A Trick of the Light (6 page)

“So you came over?” asked Gamache.

“Wouldn’t you?” asked the large man.

“I’m a homicide detective,” said Gamache. “I sort of have to. You don’t.”

“I’m a nosy son-of-a-bitch,” said Gabri. “I sort of have to too. And like Clara, I needed to see if we knew her.”

“Did you tell anyone else?” asked Gamache. “Did anyone else come into the garden to look?”

They shook their heads.

“So you all took a good look, and none of you recognized her?”

“Who was she?” asked Clara again.

“We don’t know,” admitted Gamache. “She fell on her purse and Dr. Harris doesn’t want to move her yet. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Gabri hesitated then turned to Olivier. “Doesn’t she remind you of something?”

Olivier was silent, but Peter wasn’t.

“The witch is dead?”

“Peter,” said Clara quickly. “The woman was killed and left in our garden. What a terrible thing to say.”

“I’m sorry,” said Peter, shocked at himself. “But she does look like the Wicked Witch of the West, with her red shoes sticking out like that.”

“We’re not saying she is,” Gabri hurried to say. “But you can’t deny in that get-up she doesn’t look like anyone from Kansas.”

Clara rolled her eyes and shaking her head she muttered, “Jesus.”

But Gamache had to admit, he and his team had talked about the same thing. Not that the dead woman reminded them of the Wicked Witch, but that she clearly was not dressed for a barbeque in the country.

“I didn’t see her last night,” said Peter.

“And we’d remember,” said Olivier, speaking at last. “She’d be hard to miss.”

Gamache nodded. He’d appreciated that as well. The dead woman would have stood out in that brilliant red dress. Everything about the woman screamed “look at me.”

He looked back at her and searched his memory. Had he seen anyone in a bright red dress at the Musée last night? Perhaps she’d come straight from there, as presumably many guests did. But none came to mind. Most of the women, with the notable exception of Myrna, wore more muted colors.

Then he had a thought.

“Excusez-moi,”
he said and walking swiftly back across the lawn he spoke to Beauvoir briefly then returned more slowly, thinking.

“I read the report on the drive down, but I’d like to hear from you myself how she was found.”

“Peter and Olivier saw her first,” said Clara. “I was sitting in that chair.” She waved toward the yellow Adirondack chair, one of two. A coffee mug still sat on the wooden arm. “While the guys went to Knowlton to pick up the papers. I was waiting for them.”

“Why?” asked the Chief Inspector.

“The reviews.”

“Ahh, of course. And that would explain—” He waved toward the stack of papers sitting on the grass, within the yellow police cordon.

Clara looked at them too. She wished she could say she’d forgotten all about the reviews in the shock of the discovery, but she hadn’t. The
New York Times,
the Toronto
Globe and Mail
and the London
Times
were piled on the ground where Peter had dropped them.

Beyond her reach.

Gamache looked at Clara, puzzled. “But if you were that anxious, why not just go online? The reviews would’ve been up hours ago,
non
?”

It was the same question Peter had asked her. And Olivier. How to explain it?

“Because I wanted to feel the newspaper in my hands,” she said. “I wanted to read my reviews the same way I read reviews of all the artists I love. Holding the paper. Smelling it. Turning the pages. All my life I’ve dreamed of this. It seemed worth the extra hour’s wait.”

“So you were alone in the garden for about an hour this morning?”

Clara nodded.

“From when to when?” Gamache asked.

“From around seven thirty this morning until they returned about eight thirty.” Clara looked at Peter.

“That’s right,” said Peter.

“And when you got back, what did you see?” Gamache turned to Peter and Olivier.

“We got out of the car and since we knew Clara was in the garden we decided to just walk around there.” Peter pointed to the corner of the house, where an old lilac held on to the last flowers of the season.

“I was following Peter when he suddenly stopped,” said Olivier.

“I noticed something red on the ground as we came around the house,” Peter picked up the story. “I think I assumed it was one of the poppies, fallen over. But it was too big. So I slowed down and looked over. That’s when I saw it was a woman.”

“What did you do?”

