Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

The door slammed. Clara realised she was still holding the envelope so she slipped it under the door. Done. Just this one thing for Jane. And it wasn't so hard, after all, standing up to Yolande. All those years she'd stood silent in the face of Yolande's sly and sometimes outright attacks, and now to find it's possible to speak out. Clara wondered whether Jane knew this would happen when she addressed the envelope. Knew Clara would be the one to deliver it. Knew Yolande would react the way she always did to Clara. And knew she'd given Clara one last chance to stand up for herself.

As she walked away from the perfect, silent house, Clara thanked Jane.

Yolande saw the envelope appear. Tearing it open she found a single playing card. The Queen of Hearts. The same one Aunt Jane had put out on the kitchen table at night when tiny Yolande had visited her and Aunt Jane had promised that in the morning that card would be different. It would have changed.

She peered into the envelope again. Surely there was something else? Some inheritance from her aunt? A cheque? A key to a safety deposit box? But the envelope was empty. Yolande examined the card, trying to remember whether it was the same one from her childhood. Were the markings on the Queen's robes the same? Did her face have one eye or two? No, Yolande concluded. This wasn't the same card. Someone had switched them. She'd been cheated again. As she made for the bucket to clean off the front stoop where Clara had stood, she threw the Queen of Hearts on the fire.

Worthless.

TWELVE

'Yolande Fontaine and her husband Andre Malenfant,'

Beauvoir said as he wrote their names in tidy capitals on the sheet of paper. It was 8.15 on Tuesday morning, almost a week and a half since the murder, and the investigators were reviewing the list of suspects. The first two were obvious.

'Who else?'

'Peter and Clara Morrow,' said Nichol, looking up from her doodling.

'Motive?' he asked, writing the names.

'Money,' said Lacoste. 'They have very little. Or had. Now they're rich, of course, but before Miss Neal died they were practically paupers. Clara Morrow comes from a modest background, so she's used to being careful with money, but not him. He's a Golden Mile boy, born and bred. A Montreal Brahmin. Best schools, St Andrew's Ball. I spoke to one of his sisters in Montreal. She was circumspect, as only these people can be, but she made it quite clear the family wasn't thrilled with his choice of career. Blamed Clara for it. They wanted him to go into business. The family considers him a disappointment, at least his mother does. Too bad, really, because by Canadian art standards he's a star. Sold ten thousand dollars' worth of art last year, but that's still below the poverty level. Clara sold about a thousand dollars. They live frugally. Their car needs major repair work as does their home. She teaches art in the winter to pay the bills, and they sometimes pick up contracts to restore art. They scrape by.'

'His mother's still alive?' Gamache asked, trying to do some quick calculations.

'Ninety-two,' said Lacoste. 'Pickled, by all accounts, but breathing. An old tartar. Probably outlive them all. Family lore has it she found her husband next to her one morning, dead, and she rolled over and went back to sleep. Why be inconvenienced?'

'We only have Mrs Morrow's word for it that they didn't know what was in the will,' said Beauvoir. 'Miss Neal might have told them they'd inherit, n'est-ce pas?'

'If they needed money, wouldn't they have gone to Miss Neal for a loan instead of murdering her?' Gamache asked.

'Maybe they did,' said Beauvoir. 'And she said no. And, they had the best chance of luring her to the woods. If either Clara or Peter had called her at 6.30 in the morning and asked to see her without the dog, she'd have gone. No questions asked.'

Gamache had to agree.

'And', Beauvoir was on a roll, 'Peter Morrow's an accomplished archer. His specialty is the old wooden recurve. He says he only target shoots, but who knows? Besides, as you found out, it's easy enough to replace the snub-nosed tip with the killer tip. He could have gotten them from the clubhouse, killed her, cleaned the equipment and returned it. And even if we found his prints or fibers, it'd mean nothing. He used the equipment all the time anyway.'

'He was on the jury that chose her art work,' Lacoste was warming to the possibility, 'suppose he was jealous of her, saw her potential and, I don't know, flipped out or something.' She sputtered to a stop. None of them could see Peter Morrow 'flipping out'. But Gamache knew the human psyche was complex. Sometimes people reacted to things without knowing why. And often that reaction was violent, physically or emotionally. It was just possible Peter Morrow, having struggled with his art and his family's approval all his life, saw brilliance in Jane Neal's work and couldn't take it. Was consumed with jealousy. It was possible, not probable, but just possible.