‘You’re right. This one was propane once too,’ he said. ‘But it broke and was going to be thrown away when Billy Williams saved it. Knew he could wire it up and it would work well enough for the once-a-year curling extravaganza. That was a couple of years ago. So far it’s held up. But he needs a generator to juice it up.’
‘Agent Lemieux here suggested a generator to me yesterday.’ Gamache nodded to Lemieux who sat up a little taller in his chair. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t take the suggestion seriously. I’m sorry.’
Lemieux had never had a superior apologize to him. He didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing.
‘Was Mr Williams’s generator powerful enough to kill?’ Gamache asked.
‘That’s the question. The other stop I made yesterday was to the Cowansville hospital to speak to the coroner, Dr Harris. She gave me the autopsy report. She knows Williams and says his generator is powerful enough to do the job. In fact, it doesn’t really take much.’ Beauvoir returned to his seat and ate the last bite of his doughnut while stirring his coffee with a pen. ‘She wants to speak to you, chief. Says she’ll be by later this morning with a more detailed report and the clothing the victim was wearing. But she made it clear this was no accident, in case any of you were wondering.’
Beauvoir looked down at his notes. He didn’t really know where to start. He certainly didn’t want to repeat that this was a bizarre, even possibly insane way to commit a murder. Chief Inspector Gamache already knew that. They all did. But Dr Sharon Harris had said it to him yesterday afternoon several times.
‘I don’t think you completely appreciate the situation, Inspector. Look at this.’ Dr Harris had taken the white sheet off the victim. There on the cold, hard gurney lay a cold, hard woman. She had a snarl on her face and Beauvoir wondered whether her family would recognize the look. Sharon Harris had spent a few minutes circling the woman, pointing out areas of interest like a necropolitan tour guide.
Now, in the morning briefing, he passed out more pictures, these ones taken by Dr Harris at the autopsy. The room grew silent as everyone went through them.
Gamache looked carefully at the images then passed them to Agent Lacoste. He turned slightly in his chair, crossed his legs and stared out the window. Snow was falling and gathering on the cars and houses and piling up on the branches of the trees. It was a peaceful scene, in sharp contrast to the pictures and conversation inside the old railway station. From where he sat he could see the arched stone bridge that connected their side of the Rivière Bella Bella with Three Pines. Every now and then a car would pass slowly and silently, the sound muffled by the snow.
Inside, the room smelled of wood smoke and industrial coffee in wet cardboard with a slight undercurrent of varnish and that musky aroma of old books. Or timetables. This had once been the railway station. Now abandoned like so many small stops along the Canadian National Railway the village of Three Pines had found a good use for the old wood and brick building.
Gamache brought his hand, warmed by his coffee, to his nose. It was cold. And a little wet. Had he been a dog it would have been a better sign. Still, the room was warming up and there was nothing quite like the comfort of being cold, then slowly feeling the heat approaching and arriving and spreading.
That’s how Armand Gamache felt now. He felt happy and satisfied. He loved his work, he loved his team. He’d rise no further in the S?reté, and he’d made his peace with that because Armand Gamache wasn’t a competitive man. He was a content man.
And this was one of his favorite parts of the job. Sitting with his team and working out who could have committed the murder.
‘You see her hands? And feet?’ Beauvoir held up a couple of the autopsy pictures. ‘They’re charred. Did any of the witnesses report a smell?’ he asked Gamache.
‘They did, though it was very faint,’ Gamache confirmed.
Beauvoir nodded. ‘That’s what Dr Harris suspected. She thought there’d be a smell. Burning flesh. Most of the electrocution victims she sees these days are more obvious. Some are actually smoking.’
A few of the homicide investigators winced.
‘Literally,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Most people who die this way are killed by the high tension wires. They’re hydro workers or maintenance men or people just unlucky enough to come in contact with one of those wires. They blow down in a storm or get cut accidentally and pouf. Killed immediately.’
Beauvoir paused. Now Armand Gamache leaned forward. He knew Jean Guy Beauvoir well enough to know he didn’t go in for dramatics. Disdained them in fact. But he did enjoy his little pauses. They almost always gave him away. Like a liar who cleared his throat before telling a big one, or a poker player who rubbed his nose, Beauvoir telegraphed some big piece of news with a dramatic pause.
