For Hardye and Don Moel

“Oh, merde.”

Harriet looked in the mirror, her toothbrush hanging out of her mouth. It was the first of June and she’d forgotten to say, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

She said it now, toothpaste foaming on her lips, but had the sinking feeling it was too late. The magic wouldn’t work. And if there was any day when she needed magic, it was today.

“Merde.”

“It’ll bring you good luck, little one,” Auntie Myrna had assured her niece when she’d taught her the incantation. “It’ll protect you.”

That had been years ago, but the rabbit habit hadn’t wholly taken. Most months Harriet remembered, but of course this month, when she needed it most, she’d forgotten. Though she knew it was probably because she had so much else on her mind.

“Shit.”

Did she really believe repeating rabbit, rabbit, rabbit made a difference? No. Of course not. How could she? It was a silly superstition. There was nothing actually magical about those words. Where did it even come from anyway? And why “rabbit”?

It was ridiculous.

She was an engineer, she told herself as she prepared for her morning run. A rational human being. But then so was her aunt. Did Auntie Myrna even do it? Or had it been a joke the timid child had taken to heart?

Setting aside the absurdity of magical incantations, Harriet marshaled her rational self and entered the day.

Everything will be okay, she said as she ran through the warm June morning. All will be well.

But Harriet Landers was wrong. She really should have repeated rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

“Don’t you ever—” the Chief Inspector began to say.

The softly spoken words cut through the wind and roar of crashing waves and landed in the younger man’s ears as though whispered directly there.

“—talk like that—”

Agent Beauvoir braced for the Chief Inspector to say “—to me, you stupid, arrogant little shit.”

But instead …

“—at the scene of a murder. That isn’t a body, that isn’t a corpse, that isn’t a puzzle. She’s a human being whose life has been taken. Stolen. I will not tolerate that sort of language, that behavior.”

Spray from waves beating against the rocks stung their faces, but while Beauvoir winced, the Chief Inspector never flinched. Never turned away. His deep brown eyes never wavered, never left Beauvoir’s.

With every word the man uttered, the young agent grew more and more perplexed.

More and more afraid.

Screaming, yelling, threatening he understood, even went out of his way to provoke.

But this? It wasn’t just a foreign language, it was alien. As though the man in front of him had appeared from some strange world unknown to Beauvoir. He understood the individual words, but their meaning eluded him.

And then it got worse.

“We have a duty,” the Chief was saying. His voice steady, never rising above normal level, even as the wind whipped around him and lake water coursed down his face. “Sacred or otherwise, to the murdered person and those who love and care for them. Part of that duty is to make sure their humanity is preserved. Do you understand, Agent Beauvoir?”

Don’t say it, don’t say it. Do. Not. Say. It.

“What I understand, sir, is that you’re a laughingstock, a joke, in the Sûreté.”

Stop. Stop. For God’s sake, stop. He’s not the enemy.

And yet it felt like he was. Gamache was threatening, in his soft, even gentle voice, all Jean-Guy’s defenses, fortifications that had taken a lifetime to erect.

“Your department is made up of all the garbage no one else wanted. They’re the only ones who’ll work for you. You don’t even wear a gun. You’re a coward. Everyone knows that.”

Word after word, like a shotgun blast to the chest, he aimed at this senior officer.

It was, of course, suicide. But necessary. A panicked effort to push away what now seemed inevitable. That this man would breach his walls. Would see inside. And so, Beauvoir lashed out. Wildly. Saying the most insulting things any cop could hear. Any human could hear.

He braced for the counterattack. But none came. The older man just stood there, his face gleaming with lake water, his hair, just touched with gray, tousled in the wind.

Around them the other agents, members of Gamache’s team, had stopped to watch. Some must have moved to intervene because the Chief Inspector made a subtle gesture to stop them.

Jean-Guy raised his voice to be heard above the ruckus of the waves and the wind and the water drumming against their clothing, as though nature was trying to drown him out.

“Only a fool would follow you.”

What happened next shocked and terrified the young agent. And changed his life.

After hosing down Honoré and finishing a Saturday morning breakfast of banana-filled crepes with crispy bacon and maple syrup, Annie, Jean-Guy, and the children headed to the car for the drive back to Montréal.

Armand held Idola while Reine-Marie kissed her daughter and Honoré. Then she turned to her son-in-law. “See you later?”

“Absolutely.”

He sounded far more enthusiastic than he was. The last thing Jean-Guy wanted was to sit in a stuffy auditorium on this fine June day and listen to speeches. While Annie and the kids went to a barbecue with friends near their home in Montréal.

He was doing this for Armand. Jean-Guy needed to be there in case this was the day something stepped out of that blind spot.

Armand kissed his granddaughter, then handed her back to Annie and turned to Honoré. Kneeling down to eye level, Armand opened his arms. The boy raced forward, plowing into him. Though prepared, he almost tipped over, and realized it would not be long before the boy actually tackled him.

Honoré, once free of the embrace, rifled his grandfather’s pockets, where he found a wintergreen mint in one and a licorice pipe in another. Their parting ritual.

As they drove out of Three Pines, past the tiny church and the bench on the brow of the hill, Jean-Guy looked in the rearview mirror. Reine-Marie was waving, but Armand had drawn in his elbows and hunched his shoulders against a chill no one else felt.

Except Inspector Beauvoir.

Maybe the Chief wasn’t so delusional after all. Maybe he could see what was coming.

There is always another story, thought Jean-Guy. There is more than meets the eye.

“Patron?”

Both Chief Inspector Gamache and Agent Beauvoir turned to look at Inspector Chernin.

A man, a stranger, had joined her by the woman’s body, still half in, half out of the lake. He was looking a little lost, very cold, and a lot unhappy.

The coroner, Gamache guessed. Called up from the nearest large town.

The Chief Inspector let go of Beauvoir’s arm, and the young agent suddenly felt set free, but also adrift. For the first time he realized how close “free” and “lost” were.

Gamache brushed by him, then turned. “Coming?”

“Oui, oui” was all Beauvoir could manage as he stumbled along the shore, losing his footing now and then on the wet rocks.

“And no more talking, right? You’ve probably said enough.”

“It’s murder,” Agent Beauvoir called after him. “She was murdered.”

Gamache stopped and turned. “You don’t take orders well, do you.”

“You need to know. It wasn’t suicide or an accident. The wound. Look at the shape. Look at what’s stuck in its”—at a scowl from Gamache, he adjusted—“her skull. It, she … her, it…” He was completely confused now about what he should say. Pointing to his own head, he said, “It wasn’t crushed by a rock or stone in the lake.”

“Then what, in your opinion, did it?”

“It’s not an opinion. I know. She was killed by a brick. Someone hit her with a brick and threw her into the lake.”

Gamache stared at Beauvoir, then walked away to join Chernin and the coroner.

After introducing himself, Gamache said, “Tell me what you know.”

“I know she’s dead,” said Dr. Mignon. “I have to get her onto my examining table before telling you more.”

It was maddening, though not unexpected. Chief Inspector Gamache knew that most local doctors, designated as coroners, had only accepted the position because it came with much-needed extra money and absolutely no responsibility.

Most deaths were not at all suspicious. There were some hunting accidents. Some suicides. Car accidents. All tragic. But not homicide.

A country coroner in Québec could, and most would, go through their entire career without meeting a murder victim.

But this poor man just had. Fortunately, he was also conscientious enough not to pretend to know more than he did.

Dr. Mignon looked down at the body, then at his shoes, soaked through and caked in muck. Then, as a loon called, he gazed out at the misty lake.

“A terrible place to die,” he said. “I’m guessing she’s the missing woman. Heard about it on the news.” His eyes returned to her body. “Her poor kids.”

The woman’s eyes were still open, her right arm lifting and dropping with the movement of the waves. Languid. Graceful, even. As though waving hello, or goodbye.

Like “free” and “lost,” it was often difficult to tell the difference.

After doing a slightly more thorough exam, the doctor stood back up and removed his gloves.

“A catastrophic wound on the side of her head. No other obvious injuries. I’ll need to look closer. See if there’s water in her lungs.”

If there was, she went in alive, and it might have been an accident or a suicide. If not, then she went in dead, and it was definitely murder.

While Gamache already knew the answer to that question, he would see what the coroner concluded.

“Merci” was all he said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Agent Beauvoir practically vibrating with the effort not to shout out his opinion. To his credit, he remained silent, if not still.

Gamache nodded to Inspector Chernin. They could move the body now.

As his agents pulled her out of the cold water, Gamache walked Dr. Mignon to his mud-spattered vehicle and gave him some guidance on what to look for in the autopsy. The coroner listened, then thanked the Chief Inspector.

“Who’s going to break it to the children?”

“We need to confirm her identity first, but once we do, I’ll tell them.”

The coroner put out his hand. “Better you than me. I’ll be at the hospital, waiting for the body.”

From the shore, Agent Beauvoir watched the two men talk, then turned to Inspector Chernin, who was kneeling beside the corpse and going through her pockets.

“The coroner doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

“And you do?” she said, not looking at him.

“I know enough to recognize murder. I told Gamache, but I don’t think he was listening. Here, let me show you.”

He knelt opposite her and reached out, but Chernin stopped him. “Don’t touch.”

“Then give me gloves.”

“You’re getting nothing. Step back before you contaminate the scene.”

“Hey, look, this was a murder,” he said, taking a few steps away. “I told Gamache to look closer at the wound.”

“For this?” Inspector Chernin held up a small evidence bag. In it were tiny chunks of red. Almost as red as Agent Beauvoir’s face became. “We saw it right away.”

“Then what was that talk about accident or suicide?”

“Just examining every possibility. But yes, before he took you aside, the Chief Inspector and I conferred about the shape of the wound, the sharp indent, and the red material embedded in her skull. Almost certainly a brick.” She looked around at the lake. “Where would someone get a brick out here?”

When Beauvoir opened his mouth, she held up her hand. “It was a rhetorical question, Agent Beauvoir. Thank you for your help. I’m sure the Chief was grateful.”

She watched as he seethed, his brilliance having gone unrecognized and unrewarded. With, perhaps, the dawning suspicion that in this company he might not actually be the brightest light. It was a new and unpleasant thought for Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

The Inspector smiled. She’d been this young agent once, a lifetime ago. Linda Chernin almost envied him his ignorance. He had no idea what he was in for.

“Inspector?” one of the agents called. He was walking along the shore in waders and holding an evidence bag.

In it was a sodden purse.

“Well done,” said Chernin.

Opening the purse, she brought out a wallet. It was wet and worn but had been pretty once. A rose, needlepointed onto it, was now scuffed and dirty, and threads had been pulled loose.

There was no money in it, but there was ID.

Gamache returned from seeing the coroner off and joined them, motioning Beauvoir to step into the scrum.

“It’s her. The missing woman.” Chernin handed the plasticized driver’s license to Gamache.

Clotilde Arsenault stared out at them. Her hair was blond. Straggly and stringy. It looked unwashed and uncombed. Unkempt.

Her cheeks were sunken. Her blue eyes were glassy. She stared at the lens as though trying to figure out what it was.

Her face was thin, almost emaciated, and her complexion sallow. The photograph more resembled one of the thousands of mug shots Gamache and Chernin had seen in their careers than a driver’s license photo.

Gamache looked at the woman on the rocky shore. Then back to the picture.

In life Clotilde Arsenault had looked eerily as she did in death. She lived, it seemed, at the place where the river Styx narrowed. It had not been a long journey for the ferryman.

The woman in the picture was only thirty-six, but life had not been easy, or kind. And neither had death.

There was one other photograph in her wallet, in the sleeve where the money would have been. It too was plasticized. A studio portrait of a girl and boy. Sister and brother, he assumed. Clotilde’s children. The boy, striking in his good looks, was smiling. The girl wore a school uniform and her hair was in pigtails. Looking closer, Gamache realized she was young, but not the little girl she appeared to be in the picture.

His brows drew together and he took a deep breath. “Have it checked for prints,” he said. “When you’re done, return it to me, please.”

“Yessir,” said the agent.

Gamache looked over at one of the Sûreté vehicles. When they’d arrived, he’d noticed a man and woman sitting in the back seat. Watching them.

“Those the two who found her?” he asked.

“Oui,” said Chernin. “Hikers. Not from around here. They’re up from Montréal.”

“Hikers?” said Gamache. “Out here? Today?”

He already had that information. It was in the short report the captain had given him. But seeing this lake, these surroundings, raised all sorts of questions. Ones he would ask in time. But first—

Kneeling once more beside the body, Armand did something the coroner had not thought to do. He pushed up Clotilde Arsenault’s sleeve to reveal the tracks. Then he looked down the length of her body. Her shoes were missing, having probably come off in the water, but her jeans were still on. The movement of the waves hadn’t tugged them off. And her killers hadn’t ripped them off. But that didn’t mean there’d been no sexual assault.

He’d advised the coroner to take copious DNA samples and do a toxicology report, full spectrum. And to look for semen. To check for hairs. Tissue under nails. Foreign biological material everywhere, including her mouth.

There was bruising on her face. It was either immediately premortem, or very soon after her death.

And there were more bruises on her arms. Older ones. Previous assaults.

He pondered, staring down at her.

What had happened here? Why was Clotilde Arsenault dead? In a life clearly filled with violence, with pain, what had happened to take that next, that last, irrevocable step?

Why had someone found it necessary to kill her? Was it an accident? Had someone, addled by drugs, picked up the nearest object, a brick, and swung? Not intending to kill, but killing?

Or was it intentional? For the money? Her drugs? None were found on her, so perhaps they too were stolen.

But the big question, beyond who did this, was why had the killer brought her here? To this lake? Why not just leave her where she fell? Or, if he wanted to get rid of her body, why not leave her in the forest for the wolves and bears to find?

His eyes moved back to Madame Arsenault’s face. Inspector Chernin had tried to close her eyes, but they’d been open too long. The lids would not move.

There is always a wicked secret, a private reason for this.

“Tell me your secret,” he whispered again. This time there was no snort of laughter from young Agent Beauvoir. Only silence and the lapping of the waves. “Who did this to you?”

He waited, but nothing happened. He’d have been shocked if it had. Her eyes remained fixed on his, as though she were trying.

One thing seemed clear to the Chief Inspector. Clotilde Arsenault’s last feeling wasn’t fear or shock. It was worry. And that worried the head of homicide. It was an unusual expression for a murder victim. Surprise was what he normally saw. Sometimes anger, often terror.

But not this. Though he also suspected that Madame Arsenault had spent most of her life worried. Getting back to his feet, he turned to Chernin, who was going through the purse.

“A chocolate bar. Some wet Kleenex. What looks like house keys. No car keys. No phone.”

“The report says it was left behind in her home. Her children found it, but don’t know her password.”

