“No, wait, Clara. Talk to me. Tell me about it.”

*   *   *

“Did you see her face?” Beauvoir asked, as he hurried to catch up with Gamache.

The two men were walking across the village green, having left Suzanne sitting on the verandah. The rocking chair stilled. The watercolor on her lap, of Gabri’s exuberant garden, crunched and ruined. By her own hand. The hand that made it had destroyed it.

But Beauvoir had also seen Gamache’s face. The hardening, the chill in his eyes.

“Do you think that beginner’s chip was hers?” asked Beauvoir, falling into step beside the Chief.

Gamache slowed. They were almost on the bridge once again.

“I don’t know.” His face was set. “Thanks to you we know she lied about being in Three Pines on the night Lillian died.”

“She says she never left the kitchen,” said Beauvoir, surveying the village. “But it would’ve been easy for her to sneak around back of the shops and into Clara’s garden.”

“And meet Lillian there,” said Gamache. He turned and looked toward the Morrow home. They were standing on the bridge. A few trees and lilac bushes had been planted, to give Clara and Peter’s garden privacy. Even guests on the bridge wouldn’t have seen Lillian there. Or Suzanne.

“She must have told Lillian about Clara’s party, knowing that Clara was on Lillian’s apology list,” said Beauvoir. “I bet she even encouraged Lillian to come down. And arranged to meet her in the garden.” Beauvoir looked around again. “It’s the closest garden to the bistro, the most convenient. That explains why Lillian was found there. It could’ve been anyone’s, it just happened to be Clara’s.”

“So she lied about telling Lillian about the party,” said Gamache. “And she lied about not knowing who the party was for.”

“I can guarantee you, sir. Everything that woman says is a lie.”

Gamache nodded. It was certainly beginning to look like that.

“Lillian might have even gotten a lift with Suzanne—” said Beauvoir.

“That won’t work,” said Gamache. “She had her own car.”

“Right,” said Beauvoir, thinking, trying to see the sequence of events. “But she might have followed Suzanne down.”

Gamache considered that, nodding. “That would explain how she found Three Pines. She followed Suzanne.”

“But no one saw Lillian at the party,” said Beauvoir. “And in that red dress, if she was here someone would have seen her.”

Gamache considered that. “Maybe Lillian didn’t want to be seen, until she was ready.”

“For what?”

“To make an amend to Clara. Maybe she stayed in her car until an appointed hour, when she’d arranged to meet her sponsor in the garden. Perhaps with the promise of a final word of support before going out to make a difficult amend. She must have thought Suzanne was doing her a great favor.”

“Some favor. Suzanne killed her.”

Gamache stood there and thought, then shook his head. It fit, maybe. But did it make sense? Why would Suzanne kill her sponsee? Kill Lillian? And in a way that was so premeditated. And so personal. To wrap her hands around Lillian’s neck, and break it?

What could have driven Suzanne to do that?

Was the victim not quite the woman Suzanne described? Was Beauvoir right again? Maybe Lillian hadn’t changed, but was the same cruel, taunting, manipulative woman Clara had known. Had she pushed Suzanne over the edge?

Did Suzanne have a great fall, but this time did she reach up and take Lillian with her? By the throat.

Whoever killed Lillian had hated her. This was not a dispassionate crime. This was thought out and deliberate. As was the weapon. The murderer’s own hands.

“I made such a terrible mistake, Peter.”

Gamache turned toward the voice, as did Beauvoir. It was Clara, and it came from behind the lush screen of leaves and lilacs.

“Tell me, you can tell me,” said Peter, his voice low and reassuring, as though trying to coax a cat from under the sofa.

“Oh, God,” said Clara, taking rapid, shallow breaths. “What’ve I done?”

“What did you do?”

Gamache and Beauvoir exchanged looks and both edged quietly closer to the stone wall of the bridge.

“I went to visit Lillian’s parents.”

Neither Sûreté officer could see Peter’s face, or Clara’s for that matter, but they could imagine it.

There was a long pause.