Brutal Telling

“I was going to call the police, actually had the phone in my hand,” he held out his empty hand to them as though that was proof, “but then I got to thinking. About all the work we’d put into the place. And we’re so close, so close. We’re going to open in just over a month, you know. And I realized it would be all over the papers. Who’d want to relax in an inn and spa where someone had just been killed?”

Beauvoir hated to say it, but he had to agree. Especially at those prices.

“So you dumped him in the bistro?” he asked. “Why?”

Now Gilbert turned to him. “Because I didn’t want to put him into someone else’s home to be found. And I knew Olivier kept the key under a planter by the front door.” He could see their skepticism, but plowed ahead anyway. “I took the dead guy down, left him on the floor of the bistro and came home. I moved a rug up from the spa area to cover where the guy had been. I knew no one would miss it downstairs. Too much else going on.”

“This is a dangerous time,” said Gamache, staring at Marc. “We could charge you with obstruction, with indignities to a body, with hampering the investigation.”

“With murder,” said Beauvoir.

“We need the full truth. Why did you take the body to the bistro? You could have left him in the woods.”

Marc sighed. He didn’t think they’d press this point. “I thought about it, but there were lots of kids in Three Pines for the long weekend and I didn’t want any of them finding him.”

“Noble,” said Gamache, with equilibrium. “But that wasn’t likely to happen, was it? How often do kids play in the woods around your place?”

“It happens. Would you run that risk?”

“I would call the police.”

The Chief let that sentence do its job. It stripped Marc Gilbert of any pretension to higher ground. And left him exposed before them. For a man who, at best, did something unconscionable. At worst he murdered a man.

“The truth,” said Gamache, almost in a whisper.

“I took the body to the bistro so that people would think he’d been killed there. Olivier’s treated us like shit since we arrived.”

“So you paid him back by putting a body there?” asked Beauvoir. He could think of a few people he’d like to dump bodies on. But never would. This man did. That spoke of his hatred of Olivier. A rare, and surprising, degree of hatred. And his resolve.

Marc Gilbert looked at his hands, looked out the window, moved his gaze around the walls of the old railway station. And finally he rested on the large man across from him.

“That’s what I did. I shouldn’t have done it, I know.” He shook his head in wonderment at his own stupidity. Then he looked up suddenly as the silence grew. His eyes were sharp and bright. “Wait a minute. You don’t think I killed the man, do you?”

They said nothing.

Gilbert looked from one to the other. He even looked at the idiot agent with the poised pen.

“Why would I do that? I don’t even know who he is.”

Still they said nothing.

“Really. I’d never seen him before.”

Finally Beauvoir broke the silence. “And yet there he was in your house. Dead. Why would a strange body be in your house?”

“You see?” Gilbert thrust his hand toward Beauvoir. “You see? That’s why I didn’t call the cops. Because I knew that’s what you’d think.” He put his head into his hands as though trying to contain his scrambling thoughts. “Dominique’s going to kill me. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God.” His shoulders sagged and his head hung, heavy from the weight of what he’d done and what was still to come.

Just then the phone rang. Agent Morin reached for it. “Surete du Quebec.”

The voice on the other end spoke hurriedly and was muffled.

“Desole,” said Morin, feeling bad because he knew he was interrupting the interrogation. “I don’t understand.” Everyone was looking at him. He colored and tried to listen closely, but he still couldn’t make out what was being said. Then he heard and the color in his face changed. “Un instant.”

He covered the mouthpiece. “It’s Madame Gilbert. There’s a man on their land. She saw him in the woods at the back.” Morin listened again at the phone. “She says he’s approaching the house. What should she do?”

All three men stood up.

“Oh my God, he must have seen me leave and knows they’re alone,” said Marc.

Gamache took the phone. “Madame Gilbert, is the back door locked? Can you get to it now?” He waited. “Good. Where is he now?” He listened, then began striding to the door, Inspector Beauvoir and Marc Gilbert running beside him. “We’ll be there in two minutes. Take your mother-in-law and lock yourselves in an upstairs bathroom. That one you took me to. Yes, with the balcony. Lock the doors, close the curtains. Stay there until we come to get you.”

Beauvoir had started the car and Gamache slammed the door and handed the phone back to Morin. “Stay here. You too.”

“I’m coming,” said Gilbert, reaching for the passenger door.

“You’ll stay here and talk to your wife. Keep her calm. You’re delaying us, monsieur.”

Gamache’s voice was intense, angry.