“I’d been to the student exhibit and seen Clara’s works,” said Peter. “I was standing beside Lillian and a bunch of others and they were snickering. Then they saw me and asked what I thought. Clara and I had begun dating and I think I could see even then that she was the real deal. Not pretending to be an artist, but a genuine one. She had a creative soul. Still does.”
Peter stopped. He didn’t often speak of souls. But when he thought of Clara that was what came to mind. A soul.
“I don’t know what came over me. It’s like sometimes when it’s very quiet I feel like screaming. And sometimes when I’m holding something delicate I feel like dropping it. I don’t know why.”
He looked at the large, quiet man beside him. But Gamache continued to be silent. Listening.
Peter took a few short breaths. “I think too I wanted to impress them, and it’s easier to be clever when you criticize. So I said some not very nice things about Clara’s show and they ended up in Lillian’s review.”
“Clara knows none of this?”
Peter shook his head. “She and Lillian barely spoke after that and she and I grew closer and closer. I even managed to forget that it happened, or that it mattered. In fact, I convinced myself I’d done Clara a favor. In breaking up with Lillian it freed Clara to do her own art. Try all the things she wanted. Really experiment. And look where it got her. A solo show at the Musée.”
“Are you taking credit for that?”
“I supported her all these years,” said Peter, a defensive note creeping into his voice. “Where would she be without that?”
“Without you?” asked Gamache, turning now to look the angry man straight in the face. “I have no idea. Have you?”
Peter made fists of his hands.
“What became of Lillian after art college?” the Chief asked.
“She wasn’t much of an artist, but she was, as it turned out, a very good critic. She got a job at one of the weekly papers in Montréal and worked her way up until finally she was doing reviews in La Presse.”
Gamache raised his brows again. “La Presse? I read the reviews in there. I don’t remember a Lillian Dyson by-line. Did she have a nom de plume?”
“No,” said Peter. “She worked there years ago, decades ago now, when we were all starting out. This would’ve been twenty years ago or more.”
“And then what?”
“We didn’t keep in touch,” said Peter. “Only ever saw her at some vernissages and even then Clara and I avoided her. Were cordial when there was no option, but we preferred not to be around her.”
“But do you know what happened to her? You say she stopped working at La Presse twenty years ago. What did she do?”
“I heard she’d moved to New York. I think she realized the climate wasn’t right for her here.”
“Too cold?”
Peter smiled. “No. More a foul odor. By climate I mean the artistic climate. As a critic she hadn’t made many friends.”
“I suppose that’s the price of being a critic.”
“I suppose.”
But Peter sounded unconvinced.
“What is it?” the Chief pressed.
“There’re lots of critics, most are respected by the community. They’re fair, constructive. Very few are mean-spirited.”
“And Lillian Dyson?”
“She was mean-spirited. Her reviews could be clear, thoughtful, constructive and even glowing. But every now and then she’d let loose a real stinker. It was amusing at first, but grew less and less fun when it became clear her targets were random. And the attacks vicious. Like the one on Clara. Unfair.”
He seemed, Gamache noticed, to have already floated right past his own role in it.
“Did she ever review one of your shows?”
Peter nodded. “But she liked it.” His cheeks reddened. “I’ve always suspected she wrote a glowing review just to piss off Clara. Hoping to drive a wedge between us. She assumed since she was so petty and jealous Clara would be too.”
“She wasn’t?”
“Clara? Don’t get me wrong, she can be maddening. Annoying, impatient, sometimes insecure. But she’s only ever happy for other people. Happy for me.”
“And are you happy for her?”
“Of course I am. She deserves all the success she gets.”
It was a lie. Not that she deserved her success. Gamache knew that to be true. As did Peter. But both men also knew he was far from happy about it.
Gamache had asked not because he didn’t know the answer, but because he wanted to see if Peter would lie to him.
He had. And if he’d lie about that, what else had he lied about?
*
Gamache, Beauvoir and the Morrows sat down to lunch in the garden. The forensics team, on the other side of the tall perennial beds, were drinking lemonade and eating an assortment of sandwiches from the bistro, but Olivier had prepared something special for Beauvoir to take back for the four of them. And so the Inspector had returned with a chilled cucumber soup with mint and melon, a sliced tomato and basil salad drizzled with balsamic, and cold poached salmon.
It was an idyllic setting disturbed every now and then by a homicide investigator walking by, or appearing in a nearby flower bed.
