The Murder Stone (9 page)

‘Quel dommage,’ said Gamache. ‘We’ll connect eventually. Merci. May I carry that?’ He put out his hand for the basket and after a small hesitation the innkeeper handed it to him gratefully.

‘It is getting hot,’ she said, ‘and I find the humidity wearying.’ She turned and started up the path at a pace that flabbergasted the Gamaches.

‘Madame Dubois.’ Gamache found himself chasing after a woman in her mid-120s. ‘We have a question.’

She stopped and waited for him.

‘We were wondering about the marble cube.’

‘What marble cube?’

‘Pardon?’ he said.

‘Pardon?’ said Madame Dubois.

‘That big box of marble down there, on the other side of the Manoir. I saw it last night and then again this morning. Your young gardener doesn’t know what it’s for and Pierre told us to ask you.’

‘Ah, oui, that marble box,’ she said as if there were others. ‘Well, we’re very lucky. We’re …’ and she mumbled something then headed off.

‘I didn’t hear what you said.’

‘Oh. All right.’ She behaved as though they’d tortured her for the information. ‘It’s for a statue.’

‘A statue? Really?’ Reine-Marie asked. ‘Of what?’

‘Of Madame Finney’s husband.’

Armand Gamache saw Bert Finney in marble in the middle of their beloved gardens at Manoir Bellechasse. Forever. His wretched face etched in stone and watching them, or God knows what, for eternity.

Their faces must have alerted Madame Dubois.

‘Not this one, of course. The first one. Charles Morrow. I knew him, you know. A fine man.’

The Gamaches, who really hadn’t given it much thought, suddenly understood a great deal. How Spot Finney had become Peter Morrow. His mother had married again. She’d gone from Morrow to Finney, but no one else had. In their minds they’d been thinking of them all as Finneys, but they weren’t. They were Morrows.

That might explain, at least in part, how a reunion to celebrate Father seemed to ignore Bert Finney.

‘Charles Morrow died quite a few years ago,’ Clementine Dubois continued. ‘Heart. The family’s holding a little unveiling later this afternoon, just before the cocktail hour. The statue’s arriving in about an hour. He’ll make a wonderful addition to the garden.’

She looked at them furtively.

By the size of the marble pedestal the statue would be enormous, Gamache guessed. Taller than some of the trees, though happily the trees would grow and presumably the statue wouldn’t.

‘Have you seen the sculpture?’ Gamache asked, trying to make it sound casual.

‘Oh, yes. Enormous thing. Naked, of course, with flowers around his head and little wings. They were fortunate to find red marble.’

Gamache’s eyes widened and brows rose. Then he caught her smile.

‘You wretched woman,’ he laughed, and she chuckled.

‘Do you think I’d do that to you? I love this place,’ Madame Dubois said, as they walked her the rest of the way back to the swinging screen door into the cool Manoir. ‘But it’s getting so expensive to run. We needed a new furnace this year, and the roof will soon need redoing.’

The Gamaches tilted their heads back to look at the copper roof, oxidized green over time. Even looking at it gave Gamache vertigo. He’d never make a roofer.

‘I’ve spoken to an Abinaki craftsman about doing the work. You know it was the Abinaki who built the Manoir to begin with?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Gamache, who loved Quebec history. ‘I assumed it was done by the Robber Barons.’

‘Paid for by them, but built by the natives and the Quebecois. Used to be a hunting and fishing lodge. When my husband and I bought it fifty years ago it was abandoned. The attic was filled with stuffed heads. Looked like an abattoir. Disgraceful.’

‘You were wise to accept the Finneys’ proposal.’ He smiled. ‘And their money. Better to have Charles Morrow in the garden and the repairs done than lose everything.’

‘Let’s hope he isn’t naked. I haven’t seen the statue.’

The Gamaches watched as she walked towards the kitchen.

‘Well, at least the birds’ll have one more thing to perch on,’ said Gamache.

‘At least,’ said Reine-Marie.

The Gamaches found Peter and Clara on the wharf when they went down for a swim.

‘Now, tell us what’s been happening in your lives, starting with Denis Fortin and your art.’ Reine-Marie patted the Adirondack chair. ‘And don’t leave out a thing.’

Peter and Clara brought them up to date on events in their village of Three Pines, then, after some more prompting, Clara told the story of the great art dealer showing up to their modest home there, his return visit with his partners, then the excruciating wait while they decided if Clara Morrow was, at the age of forty-eight, an emerging artist. Someone they wanted to sponsor. For everyone in the art world knew that if Denis Fortin approved of you, the art world approved. And anything was possible.

