‘Oui, mademoiselle.‘ Gamache could feel the laughter start. ‘I understand your handsome husband has been called away on very important state business.’
‘Actually, he’s in detox. Again. The coast is clear.’
She was much better at this than he. Gamache always started laughing first and he did now.
‘I miss you.’ He didn’t bother whispering, not caring who heard. ‘Will you come for dinner tonight? I can pick you up in an hour.’
Arrangements were made, but before he left he met with the team. It was teatime and they sat balancing fine bone china cups and saucers and tiny plates with delicate doilies. On the table in front of them were notes on murder and crustless cucumber sandwiches. Lists of suspects and eclairs. Bits of evidence and petits fours.
‘May I be mother?’ Gamache asked.
Beauvoir had actually heard odder things from the Chief Inspector so he just nodded. Isabelle Lacoste smiled and said, ‘S’il vous plait.‘
He poured and they took the food, Beauvoir counting to make sure he got his fair share.
As they ate they talked.
‘OK,’ said Isabelle Lacoste. ‘I have the background information. First Sandra Morrow, nee Kent. Affluent background. Father a banker, mother involved in volunteer activities. Born and raised in Montreal. Both parents dead. Inherited a modest amount by the time it was split among all the heirs and taxes were paid. She’s a management consultant in the firm of Bodmin Davies, in Toronto. A junior vice president.’
Gamache raised his eyebrows.
‘Not as impressive as you might think, sir. Almost everyone is called a junior vice president, except the senior VPs. She seems to have hit a glass ceiling a while ago.
‘Her husband Thomas Morrow. Went to the Mantle private school in Montreal then McGill University. Barely scraped by with a general arts degree, though he made a few of the sports teams. Took a job at the Toronto investment firm Drum and Mitchell and he’s still there.’
‘He’s the success story,’ said Beauvoir.
‘Actually, not,’ said Lacoste. ‘But you’d think so to hear him tell it.’
‘To hear the whole family tell it,’ said Beauvoir. ‘They all point to Thomas as the success. Is he hiding something?’
‘Doesn’t actually seem all that big a secret. His office is a cubicle, he does a few million dollars’ worth of business, but I understand in the investment world that’s considered next to nothing.’
‘He doesn’t make that?’
‘Not even close. No, that’s his clients’ money. According to his latest tax return he made seventy-six thousand dollars last year.’
‘And he lives in Toronto?’ Beauvoir asked. Toronto was a ridiculously expensive city. Lacoste nodded.
‘Is he in debt?’
‘Not that we could find. Sandra Morrow makes more than him, about a hundred and twenty last year, so between them they make almost two hundred thousand dollars. And as you discovered, they inherited over a million dollars from his father. That was a few years ago and I bet there’s not much left. I’ll keep digging.
‘Peter and Clara Morrow we know about. They own their own cottage in Three Pines. He’s a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in Canada. Very prestigious, but you can’t eat the honour. They lived hand to mouth until Clara inherited money from their neighbour a few years ago. Now they’re comfortable, though far from wealthy. They live modestly. He hasn’t had a solo show in a few years, but he always sells out when he does. His works go for about ten thousand dollars each.’
‘And hers?’ asked Beauvoir.
‘That’s a little harder to say. Until recently she was selling her works for Canadian Tire money.’
Gamache smiled, seeing the wads of the store’s credit bills they gave out with every purchase, like Monopoly money. He had a pile in his glove compartment. Perhaps he should buy an original Clara Morrow while he still could.
‘But then her art started attracting more attention,’ Lacoste continued. ‘As you know, she has a huge solo show coming up.’
‘That brings us to Mariana Morrow,’ said Beauvoir, taking a delicate sip of tea. He imagined Chef Veronique scooping the loose dried leaves into the pretty floral pot, then grasping the large iron kettle and pouring the steaming water in. For him. She’d know it was coming to him, and probably added an extra scoop. And trimmed the crusts from the cucumber sandwiches.
‘Right, Mariana Morrow,’ said Lacoste, turning the page of her notebook. ‘Lives in Toronto too. In an area called Rosedale. I gather it’s like Westmount. Very posh.’
‘Divorced?’ asked Beauvoir.
‘Never married. This is the interesting part. She’s selfmade. Has her own company. She’s an architect. Got a huge break right out of school. For her thesis she designed a small, energy efficient low cost home. Not one of those ugly concrete blocks, but something pretty cool. A place low income people needn’t be ashamed to live in. She made a fortune from it.’
Beauvoir snorted. Trust a Morrow to make money from the poor.
‘She goes all over the world,’ continued Lacoste. ‘Speaks French, Italian, Spanish and Chinese. She makes massive amounts of money. Her last tax form shows her income last year at well over two million dollars. And that’s just what she declares.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Beauvoir, almost choking on an eclair. ‘You’re saying that woman all wrapped in scarves who drifts around and is late for everything is a selfmade millionaire?’
‘More successful than even her father,’ Lacoste nodded. She was secretly pleased. It gave her pleasure to think this most marginalized of Morrows was actually the most successful.
‘Do we know who the kid’s father is?’ Beauvoir asked.
Lacoste shook her head. ‘Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it was a virgin birth.’
She liked screwing with Beauvoir’s head. ‘I think I can guarantee you that’s not true,’ said Beauvoir, but a look at Gamache removed his smirk. ‘Now, you’re not telling me you believe it, Chief? I’m not going to be the one putting that in the official report. Suspects, Thomas, Peter, Mariana, oh yes and the Second Coming.’
‘You believe in the first, don’t you? Why not the second?’ asked Agent Lacoste.
‘Come on,’ he sputtered. ‘Do you really want me to believe the Second Coming is a child named Bean?’
‘A bean is a seed,’ said Gamache. ‘It’s an old allegory for faith. I have a feeling Bean is a very special child. Nothing is impossible with Bean.’
‘Except to tell if it’s a boy or a girl,’ said Beauvoir, miffed.
‘Does it matter?’ asked Gamache.
‘It matters in that all secrets in a murder investigation matter.’
Gamache nodded slowly. ‘That’s true. Often after a day or so it’s obvious who’s genuine and who isn’t. In this case it’s getting muddier and muddier. Thomas told us about a plant in the desert. If it showed itself for what it really was predators would eat it. So it learned to disguise itself, to hide its true nature. The Morrows are the same. Somehow, somewhere along the line they learned to hide who they really are, what they really think and feel. Nothing is as it seems with them.’
‘Except Peter and Clara,’ said Agent Lacoste. ‘I presume they’re not suspects.’
Gamache looked at her thoughtfully.
‘Do you remember that first case in Three Pines? The murder of Miss Jane Neal?’
They nodded. It was where they first met the Morrows.
‘After we’d made an arrest I was still uncomfortable.’
‘You think we arrested the wrong person?’ asked Beauvoir, aghast.
‘No, we got the murderer, there’s no doubt. But I also knew there was someone else in Three Pines I felt was capable of murder. Someone who needed watching.’
‘Clara,’ said Lacoste. Emotional, temperamental, passionate. So much can go wrong with a personality like that.