How the Light Gets In: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel (48 page)

Myrna suspected Armand would not be thrilled to know she was telling everyone what he’d written. In fact, he’d printed
Confidential
across the first page. And now she was blabbing it freely. But when she’d seen the anxiety in their faces, felt the gravity of the situation pressing down on them, she knew she had to take their minds off their fears.

And what better way than a tale of greed, of love, both warped and real. Of secrets and rage, of hurt beyond repair. And finally, of murder. Murders.

She thought the Chief Inspector might forgive her. She hoped she’d get a chance to ask for it.

“And it was a gilded life for the five girls,” she continued, looking around the circle at the wide, attentive eyes. “The government built them a perfect little cottage, like something out of a storybook. With a garden, a white picket fence. To keep the gawkers out. And the girls in. They had beautiful clothes, private tutoring, music lessons. They had toys and cream cakes. They had everything. Except privacy and freedom. And that’s the problem with a gilded life. Nothing inside can thrive. Eventually what was once beautiful rots.”

“Rots?” Gabri asked. “Did they turn on each other?”

Myrna looked at him. “One sibling turned on the others, yes.”

“Who?” asked Clara quietly. “What happened?”

*   *   *

Gamache pulled into the driveway and got out of the car, almost slipping on the icy pavement underfoot. The door was opened before he could ring, and he stepped inside.

“The girls are at a neighbor’s,” said Villeneuve. He’d obviously realized the importance of this visit. He led the way back to the kitchen, and there on the table were two purses, one for everyday use and the other a clutch.

Without a word, Gamache opened the clutch. It was empty. He felt around the lining, then tipped it toward the light. The lining had been recently sewn back in place. By Audrey or the cops who’d searched it?

“Do you mind if I take out the lining?” he asked.

“Do whatever you have to.”

Gamache ripped and felt around inside but came up empty. If there’d been anything there, it was gone. He turned to the other purse and quickly searched it but found nothing.

“Is that all there was in your wife’s car?”

Villeneuve nodded.

“Did they give you back her clothes?”

“The ones she was wearing? They offered to, but I told them to throw them away. I didn’t want to see.”

While disappointed, Gamache wasn’t surprised. He’d have felt the same way. And he also suspected whatever Audrey had hidden wasn’t in her office clothes. Or, if it was, it had been found.

“The dress?” he asked.

“I didn’t want it either, but it showed up with the other things.”

Gamache looked around. “Where is it?”

“The garbage. I probably should’ve given it to some charity sale, but I just couldn’t deal with it.”

“Do you still have the garbage?”

Villeneuve led him to the bin beside the house, and Gamache rummaged through until he found an emerald green dress. With a Chanel tag inside.

“This can’t be it,” he showed Villeneuve. “It says Chanel. I thought you said Audrey made her dress.”

Villeneuve smiled.

“She did. Audrey didn’t want anyone to know she made some of her own clothes or dresses for the kids, so she’d sew designer labels in.”

Villeneuve took the dress and looked at the label, shaking his head, his hands slowly tightening over the material, until he was clutching it and tears were streaming down his face.

After a couple of minutes, Gamache put his hand on Villeneuve’s, and loosened his grip. Then he took the dress inside.

He felt along the hem. Nothing. He felt the sleeves. Nothing. He felt the neckline. Nothing. Until. Until he came to the short line at the bottom of the semi-plunging neckline. Where it squared off.

He took the scissors Villeneuve offered and carefully unpicked the seam. This was not machine-stitched like the rest of the dress, but done by hand with great care.

He folded back the material and found a memory stick.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Jean-Guy Beauvoir turned off the highway onto the secondary road. In the backseat Chief Superintendent Francoeur and Inspector Tessier were conferring. Beauvoir hadn’t asked why they wanted to go to Three Pines, or why the unmarked Sûreté van was following them.

He didn’t care.

He was just a chauffeur. He’d do as he was told. No more debate. He’d learned that when he cared, he got hurt, and he couldn’t take any more pain. Even the pills couldn’t dull it anymore.

So Jean-Guy Beauvoir did the only thing left. He gave up.

*   *   *

“But Constance was the last Quint,” said Ruth. “How could she have been killed by one of her sisters?”

