Still Life

‘Until?’ Beauvoir asked.



‘Until it’s proven to be murder or Ms Fontaine is proven not to have inherited the home. The new priorities are as follows. Find Jane Neal’s will, get information on local archers, and I want to know why a hunter, if he accidentally shot Miss Neal, would bother removing the arrow. And we need to find out more about Timmer Hadley’s death. I’ll get us an Incident Room somewhere in Three Pines. I’m also going to speak with the Morrows. Beauvoir, I’d like you with me. You too, Agent Nichol.’



‘It’s Thanksgiving,’ said Beauvoir. Gamache stopped in his tracks. He’d forgotten.



‘Who here has plans for Thanksgiving dinner?’



All hands went up. He did too, come to that. Reine-Marie had asked their best friends over for dinner. Intimate, so he’d certainly be missed. And he doubted the treatment center excuse would fly with them.



‘Change of plans. We’ll be on the road back to Montreal by four—that’s in an hour and a half. Cover as much ground as you can between now and then. We don’t want this going cold because the turkey wouldn’t wait.’



Beauvoir opened the wooden gate leading up the winding path to the cottage door. Hydrangea, turning pink now in the cold weather, bloomed around the house. The walk itself was lined with old garden roses, under-planted with some purple flower Gamache thought might be lavender. He made a mental note to ask Mrs Morrow, at a better time. The foxgloves and hollyhocks he knew immediately. His only regret about their apartment in Outremont was having only window boxes to plant. He’d love a garden exactly like this. It perfectly suited the modest brick home he was approaching. The deep blue door was opened by Peter even before they’d knocked and they stepped into a small mudroom with its collection of outdoor coats on pegs and boots stuffed under a long wooden bench.



‘The Burlington news says rain’s on the way,’ said Peter as he took their coats and led them through to the big country kitchen. “Course, they’re almost always wrong. We seem to have a microclimate here. Must be the mountains.’



The room was warm and comfortable, with shiny dark wood counters and open shelving revealing crockery and tins and glasses. Rag throw rugs looked as though they had literally been thrown here and there on the vinyl floor, lending the room a relaxed charm. A huge bouquet, almost an island, sat at one end of the pine dining table. Clara sat at the other, wrapped in a multi-coloured afghan. She looked wan and disconnected.



‘Coffee?’ Peter wasn’t at all sure of the etiquette, but all three declined.



Clara smiled slightly and rose, holding out her hand, the afghan slipping off her shoulder. So ingrained, Gamache knew, was our training to be polite that even in the midst of a terrible personal loss people still smiled.



‘I’m so sorry,’ he said to Clara.



‘Thank you.’



‘I’d like you to sit over there,’ Gamache whispered to Nichol, pointing to a simple pine chair by the mudroom door, ‘and take notes.’



Notes, Nichol said to herself. He’s treating me like a secretary. Two years in the Sûreté du Quebec and I’m asked to sit and take notes. The rest of them sat at the kitchen table. Neither Gamache nor Beauvoir took out their notebooks, she observed.



‘We think Jane Neal’s death was an accident,’ Gamache began, ‘but we have a problem. We can’t find a weapon, and no one’s come forward, so I’m afraid we’re going to have to investigate this as a suspicious death. Can you think of anyone who would want to harm your friend?’



‘No. Not a soul. Jane ran bake sales and rummage sales for the ACW here at St Thomas’s. She was a retired schoolteacher. She led a quiet, uneventful life.’



‘Mrs Morrow?’



Clara thought a moment, or appeared to. But her brain was numb, incapable of giving a clear answer.



‘Does anyone gain by her death?’ Gamache thought maybe a clearer question would help.



‘I don’t think so,’ Clara rallied, feeling a fool for feeling so much. ‘She was comfortable, I think, though we never talked about it. Out here a little money goes a long way, thankfully. She grew her own vegetables but she gave most of them away. I always thought she did it more for fun than necessity.’



‘How about her home?’ Beauvoir asked.



‘Yes, that would be worth quite a lot,’ said Peter. ‘But quite a lot by Three Pines standards, not by Montreal standards. She could get, maybe, a hundred and fifty thousand for it. Perhaps a little more.’



‘Could there be another way someone could gain by her death?’