Olivier brought himself back to the bistro, his body tense, his muscles strained. His fingernails biting into his palms.
Why, he asked himself for the millionth time. Why had he done it?
Before leaving to see the coroner, the Chief Inspector walked over to the large piece of paper tacked to the wall of their Incident Room. In bold red letters Inspector Beauvoir had written:
WHO WAS THE VICTIM?
WHY WAS HE KILLED?
WHO KILLED HIM?
WHAT WAS THE MURDER WEAPON?
With a sigh the Chief Inspector added two more lines.
WHERE WAS HE MURDERED?
WHY WAS HE MOVED?
So far in their investigation they’d found more questions than clues. But that’s where answers came from. Questions. Gamache was perplexed, but not dissatisfid.
Jean Guy Beauvoir was already waiting for him when he arrived at the Cowansville hospital, and they went in together, down the stairs and into the basement, where files and dead people were kept.
“I called as soon as I realized what I was seeing,” said Dr. Harris after greeting them. She led them into the sterile room, brightly lit by fluorescents. The dead man was naked on a steel gurney. Gamache wished they’d put a blanket over him. He seemed cold. And, indeed, he was.
“There was some internal bleeding but not enough. This wound,” she indicated the collaped back of the victim’s head, “would have bled onto whatever surface he fell on.”
“There was almost no blood on the floor of the bistro,” said Beauvoir.
“He was killed somewhere else,” said the coroner, with certainty.
“Where?” asked Gamache.
“Would you like an address?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” said the Chief Inspector, with a smile.
Dr. Harris smiled back. “Clearly I don’t know, but I’ve found some things that might be suggestive.”
She walked over to her lab table where a few vials sat, labeled. She handed one to the Chief Inspector.
“Remember that bit of white I said was in the wound? I thought it might be ash. Or bone, or perhaps even dandruff. Well, it wasn’t any of those things.”
Gamache needed his glasses to see the tiny white flake inside the vial, then he read the label.
“Paraffin? Like wax?”
“Yes, it’s commonly called paraffin wax. It’s an old-fashioned material, as you probably know. Used to be used for candles, then it was replaced by other sorts of more stable wax.”
“My mother uses it for pickling,” said Beauvoir. “She melts it on the top of the jar to create a seal, right?”
“That’s right,” said Dr. Harris.
Gamache turned to Beauvoir. “And where was your mother on Saturday night?”
Beauvoir laughed. “The only one she ever threatens to brain is me. She’s no threat to society at large.”
Gamache handed the vial back to the coroner. “Do you have any theories?”
“It was buried deep enough in the wound to have been either on the man’s head before he was killed or on the murder weapon.”
“A jar of pickles?” asked Beauvoir.
“Stranger things have been used,” said Gamache, though he couldn’t quite think of any.
Beauvoir shook his head. Had to be an Anglo. Who else could turn a dill pickle into a weapon?
“So it wasn’t a fireplace poker?” asked Gamache.
“Unless it was a very clean one. There was no evidence of ash. Just that.” She nodded to the vial. “There’s something else.” Dr. Harris pulled a lab chair up to the bench. “On the back of his clothes we found this. Very faint, but there.”
She handed Gamache the lab report and pointed to a line. Gamache read.
“Acrylic polyurethane and aluminum oxide. What is that?”
