FIVE
With trembling hands, Agent Isabelle Lacoste reached into the plastic bag and carefully withdrew a lethal weapon. In her fingers, wet and numb with cold, she held an arrowhead. The other S?reté officers around the room sat in silence, many squinting, trying to get a clear look at the tiny tip, designed to kill.
‘We found it and others in the clubhouse,’ she said, passing it around. She’d arrived early that morning, leaving her husband to look after the kids and driving through the rain and dark from Montreal. She liked her quiet time at the office, and today the office was a cold and silent former schoolhouse. Inspector Beauvoir had given her the key and as she let herself past the yellow police tape she pulled out her thermos of coffee, dropped her police bag with ‘scene of crime’ paraphernalia on the floor, switched on the light and looked around. The tongue-in-groove walls were covered with quivers hanging from what must once have been hooks for little coats. At the front of the room the blackboard still dominated, no doubt permanently attached to the wall. On it someone had drawn a target, an ‘X’ and an arc between the two with numbers written below. Agent Lacoste had done her homework on the Internet the night before and recognised this as a pretty basic archery lesson on wind, distance and trajectory. Still, she took out her camera and photographed it. Pouring herself a coffee, she sat down and drew the diagram in her notebook. She was a careful woman.
Then, before any of the other officers assigned to the search arrived, she did something only she knew about: she went back outside and in the strained light of the rainy morning she walked to the spot where Jane Neal had died. And she told Miss Neal that Chief Inspector Gamache would find out who had done this to her.
Agent Isabelle Lacoste believed in ‘do unto others’ and knew she’d want someone to do this for her.
She then returned to the unheated archery clubhouse. The other officers had arrived and together they searched the single room, fingerprinting, measuring, photographing, bagging. And then Lacoste, reaching into the back of a drawer in the only desk remaining in the room, had found them.
Gamache held it in the palm of his hand, as though holding a grenade. The arrowhead clearly meant for hunting. Four razors tapered to a fine tip. Now, finally, he could appreciate what had been said in the public meeting. This arrowhead seemed to yearn to cut through his palm. Hurtled from a bow with all the force thousands of years of need could produce, it would without a doubt pass straight through a person. It’s a wonder guns were ever invented when you already had such a lethal and silent weapon.
Agent Lacoste wiped a soft towel through her dripping dark hair. She stood with her back to the lively fire perking in the stone fireplace, feeling warm for the first time in hours, and she smelt the homemade soup and bread and watched the deadly weapon progress around the room.
Clara and Myrna stood in line at the buffet table, balancing mugs of steaming French Canadian pea soup and plates with warm rolls from the boulangerie. Just ahead Nellie was piling food on to her plate.
‘I’m getting enough for Wayne too,’ Nellie explained unnecessarily. ‘He’s over there, poor guy.’
‘I heard his cough,’ said Myrna. ‘A cold?’
‘Don’t know. It’s gone to his chest. This is the first time I’ve been out of the house in days, I’ve been that worried. But Wayne cut Miss Neal’s lawn and looked after odd jobs and he wanted to go to the meeting.’ The two women watched as Nellie took her huge plate over to Wayne, who sat slouched and exhausted in a chair. She wiped his brow and then got him to his feet. The two of them left the Bistro, Nellie concerned and in charge, and Wayne docile and happy to be led. Clara hoped he’d be all right.
‘What did you think of the meeting?’ Clara asked Myrna as they edged along.
‘I like him, Inspector Gamache.’
‘Me too. But it’s strange, Jane being killed by a hunting arrow.’
‘Though if you think about it, it makes sense. It’s hunting season, but I agree the old wooden arrow gave me the shivers. Very weird. Turkey?’
‘Please. Brie?’ asked Clara.
‘Just a sliver. Perhaps a bigger sliver than that.’
‘When does a sliver become a hunk?’
‘If you’re a hunk, size doesn’t matter,’ Myrna explained.
‘I’ll remember that next time I go to bed with a hunk of Stilton.’
‘You’d cheat on Peter?’
‘With food? I cheat on him everyday. I have a very special relationship with a gummy bear who shall remain nameless. Well, actually his name is Ramon. He completes me. Look at that.’ Clara pointed to the floral arrangement on the buffe.
‘I did that this morning,’ said Myrna, happy that Clara had noticed. Clara noticed most things, Myrna realised, and had the wit to mostly mention just the good.
‘I thought perhaps you had. Anything in it?’
‘You’ll see,’ said Myrna, with a smile. Clara leaned into the arrangement of annual monarda, helenium and artist’s acrylic paint brushes. Nestled inside was a package wrapped in brown waxed paper.
‘It’s sage and sweetgrass, ’ said Clara back at the table , unwrapping the package. ‘Does this mean what I think?’
‘A ritual,’ said Myrna.
‘Oh, what a fine idea.’ Clara reached over and touched Myrna’s arm.
‘From Jane’s garden?’ Ruth asked, inhaling the musky, unmistakable aroma of sage, and the honey-like fragrance of the sweetgrass.
‘The sage, yes. Jane and I cut it in August. The sweetgrass I got from Henri a couple of weeks ago, when he cut back his hay. It was growing around Indian Rock.’
Ruth passed them to Ben who held them at arm’s length.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, man, they won’t hurt you.’ Ruth snatched them up and whipped them back and forth under Ben’s nose. ‘As I recall, you were even invited to the Summer Solstice ritual.’
‘Only as a human sacrifice,’ said Ben.
‘Come on, Ben, that’s not fair,’ said Myrna. ‘We said that probably wouldn’t be necessary.’
‘It was fun,’ said Gabri, swallowing a deviled egg. ‘I wore the minister’s frocks.’ He lowered his voice and darted his eyes around, in case the minister should have actually.
‘Best use they’ve been put to,’ said Ruth.
‘Thank you,’ said Gabri.
‘It wasn’t meant as a compliment. Weren’t you straight before the ritual?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes.’ Gabri turned to Ben. ‘It worked. Magic. You should definitely go to the next one.’
‘That’s true,’ said Olivier, standing behind Gabri and massaging his neck. ‘Ruth, weren’t you a woman before the ritual?’
‘Weren’t you?’