“A pair of dark glasses. Cheap. From a drugstore. Aaaaand … ahhhh.” She called to a Scene of Crime officer. “I need this photographed.”

He clicked a few shots of the inside of the cheap imitation-leather handbag while the others craned to see. When he finished, Inspector Chernin pulled the lining away.

Shoved down behind the lining was a small packet of white powder.

Chernin held it up. Gamache raised his head, looking up into the clouds. Thinking.

That answered a question that didn’t actually need answering. She was an addict. But was she also a trafficker? He doubted it. She might have been once, but she appeared much too far gone now.

She was just a user. Whoever did this must’ve known she’d probably have drugs on her. And yet, they’d taken the money and left the not-very-well-hidden heroin. He sighed.

Very little of this made sense.

Why bring her here?

Why take the money but not the smack?

One thing Gamache did know was that people stole what they needed. What they wanted. What would be useful. In this case, the money.

But they hadn’t bothered about the drugs. Because. Because.

Because drugs were not what they wanted or needed. Which meant she probably wasn’t killed by her supplier. Or another addict.

So who…?

Gamache looked over at the hikers. “What do they say?”

“Just that they were out for a walk and came across her body,” said Chernin.

Gamache turned to Agent Beauvoir. “What do you think?”

“Me?”

“Yes. Your thoughts.”

Beauvoir took a breath, and actually thought. It was, he realized, the first time he’d really stopped to consider something since he’d arrived at the detachment. It was also, he realized, the first time he’d been asked to.

He glanced over at Inspector Chernin, expecting her to be surprised or even annoyed that the Chief had consulted him. But she was just watching him too, waiting to hear what he had to say.

“Nobody comes out here for a stroll. I think they were up to something. Poaching probably. Fishing illegally. This lake is known for trout and walleye. Maybe hunting moose or deer without a license. It’s the season. You haven’t found a rifle or rods or other equipment?”

Chernin shook her head. “But…” She looked at the thick forest and the lake.

It was, for the homicide detectives tasked with investigating murders outside of Québec cities, the perpetual problem. In a city, losing a body or a weapon might be a challenge.

Out here? You could lose a tank.

A loon gave another call, and over Beauvoir’s shoulder Gamache saw a formation of Canada geese heading south. Hurry, he thought. Winter’s closing in.

“I’d like a chart of the currents in this lake,” he said. “The local bureau de protection de l’environnement should have it. If not, try the Fish and Game Club.”

“Will do,” said Chernin. She waved toward the man and woman in the car. “If they were poachers, that might explain why they’re here, but it doesn’t make them murderers.”

“Unless they were her dealers,” said Beauvoir, pivoting. “Meeting out here where no one could see.”

“They’re from Montréal,” said Chernin. “Are you saying they came all the way up here to make a five-and-dime sale? Then killed her? Two days ago. Then returned to the body, and reported it?”

“They knew their DNA would be found,” said Beauvoir. The pivot had turned into a scramble. “This way they could explain it.”

They all looked over to the car, where the hikers were now leaning forward, aware they were being discussed.

Gamache shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Why not?” asked Beauvoir, peeved at being doubted.

“For one, she wasn’t killed here.”

“How do you know?”

“You told me yourself. Think about it,” said Gamache, before turning back to Chernin. “Why not just leave her in the forest where she’d never have been found.”

Clotilde Arsenault would have then joined the long, and growing, list of missing women.

She was a known prostitute. A junkie. The local cops wouldn’t try too hard.

Her children would spend the rest of their lives wondering. Looking into the faces of pale women with blond stringy hair. In restaurants, shops, walking toward them on the street.

Even when they themselves were elderly, they would still be looking. Wondering if that young woman sitting over there could be their mother.

Could that possibly be the reason Clotilde had been left where she might be found? To spare her children?

Was a person capable of murder also, in that same moment, capable of kindness?

Gamache took a deep breath, his exhale coming out in a stream of vapor as the temperature dropped still further.

He turned toward his car.

“I’ll come with you,” said Chernin, knowing what he had to do now.

“No, you stay here and coordinate the scene of crime. I’ll meet you at the station after I’ve broken the news to the children.”

Though Armand Gamache knew it would be more than news he’d be breaking. Fortunately, he supposed, Captain Dagenais would have found someone to stay with Clotilde’s children for the past few days. Someone who could now comfort them.

Armand Gamache needed to get to them quickly before word leaked out, though news of a body was probably already spreading through the community.

He looked across the lake, past the relative protection of the cove, past the whitecaps roiling farther out, until his gaze stopped at the thick old-growth forest. It had seen its share of violent death.

Most wild animals did not die of old age. They were killed but not murdered. There was premeditation, yes. One animal stalking another, with intent to kill. But no mens rea. No malice aforethought. No evil intent.

He was reminded again what Abbie Hoffman had said: We must eat what we kill. That would put an end to war. And, thought Gamache, an end to murder. Or most.

Inspector Chernin accompanied him as he walked toward his car. Their heads together, they discussed the practicalities of the investigation, including where to set up a command center and where to stay.

“What do you think of him?” Gamache asked as they neared the vehicle.

“Beauvoir? Well, patron, you sure know how to find the biggest piece of shit around.”

“It’s a gift, and”—he stopped and smiled at her—“my track record is unbroken. He should fit right in.”

“You’re not—”

“I haven’t yet, but I’m considering it. There’s something about him.”

“It’s called insubordination. He hasn’t got a chip on his shoulder, he’s got a boulder. With those anger issues, he becomes unpredictable, and that could be dangerous.”

“His station chief agrees with you.”

“And yet—” said Chernin.

Gamache studied the woman who’d been his second-in-command for several years. He said nothing. Just watched her. Inviting her to consider.

This habit of his of just waiting, quietly, she’d found unnerving for the first few years of her posting in homicide. But now she was used to it. Kind of. Most senior officers could not wait to impose their ideas. Gamache insisted his agents think for themselves.

“And yet,” she continued, “he saw the shape of the wound and recognized the murder weapon. I saw it too. You saw it. But none of the other agents, not even the coroner, realized the significance and knew a brick had killed her. Knew it was murder.”

“He not just saw that, he spoke up. To a senior officer. He’s not afraid to speak his mind.”

“The trick is getting him to shut up.”

Gamache smiled. “True. That might take some work. But the point is, he put the truth ahead of his career.”

“The truth or his ego?” she asked. Linda Chernin too was not afraid to challenge her boss.

“Good question.” They looked over at Agent Beauvoir, who was pretending not to be watching them. “I guess we’ll find out. When you’re done here, have them taken to the station.” Gamache nodded toward the two hikers. “Let them stew for a while. There’s something, maybe quite a lot, they aren’t telling us. Have you applied for a warrant?”

“To search their vehicle? Yes. I’ve also applied for one for Madame Arsenault’s home. Both should come through soon. I’ll let you know.” She looked again at the hikers. “You think they did it?”

“I don’t know.”

Chernin returned to the shore and Gamache returned to his car. He could hear a vehicle approaching over the rutted road. No doubt the ambulance to take the body to the morgue and the news back to the community.

He’d have to hurry. And yet, his hand on the car door, the Chief Inspector hesitated. He stood very still and listened to the rustle and scramble of small creatures in the forest.

Then he closed his eyes, escaping into the peace of the moment. Taking a deep breath, he inhaled the cool, fresh air and with it the scent of pine needles and musky earth and rotting leaves. It was somehow comforting. Familiar. Natural.

He paused. Paused. Even as the sound of the ambulance got louder and louder, Armand Gamache held on to the peace and quietude for as long as he could. Before …

But it had to be done.

Opening his eyes, Gamache caught sight of a chipmunk racing up a tree trunk. Was it running or fleeing? Hunter or prey? Was another death imminent?

What must it be like to run for your life through a forest, knowing your pursuer was getting closer, closer? It was the stuff of nightmares.

He looked away and saw Agent Beauvoir still watching him.

Making up his mind, Gamache called out, “Come with me, please.”

“Moi?” said Jean-Guy Beauvoir, touching his chest and looking around.

“Oui. Vous.”

The fact this superior officer had just used the formal, respectful “vous” surprised him.

“Well,” said Gamache, as Beauvoir got into the driver’s seat.

“Well, what?”

“Why is it clear Madame Arsenault wasn’t killed here?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

But Gamache just shook his head and looked out the window at the impenetrable forest, and Beauvoir settled into a silent huff. He was clearly being sent back to the basement.

He should have been so lucky.

They’d taken their seats in the increasingly warm, increasingly stuffy auditorium.

Jean-Guy had arrived and was sitting, perspiring, on the other side of Reine-Marie. His knee bounced up and down. He might still get to the barbecue in time for a burger. Or two. If they started soon.

Though he knew his agitation had very little to do with the burgers. That was a distraction, a counterirritant, so he didn’t have to think about why they were there. And who else would be.

The hubbub slowly died down, then a stir could be heard as those at the back of the room got to their feet. Like a wave at a hockey game, though far more polite and contained, the audience rose row by row as the Chancellor and President of the Université de Montréal, as the professors and board of governors and honored guests, entered in procession.

They wore flowing black robes and caps, some of which were stiff and covered in silk, some velvety soft and floppy.

What would look ludicrous out on the street was impressive here.

The procession was solemn. Reflecting the importance of this day.

After they’d taken their places on the stage, the President nodded and the next procession began. This one was far different. Friends and family members, already on their feet, began applauding, unable to contain their excitement.

Some whistled, some shouted names. No doubt embarrassing, and secretly delighting, the young woman or man. Phones were held high, recording the event. To be shown later to friends and relatives who hoped the dinner was delicious enough to warrant having to watch.

The procession became a parade, a celebration, as graduates in their caps and gowns entered the hall in alphabetical order, to cheers from relieved and a few privately surprised parents.

Watching this, Jean-Guy, despite the dark stains under his armpits and the rumble in his stomach and his slight foreboding, could not contain a smile. One that grew as more young people arrived.

Their joy was infectious.

He thought of the day he and Annie would rise up and applaud as Honoré entered just such an auditorium. Idola never would, of course. But she had other gifts. Not everyone was cut out for academia.

He looked across Reine-Marie, to Armand. He actually looked like he might cry. Was that possible? He was certainly gripped with a strong emotion, probably never having dreamed this day would come.

Armand and Reine-Marie craned their necks to find her in the crowd. Fiona Arsenault.

And then, as Jean-Guy watched, Armand’s expression changed. It first froze and then the smile melted away, leaving something cold and flinty behind.

Jean-Guy followed Armand’s eyes, though he knew what, who, he’d find at the other end.

And sure enough. There he was. A young man, still handsome, perhaps even more handsome than when Beauvoir had first seen him. The same day he’d first met the Chief Inspector.

The young man was looking past the stream of joyful graduates. Past the cheering and applauding parents. He paused briefly to look at Jean-Guy and smiled in recognition before moving on. Past Reine-Marie.

Sam Arsenault’s stare landed on Chief Inspector Gamache, and stayed there.

The kitchen was spotless. Or almost. There were some marks on the otherwise gleaming stove top where the enamel had been chipped away. There were burns on the counters and linoleum floor, made from smoldering cigarettes and joints.

Gamache put on the kettle, then pulled out his phone and checked. Yes, it had been Inspector Chernin.

Calling her back, he got the news that both search warrants had come through.

“Good. There’s no working vehicle here. Any sign of one by the lake? Hidden in the forest?”

“We’ll look, but no, nothing so far. She got to the lake somehow. We’ll go over the hikers’ car.”

Though both investigators knew few would be stupid enough to report a murder and still be in possession of the victim’s vehicle. Still, some people were just that stupid.

“When you drop them off at the station, find out if Captain Dagenais has arranged for a family friend to come be with the children. If not, then send Agent Moel.” She was trained in grief counseling and had worked with children in the past. “In fact, send her anyway.”

“Oui, patron.”

He hung up and slipped the phone back into his jacket pocket.

“I did it.”

Armand turned at the sound of the voice. Fiona was standing in the doorway.

“Pardon?”

“Cleaned. Sam helped. We wanted it clean and tidy for when she came home.”

Armand nodded. He understood, though it was actually the opposite of his reaction when at the age of nine his own parents had been killed by a drunk driver.

He’d grown hysterical whenever anyone tried to move anything. Change anything. Even cook. Or do the laundry. He refused to change out of the flannel pajamas his mother had put him in before she left. Before.

There was always, even now, a before and an after. As there would be for these children.

After days of this, Armand’s grandmother had had to sit him down and explain that his mother and father were not in the objects. They were not in the dust that was accumulating. They were not even in the home.

It was more permanent, far stronger than that.

“They’re here.” Zora touched his head. “And here.” She touched his heart. Then laid her thin hand over her own heart. “A house can change. Things can get lost or broken. But the love you keep inside you is safe, forever. They’re safe, inside you.”

He understood. But still, young Armand needed something more tangible. As long as everything stayed exactly as it was when they’d left for dinner that night, then maybe, maybe nothing else would change.

Maybe they’d come home. It was his job to keep it just the way it was. In case. But if something, anything, changed, then the spell would be broken. And it would be his fault.

It wasn’t so much irrational as magical. And powerful. Only his trust in his grandmother allowed him to loosen his grip. But it took time.

Yes, he understood Clotilde’s children and their need for some control over a situation fast spinning way out of control.

They’d had to do something to survive the long, interminable, cruel hours of waiting. To take their minds off, however briefly, what was becoming inescapable.

And so they’d scrubbed the place clean. For when their mother returned.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding her gaze. “If you want to talk about what’s happened, I’m here. I’ll give you my number.” He took a card out of his jacket pocket. “I promise we’ll find out who did this. But I’m afraid, Fiona, I’m going to need your help. We have questions that need answering.”

She nodded in her solemn way.

He’d just turned back to warm up the teapot when he felt a hand on his hand. He leapt away and stared at her.

The touch had been soft, gentle. Intimate.

“Fiona Arsenault.”

The name was read out, and a woman, older than most of the other graduates, walked across the stage to accept her degree.

Armand and Reine-Marie beamed and clapped, while Jean-Guy recorded the moment. The video showed a tall, slender young woman with long, loose blond hair walking with poise across the stage.

She looked like every other student graduating that day from the École Polytechnique. But anyone watching closely might notice a difference, and quite a significant one.

Behind Fiona on the stage, it was possible to see Nathalie Provost clapping, albeit barely, but none of the faculty were. They just sat there. Watching.

That could be put down to the fact that Fiona Arsenault had not actually attended classes at the École Polytechnique and was only allowed to accept her engineering degree that day because Armand Gamache had interceded on her behalf.

He’d asked the board of governors, the Chancellor, the President, and, most important, the survivors and families of the victims of the shootings years before Fiona had been born for their approval.

It was given. Though reluctantly. And the École had only approved because the families and survivors had.