“I thought it was one of the guests who might’ve had too much to drink and passed out,” said Peter. “Slept it off in our garden. But then I could see that her eyes were open and her head—”

He tilted his, but of course he couldn’t achieve that angle. No living person could. It was a feat reserved for the dead.

“And you?” Gamache asked Olivier.

“I asked Clara to call the police,” he said. “Then I called Gabri.”

“You say you have guests?” Gamache asked. “People from the party?”

Gabri nodded. “A couple of the artists who came down from Montréal for the party decided to stay at the B and B. A few are also staying up at the inn and spa.”

“Was this a last-minute booking?”

“At the B and B it was. They made it sometime during the party.”

Gamache nodded and turning away he gestured toward Agent Isabelle Lacoste, who quickly joined him, listened as the Chief murmured instructions, then walked rapidly away. She spoke to two young Sûreté agents, who nodded and left.

It always fascinated Clara to see how easily Gamache took command, and how naturally people took his orders. Never barked, never shouted, never harsh. Always put in the most calm, even courteous manner. His orders were couched almost as requests. And yet not a person mistook them for that.

Gamache turned back to give the four friends his full attention. “Did any of you touch the body?”

They looked at each other, shaking their heads, then back to the Chief.

“No,” said Peter. He was feeling more certain now. The ground had firmed up, filled in with facts. With straightforward questions and clear answers.

Nothing to be afraid of.

“Do you mind?” Gamache started walking toward the Adirondack. Even had they minded, it wouldn’t have mattered. He was going there and they were welcome to join him.

“Before they came back, when you were sitting here alone, you didn’t notice anything strange?” he asked as they walked. It seemed obvious that had Clara seen a body in her garden she’d have said something earlier. But it wasn’t just the body he wanted to know about. This was Clara’s garden, she knew it well, intimately. Perhaps something else was wrong. A plant broken, a shrub disturbed.

Some detail his investigators might miss. Something so subtle she herself might have missed it, until he asked her directly.

And, to her credit, she didn’t come back with a smart-ass reply.

But Gabri did. “Like the body?”

“No,” said the Chief, as they arrived at the chair. He turned and surveyed the garden from there. It was true that at this angle the dead woman was hidden by the flower beds. “I mean something else.”

He turned thoughtful eyes on Clara.

“Is there anything unusual about your garden this morning?” He shot a warning glance at Gabri, who put a finger to his mouth. “Anything small? Some detail off?”

Clara looked around. The back lawn was dotted with large flower beds. Some round, some oblong. Tall trees along the riverbank threw dappled shade, but most of it was in bright noonday sun. Clara scanned her garden, as did the others.

Was there something different? It was so hard to tell now, what with all the people, the newspapers, the activity, the yellow police tape. The newspapers. The body. The newspapers.

Everything was different.

She turned back to Gamache, her eyes asking for help.

Gamache hated to give it, hated to suggest in case he led her to see something that wasn’t really there.

“It’s possible the murderer hid back here,” he finally said. “Waiting.”

He left it at that. And he could see Clara understood. She turned back to her garden. Had a man intent on murder waited here? In her private sanctuary?

Had he hidden himself in the flower beds? Crouching behind the tall peony? Had he peered out from the morning glory climbing the post? Had he knelt behind the growing phlox?

Waiting?

She looked at each and every perennial, each shrub. Looking for something knocked down, knocked askew, a limb twisted, a bud broken off.

But it was perfect. Myrna and Gabri had worked days on the garden, getting it immaculate for the party. And it was. Last night. And it was that morning.

Except for the police, like pests, crawling all over it. And the bright body. A blight.

“Do you see anything?” she asked Gabri.

“No,” he said. “If the murderer hid back here it wasn’t in one of the flower beds. Maybe behind a tree?” He waved toward the maples but Gamache shook his head.

“Too far away. It would take him too long to make it across the lawn and around the flower beds. She’d have seen him coming.”

“So where did he hide?” Olivier asked.

“He didn’t,” said Gamache, sitting in the Adirondack chair. From there the body was also hidden. No, Clara couldn’t see the dead woman.

The Chief Inspector hauled himself up. “He didn’t hide. He waited in plain sight.”

