The Nature of the Beast: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (28 page)

“So you opened the door,” Lacoste prompted.

“I yelled ‘Hi,’ but there was no answer. Of course.” He seemed to deflate a little at those last two words. “I hung up my coat and walked toward the living room and saw—” he gestured, but Chief Inspector Lacoste did not fill in the blank. “Everything was all over the place. I think I sorta went blank. Froze. And then I panicked and started shouting for Antoinette. I ran into the room and must’ve tripped because I ended up on the floor. That’s when I saw…”

“Saw what, Brian?” asked Lacoste quietly when the silence had gone on.

“Her foot. I’m not sure what happened next. I’ve been sitting here trying to put it together but it just seems like…” He struggled for the word. “I remember seeing her face, and her eyes. And knowing. I think I might’ve touched her because I remember feeling cold. And then thinking I was about to pass out. It was just too…”

He stared out the kitchen window and seemed to have ground to a halt, overwhelmed.

“What did you do then?” Lacoste asked.

She had the impression that had she not prompted him, Brian would have spent the rest of his life staring out that window. Stuck.

Lacoste glanced over at Jean-Guy, who also sat very still, absorbing it all.

“I panicked,” said Brian softly, not meeting their eyes. “I ran away. I had to get out. I went over to Madame Proulx’s place next door. She called the police.”

“Did you come back here?”

He shook his head. “Only when the police arrived. They asked me to come back with them, and they put me in here.”

The coffee was ready and Beauvoir poured them each a mug. When they’d taken a sip of the strong coffee, Lacoste resumed the interrogation. She made it sound like a conversation, but only a fool, or a man numb with grief, could mistake it for that.

“Can you tell us what you did last night?”

“I was in Montréal. The monthly meeting of the Geological Survey. We go through our reports.”

“Last night?”

“No, yesterday afternoon but I stayed over. Some of us go out for drinks and dinner after. We always do.”

“Can you give us the details, a phone number of someone who was there?”

“Yes.”

Beauvoir took it down.

“What time did you finish?”

“About eight, eight thirty. Not late.”

“Where did you stay? A hotel?”

“No, we have a pied-à-terre. Just a studio. I stay there when I’m in town for meetings and will have a few drinks.”

“Can anyone vouch for you?” asked Lacoste.

“Vouch for me?” he asked, and then it dawned on him, as it did every suspect eventually. That they were suspected. But unlike many, Brian didn’t get angry or defensive. He just looked even more frightened, if that was possible.

“I was alone in the apartment. There’s no doorman. I let myself in and didn’t go out again.”

“Did you call anyone?”

“Just Antoinette.” He pressed his lips together and took a ragged breath.

“What time was that?”

“When I got in, about three in the afternoon. Just to say I’d arrived safely. She told me we’d been invited over to Clara’s for dinner, but she thought she might cancel.”

“Did she tell you why?” Beauvoir asked, speaking for the first time in the interrogation.

“She said she thought a couple of people might drop by later.”

“Who?”

“People from the theater,” he said. “They wanted to talk to her. I think they wanted to fire her, but I didn’t say anything.”

“What did she think it was about?” Lacoste asked.

“She thought they’d changed their minds and were going to do the play after all.” His hand went to the copy of
She Sat Down and Wept
on the kitchen table. It was covered in scribbled notes. “She couldn’t believe everyone had quit.”

Once again Brian gave them names, and once again Beauvoir took them down.

“Emotions were running high about the play,” said Lacoste.

Brian nodded. “It was a mistake, of course. We shouldn’t have been doing it.” He looked at her then, focusing completely for the first time. “You don’t think it had anything to do with—” He gestured out the kitchen door toward the living room. “But that’s ridiculous. It’s just a play. No one cares that much.”

“They cared enough to quit,” said Lacoste.

But enough to kill?

“Who knew you’d be in Montréal?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Brian, thinking but obviously not grasping the significance of the question. “I think people knew I went in every now and then, but I don’t think I told anyone I was going in yesterday.”

Lacoste caught Beauvoir’s eye. Did Brian really not know he’d just been given a chance to take the heat off himself?

