Cruelest Month

Beauvoir looked back at the chair. It was deep and inviting, like an armchair, only wood.

‘It’ll hold you, don’t worry.’

He wished she’d stop talking. Just let him enjoy looking at this marvelous piece of furniture. It was like a work of art he actually understood.

‘Gilles made it.’ She interrupted his thoughts again.

‘Gilles Sandon? From here?’

She smiled cheerily. ‘Yes. My Gilles. That’s what he does.’

‘I thought he worked in the woods.’

‘Finding trees to make furniture.’

‘He finds his own trees?’

‘Actually, he says they find him. He goes for walks in the woods and listens. When a tree calls him he goes to it.’

Beauvoir stared at her. She’d said this as though that’s what Ikea did too. As though it was perfectly natural and normal to hear trees, never mind listen to them. He looked back at the chair.

Are they all nuts? wondered Beauvoir. The chair no longer spoke to him.

   TWENTY-TWO

Agent Robert Lemieux waited his turn at Monsieur Beliveau’s general store. At first he thought he’d find a depanneur, filled with junk food, cigarettes, cheap beer and wine, odds and ends people suddenly found they needed, like envelopes and candles for cake. But instead he found a real grocery store. One his grand-mere would have recognized. The dark wood shelves held neatly displayed cans of vegetables and preserves, cereals and pastas and jams and jellies, soups and crackers. All good quality, all neat and orderly. No overcrowding, no gluttony. The floors were scuffed but clean linoleum and a fan moved slowly round on the tongue-in-groove ceiling.

Behind the counter a tall, older man stooped to listen while an even older woman counted out change on the counter to pay for her groceries, talking nonstop. She told him about her hips. She told him about her son. She told him about the time she’d visited South Africa and how much she’d loved it there. And finally, in a soft and kindly voice, she told him she was sorry for his loss. And she reached one spotted hand out, the veins bulging and blue, and laid it on his long, thin, very white fingers. And held it there. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t withdraw his hand. Instead he looked into her violet eyes and smiled.

‘Merci, Madame Ferland.’

Lemieux watched her leave, grateful she’d finally stopped talking, then took her place.

‘Nice lady.’ He smiled at Monsieur Beliveau, who was watching Madame Ferland swing open the door to the store, stand on the veranda, look both ways as though lost, then walk very slowly away.

‘Oui.’

The whole village knew that Madame Ferland had lost her son the year before, though she chose not to talk about it. Until today. When she talked about him to Monsieur Beliveau, who recognized the gift of sorrow shared.

Now he turned back to the fresh young man in front of him. His dark hair was conservatively cut, his face clean-shaven and likeable. He looked nice.

‘My name is Robert Lemieux. I’m with the Surete.’

‘Oui, monsieur. I gathered that. You’re here about Madame Favreau.’

‘I understand you had a special relationship with her.’

‘I did.’ Monsieur Beliveau saw no reason to deny it now, though he wasn’t sure exactly what his relationship had been with Madeleine, at least not her side. He was certain only about how he’d felt.

‘And what was that relationship?’ Agent Lemieux asked. He wondered whether he was being too blunt, but he also knew he might not have this man’s attention for long. Another customer would walk in at any moment.

‘I loved her.’

And there the words sat in the space between them, where Madame Ferland’s loose change had warmed a spot.

Agent Lemieux was ready for this response. It’s what the chief had told him was probably the case. Or at least that their relationship was more than casual. Still, looking at the gaunt, gray, solemn old man in front of him he couldn’t figure it out. This man must be over sixty and Madeleine Favreau had been in her early forties. But age wasn’t the difference that surprised him. From the pictures he’d seen of the victim she’d been beautiful. All of them had her smiling or laughing, enjoying herself. Full of life and delight. Lemieux suspected she could have had anyone she wanted. So why had she chosen this caved-in man, this elderly, stooped, quiet man?

Perhaps she hadn’t. Perhaps he’d loved her and she’d felt differently. Perhaps she broke his heart, and he’d attacked hers.

Had this one who smelled of crackers and looked like a dried-up washcloth killed Madeleine Favreau? For love?

Young Agent Lemieux couldn’t believe it.