“And she walked right up to him?” Peter asked. “She knew him?”

“Or he walked up to her,” said Gamache. “Either way, she wasn’t alarmed or frightened.”

“What was she doing back here?” Clara asked. “The barbeque was out there,” she waved beyond their home. “Everything was on the green. The food, the drinks, the music. The caterers set up all the tables and chairs out front.”

“But if people wanted to, they could walk into back yards?” Gamache asked, trying to get a picture of the event.

“Sure,” said Olivier. “If they wanted. There weren’t any fences or ropes up to stop them, but there was no need.”

“Well—” said Clara.

They turned to her.

“Well, I didn’t come back here last night, but I have at other parties. To kind of escape for a few minutes, you know?”

To their surprise, Gabri nodded. “I do the same thing, sometimes. Just to be quiet, get away from all the people.”

“Did you last night?” Gamache asked.

Gabri shook his head. “Too much to do. We had caterers, but you still have to supervise.”

“So it’s possible the dead woman came back here for a quiet moment,” said Gamache. “She might not have known it was your home.” He looked at Clara and Peter. “She just chose any place that was private, away from the crowds.”

They were silent then, for a moment. Imagining the woman in the bright red “look at me” dress. Slipping around the side of the old brick home. Away from the music, and fireworks, from the people looking at her.

To find a few moments of peace and quiet.

“She doesn’t seem the shy type,” said Gabri.

“Neither do you,” said Gamache with a small smile and surveyed the garden.

There was a problem. There were quite a few problems, actually, but the one that perplexed the Chief Inspector at the moment was that none of the four people with him now had seen the dead woman alive, at the party.

“Bonjour.”

Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir approached. As he got closer Gabri broke into a smile and extended his hand.

“I’m beginning to think you’re bad luck,” said Gabri. “Every time you come to Three Pines there’s a body.”

“And I think you provide them just for the pleasure of my company,” said Beauvoir, warmly shaking Gabri’s hand, then accepting Olivier’s.

They’d seen each other the evening before, at the
vernissage.
At that time they’d been in Peter and Clara’s element. The gallery. But now they were in Beauvoir’s habitat. A crime scene.

Art scared him. But pin a dead body to the wall and he was fine. Or, in this case, drop it into a garden. This he understood. It was simple. Always so simple.

Someone had hated the victim enough to kill her.

His job was to find that person and lock him up.

There was nothing subjective about it. No question of good and bad. It wasn’t an issue of perspective or nuance. No shading. Nothing to understand. It just was.

Collect the facts. Put them in the right order. Find the killer.

Of course, while it was simple it wasn’t always easy.

But he’d take a murder over a
vernissage
any day.

Though, like everyone else here, he suspected in this case the murder and the
vernissage
were one and the same. Inter-locked.

The thought dismayed him.

“Here’re the pictures you asked for.” Beauvoir handed the Chief Inspector a photograph. Gamache studied them.

“Merci. C’est parfait.”
He looked up at the four people watching him. “I’d like you all to look at these photographs of the dead woman.”

“But we’ve already seen her,” said Gabri.

“I wonder if that’s true. When I asked if you’d seen her at the party you all said she’d be hard to miss in her red dress. I thought the same thing. When I tried to remember if I’d seen her at your
vernissage
yesterday, Clara, what I was really doing was scouring my memory for a woman in bright red. I was focusing on the dress, not the woman.”

“So?” asked Gabri.

“So,” said Gamache. “Suppose the red dress was recent. She might have been at the
vernissage,
but wearing something more conservative. She might have even been here—”

“And changed into the red dress mid-party?” asked Peter, incredulous. “Why would someone do that?”

“Why would someone kill her?” asked Gamache. “Why would a perfect stranger be at the party? There’re all sorts of questions, and I’m not saying this is the answer, but it is a possibility. That you were all so impressed by the dress you didn’t really concentrate on her face.”

He held up a photograph.

“This is what she looks like.”

He handed it to Clara first. The woman’s eyes were now closed. She looked peaceful, if a little flaccid. Even in sleep there’s some life in a face. This was an empty face. Blank. No more thoughts, or feelings.