‘Dr Harris hasn’t seen a death by low voltage in more than ten years. The automatic shut-offs put an end to that. She says it’s almost impossible.’
Now he had everyone’s attention. Even the technicians, so busy in their work a moment earlier, had slowed down and stopped to listen.
A near impossible murder.
Doughnuts and coffee were arrested on their way to mouths, photographs were laid on the table, breathing seemed to have stopped.
‘Almost,’ repeated Beauvoir. ‘A number of things had to come together for this to work. CC de Poitiers had to have been standing in a puddle. In the middle of a frozen lake at minus ten Celsius she had to be standing in water. She had to have had her bare hands come in contact with something that was electrified. Bare hands.’ He brought his hands up, as though perhaps the homicide team needed the reminder of what hands looked like. ‘Again, in freezing cold temperatures she had to have taken off her gloves. She then had to touch the one thing in the whole area that was electrified. But even that wasn’t enough. The current had to travel through her body and out her feet, into the puddle. Look at your feet.’
Everyone looked at him.
‘Your feet, your feet. Look at your feet.’
All faces disappeared below the table, except Beauvoir’s. Armand Gamache bent down and looked at his boots. They were nylon on the outside. Inside there were layers of Thinsulate and felt.
‘Look at the soles of your feet,’ an exasperated Beauvoir said.
Down they went again.
‘Well?’
‘Rubber,’ said Agent Isabelle Lacoste. Beauvoir could tell by her clever face that she understood. ‘Pre-formed rubber with ridges for traction, so we don’t slip on the ice and snow. I bet we all have rubber soles.’
Everyone agreed.
‘That’s it,’ said Beauvoir, barely able to contain himself. ‘We’ll have to call round to confirm, but I bet there isn’t a boot sold in Quebec that doesn’t have rubber soles. That was the final element, and maybe the most unlikely in a series of unlikely events. Had CC de Poitiers been wearing boots with rubber or even leather bottoms she wouldn’t have died. She grabbed onto something metal. Metal conducts electricity. The earth conducts electricity. Our bodies conduct electricity. According to Dr Harris, electricity is like a living thing. It’s desperate to stay alive. It races from one form to another, through the metal, through the body, and into the earth. And along the way it races through the heart. And the heart has its own electrical current. Amazing, isn’t it? Dr Harris explained all this to me. If the electricity goes right through the body it only takes a few seconds to affect the heart. It screws up the normal rhythms and causes it to’ – he checked his notes – ‘fibrillate.’
‘Which is why they use those electrified paddles to start the heart,’ said Lacoste.
‘And why pacemakers are implanted. Those are really just batteries, giving the heart an electrical impulse,’ agreed Beauvoir, excited by the topic. Thrilled to have facts to deal with. ‘When CC touched the metal her heart was affected within seconds.’
‘But,’ Armand Gamache spoke and all eyes turned to him, ‘Madame de Poitiers had to have been grounded.’
The room sat in silence. By now it had warmed up, but still Gamache felt a chill. He looked at Beauvoir and knew there was more to come.
Beauvoir reached into a bag at his side and plunked a pair of boots onto the table.
Before them sat CC de Poitier’s footwear, made of the youngest, whitest, finest baby seal skin. And on the bottom, where everyone else would have rubber, the investigators could see tiny claws.
Beauvoir turned one of the boots on its side so that the sole was visible. Twisted and charred and grotesque, the claws were revealed to be metal teeth, protruding from the leather sole.
Armand Gamache felt his jaw clench. Who would wear such boots? The Inuit, maybe. In the Arctic. But even they wouldn’t kill baby seals. The Inuit were respectful and sensible hunters who’d never dream of killing the young. They didn’t have to.
No. Only brutes murdered babies. And only brutes supported that trade. Sitting in front of them were the carcasses of two babies. Animals, certainly, but all senseless killing appalled Gamache. What sort of woman wore the bodies of dead babies shaped into boots, with metal claws imbedded in them?
Armand Gamache wondered whether CC de Poitiers was at that very moment trying to explain herself to a perplexed God and a couple of very angry seals.