A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #7)

A Trick of the Light (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #7) Page 111

“I wasn’t a guest. I was working the party. And not even as a waiter. I was in the kitchen all night. I didn’t see Lillian. Didn’t even know she was here. Why would I? Look, this party was planned long ago. I was hired weeks ago.”

“Did you mention it to Lillian?” asked Beauvoir.

“Of course not. I don’t tell her about every party I’m working.”

“Did you know who it was for?”

“Not a clue. I knew it was an artist, but most of them are. The caterers I work for do mostly vernissages. I didn’t decide to come here, it was the party I was assigned. I had no idea who it was for, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was that no one complained, and that I got paid.”

“When we told you that Lillian had died at a party in Three Pines you must have known then,” Beauvoir pressed. “Why didn’t you tell us then?”

“I should have,” she admitted. “I know that. In fact, that was one of the reasons I came down. I knew I had to tell you the truth. I was just getting my courage up.”

Beauvoir looked at her with a mixture of disgust and admiration.

It was a masterful display of deceit. He glanced over to the Chief, who was also pondering the woman. But his face was indecipherable.

“Why didn’t you tell us this last night?” Beauvoir demanded again. “Why lie?”

“I was shocked. When you said Three Pines at first I thought I must have heard wrong. It was only after you left it really sank in. I was here that night. Maybe even here when she died.”

“And why didn’t you tell us as soon as you arrived today?” asked Beauvoir.

She shook her head. “I know. It was stupid. But the longer it went on the more I realized how bad it looked. And then I convinced myself it didn’t matter since I hadn’t been out of the bistro kitchen all night. I hadn’t seen anything. Really.”

“Do you have a beginner’s chip?” Gamache asked.

“Pardon?”

“An AA beginner’s chip. Bob told me everyone takes one. Do you have one?”

Suzanne nodded.

“May I see it?”

“I forgot. I gave it away.”

The two men stared and her color rose.

“To who?” Gamache asked.

Suzanne hesitated.

“To who?” Beauvoir demanded, leaning forward.

“I don’t know, I can’t think.”

“What you can’t think of is a lie. We want the truth. Now,” snapped Beauvoir.

“Where is your beginner’s chip?” asked Gamache.

“I don’t know. I gave it to one of my sponsees, years ago. We do that.”

But the Chief Inspector thought the chip was much closer than that. He suspected it was in an evidence bag, having been found caked in dirt where Lillian fell. He suspected that was one of the many reasons Suzanne Coates had come to Three Pines. To try to find her missing chip. To see how the investigation was going. To perhaps try to derail it.

But not, certainly, to tell them the truth.

*   *   *

Peter walked down the dirt road and noticed their car parked a little askew, on the grass border.

Clara was home.

He’d sat in St. Thomas’s Anglican Church for much of the afternoon. Repeating the prayers he remembered as a child, which pretty much boiled down to the Lord’s Prayer, the dinner prayer, “Bless, oh Lord, this food to our use…,” and Vespers, but then he remembered that was Christopher Robin and not one of the apostles.

He’d prayed. He’d sat quietly. He’d even sung something from the hymnal.

His bottom hurt and he felt neither joyful nor triumphant.

And so he left. If God was in St. Thomas’s He was hiding from Peter.

God and Clara both avoiding him. It was not, by most standards, a good day. Though as he walked down into the village he had to think Lillian would have traded places with him.

There were worse things than not meeting God. Meeting Him, for instance.

As he approached their home he noticed Denis Fortin just leaving. The two men waved to each other as Peter walked up the path.

He found Clara in the kitchen, staring at a wall.

“I just saw Fortin,” said Peter, coming up behind her. “What did he want?”

Clara turned around and the smile froze on Peter’s face.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

“I’ve done something terrible,” she said. “I need to speak to Myrna.”

Clara went to walk around him, making for the door.