Gamache watched the road, and thought of miracles and myths. And how Myrna described that moment when Constance had first admitted she wasn’t a Pineault at all, but one of the Ouellet Quints.
Myrna had said it was as though one of the Greek gods had materialized. Hera. And later, Thérèse Brunel had pointed out that Hera wasn’t just any goddess, but the chief female. Powerful and jealous.
Myrna had protested, saying it was just a name she’d pulled out of the air. She could have said Athena or Aphrodite. Except she hadn’t. Myrna had named solemn and vengeful Hera.
The question that Gamache turned over and over in his mind was whether Constance wanted to tell Myrna about something done to her. Possibly by her father. Or something she’d done, or they’d all done, to someone else.
Constance had a secret. That much was obvious. And Gamache was all but certain she was finally ready to tell it, to drop the albatross at Myrna’s feet.
Suppose Constance Ouellet had gone to someone else first? Someone she knew she could trust. Who could that be? Was there anyone, besides Myrna, Constance might consider a confidant?
The fact was there really wasn’t anyone else. The uncle, André, hadn’t seen them in years and hardly seemed a fan. There were the neighbors, who were all kept at a polite distance. The priest, Père Antoine, if Constance was inclined to a confession or an intimate chat to save her soul, seemed to consider them as commodities and nothing more. Neither human nor divine.
Gamache went back over the case. Over and over. And what kept coming to him was the question of whether Marie-Constance Ouellet was really the last of her kind. Or had one of them escaped. Faked her death, changed her name. Made a life for herself.
It would have been far easier back in the fifties and sixties. Even the seventies. Before computers, before the need for so much documentation.
And if one of the Quints still lived, could she have killed her sibling to keep her quiet? To keep her secret?
But what was that secret? That one sister still lived? That she’d faked her death?
Gamache stared at the brake lights ahead, his face bathed in the glowing red lights, and he remembered what Father Antoine had said. They’d have to have buried someone.
Was that the secret? Not that one of the sisters lived, but that someone else must have died, and been buried.
He completely forgot he was on the bridge, meters from the long drop to the slushy river. His mind was now occupied by this puzzle. Again he went back over the case, looking for some elderly woman. Almost eighty. There were a few elderly men. The priest, Father Antoine. The uncle, André Pineault. But no women, except Ruth.
For a moment Gamache toyed with the thought that Ruth was indeed a missing Quint. Not an imaginary sister, as Ruth had claimed, but a real one. And maybe that explained why Constance had visited Ruth, had formed a bond with the embittered old poet who’d written a seminal poem about the death of whom? Virginie Ouellet.
Was it possible? Could Ruth Zardo be Virginie? Who hadn’t thrown herself down the stairs, but down a rabbit hole, and popped up in Three Pines?
As much as he liked the idea, he was forced to dismiss it. Ruth Zardo, for all her snarling demands for privacy, was actually fairly transparent in her life. Her family had moved to Three Pines when Ruth was a child. As much fun as it would be to arrest Ruth for murder, he had to grudgingly give up that idea.
But then another thought settled. There was one other elderly woman on the periphery of the case. The neighbor. The one who lived with her husband, next door, and who’d been invited onto the porch for lemonade. Who’d befriended, as much as that was possible, the very private sisters.
Could she be Virginie? Or even Hélène? Escaping the life of a Ouellet Quint? Tunneling out through the grave?
And he realized they only had the neighbor’s word for it that she hadn’t been invited further into the home. Perhaps she was more than a neighbor. Perhaps it was no coincidence the sisters had moved into that home.
Gamache was finally off the bridge. He took the first exit and pulled off the road to call Lacoste.
“The medical records check out, Chief,” she said from her home. “It’s possible they were forged, but we both know that’s a lot more difficult than it sounds.”
“Dr. Bernard could have arranged for it,” said Gamache. “And we know the weight of the government was behind the Ouellet Quints. And that might explain why the death certificate was so vague, saying it was an accident, but hinting at possible suicide.”
“But why would they agree to such a thing?”
It was, Gamache knew, a good question. He looked at the dry cheese sandwich on the seat next to him. The white bread curled up slightly on the cellophane. The snow was piling up on the windshield and he watched the wipers swish it away.
Why would Virginie want to fake her death, and why would Bernard and the government help?