The Cruelest Month

A strange thing happened in there. He could suddenly smell the appetizing aroma of a well-prepared dinner. It smelled of a Sunday roast, with warm gravy and potatoes and sweet parsnips. He could smell the caramelized onions and fresh, steaming bread, and even the red wine.



And he could hear laughter and conversation. He stood, mesmerized, in the dark dining room. Was the house trying to seduce him, he wondered? Make him lower his guard? Dangerous house that knew food would do that to him. But still the strange impression remained, of a dinner served long ago to people long dead and buried. People who’d been happy here, once. It was his imagination, he knew. Just imagination.



Gamache had left the dining room. If there was someone, or something, hiding in this house he knew where he’d find it.



The basement.



He reached out for the doorknob. It was ceramic and cold to the touch. The door creaked open.



‘You’re back.’ Agent Lacoste greeted Beauvoir with a wave, ignoring Nichol. ‘How’d it go?’



‘Brought this back.’ He tossed the yearbook onto the conference table then told Lacoste about his interviews with Hazel and Sophie.



‘What’d you think?’ Lacoste asked after reflecting on what she’d heard. ‘Did Sophie love Madeleine or hate her?’



‘Don’t know. It seems confused. Might be either.’



Lacoste nodded. ‘Lots of girls get crushes on older women. Teachers, writers, athletes. I had a crush on Helen Keller.’



Beauvoir had never heard of Helen Keller, but the idea of Lacoste in a steamy relationship with this Helen gave him pause as he took off his coat. He could see their glistening bodies, intertwined –



‘She was blind and deaf,’ said Lacoste, knowing him enough to guess his reaction. ‘And dead.’



That certainly changed the image in his mind. He blinked to blank it out.



‘What a catch.’



‘She was also brilliant.’



‘But dead.’



‘True. It crippled the relationship, I’m afraid. But I still adore her. Amazing woman. She said, “Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence.”’ Lacoste remembered herself. ‘What were we talking about?’



‘Crushes,’ said Nichol and could have kicked herself. She wanted them to forget she was there.



Beauvoir and Lacoste turned to look at her, surprised she was there and surprised she’d said something helpful.



‘So you really had a crush on Helen Keller?’ said Nichol. ‘She was nuts, you know. I saw the movie.’



Lacoste shot her a look of complete dismissal. Not even disdain. She made Nichol disappear.



Darkness and silence, thought Nichol. It’s not always wonderful.



She watched as Inspector Beauvoir and Agent Lacoste turned their backs to her and walked away.



‘You say it’s natural for a girl Sophie’s age to be confused?’ Beauvoir asked Lacoste.



‘Lots are. Emotions are all over the place. It’d be normal for her to love Madeleine Favreau and then hate her. Then adore her again. Look at the relationships most girls have with their mothers. I called the lab,’ said Lacoste. ‘The report from the break-in won’t be ready until the morning but the coroner emailed her preliminary report and said she’d drop by on her way home. Wants to meet the chief in the bistro in about an hour.’



‘Where is he?’ Beauvoir asked.



‘Still at the old Hadley house.’



‘Alone?’



‘No. Lemieux’s there too. I need to talk to you about something.’ She shot a look at Nichol, now sitting at her desk, staring at her screen. Playing free cell, Lacoste guessed.



‘Why don’t we walk? Get some air before the storm,’ said Beauvoir.



‘What storm?’



She’d followed him to the door. He opened it and nodded.



Lacoste could only see blue sky and the odd cloud. It was a beautiful day. She looked at him in profile, staring at the sky as well, his face grim. Lacoste looked more closely. And there, just above the dark pine forest on the ridge of the hill, behind the old Hadley house, she saw it.



A black slash rising, as though the sky was a dome, cheerful and bright, and artificial. And someone was opening that dome.



‘What is that?’



‘Just a storm. They look more dramatic in the country. In the city with the buildings we can’t see all that.’ He waved casually toward the slash as though all storms looked like something wicked approaching.



Beauvoir put his coat back on, and once out the door turned to walk over the stone bridge into Three Pines but Lacoste hesitated.