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

A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4) Page 43

They all watched as the flatbed was slowly and carefully driven past them, a Sûreté officer in the passenger seat and the crane operator driving. They disappeared round a bend in the dirt road and into the thick forest.

“When did the storm hit?” He was asking himself as much as her. She was silent, pretending to think. She’d been in bed by nine with her madeleine cookies, Diet Coke and Cosmo, though she’d rather not volunteer that information. She’d woken in the middle of the night to find her cottage shaking and the power out.

“We’ll call the weather office. If they don’t know the maître d’ will,” he said, walking back to the hole. Staring in he saw what he should have noted in the first place. She was in the clothes he remembered from the night before.

No raincoat. No hat. No umbrella.

No rain.

She was dead before the storm had struck.

“Any other wounds on her body?”

“Don’t appear to be. I’ll do the autopsy this afternoon and let you know. Anything else before we take her away?”

“Inspector?” Gamache called and Beauvoir joined him, wiping his hands on his sodden slacks.

“No, we’re finished. Dirt.” He looked at his hands and spoke as a surgeon might say “germs.” Dirt, grass, mud, insects were unnatural to Beauvoir, for whom cologne and a nice silk blend were his elements.

“That reminds me,” said Gamache. “There was a bees’ or wasps’ nest nearby. Be careful.”

“Lacoste, the nest?” Beauvoir jerked his head, but Lacoste continued to stare at the dead woman. She was putting herself in Julia’s place. Turning. Seeing the statue do the impossible, the unthinkable. Seeing it fall toward her. And Agent Lacoste put her hands out in front of her, palms forward, elbows tucked into her body, ready to repel the attack. Turning away.

It was instinctive.

And yet Julia Martin had opened her arms.

The chief walked past her and stood in front of the pedestal. Reaching out he slid his hand over the wet marble. The surface was perfect, pristine. But that wasn’t possible. A several ton statue would make scuffs, scratches, divots. But this surface was unmarred.

It was as though the statue had never been there. Gamache knew that was indulging his imagination. But he also knew he’d need his imagination if he was going to catch this killer. And there was a killer. Armand Gamache had no doubt. For all his magical thinking, Gamache knew statues didn’t walk themselves off their pedestals. If magic hadn’t done it, and if the storm hadn’t, something else had. Some one had.

Somehow someone had managed to get a massive statue, weighing tons, to fall. And to land on Julia Martin.

She’d been murdered. He didn’t know who, and he sure as hell didn’t know how.

But he would.

TWELVE

Armand Gamache had never been in the Manoir kitchen but wasn’t surprised to find it was large, with floors and counters made of gleaming dark wood and appliances made of stainless steel. Like the rest of the old lodge it was a mix of very old and very new. It smelled of basil and coriander, fresh bread and rich ground coffee.

As he entered bottoms slid from counters, the chopping stopped and the hum of conversation petered out.

Gamache immediately went over to Colleen, who was sitting beside the proprietor, Madame Dubois.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded, face bloated and blotched, but she seemed composed.

“Good. That was a pretty awful thing to see. Shook me too.”

She smiled, grateful he’d said it loud enough for everyone to hear.

Gamache turned to the room.

“I’m Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec.”

“Voyons,” he heard a loud whisper, “I told you it was him.”

A scattering of “Holy shit” was also heard.

“As you know, there’s been a death. The statue in the garden fell and struck Madame Martin.”

Young, attentive, and excited faces looked at him.

He spoke with natural authority, trying to reassure, even as he broke the frightening news. “We believe Madame Martin was murdered.”

There was stunned silence. He’d seen that transition almost every day of his working life. He often felt like a ferryman, taking men and women from one shore to another. From the rugged, though familiar, terrain of grief and shock into a netherworld visited by a blessed few. To a shore where men killed each other on purpose.

They’d all seen it from a safe distance, on television, in the papers. They’d all known it existed, this other world. Now they were in it.