagine she wanted her life to turn out as it did.”
Gamache and Chernin took the report, thanked him, then returned to the Arsenault home for a closer look around in daylight.
After the sleet of the day before, this one had dawned bright and fresh and clear. The ground was wet, of course, but the air smelled fresh, with a bite of cold. Such was the month of November. Unpredictable. Changeable. It could not be trusted.
The sunshine didn’t make the bungalow look more cheerful. In fact, if possible, it looked even worse. Though it didn’t help that they now knew what had gone on inside.
The scent of lemon cleaner still hung in the air. What had seemed fresh now smelled stale, cloying, chemical. Gamache and Chernin walked from room to room. Sometimes picking up items with gloved hands and placing them in evidence bags. Gamache noticed the exercise books with homework done by both Fiona and Sam. He bagged them, along with other small items.
He also picked up a stuffed dog from Fiona’s bed and a model plane Sam had made. Not as evidence. These would, he hoped, offer some small comfort in their new and unfamiliar surroundings.
He paused to look at what Sam had drawn on the walls. It was just meandering lines in crayon. Without, it seemed, purpose or destination. Like ley lines on a map, leading nowhere.
He took a photo.
They did not yet have the murder weapon. There was a pretty good chance it had been tossed into the lake. If so, it had sunk into the mud, to be lost forever.
Still, Gamache had ordered a diving team to look.
It could also have been thrown out a car window to be swallowed up by the thick forest. Leaving the house, and the smell of disinfectant, he walked into the backyard and looked at the mess.
He knew his people had been thorough. If the murder weapon, or any other evidence, was there, they’d have found it. Still, he spent half an hour lifting bedsprings, and tires, and broken garden furniture.
He did not return to the root cellar. He’d seen all he needed, and anything of value to their investigation had been taken away.
Going back to the house, he found Chernin once again in Clotilde’s room.
“Find anything?”
Linda Chernin held up an evidence bag. “I found this in her bedside drawer. And another just like it in Fiona’s room.” She shook her head. “She couldn’t even let her daughter have these without soiling them.”
“These” were sheets of stickers. Unicorns. Angels. Fairies. Mythical, magical creatures. The same ones used as code beside the names of abusers.
“You?” she asked.
He shook his head and took another tour of the house. Finally, when there was nothing else to see, he returned to the living room.
“What’s bothering you?” asked Chernin, joining him.
“Pains were taken to lose the brick, but not the body. Why? I think whoever killed her wanted Clotilde to be found. The coroner says she was put in shallow water. That cove—the one place any visitor to the lake was likely to find her. If the killer had taken her that far, he could’ve carried her along the shore and dumped the body where it wouldn’t be found.”
“True. Maybe he thought the lake itself was far enough. No one would find her there.”
“But there’d been reports in the media that environmental activists would be scouting out the lake.”
“Yes. I’ve pulled copies of the articles and the interviews on local radio.”
“Do they say when?”
“This week.”
“And when did the reports appear in the news?”
“The first story was two days before Clotilde was killed.”
Gamache nodded. “So whoever put her body there probably knew that those environmentalists would be at the lake. And there’s only one road in. They were bound to find her. But not too soon.”
Chernin nodded, knowing where this was going. “Dagenais said if he’d killed her, he’d have made sure she was never found.”
“Oui. I think that’s true. Once the body was found, he had no option but to call us, and that was a disaster for him. No, if he killed her, he’d make sure she was listed as just one more missing woman. An addict and prostitute. A cursory search would be made, and the file closed.”
“Shit. You think he didn’t kill her?” When Gamache didn’t answer, she continued. “Then who did? The hiker? Could he be the kids’ father? You thought maybe … But they just arrived yesterday morning, and their car shows no signs of blood. We’ll have the DNA report later today. Still…”
Still. It seemed unlikely. They were the ones who reported the body.
“Suppose Clotilde was blackmailing one of her clients. That’s a pretty good motive for murder.”
“Yes,” said Gamache. “But he’d also have to find and destroy her records. No use killing Clotilde, then have us arrive and find the videos and the ledger. Dagenais was the only one who searched and found them.”
“Well, he might have been the only one who found them but not the only one who searched.”
Gamache’s brows rose. “That’s true.”
“Those kids lied to us about Dagenais, they might be lying about someone else. Someone who also threatened them if they told. It seems they’re so used to hiding the truth, it’s become second nature.”
“Agent Moel thinks they’ve been so damaged for so long they might not be able to tell the difference between lying and the truth,” said Gamache. “And maybe not between right and wrong.”
He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, his fingers knitted together as though praying. But what he was thinking, what had just entered his mind, was as far from divine as it was possible to be.
Two days later, and back in Montréal, Gamache listened to the handwriting expert who’d studied the record book. It seemed the ledger contained the handwriting of not one but three people.
Clotilde had partners.