“From people who’re moving or cleaning house. From estate sales, buying them in lots. Why?”
“I think when we’re finished in the apartment we need to visit a few shops.”
“What’re you thinking?” asked Emile, and took a long sip of his beer.
“I’m remembering something Elizabeth MacWhirter told me.” But now it was his turn to look at his companion. Emile Comeau was staring at the diary. Reaching out he turned it around so that it was right-side up for him. His slim finger rested on the page, below Augustin Renaud’s clear printing. Below the words circled and underlined, below an assignation he had with a Patrick, and O’Mara, a JD and—
“Chin,” said Gamache. “But there’re no Chins in Quebec City. I thought I might ask at the Chinese restaurant on rue de Buade and find out if it’s a—”
Gamache stared into the beaming eyes of his mentor. He closed his own eyes almost in pain. “Oh, no.”
Opening them he looked down at the diary. “Is that it? Chin? Chiniquy?”
Emile Comeau was smiling and nodding. “What else?”
Jean-Guy Beauvoir took a soapy dish from Clara and dried it. He was standing in their large, open kitchen, doing the dishes. Something he rarely did at home, though he’d helped the Chief and Madame Gamache clean up a few times. It didn’t seem like a chore with them. And it didn’t, to his surprise, seem like a chore now. It was restful, peaceful. Like the village itself.
After lunch together, Peter Morrow had returned to his studio to work on his latest painting, leaving Clara and Jean-Guy to clean up after the soup and sandwiches.
“Did you get a chance to read the dossier?”
“I did,” said Clara, handing him another dripping dish. “I have to say, it’s a convincing case against Olivier. But let’s say he didn’t kill the Hermit, then someone else must have known the Hermit was hiding in the woods. But how would someone find him? We know he approached Olivier himself, to sell his things and because he wanted some companionship.”
“And needed someone to do his errands, get things he needed from town,” said Beauvoir. “He used Olivier and Olivier used him.”
“A good relationship.”
“People taking advantage of each other seems good to you?”
“Depends how you see it. Look at us. Peter’s supported me financially all our married life, but I support him emotionally. Is that taking advantage of each other? I suppose it is, but it works. We’re both happy.”
Beauvoir wondered if that was true. He suspected Clara would be happy just about anywhere but her husband was another matter.
“Didn’t seem equal to me,” said Beauvoir. “Olivier brought the Hermit some groceries every two weeks and in exchange the Hermit gave Olivier priceless antiques. Someone was getting boned.”
They carried their coffees into the bright living room. Unfiltered winter light streamed through the windows as they sat in large easy chairs by the hearth.
Her brow wrinkled as she looked into the mumbling fire. “But it seems to me the big issue, the only issue, is who else knew the Hermit was there? He’d been hiding in the forest for years, why was he suddenly killed?”
“Our theory was that Olivier killed him because the horse trail was getting close to the cabin. The Hermit and his treasure were about to be found.”
Clara nodded. “Olivier didn’t want anyone else discovering and maybe stealing the treasure, so he killed the Hermit. It was a spur of the moment thing, not planned. He picked up a menorah and hit him.”
She’d heard it all at the trial and read it again last night.
She tried to imagine her friend doing that, and while her mind spun away from the image the truth was she could believe it. She didn’t think Olivier would ever plan to kill someone, but she could see him doing it in a fit of rage and greed.
Olivier had then taken the menorah. Picked the bloody thing up from beside the dead man. He said he’d taken it because his fingerprints were all over it. He was afraid. But he also admitted the menorah was priceless. Greed and fear combined to drive him into a monumentally foolish act. An act of greed, not guilt.
Neither the judge nor the jury had believed him. But now Beauvoir had to at least consider the possibility Olivier had been stupid, but truthful.
“What changed?” Beauvoir mused. “Someone else must have found the Hermit.”
“Someone who might’ve been looking for years, someone the Hermit stole from.”
“But how’d he find him?”
“He either followed Olivier or followed the new horse trail,” said Clara.
“That leads us to one of the Parras,” said Beauvoir. “Either Roar or Havoc.”
“Old Mundin could have done it. He’s a carpenter and a carver, after all. He could have followed Olivier one night after picking up the broken furniture, and he could have carved that word, Woo, into the wood.”
“But,” said Beauvoir, “Old Mundin’s a professional woodworker. I’ve seen his stuff. Woo was carved by an amateur, someone hacking away.”
Clara thought. “Maybe it was someone new to the community, maybe that’s what changed. The killer recently moved into Three Pines.”
“The Gilberts,” said Beauvoir. “They’re the only new people.”
Marc and Dominique Gilbert, Marc’s mother Carole and his estranged father, Vincent. Saint Asshole, the famous doctor who now, curiously, lived in the Hermit’s cabin. Beauvoir no longer wanted the murderer to be Dr. Vincent Gilbert but deep down he worried it might be.