Fiona Arsenault put out her hand to shake the Chancellor’s, as the grads had been instructed. There was a moment, a pause. He took it, briefly, and gave her the scroll. Then moved the tassel on her hat from one side to the other. The signal that she was now a graduate.

Finally, he gave her the little box. She stared down at it, then thanked him. Inside the box was a symbol that would tell anyone familiar with the code that she was an engineer.

Before leaving the stage, Fiona looked out at the audience. Scanning. Her eyes stopped at the Gamaches. She smiled. But then moved on. And found who she was really looking for.

Her brother, Sam.

Reine-Marie squeezed Armand’s hand but said nothing.

The ceremony continued, ending with Nathalie Provost approaching the podium.

The audience, as one, rose to their feet. The applause was sustained and heartfelt. When it died down, she spoke. About that terrible day, a little. But mostly about the consequences. The fight, ongoing, against misogyny. Against all hate crimes. The fight, ongoing, for gun control.

But mostly Nathalie Provost talked about hope. About perseverance. About change.

About courage. About the future.

Then, picking up the bouquet of white roses, she named the young women murdered that day in 1989. There were sobs scattered around the auditorium. As though sinkholes had opened.

And then, Nathalie Provost announced another name. A woman she described as the future. A reason for hope, for optimism. The woman engineering student who had been awarded that year’s Order of the White Rose scholarship, for graduate work.

Chief Inspector Gamache slapped the photograph onto the desk. His hand hit with such force the sound reverberated beyond the four walls and out into the bullpen at the Sûreté detachment.

“Captain?” One of the agents peered into the office.

Linda Chernin used her boot to slam the door shut. The agents working in the outer room could still see through the window into the station commander’s office, but they couldn’t hear. Unless voices were raised, and it seemed likely they would be.

Captain Dagenais looked down at the screen grab, his face growing pale.

“Give me your gun.” Gamache held out his hand. “You’re under arrest.”

Dagenais looked up into the Chief Inspector’s eyes. Then he looked behind Gamache to the two officers standing on either side and slightly behind him.

Gamache’s second-in-command, a woman, had her hand on her gun, though it was still in its holster at her hip. The other, that fucker Beauvoir, also had his jacket open, ready if need be.

And he could see by the look on Beauvoir’s face that he hoped need would be.

Dagenais’s mind worked fast. He looked through the window at his agents, now all on their feet. Staring in. Alert. Ready. He’d long regretted that window and the lack of privacy. Now it just might save his ass.

Dagenais did a quick calculation. Six of them. Heavily armed. Seven if he counted himself. Three of Gamache’s people, including the unarmed Chief Inspector.

“On what charge?”

“Give me your weapon,” demanded Gamache.

Dagenais hesitated, then pulled it out of its holster. Chernin moved, but Gamache signaled her to stand fast.

The party for Harriet Landers was in full swing on the village green.

Multicolored lanterns had been strung and a bonfire lit. There was music and dancing and a table full of food, where Henri and Fred and Gracie and all manner of other creatures, including children, lay, looking up every time one of the revelers took a brie burger or a honey-lime chicken kabob. Or a butter tart. There was a table for alcoholic and nonalcoholic punches, and a long metal feed trough of ice with beer and wine and soft drinks in impossible shades of purple and orange.

Many of the younger children were dozing off in sleeping bags, gummy bears stuck to their hands, and faces, and hair.

“Relatives?” Gabri asked Clara, who had mustard and chocolate down her sweater.

“Apprentices.”

Those not sleeping were chasing each other around and around the outer ring of the village green, ignored by parents who tried to pretend their progeny weren’t one jelly bean away from Lord of the Flies.

Three Pines smelled of charred hot dogs and sugar from the marshmallows that had melted off sticks and plunged, sizzling, into the bonfire.

While the younger people danced to keep themselves warm in the cool late-spring evening, the older ones sat in lawn chairs drawn up to the blaze.

“I remember my own graduation party,” said Robert Mongeau, the minister at St. Thomas’s.

“From divinity school?” asked Reine-Marie.

“No, I didn’t graduate from that until just a few years ago,” he said, with a laugh. “Late to the cloth. It was from Harvard Business School.”

“Really?” said Armand.

They’d been away in Paris when this new minister had been hired, and they hadn’t had much chance to talk with him. Though Armand and Reine-Marie had heard some of the broad strokes of this newcomer, who seemed both more worldly than the previous pious minister, and more caring. Here was a man battered to his knees, not by failure but by too much success.

Robert Mongeau was of medium height, and while not rotund, he was heading that way. His hair was thick and still flecked with brown. His beard was trim and white, and his eyes a sort of hazel. He was in his late sixties, Armand guessed. There was an ease about him, and his good humor was obvious to anyone who spent more than a minute with the man.

Though Armand knew it concealed a private anguish. That much was also obvious to anyone who looked at the Reverend and Madame Mongeau.

“Really,” said Mongeau, replying to Armand with amusement. Then he turned to his wife. “Shall we?”

“Always.” Sylvie Mongeau lifted her arms. He pulled her out of the chair, took her in his arms, and they swung away, joining the young people on the green.

The others watched, smiling. It was clear, and becoming clearer by the day, that Sylvie Mongeau was dying. Myrna and Clara and even Ruth had approached her within a month of their arrival in Three Pines with offers of friendship. And to talk. Sylvie had accepted the friendship but declined the implied offers to discuss her health.

Myrna and Billy Williams finished their dance and joined the others, having first stopped at the food table.

“I’ve never seen her look happier,” said Myrna after eating an asparagus roll. It tasted of every childhood picnic.

At first the others thought Myrna meant Sylvie Mongeau, but they quickly realized she was watching her niece. Harriet was dancing with abandon, her arms waving over her head, her face turned to the stars. There was a sort of wild ecstasy about her. It was joy, gilded by extreme relief. And awash in booze.

The worst was over. She’d done it.

The adults were quiet, each watching the young people. Each remembering their own dances. And that first kiss.

Armand put his hand on Reine-Marie’s and remembered his last first kiss.

Then, one by one, they turned to the Mongeaus. Swaying slowly. Even though it was a fast song. He held her, his cheek against hers. Their eyes closed.

Armand took a sharp breath against the sudden pain. He looked away. Had to. Toward the bright, the luminous, the joyful young people. Their lives ahead of them.

When the song ended, the Mongeaus returned to their lawn chairs. Sylvie with a fresh glass of rosé, Robert with a beer.

“Armand,” he said, his voice low and soft. “Who’s that? I haven’t seen him before.”

Mongeau had tipped his beer bottle toward a young man standing on the other side of the bonfire.

“That’s Fiona’s brother, Sam. He’s staying at the B&B.”

“Ah. Fiona is the young woman who stays with you from time to time?”

“Oui.”

“But he doesn’t?”

“Non.”

Mongeau examined Gamache and seemed about to say something, but the man’s face in profile, lit by the dancing flames as he watched Sam Arsenault, did not invite conversation.

The minister decided to change the subject. Slightly.

“How did you come to meet her? A friend of your daughter’s?”

“Non” came the answer, perhaps a bit too quickly. Then Armand turned to him and smiled. “We met a few years ago. Reine-Marie has become a sort of mother figure for her.”

“Lucky her.” Mongeau waited, but that seemed to be that.

“Harriet isn’t the only one celebrating,” said Olivier, who’d overheard their conversation. “Fiona also graduated today from the École Polytechnique. Armand and Reine-Marie helped get her in.”

It wasn’t the whole story, thought Armand. Olivier was being discreet. Though he suspected the minister would find out soon enough. It wasn’t exactly a secret.

What no one there knew, not even Reine-Marie, was why Armand felt as he did about Fiona’s brother. Sam Arsenault.

Only one other person knew that.

When Jean-Guy had heard that Sam was now in Three Pines, he’d offered to come down. But Armand had declined.

“I appreciate it, but it’ll be okay. Merci quand même,” Armand had said on the phone that afternoon. Thanks anyway.

Through his study window he could see Billy Williams assembling the wood into a sort of teepee for the bonfire that night.

“It might even be a good thing.”

“How so?” asked Jean-Guy.

“Running away only makes things worse. I suspect the more I see him, the more I’ll realize he’s just a regular young man. Nothing—” What to say? Nothing sinister? Nothing disturbing? Nothing monstrous? “—more.”

Jean-Guy had long suspected the Chief Inspector had it backward. Beauvoir quite liked Sam. It was Fiona …

Jean-Guy never could get his head around Armand’s reaction to the boy. It was as though he was afraid of him. Beauvoir tried to set that thought aside as ludicrous but could not quite shake it. And his father-in-law’s reaction, immediate and visceral, that afternoon at the graduation only underscored that there was more there than met the eye.

While his offer to go down to Three Pines was sincere, the truth was it was the last thing Jean-Guy wanted to do. He was exhausted. He’d arrived at the neighbors’ barbecue just as the last overcooked burger was dropped onto the grass by some kid and eaten by some dog.

Then he’d spent eternity chasing Honoré, who was fueled by devil’s food cake, around the yard while Annie held Idola and smiled. Jean-Guy’s need to corral chaos almost always amused her, especially now there were two young children in the house. And with Honoré, they’d given birth to mayhem.

That boy loved being dirty and hated baths. Idola, on the other hand, loved baths. Loved being clean. Loved being dirty. Loved being held up, loved lying down.

She was still very floppy. The specialist said she would be for a while but would eventually, with training, be able to sit up by herself.

As he spoke to his father-in-law, Jean-Guy carefully supported Idola’s head while she slept in his arms, secure in the knowledge that she was safe and loved.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir thought about the Arsenault siblings and all the other children who never felt that. In fact, were raised knowing the opposite was true.

“Are you insane?” Beauvoir seethed. “You’ll get us all killed.” He turned to Chernin, who was now off the phone. “He let them go.”

Chernin looked at the Chief Inspector with surprise but didn’t challenge him. Instead, she said, “The warrant for Dagenais’s property has come through.”

“Did you hear what I said?” Beauvoir demanded, looking from one to the other.

“Good,” said Gamache, ignoring him and replying to Chernin. “You’re in charge. Good luck, Linda.”

“And you, patron.” She watched as Gamache picked up one of the Glocks and loaded it.

“Agent Beauvoir,” said Gamache, fixing the gun to his belt, “do you know where Dagenais lives?”

“I don’t know the address, but I know how to get there.”

“Well, I know the address, but not how to get there. Come with me.”

At the door, Beauvoir looked back at Chernin. He needed reassurance that he wasn’t about to get into a car with a crazy man. An armed crazy man. But Inspector Chernin had already turned away.

As he drove, Jean-Guy was tempted to pepper the Chief Inspector with questions, but did not. He was afraid of the answers.

As they turned off the main road, Gamache asked, “Does Dagenais live alone?”

“Yes.”

“Let me know when we’re almost there.”

A few minutes later, Beauvoir said, “It’s down here a couple hundred meters.”

“Shut off your lights, please, and turn the car around in that cul-de-sac.”

The light rain of the early evening had turned to sleet. Once parked, Beauvoir reached for the door handle, but for the second time that endless day, Chief Inspector Gamache stopped him.

“Wait.”

Dear God, thought Jean-Guy. Not more poetry. Shoot me now.

But the Chief Inspector just sat, and stared out the window at the dark house, barely visible through the trees. One dim light shone in a downstairs window.

“Do you see any vehicles in the drive?”

Beauvoir squinted. “No. Dagenais’s car is at the station.”

Gamache would know that, thought Beauvoir. So why ask? And what were they waiting for? They had the warrant. None of this made sense.

A couple of minutes later a pickup truck drove by and turned into Dagenais’s driveway.

“Do you recognize it?”

Beauvoir did. His face, unseen in the dark, had gone pale.

“It’s the second-in-command. Dagenais’s man. The one who almost got us all killed. The one you released.”

Beauvoir expected some reaction from Gamache. An acknowledgment that he’d fucked up. The guy must be there for the same reason they were. To find the evidence. And Gamache was letting him do it.

“Oui,” said Gamache. “This’s why I released him.”

“You expected him to come here?”

“I hoped.”

It took Agent Beauvoir a few moments to adjust, and see the man beside him as not an incompetent lunatic.

“Holy shit, you expected him to come here.” The words were the same, but the tone and emphasis had changed. “You released him so he could do our work for us.”

“So he could find what we almost certainly never would,” said Gamache. “Dagenais would’ve hidden the evidence too well. But his second-in-command, also implicated, would know where.”

He reached for the door handle, as did Beauvoir. “Non. Stay here.”

“But—”

“I need you here. If he gets by me, if he tries to leave, stop him. Block the road. Assume he’s armed. Arrest him.”

“D’accord. And you?”

“When you have him secured, come find me. Got it? Whatever you hear, do not leave your post. Do you understand?”

Beauvoir knew what that meant. “Are you sure—”

“You’re the last line of defense, Agent Beauvoir. You have to stop him. We have to get that evidence. They’ll find other children. Might even be grooming some right now. You have to stop him. I’m counting on you, Jean-Guy.”

“Yessir.”

Beauvoir watched as the Chief Inspector disappeared into the swirling rain and snow.

The forensics team flew back to Montréal early the next morning with their prisoners.

The hikers had been released, though Gamache had assigned an agent to look more closely into their identities. He also wanted to know more about Clotilde’s history and her family. There must be someone. Parents, siblings, the father of her children.

He and Inspector Chernin stayed behind to fill in some details, leaving Agent Beauvoir to run the detachment.

“You mean I’m in command?” He looked around the empty space as though he’d been given the keys to the kingdom.

Less than a day earlier he’d been in the basement, and now he was in charge.

“Yes,” said Gamache. “It’s all yours. Don’t burn it down.”

As they left, they heard a phone ring. “Sûreté. Agent Beauvoir. How can I help?”

Gamache and Chernin met first with the coroner, who confirmed that death was due to a blow to Clotilde’s head. Almost certainly a brick.

There was no semen. It appeared she had not been sexually assaulted. Most of the bruises were either older or postmortem.

“Toxicology?” Chernin asked.

“Well, she was loaded. Cocaine, heroin. Amphetamines. Looks like she’d have snorted the living room sofa, given a chance. It’s possible she’d have died of an overdose anyway, had the murderer waited or known. The good thing, I suppose, is that given her state she probably didn’t see it coming, or feel anything.”

“But death was the catastrophic blow to her head?” Chernin asked.

“Yes.”

That at least was definite, though it seemed her life was also catastrophic.

“She was dead when she went into the water?” Chernin confirmed, reviewing the report while Gamache looked down at Clotilde’s body. At her face. At her worried expression.

He thought maybe Dr. Mignon was wrong and that, at the last moment of life, she had seen death coming.

“Yes, but this is where it gets interesting,” said the coroner. “As you know, I’m no specialist, so I didn’t put it into the report. I could never swear to this, but I don’t think she was ever completely submerged.”

