A Rule Against Murder

He turned and stomped off in search of Clara.



“Peter,” his sister called after him. He turned back reluctantly. “You sat in some jam,” she said, gesturing.



He walked away.



She watched him go, remembering the note her father had left. The note she’d memorized and was about to tell Peter about, as a peace offering. But he’d refused it, as he refused all offers of help.



You can’t get milk from a hardware store.



It was a funny sort of thing for a father to tell a daughter. It seemed obvious. And then with all the superstores you could find milk in one aisle and hammers in the next. But by then she’d broken the code, and knew what her father had been trying to tell her. And what she’d just tried to tell Peter.



You can’t get milk from a hardware store.



So stop asking for something that can’t be given. And look for what is offered. She saw the fork of food, and the thin lips that rarely smiled at them, blowing on it.



Agent Lacoste walked along the shore of Lac Massawippi. It was hot, and made hotter by the sun shimmering off the water. She glanced around. Nobody. She imagined stripping off her light summer dress, kicking away her sandals, laying the notebook and pen on the grass, and diving in. She imagined how the refreshing water would feel as her perspiring body splashed into it.



Thinking about it actually made it worse, so she contented herself with taking her sandals off and walking through the shallows, feeling the cool water on her feet.



Then she spotted Clara Morrow sitting on a rock jutting into the lake. Agent Lacoste stopped and watched. Clara Morrow’s hair was groomed under the sensible, floppy sun hat. Her shorts and shirt were neat, her face without smears or smudges or pastry. She was impeccable. Lacoste barely recognized her.



Lacoste got out of the water, wiped her feet on the grass and slipped her sandals back on. As she cleared her throat Clara started and looked over.



“Bonjour.” Clara waved and smiled. “Come on over.” She patted the flat stone beside her and Isabelle Lacoste picked her way along the shore and out onto the rocks. The stone was warm on her bottom.



“Sorry to interrupt.”



“Never. I was just creating my next work.”



Lacoste looked around for the sketch pad. Nothing. Not even a pencil.



“Really? It looked as though—” She stopped herself, but not quite in time.



Clara laughed. “As though I was doing nothing? It’s all right, that’s what most people think. It’s a shame that creativity and sloth look exactly the same.”



“Are you going to paint this?” Lacoste indicated their surroundings.



“I don’t think so. I was thinking about painting Mrs. Morrow . . . Finney. Whatever.” Clara laughed. “Maybe that’ll become my specialty. Embittered women. First Ruth and now Peter’s mother.”



But she always painted groups of three. Who would be the last bitter old woman? She hoped it wasn’t herself, but at times Clara could feel herself slipping in that direction. Was that why she was fascinated by them? Maybe she knew that beneath her civilized and supportive exterior there lived a shriveled, judgmental, negative old thing, waiting.



“Well, you had a series called the Warrior Uteruses,” said Lacoste. “About young women. Maybe this is the other end, so to speak.”



“I can call it the Hysterectomies,” said Clara. She also had the series on the Three Graces. And Faith, Hope and Charity. What would this series be called? Pride, Despair and Greed? The broken-hearted.



“Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” asked Agent Lacoste.



“Fire away.”



“When you heard that Julia Martin had been killed, what did you think?”



“I was stunned, like everybody. I thought it was an accident. Still do, in some ways. I just can’t figure out how that statue could’ve fallen.”



“Neither can we,” admitted Lacoste. “The night she died there was a scene in the library.”



“Sure was.”



“Do you think that had anything to do with her death?”



“It does seem a coincidence,” Clara admitted reluctantly. “I’ve watched the Morrows for twenty-five years. The angrier they get the quieter they get. They haven’t really spoken in decades.”



Lacoste could believe it.



“But Julia, she was an outlier. Different. No, that’s not right, not really different, but distant. She’d been away. I always think the Morrows have like a layer of polyethylene. They’re dipped in it as kids, like Achilles. To protect them. Make them able to withstand high pressures and being dropped on their heads. And once a year they need to be close to Mother to kinda top it up. Get all buffed and polished and hardened again. But Julia had been away so long her coating had worn thin. It took a few days, but eventually she cracked. Exploded really. And said some things she didn’t mean.”