THIRTEEN
It was Thursday evening and Arts Williamsburg was enjoying a record turnout for a vernissage. The tail of Hurricane Kyla was forecast to hit later that night and the expectation added a frisson to the event, as though going to the opening meant taking your life in your hands and reflected both character and courage. Which wasn’t, actually, all that far off the mark for most Arts Williamsburg shows.
At past openings only the artists themselves and a few scraggly friends would show up, fortifying themselves with wine from boxes and cheese produced by a board member’s goat. This night a gnarly knot of people surrounded Jane’s work, which was sitting cloaked on an easel in the center of the room. Around the white walls the other artists’ works were ranged, as were the artists themselves. They’d had the misfortune to be chosen for an exhibition in which their work was clearly upstaged by that of a murdered woman. A few might have agreed their misfortune was eclipsed by that of the person actually dead, but even then she’d bested them, even in misfortune. Life as an artist was indeed unfair.
Gamache was waiting for Fair Day to be unveiled. The board of Arts Williamsburg had decided to make it an ‘event’, so they’d invited the press, which meant the Williamsburg County News and now the chairperson of the jury was waiting for ‘le moment juste’. Gamache glanced enviously at Jean Guy, sprawled on one of the comfortable chairs, refusing to give it up to an elderly man. He was exhausted. Bad art did this to him. Actually, he had to admit, any art did this to him. Bad wine, stinky cheese and pretty smelly art took the will to live right out of him. He looked around and came to the sad but inevitable conclusion that the building wouldn’t collapse when Kyla finally blew into town later that night.
‘As you know, a tragic event has robbed us of a fine woman and as it turns out, a gifted artist,’ Elise Jacob, the jury chair, was saying.
Clara sidled up between Ben and Peter. Elise was going on, and on, and on about the virtues of Jane. She practically had her sainted. Then, finally, just as Clara’s eyes began to bulge she said, ‘Here, without further ado’ - Clara, who knew and loved Jane, figured there’d been plenty of doodoo already - ‘is Fair Day by Jane Neal.’
The veil was whisked off and Fair Day was finally revealed, to gasps. Then a silence which was even more eloquent. The faces staring slack-jawed at Fair Day were variously amused, repulsed and stunned. Gamache wasn’t looking at the easel, he was staring at the crowd, at their reactions. But the only reaction that was even close to odd was Peter’s. His anxious smile faded as Fair Day was revealed, and after a moment’s contemplation he cocked his head to one side and furrowed his brow. Gamache, who’d been watching these people for almost two weeks, knew that for Peter Morrow this was the equivalent of a scream.
‘What is it ?’
‘Nothing.’ Peter turned his bak on Gamache and walked away. Gamache followed.
‘Mr Morrow, my question wasn’t about aesthetics, but about murder. Please answer it.’
Peter was brought up short, as were most people who thought gamache was incapable of forceful speech. ‘The painting disturbs me. I can’t tell you why because I don’t know why. It doesn’t seem to be the same work we judged two weeks ago, and yet, I know it is.’
Gamache stared at Fair Day. He’d never liked it so he wasn’t a good judge, but unlike the work one Jane Neal’s walls, this piece moved him not at all.
‘So what’s changed?’
‘Nothing. Maybe me. is that possible ? Like that card trick of Jane’s with the Queen of Hearts. Does art change too? I know at the end of a day I’ll look at my work and think it’s great, then next morning look at it and think it’s crap. The work didn’t change, but I did. Maybe Jane’s death changed me so much that whatever I saw ini this painting isn’t there anymore.’
‘Do you believe that ?’
Damn the man, thought Peter. ‘No.’
The two men stared at Fair Day, then slowly, lowly, a noise was heard unlike any anyone there had heard before. It grew and magnified until it reverberated around the circle of spectators. Clara could feel the blood race from her face and hands. Was it the storm? Was this what the tail end of a disaster sounded like? Had Kyla joined them after all? But the rumbling seemed to be coming from inside the building. Inside the room. In fact, right beside Clara. She turned and found the source. Ruth.
