Myrna looked at him. “One sibling turned on the others, yes.”
“Who?” asked Clara quietly. “What happened?”
*
Gamache pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, almost slipping on the icy pavement underfoot. The door was opened before he could ring, and he stepped inside.
“The girls are at a neighbor’s,” said Villeneuve. He’d obviously realized the importance of this visit. He led the way back to the kitchen, and there on the table were two purses, one for everyday use and the other a clutch.
Without a word, Gamache opened the clutch. It was empty. He felt around the lining, then tipped it toward the light. The lining had been recently sewn back in place. By Audrey or the cops who’d searched it?
“Do you mind if I take out the lining?” he asked.
“Do whatever you have to.”
Gamache ripped and felt around inside but came up empty. If there’d been anything there, it was gone. He turned to the other purse and quickly searched it but found nothing.
“Is that all there was in your wife’s car?”
Villeneuve nodded.
“Did they give you back her clothes?”
“The ones she was wearing? They offered to, but I told them to throw them away. I didn’t want to see.”
While disappointed, Gamache wasn’t surprised. He’d have felt the same way. And he also suspected whatever Audrey had hidden wasn’t in her office clothes. Or, if it was, it had been found.
“The dress?” he asked.
“I didn’t want it either, but it showed up with the other things.”
Gamache looked around. “Where is it?”
“The garbage. I probably should’ve given it to some charity sale, but I just couldn’t deal with it.”
“Do you still have the garbage?”
Villeneuve led him to the bin beside the house, and Gamache rummaged through until he found an emerald green dress. With a Chanel tag inside.
“This can’t be it,” he showed Villeneuve. “It says Chanel. I thought you said Audrey made her dress.”
Villeneuve smiled.
“She did. Audrey didn’t want anyone to know she made some of her own clothes or dresses for the kids, so she’d sew designer labels in.”
Villeneuve took the dress and looked at the label, shaking his head, his hands slowly tightening over the material, until he was clutching it and tears were streaming down his face.
After a couple of minutes, Gamache put his hand on Villeneuve’s, and loosened his grip. Then he took the dress inside.
He felt along the hem. Nothing. He felt the sleeves. Nothing. He felt the neckline. Nothing. Until. Until he came to the short line at the bottom of the semi-plunging neckline. Where it squared off.
He took the scissors Villeneuve offered and carefully unpicked the seam. This was not machine-stitched like the rest of the dress, but done by hand with great care.
He folded back the material and found a memory stick.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Jean-Guy Beauvoir turned off the highway onto the secondary road. In the backseat Chief Superintendent Francoeur and Inspector Tessier were conferring. Beauvoir hadn’t asked why they wanted to go to Three Pines, or why the unmarked S?reté van was following them.
He didn’t care.
He was just a chauffeur. He’d do as he was told. No more debate. He’d learned that when he cared, he got hurt, and he couldn’t take any more pain. Even the pills couldn’t dull it anymore.
So Jean-Guy Beauvoir did the only thing left. He gave up.
*
“But Constance was the last Quint,” said Ruth. “How could she have been killed by one of her sisters?”
“What do we really know about their deaths?” Myrna asked Ruth. “You yourself suspected the first one to die—”
“Virginie,” said Ruth.
“—hadn’t fallen down those stairs by accident. You suspected suicide.”
“But it was just a guess,” said the old poet. “I was young and thought despair was romantic.” She paused, stroking Rosa’s head. “I might’ve confused Virginie with myself.”
“Who hurt you once / so far beyond repair,” Clara quoted.
Ruth opened her mouth and for a moment the friends thought she might actually answer that question. But then her thin lips clamped shut.
“Suppose you were wrong about Virginie?” Myrna asked.
“How can it matter now?” Ruth asked.
Gabri jumped in. “It would matter if Virginie didn’t really fall down the stairs. Was that their secret?” he asked Myrna. “She wasn’t dead?”
Thérèse Brunel turned back to the window. She’d allowed herself to glance into the room, toward the tight circle and the ghost story. But a sound drew her eyes back outside. A car was approaching.
Everyone heard it. Olivier was the first to move, walking swiftly across the wooden floor. He stood at Thérèse’s shoulder and looked out.
“It’s only Billy Williams,” he reported. “Come for his lunch.”
They relaxed, but not completely. The tension, pushed aside by the story, was back.