Chapter Ten
There were no young men among the guests at the Inn and Spa. The average age seemed to be ninety-seven. Except Tom Scott. The man who’d found the body. The man who’d lied about having a wife.
Chief Inspector Gamache sat across from him. Tom picked at a thread coming loose from his sweater.
“Why did you lie about having a wife?”
“Oh, that. I was joking.”
Gamache leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You were not joking.” Each word was said slowly, clearly.
“There is no wife,” admitted Tom Scott. The words hurried from him, like hostages trapped for years. “I made her up. Sometimes I give her a name. Kathy. We go to parties and movies and take long walks together. And we visit friends in the country.”
There was a long, long silence then. Armand Gamache sat still, waiting. The fire in the grate mumbled and popped. Tom Scott had closed his eyes. Gamache knew what he was doing. What all liars did.
He was looking for a way out. A back door. Another lie. A way to make this better.
The silence stretched on. Armand Gamache waited.
“I’m so lonely,” Scott finally whispered. “No one knows. It used to be an ache, a physical pain. Now even that’s gone. And there’s nothing. Nothing. I even tried to pick up that receptionist woman. I didn’t want to do anything. Just talk. I offered her a lift home, but she refused. I was trying to help, and she looked at me like I was crap.”
He sighed and opened his eyes.
“I couldn’t stand it anymore. I’m thirty-eight years old. Not even halfway through my life. I couldn’t see living like this for another month, never mind forty years.”
“What was your plan?” Gamache asked, though he suspected the answer. It was the April plan.
“I wasn’t sure. I wanted to come to a fancy place. Have the best room, eat the best food. See if I’d be happy then. But it didn’t work. I went for a walk in the woods, trying to think of what to do. I don’t want to live, but I’m too afraid to die.”
“Is that when you found the dead man?”
“Yes.” He looked into Gamache’s eyes. This time with wonder. “Do you think it was a sign from God?”
“Saying what?”
“That I shouldn’t kill myself. That this is what it looks like. It looked horrible.”
“You think God would kill a man to save you?” Gamache asked. His voice wasn’t accusing. It was curious. The ways of the Creator, he knew, were hard to fathom. But not nearly as hard as the ways of the created.
“I think maybe the man was going to kill himself anyway, and maybe the gift was having me find him.”
Gamache smiled then. Sometimes hope takes its time, but it finally appears. If you hold on just long enough. And he saw it now, deep down in Tom Scott’s eyes. A tiny spring.
But that did not mean that Tom Scott wasn’t a killer. A man willing to die could also be willing to kill.
“Did Arthur Ellis ever speak to you?” Gamache asked.
Scott hesitated. “He saw me talking to that receptionist...”
“Angela.”
“Yes, her, and he asked me to stop. We had words.”
“Angry words?”
Scott nodded.
“Anything else?” Gamache asked.
“Before that, we’d talked a little. He wanted to know where I was from.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said I was a New Yorker. An investment banker.” Scott managed a weak smile and shrugged. Old habits.
“Did he believe you?”
“I don’t think he cared. Most people don’t.”
But Gamache disagreed. He suspected Arthur Ellis, or James Hill, cared deeply.
Gamache went in search of Angela and found her talking to her husband. He was of medium height and heavy-set. His hair was thick and a brilliant red.
“Hello.” Gamache smiled.
“Chief Inspector, this is my husband, Mike.”
They shook hands.
“Did Mr. Ellis speak to you?” he asked Mike.
“No. He thanked me for opening a door for him once. He seemed polite but quiet. Like he didn’t want company.”
Gamache turned to Angela. “But he spoke to you quite a bit, it seems.”
As usual, she blushed. “Well, I guess I was the one who kept talking to him. He just seemed so alone.”
“Did he tell you anything about himself?”
“Only that he was here for a vacation and that he had a son who would love to live in a place like this. He wondered if there were many jobs for young people.”
“Chief Inspector?” Dominique Gilbert popped her head through the living room door. “There’s a phone call for you.”
“Chief,” came Beauvoir’s voice. “I know why James Hill was here.”