What a family,” said Beauvoir. They were strolling into the village. Agent Morin had gone ahead to the Incident Room, and they’d left the Gilberts to devour each other. “Still, there does seem a sort of equilibrium about this case.”
“What do you mean?” asked Gamache. Off to their left he noticed Ruth Zardo leaving her home followed by Rosa wearing a sweater. Gamache had written a thank-you note for the dinner the night before and stuck it in her rusty mailbox during his morning stroll. He watched as she collected it, glanced at it, and stuck it into the pocket of her ratty old cardigan.
“Well, one man’s dead and another comes alive.”
Gamache smiled and wondered if it was a fair exchange. Ruth spotted them just as Beauvoir spotted her.
“Run,” he hissed to the Chief. “I’ll cover you.”
“Too late, old son. The duck’s seen us.”
And indeed, while Ruth seemed happy to ignore them, Rosa was waddling forward at an alarming pace.
“She appears to like you,” said Ruth to Beauvoir, limping behind the duck. “But then she does have a birdbrain.”
“Madame Zardo,” Gamache greeted her with a smile while Beauvoir glared.
“I hear that Gilbert fellow put the body in Olivier’s Bistro. Why haven’t you arrested him?”
“You heard that already?” asked Beauvoir. “Who told you?”
“Who hasn’t? It’s all over the village. Well? Are you going to arrest Marc Gilbert?”
“For what?” asked Beauvoir.
“Murder for one. Are you nuts?”
“Am I nuts? Who’s the one with a duck in a sweater?”
“And what would you have me do? Let her freeze to death when winter comes? What kind of man are you?”
“Me? Speaking of nuts, what was with that note you had Olivier give me? I can’t even remember what it said, but it sure didn’t make sense.”
“You think not?” the wizened old poet snarled.
“Maybe there’s something in all of this I missed.”
Gamache quoted the lines and Ruth turned cold eyes on him. “That was a private message. Not meant for you.”
“What does it mean, madame?”
“You figure it out. And this one too.” Her hand dived into her other pocket and came out with another slip of paper, neatly folded. She handed it to Beauvoir and walked toward the bistro.
Beauvoir looked at the perfect white square in his palm, then closed his fingers over it.
The two men watched Ruth and Rosa walk across the village green. At the far end they saw people entering the bistro.
“She’s crazy, of course,” said Beauvoir as they walked to the Incident Room. “But she did ask a good question. Why didn’t we arrest anyone? Between father and son we could’ve been filling out arrest sheets all afternoon.”
“To what end?”
“Justice.”
Gamache laughed. “I’d forgotten about that. Good point.”
“No, really sir. There was everything from trespassing to murder we could have charged them with.”
“We both know the victim wasn’t murdered in that foyer.”
“But that doesn’t mean Marc Gilbert didn’t kill him somewhere else.”
“And put him in his own house, then picked him up again and took him to the bistro?”
“The father could have done it.”
“Why?”
Beauvoir thought about that. He couldn’t believe that family wasn’t guilty of something. And murder seemed right up their alley. Though it seemed most likely they’d kill each other.
“Maybe he wanted to hurt his son,” said Beauvoir. But that didn’t seem right. They paused on the stone bridge over the Rivière Bella Bella and the Inspector stared over the side, thinking. The sun bounced off the water and he was momentarily mesmerized by the movement. “Maybe it’s just the opposite,” he began, feeling his way forward. “Maybe Gilbert wanted back in his son’s life but needed an excuse. For anyone else I would think that was ridiculous but he has an ego and it might not have let him just knock and apologize. He needed an excuse. I could see him killing a vagrant, someone he considered so far beneath him. Someone he could use for his purpose.”
“And what would that be?” asked Gamache, also staring into the clear waters beneath them.
Beauvoir turned to the Chief, noticing the reflected light playing on the man’s face. “To be reunited with his son. But he’d need to be seen as the savior, not just as some deadbeat dad crawling back to the family.”
Gamache turned to him, interested. “Go on.”
“So he killed a vagrant, a man no one would miss, put him in his son’s vestibule and waited for the fireworks, figuring he could sweep in and take command of the family when it needed help.”
“But then Marc moved the body and there was no excuse,” said Gamache.
“Until now. The timing is interesting. We discover the body was in the old Hadley house and an hour later dad appears.”
Gamache nodded, his eyes narrowing, and once again he looked into the flowing waters of the river. Beauvoir knew the Chief well enough to know he was walking slowly now through the case, picking his way along the slippery rocks, trying to make out a path obscured by deceit and time.
Beauvoir unfolded the paper in his hands.