Then the nearly unbelievable news that after decades of trying to get someone, anyone, to notice her work, Clara was indeed going to have a solo show at the Galerie Fortin next year.

‘And how are you feeling about this?’ Gamache asked quietly, having left the women and wandered to the end of the dock with Peter.

‘Wonderful.’

Gamache nodded and putting his hands behind his back he looked out to the far shore, and waited. He knew Peter Morrow. Knew him to be a decent and kind man, who loved his wife more than anything in the world. But he also knew Peter’s ego was almost as large as his love. And that was enormous.

‘What?’ Peter laughed, after the silence had stretched beyond his breaking.

‘You’re used to being the successful one,’ said Gamache simply. No use pretending. ‘It would be natural to feel a little …’ he searched for the right word, the kind word, ‘murderous.’

Peter laughed again and was surprised to hear it magnified by the far shore.

‘You do know artists. I’ve had a bit of a struggle over this, as I think you know, but seeing Clara so happy, well …’

‘I’m not sure Reine-Marie would be pleased if I became a librarian, like her,’ said Gamache, looking over at his wife talking animatedly with Clara.

‘I can just see both of you working at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Montreal, seething resentments between the aisles. Especially if you got promoted.’

‘That wouldn’t happen. I can’t spell. Have to sing the alphabet every time I look a number up in the phone book. Drives Reine-Marie crazy. But you want murderous feelings? Hang around librarians,’ confided Gamache. ‘All that silence. Gives them ideas.’

They laughed and as they walked back to the women they heard Reine-Marie describe the rest of their day.

‘Swim, nap, swim, white wine, dinner, swim, sleep.’

Clara was impressed.

‘Well, we’ve had all week to perfect it,’ admitted Reine-Marie. ‘You have to work on these things. What’re you two doing?’

‘Boating, unveiling, getting drunk, humiliating myself, apologizing, sulking, eating, sleeping,’ said Clara. ‘I’ve had twenty years of reunions to perfect it. Though the unveiling is new.’

‘It’s a statue of your father?’ Gamache asked Peter.

‘The pater. Better here than our garden.’

‘Peter,’ said Clara mildly.

‘Would you want it?’ asked Peter.

‘No, but I didn’t really know your father. He was handsome enough, like his son.’

‘I’m not at all like him,’ snapped Peter in a tone so unlike him it surprised the others.

‘You didn’t like your father?’ Gamache asked. It seemed a safe guess.

‘I liked him about as much as he liked me. Isn’t that how it normally works? You get what you give? That’s what he always said. And he gave nothing.’

There was silence then.

‘After Peter’s father died his mother married again,’ explained Clara. ‘Bert Finney.’

‘A clerk in my father’s company,’ said Peter, tossing pebbles into the calm lake.

He was slightly more than a clerk, Clara knew. But she also knew it wasn’t the time to fine-tune her husband.

‘I’ll just be glad when this is over. Mother doesn’t want us to see the statue until the unveiling so Thomas suggested we all go boating.’ He cocked his head towards a green wooden rowboat tied to the dock. It was unusually long with two sets of oar holes.

‘It’s a verchere,’ said Reine-Marie, amazed. She hadn’t seen one in years.

‘That’s right,’ said Peter. ‘We used to go in the seven-in-a-verchere race at the local regatta. Thomas thought it would be a good way to pass the time. A sort of homage to Father.’

‘Thomas calls you Spot,’ said Gamache.

‘Has most of my life.’ Peter held out his hands. Reine-Marie and Gamache bent over, as though preparing to kiss a ring. But instead of a ring they found dots. Spots.

‘Paint,’ said Reine-Marie, straightening up. ‘Turpentine’ll get that out.’

‘Really?’ asked Peter with mock astonishment, then smiled. ‘These are new. From this morning in the studio. But I’ve had them on my hands, my face, my clothing, my hair, all my life. When I was a kid Thomas noticed and started calling me Spot.’

‘Nothing gets by Thomas, I’m guessing,’ said Gamache.

‘He’s the original recycler,’ agreed Peter. ‘He collects conversations and events then uses them years later, against you. Recycle, retaliate, repulse. Nothing’s ever wasted with our Thomas.’