Antoinette was killed by someone who knew he wouldn’t be interrupted. The murderer therefore didn’t know about Brian, or knew Brian was in Montréal, or was Brian.

Had he told them lots of people knew he’d be away, that would open up the list of suspects. But he hadn’t. Which showed he was innocent or stupid, or so sure of himself he chose to play stupid.

They went through the rest of the questions and Brian gave answers, some halting, some incomplete, some thorough. What emerged was the image of a man numb with grief, who’d been a hundred kilometers away when Antoinette was killed. Who had nothing to do with it. Who wished he’d been there. Who couldn’t think of anyone who wanted her dead.

“I know you have to look at all possibilities, but it was a robbery, wasn’t it?” Brian finally asked. “It must’ve been. Look at the place.”

When the Sûreté investigators didn’t answer, he looked more confused than ever.

“You’re not saying someone killed Antoinette on purpose, are you?”

“It’s a possibility,” said Lacoste.

“Who would do it?” he demanded. “Why? I know she could rub people the wrong way, but she never got anyone that upset.”

“You can’t think of anyone?” asked Lacoste.

“Of course not,” said Brian. “This must’ve been a terrible accident. Someone came to rob the place, and Antoinette found them. Jesus, what’re you saying?”

“We’re saying it was probably robbery, but we have to be sure,” said Lacoste, her voice soothing. Certain.

Her calm seemed to have its effect. Brian took a deep breath and regained his composure.

“I’ll help in any way I can. What can I do?”

“You can prove you were in Montréal,” said Beauvoir.

This time Brian didn’t miss the implication, but instead of getting defensive he just nodded and gave them the address of the apartment building, the number of the superintendent, the names of neighbors.

He gave them the codes to their computers, their banking, their phones.

“Antoinette used the last four digits of your phone number?” said Beauvoir as he looked down at what he’d written.

“I know, too obvious,” said Brian. “I told her that but she wanted something she could remember.”

“And yours?” asked Beauvoir. “0621 for everything?”

“Yes. Something I could never forget. June twenty-first. Our first date. Ten years ago.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir concentrated on the page, on the numbers, on the pen as he wrote it down. And tried not to look into Brian’s red, wondering eyes.

Like Brian, he too used his first date with Annie as his code. Something he would never, could never, ever forget.

How would he feel if he found Annie…?

Chief Inspector Gamache had told them to crawl into the skins of the victim and the suspects, but he’d warned his investigators that it was difficult to do, and it was dangerous. Jean-Guy had never really understood the need, or the danger.

But now he did.

He’d gotten into Brian’s skin but had overshot the mark and ended up in his broken heart.

As they left, Jean-Guy picked up the copy of the play from the table. Brian explained it was Antoinette’s. He’d taken it with him to Montréal, having left his own copy in the theater.

Beauvoir was not a superstitious man, or claimed not to be. But even to this rational man, the play seemed heavier than just paper.

*   *   *

They interviewed all the neighbors, none of whom saw or heard anything, and left Madame Proulx, next door, ’til last. She was middle-aged and plump and worried, her large, red hands intertwined and fidgety.

“What did Brian Fitzpatrick say to you exactly?” Isabelle Lacoste asked as they took seats in the comfortable living room. “When he arrived this morning.”

“That something had happened and he needed to call for help, but he was trembling too hard, so I called.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Only that Antoinette had been hurt. I asked if we should go over to help and he looked so frightened, I knew.”

Her eyes moved from one to the other. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so.”

And then she did something rarely seen anymore in Québec. She crossed herself.

“Did you see anyone arrive at their place last night?” Isabelle Lacoste asked.

“No, I had the curtains drawn and was watching television.
Les Filles de Caleb
.”

Lacoste nodded. It was what all the other neighbors had said. Everyone had drawn the curtains and settled in front of the television to watch the rerun of the wildly popular show.

A werewolf could tear apart the living room and this woman wouldn’t budge while that show was on. Lacoste was beginning to wonder if the killer had chosen the time for that very reason.

“Do you know who did it?” asked Madame Proulx.

“
Non,
not yet, but we will,” said Lacoste.

