The Nature of the Beast
Lacoste could see exactly what Madame Proulx was thinking. It could’ve been me. Followed closely by, Thank God it was the woman next door.
“What did you think of Antoinette?” Lacoste asked.
“She was okay. She’s friendly without being overly familiar, if you know what I mean.”
“Did you like her?” Lacoste asked.
There was a hesitation and Madame Proulx shifted in her La-Z-Boy. “I warmed to her. I liked her uncle, Guillaume. We’d chat over the fence in the summer while he gardened.”
“Sounds like you didn’t really like her, though,” Lacoste gently pushed, though it didn’t take much.
“She was difficult,” Madame Proulx admitted. “As soon as she moved in she started complaining. About the kids playing street hockey and the noise from family barbeques. She behaved like it was her seigneurie and we were all habitants, if you know what I mean.”
Lacoste did. Les Filles de Caleb was having its effect, down to the old-fashioned description of lord and peasant. But while the words were from a TV script, the emotions seemed genuine. Madame Proulx did not take kindly to the city woman bossing them around. It was what they’d heard, in various versions, from the other neighbors, once they’d gotten past being polite about the recently, and violently, deceased.
“Can you think of anyone who might’ve done this?” Lacoste asked, and saw Madame Proulx’s eyes widen.
“No. Can’t you? Isn’t that your job? You have no ideas?”
“We have some,” said Lacoste, bringing out the reassurance yet again, and yet again it had a marginal effect. “But I need to ask. No especially violent feuds with neighbors?”
“None. It was annoying, nothing more. And she looked odd. Those clothes. She was like a spoiled child.”
She turned shrewd eyes on the investigators.
“You don’t think it was just a robbery?”
“We’re looking at all possibilities.”
Madame Proulx took in, apparently for the first time, the script in Beauvoir’s hand, and she rose to her feet. Not swiftly, not even struggling out of the comfortable chair. There was a grace and ease about all her movements. And there was also certainty.
“I would like you to leave, and take that with you.”
There was no need to ask what “that” was.
“You’re aware of the play?” Beauvoir asked, holding it up. He thought for a moment Madame Proulx was going to cross herself again. But she didn’t. Instead she straightened up completely and stood, tall and formidable, facing both him and John Fleming’s creation.
“We all were. It’s a travesty. How she couldn’t see that is beyond me. I’m not a prude, if that’s what you’re thinking. But it’s not right.”
No philosophical debate, no discussion of the evils of censorship. Just a clear statement of fact. Producing the Fleming play wasn’t right. But exactly how wrong it was wasn’t yet clear.
At the door Beauvoir asked about Brian.
“We liked him,” said Madame Proulx, apparently speaking for the whole neighborhood. “Now if he killed her we could understand. But he seemed to really care for her.” She shook her head. “Happens a lot, doesn’t it? You look at a couple and wonder what they see in each other. You never know, if you know what I mean.”
Beauvoir did know. You never knew.
They got in the car and headed back to Three Pines.
“Why did you take the play with you?” Lacoste asked Beauvoir as he drove.
“It’s been nothing but trouble,” he explained. “And whoever killed Antoinette was looking for something. Maybe it was the play.”
“But there’re lots of copies out there.”
“True, but that’s the original. I thought it was worth a read.”
Isabelle Lacoste nodded. He was right. She wished she’d thought of that.
There were times when she felt completely up to the job of Chief Inspector. And times when she knew it should have gone to this man.
“Is there anything else I missed?” she asked him.
“You don’t miss much, Isabelle,” said Beauvoir. “And what you do, I pick up. And vice versa. It’s what makes us a strong team.”
“Do you miss Monsieur Gamache?” she asked.
“It’s no reflection on you, but I’ll always miss Chief Inspector Gamache.”
“So will I,” she said. They drove a few more miles before she got up the courage to ask a question that had been bothering her since her appointment.