His eyes were kind.
It was both his strength, Beauvoir knew, and his weakness.
Gamache smiled at the astonished officer who found himself face to face with the most celebrated cop in Quebec. Gamache offered his hand and the young agent stared at it for a moment before putting out his own. “
“Oh, I was hoping it would be you.” Gabri hurried across the room, past the Surete officers bending over the victim. “We asked if the Surete could send you but apparently it’s not normal for suspects to order up a specific officer.” He hugged the Chief Inspector then turned to the roomful of agents. “See, I do know him.” Then he whispered to Gamache, “I think it would be best if we didn’t kiss.”
“Very wise.”
Gabri looked tired and stressed, but composed. He was disheveled, though that wasn’t unusual. Behind him, quieter, almost eclipsed, stood Olivier. He was also disheveled. That was very unusual. He also looked exhausted, with dark rings under his eyes.
“Coroner’s just arriving now, Chief.” Agent Isabelle Lacoste walked across the room to greet him. She wore a simple skirt and light sweater and managed to make both look stylish. Like most Quebecoises, she was petite and confident. “It’s Dr. Harris, I see.”
They all looked out the window and the crowd parted to let a woman with a medical bag through. Unlike Agent Lacoste, Dr. Harris managed to make her simple skirt and sweater look slightly frumpy. But comfortable. And on a miserable day like this “comfortable” was very attractive.
“Good,” said the Chief, turning back to Agent Lacoste. “What do we know?”
Lacoste led Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir to the body. They knelt, an act and ritual they’d performed hundreds of times. It was surprisingly intimate. They didn’t touch him, but leaned very close, closer than they’d ever get to anyone in life, except a loved one.
“The victim was struck from behind by a blunt object. Something clean and hard, and narrow.”
“A fireplace poker?” Beauvoir asked, looking over at the fires Olivier had set. Gamache also looked. It was a damp morning, but not all that cool. A fire wasn’t necessary. Still, it was probably made to comfort more than to heat.
“If it was a poker it would be clean. The coroner will take a closer look, of course, but there’s no obvious sign of dirt, ash, wood, anything, in the wound.”
Gamache was staring at the gaping hole in the man’s head. Listening to his agent.
“No weapon, then?” asked Beauvoir.
“Not yet. We’re searching, of course.”
“Who was he?”
“We don’t know.”
Gamache took his eyes off the wound and looked at the woman, but said nothing.
“We have no ID,” Agent Lacoste continued. “We’ve been through his pockets and nothing. Not even a Kleenex. And no one seems to know him. He’s a white male, mid-seventies I’d say. Lean but not malnourished. Five seven, maybe five eight.”
Years ago, when she’d first joined homicide, it had seemed bizarre to Agent Lacoste to catalog these things the Chief could see perfectly well for himself. But he’d taught them all to do it, and so she did. It was only years later, when she was training someone else, that she recognized the value of the exercise.
It made sure they both saw the same things. Police were as fallible and subjective as anyone else. They missed things, and misinterpreted things. This catalog made it less likely. Either that or they’d reinforce the same mistakes.
“Nothing in his hands and it looks like nothing under his fingernails. No bruising. Doesn’t appear to have been a struggle.”
They stood up.
“The condition of the room verifies that.”
They looked around.
Nothing out of place. Nothing tipped over. Everything clean and orderly.
It was a restful room. The fires at either end of the beamed bistro took the gloom out of the day. Their light gleamed off the polished wood floors, darkened by years of smoke and farmers’ feet.
Sofas and large inviting armchairs sat in front of each fireplace, their fabric faded. Old chairs were grouped around dark wooden dining tables. In front of the mullioned bay windows three or four wing chairs waited for villagers nursing steaming
Chief Inspector Gamache and his team had been in the bistro many times, enjoying meals in front of the roaring fire in winter or a quiet cool drink on the
Sharon Harris joined them, taking off her wet raincoat then smiling at Agent Lacoste and shaking hands solemnly with the Chief Inspector.
“Dr. Harris,” he said, bowing slightly. “I’m sorry about disturbing your long weekend.”
She’d been sitting at home, flipping through the television channels, trying to find someone who wasn’t preaching at her, when the phone had rung. It had seemed a godsend. But looking now at the body, she knew that this had very little to do with God.
