Bury Your Dead

Gamache leaned forward in the pew, placing his elbows on his knees and lacing his strong fingers together, one hand clasping the other, which trembled just a little. Then he rested his chin on them.

“I made some terrible mistakes,” he said at last, staring into the half light. “Not seeing the full picture, though all the clues were there. Not grasping it all until it was almost too late and even then I made a terrible mistake.”

The corridor, the closed door. The wrong door, the wrong way. The seconds ticking down. The race back toward the other door, heart pounding.

Don’t worry, son. It will be all right.

Breaking through the door and seeing him sitting there, his thin back to them, facing the wall. Facing the clock. That ticked down.

Yes sir, I believe you.

To zero.

Bringing himself back to the silent church Gamache looked over to Tom Hancock.

“Sometimes life goes in a direction not of our choosing,” said the minister, softly. “That’s why we need to adapt. It’s never too late to change direction.”

Gamache remained silent. He knew the young minister was wrong, sometimes it was too late. Général Montcalm knew that. He knew that.

“They should have sold all those boxes of books,” said Tom Hancock, at last, lost in his own reverie. “Now, there’s a symbol for you. The Lit and His cluttered with unwanted English words. Weighed down by the past.”

“Je me souviens,” whispered Gamache.

“It’ll drag them under,” said the Reverend Mr. Hancock, sadly.

Gamache was beginning to understand this community and this case.

And himself.

EIGHTEEN

“Ten more.”

Clara groaned and lifted her legs in unison.

“Keep your back flat!”

Clara ignored the order. This wasn’t pretty. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but she was going to damn well do it.

“One, grunt, two, groan, three . . .”

“Did I tell you about my day skiing at Mont Saint-Rémy?”

Pina, the exercise instructor, apparently didn’t need to breathe. Her legs and arms seemed independent of the rest of her, moving in military precision while she lay on the mat chatting away as though at a slumber party.

Myrna was swearing and sweating freely and sometimes making other noises while Ricky Martin sang “Livin’ la Vida Loca.” Clara was always happy to exercise close to Myrna since any number of sins, and sounds, could be blamed on her. And she was easy to hide behind. The entire class could hide behind Myrna.

Myrna turned to Clara. “If you hold her down, I’ll kill her.”

“But how? We’d never get away with it.” Clara had been giving it some thought. So far she’d done twelve leg lifts of the ten Pina announced, and now Pina was complaining bitterly about snowboarders while her own pneumatic legs went up and down.

“No one would say anything,” said Myrna, lifting her legs a millimeter. “And if they threaten to, we kill them too.”

It was as good a plan as Clara had heard.

“Where are we with the leg lifts?” Pina asked. “Three, four . . .”

“OK, Bugsy, I’m in,” snorted Clara.

“So’m I,” said Dominique Gilbert on Clara’s other side, her voice almost as unrecognizable as her purple face.

“Dear God,” said The Wife, across the room, “do it soon.”

“Do what?” asked Pina, starting to bicycle her legs in mid-air.

“Murder you, of course,” snapped Myrna.

“Oh, that,” laughed Pina, never totally appreciating how close it came every class.

Twenty minutes later the class was over, after a last Tai Chi movement in which Clara meditated on murder. It was a good thing she adored Pina and needed the class.

Toweling off and rolling up her mat, Clara wandered over to the cluster of women who’d formed in the middle of the room. After a minute or so Clara managed to get the conversation around to where she wanted it.

“Did you see Inspector Beauvoir’s back in the village?” she asked, nonchalantly, dabbing at a trickle of sweat down her neck.

“Poor guy,” said Hanna Parra. “Still, he seems better.”

“I think he’s kinda cute,” said The Wife. Her eyes were large, expressive and without guile. An earth mother, married to a carpenter.

“You don’t,” said Myrna with a laugh. “He’s too skinny.”

“I’d fatten him up,” said The Wife.

“There’s something about that Inspector. I want to save him,” said Hanna. “Heal him, make him smile.”

“Mr. Spock,” said Clara, though this conversation wasn’t exactly going as she’d hoped and she hadn’t helped by just taking it off into outer space. “The Vulcan?” she explained when a few of the women looked perplexed. “Oh, for God’s sake, you can’t tell me you don’t know Star Trek? Everyone had a crush on Mr. Spock because he was so cool and distant. They wanted to be the one to break down his reserve, to get into that heart.”

“It’s not his heart we want to get into,” said Hanna and everyone laughed.

They put on their coats and ran across the snowy road to the inn and spa for the regular post-exercise tea and scones.