Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

moment later by blinding terror. He dropped to his knees and scrambled to the tree trunk, hugging it to himself. The fragile box was perched twenty feet up the tree and hung out five feet into the air, hovering there with only a rickety old rail between Gamache and oblivion. Gamache dug his hands into the bark, feeling the wood pinch his palm, glad for the pain to concentrate on. His horrible fear, and the terrible betrayal, wasn't that he'd trip and fall, or even that the wooden blind would tumble to the ground. It was that he'd throw himself over the edge. That was the horror of vertigo. He felt pulled to the edge and over as if an anchor was attached to his leg. Unaided, unthreatened, he would essentially kill himself. He could see it all happen and the horror of it took his breath away and for a moment he gripped the tree, closed his eyes, and fought to breathe deeply, regularly, from his solar plexus.

It worked. Slowly the terror ebbed, the certainty of flinging himself to his own death diminished. He opened his eyes. And there he saw it. What he'd come for. What he'd read about in the Bistro from the book he'd bought second-hand from Myrna. The Boys' Big Book of Hunting. He'd read about blinds, the structures hunters built so they could see the deer coming, and shoot them. But that wasn't what had called Gamache from the safety and warmth of the village. He'd come looking for something else mentioned in the book. And from where he sat he could see it in the middle distance.

But now he heard a sound. An almost certainly human sound. Dare he look down? Dare he let go of the trunk and crawl to the edge of the blind and look over? There it was again. A kind of hum. A familiar tune. What was it? Cautiously he released the tree and, sprawling on his stomach on the platform, he inched to the edge.

He saw the top of a familiar head. Actually he saw a mushroom of hair.

Clara had decided that she should go with the worst-case scenario, but then couldn't decide which one was the worst. A bear, a hunter or a ghost? Thoughts of bear reminded her of Winnie the Pooh and the Heffalump. She started to hum. A tune Jane always hummed.

'What do you do with a drunken sailor?' Gamache called from above.

Below, Clara froze. Was that God? But surely God would know exactly what to do with a drunken sailor? Besides, Clara couldn't believe God's first words to her would be any question other than, 'What on earth were you thinking?'

She looked up and saw a box. A talking box. Her knees went weak. So they did speak after all.

'Clara? It's Armand Gamache. I'm up in the blind.' Even from this great height in the dusk he could see her confusion. Now he saw a huge smile on her face.

'A blind? I'd forgotten that was there. May I come up?' But she was already climbing the rungs like an immortal six-year-old. Gamache was both impressed and appalled. Another body, no matter how slim, could be just enough to bring down the entire structure.

'Wow, this is fabulous!' Clara hopped on to the platform. 'What a view. Good thing the weather cleared. I hear tomorrow's supposed to be sunny. Why're you here?'

'Why are you?'

'I couldn't concentrate on my work and I suddenly knew I had to come here. Well, not here but down there, to where Jane died. I feel I owe Jane.'

'Hard to get on with life and not feel guilty.'

'That must be it.' She turned and looked at him, impressed. 'So what brought you here?'

'I came looking for that.' He pointed over the side of the platform, trying to sound nonchalant. White lights were dancing in front of his eyes, a familiar prelude to vertigo. He forced himself to look over the edge. The sooner this was over the better.

'What?' Clara stared into the woods beyond where Jane had been killed. Gamache could feel himself getting annoyed. Surely she could see it. Was that a crack? The sun was casting long shadows and strange light, and some of it just caught at the edge of the forest, and then she saw it.

'The opening through the woods, over there. Is that it?'

'It's a deer trail,' said Gamache, inching back from the edge and reaching behind him for the tree trunk. 'Made by deer year after year. They're like the railways in Switzerland. Very predictable. They always use the same path, for generations. Which is why the blind was built here.' He was almost forgetting to panic. 'To watch the deer move along the trail, and shoot them. But the trail is almost invisible. We had trained investigators searching this whole area yesterday and none of them saw it. None realised there was a tiny path through the woods. I didn't. You'd have to know it was there.'

'I knew it was there but I'd completely forgotten,' said Clara. 'Peter brought me here a long time ago. Right up to this blind. But you're right. Only locals would know that this is where to find deer. Did Jane's killer shoot her from here?'

'No, this hasn't been used in years. I'll get Beauvoir along, but I'm sure. The killer shot her from the woods. He was either there because he was waiting for deer -'

'Or he was there waiting for Jane. Incredible view form up here.' Clara turned her back on the deer trail and looked in the opposite direction. 'You can see Timmer's home from here.'

Gamache, surprised by the change in topic, also turned, slowly, cautiously. Sure enough there were the slate roofs of the old Victorian home. Solid and beautiful in its own way with its red stone walls and huge windows.

'Hideous.' Clara shivered and made for the ladder. 'Horrible place. And in case you're wondering,' she turned to climb down and looked at Gamache, her face in darkness now, 'I understand what you were saying. Whoever killed Jane was local. But there's more.'

''When thou hast done, thou hast not done, for I have more',' quoted Gamache. 'John Donne,', he explained, feeling a little giddy at the thought of finally escaping.

Clara was halfway down the hole in the floor, 'I remember, from school. Frankly, Ruth Zardo's poetry comes more to mind:I'll keep it all inside; festering, rotting; but I'm really a nice person, kind, loving.'Get out of my way, you motherfucker.' Oops, sorry . . .'

'Ruth Zardo, did you say?' said Gamache stunned. Clara had just quoted from one of his favorite poems. Now he knelt down and continued it:' that just slipped out, escaped, I'll try harder, just watch, I will. You can't make me say anything. I'll just go further away, where you will never find me, or hurt me, or make me speak.

You mean Ruth Zardo wrote that? Wait a minute . . . '