Gamache turned around. “What do you mean?”

“I think, by the texture and mottling of her skin, and by the damage done by fish and birds, that she spent at least two days only partly submerged.”

He showed them the marks.

“We need her body sent to the coroner in Montréal,” said the Chief Inspector.

Dr. Mignon stripped off his gloves. “I’ll share my report with your coroner. The children?”

“They’re being cared for” was all Gamache could say.

Mignon shook his head and glanced back at the body. “I hope she was a better mother than she appears. Poor one. I can’t imagine she wanted her life to turn out as it did.”

Gamache and Chernin took the report, thanked him, then returned to the Arsenault home for a closer look around in daylight.

After the sleet of the day before, this one had dawned bright and fresh and clear. The ground was wet, of course, but the air smelled fresh, with a bite of cold. Such was the month of November. Unpredictable. Changeable. It could not be trusted.

The sunshine didn’t make the bungalow look more cheerful. In fact, if possible, it looked even worse. Though it didn’t help that they now knew what had gone on inside.

The scent of lemon cleaner still hung in the air. What had seemed fresh now smelled stale, cloying, chemical. Gamache and Chernin walked from room to room. Sometimes picking up items with gloved hands and placing them in evidence bags. Gamache noticed the exercise books with homework done by both Fiona and Sam. He bagged them, along with other small items.

He also picked up a stuffed dog from Fiona’s bed and a model plane Sam had made. Not as evidence. These would, he hoped, offer some small comfort in their new and unfamiliar surroundings.

He paused to look at what Sam had drawn on the walls. It was just meandering lines in crayon. Without, it seemed, purpose or destination. Like ley lines on a map, leading nowhere.

He took a photo.

They did not yet have the murder weapon. There was a pretty good chance it had been tossed into the lake. If so, it had sunk into the mud, to be lost forever.

Still, Gamache had ordered a diving team to look.

It could also have been thrown out a car window to be swallowed up by the thick forest. Leaving the house, and the smell of disinfectant, he walked into the backyard and looked at the mess.

He knew his people had been thorough. If the murder weapon, or any other evidence, was there, they’d have found it. Still, he spent half an hour lifting bedsprings, and tires, and broken garden furniture.

He did not return to the root cellar. He’d seen all he needed, and anything of value to their investigation had been taken away.

Going back to the house, he found Chernin once again in Clotilde’s room.

“Find anything?”

Linda Chernin held up an evidence bag. “I found this in her bedside drawer. And another just like it in Fiona’s room.” She shook her head. “She couldn’t even let her daughter have these without soiling them.”

“These” were sheets of stickers. Unicorns. Angels. Fairies. Mythical, magical creatures. The same ones used as code beside the names of abusers.

“You?” she asked.

He shook his head and took another tour of the house. Finally, when there was nothing else to see, he returned to the living room.

“What’s bothering you?” asked Chernin, joining him.

“Pains were taken to lose the brick, but not the body. Why? I think whoever killed her wanted Clotilde to be found. The coroner says she was put in shallow water. That cove—the one place any visitor to the lake was likely to find her. If the killer had taken her that far, he could’ve carried her along the shore and dumped the body where it wouldn’t be found.”

“True. Maybe he thought the lake itself was far enough. No one would find her there.”

“But there’d been reports in the media that environmental activists would be scouting out the lake.”

“Yes. I’ve pulled copies of the articles and the interviews on local radio.”

“Do they say when?”

“This week.”

“And when did the reports appear in the news?”

“The first story was two days before Clotilde was killed.”

Gamache nodded. “So whoever put her body there probably knew that those environmentalists would be at the lake. And there’s only one road in. They were bound to find her. But not too soon.”

Chernin nodded, knowing where this was going. “Dagenais said if he’d killed her, he’d have made sure she was never found.”

“Oui. I think that’s true. Once the body was found, he had no option but to call us, and that was a disaster for him. No, if he killed her, he’d make sure she was listed as just one more missing woman. An addict and prostitute. A cursory search would be made, and the file closed.”

“Shit. You think he didn’t kill her?” When Gamache didn’t answer, she continued. “Then who did? The hiker? Could he be the kids’ father? You thought maybe … But they just arrived yesterday morning, and their car shows no signs of blood. We’ll have the DNA report later today. Still…”

Still. It seemed unlikely. They were the ones who reported the body.

“Suppose Clotilde was blackmailing one of her clients. That’s a pretty good motive for murder.”

“Yes,” said Gamache. “But he’d also have to find and destroy her records. No use killing Clotilde, then have us arrive and find the videos and the ledger. Dagenais was the only one who searched and found them.”

“Well, he might have been the only one who found them but not the only one who searched.”

Gamache’s brows rose. “That’s true.”

“Those kids lied to us about Dagenais, they might be lying about someone else. Someone who also threatened them if they told. It seems they’re so used to hiding the truth, it’s become second nature.”

“Agent Moel thinks they’ve been so damaged for so long they might not be able to tell the difference between lying and the truth,” said Gamache. “And maybe not between right and wrong.”

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees, his fingers knitted together as though praying. But what he was thinking, what had just entered his mind, was as far from divine as it was possible to be.

The Reverend Robert Mongeau stared at Armand.

“Are you saying that that young woman is a murderer? She killed her mother?”

“She was found guilty, yes.”

They were sitting in one of the pews in the tiny St. Thomas’s church in Three Pines. It was early on Sunday afternoon, the day after the graduation and the party.

While the Gamaches rarely attended services, they had asked the minister and his wife to their home afterward for Sunday lunch. Then Armand had walked back up to the church with Robert, leaving Sylvie and Reine-Marie to have a lemonade in the sun-trap of their back garden.

Fiona had joined them for the meal, then helped clean up the dishes before going across to the bistro to see her brother.

As they’d arrived at the church, Armand noticed the new caretaker touching up the white paint that had chipped off in the winter.

“He’s quite a find,” said Armand. “Obviously cares for the place.”

“Claude never misses a repair or a weed or a spot of dirt. Or a service, for that matter,” said Robert, watching the older man carefully scraping off the chipping paint. “I often find him sitting in the church alone.”

“I thought Gabri looked after the church and grounds.”

“Yes, as head of the Anglican Church Women. But Gabri hinted he was done with that. Claude was recommended by a guest at the B&B actually. He needed a job and I needed a caretaker.”

Claude was slender, wiry really. For a man who spent a lot of time outside, his skin was surprisingly sallow. He wore dark glasses and a baseball cap low over his face.

At the top of the stairs leading to the chapel, Armand paused. From there he had a good view of the village. Patrons were sitting on the terrasse outside the bistro enjoying lunch or a drink this early June afternoon.

Any mess from the party the night before had been cleared away. The only evidence was the trampled grass on the village green. But it would soon spring back.

Armand had suggested a stroll to walk off the large meal, but the minister had needed to return to the church to do some work and clean up after the service.

“Clean up?” asked Armand. “What exactly do you do in your services?”

“The usual. Sacrifice a chicken. Dance naked. Sure you don’t want to come?”

Armand laughed. He could see why Robert and Sylvie had fit in so quickly and so well.

He had an ulterior motive in inviting Mongeau for a walk. It was to see if the minister wanted to talk privately. About anything, but specifically Sylvie’s health. Not her condition. That wasn’t his business. He wanted to hear about Mongeau’s condition. How he was doing. How he was feeling.

Armand knew that severe illness could be very isolating.

But he didn’t get a chance. As they’d entered the peaceful little chapel, Robert had asked him about Fiona and Sam.

“I noticed the way that young man was looking at you,” said the minister. “And how you were looking at him. Do you want to talk about that?”

Armand, while a little surprised by the question, found no reason not to answer. There’d been the public court case, the reports in the media. Granted, it was more than ten years ago now, but it was a case not easily forgotten. Everyone in Three Pines was aware of it.

So he found himself in the quiet little church telling the minister about the murder of Clotilde Arsenault. When he’d finished, Robert seemed at a loss for words.

“Then,” he managed, “how…” He moved his hands, trying to form the thought into words.

“How, if she’s a murderer, did she come to stay with us?” Armand helped him out.

The minister nodded.

“After a few years, Fiona came up for parole, one day a month. I’d been visiting her in prison, making sure she was all right. Reine-Marie and I agreed to supervise her. The parole board eventually extended that to one weekend a month.”

Fiona spent those weekends in Three Pines with the Gamaches.

“But why…?” Again the poor minister struggled. “How—?”

Armand took pity on him again. “—could I trust her? I was the arresting officer.”

At that, Mongeau’s eyes widened. “Really? But you don’t do that for everyone you arrest.”

Gamache smiled. “God, no. This was a special case. It’s all in the public record, so I’m not telling you anything you can’t find by looking it up.”

What the public record didn’t show were his doubts. He suspected Fiona might’ve been the one to administer the blow. To actually kill her mother. But he was far from sure it had been her idea.

In his heart, Armand believed Fiona was not responsible, could not be held responsible. She’d been abused by every adult in her life, and then abused again by the court.

He’d wanted to do something to try to make it up, and Reine-Marie had agreed.

Armand and Robert sat in the light through the stained-glass window. It had been commissioned and created at the end of the Great War by a mother who’d lost all three of her children. The window in the chapel showed the three brothers, two of whom were in profile, marching forward into battle. Afraid but determined.

One, the youngest, was staring straight out at the congregation. At generations of congregations. Not in blame or anger, not in fear or even sadness. But in forgiveness. He forgave them. As though, thought Armand, such a thing were possible.

But now the boys had been turned into light. And warmth.

Below the window was a plaque listing all the young men and women from the region who’d been killed in wars. And the simple words below the names.

They Were Our Children.

Armand sat in the cheery blue and green and yellow light spilling through their bodies, and described the abuse Clotilde’s children had suffered in that house. Years of it, according to the ledger their mother had carefully kept, and then the children kept up when she’d become too drug-addled to do it.

That had been one of the many elements that had muddied the waters at Fiona’s trial.

Instead of running away. Instead of turning away the men when their mother could no longer function, Fiona and Sam had continued the business.

A psychiatrist who specialized in this field had testified that by then they were so programmed, so damaged, they no longer knew different. They’d known “wrong” so long they no longer recognized “right.” Or felt they had a choice.

On top of that, it brought in the money the children needed to survive.

They were trapped.

“I arrested Fiona on charges of manslaughter, but with extenuating circumstances. I argued that the charges should be dropped, and she and Sam should be given counseling. The prosecution disagreed. Even though she was a minor, they chose to try her as an adult.”

“Why?” asked Mongeau.

“She was almost fourteen by then. The prosecution argued in keeping those records and running the household, she was essentially acting as an adult—”

“But the abuse started—”

“Based on the records, when she was ten.”

“Oh, dear God,” sighed the minister.

“Between the written records, the fact it seemed she’d taken over from her mother and was prostituting her brother, and that she’d sold the car to that man, the car used to take their mother’s body to the lake, well, it looked like she was less a victim and more an instigator. But there was one more damning piece of evidence. One I contributed to. Her brother said she’d tried to kill him too. In the alley. She was the one who’d beaten him almost to death.”

“How did you contribute? How could you have?” Robert asked.

“I delayed arresting them by a day. By then they knew that I was coming over, and they suspected why. It spooked them. My decision to delay gave them the time they needed to run away.”

“But that wasn’t your fault.”

“If I’d gone over right away, Sam wouldn’t have suffered those injuries, and the prosecution and ultimately the judge wouldn’t have decided Fiona was a willful murderer who’d succeeded once with her mother, and attempted again with her own brother. She was a danger.”

Robert Mongeau looked down at his hands, then lifted his eyes to Armand’s. “Were they wrong? If she did those things…”

“She was a child herself. Even if she did those things, was she likely to be able to make rational decisions? I don’t think so.”

“But still…” Mongeau struggled. He looked around and settled on the brittle boys before turning back to Gamache. “If she did those things, if she couldn’t tell right from wrong then, are you sure she can now? I know you believe in second chances. So do I. God knows, I’ve been given one. But there is a limit, isn’t there? Could she still … be a danger?”

Armand lifted his hands in resignation. “I don’t think she ever was.”

He’d fought the prosecutor’s decision. He’d been appalled, infuriated, that they’d tried Fiona Arsenault as an adult. That they’d tried her at all. He’d argued that even if what Sam said was true, Fiona was clearly not responsible for her actions. She’d been hurt, abused, raised in a twisted environment without a moral compass or a role model. She needed help, not punishment.

He’d argued, even shouted at the prosecutor. To the point where he’d been threatened with expulsion from his office.

Not only was it patently unfair to try Fiona as an adult, there was another reason the head of homicide fought so hard to have the charges reduced or dropped completely.

He didn’t believe Fiona had acted alone. In fact, he came to believe that Fiona hadn’t even conceived the plan. Sam had. And he suspected Sam had hurt himself in that alley, banging his head against a wall to create injuries that looked much worse than they were. Head wounds bled, and there was a lot of blood. But they were, finally, superficial.

It was not a murder attempt. It was an attempt to shift blame.

He did not tell Robert Mongeau this. Only Beauvoir knew his suspicions. Ones that could never be proved.

And so the case had gone to trial. Sam had, at the very least, been an accomplice in the murder of his mother. That was not denied. But he was deemed too young, too fragile, too damaged to know what he was doing. The prosecution argued that he’d been controlled, abused, assaulted by his older sister.

Sam Arsenault was sent to what was apparently a happy and calm foster home, where he was followed closely and received psychiatric help.

Fiona was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

“But if Sam was cleared of all charges,” Mongeau asked, “why that look between you last night? He looked…” The minister searched for the word. “I honestly don’t know how he looked. But it wasn’t pleasant. And you.” He stared at Gamache, bathed in the light through the stained-glass boys. “Forgive me, Armand, and I might be very wrong, but just for a moment there you looked frightened.”

Armand was about to deny it, then stopped himself. Robert Mongeau was right. He was afraid of Sam Arsenault. Yesterday had confirmed what Armand had suspected. The boy, now the man, could still get into his head. Could still mess around in there.

Only one other person had been able to do that. A serial killer, a psychopath named John Fleming. A genuine lunatic who was now in prison for life. Not the person you want wandering around in your thoughts. And since thoughts can drive feelings, he’d invaded those as well.

Armand checked once a year to be sure Fleming was still in the Special Handling Unit, reserved for the most dangerous criminals. Though no one would ever release such a maniac.

And now, Sam Arsenault was not just in his head, he was in the village where Armand lived. Where his family and friends lived.

Yes, Armand was frightened. It was a free-floating fear. As though an arrow had been shot but hadn’t yet found its target.

“You might be right” was all he said to the minister, and made a note that not much got by this man. “I seem to have dominated the conversation. I meant to ask how you are.”

