A Rule Against Murder

“They’ve been fingerprinted, don’t worry,” she said when the chief hesitated to touch the bundle. “They were in the drawer by her bed. And I also found these.”



Out of an envelope she brought two crinkled pieces of Manoir Bellechasse notepaper.



“They’re dirty,” said Gamache, picking them up. “Were they also in the drawer?”



“No, in the fireplace grate. She’d balled them up and tossed them in.”



“On a hot night, with no fire? Why wouldn’t she just put them in the wastepaper basket? There was one in the room?”



“Oh yes. She’d used it to throw away that plastic wrap from the dry cleaners.”



Gamache smoothed out the two pieces of paper and read them as he took a sip of red wine.



I enjoyed our conversation. Thank you. It helped.



Then the other one.



You are very kind. I know you won’t tell anyone what I said. I could get into trouble!



The writing was in careful block print.



“I’ve sent off a copy for handwriting analysis, but they’re printed. Makes it more difficult, of course,” said Lacoste.



The Chief Inspector laid his linen napkin over the finds as the main course was brought in. Lobster for him, filet mignon for Beauvoir and a nice Dover sole for Lacoste.



“Would you say the same person wrote both?” asked Gamache.



Beauvoir and Lacoste looked again but the answer seemed obvious.



“Oui,” said Beauvoir, taking his first forkful of steak. He imagined Chef Véronique handling the meat, whisking the béarnaise sauce. Knowing it was for him.



“Wonderful meal,” said Gamache to the waiter as the plates were swept aside a few minutes later and a cheese tray arrived. “I wonder where Chef Véronique studied.”



Beauvoir sat forward.



“She didn’t, at least not formally,” said Agent Lacoste, smiling at the waiter whom she’d interviewed about murder just hours earlier. “I spoke with her this afternoon. She’s sixty-one. No formal training, but picked up recipes from her mother and travelled a bit.”



“Never married?” Gamache asked.



“No. She came here when she was in her late thirties. Spent almost half her life here. But there’s something else. A feeling I had.”



“Go on,” said Gamache. He trusted Agent Lacoste’s feelings.



Beauvoir didn’t. He didn’t even trust his own.



“You know how in closed communities, like boarding schools or convents or the military where people live and work at close quarters, something happens?”



Gamache leaned back in his chair, nodding.



“These kids might have been here for weeks, maybe a couple of months, but the adults have been here for years, decades. Alone. Just the three of them, year in, year out.”



“Are you saying they have cabin fever?” demanded Beauvoir, not liking where this might be going. Gamache looked at him, but said nothing.



“I’m saying strange things happen to people who live on the shores of a lake together, for years. This is a log cabin. No matter how large, no matter how beautiful. It’s still isolated.”



“There are strange things done ’neath the midnight sun



By the men who moil for gold.”



They looked at Gamache. Rarely when the chief spouted poetry did it clarify a situation for Beauvoir.



“Moil?” said Lacoste, who generally loved listening to the chief recite.



“I was agreeing with you.” Gamache smiled. “So would Robert Service. Strange things are done on the shores of isolated lakes. Strange things were done here, last night.”



“‘By the men who moil for gold?’” asked Beauvoir.



“Almost always,” said Gamache and nodded to Lacoste to continue.



“I think Véronique Langlois has developed feelings for someone. Strong feelings.”



Gamache leaned forward again.



What killed people wasn’t a bullet, a blade, a fist to the face. What killed people was a feeling. Left too long. Sometimes in the cold, frozen. Sometimes buried and fetid. And sometimes on the shores of a lake, isolated. Left to grow old, and odd.



“Really?” Beauvoir leaned forward himself.



“Don’t laugh. There’s a big age gap.”



Neither man looked likely to laugh.



“I think she’s in love with the maître d’,” Lacoste said.



Clara thought the Morrows were Olympian in their ability to avoid unpleasantness, while being very unpleasant themselves. But never would she have believed them capable of ignoring the murder of their own sister and daughter.