A Trick of the Light

“What is it?” Clara asked, walking toward them, picking up speed as their expressions registered. “What’s wrong?”

Peter turned and dropping the papers on the grass he stopped her from going further.

“Call the police,” said Olivier. He inched forward, toward a perennial bed planted with peonies and bleeding hearts and poppies.

And something else.

*   *   *

Chief Inspector Gamache straightened up and sighed.

There was no doubt. This was murder.

The woman at his feet had a broken neck. Had she been at the foot of a flight of stairs he might have thought it an accident. But she was lying face up beside a flower bed. On the soft grass.

Eyes open. Staring straight into the late morning sun.

Gamache almost expected her to blink.

He looked around the pleasant garden. The familiar garden. How often had he stood back there with Peter and Clara and others, beer in hand, barbeque fired up. Chatting.

But not today.

Peter and Clara, Olivier and Gabri were standing down by the river. Watching. Between Gamache and them was the yellow tape, the great divide. On one side the investigators and on the other, the investigated.

“White female,” the coroner, Dr. Harris, said. She was kneeling over the victim, as was Agent Isabelle Lacoste. Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir was directing the Scene of Crime team for the Sûreté du Québec. They were methodically going over the area. Collecting evidence. Photographing. Carefully, meticulously doing the forensics.

“Middle-aged,” the coroner’s voice carried on. Clinical. Factual.

Chief Inspector Gamache listened as the information was reeled off. He, better than most, knew the power of facts. But he also knew few murderers were ever found in facts.

“Dyed blond hair, graying roots just showing. Slightly overweight. No ring on the ring finger.”

Facts were necessary. They pointed the way, and helped form the net. But the killer himself was tracked by following not only facts but feelings. The fetid emotions that had made a man into a murderer.

“Neck snapped at the second vertebra.”

Chief Inspector Gamache listened and watched. The routine familiar. But no less horrifying.

The taking of one life by another never failed to shock him, even after all these years as head of homicide for the storied Sûreté du Québec. After all these murders. All these murderers.

He was still amazed what one human could do to another.

*   *   *

Peter Morrow stared at the red shoes just poking out from behind the flower bed. They were attached to the dead woman’s feet, which were attached to her body, which was lying on his grass. He couldn’t see the body now. It was hidden by the tall flowers, but he could see the feet. He looked away. Tried to concentrate on something else. On the investigators, Gamache and his team, bending, bowing, murmuring, as though in common prayer. A dark ritual, in his garden.

Gamache never took a note, Peter noticed. He listened and nodded respectfully. Asked a few questions, his face thoughtful. He left the note-taking to others. In this case, Agent Lacoste.

Peter tried to look away, to focus on the beauty in his garden.

But his eyes kept being dragged back to the body in his garden.

Then, as Peter watched, Gamache suddenly and quite swiftly turned. And looked at him. And Peter immediately and instinctively dropped his eyes, as though he’d done something shameful.

He instantly regretted it and raised his eyes again, but by then the Chief Inspector was no longer staring at them. Instead, he was approaching them.

Peter considered turning away, in a casual manner. As though he’d heard a deer in the forest on the other side of the Rivière Bella Bella.

He started to turn, then stopped himself.

He didn’t need to look away, he told himself. He’d done nothing wrong. Surely it was natural to watch the police.

Wasn’t it?

But Peter Morrow, always so sure, felt the ground shifting beneath him. He no longer knew what was natural. No longer knew what to do with his hands, his eyes, his entire body. His life. His wife.

“Clara,” said Chief Inspector Gamache, extending his hand to her, then kissing Clara on both cheeks. If the other investigators found it odd that their Chief would kiss a suspect, they didn’t show it. And Gamache clearly didn’t care.

He went around the group, shaking hands with all of them. He came to Olivier last, obviously giving the younger man a chance to see it coming. Gamache extended his hand. And everyone watched. The body momentarily forgotten.

Olivier didn’t hesitate. He shook Gamache’s hand but couldn’t quite look him in the eye.

Chief Inspector Gamache gave them a small almost apologetic smile, as though the body was his fault. Was that how dreadful things started? Peter wondered. Not with a thunder clap. Not with a shriek. Not with sirens, but with a smile? Something horrible come calling, wrapped in civility and good manners.

But the something horrible had already been, and gone. And had left a body behind.

“How are you doing?” asked Gamache, his eyes returning to Clara.