Mongeau took a deep breath and exhaled. “Honestly? I’m frightened too. What a pair we make.” He gave a small laugh, then looked around. “As long as I’m here, in this space, I feel at peace. I know what’s happening to Sylvie is God’s will.” He could not bring himself to say exactly what was happening. “And that thought comforts me, while I’m here. But as soon as I leave, go through that door, I’m lost and terrified.”

“Of what?”

“Of losing her, of course.”

“But there’s more,” said Armand, quietly.

The minister looked at his companion and seemed to come to a decision. “I’m afraid of not being enough. Not being able to do it. I’m afraid it’ll get so bad I’ll run away. Not physically but emotionally. I’m afraid I already am, when I come here. To hide.” He appealed to Armand. “You know?”

Armand nodded. He knew that feeling. The fear of not being strong enough. Not being able to do what was needed.

“This isn’t hiding, this is comfort. This is respite. It gives you the strength you need to go back and be there with Sylvie. For her. It’s natural to feel as you do. It would be strange if you didn’t. Believe me, you won’t run away.” He remembered the dance from the night before. The intimacy. “If you ever feel you want to, come to me. We’ll talk. Sylvie knows she’s loved. What more do any of us want?”

“Time?” Robert looked around again as though surprised to find himself there. Then, placing his hands on his knees, he pushed himself up. “Merci, mon ami. I might take you up on that. But only if you promise to come to me when you’re afraid.”

“Deal.”

“Shall we go back and join our wives?”

Now you will feel no rain / For each of you will be shelter for the other, Armand thought as he too got to his feet. It was the First Nations blessing he and Reine-Marie had had read at their wedding.

Now there is no more loneliness.

Go now to your dwelling place / To enter into the days of your togetherness.

He and Robert emerged into the sunshine of the early June day. In this village that seemed to defy time. If only, thought Armand, that were true.

And may your days be good and long upon this earth.

“So,” said Clara, turning to Myrna. “I have to ask. What’s with the brick?”

“Yes,” said Ruth. “Exactly. I was going to ask but thought it might be rude.”

They stared at her.

“Don’t you mean not rude enough?” asked Gabri.

He’d brought over another pitcher of iced tea and what looked like a scotch for Ruth but was actually also tea and had pulled up a chair to join them.

“I think the brick was a kindness,” said Ruth.

Now their eyes widened. Shocked she even knew the word, never mind claimed to recognize an act of kindness.

“Harriet must know you’re one brick short of a—”

“There it is,” said Clara.

“Either that, or that you’re as thick as a—”

“So,” Clara asked Myrna. “What’s the story?”

“Starving student?” said Gabri. “Couldn’t afford anything, so she gave you—”

“A brick?” said Clara.

“Armand once gave Reine-Marie’s mother a toilet plunger as a gift,” said Gabri.

“But that makes sense,” said Ruth.

No one followed up.

“People give strange presents,” said Gabri. “I once gave Olivier a—”

“Not the doorknob story again, I’m begging you,” said Myrna. “Actually, Harriet collects bricks.”

This did not advance the conversation. In fact, she’d finally, after years in Three Pines, managed to silence them. And then reduce them to monosyllables.

What? Why? How?

It was possible she’d broken them.

“But why that particular brick?” asked Billy, who was not so easily broken. “She seemed to think you’d recognize it.”

“I don’t know. I was going to ask her last night, but she got in after we’d gone to bed and was still asleep on the sofa bed in the living room when we got up.”

“We can ask now,” said Ruth, turning in her seat and shouting, “Hey, you. Jackie O. What’s with the brick?”

Harriet turned to look at Ruth, guessing that was directed at her, though the reference to someone named Jackie O was lost on her.

She pushed the oversized sunglasses up the bridge of her nose and tried to rise.

“It’s okay,” said Auntie Myrna, in a more soothing voice. “You can explain later.”

But Harriet was already on her feet, lurching unsteadily from chair back to chair back, to get herself across the terrasse. Billy rose to give her his seat, but she waved him down.

She recognized the courtesy, but did not want to encourage the view that women were the weaker sex and needed to be protected and coddled. By men.

Though as she swayed slightly, fighting the hangover that was eating her will to live, she wished she’d accepted the offer. If ever there was a time for situational ethics, this was it.

“I collect bricks,” she said, her voice almost a whisper.

“Right,” said Gabri, as though everyone collected bricks. “But why that one?”

“It’s special.”

“Ahh,” said Ruth. “Her lucky brick. Seems she takes after her aunt in the load department.”

Rosa nodded, as ducks often did.

“No,” Harriet began, then, waving Billy to his feet with a weak smile, she all but collapsed into his chair. It was a lifeboat situation. “Though I was lucky to find it. Took me months.”

“I’m bored,” said Ruth. “If there’s a point, please get there.”

“It’s from the same factory that made these buildings.” Harriet waved at the shops behind her. “If you look on it, there’s the factory’s name and a date stamp. Those are the best. The most collectible. They don’t identify factories and dates anymore.”

“You collect bricks?” said Clara.

“We’ve moved past that, keep up,” said Ruth, then turned back to Harriet. “Still bored.”

“You’ve talked about how much this place, these people, mean to you,” Harriet said to her aunt. “How you found not just home here, but belonging. I wanted to give you a piece of it, to always remind you.”

Myrna leaned over and hugged her niece, gripping her tightly. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For knowing. It’s a perfect gift.”

“And it’s even more important now,” said Harriet, when released. “Since you’re leaving.”

“What?” said Clara. “What?”

“You’re leaving?” said Gabri. “What?”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said Rosa.

“I heard you and Billy talking this morning,” said Harriet. “I’m sorry. I thought the others knew.”

“We haven’t decided yet,” said Myrna, looking at Clara’s stricken face.

Clara just stared, unable to form words. Ruth was so shocked she’d dropped the bored act along with the invisibility cloak that hid her true feelings.

It was up to Gabri to ask why.

“I love the loft, but with the two of us pretty much living together, it’s just too small. And then, if we ever want people, want Harriet, to stay, they have to sleep in the living room.”

“They can stay at the B&B,” said Gabri. “For free. You can’t leave Three Pines.”

“Thank you, mon ami, but we’d still need more room,” said Myrna. “I’ve thought about this a lot, but only mentioned it to Billy this morning. I’ll keep the bookshop, of course.”

“What bookshop?” asked Ruth. “It’s a library. Says it right on the sign.”

“Oh, you old hag,” said Gabri. “Give it up. You know perfectly well ‘librairie’ is French for bookshop.”

“Come on now. That’s just ridiculous,” said the poet. “Why call a bookstore a library?”

“There must be a place in the village you could move to,” said Clara. She could feel panic welling up. “Or we could switch. You can live at my place and I can take over the loft. An artist. A loft. It’s perfect.”

Myrna looked at her best friend, at the desperation in her face and the potato chips in her hair. And wondered how she would ever leave.

Harriet was right. This was not just bricks and mortar. This was her beating heart. It was the first time in fifty years Myrna felt like she really belonged. As though Three Pines had set a place at the table and had been waiting for her.

And now she was considering leaving.

“You love your house—” Myrna began before Clara interrupted.

“I love you more.”

“There’s no rush,” said Billy, placing his large, worn hands on Myrna’s shoulders.

“Why don’t you break into the attic space?” asked Fiona, who’d gone over to join them.

“The loft is the attic,” said Gabri.

“Yes, but there’s more. You can see by the roofline. I’m not an engineer for nothing. If you look over the roof at the back of the bookshop, toward the river, there’s a whole other space. Not huge, but maybe big enough to convert into another bedroom or study.”

“That’s not right,” said Gabri. “If there was more space up there to rent, Olivier would know.”

Olivier owned the row of shops, and rented space out.

“Believe me,” said Fiona. “There’s a room up there. You should check it out.”

“What’s to lose?” said Clara, her face filled with glee.

“Before you get out your sledgehammer,” said Myrna, “let’s talk to Olivier. He must have plans of the buildings.”

A quizzical look passed between Billy and Ruth. He leaned down and whispered, “Can I come by your place later?”

“Yes. You have the key.”

The key was a bottle of scotch.

“Come on,” said Fiona. “Enough, Sam. They’ll be home soon. We have to get out.”

But Sam was wandering around the Gamaches’ living room as though he owned it, picking up objects and putting them back slightly askew. Moving furniture just a few inches this way or that, Fiona following behind, putting everything back the way it was.

The dogs, used to Fiona, hadn’t protested when she’d let herself and Sam in.

He was filming as he went along, opening drawers and cupboards. Examining books and mementos and family photographs. Picking one up, he recognized Jean-Guy Beauvoir. Older now, with two children. But unmistakable. He’d seen him at the graduation, of course, the first time they’d met in years.

Sam took a photo of that photo, then replaced it. But not quite as he’d found it.

He scanned the books on the shelves, then went into the study and sat at the computer. Tapping the keyboard, he woke it up. It was locked, of course, but he stared at the screen saver photo of the four grandchildren.

“Sam, enough.” Fiona stood at the threshold to the study.

But it was not enough.

He went upstairs while she returned to the kitchen, where she had a good view of Clara’s home. All was quiet. But if they returned and discovered what she’d done, the whole thing could be blown. She could probably explain and Madame Gamache might believe it, but she was far from sure Monsieur Gamache would.

A few minutes later she found Sam lying on Armand and Reine-Marie’s bed.

“Oh, shit. Get off. They’ll know someone’s been here.”

But he continued to lie there. “Which side is his, do you think? I think this one. He’s reading something called What Might Have Been. It’s alternative history. Looks interesting.”

He put the book down, then picked it up again and moved the bookmark. Then he went into the bathroom and sprayed some cologne onto himself.

“Mmmm,” he said. “Sandalwood. Nice.”

“Oh, God,” she moaned, and opened the window to air out the scent. With Sam she always felt like the character in the circus cartoon, cleaning up the shit.

Before leaving, he found the door into the basement.

“Merde,” said Fiona, her voice rising. “They’re coming.”

“Is that where it is?” he asked, pointing down into the darkness. “The room you told me about?”

She hustled him to the French doors from the living room onto the back patio. “You’ve got to go.”

A minute later the front door opened.

“We’re home,” called Reine-Marie, in a singsong voice.

“I’ll take the dogs out,” said Armand.

“No, let me,” said Fiona.

“It’s all right. I can.”

“Please. I’d like the air.”

He stepped aside, though he stood at the open door and watched, wondering why she’d been so insistent.

Fiona tossed the ratty old tennis ball on the village green and watched Henri race and Fred lumber after it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam come around the B&B. From the side garden. A direct line from the Gamache home.

“May I join you?”

Fiona started and realized Monsieur Gamache was walking across the road toward her.

“Of course.”

Did he notice? Does he know? She couldn’t help but look toward the B&B, but there was no sign of Sam.

“I heard about the hidden room in Myrna’s loft,” he said, and noticed her relax, though he didn’t know why she’d been stressed. “You might’ve solved a problem.”

“Might not be there,” she said, throwing the ball again. “But I thought I should mention it, in case.”

They strolled along through the dusk. The sun set late as they approached the summer solstice, but when it did, a chill set in.

“Do you know what you’ll do with your degree?” he asked.

“Well, it’s a little difficult, but I’m sure I’ll find something. I have some nibbles. Can I run them by you?”

“Absolutely.”

It was Monsieur Gamache who’d encouraged her to consider engineering. She’d never heard of the profession and thought, understandably, it had something to do with trains.

But when he explained and took books to her in prison on the subject, she got very excited. It was as though her world suddenly made sense. Those intricate models in Sam’s room, which Chief Inspector Gamache thought the boy had made, had actually been put together by Fiona and given to her brother.

Once Monsieur Gamache realized his mistake, he began to take the girl models and puzzles of increasing difficulty and intricacy.

Finally, during one of his visits to the prison, Fiona had asked him about the École Polytechnique and if she could take university courses remotely. He’d used his connections with the Chancellor to advocate for her. And now, many years later, here she was. A graduate mechanical engineer.

While the road ahead for Fiona was far from clear, at least there was one. And he was fairly confident the young woman could pull it together.

Her brother was a different story. Still, he’d be gone in a few days, Fiona would move into the monitored halfway house in Montréal, and life in Three Pines would return to normal.

But once again, he was wrong.

“Well,” said Olivier. “I’ll be damned.”

A small delegation stood on the landing just outside the church and stared across the village to the rooflines of the interconnected shops below. Monsieur Béliveau’s General Store, Sarah’s Boulangerie, the bistro, and finally the bookstore.

A very light rain had started falling, more like a fine mist. Low clouds shrouded the hills, surrounding and enclosing the village.

“You were right,” said Myrna, looking at Fiona.

A roof, just visible, was jutting out at right angles from Myrna’s loft.

“How could we not have seen it before?” asked Clara.

“We weren’t looking,” said Myrna.

“Well, we would have found it eventually,” said Gabri. “As soon as we fixed the roof.”

“In about twenty years,” said Billy.

“Can I get my sledgehammer now?” Clara asked Olivier.

“You might want to wait.” But it wasn’t Olivier who’d spoken. It was Billy.

“What’s wrong?” asked Myrna.

The wall came down. Though it took more swings from Billy’s sledgehammer than expected.

“Your ancestor did a good job,” said Olivier, as Billy wiped the sweat from his face.

“Looks like he wanted to make sure whatever was in there stayed in there,” said Ruth.

Armand had gone home briefly, with instructions to those gathered not to go into the room until he returned.

“I think we can promise that,” said Clara.

He returned a few minutes later, holding a worn satchel. His scene-of-crime kit, Reine-Marie knew, though she suspected the others did not. At least, she hoped they didn’t.

“Can you do the rest by hand?” Armand asked when the opening was almost big enough to climb through.

Billy put down the sledgehammer and pulled at the loosened bricks.

They crowded around the opening, craning and jostling for position, trying to see in. But it was still too dark to make anything out.

“I think it might be better if you stepped back.” Armand’s voice was calm, his tone pleasant, as though suggesting they might want to wait for the next bus.

They stepped back.

“This enough?” asked Billy, dragging his sleeve across his forehead again and leaving a streak of dirt.

“Parfait.”

Armand had put on latex gloves and slung the satchel over his shoulder. Where some might carry a briefcase to work, Chief Inspector Gamache carried the tools of his trade. Gloves. Evidence bags. Fingerprint kits. Swabs. Tweezers.

“Stay here.” Though it really didn’t need to be said.

Holding his phone in front of him, he pressed record and stepped over the low brick threshold and into the room.

Then stopped. There in front of him were bright eyes staring back.

He was prepared, having seen this a few minutes earlier, but still he felt his heart leap in his chest.

“What is it?” Reine-Marie asked from the other side. “What do you see?”

There was silence. It lasted just a second, but seemed to go on forever before he spoke.