“What do we really know about their deaths?” Myrna asked Ruth. “You yourself suspected the first one to die—”

“Virginie,” said Ruth.

“—hadn’t fallen down those stairs by accident. You suspected suicide.”

“But it was just a guess,” said the old poet. “I was young and thought despair was romantic.” She paused, stroking Rosa’s head. “I might’ve confused Virginie with myself.”

“Who hurt you once / so far beyond repair,”
Clara quoted.

Ruth opened her mouth and for a moment the friends thought she might actually answer that question. But then her thin lips clamped shut.

“Suppose you were wrong about Virginie?” Myrna asked.

“How can it matter now?” Ruth asked.

Gabri jumped in. “It would matter if Virginie didn’t really fall down the stairs. Was that their secret?” he asked Myrna. “She wasn’t dead?”

Thérèse Brunel turned back to the window. She’d allowed herself to glance into the room, toward the tight circle and the ghost story. But a sound drew her eyes back outside. A car was approaching.

Everyone heard it. Olivier was the first to move, walking swiftly across the wooden floor. He stood at Thérèse’s shoulder and looked out.

“It’s only Billy Williams,” he reported. “Come for his lunch.”

They relaxed, but not completely. The tension, pushed aside by the story, was back.

Gabri shoved another couple of logs into the woodstove. They all felt slightly chilled, though the room was warm.

“Constance was trying to tell me something,” said Myrna, picking up the thread. “And she did. She told us everything, but we just didn’t know how to put it together.”

“What did she tell us?” Ruth demanded.

“Well, she told you and me that she loved to play hockey,” said Myrna. “That it was Brother André’s favorite sport. They had a team and would get up a game with the neighborhood kids.”

“So?” asked Ruth, and Rosa, in her arms, quacked quietly as though mimicking her mother. “So, so, so,” the duck muttered.

Myrna turned to Olivier, Gabri, and Clara. “She gave you mitts and a scarf that she’d knitted, with symbols of your lives. Paintbrushes for Clara—”

“I don’t want to know what your symbol was,” Nichol said to Gabri and Olivier.

“She was practically leaking clues,” said Myrna. “It must’ve been so frustrating for her.”

“For her?” said Clara. “It’s really not that obvious, you know.”

“Not to you,” said Myrna. “Not to me. Not to anyone here. But to someone unused to talking about herself and her life, it must’ve seemed like she was screaming her secrets at us. You know what it’s like. When we know something, and hint, those hints seem so obvious. She must’ve thought we were a bunch of idiots not to pick up on what she was saying.”

“But what was she saying?” Olivier asked. “That Virginie was still alive?”

“She left her final clue under my tree, thinking that she wouldn’t be back,” said Myrna. “Her card said it was the key to her home. It would unlock all the secrets.”

“Her albatross,” said Ruth.

“She gave you an albatross?” asked Nichol. Nothing about this village or these people surprised her anymore.

Myrna laughed. “In a way. She gave me a tuque. We’d thought maybe she’d knitted it, but it was too old. And there was a tag sewn in it. MA, it said.”

“Ma,” said Gabri. “It belonged to her mother.”

“What did you call your mother?”

“Ma,” said Gabri. “Ma. Mama.”

There was silence, while Myrna nodded. “Mama. Not Ma. They were initials, like all the other hats. Madame Ouellet didn’t make that tuque for herself.”

“Well then, whose was it?” Ruth demanded.

“It belonged to Constance’s killer.”

*   *   *

Villeneuve rang the doorbell and his neighbor answered.

“Gaétan,” she said, “have you come to get the girls? They’re playing in the basement.”

“Non, merci,
Celeste. I’m actually wondering if we could use your computer. The police took mine.”

Celeste glanced from Villeneuve to the large unshaven man with the bruise and cut on his cheek. She looked far from certain.

“Please,” said Villeneuve. “It’s important.”

Celeste relented, but watched Gamache closely as they hurried to the back of the house, and the laptop set up on the small desk in the breakfast room. Gamache wasted no time. He shoved the memory stick into the slot. It flashed open.

He clicked on the first file. Then the next. He made note of various words.

Permeable. Substandard. Collapse.

But one word made him stop. And stare.

Pier.

He clicked rapidly back. And back. And then he stopped and stood up so rapidly Celeste and Gaétan both jumped back.

