‘But second best is still great,’ said Gabri, who’d have loved to come in the top ten in any athletic event, even the Wellington Boot Toss at the fair.
‘You think so? Try it all the time. At everything. And having people like you saying exactly that, all my life. Second best is good. Second best is fine. Well it isn’t. Even in the school play. I was finally in charge. The producer. But who got all the credit when the play was a success?’
She needn’t tell them. A picture, bright and brutal, was forming. How many condescending smiles could one person take? How many fleeting glances as the person searched for the real star?
Madeleine.
How bitter a thing it is, thought Clara.
‘Then out of the blue Madeleine called. She was ill, she wanted to see me. I searched my heart and couldn’t find any more hatred. And when we met she looked so tired and pathetic.’
Everyone could see the reunion. The roles finally reversed. And Hazel making the one, spectacular mistake. Inviting Madeleine to live with her.
‘Madeleine was wonderful. She brightened up the house.’ Hazel smiled at the memory. ‘We laughed and talked and did everything together. I introduced her around and got her involved in committees. She was my best friend again, but this time an equal. I started to fall in love with her again. It was the most wonderful time. Do you have any idea what that feels like? I didn’t even know I was lonely until Mad was there again, and suddenly my heart was full. But then people began calling just for her, and Gabri asked her to take over the ACW, even though I was vice- president.’
‘But you hated the job,’ said Gabri.
‘I did. But I hated being left out more. Everyone does, don’t you know that?’
Clara thought of all the wedding invitations she hadn’t received and how she’d felt. Partly relieved at not having to go to the party and bring a gift they couldn’t afford, but mostly offended at being left out. Forgotten. Or worse. Remembered but not included.
‘Then she took Monsieur Beliveau,’ Gamache said.
‘When Ginette was dying she’d often say he and I would make a good couple. Keep each other company. I began to hope, to think maybe that was true.’
‘But he wanted more than just company,’ said Myrna.
‘He wanted her,’ said Hazel, the bitterness seeping out. ‘And I started to see I’d made a terrible mistake. But I couldn’t see how to get out of it.’
‘When did you decide to kill her?’ Gamache asked.
‘When Sophie came home for Christmas, and kissed her first.’
The simple, devastating fact sat in their sacred circle, like the dead little bird. Gamache was reminded of the one thing they were told over and over: don’t go into the woods in spring. You don’t want to get between a mother and her baby.
Madeleine had.
Finally Gamache spoke. ‘You’d kept Sophie’s ephedra from a few years ago. Not because you planned to use it then, but because you don’t throw anything away.’
Not furniture, not books, not emotions, thought Gamache. Hazel let nothing go.
‘According to the lab, the pills used were too pure to be the recent manufacture. At first I thought the ephedra was from your store,’ he said to Odile. ‘But then I remembered there’d been another bottle of pills. A few years ago. Hazel said Madeleine had found it and confiscated them, but that wasn’t true, was it, Sophie?’
‘Mom?’ Sophie sat wide-eyed, stunned.
Hazel reached for her hand, but Sophie quickly withdrew it. Hazel looked more affected by that than anything else.
‘You found them. And you used them on Madeleine for me?’
Clara tried to ignore the inflection, the hint of satisfaction in Sophie’s voice.
‘I had to. She was taking you away. Taking everything.’
‘You first tried to kill her at the Friday night seance,’ said Gamache, ‘but you didn’t give her enough.’
‘But she wasn’t even there,’ said Gabri. ‘No, but her casserole was,’ said Gamache, turning to Monsieur Beliveau. ‘You said you couldn’t sleep that night and thought it was because you were upset by the seance. But the seance wasn’t all that frightening. It was the ephedra that kept you awake.’
‘
‘No, no.’ She reached out to him but he quickly leaned away. One by one everyone was backing away from Hazel. Leaving her in the one place she most feared. Alone. ‘I’d never take the risk. I knew from news reports that ephedra only kills if you have a heart condition and I knew you didn’t.’
‘But you knew Madeleine did,’ said Gamache.
‘Madeleine had a bad heart?’ asked Myrna.
‘It was brought on by her chemotherapy,’ confirmed Gamache. ‘She told you about it, didn’t she, Hazel?’
‘She didn’t want to tell anyone else because she didn’t want to be treated like a sick person. How’d you know?’
‘The coroner’s report said she had a bad heart and her doctor confirmed it,’ said Gamache.