“It’s a painting. Huge.”

He shone the light over it, taking in the detail, though there was so much of it, the only impression he was left with was one of a certain chaos. As though someone had thrown all their possessions at a canvas and they stuck. Including two children.

He stared at them for a moment. One, the little girl, looked familiar, and he wondered if he’d seen this painting, or a reproduction of it in a book, before.

“Can we come in now?” Olivier asked.

“In a moment.”

After staring at the extraordinary work for a few moments, he moved on, deeper into the hidden room.

“You okay?” Reine-Marie asked, leaning toward the hole.

“Just fine,” said Armand, and he heard Ruth chuckle and say something he couldn’t hear but could imagine.

“What do you see?” Myrna asked.

Armand was walking the perimeter of the room, ducking his head so as not to hit the eaves and shining the light over the walls, the floor, the ceiling. Into the corners. The room was small, about twelve feet by twelve feet, with wide plank wooden floors, and exposed beams in the ceiling.

There was no sign of life. Or death.

“Nothing alarming.”

His eyes fell on an assortment of items behind the painting. It looked like a small pile of junk, like most attics had. He moved on. His only interest was making sure the evidence kit could stay on his shoulder.

Finally he said, “It’s okay. You can come in.”

They stepped through, flashlights bobbing. And then the lights coalesced.

“Holy shit,” whispered Olivier.

The attic room seemed packed, jam-packed with conch shells and sculptures, clocks and chairs and musical instruments. And faces, people.

The friends stared, slack-jawed.

“Holy shit,” said Myrna.

It took a moment, but a long one, to realize what they were staring at.

The dots of their phone flashlights played over the painting, picking up details but not the entirety.

Billy had brought up construction lights, and now, with a flick of a switch, the place was bathed in blinding light.

And then the whole painting burst out at them.

There was a little girl and an adolescent boy dressed in a fashion from hundreds of years earlier. They sat at a table that was piled full of items. All jumbled together. It looked not so much like a painting as a portal into another time. Another world.

Leaving them to marvel, Armand walked around the other side of the painting to examine the things back there. An old leather-bound book. A bronze sculpture of an elephant. A jigsaw puzzle. A teddy bear.

“The sorts of things people throw into attics, when they don’t know what else to do with them,” said Reine-Marie, joining her husband. “I see it all the time.”

Now retired as Chief Archivist at the National Library and Archives of Québec, Reine-Marie had decided to use her skills to help people sort through their own, often inherited collections.

“Except,” she said, “most are not walled up.”

Armand nodded.

Reine-Marie was about to pick up the book when she and Armand heard Clara’s voice from the other side of the painting.

“Holy shit. It’s A World of Curiosities.”

“It is that,” agreed Ruth.

“No, it’s what the painting’s called.”

Armand came around from the back of it. “You recognize it?”

“It’s The Paston Treasure.”

“So what’s a grim…,” Clara began. “A grimmmm—” she continued in the hopes it would come to her.

“Grimoire.” Reine-Marie turned to Myrna. “Do you know it?”

“Never heard of it.”

While Olivier had had to go back down to the bistro for the lunch service, and Fiona had left to meet Sam, the rest had returned to Myrna’s living room.

No one really wanted to move far from the newly discovered room and its collection of increasingly odd oddities.

Reine-Marie clasped the book on her lap, reluctant to give up this long-searched-for treasure.

Ruth hadn’t taken her eyes off the book since it was found. It was difficult to tell if the elderly woman was looking at it or watching it.

“You know what it is,” said Reine-Marie.

Ruth nodded, but remained uncharacteristically quiet, her eyes fixed on the leather cover. It was plain, simple, without design or writing, though it was scorched.

There was no title. Nothing to identify it. And for good reason.

The book dated from the 1600s, and anyone found to be in possession of a grimoire then would almost certainly have been burned at the stake. In fact, it looked like an effort had been made to do just that.

“It’s a book of spells,” explained Reine-Marie. “Incantations. Recipes for elixirs. Instructions on how to call up spirits.”

“Demons?” asked Harriet.

Gabri made a hissing sound, to shut her up. In case the very word would summon them.

Reine-Marie was about to answer when Ruth cut in: “No. Well, not necessarily.” She lifted her eyes from the book to Reine-Marie. “Have you looked inside?”

“Just to make sure it’s the real thing.”

“And?”

“It is.”

Ruth exhaled and shook her head. “So, it’s true then.”

They stopped at Billy’s on the way and picked up the envelope and Post-it note that had come with the letter: I think this might interest you. Patricia Godin.

From there Armand drove to Billy’s ancestral home. The heavens had opened, and by the time they got to the porch, they were soaked.

Billy knocked on the door and looked around while they waited.

The house was, perhaps not surprisingly, made of stones yanked from the ground as it was turned from forest into fields for farming. The floors and beams and even the front door were milled from trees that had grown up and been cut down within sight of where they were standing.

As a child, Billy had held his grandfather’s calloused hand, and together they’d walked through the forest, the old man touching the trees and describing their character. From him, young Billy learned that trees had feelings and personalities of their own.

With his grandmother, little Billy had walked through those fields picking wildflowers, and herbs, and sweetgrass. From her he learned how to make teas and poultices and a surefire cure for warts.

He tried to be happy for the new owners, but still, as he stood on the porch and knocked on what still felt like his own front door, Billy Williams ached.

There was a rattle, and then a man in his late sixties or early seventies stood there, looking surprised.

“Oui?”

“Monsieur Godin?”

“Oui.” He was staring at them, trying to figure out if he knew them. His eyes shifted from Billy to the man with him. Tall, solid in build. Wavy gray hair, and that scar …

“My name is Billy Williams, I—”

“Ah, oui. Of course.” Godin stepped back. “Your family owned this home. Come in.”

Billy stepped inside and looked around. Not much, physically, had changed. The walls, the floors, the beams were where he’d left them. Only the furniture was different.

He introduced Gamache, though by then Monsieur Godin had clearly recognized him. The Chief Inspector was a familiar presence in Québec media and was known to live in the area.

Monsieur Godin turned to Gamache. “Finally. Is this about Patricia?”

Billy raised his brows, but Armand was more adept at hiding surprise, though that didn’t mean he didn’t feel it.

Billy began to say, “Is she he—” when Armand interrupted.

“Patricia Godin is your wife?”

Billy looked at his companion. There was a change in Armand’s voice, in his whole demeanor. It was subtle but there.

Monsieur Godin nodded. “Yes. My late wife. I spoke to the local Sûreté detachment when it happened. That is why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“May we sit down, please?” asked Gamache, and Monsieur Godin guided them into the comfortable living room, where a small fire was muttering in the hearth.

“Can I get you anything? You’re wet. You must be cold. A hot tea or coffee?”

“Not for me, thank you,” said Gamache, and Billy also shook his head, though both men sat close to the fire.

Billy was aware that Armand had been replaced by Chief Inspector Gamache.

“I need to be honest with you,” said Gamache. “We came here to discuss the letter your wife forwarded to Monsieur Williams. I’m sorry, but I’m not familiar with what happened to her.”

“Letter? What letter?”

“Perhaps you can tell us about your wife first.”

“So, the local Sûreté didn’t contact you?”

“Non.”

“They said they would, but…” He raised, then dropped his hands. “I contacted them a few times, but then stopped … And then when so much time passed … But when I saw you at the door…” He stared into the fire. Unable, it seemed, to form a complete thought or sentence.

“What happened?” Gamache leaned forward, not a lot but enough to show Monsieur Godin that he had Gamache’s full attention.

“They say she killed herself. Hanged herself, out back. I know it’s not true. Pat would never do that.”

“I’m sorry,” said Gamache and paused a beat before asking, “When was this?”

“April twenty-first. I found her…”

“Five weeks ago,” Billy whispered, and Gamache nodded. He was thinking the same thing. It was exactly the time she’d forwarded the letter to Billy.

“Did she leave a note? Any message explaining?” Gamache asked.

Monsieur Godin shook his head. “She’d had a hysterectomy and the coroner said that had upset her hormones. Made her depressed. That’s bullshit. She had trouble sleeping, but she wasn’t depressed. There’s no way Pat killed herself. And…”

“Yes?”

Godin heaved a sigh. “Even if she had, she wouldn’t have hung herself. That must be a terrible way to go. Wouldn’t she have tried pills?” He was beseeching them. “Wouldn’t you?”

Billy had to agree. If it came to that, he’d try many things before hanging. And there was something else.

“You say it happened out back? A tree?” When Monsieur Godin nodded, Billy asked, “Which one?”

Monsieur Godin stared at him with something akin to disgust. “Does it matter?”

“It might.”

“I can show you, if you want.” This was said to Gamache.

“Please.” Though he was also unsure why Billy would want to know. But he knew Billy Williams, and knew it was not prurient interest.

“I wanted to cut it down,” said Godin as he took them through the kitchen and out onto the back porch. “But the children stopped me. Said it wasn’t the tree’s fault.” He pointed. “That’s the one.”

In the middle of the yard, about twenty meters from the house, there stood a huge maple. Old, gnarled, its limbs thick and solid.

“Mable,” said Billy, as rain pounded the roof overhead and cascaded down, creating a wall of water between them and the tree.

“Mable?” said Gamache and Godin together.

“Mable the maple,” said Billy. “It’s what my grandmother called her. We used to climb all over her. Fell out of her more than once. She was old in my day.” He shook his head and smiled. Then he remembered what had happened, and his smile fell from his face.

“So do our grandchildren,” said Monsieur Godin. “That’s why our son and daughter didn’t want it cut down. But they didn’t see…”

No, thought Armand. They didn’t.

Armand understood now why Billy had asked the question.

He turned to Monsieur Godin. “If she did want to hang herself, would your wife have chosen this tree?”

Godin, still staring at it, shook his head. “No. Never. She wouldn’t do that to the kids. To me. To the tree.”

The three men stared at Mable. Gamache believed him. Which meant, if Madame Godin did not take her own life, someone else did.

And it almost certainly had something to do with the letter. The one in his breast pocket.

“We need to talk, but first I need to make a call.”

“Bonjour?” Armand called. “You home?”

“In the studio,” came Clara’s singsong reply.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course.” The words were slurred by the brush between her teeth like a bit, but he understood the gist.

Armand stood on the threshold of her studio and watched her work. The large, vaulted room smelled of oil paints and old banana peels, turpentine and an undercurrent of lemon. Not the chemical, headache-inducing scent of lemon cleaner. This smelled of lemonade in summer, and lemon meringue pie at celebrations. It smelled of gin and tonics with a twist on the terrasse on hot afternoons, and honey and lemon tea to soothe a sore throat when sick.

As he watched, Clara applied thick swirls to the canvas. Not with a brush—that remained forgotten in her mouth—but with a palette knife. Great globs went on, apparently at random, with abandon.

Clara Morrow was the real thing. A genuine artist. Not because she was a success—that came and went—but because she was bold and creative. And brave. Audacious. She tried new things, took chances, and evolved.

What was on her easel now was like nothing Gamache had seen her do before. It was abstract, almost aggressive.

She put on one more slash of paint, considered it, then turned to face him.

She was smiling. Her face dabbed with paint, and her expression filled with delight.

“Why so happy?” he asked.

“I was just thinking about Anne Lamarque.” She took the brush from between her teeth, smearing more paint in her hair and on her cheek, and used it to motion at the canvas. “She was punished for many things, including being happy. So I wanted to capture that. The power of it. Happiness as an act of defiance. A revolutionary act.”

He looked at the canvas and saw bold swirls of reds and greens and yellows. And bright blues. All intermingled. They formed no image. And he got no feeling.

He closed his eyes. Paused. When he opened them, he let the painting come to him. To enter through his heart, not his head. With Clara’s painting, like all great works of creation, there was more than met the eye.

And then he saw it. Or, rather, felt it. Without realizing it, he began to smile. The image itself would become clear later, when she’d finished. Or not. Maybe it already was clear. In her smile, and his.

“What can I do for you?” She got up from her stool and waved the brush at the old sofa against the wall of her studio, indicating they should sit. He looked at it, his smile fading.

The sofa always reminded him of the Monty Python sketch when a man, about to be tortured in the Inquisition, was threatened with the “comfy chair.”

Dear God, he thought, not the sofa.

It was an unexpected, certainly unintended, torture, though Clara didn’t seem to see it. The springs had long since let go, so that you either hit the concrete floor or, worse, a spring.

He hovered over it for a moment, then, like a cliff diver, he committed. He felt his bottom hit the floor. It was, he admitted, the better option.

“The painting we found in the attic,” he began. “I have questions.”

She laughed. “So do I. You first.”

“Mine are technical, I think. It’s not framed, but it is on a frame. And it’s huge. How could it get up there?”

“That’s easy. The frame must’ve been assembled in the attic and the canvas tacked to it there. Look.”

She struggled to her feet, then grabbed one of her unused canvases. Turning it around, she showed him what he’d seen many times before. The canvas was folded over the wooden frame, then stapled there.

“That’s how they did it,” she said, with complete confidence. “I didn’t look at the back. Too consumed by the front, so I don’t know what they used. Staples are relatively new. Old canvases are nailed. The one in the attic, well…”

“Good, easy enough to check. The nails or staples, and the paint itself, can be dated.”

“As can the canvas. The Musée des beaux-arts in Montréal or Sherbrooke can do that for you.”

“How long would it take to paint?”

Clara smiled. “I’ve been trying to figure that out too. A canvas that size, with so much in it? So many objects and such detail? The original, the real Paston Treasure, must’ve taken many months.”

“But this isn’t the original, so whoever did it wouldn’t need to struggle with composition or details. At least, not much. Could ours be done in less time?”

“For sure. But how much less, I can’t say. Depends on the skill of the artist. From what I saw, there was considerable skill. There is another way it could’ve been done that would be even faster.”

“Go on.”

“If it’s a paint-by-number.”

Armand stared at her as though she’d gone mad. “Like what the grandchildren do?”

“Not exactly. I think if you have it examined, you’ll find a reproduction of the original Paston Treasure underneath. It’s not uncommon these days for artists to have high-resolution, digital copies made of their works. They’re called giclées.”

“Yes, I’ve seen them. They look like originals. But this is different, isn’t it?”

“In that it isn’t exactly the original, yes. I think it’s possible someone had a copy of the original printed onto an old canvas. Then they painted over it, adding new stuff, like the watch and poster. It would still take time and skill, but far less than if it was painted from scratch.”

“We think the items were put up there in the week that you and Myrna were in Charlevoix.”

Clara made a guttural sound. “I hate that thought. Must freak Myrna out too.”

Myrna was not easily freaked, but it was clearly unsettling.

