Armand Gamache climbed the hill leading out of Three Pines. He carried his tweed jacket over his arm and kicked a chestnut ahead of him. The air smelled of apples, sweet and warm on the trees. Everything was ripe, lush, but in a few weeks there’d be a killing frost. And it would all be gone.
As he walked the old Hadley house grew larger and larger. He steeled himself against it. Prepared for the waves of sorrow that rolled from it, flowing over and into anyone foolish enough to get close.
But either his defenses were better than he’d expected, or something had changed.
Gamache stopped in a spot of sunshine and faced the house. It was a rambling Victorian trophy home, turreted, shingles like scales, wide swooping verandas and black wrought-iron rails. Its fresh paint gleamed in the sun and the front door was a cheery glossy red. Not like blood, but like Christmas. And cherries. And crisp autumn apples. The path had been cleared of brambles and solid flagstones laid. He noticed the hedges had been clipped and the trees trimmed, the deadwood removed. Roar Parra’s work.
And Gamache realized, to his surprise, that he was standing outside the old Hadley house with a smile. And was actually looking forward to going inside.
The door was opened by a woman in her mid-seventies.
“Oui?”
Her hair was steel gray and nicely cut. She wore almost no makeup, just a little around the eyes, which looked at him now with curiosity, then recognition. She smiled and opened the door wider.
Gamache offered her his identification. “I’m sorry to bother you, madame, but my name is Armand Gamache. I’m with the S?reté du Québec.”
“I recognize you, monsieur. Please, come in. I’m Carole Gilbert.”
Her manner was friendly and gracious as she showed him into the vestibule. He’d been there before. Many times. But it was almost unrecognizable. Like a skeleton that had been given new muscles and sinew and skin. The structure was there, but all else had changed.
“You know the place?” she asked, watching him.
“I knew it,” he said, swinging his eyes to hers. She met his look steadily, but without challenge. As a chatelaine would, confident in her place and without need to prove it. She was friendly and warm, and very, very observant, Gamache guessed. What had Peter said? She’d been a nurse once? A very good one, he presumed. The best ones were observant. Nothing got past them.
“It’s changed a great deal,” he said and she nodded, drawing him farther into the house. He wiped his feet on the area rug protecting the gleaming wooden floor and followed her. The vestibule opened into a large hall with crisp new black and white tiles on the floor. A sweeping staircase faced them and archways led through to various rooms. When he’d last been here it had been a ruin, fallen into disrepair. It had seemed as though the house, disgusted, had turned on itself. Pieces were thrown off, wallpaper hung loose, floorboards heaved, ceilings warped. But now a huge cheerful bouquet sat on a polished table in the center of the hall, filling it with fragrance. The walls were painted a sophisticated tawny color, between beige and gray. It was bright and warm and elegant. Like the woman in front of him.
“We’re still working on the house,” she said, leading him through the archway to their right, down a couple of steps and into the large living room. “I say ‘we’ but it’s really my son and daughter-in-law. And the workers, of course.”
She said it with a small self-deprecating laugh. “I was foolish enough to ask if I could do anything the other day and they gave me a hammer and told me to put up some drywall. I hit a water pipe and an electrical cord.”
Her laugh was so unguarded and infectious Gamache found himself laughing too.
“Now I make tea. They call me the tea lady. Tea?”
“Merci, madame, that would be very nice.”
“I’ll tell Marc and Dominique you’re here. It’s about that poor man in the bistro, I presume?”
“It is.”
She seemed sympathetic, but not concerned. As though it had nothing to do with her. And Gamache found himself hoping it didn’t.
As he waited he looked around the room and drifted toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, where sun streamed in. The room was comfortably furnished with sofas and chairs that looked inviting. They were upholstered in expensive fabrics giving them a modern feel. A couple of Eames chairs framed the fireplace. It was an easy marriage of contemporary and old world. Whoever had decorated this room had an eye for it.
The windows were flanked by tailored silk curtains that touched the hardwood floor. Gamache suspected the curtains were almost never closed. Why shut out that view?
It was spectacular. From its position on the hill the house looked over the valley. He could see the Rivière Bella Bella wind its way through the village and out around the next mountain toward the neighboring valley. The trees at the top of the mountain were changing color. It was autumn up there already. Soon the reds and auburns and pumpkin oranges would march down the slopes until the entire forest was ablaze. And what a vantage point to see it all. And more.
Standing at the window he could see Ruth and Rosa walking around the village green, the old poet tossing either stale buns or rocks at the other birds. He could see Myrna working in Clara’s vegetable garden and Agent Lacoste walking over the stone bridge toward their makeshift Incident Room in the old railway station. He watched as she stopped on the bridge and looked into the gently flowing water. He wondered what she was thinking. Then she moved on. Other villagers were out doing their morning errands, or working in their gardens, or sitting on their porches reading the paper and drinking coffee.
From there he could see everything. Including the bistro.