Brutal Telling

He peered closer. There, deep in the forest, away from the village, he found what the police were looking for.

A tiny wooden figure. A young man, not much more than a boy, hiding in the woods.

THIRTY-ONE

It was getting late. Agent Lacoste had left and Inspector Beauvoir and Agent Morin were reporting on their day.

“We checked into the Parras, the Kmeniks, the Mackus. All the Czech community,” said Beauvoir. “Nothing. No one knew the Hermit, no one saw him. They’d all heard of that violinist guy—”

“Martinù,” said Morin.

“—because he’s some famous Czech composer, but no one actually knew him.”

“I spoke to the Martinù Institute and did background checks on the Czech families,” said Morin. “They’re what they claim to be. Refugees from the communists. Nothing more. In fact, they seem more law-abiding than most. No connection at all with Martinù.”

Beauvoir shook his head. If lies annoyed the Inspector the truth seemed to piss him off even more. Especially when it was inconvenient.

“Your impression?” Gamache asked Agent Morin, who glanced at Inspector Beauvoir before answering.

“I think the violin and the music have nothing to do with the people here.”

“You may be right,” conceded Gamache, who knew they’d have to look into many empty caves before they found their killer. Perhaps this was one. “And the Parras?” he asked, though he knew the answer. If there’d been anything there Beauvoir would have told him already.

“Nothing in their background,” Beauvoir confirmed. “But . . .”

Gamache waited.

“They seemed defensive, guarded. They were surprised that the dead man was Czech. Everyone was.”

“What do you think?” asked the Chief.

Beauvoir wiped a weary hand across his face. “I can’t put it all together, but I think it fits somehow.”

“You think there is a connection?” pressed Gamache.

“How can there not be? The dead man was Czech, the sheet music, the priceless violin, and there’s a big Czech community here including two people who could have found the cabin. Unless . . .”

“Yes?”

Beauvoir leaned forward, his nervous hands clasped together on the table. “Suppose we’ve got it wrong. Suppose the dead man wasn’t Czech.”

“You mean, that Olivier was lying?” said Gamache.

Beauvoir nodded. “He’s lied about everything else. Maybe he said it to take us off the trail, so that we’d suspect others.”

“But what about the violin and the music?”

“What about it?” Beauvoir was gaining momentum. “There’re lots of other things in that cabin. Maybe Morin’s right.” Though he said it in the same tone he’d use to say maybe a chimp was right. With a mixture of awe at witnessing a miracle, and doubt. “Maybe the music and violin have nothing to do with it. After all, there were plates from Russia, glass from other places. The stuff tells us nothing. He could’ve been from anywhere. We only have Olivier’s word for it. And maybe Olivier wasn’t exactly lying. Maybe the guy did speak with an accent, but it wasn’t Czech. Maybe it was Russian or Polish or one of those other countries.”

Gamache leaned back, thinking, then he nodded and sat forward. “It’s possible. But is it likely?”

This was the part of investigating he liked the most, and that most frightened him. Not the cornered and murderous suspect. But the possibility of turning left when he should have gone right. Of dismissing a lead, of giving up on a promising trail. Or not seeing one in his rush to a conclusion.

No, he needed to step carefully now. Like any explorer he knew the danger wasn’t in walking off a cliff, but in getting hopelessly lost. Muddled. Disoriented by too much information.

In the end the answer to a murder investigation was always devastatingly simple. It was always right there, obvious. Hiding in facts and evidence and lies, and the misperceptions of the investigators.

“Let’s leave if for now,” he said, “and keep an open mind. The Hermit might have been Czech, or not. Either way there’s no denying the contents of his cabin.”

“What did Superintendent Brunel have to say? Any of it stolen?” asked Beauvoir.

“She hasn’t found anything, but she’s still looking. But Jérôme Brunel’s been studying those letters under the carving and he thinks they’re a Caesar’s Shift. It’s a type of code.”

He explained how a Caesar’s Shift worked.

“So we just need to find the key word?” asked Beauvoir. “Should be simple enough. It’s Woo.”

“Nope. Tried that one.”

Beauvoir went to the sheet of foolscap on the wall and uncapped the magic marker. He wrote the alphabet. Then the marker hovered.

“How about violin?” asked Morin. Beauvoir looked at him again as at an unexpectedly bright chimp. He wrote violin on a separate sheet of paper. Then he wrote Martinù, Bohuslav.

“Bohemia,” suggested Morin.

“Good idea,” said Beauvoir. Within a minute they had a dozen possibilities, and within ten minutes they’d tried them all and found nothing.

Beauvoir tapped his Magic Marker with some annoyance and stared at the alphabet, as though it was to blame.