Armand began rocking himself out of the sofa, but she stopped him. “Wait a minute. My turn. Why were the painting and that book Reine-Marie found and the other things put there, then sealed up? Were we meant to find that room? If you’re right, the stuff’s been there for more than a year, but the room was sealed up a hundred and sixty years ago. There must’ve been a reason back then to seal the room, and there must be a reason someone was there recently.”

Armand leaned back, lifted his legs, then in one mighty swing hoisted himself to his feet.

“I honestly don’t know why those things are there.”

“Were we meant to find them, Armand? It seems so. But if the caretaker hadn’t pointed out the roofline, we’d never have found it.”

It was true. It seemed like a coincidence, but in Gamache’s experience, almost everything that happened was the end result of a series of apparently unconnected events. Often set in motion years earlier. Remove one, and the thing did not happen.

Like the book he was reading. What if …

But Armand suspected there was more than a series of chance events at work here. Someone was not leaving it up to chance. Whoever was behind this had planned well, thoroughly, and for a long time. There was no way they were not going to find that room, and probably exactly when they did.

And that led him to another question. Not just why, but why now?

The investigators were gathered in the Old Train Station. The photograph of Ruth, taken when she’d won the Governor General’s Award for poetry, glared down at them.

Jean-Guy had contacted a conservator at the Musée des beaux-arts in Montréal, who’d be arriving first thing in the morning. The painting was now safely locked away in the Incident Room along with the other items from the attic. Except the grimoire. Reine-Marie still had that.

Crime scene tape had been placed across the hole in Myrna’s wall. When asked why, since no crime had actually been committed, neither Gamache nor Beauvoir explained fully, preferring to say it was a precaution.

The autopsy report on Patricia Godin hadn’t yet arrived, but the investigators were assured it would before morning, and analysis of the Stone letter was under way at the Sûreté labs.

That too would arrive the next day.

“Come over to our place for dinner,” Gamache said to Amelia. “But first, check into the B&B. There’s a young man staying there, Sam Arsenault. I want you to get to know him. You have any marijuana on you?”

“Me? Marijuana?”

It was now legal in Canada. Gamache understood the hypocrisy of him enjoying a scotch after work but discouraging his agents from relaxing with a joint. Which he did.

“Yes, you.”

He’d consider himself lucky if all she had was a joint, though in joining homicide she’d pledged to be clean.

“Why? You want some?” she asked.

He smiled thinly. “If you do, offer it to him. Imply that you’re breaking my rules.”

“I would be,” she said. “No need to imply.”

“It’s not a rule,” he said. “Just a strong suggestion.”

She smiled at the all-but-nonexistent distinction. “For what it’s worth, I’m clean, but I know where I can get some.”

“Good. But don’t you use.”

Chief Inspector Gamache knew Agent Choquet well. Very well. Knew her better than she realized.

He was the one who’d reviewed her application to the Sûreté Academy. He’d seen her all-too-obvious flaws. Her frailties. Her drug use, her petty crimes. She’d dropped out of high school and ended up on the street, at times resorting to prostitution.

He’d seen the tattoos, many obviously self-administered. Not as body art but as a form of self-mutilation. The piercings and studs, the tears and scars.

But he’d also seen that she’d read every school textbook she could get her hands on, either borrowed or stolen. She’d devoured books on philosophy, math, literature. Art. Poetry. She’d taught herself ancient Greek and read Socrates, and Italian and read Italo Calvino in the original. Her favorite, and his, was, If on a winter’s night a traveler.

She spoke Russian and learned Mandarin.

She’d passed her high school equivalency with such high marks the education board had given her, just out of curiosity, the test to get into McGill University. She wrote her answers upside down and backward. Once her examiners figured it out, they saw that she had scored higher than anyone else that year. McGill offered her a scholarship.

She’d accepted, then didn’t show up. Amelia Choquet had disappeared back into the sewer of inner-city Montréal.

But then she’d bobbed up again, one last time, and applied to, of all things, the Sûreté Academy.

At first, Gamache thought it was a joke. A dare perhaps. Then he’d looked deeper and seen it wasn’t a joke, it was a lifeboat. He saw the totality of her application. Of her life. It was immediately apparent that Amelia Choquet was an omnivore, the greatest autodidact Armand Gamache had ever come across.

She was clearly a genius. Or perhaps she was mad. Gamache couldn’t decide.

In the end, he’d rejected her application. As the new head of the Sûreté Academy at the time, he was responsible for all the cadets. He could not risk letting Amelia Choquet into an Academy already riven with deceit and corruption. Armand Gamache was very aware of the effect of one bad apple. And there was the smell of rot about Amelia Choquet.

He had a duty to protect the other students. Had to protect a fragile institution from an unstable, disruptive, even dangerous influence.

The truth, though, was far more complex, and far less noble.

He’d ultimately changed his mind and admitted her. Not everyone thought it was the wisest of decisions. And even he took a long time making peace with it. With her.

Now they sat in armchairs Agent Choquet had wrangled from Olivier. At least, they assumed Olivier was aware she’d taken them. The chairs now formed a sitting area in the Incident Room, along with a rug, side tables, and lamps. Also from the bistro.

Beauvoir brought over drinks from the well-stocked mini-fridge, and had to admit it was not only the most efficient Incident Room he’d ever worked in, it was about the most comfortable.

Though that was not saying much. Over the years, he and the Chief Inspector had worked out of pigsties, spider-infested toolsheds, hotels they were pretty sure were haunted. At least, Beauvoir was.

They’d once dug a quinzhee out of snow when caught in a blizzard while investigating a murder in Nunavut. It was so comfortable they ended up using the snow hut as their Incident Room. Far better than the two-hole outhouse they’d been forced to use in the Gaspé.

Annie refused to believe that was true, but it was.

“I want you to bad-mouth me to Sam Arsenault,” said Gamache, taking a fistful of nuts Amelia had put out in bowls, along with chips. “Subtly.”

“Do you do subtle?” asked Beauvoir.

Amelia spread her arms and smirked. Her tongue stud clicked against her teeth.

She was tapping out, Subtle, c’est moi. Gamache wondered if she realized he too knew Morse code.

“I want Sam Arsenault to think you’re unhappy,” said Gamache. “That you’re only in the Sûreté to steal drugs. Evidence. Whatever. You can figure that out. But be careful. He’s smart. He has a rare ability to see into people. To find their triggers. To manipulate.”

Jean-Guy shifted and inhaled. They both looked at him.

“What? I didn’t say anything.”

“Who’s this Sam guy?” asked Amelia.

Gamache nodded to Beauvoir, who told her about the investigation into the death of Clotilde Arsenault and the fallout.

Amelia listened. It was a just-the-facts account, and when he’d finished, she said to Gamache, “But you don’t believe it? You don’t think the sister did it.”

“I believe they killed their mother. As to who delivered the actual blow, I don’t know. I’m willing to believe it was Fiona, but I don’t think that part matters. Those children were tortured, abused, broken. They were acting in self-defense. I believe the justice system failed them both, but especially Fiona.”

“Then what’s with this Sam Arsenault stuff?” she asked. “You want me to get close to him. Sounds like you suspect him of something. You think Sam Arsenault was the one who should’ve been in prison?”

“Non.” Gamache’s voice was curt and clear. “Absolutely not. He was ten at the time, sexually abused, prostituted out by his own mother. No. Here was a child deeply traumatized. There’s no way he could be considered guilty. They were both victims. But I think he needed far more intensive counseling and oversight than he got.”

“Désolé, patron,” said Beauvoir, “but it’s more than that. You think he was beyond help.”

“By then, by the time we first met him…” Gamache considered. “Yes.” He nodded his head slowly. There were very few people he felt were beyond redemption. Even at ten, Sam, he sensed, was one of those people. Born bad and made worse.

Beauvoir looked at Amelia and weighed what to say next. He decided on the truth.

“The Chief Inspector and I differ on this. I think Fiona Arsenault got what she deserved. I think she was the planner. I think she controlled her mother’s business when Clotilde was too far gone. The ledger we found in the house has her handwriting and the little stickers she collected. I think she murdered her mother so that she could take over prostituting her brother and was probably grooming other kids.”

“What we do agree on,” said Gamache, “is that we’re pretty sure the only reason Clotilde’s body was put where it would be found is so the children could collect the insurance.”

“You think she set up one of the molesters for the murder,” said Choquet. “The one she sold the car to. Not a very good attempt.”

“She wasn’t exactly a criminal mastermind,” said Beauvoir, grabbing some corn chips. “She probably didn’t think anyone would suspect children. It was a shitty mess.”

“It was a tragedy,” said Gamache.

“But you arrested her,” Amelia said.

“I did. I had to. To be honest, I never dreamed the prosecutor would go so hard on her.”

“And if you had known,” said Amelia, “what would you have done?”

Gamache smiled and shook his head at her. It was a question he would not answer. Could not answer. He didn’t really know the answer.

“The whole thing makes me sick,” he said. “Despite my arguments, the prosecution tried Fiona as an adult.”

“You really don’t think she was guilty?” said Amelia.

“I think, I believe, Sam instigated it, battered his own head against the brick wall in the alley, then blamed his sister. His injuries, while dramatic, were not all that serious.”

“Why did she accept the blame? Why not fight back? Why not tell them that Sam was responsible?”

“Because she loved him,” said Gamache. “Because she felt she needed to protect him. Maybe felt guilty about not being able to protect him against their mother. Against what happened. And maybe because she knew in her heart what he really was and was afraid of him.”

“And what is he?” asked Amelia.

A monster, he almost said, but did not. Instead, he said, “I’m not a good judge.”

“No, but you’ve obviously judged that the sister is safe. You’ve taken her under your wing.”

“Not just that,” said Beauvoir. “He watched over her, visited her in prison, helped her get parole and graduate with an engineering degree from the École Polytechnique.”

“Jesus,” said Amelia. “We should all be arrested by you.”

“And be wrongly convicted,” Gamache reminded her. “Which in your case is unlikely.”

She laughed. Then grew serious. “Why do you believe that Sam was behind the murder of their mother?”

It was, Gamache knew, a fair question. Could he possibly say it was because the boy had winked at him that day long ago, when his sister had been found guilty?

That he could feel Sam’s presence inside his head. Messing about. Moving objects around in there so that the Chief Inspector was stumbling about. Struggling to see clearly.

But despite all the mind games, Gamache had seen, could still see, clearly enough to know that Sam Arsenault was unbalanced. Unwell. Malevolent. And time had only made him worse.

“I have no evidence,” he admitted. “Just a feeling. I didn’t encourage the prosecutor to arrest Sam. I never mentioned my suspicions. I did not arrest him. In fact, I tried to get him help. But I knew it was useless. He was beyond our reach in every way.”

Amelia didn’t pursue it further. How do you pursue a feeling, after all? She knew this man well enough by now to know he saw hope where others saw only malevolence.

But he could also see evil where others saw a ten-year-old boy.

“You”—Armand turned to Beauvoir—“were the one who came closest to reaching him.”

Jean-Guy took another handful of chips and nodded. “I liked the kid. Felt for him.”

He remembered that moment when the child had clung to him, clutched at him, and sobbed.

Was Sam a model citizen? Probably not. Who could be after that?

Was he taking this opportunity to mind-fuck the man who’d seen what they’d done and arrested his sister? Maybe. That wasn’t okay, but neither, from what Beauvoir could see, was it dangerous.

Was he a psychopath? No. Was his sister? That, for Jean-Guy, was an open question.

It worried him a lot that his father-in-law could not see it.

“But how’s this connected to that.” Agent Choquet waved toward the locker, with its assortment of curiosities. “And the murder of Madame Godin?”

“Probably isn’t.” The Chief Inspector checked his watch. “Dinner’s in an hour.”

“Great.” She dumped the remaining nuts into her pocket. “I might get the munchies.”

They crossed the bridge over the Rivière Bella Bella and walked toward the light in the night that was the Gamache home. Then Amelia left them and headed to the B&B.

When she was out of earshot, Jean-Guy whispered, “What have you done?”

It was clearly said in jest, unleashing Amelia on an unsuspecting public.

“You’re the one who assigned her here,” Gamache pointed out.

But as he walked through the June evening, Armand wondered, What have I done?

When he got home, Armand put the grimoire in an evidence bag while Reine-Marie watched. Though she understood, he still felt he’d come between his wife and a long-lost friend.

Now the diners helped themselves to grilled salmon, fresh-cut asparagus, and baby potatoes, while Jean-Guy sliced the baguette. A green salad with vinaigrette was already on the table.

Amelia had joined them just as dinner was being served in the Gamaches’ kitchen.

Ruth was also there, though uninvited. The final guest was Anne Lamarque, very much present, if only in spirit.

Ruth and Reine-Marie had described for the newcomer what the grimoire was. Amelia, always fascinated with books, was wide-eyed.

“What happened to her?” Amelia asked.

“Anne Lamarque?” said Ruth. “She died.”

“At the stake?” asked Amelia.

“Steak? Is there steak?” Ruth looked around, hopefully.

“The stake,” said Amelia. “The stake,” she repeated, as though the word sounded strange in her mouth. “Staaaay-kuh.”

Giggles burbled up, like indigestion. Out they came, in short hiccups of laughter.

Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at the young woman.

She grabbed a piece of baguette and stuffed it in her mouth, but it only seemed to make it worse.

“Is she…?” Reine-Marie whispered to Armand.

“You’re high,” said Ruth, glaring at Amelia.

“Hi!” she replied, then made a sputtering sound, clearly cracking herself up.

“From your stash?” Ruth asked Armand.

“If I had one, I’m sure you’d have taken it by now.” He passed her the salad, which she ignored. “My only stash these days is eclairs.”

“Yeah,” said Reine-Marie. “Those should be made illegal.”

“I’m going to have to take the grimoire over to the evidence locker after dinner,” Armand said.

“Bye-bye,” said Amelia.

Reine-Marie sighed but nodded. “At least I got to hold it.”

Armand wished she hadn’t. It was his fault, but at the time there was no way they could have known the items in the hidden room had anything to do with a murder. And, to be fair, they still didn’t know. Not for sure. The only connective tissue was the Stone letter.

“So how did she die?” asked Reine-Marie. “We never got that far in the story.”

“She was arrested and put on trial,” said Ruth, pouring hollandaise sauce over the salmon and asparagus.

“For witchcraft?” asked Jean-Guy.

“Not at first. It was for promiscuity, running a brothel, adultery. Then the Jesuits heard about the grimoire and added witchcraft. Her husband testified against her, of course. Interestingly, his name was Folleville.”

“Crazy town,” declared Amelia, popping up straight in her chair, her voice loud and happy. She placed an asparagus spear between her nose and upper lip and turned it into a drooping mustache.

Reine-Marie pressed her lips together to stop from laughing.

“Exactly,” said Ruth, who didn’t seem to find anything at all odd in the behavior of the young agent. But then, the old poet had a duck on her lap.