‘That’s me ! ’ Ruth jabbed a finger at the dancing goat in Fair Day. Then the rumbling burst into a geyser of laughter. Ruth roared. She laughed until she had to steady herself on Gabri. Her laughter infected the entire room until even the sour-faced and forgotten artists were laughing. Much of the rest of the evening was taken with people recognising themselves or others in Jane’s work. Ruth also found Timmer’s parents and her brother and sister, both now dead. There was the first-grade teacher and Timmer’s husband, and the exercise class they all belonged to. They were the chicks. Over the course of the hour or so just about every figure had been identified. Still, Peter stared, not joining in the laughter.
Something was wrong.
‘I’ve got it!’ Clara pointed at the painting. ‘This was painted at the closing parade, right? The day your mother died. In fact, isn’t that your mother?’ Clara showed Ben the cloud with trotters. The flying lamb.
‘You’re right,’ laughed Myrna. ‘It’s Timmer.’
‘Do you see? This was Jane’s tribute to your mother. Everyone in this picture was meaningful to her. From her grandparents to her dogs, to everyone in between.’ Now Clara turned to Peter. ‘Remember that last dinner we all had together?’
‘Thanksgiving?’
‘Yes, that’s it. We were talking about great art, and I said I thought art became art when the artist put something of themselves into it. I asked Jane what she’d put into this work, and do you remember what she said?’
‘Sorry, I can’t.’
‘She agreed that she’d put something in it, that there was some message in this work. She wondered if we’d figure it out. In fact, I remember she looked directly at Ben when she spoke, as though you’d understand. I’d wondered why at the time, but now it makes sense. This is for your mother.’
‘You think?’ Ben moved closer to Clara and stared at the picture.
‘Well, that doesn’t make any sense,’ said Agent Nichol, who’d wandered over from her post by the door, drawn to the laughter as though to a crime. Gamache started making his way toward her, hoping to cut her off before she said something totally offensive. But his legs, while long, were no match for her mouth.
‘Who was Yolande to Timmer? Did they even know each other?’ Nichol pointed at the face of the blonde woman in the stands next to the acrylic Peter and Clara. ‘Why would Jane Neal put in a niece she herself despised? This can’t be what you said, a tribute to Mrs Hadley, with that woman there.’
Nichol was clearly enjoying getting one up on Clara. And Clara, despite herself, could feel her anger rising. She stared speechless at the smug young face on the other side of the easel. And what made it worse was that she was right. There was the big blonde woman, undeniably in Fair Day, and Clara knew that if anything Timmer disliked Yolande even more than Jane did.
‘May I see you, please?’ Gamache placed himself between Clara and Nichol, cutting off the young woman’s triumphant stare. Without another word he turned and walked toward the exit, Nichol hesitating an instant then following.
‘There’s a bus for Montreal tomorrow morning at six from St Rémy. Take it.’
He had no more to say. Agent Yvette Nichol was left shaking with rage on the cold dark stoop of Arts Williamsburg. She wanted to pound on the closed door. It seemed all her life doors were being shut in her face and here she was again, on the outside. Throbbing with fury she took two steps over to the window and looked in, at the people milling around, at Gamache talking to that Morrow woman and her husband. But there was someone else in the picture. After a moment she realised it was her own reflection.
How was she going to explain this to her father? She’d blown it. Somehow, somewhere, she’d done something wrong. But what? But Nichol was beyond reasoning. All she could think of was walking into her miniscule home with the immaculate front yard in east end Montreal, and telling her father she’d been kicked off the case. Shame on you. A phrase from the investigation floated into her head.
You’re looking at the problem.
That meant something. Something significant she was sure. And then, finally, she understood.
The problem was Gamache.
There he was talking and laughing, smug and oblivious to the pain he caused. He was no different than the police her father had told her about in Czechoslovakia. How could she have been so blind? With relief she realised she needn’t tell her father anything. After all, it wasn’t her fault.
Nichol turned away, the sight too painful, of people having fun and her own lonely reflection.