A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4)

A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4) Page 129

Gamache stepped forward and took charge of the room once again.

“The seed for a murder is often planted years earlier,” said Gamache. “Like the black walnut tree, it takes that long to grow and become toxic. That’s what happened here. I made a huge mistake at the very beginning. I assumed the murderer was a member of the family. It almost cost Bean’s life.” He turned to the child. “I’m so sorry.”

“You saved my life.”

“How kind of you to see it that way. But I made a mistake. A massive one. I was looking in the wrong direction.”

“What made you suspect Patenaude?” asked Clara.

“This was such an unusual case,” said Gamache. “It wasn’t the who that got me, or even the why. It was the how. How had the murderer killed Julia Martin? How could that statue have fallen, and without scratching the pedestal? Remember the day of the unveiling you went for that boat ride?” Gamache asked Peter. “We were on the dock and Bean came tearing down the lawn.”

“Stung by a wasp,” said Peter.

“Not a wasp, a bee,” said Gamache. “A honey bee.”

“I’m sorry,” said Clara, “but how could it matter if it was a bee or a wasp?”

“The fact it was a honey bee gave Patenaude away. It was the fatal clue, the one thing he had no control over. Let me explain.”

“Please,” said Mrs. Finney.

“The Manoir Bellechasse has its own hives, over there.” He waved into the forest. “Chef Véronique planted a grove of honeysuckle and clover and put the hives in the middle. Honey bees can fly a great distance to get food, but if it’s close they don’t bother. She put the honeysuckle there so the bees wouldn’t leave the glade and disturb the guests. And for years it worked so well we didn’t even know they were there.”

“Until Bean got stung,” said Peter, perplexed.

“Frankly I don’t know the difference between a bee sting and a wasp,” Gamache admitted. “But Inspector Beauvoir became quite interested in honey bees.” He didn’t say why. “According to him a wasp never leaves its stinger, neither do other bees. They can sting over and over. But a worker honey bee can sting only once. As it stings it leaves a barb and a tiny poison sac and that kills the bee. Bean’s stings still had barbs and poison sacs in them. Bean hadn’t been in the glade when stung, but was all the way across the property.” He arched his arm over from the forest until his hand was pointing in the opposite direction. “Bean was stung while playing around the pedestal for the statue. What would honey bees be doing there, so far from the honeysuckle grove? Especially since all the flowers there were dying, killed by the black walnut?”

“What were they doing?” asked Madame Dubois, puzzled.

“It was one of those tiny mysteries, an inconsistency that nags. A murder investigation is full of them. Some are important, some are just the messiness of everyday life. This turned out to be crucial. I finally got it earlier today at the Canada Day picnic.”

“Really?” said Clara, remembering the lunch, the whole village out on the green, the kids hyper on a diet of Coaticook ice cream, cream sodas and toasted marshmallows.

“What did you see that we didn’t?” asked Reine-Marie.

“I saw bees and ants attracted to the puddles of Coke, and I saw spilled salt,” he said.

“So did I,” said Peter, “but they didn’t tell me anything.”

“Do you remember how the Coke spilled?”

“The little boy shoved it across the table,” said Peter, remembering.

“He shoved it across the spilled salt,” clarified Gamache. “Your mother did much the same thing when we spoke this morning.”

Peter turned astonished eyes on his mother.

“I did no such thing.”

Gamache walked over to the sideboard and picked up a delicate china sugar bowl. “May I?” he asked Madame Dubois, who nodded. He then took the linen tablecloth off one of the dining room tables, revealing a wood surface underneath. It was antique pine and rough to the touch. Taking the top off the sugar bowl he turned it upside down.

“Have you lost your mind?” demanded Mrs. Finney.

But she joined everyone else, now crowded round the table, with its pyramid of granular white sugar. Gamache smoothed it out, until it covered half the dark wood surface.

“This morning as we talked on the terrasse you held a sugar bowl much like this one,” the Chief Inspector said to Mrs. Finney. “When you were agitated you moved it back and forth, across some sugar that had spilled.”