“May I use your phone, please?”

Not waiting for an answer, he grabbed the receiver and began dialing.

“Isabelle, it’s not the tunnel. It’s the bridge. The Champlain Bridge. I think the explosives must be attached to the piers.”

“I’ve been trying to reach you, sir. They won’t close the tunnel. They don’t believe me. Or you. If they won’t close the tunnel, they sure as hell won’t close the bridge.”

“I’m emailing you the report,” he said, retaking his seat and pounding on the keys. “You’ll have the proof. Close that bridge, Isabelle. I don’t care if you have to lie across the lanes yourself. And get the bomb disposal unit out.”

“Yessir.
Patron,
there’s one other thing.”

By the tone of her voice, he knew. “Jean-Guy?”

“I can’t find him. He’s not in his office, he’s not at home. I’ve tried his cell phone. It’s shut off.”

“Thank you for trying,” he said. “Just get that bridge closed.”

Gamache thanked Celeste and Gaétan Villeneuve and made for the door.

“It’s the bridge?” Villeneuve asked him.

“Your wife found out about it,” said Gamache, outside now and walking rapidly to his car. “She tried to stop it.”

“And they killed her,” said Villeneuve, following Gamache.

Gamache stopped and faced the man. “
Oui.
She went to the bridge to get the final proof, to see for herself. She planned to take that proof, and this
”
—he held up the memory stick—
“
to the Christmas party, and pass it on to someone she thought she could trust.”

“They killed her,” Villeneuve repeated, trying to grasp the meaning behind the words.

“She didn’t fall from the bridge,” said Gamache. “She was killed underneath it when she went to look at the piers.” He got in his car. “Get your girls. Go to a hotel and take your neighbor and her family with you. Don’t use your credit card. Pay cash. Leave your cell phones at home. Stay there until this is over.”

“Why?”

“Because I emailed the files from your neighbor’s home and used her phone. They’ll know I know. And they’ll know you know too. They’ll be here soon. Go. Leave.”

Villeneuve blanched and backed away from the car, then he ran stumbling over the ice and snow, calling for his girls.

*   *   *

“Sir,” said Tessier, looking down at his messages. “I need to show you this.”

He handed his device over to Chief Superintendent Francoeur.

Gamache had returned to the Villeneuve house. And something had been emailed to Inspector Lacoste, from the neighbor’s computer.

When he saw what it was, Francoeur’s face hardened.

“Pick up Villeneuve and the neighbor,” he said quietly to Tessier. “And pick up Gamache and Lacoste. Clean this up.”

“Yessir.” Tessier knew what “clean this up” meant. He’d cleaned up Audrey Villeneuve.

While Tessier made the arrangements, Francoeur watched as the flat farmland turned into hills, and forest, and mountains.

Gamache was getting closer, Francoeur knew. But so were they.

*   *   *

Chief Inspector Gamache craned his neck, to see what had stopped all the traffic. They were just inching along the narrow residential street. At a main intersection he spotted a city cop and a barricade. He pulled over.

“Move along,” the cop commanded, not even looking at the driver.

“What’s the holdup?” Gamache asked.

The cop looked at Gamache as though he was nuts.

“Don’t you know? The Santa Claus parade. Get going, you’re holding up traffic.”

*   *   *

Thérèse Brunel stayed by the window, standing to the side. Staring out.

It wouldn’t be long now, she knew.

But still she listened to Myrna’s story. The tale with the long tail. That went back decades. Almost beyond living memory.

To a saint and a miracle, and a Christmas tuque.

“MA,” said Myrna. “That was the key. Every hat their mother made had a tag with their initials. MC for Marie-Constance, et cetera.”

“So what did MA stand for?” Clara asked. She went back over the girls’ names. Virginie, Hélène, Josephine, Marguerite, Constance. No A.

Then Clara’s eyes widened and shone. She looked at Myrna.

“Why did everyone think there were only five?” she asked Myrna. “Of course they’d have more.”

“More what?” asked Gabri. But Olivier got it.

“More children,” said Olivier. “When the girls were taken from them, the Ouellets made more.”

Myrna was nodding slowly, watching them as the truth dawned. And, as with Constance and her hints, it now seemed so obvious. But it hadn’t been obvious to Myrna, until she’d read it in Armand’s letter.