Cruelest Month

In that cage he kept his love. And if it ever got out it would go straight to Armand Gamache.

Jean Guy Beauvoir looked over at Agent Nichol and wondered what she kept in her cage. Whatever it was, he hoped it was well locked. The stuff she allowed out was malevolent enough.

They descended to the lowest level of the hospital, into a room that held nothing natural. Not light, not air, which smelled of chemicals, not the furniture, which was aluminum. And not death.

A middle-aged technician matter-of-factly slid Madeleine Favreau from a drawer. He casually unzipped the bag then reeled back.

‘Oh, shit,’ he shrieked. ‘What happened to her?’

Even though they were prepared it still took a moment for the hardened homicide investigators to climb back into their bodies. Gamache was the first to recover, and speak.

‘What does it look like to you?’

The technician inched forward, craning his head to the limits of his neck, then peeked inside the bag again.

‘Fuck me,’ he exhaled. ‘I don’t know, but I sure don’t want to go that way.’ He turned to Gamache. ‘Murder?’

‘Scared to death,’ said Nichol, entranced. She couldn’t stop staring at that face.

Madeleine Favreau was stuck in a scream. Her eyes bulging, her lips stretched across her teeth, her mouth wide and silent. It was hideous.

What could cause that?

Gamache stared back. Then he took a deep breath.

‘When will Dr Harris be in?’ he asked. The technician consulted the work schedule.

‘Ten,’ he said, gruffly, trying to make up for his little shriek earlier.

‘Merci,’ Gamache said and walked out, the other two in his wake along with the stench of formaldehyde.

Myrna, Lacoste and Clara made straight for the stairs. Clara’s short legs strained to keep up with Myrna who was hauling herself up two at a time. Clara tried to stay hidden behind Myrna hoping the fiends would find her friend first. Unless they were coming up behind. Clara looked behind and rammed into Myrna, who’d stopped dead in the corridor.

‘Had my father seen that,’ she said to Clara, ‘he’d insist we get married.’

‘Nice that there are still some old-fashioned men.’

Myrna had stopped because Agent Lacoste, in the lead, had stopped. Suddenly. Halfway down the corridor.

Clara looked around her protective Myrna and saw Lacoste standing very alert.

Oh, God, she thought. What now?

Slowly Lacoste edged forward. Myrna and Clara edged with her. Then Clara could see it. Yellow strips of tape, scattered on the floor. Yellow strips of tape dangling from the frame of the door.

The police tape had been violated, not simply removed, or even cut. It had been shredded. Something had wanted very badly to get in.

Or to get out.

Through the open doorway Clara could see the dim room. Lying in the center of their chairs, on the salt circle, was a tiny bird, a robin.

Dead.

   EIGHTEEN

Agent Robert Lemieux shoved more wood into the massive black stove in the center of the old railway station. Around him technicians set up desks and chalk boards, computer terminals and printers. The space was almost unrecognizable as an old station abandoned by the Canadian National Railways. It was even hard to recognize as the current home of the Three Pines Volunteer Fire Department, except for the huge red fire truck. Technicians were carefully removing posters on fire safety and a few celebrating the Governor General’s Award for Literature. There, glowering from one of them was their own fire chief, Ruth Zardo, on the occasion of receiving the GG. She looked as though someone had thrown excrement on her.

Inspector Beauvoir had called the night before and ordered him to get to Three Pines early to help set up the space. So far all he’d done was stay out of everyone’s way and light the fire. He’d also stopped at the local Tim Horton’s in Cowansville and picked up Double Double coffees and boxes of doughnuts.

‘Good, you’re here.’ Inspector Beauvoir marched in, followed by Agent Nichol. Nichol and Lemieux glared at each other.

Try as he might he couldn’t think what he’d done to create such hostility in her. He’d tried to be her friend. Those had been Superintendent Brébeuf’s orders. To ingratiate himself with everyone. And he had. He was good at it. All his charmed life he’d made friends easily. Except her. And it bugged him. She bugged him, perhaps because she actually showed what she felt and this confused and upset him. She was like a dangerous new species.

He smiled at Nichol now and received a sneer in return.

‘Where’s the Chief Inspector?’ Lemieux asked Beauvoir. Five desks were set in a circle with a conference table in the center. Each desk had its own computer now and the phones were just being hooked up.

‘He’s with Agent Lacoste. They’ll be here soon. Here they are now.’ Beauvoir nodded to the door. Chief Inspector Gamache, in his field coat and tweed cap, was walking across the room, Agent Lacoste behind him.

‘We have a problem,’ said Gamache after nodding to Lemieux and removing his cap. ‘Sit down please.’