“What happened?” Gamache leaned forward, not a lot but enough to show Monsieur Godin that he had Gamache’s full attention.
“They say she killed herself. Hanged herself, out back. I know it’s not true. Pat would never do that.”
“I’m sorry,” said Gamache and paused a beat before asking, “When was this?”
“April twenty-first. I found her…”
“Five weeks ago,” Billy whispered, and Gamache nodded. He was thinking the same thing. It was exactly the time she’d forwarded the letter to Billy.
“Did she leave a note? Any message explaining?” Gamache asked.
Monsieur Godin shook his head. “She’d had a hysterectomy and the coroner said that had upset her hormones. Made her depressed. That’s bullshit. She had trouble sleeping, but she wasn’t depressed. There’s no way Pat killed herself. And…”
“Yes?”
Godin heaved a sigh. “Even if she had, she wouldn’t have hung herself. That must be a terrible way to go. Wouldn’t she have tried pills?” He was beseeching them. “Wouldn’t you?”
Billy had to agree. If it came to that, he’d try many things before hanging. And there was something else.
“You say it happened out back? A tree?” When Monsieur Godin nodded, Billy asked, “Which one?”
Monsieur Godin stared at him with something akin to disgust. “Does it matter?”
“It might.”
“I can show you, if you want.” This was said to Gamache.
“Please.” Though he was also unsure why Billy would want to know. But he knew Billy Williams, and knew it was not prurient interest.
“I wanted to cut it down,” said Godin as he took them through the kitchen and out onto the back porch. “But the children stopped me. Said it wasn’t the tree’s fault.” He pointed. “That’s the one.”
In the middle of the yard, about twenty meters from the house, there stood a huge maple. Old, gnarled, its limbs thick and solid.
“Mable,” said Billy, as rain pounded the roof overhead and cascaded down, creating a wall of water between them and the tree.
“Mable?” said Gamache and Godin together.
“Mable the maple,” said Billy. “It’s what my grandmother called her. We used to climb all over her. Fell out of her more than once. She was old in my day.” He shook his head and smiled. Then he remembered what had happened, and his smile fell from his face.
“So do our grandchildren,” said Monsieur Godin. “That’s why our son and daughter didn’t want it cut down. But they didn’t see…”
No, thought Armand. They didn’t.
Armand understood now why Billy had asked the question.
He turned to Monsieur Godin. “If she did want to hang herself, would your wife have chosen this tree?”
Godin, still staring at it, shook his head. “No. Never. She wouldn’t do that to the kids. To me. To the tree.”
The three men stared at Mable. Gamache believed him. Which meant, if Madame Godin did not take her own life, someone else did.
And it almost certainly had something to do with the letter. The one in his breast pocket.
“We need to talk, but first I need to make a call.”
Jean-Guy Beauvoir was sitting at his desk at Sûreté headquarters in Montréal when the call came through. It was mid-afternoon, and he was going over reports on the various investigations under way.
“Chief? Everything okay?”
“I think I’ve discovered a homicide,” said Gamache.
“Where?” said Jean-Guy, sitting forward and grabbing a pen.
“Just outside Cowansville. I need you to look up the file on a Patricia Godin. She died on April twenty-first of this year.” He gave the address. “It was ruled a suicide.”
“But you think it was murder?”
“I’m almost sure it was. She was cremated, so we can’t exhume her body, but I want the autopsy report and anything you can find from the local Sûreté.”
“They missed it?”
“Yes. They put it down to depression caused by a hysterectomy.”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“Oh, Jesus” was right, thought Gamache. He’d hoped they were well beyond the days when women went to a doctor with pain and it was dismissed as hysteria. When “that time of the month” became a euphemism for derangement, and menopause became an illness.
He would have words with the station commander, but first things first.
“How did you discover it?” Beauvoir asked.
When Gamache told him about the letter and the hidden room, Beauvoir was silent for a moment, then asked, “So you think someone killed her to stop her from reading the letter?”
“Maybe,” said Gamache. “But it was too late. The letter had already arrived, and she’d forwarded it.”
“So why kill her? Because she’d read it? Then why not kill Billy? Why not try to get the letter back? Presumably the murderer would have found out from Madame Godin where she sent it.”
“True. Before we go too far, we need to make sure it was murder.”
“I’ll get you the information and come down.”
Rejoining Monsieur Godin and Billy in front of the fire, he brought out the Stone letter.
“Did you ever see this?”
Monsieur Godin looked at it, then shook his head. “It’s strange, old. And that stuff about bricking up the room. But why are you showing it to me? Does it have anything to do with Pat?”
“We don’t know. We do know the letter came here first, then your wife forwarded it to Monsieur Williams here.”
“So? An old letter came here by mistake and she sent it on. People do.”
“Did your wife mention this letter?”
“Non. How could this have anything to do with her death?” He held Gamache’s eyes. “That is what you’re thinking.”
Gamache now showed him the Post-it note. “Is this your wife’s handwriting?”
“No.” It was so unequivocal, Gamache raised his brows. Seeing this, Godin got up. “Pat had terrible handwriting. I can show you.”
Godin returned with a shopping list his wife had made and stuck to the fridge with a magnet. He clearly wasn’t yet ready to throw out anything she’d touched.
Godin was right. Her handwriting was almost unintelligible.
“Merci,” said Armand, taking the list. “Do you mind if I keep this?”
Godin shook his head and watched as the Chief Inspector placed it in a baggie, along with the Post-it.
Gamache had one more question. “Do you have Billy Williams’s address?”
“His?” Monsieur Godin pointed to Billy. “If you need it, why not just ask him?”
“Non,” said Gamache, almost smiling. “I mean, would your wife be able to forward mail to him?”
“I doubt it.” He turned to Billy. “We had your parents’ address in the seniors’ home, but that was years ago and I know they’ve since passed away. We never had yours. Besides, nothing’s arrived for your family in years.”
“Merci.” Gamache got to his feet. He now had a pretty good idea why Madame Godin was killed. Like most murders, it had started long ago, and in the most banal of ways.
When she and her husband had bought a home. This home.
He picked up the envelope and looked at the crossed-out address and the new one, Billy’s, added. In the hand of her killer.
Patricia Godin was murdered not to stop the letter, but to make sure it was sent on. To the people who needed to see it.
Then he looked at the Post-it note, also written, he was sure, by her killer.
I think this might interest you.
It was almost, Gamache thought, as though the words were meant for him.
“You weren’t kidding.”
As soon as Jean-Guy Beauvoir arrived in Three Pines, Gamache had taken him up to Myrna’s loft to see the no-longer-hidden room.