“You’re still in Three Pines?”
“Yes, just leaving. What do you have?”
“We got the autopsy and forensics from the Montréal police, and I’m reading through the statements from the neighbors. It’s all been sent to you.”
Among the messages hovering overhead, thought Gamache.
“Anything I should know?”
“Not so far. It seems the neighbors didn’t know who she was.”
“Do they now?”
“We haven’t told them. Want to keep it quiet for as long as possible. There’ll be a media storm when it comes out that the last Quint hasn’t just died, but been murdered.”
“I’d like to see the scene again. Can you meet me at the Ouellet home in an hour and a half?”
“D’accord,” said Lacoste.
Gamache looked up, into the mirror behind the bar. In it he saw himself reflected, and behind him the bistro, with its Christmas decorations, and the window into the snowy village. The sun was now up, cresting the tree line, and the sky was the palest of winter blues. Most of the patrons of the bistro had gone back to their conversations, excited now, animated by the news that they’d met, in person, a Ouellet Quint. Gamache could sense the ebb and flow of their emotions. Excitement at the discovery. Then remembering she was dead. Then back to the Quint phenomenon. Then the murder. It was like atoms racing between poles. Unable to rest in any one place.
Around the fireplace, the friends were commiserating with Myrna. And yet— He’d had the impression that as he’d looked into the reflection, there’d been a movement. Someone had been staring at him and had quickly dropped their eyes.
But one set of eyes remained on him. Staring, unyielding.
Henri.
The shepherd sat perfectly contained, oblivious to the hubbub around him. He stared at Gamache. Transfixed. Waiting. He would wait forever, secure in the absolute certainty that Gamache would not forget him.
Gamache held the shepherd’s eyes and smiled into the mirror. Henri’s tail twitched, but the rest of his body remained stone still.
“What now, patron?” asked Olivier, coming around the bar as Gamache replaced the phone.
“Now I head back to Montréal. Work to do, I’m afraid.”
Olivier picked up the phone. “And I have work to do as well. Good luck, Chief Inspector.”
“Good luck to you, mon vieux.”
*
Chief Inspector Gamache met Isabelle Lacoste just outside Constance’s home and they went in together.
“Where’s Henri?” she asked, turning on the lights in the house. It was a sunny day, but the home felt dull, as though the color was draining from it.
“I left him in Three Pines with Clara. They both seemed pretty happy about that.”
He’d assured Henri he’d be back, and the shepherd had believed him.
Gamache and Lacoste sat at the kitchen table and went over the interviews and forensics. The Montréal police had been thorough, taking statements and samples and fingerprints.
“Only her prints, I see,” said Gamache, not looking up as he read the report. “No sign of forced entry and the door was unlocked when we arrived.”
“That might not mean anything,” said Lacoste. “When you get to the statements by the neighbors, you’ll see that most don’t lock their doors during the day, when they’re at home. It’s an old, established neighborhood. No crime. Families have lived here for years. Generations in some cases.”
Gamache nodded but suspected Constance Ouellet had probably locked her doors. Her most valued possession seemed to be privacy, and she wouldn’t have wanted any well-meaning neighbor stealing it.
“Coroner confirms she was killed before midnight,” he read. “She’d been dead a day and a half by the time we found her.”
“That also explains why no one saw anything,” said Lacoste. “It was dark and cold and everyone was inside asleep or watching television or wrapping gifts. And then it snowed all day and covered any tracks there might’ve been.”
“How did he get in?” Gamache asked, looking up and meeting Lacoste’s eyes. Around them the dated kitchen seemed to be waiting for one of them to make a pot of tea, or eat the biscuits in the tin. It was a hospitable kitchen.
“Well, the door was unlocked when we arrived, so either she left it unlocked and he let himself in, or she had it locked, he rang, and she let him in.”
“Then he killed her and left,” said Gamache, “leaving the door unlocked behind him.”
Lacoste nodded and watched as Gamache sat back and shook his head.
“Constance Ouellet wouldn’t have let him in. Myrna said she was almost pathologically private, and this confirms it.” He tapped the forensics report. “When was the last time you saw a house with only one set of prints? No one came into this home. At least, no one was invited in.”
“Then the door must’ve been unlocked and he let himself in.”
“But an unlocked door was also against her nature,” said the Chief. “And let’s say she’d gotten into the habit of keeping her door unlocked, like the rest of the neighborhood. It was late at night and she was getting ready for bed. She’d have locked the door by then, non?”
Lacoste nodded. Constance either let her killer in, or he let himself in.
Neither possibility seemed likely, but one of them was the truth.
Gamache read the rest of the reports while Inspector Lacoste did her own detailed search of the house, starting in the basement. He could hear her down there, moving things about. Beyond that, though, there was just the clunk, clunk as the clock above the sink noted the passing moments.
Finally he lowered the reports and took off his glasses.
The neighbors had seen nothing. The oldest of them, who’d lived on the street all her life, remembered when the three sisters moved into the home, thirty-five years ago.
Constance, Marguerite, and Josephine.
As far as she knew, Marguerite was the oldest, though Josephine was the first to die, five years ago. Cancer.
The sisters had been friendly, but private. Never having anyone in, but always buying boxes of oranges and grapefruit and Christmas chocolate from the children when they’d canvassed to raise money, and stopping to chat on warm summer days as they gardened.
They were cordial without being intrusive. And without allowing intrusion.
The perfect neighbors, the woman had said.
She lived next door and had once had a lemonade with Marguerite. They’d sat together on the porch and watched as Constance washed the car. They’d called encouragement and jokingly pointed out areas she’d missed.
Gamache could see them. Could taste the tart lemonade and smell the cold water from the hose as it hit the hot pavement. He wondered how this elderly neighbor could not have known she was sitting with one of the Ouellet Quints.
But he knew the answer to that.