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

A Rule Against Murder (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #4) Page 58

“Olivier and I were so sorry to hear about Peter’s sister,” Gabri said as he showed Reine-Marie to her room in the inn. It was warm and inviting, the bed a dark, rich wood, the bedding in clean, luxurious white. “How’re they doing?”

“It’s a shock,” said Gamache, “but they’re coping.” What else could he say?

“Terrible.” The large man shook his head. “Clara called and asked me to pack a bag for them. She sounded a bit stressed. Do you clog?” he asked Reine-Marie, mimicking the old dance, a rustic cross between tap and Celtic.

It wasn’t the next obvious question and she stared.

“I’ve never tried,” she said.

“Well, Mary Queen of the World, you’re in for a treat. In two days we have the Canada Day celebrations on the village green and we’re putting together a clogging demonstration. I’ve signed you up.”

“Please take me back to the place with the murderer,” Reine-Marie whispered in her husband’s ear as she kissed him goodbye at the car minutes later, smelling his slight rosewater and sandalwood scent. As he drove away she waved, still in the world of his scent, a world of comfort and kindliness and calm, and no clogging.

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache walked into the Sûreté offices in Sherbrooke and introduced himself. “Perhaps you can direct us to your evidence area.”

The agent behind the desk leapt to his feet. “Yessir. The statue’s through here.”

They followed the agent to the back of the station and into a large garage. Charles Morrow was leaning against a wall as though ordering another huge drink. Another agent sat in a chair in front of the statue, guarding it.

“I thought it best to be sure no one interfered with it. I know you took blood and soil samples. We’ve sent them to the lab by courier, but I took some more, to be sure.”

“You’re very thorough,” said Gamache. Their feet echoed across the concrete floor of the garage. Gamache had the impression Charles Morrow was waiting for them.

Gamache nodded to the agent guarding the statue and dismissed him, then he reached out a hand and touched the stone torso. He held it there, not really sure what he expected to feel. A distant pulse, perhaps.

And Gamache indeed felt something unexpected. He moved his hand to another position, this time on Morrow’s arm, and rubbed up and down.

“Jean Guy, look at this.”

Beauvoir leaned closer. “What?”

“Feel it.”

Beauvoir put his hand where the chief’s had been. He’d expected to feel it cool to the touch, but it was warm as though Charles Morrow, the miser, had sucked the warmth from the chief.

But he felt something else. Drawing his brows together he moved his hand to Morrow’s torso and stroked. Then he leaned even closer so that his nose was almost touching the statue.

“But this isn’t stone,” he said at last.

“I don’t think so either,” said Gamache, stepping back.

Charles Morrow was gray. A deep gray in some places, a lighter gray in others. And his surface undulated slightly. At first Gamache thought it was an effect somehow achieved by the sculptor, but touching the statue and looking more closely he realized it was ingrained. The waves, like sagging skin, were part of whatever Charles Morrow had been sculpted from. It was as though this was a real man, a giant. And the giant had petrified.

“What is it? What’s it made of?”

“I don’t know,” said Gamache. He was saying that a lot in this case. He looked up into the face of Charles Morrow. Then he took another step back.

The face had bits of earth and grass still clinging to it. He looked like a dead man dug up. But the face, beneath its layer of earth, looked determined, resolved. Alive. The arms, held loosely at the waist, palms up, looked as though he had lost something. Traces of blood, now dried, colored Charles Morrow’s head and hands. His slight stride looked hesitant.

Taken in parts he gave the impression of a sullen, impatient, greedy, certainly needy, man.

But taken as a whole Gamache had an entirely different impression. The sum of his parts spoke of longing, of sadness, of resignation mixed with resolve. It was the same feeling he’d had about Charles Morrow the moment the canvas caul had been whisked away at the unveiling. And now Gamache had the impression he was back in a familiar garden in Paris.

Where most visitors went to the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Tour Eiffel, Armand Gamache went to a quiet courtyard garden behind a tiny museum.

And there he paid his respects to men long dead.