Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

'Now,' Beauvoir sat on the cot opposite him. 'You have a lot to tell us.'

'I need to think.'

'There's nothing to think about,' said Gamache. 'Your son shot this arrow, didn't he?' Croft's mind was racing. He'd so steeled himself to stick to his story it was hard now to give it up, even in the face of this evidence. 'And if he shot this arrow and it ended up in that tree,' continued Gamache, 'then he couldn't have killed Jane Neal. He didn't do it. And neither did you, this arrow proves someone else did it. We need the truth from you now.'

And still Croft hesitated, afraid there was a trap, afraid to give up his story.

'Now, Mr Croft,' said Gamache in a voice that brooked no argument. Croft nodded. He was too stunned to feel relief, yet.

'All right. This is what happened. Philippe and I had had an argument the night before. Some stupid thing, I can't even remember what. The next morning when I got up Philippe was gone. I was afraid he'd run away, but about 7.15 he comes skidding into the yard on his bike. I decided not to go out and see him, but to wait for him to come to me. That was a mistake. I found out later he went directly to the basement with the bow and arrow then took a shower and changed his clothes. He never did come to see me, but stayed in his room all day. That wasn't unusual. Then Suzanne started to act strange.'

'When did you hear about Miss Neal?' Beauvoir asked.

'That night, a week ago. Roar Parra called, said it was a hunting accident. When I went to your meeting next day I was sad, but not like it was the end of the world. Suzanne, on the other hand, couldn't sit still, couldn't relax. But honestly I didn't think much about it, women can be more sensitive than men, that's all I figured it was.'

'How'd you find out about Philippe?'

'When we got home. Suzanne had been silent in the car, then once we got back she laid into me. She was furious, violent almost, because I'd asked you back to look at the bows and arrows. She told me then. She'd found out because she found Philippe's clothes ready for the wash, blood stains on them. Then she'd gone into the basement and found the bloody arrow. She got the story from Philippe. He thought he'd killed Miss Neal, so he grabbed the bloody arrow and ran, thinking it was his. He didn't look at it, neither did Suzanne. I guess they didn't notice it wasn't the same as the others. Suzanne burned the arrow.'

'What did you do when you heard all this?'

'I burned his clothes in the furnace but then you arrived so I told Suzanne to burn the bow, to destroy everything.'

'But she didn't.'

'No. When I put the clothes in it smothered the flames, so she had to build them back up. Then she realised the bow would have to be chopped up. She didn't think she could do it without making a noise so she came upstairs, to try to warn me. But you wouldn't let her go back down. She was going to do it when we were out shooting arrows.'

'How'd you know how Miss Neal's body was lying?'

'Philippe showed me. I went to his room, to confront him, to hear the story from him. He wouldn't speak to me. Just as I was leaving his room he stood up and did that.' Croft shuddered at the memory, baffled by where this child could have come from. 'I didn't know what he meant by it at the time but later, when you asked me to show you how she was lying, it clicked. So I just did what Philippe had done. What does that mean?' Croft nodded to the arrow.

'It means', said Beauvoir, 'someone else shot the arrow that killed Miss Neal.'

'It means', clarified Gamache, 'that she was almost certainly murdered.'

Beauvoir tracked down Superintendent Michel Brebeuf at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, where he volunteered one Sunday a month in the information booth. The people gathered around waiting to ask where the Japanese garden was were left to wonder just how wide a mandate these volunteers had.

'I agree, it sounds like murder,' said Brebeuf over the phone, nodding and smiling to the suddenly guarded tourists waiting in front of him. 'I'm giving you the authority to treat this as a homicide.'

'Actually, sir, I was hoping it'd be Chief Inspector Gamache's investigation. He was right, Matthew Croft didn't kill Miss Neal.'

'Do you really think that's what this was about, Inspector? Armand Gamache was suspended not because we disagreed over who did it, but because he refused to carry out a direct order. And that's still true. Besides, as I recall, left to himself he would've arrested a fourteen-year-old boy.'

A tourist reached out and took the hand of his teenage son, who was so shocked he actually allowed his father to hold it, for about a nanosecond.

'Well, not arrested, exactly,' said Beauvoir.

'You're not helping your case here, Inspector.'

'Yes, sir. The Chief Inspector knows this case and these people. It's been a week already, and we've let the trail go cold by being forced to treat this as a probable accident. He's the logical person to lead this investigation. You know it, and I know it.'

'And he knows it.'