She tried to reassure Madame Proulx, but without a suspect arrested the reassurance was hollow.

At least Laurent Lepage’s murder hadn’t appeared random. It seemed clear from the beginning that he was killed not because he was Laurent, or a child, but because of what he found in the woods. There was a reason.

But the murder of Antoinette Lemaitre seemed senseless. There was no obvious motive. And into that void there streamed all sorts of suspicions. And understandable terror.

Lacoste could see exactly what Madame Proulx was thinking.
It could’ve been me.
Followed closely by
, Thank God it was the woman next door.

“What did you think of Antoinette?” Lacoste asked.

“She was okay. She’s friendly without being overly familiar, if you know what I mean.”

“Did you like her?” Lacoste asked.

There was a hesitation and Madame Proulx shifted in her La-Z-Boy. “I warmed to her. I liked her uncle, Guillaume. We’d chat over the fence in the summer while he gardened.”

“Sounds like you didn’t really like her, though,” Lacoste gently pushed, though it didn’t take much.

“She was difficult,” Madame Proulx admitted. “As soon as she moved in she started complaining. About the kids playing street hockey and the noise from family barbeques. She behaved like it was her
seigneurie
and we were all
habitants
, if you know what I mean.”

Lacoste did.
Les Filles de Caleb
was having its effect, down to the old-fashioned description of lord and peasant. But while the words were from a TV script, the emotions seemed genuine. Madame Proulx did not take kindly to the city woman bossing them around. It was what they’d heard, in various versions, from the other neighbors, once they’d gotten past being polite about the recently, and violently, deceased.

“Can you think of anyone who might’ve done this?” Lacoste asked, and saw Madame Proulx’s eyes widen.

“No. Can’t you? Isn’t that your job? You have no ideas?”

“We have some,” said Lacoste, bringing out the reassurance yet again, and yet again it had a marginal effect. “But I need to ask. No especially violent feuds with neighbors?”

“None. It was annoying, nothing more. And she looked odd. Those clothes. She was like a spoiled child.”

She turned shrewd eyes on the investigators.

“You don’t think it was just a robbery?”

“We’re looking at all possibilities.”

Madame Proulx took in, apparently for the first time, the script in Beauvoir’s hand, and she rose to her feet. Not swiftly, not even struggling out of the comfortable chair. There was a grace and ease about all her movements. And there was also certainty.

“I would like you to leave, and take that with you.”

There was no need to ask what “that” was.

“You’re aware of the play?” Beauvoir asked, holding it up. He thought for a moment Madame Proulx was going to cross herself again. But she didn’t. Instead she straightened up completely and stood, tall and formidable, facing both him and John Fleming’s creation.

“We all were. It’s a travesty. How she couldn’t see that is beyond me. I’m not a prude, if that’s what you’re thinking. But it’s not right.”

No philosophical debate, no discussion of the evils of censorship. Just a clear statement of fact. Producing the Fleming play wasn’t right. But exactly how wrong it was wasn’t yet clear.

At the door Beauvoir asked about Brian.

“We liked him,” said Madame Proulx, apparently speaking for the whole neighborhood. “Now if he killed her we could understand. But he seemed to really care for her.” She shook her head. “Happens a lot, doesn’t it? You look at a couple and wonder what they see in each other. You never know, if you know what I mean.”

Beauvoir did know. You never knew.

They got in the car and headed back to Three Pines.

“Why did you take the play with you?” Lacoste asked Beauvoir as he drove.

“It’s been nothing but trouble,” he explained. “And whoever killed Antoinette was looking for something. Maybe it was the play.”

“But there’re lots of copies out there.”

“True, but that’s the original. I thought it was worth a read.”

Isabelle Lacoste nodded. He was right. She wished she’d thought of that.

There were times when she felt completely up to the job of Chief Inspector. And times when she knew it should have gone to this man.

“Is there anything else I missed?” she asked him.

“You don’t miss much, Isabelle,” said Beauvoir. “And what you do, I pick up. And vice versa. It’s what makes us a strong team.”

“Do you miss Monsieur Gamache?” she asked.