Francoeur’s fork hovered just above his plate, as he looked across the table.
If the word was given now, they were just minutes from finishing what began decades ago. What started as two idealistic young men, and a whispered conversation, would end here. Thirty years later. With gray in their hair, and liver spots on their hands, and lines on their faces. With crisp linen and polished silver, red wine and fine food. Not with a whisper, but a bang.
“Soon, Sylvain. We’re within hours, perhaps a day. We stick to the plan.”
Like his companion, Chief Superintendent Francoeur knew patience was power. He’d need just a little more of one to achieve the other.
*
They were all there.
Marie-Virginie.
Marie-Hélène.
Marie-Josephine.
Marie-Marguerite.
And Marie-Constance.
He’d found the register of their birth. A long list of names, under Ouellet. And he’d found their deaths. Isidore, Marie-Harriette, and their children. Constance’s, of course, hadn’t yet been entered, but soon would be. Then the register would be complete. Birth, then death. And the book could be closed.
Gamache sat back in the chair. Despite the disorder, this room was calming. He knew it was almost certainly the quiet and the scent of old books.
He replaced the long, heavy books and left the church. As he walked across to the rectory, he passed the graveyard. The field of old gray stones was partly buried under snow, giving it a tranquil feel. More snow was falling, as it had all day. Not heavily, but steadily. Straight down, in large, soft flakes.
“Oh, what the hell,” he said out loud to himself, and stepped off the path. He immediately sank to mid-shin and felt snow tumble down his boots. He trudged forward, occasionally sinking up to his knees as he moved from stone to stone. Until he found them.
Isidore and Marie-Harriette. Side by side, their names written in stone for eternity. Marie-Harriette had died so young, at least by today’s standards. Shy of forty. Isidore had died so old. Just shy of ninety. Fifteen years ago.
The Chief tried to clear the snow from the front of the tombstone, to read the other names and dates, but there was too much of it. He looked around, then retraced his steps.
He saw the priest approaching and greeted him.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” asked Father Antoine.
He sounded friendlier now. Perhaps, Gamache thought, he suffered more from low blood sugar than ill temper or chronic disappointment in a God who had dropped him here, then forgotten about him.
“Sort of,” said Gamache. “I tried to look at the graves but there’s too much snow.”
“I’ll get a shovel.”
Father Antoine returned a few minutes later and Gamache cleared a path to the monument, then dug out the stone itself.
Marie-Virginie.
Marie-Hélène.
Marie-Josephine.
Marie-Marguerite.
And Marie-Constance. Her birthdate was there, just not yet her death. There was a presumption that she’d be buried with her siblings. In death as in life.
“Let me ask you this, mon père,” said Gamache.
“Oui?”
“Would it be possible to fake a funeral? And fake the registry?”
Father Antoine was taken aback by the question. “Fake it? Why?”
“I’m not sure why, but is it possible?”
The priest thought about that. “We don’t enter a death in the registry without seeing the death certificate. If that’s not accurate, then yes, I suppose the registry would be wrong too. But the funeral? That would be more difficult, non? I mean, we’d have to bury someone.”
“Could it be an empty casket?”
“Well, that’s not likely. The funeral home hardly ever delivers empty caskets for burial.”
Gamache smiled. “I suppose not. But they wouldn’t necessarily know who was in it. And if you didn’t know the parishioner, you could be fooled too.”
“Now you’re suggesting there was someone in the casket, but the wrong person?”
Father Antoine was looking skeptical. And well he should be, thought the Chief.
Still, so much of the Ouellet Quintuplets’ lives had been faked, why not their deaths too? But to what end? And which one might still be alive?
He shook his head. By far the most reasonable answer was the simplest. They were all dead. And the question he should be asking himself was not if they were dead, but if they were murdered.
He looked at the neighboring gravestones. To the left, more Ouellets. Isidore’s family. To the right, the Pineaults. Marie-Harriette’s family. All the Pineault boys’ names began with Marc. Gamache leaned closer and wasn’t surprised to see that all the girls’ names started with Marie.
His gaze was drawn back to Marie-Harriette.
Long dead and buried in another town, / my mother hasn’t finished with me yet.
Gamache wondered what the unfinished business was, between mother and daughters. Mama. Ma.
“Has anyone been by lately asking about the Quints?” Gamache asked as they walked single-file back down the narrow path he’d cleared.
“No. Most people have long ago forgotten them.”