Gamache had placed Peter and Clara with their backs to the activity. Only he and Beauvoir could see, but he realized it was a conceit. The Morrows knew perfectly well that the gentle scene they looked upon, the river, the late spring flowers, the quiet forest, wasn’t the whole picture.
And if they’d forgotten, the conversation would remind them.
“When was the last time you heard from Lillian?” Gamache asked, as he took a forkful of pink salmon and added a dab of mayonnaise. His voice was soft, his eyes thoughtful. His face kind.
But Clara wasn’t fooled. Gamache might be courteous, might be kind, but he made a living looking for killers. And you don’t do that by being just nice.
“Years ago,” said Clara.
She took a sip of the cold, refreshing soup. She wondered if she really should be quite this hungry. And, oddly, when the body had been an anonymous woman Clara had lost her appetite. Now that it was Lillian she was ravenous.
She took a hunk of baguette, twisted off a piece and smeared it with butter.
“Was it intentional, do you think?” she asked.
“Was what intentional?” Beauvoir asked. He picked at his food, not really hungry. Before lunch he’d gone into the bathroom and taken a painkiller. He didn’t want the Chief to see him taking it. Didn’t want him to know that he was still in pain, so many months after the shootings.
Now, sitting in the cool shade, he could feel the pain ease and the tension begin to slide away.
“What do you think?” asked Gamache.
“I can’t believe it was a coincidence that Lillian was killed here,” said Clara.
She twisted in her chair and saw movement through the deep green leaves. Agents, trying to piece together what happened.
Lillian had come here. On the night of the party. And been murdered.
That much was beyond dispute.
Beauvoir watched Clara turn in her seat. He agreed with her. It was strange.
The only thing that seemed to fit was that Clara herself had killed the woman. It was her home, her party, and her former friend. She had motive and opportunity. But Beauvoir didn’t know how many little pills he’d have to take to believe Clara was a killer. He knew most people were capable of murder. And, unlike Gamache who believed goodness existed, Beauvoir knew that was a temporary state. As long as the sun shone and there was poached salmon on the plate, people could be good.
But take that away, and see what happens. Take the food, the chairs, the flowers, the home. Take the friends, the supportive spouse, the income away, and see what happens.
The Chief believed if you sift through evil, at the very bottom you’ll find good. He believed that evil has its limits. Beauvoir didn’t. He believed that if you sift through good, you’ll find evil. Without borders, without brakes, without limit.
And every day it frightened him that Gamache couldn’t see that. That he was blind to it. Because out of blind spots terrible things appeared.
Someone had killed a woman not twenty feet from where they sat, having their genteel picnic. It was intentional, it was done with bare hands. And it was almost certainly no coincidence Lillian Dyson died here. In Clara Morrow’s perfect garden.
“Can we get a list of guests at your vernissage and the barbeque afterward?” Gamache asked.
“Well, we can tell you who we invited, but you’ll have to get the complete list from the Musée,” said Peter. “As for the party here in Three Pines last night…”
He looked at Clara, who grinned.
“We have no idea who came,” she admitted. “The whole village was invited and most of the countryside. People were told to just come and go as they pleased.”
“But you said some people from the Montréal opening came down,” said Gamache.
“True,” said Clara. “I can tell you who we invited. I’ll make a list.”
“Not everyone at the vernissage was invited down?” asked Gamache. He and Reine-Marie had been, as had Beauvoir. They hadn’t been able to make it, but he’d assumed it was an open invitation. Clearly it wasn’t.
“No. A vernissage is for working, networking, schmoozing,” said Clara. “We wanted this party to be more relaxed. A celebration.”
“Yeah, but—” said Peter.
“What?” asked Clara.
“André Castonguay?”
“Oh, him.”
“From the Galerie Castonguay?” asked Gamache. “He was there?”
“And here,” said Peter.
Clara nodded. She hadn’t admitted to Peter the only reason she’d invited Castonguay and some other dealers to the barbeque afterward was for him. In the hopes they’d give him a chance.
“I did invite a few big-wigs,” Clara said. “And a few artists. It was a lot of fun.”
She’d even enjoyed herself. It was amazing to see Myrna chatting with Fran?ois Marois and Ruth trading insults with a few drunken artist friends. To see Billy Williams and the local farmers laughing and talking with elegant gallery owners.
And by the time midnight sounded, everyone was dancing.
Except Lillian, who was lying in Clara’s garden.
Ding, dong, thought Clara.
The witch is dead.