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

A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4) Page 36

There was no more screaming. But after a moment Gamache heard something else.

“This way.”

His long legs took him quickly down the fieldstone walk and round the puddled corner of the old lodge, Pierre splashing and slipping after him.

Colleen, the gardener, stood on the sodden lawn holding her hands to her streaming face. She was whimpering and he thought she’d been stung in the face by wasps, but as he got closer he saw her eyes. Staring and horrified.

Following her gaze he saw it too. Something he should have noticed as soon as he’d turned the corner of the Manoir.

The statue of Charles Morrow had taken that hesitant step. Somehow the huge stone man had left his plinth and toppled over. He now lay deeply imbedded in the soft and saturated ground but not as deeply as he might have been, for something had broken his fall. Beneath him, barely visible, lay his daughter Julia.

TEN

The maître d’ stopped dead.

“Oh, Christ,” he exhaled.

Gamache looked at Colleen, as petrified surely as Charles Morrow. Her hands covered her face and her bulging blue eyes stared out from between rain-soaked fingers.

“Come away,” Gamache said gently but firmly, standing in front of her to block the sight.

Her lips moved but he couldn’t make out the words. He leaned closer.

“Help.”

“It’s all right, we’re here,” he said and caught Pierre’s eye.

“Colleen.” The maître d’ laid a hand on her arm. Her eyes flickered and refocused.

“Help. We need to help her.”

“We will,” Gamache said reassuringly. Together, he and the maître d’ guided her through the rain to the back door into the kitchen.

“Take her inside,” Gamache instructed Pierre. “Ask Chef Véronique to make her hot sugared tea. In fact, ask her to make a few pots. I think we’re going to need them. Earl Gray.”

“Je comprends,” said Pierre. “What do I say?”

Gamache hesitated. “Tell them that there’s been a death, but don’t tell them who. Keep everyone inside. Can you round up the staff?”

“Easily. On a day like today most are inside the main lodge doing chores.”

“Good. Keep them there. And call the police.”

“D’accord. The family?”

“I’ll tell them.”

The door swung closed and Armand Gamache stood alone in the pelting rain.

Then he made his way back to Julia Martin. Kneeling down he reached out and touched her. She was cold and hard. Her mouth and eyes were wide open, surprised. He half expected her to blink as the raindrops fell onto her open eyes. He blinked a few times in sympathy then his gaze continued down her body. Her legs were collapsed and invisible under the statue, but her arms were flung open as though to embrace her father.

Gamache stood for a long minute, rain dripping from his nose and chin and hands and running inside his collar. He stared at the surprised face of Julia Martin, and thought of the face of Charles Morrow, filled with sorrow. Then he turned slightly and stared finally at the white cube that had reminded him of a grave marker when first he’d seen it. How had this massive statue fallen?

Reine-Marie and Bean were sitting in the hallway of the Manoir playing I Spy when he returned. One look at his face told her all she needed to know, for now.

“Bean, why don’t you get your book and we can read together.”

“OK.” The child left but not before giving Gamache an appraising look. After Bean ran upstairs Gamache took his wife into the library and told her everything as he headed for the phone.

“But how?” she asked, immediately grasping the question.

“I don’t know, yet. Oui, bonjour. Jean Guy?”

“You’re not calling for advice again, are you, Chief? Eventually you’re going to have to figure things out on your own.”

“Harrowing as that thought is, I do need your help.”

Jean Guy Beauvoir recognized this wasn’t a social call from his long-time boss. His voice sharpened and Gamache could almost hear his chair fall back to the ground as his feet whisked off the desk.

“What is it?”

Gamache succinctly passed on the details.

“At the Manoir Bellechasse? Mais, c’est incroyable. That’s the top auberge in Quebec.”

It always amazed Gamache that people, even professionals, thought Frette sheets and a superb wine list guarded against death.

“Was she murdered?”

And there was the other question. The two questions that had gotten up from the crime site and started to shadow Armand Gamache as soon as he’d seen Julia Martin’s body: how had the statue tumbled down, and was it murder?