‘So that explains Spot,’ said Reine-Marie. ‘But what about your sister Mariana? Why is she Magilla?’

‘Oh, some TV show she used to watch as a kid. Magilla Gorilla. She was fixated on it. Father used to get home from work right in the middle of the show and insist we all greet him at the door, like a big happy family. Mariana was always in the basement, watching TV. He’d have to yell at her. Every night she’d stomp up those stairs, crying.’

‘So Thomas called her Magilla, after a gorilla?’ Gamache was beginning to get a sense of the man. Peter nodded.

‘And what did you call him?’

‘Thomas. I was always the creative one in the family.’

They sat enjoying the slight breeze at the dock. Peter listened as Clara talked again about Fortin visiting her studio this past spring and seeing the portrait of their friend Ruth, the old and withered poet. Embittered and embattled and brilliant. For some reason Peter couldn’t hope to understand Clara had painted her as the Madonna. Not, of course, the dewy virgin. But an old and forgotten woman, alone and frightened and facing her final years.

It was the most beautiful work Peter had ever seen, and he’d stood in front of masterpieces. But never had he seen anything more extraordinary than in Clara’s small back studio, cramped with rejected pieces and magazines and curled and crisp orange rinds, next to his pristine, professional, disciplined space.

But while he’d once again taken a common item and gotten so close it was unrecognizable then painted it as an abstract and called it The Curtain, or Blade of Grass, or Transport, Clara had squirrelled away in her little space and captured the divine in the face of their wizened, shrivelled, vicious old neighbour. Veined old hands clutched a faded blue robe to her withered neck. Her face was full of misery and disappointment, rage and despair. Except her eyes. It wasn’t obvious. Just a hint, a suggestion.

It was there, in the tiniest dot in her eye. In the entire, huge canvas, Clara had painted a single dot, a spot. And in that spot she’d placed hope.

It was exquisite.

He was happy for her. Really.

A shriek broke into their reflections and in an instant all were on their feet turning towards the Manoir. Armand Gamache started forward just as a small figure shot out of the garden.

Bean.

The child raced screaming towards them down the lawn getting more hysterical with each panicked step, the swim towel snapping behind. And someone was chasing the child. As they came closer Gamache recognized the young gardener.

Peter and Clara, Gamache and Reine-Marie ran onto the lawn and put their arms out to stop Bean, who seemed strangely intent on avoiding them, but Peter caught the fugitive.

‘Let me down,’ Bean wailed and struggled in his arms, as though Peter was the threat. Wild eyed, the child looked back at the Manoir.

The lawn was filled with people, the Morrows, the Finneys and some of the staff following the now trotting gardener.

‘Who are you running from, Bean?’ Gamache quickly knelt down and took the child’s trembling hands. ‘Look at me, now,’ he said kindly but firmly, and Bean did. ‘Has someone hurt you?’

He knew he had until the others joined them to get an honest answer from Bean, and they were almost there. His eyes never left the frightened child.

Bean held out an arm. Welts were appearing on the tender skin.

‘What have you done to my grandchild?’

It was too late. They’d arrived and Gamache looked up into the accusing face of Irene Finney. She was a formidable woman, Gamache knew. He admired, respected, trusted strong women. He’d been raised by one, and had married one. But he knew strength wasn’t hardness, and a formidable woman and a bully were two different things. Which was she?

He looked at the elderly woman now, stern, unbending, demanding an answer.

‘Get away from Bean,’ she commanded, but Gamache stayed kneeling, ignoring her.

‘What happened?’ he quietly asked the child.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he heard behind him and turned to see the young gardener standing there.

‘That normally means it was,’ said Mrs Finney.

‘Irene, let the girl speak. What’s your name?’ Bert Finney spoke softly.

‘Colleen,’ said the gardener, edging away from the wild-looking old man. ‘It was wasps.’

‘It was bees,’ snuffled Bean. ‘I was riding round Olympus when they got me.’

‘Olympus?’ snapped Mrs Finney.

‘The marble block,’ said Colleen. ‘And it was wasps, not bees. The kid doesn’t know the difference.’

Gamache knelt down and held out his large hand. Bean hesitated, and while the family argued over the difference between bees and wasps he examined the three welts. They were red and warm to the touch. Peering closer he could see the stingers stuck under the skin, with small poison sacs attached.

‘Can you get some calamine lotion?’ he asked a member of the staff, who sprinted back up the lawn.