Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

For twenty minutes the two men methodically searched. Then, amid the skis, tennis rackets and hockey gear, hanging on the wall half hidden by goalie pads, they found a quiver. Carefully lifting it off its hook using one of the tennis rackets, Beauvoir looked inside. Five old wooden hunting arrows. What wasn't in the quiver was a single cobweb. This quiver had been out recently.

'Whose is this, Mr Croft?'

'That belonged to my father.'

'There are only five arrows. Is that usual?'

'That's how it came to me. Dad must have lost one.'

'And yet you said it was rare. I believe you said that hunters almost never lose an arrow.'

'That's true, but "almost never" and "never" are two different things.'

'May I?' Beauvoir handed him the tennis racket with the quiver hanging from it. Gamache held the racket as high as he could and strained to look at the round leather bottom of the old quiver.

'Have you got a flashlight?'

Matthew took a bright yellow Eveready from a hook and handed it over. Gamache switched it on and saw six shadowy points on the belly of the quiver. He showed them to Beauvoir.

'There were six arrows until recently,' said Beauvoir.

'Recently? How do you figure that, Inspector?' Listening to Matthew Croft's attempt at calm Gamache felt for the man. He was clamping down for control, tighter and tighter. So tight his hands were trembling slightly now and his voice was rising.

'I know leather, Mr Croft,' Beauvoir lied. 'This is thin calves' leather, used because it's supple, yet durable. These arrows, which I assume are hunting arrows--' Croft shrugged '- these arrows can sit in this leather-bottomed quiver, tip down and neither dull the tip nor break through the bottom. And, now this is important, Mr Croft, the leather will not keep the form of whatever it holds. It's so supple it will slowly go back to its original shape. These six blemishes have been made by six arrow tips. Yet only five arrows remain. How is that possible?'

Now Croft was silent, his jaw clamped shut.

Beauvoir handed the tennis racket and quiver to Nichol with instructions to hold it while he and Gamache continued the search. Now Croft had joined his wife, and side by side they awaited whatever was coming their way. The two men spent the next half-hour searching the basement inch by inch. They'd just about given up when Beauvoir wandered over to the furnace. Once there he actually stepped on it. Sitting practically in plain sight was a recurve bow, and beside it an axe.

A search warrant was sought and issued and the Croft farm was scoured from the attic to the barn to the chicken coop. Philippe was found in his bedroom plugged in to his Sony 'Discman'. Beauvoir checked the ash bin under the wood-burning furnace and found a metal arrowhead, charred by the fire, but still intact. At this discovery Matthew Croft's legs gave way and he sank to the cold concrete floor, to a place no rhyming verse existed. He had finally been hurt beyond poetry.

Beauvoir arranged for all the things they'd collected to go to the Surete labs in Montreal. Now the team sat around the fire hall once again.

'What do we do about the Crofts?' Lacoste wanted to know, sipping a Tim Horton's double double.

'Nothing for now,' replied Gamache, biting into a chocolate donut. 'We wait for the report to come back from the labs.'

'They'll have results for us tomorrow,' said Beauvoir.

'About Matthew Croft. Shouldn't we take him into custody?' Lacoste spoke up, smoothing back her shiny auburn hair with her wrist, trying not to get chocolate glaze into it.

'Inspector Beauvoir, what do you think?'

'You know me, I always want to be on the safe side.' Gamache was reminded of a cartoon he'd cut from the Montreal Gazette years ago. It showed a judge and the accused. The punch line read, 'The jury has found you "not guilty" but I'm giving you five years just to be on the safe side.' Everyday he looked at it, chuckled, and knew deep down the truth of it. Part of him yearned for 'the safe side', even at the cost of other people's freedom.

'What risk are we running by leaving Matthew Croft free?' Gamache looked around the table.

'Well,' ventured Lacoste, 'there might be more evidence in that house, evidence he could destroy between now and tomorrow.'

'True, but couldn't Mrs Croft destroy it just as easily? After all, she was the one who threw the arrow in the furnace and was about to chop up the bow. She's admitted as much. In fact, if there's anyone we should bring in it's her, for destroying evidence. I'll tell you my thinking.' He took a paper napkin and wiped his hands, then, leaning forward, he put his elbows on the table. Everyone else, except Nichol, did the same, giving it the appearance of a highly secretive gathering.

'Let's say the bow and arrow tip are the ones that killed Jane Neal. Right?'

Everyone nodded. As far as they were concerned they were home free.