When Peter got out of the shower and came into the kitchen he noticed two things. The coffee was brewing and Clara was wrapped around Lucy who herself was a tight ball of Golden Retriever, her nose between her back legs.
‘It worked for me last night,’ said Clara, arching her head back to look at Peter’s slippers, and instinctively up his bathrobe.
Peter knelt down and kissed Clara. Then he kissed Lucy’s head. But the dog didn’t stir. ‘Poor one.’
‘I offered her some banana but she didn’t even look up.’
Everyday for Lucy’s entire dog life Jane had sliced a banana for breakfast and had miraculously dropped one of the perfect disks on to the floor where it sat for an instant before being gobbled up. Every morning Lucy’s prayers were answered, confirming her belief that God was old and clumsy and smelt like roses and lived in the kitchen.
But no more.
Lucy knew her God was dead. And she now knew the miracle wasn’t the banana, it was the hand that offered the banana.
After breakfast Peter and Clara both got into their fall clothing and headed across the village green to Ben’s place. The gray clouds were threatening rain and the wind had a dampness and a bite. The aroma of sautéed garlic and onions met them as they stepped on to Ben’s front veranda. Clara knew if she was struck blind she’d always be able to tell when she was in Ben’s home. It smelled of stinky dog and old books. All of Ben’s dogs had smelled, not just Daisy, and it seemed to have nothing to do with age. Clara wasn’t sure if he created or attracted them. But now, suddenly, his place smelled of home cooking. Instead of welcoming it, Clara felt a little queasy, as though one more certainty had been removed. She wanted the old smell back. She wanted Jane back. She wanted everything to stay the same.
‘Oh, I wanted to surprise you,’ said Ben, coming over to hug Clara. ‘Chili con carne.’
‘My favorite comfort food.’
‘I’ve never made it before but I have some of my mother’s recipe books and found it in The Joy of Cooking. It won’t bring Jane back, but it might ease the pain.’
Clara looked at the huge cookbook open on the counter, and felt revolted. It had come from that house. Timmer’s place. The home that repulsed love and laughter and welcomed snakes and mice. She wanted nothing to do with it, and she realised her revulsion stretched even to objects that had come from there.
‘But Ben, you loved Jane too. And you found her. It must have been a nightmare.’
‘It was.’ He told them briefly about it, his back to them, not daring to face Peter and Clara as though he was responsible. He stirred the ground meat as it cooked while Clara opened the tins of ingredients and listened to Ben. After a moment she handed the can opener to Peter and had to sit down. Ben’s story was playing in her head like a movie. But she kept expecting Jane to get up. As Ben finished Clara excused herself and went through the kitchen into the living room.
She put another small log on the fire and listened to the quiet murmur of Peter and Ben. She couldn’t make out the words, just the familiarity. Another wave of sadness enveloped her. She’d lost her murmuring partner. The one with whom she made comforting noises. And she felt something else, a wisp of jealousy that Peter still had Ben. He could visit any time, but her best friend was gone. She knew it was unspeakably petty and selfish but there it was. She took a deep breath and inhaled garlic and onions and frying mince and other calming smells. Nellie must have cleaned recently because there was the fresh aroma of detergents. Cleanliness. Clara felt better and knew that Ben was her friend too, not just Peter’s. And that she wasn’t alone, unless she chose to be. She also knew Daisy could best sautéed garlic any day and her smell would re-emerge triumphant.
St Thomas’s was filling up when Peter, Clara and Ben arrived. The rain was just beginning so there wasn’t much milling about. The tiny parking lot at the side of the chapel was packed, and trucks and cars lined the circular Commons. Inside, the small church was overflowing and warm. It smelled of damp wool and the earth trod in on boots. The three squeezed in and joined the line of people leaning against the back wall. Clara felt some small knobs pushing into her and turning around she saw she’d been leaning against the cork bulletin board. Notices of the semi-annual tea and craft sale, the Brownie meeting, Hanna’s exercise classes Monday and Thursday mornings, the bridge club Wednesdays at 7.30, and old yellowed announcements of ‘new’ church hours, from 1967.
‘My name is Armand Gamache.’ The big man had taken center stage. This morning he was dressed in a tweed jacket and gray flannel slacks with a simple and elegant burgundy tie around the neck of his Oxford shirt. His hat was off and Clara saw he was balding, without attempt to hide it. His hair was graying, as was his trimmed moustache. He gave the impression of a county squire addressing the village. He was a man used to being in charge, and he wore it well. The room hushed immediately, save for a persistent cough at the back. ‘I’m the chief inspector of homicide for the S?reté du Quebec.’ This produced quite a buzz, which he waited out.
‘This is my second in command, Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir.’ Beauvoir stepped forward and nodded. ‘There are other S?reté officers around the room. I expect they’re obvious to you.’ He didn’t mention that most of his team were off turning the archery clubhouse upside down.
It struck Clara that the person who had killed Jane was probably among the crowd gathered in St Thomas’s. She looked around and spotted Nellie and her husband Wayne, Myrna and Ruth, Olivier and Gabri. Matthew and Suzanne Croft sat in the row behind them. But no Philippe.
‘We think the death of Jane Neal was an accident, but so far no one has come forward.’ Gamache paused and Clara noticed how still and focused he could become. His intelligent eyes quietly swept the room before he continued. ‘If this was an accident, and the person who killed her is here, I want you to know a few things.’ Clara didn’t think the room could get any quieter, but it did. Even the coughing stopped, miraculously cured by curiosity.
‘It must have been horrible when you realised what you’d done. But you need to come forward and admit it. The longer you wait the harder it will be. For us, for the community and for yourself.’ Chief Inspector Gamache paused and slowly looked around the room, each and every person feeling that he was looking inside them. The room waited. There was a frisson, an idea each person held that maybe the one responsible would get up.
Clara caught the eye of Yolande Fontaine, who smiled weakly. Clara disliked her intensely, but smiled back. André, Yolande’s scrawny husband, was there picking his cuticles and occasionally nibbling them. Their remarkably unattractive son Bernard sat slack-jawed and sullen, slumped in his pew. He looked bored and was making faces at his friends across the way between mouthfuls of candy.
Nobody moved.
‘We will find you. That’s what we do.’ Gamache took a deep breath, as though changing the subject. ‘We’re investigating this as though it was a murder, though we doubt that. I have the coroner’s preliminary report here.’ He flipped open his palm pilot. ‘It confirms that Jane Neal died between six-thirty and seven yesterday morning. The weapon appears to have been an arrow.’
This produced more than a few murmurs.
‘I say “appears” because no weapon was found. And that’s a problem. It argues against this being just an accident. That, combined with the fact that nobody has taken responsibility, is why we need to treat this as suspicious.’
Gamache paused and looked at the gathering. A sea of well-meaning faces looked back, with a few rocks of petulance thrown in here and there. They have no idea what’s about to happen to them, thought Gamache.
‘This is how it starts. You’ll see us everywhere. We’ll be asking questions, checking backgrounds, talking—not just to you, but your neighbors and your employers and your family and your friends.’
Another murmur, this one with an edge of hostility. Gamache was pretty sure he heard ‘fascist’ from his lower left side. He stole a look and saw Ruth Zardo sitting there.
‘You didn’t ask for any of this to happen but it’s here now. Jane Neal is dead and all of us need to deal with it. We need to do our job and you need to help us, and that means accepting things you wouldn’t normally accept. That’s just life. I’m sorry for it. But it doesn’t change the facts.’
The murmuring diminished and there were even nods of agreement.
‘We all have secrets, and before this is over I’ll know most of yours. If they’re not pertinent then they’ll die with me. But I will find them out. Most days in the late afternoon I’ll be at Mr Brulé’s bistro, reviewing notes. You’re welcome to join me for a drink and a talk.’
Crime was deeply human, Gamache knew. The cause and the effect. And the only way he knew to catch a criminal was to connect with the human beings involved. Chatting in a café was the most pleasant, and disarming, way to do it.
‘Any questions?’
‘Are we in danger?’ Hanna Parra, the local elected representative, asked.
Gamache had been expecting this. It was a tough one since they really didn’t know whether it was an accident or murder.
‘I don’t think so. Should you be locking your doors at night? Always. Should you be careful walking in the woods or even around the Common? Yes. Should you not do these things?’