“Her customers, all men, also testified against her—”

“Testified. Testified. No testes,” said Amelia, then bit the tip off the asparagus spear. Jean-Guy grimaced.

“Said her spells had lured them to her tavern against their will.”

“Did they believe it?” asked Jean-Guy. “The priests? Or were they just using fear to control the population?”

“Well, if they didn’t believe it at first, they eventually convinced themselves,” said Ruth. “People do begin to believe their own lies. Besides, these were men who supposedly believed in God. The Devil came as part of that package.”

That left them quiet. Most of those around that pine table believed in God. And, yes, the Devil came along for the ride.

Unlike for most people, for Armand Gamache neither God nor the Devil was abstract. He didn’t just believe in them. He knew them. Had met both. Had shaken hands with them. He had the scars to prove it.

Evil is unspectacular, and always human,

And shares our bed and eats at our own table,

And we are introduced to Goodness every day.

Even in drawing rooms, among a crowd of faults.

He looked around the table and smiled. If ever there was a crowd of faults …

“Any random calamity was blamed on witches,” said Reine-Marie. “Accidents, illnesses, drought, torrential rain, blizzards. If a pig ran away, or a child got sick, or an early frost killed the crops, it was the work of witches.”

“I read where a mosquito bite was thought to be a teat for the Devil to suckle,” said Ruth. “You can imagine the hysteria.”

“So what happened to Anne Lamarque?” Armand asked, picking Amelia’s napkin off the floor and handing it to her. “Was she burned?”

Amelia looked at her napkin, then let it drop again, watching as though gravity were magic.

“Burned?” said Ruth. “No.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Jean-Guy.

“What they did to her was worse.”

“Worse?” he said. “What could be worse?”

“Back in the 1600s, in New France? What’s worse is being banished. She was sent out of Montréal, rowed across the river, and left on the far shore for the demons to claim. Burning would be too quick.”

“She had to be damned before she died,” said Reine-Marie. “All the so-called witches were expelled, sent into the forests to die. Slowly.”

They tried to imagine what that would be like. Standing on the banks, Anne would have watched the boatman return to Montréal, the cesspool that passed for civilization. But however harsh, it was home.

Turning around, she’d face her future. The forest. Infested with terrifying creatures.

If the bears didn’t kill her, the demons certainly would.

It would be slow, and it would be agonizing, and when it was finally over, she’d be in Hell. For eternity.

“She wasn’t the only one,” said Ruth. “Most were never heard from again. They were swallowed up by the forest.”

“Most but not all?” Armand said, handing Amelia the napkin. Again. And looking into her eyes.

“Anne apparently survived into ripe old age,” said Ruth.

“How?” asked Jean-Guy.

“She traveled south until she came to a valley with a meadow and a river of spring water. There she stopped. Two other women, also banished as witches, found their way to her. They built homes. Planted crops. With the help of the medicinal recipes in the grimoire, they survived. Formed a small community. Eventually they each planted a tree in a clearing, as a sign for others. There was a safe place.” She looked at Reine-Marie and smiled. “For witches.”

“Here?” said Jean-Guy. “Are you saying Anne Lamarque founded Three Pines?”

“Who knows?” said Ruth. “Believe whatever you want.”

After the dessert of ice cream with salted caramel sauce, Armand went into his study and picked up the grimoire, now encased in plastic, noting again the charred leather cover.

He was sorely tempted to take the book into the living room, sit by the hearth, and read it. But he had to get it into the locker. As he left with the book under his arm, he looked back and saw Reine-Marie and Ruth watching.

He wondered if Anne was standing with them, the third woman. Watching over them. He then turned and watched Amelia make her way back to the B&B.

“Is she okay?” Jean-Guy asked.

As a recovering addict himself, he knew the dangers of even one drink, one toke. One snort. The problem was never the second or third, it was that first.

“Yes, she’s okay.”

They paused on the village green, looking up at the three huge pines. Was this the spot where an exhausted, emaciated, frightened woman, condemned for being strong and wise and independent, had stopped running?

Where she made a home. For herself and generations of others who were also lost. Who also needed a safe place. Including the two men standing shoulder to shoulder in the darkness.

Once back at the Incident Room, Gamache himself dusted and swabbed the book.

Some prints appeared, emerging from the pages, as though surfacing. Or expelled.

Jean-Guy watched him work, then asked, “Do you think Ruth was right? That Three Pines was founded by witches?”

“Not witches, Jean-Guy.” Armand handed the samples to him to bag and placed the book in the locker. “Just women. Like Reine-Marie. Like Annie.”

“Like Ruth.”

“No one’s like Ruth,” said Armand, peeling off the gloves.

Jean-Guy laughed. “What I don’t get is how Ruth knows all that about Anne Lamarque.”

“I sometimes think it’s best not to ask.”

“Maybe she was one of the women. I wonder how old she is.”

“I wonder how old the duck is,” said Armand.

Jean-Guy laughed. “Maybe Rosa’s one of them. Transformed into a duck.”

That might explain a few things, thought Armand.

It was a good point. Not the age, or duck, thing, but how Ruth knew. If Anne Lamarque and two other women really had founded Three Pines, how would anyone know that? They presumably died here. Would their stories not be buried with them? Lost and forgotten?

But was anything in Three Pines ever lost? Or forgotten?

There was a ding and Jean-Guy walked over to his desk. “The autopsy report on Patricia Godin has come through.”

Before Armand could get to his own desk to look, he heard the door open.

“Bonsoir,” said Olivier. “We were closing up the bistro and saw the light on. Thought we’d check.”

“Everything okay?” asked Gabri.

“Everything’s good,” said Gamache. “We’re just tidying up a few things.”

“Has something happened, Armand?” Olivier asked. “The crime scene tape in the loft. Is it a crime scene?”

“The truth is, we don’t think a crime itself was committed there, but there is a small possibility some of the things found in that room are connected to a crime.”

“A murder?” asked Gabri.

Gamache lifted his hands, to show he either could not or would not answer.

Olivier took a few steps into the Old Train Station and Gabri followed. The men were very familiar with the large open space. It was home to their volunteer fire department. Both were members, and Ruth was the chief. Self-appointed, admittedly. But being essentially a dumpster fire herself, she was familiar with flames.

“Is there something else?” Armand asked.

“Well, yes. I was telling Gabri about the elephant, and thought, since you’re here…”

“You want to see it?”

“Do you mind?”

“No, as long as you don’t touch it.”

A minute later they were standing in the evidence room. A single bright bulb hanging from the ceiling lit the odd assortment of items.

Armand put on gloves and picked up the bronze statue.

Gabri, by instinct, reached out, then drew his hands back and leaned in, moving his head this way and that. Then he stepped away.

“That’s it. That’s ours. My great-grandfather brought it back from India. I dusted it every day, I should know.”

“Every day?”

“Well, whenever we had guests staying in the room. It has the dented ear and crooked tusk from when someone dropped it.”

“Someone?”

“Focus, Olivier, that isn’t the lede here.”

“But ours didn’t have all that engraving, did it?”

“No,” Gabri admitted, looking closer. “But it’s still ours.”

Armand lifted the piece to the light and took a closer look at what was etched into the animal’s bronze skin. It didn’t form a pattern and it wasn’t writing of any sort. But there was something.

“All right, let’s say it is your elephant,” said Gamache. “Tell me again what happened. How and when this went missing from the B&B.”

“A guest was staying in that room,” said Olivier. “And when she left, the elephant was gone too. You asked for her name. I have it. And her address.” He brought a slip of paper out from his pocket.

“Lillian Virginia Mountweazel,” Armand read.

“Yes!” said Gabri. “That’s her. Can’t forget that name. I tried to get in touch with her, but she never answered the messages.”

“When was this?” asked Gamache.

“Eighteen months ago,” said Olivier. “I can give you the exact dates of her stay.”

“How long was she here?” As Armand spoke, he noticed Jean-Guy trying to catch his eye.

“She was booked in for a week, but left after five days,” said Olivier.

“Why would she want to take my great-grandfather’s elephant?” said Gabri. “Never mind put it in the attic room. It’s just bizarre.”

“It is that,” said Armand.

Replacing the statue, he ushered the men out of the room and to the door.

“Well, good night.” He gently closed the door in their baffled faces. Then he quickly crossed to Beauvoir’s desk.

“What’ve you got?”

“Look.”

Jean-Guy had highlighted a passage. It described Patricia Godin’s injuries and concluded they were compatible with a death by hanging. Suicide.

“But they’re not,” said Jean-Guy. “With hanging, the bruising would be up here.” He drew a line on his throat under his chin. “But see here. Her cartilage is crushed flat and the bruising is a perfect ring around her neck. These injuries were caused by ligature strangulation. Not hanging.”

Gamache reread the passage, then scrolled up and began reading the entire report. Jean-Guy gave up his chair so that the Chief could sit.

Ten minutes later, he took off his reading glasses, rubbed his eyes, and nodded. “You’re right. Patricia Godin was already dead when hung from the tree.”

“She was murdered.”

“Oui. The coroner missed it. He’d assumed suicide, then saw what he expected to see. To be fair, it’s an easy mistake to make.” Armand got up. “We change the cause of death and institute a full murder investigation. First thing in the morning, I want a team down here and a warrant to search the old Stone house.”

“D’accord, patron.”

As they walked back across the bridge over the Bella Bella, Jean-Guy said, quietly, to Armand, “She wasn’t stoned, was she.”

“Amelia? Non. She was practicing. A dry run. I think she figured if Ruth believed it, Sam will too. Smart woman.”

“I saw the look on your face when we were telling Amelia about the Arsenault case. Are you having second thoughts about Fiona?”

“Did I hear my name?” A voice came out of the darkness.

Fiona was sitting on the swing on the Gamaches’ front porch. Voices carried in the stillness of night, and she’d heard part, or all, of what they’d said.

“Yes,” said the Chief, thinking quickly. “We were talking about you. Jean-Guy here wanted to know if I was having second thoughts about you.”

There was nothing for it but to admit it. Lying about it would only heighten her suspicions.

“About my guilt, or my innocence?” She stood up.

Before Armand could answer, Jean-Guy jumped in.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen you and your brother together since the trial. I guess it brings back memories. Doubts even. Your case was far from clear.”

She gave a small unamused laugh. “‘Case’? You call it that? It’s my life. And yes, it was far from clear. What’s gained by reexamining it? I’ve done my time. I’m trying to rebuild my life. Are you trying to rebuild your case?”

They could only see half her face in the light spilling onto the porch from the kitchen. But even half a face was enough to show her anger. Though her tone more than made that clear.

“You want to get the whole family? Is that it? The box set of Arsenault kids?”

“I didn’t have a chance to answer Jean-Guy’s question. The answer,” Gamache said, looking her in the eyes as she turned to him, “is no. I am not doubting you.”

It was, of course, a lie.

The team from homicide met at the Incident Room the next morning, where Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir went over the case so far.

The formal investigation into the murder of Patricia Godin had begun.

Everyone listened respectfully, though there were a few raised brows when they were told about the Stone letter and the hidden room.

The search warrant had come through, and they headed to the old Stone house, arriving just after seven a.m.

Disheveled, unshaven, and tying up his dressing gown, Monsieur Godin glanced past the Chief Inspector to the men and women ranged behind him. Then his eyes returned to Gamache.

“You believed me.”

“Oui.” Gamache introduced Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir and the team from the Sûreté homicide unit. “May we come in?”

Godin stepped back, and they followed him into the living room, where Gamache explained, in a voice that was gentle and clear, that Monsieur Godin was right. His wife had been murdered.

The man sank into a chair and stared ahead of him. It was one thing to believe something, it was another to know it. And now he knew.

“Why?”

Gamache had taken the seat across from him. “We don’t know. That’s what we hope to find out, but that means searching your home. We have a warrant.”

Beauvoir brought it out of his pocket, but Monsieur Godin waved it away.

“Just do what you have to. The house is yours. Tear it apart if you need to.”

While Inspector Beauvoir coordinated the search, Gamache took Monsieur Godin into the kitchen. There he made a pot of coffee for the stunned man, then joined him at the table.

“Did you have any visitors in the days before your wife died?”

“Only the family.”

“Had your wife been in contact with anyone? Anyone new?”

He shook his head.

They’d take her computer and go over her emails and texts. In case. It was the worst part of any investigation. This invasion of privacy. All those even remotely associated with the crime would have their private lives exposed. Events, messages, decisions, actions that had seemed reasonable, or perhaps a little shady, would suddenly look contemptible. Shameful. Even suspect, when examined closely and taken out of context by strangers.

Sometimes they discovered crimes not related to the investigation. If not outright evidence, then strong suggestions of wrongdoing.

Those were the things Armand kept in the locked room in their basement.

Everyone, he knew, had one. A locked room. Either in their home, or their head, or their heart. Where things that should never see the light of day lived, and waited. For their chance to escape.

“Was she worried about anything? Anything at all?”

Monsieur Godin considered, then shook his head. Non.

“Were you and your wife on good terms?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Arguments? It’s natural to have some.”

“Sometimes over money. And travel. Pat wanted to go places now that I’m retired. But I like it here.” He paused. “I’m afraid to fly.”

He stared down at the table, where they’d had so many meals. Many in silence. After thirty years of marriage, there didn’t seem to be a great deal to say to each other. It wasn’t an angry or regretful silence. More a peaceful quietude.

And now there was just silence.

“She wanted to see England. I should’ve gone.”

Armand let the moment rest before he continued. “What was your job?”

Monsieur Godin looked up and smiled. “I was a plumber. Like my father.”

Armand met his smile with one of his own. “I wish my son or daughter had married a plumber. I think my wife wishes she had too. We live in an old house, and in the winter, on particularly cold days and nights, we need to leave a few of the taps dripping so the water doesn’t freeze and burst the pipes. Happened our first winter there. Flooded the basement. What a mess.”

Godin nodded. “I bet. Was your home built before there was much indoor plumbing?”

“Must’ve been. It’s fieldstone. Looks like it was built in the early 1800s, but we don’t really know.”

“When plumbing was finally put in, it was often installed next to the outer walls, so there’d be something to support the metal pipes. But that means they freeze when it’s really cold. And drafts get in between the stones when the mortar gets old and loose.”

“What can be done about it?” Armand asked.

“Well, you have to move the pipes. Expensive job. They’d all have to be replaced. We use PVC now. Easier to manipulate and they don’t crack and burst.”

“But that would mean breaking into the walls, right? And then repairing and repainting them.”

“For sure. Like I said, big job. Expensive.”

“Did you do the repairs too, or someone else?”

“You’d need to get someone in to put in new drywall, then a plasterer, but I used to do that too if it was a small job. Not hard. I could recommend someone.”

“Merci.”

It was what Billy had said when showing him how the items got into the attic. Someone with skills had repaired and repainted the ceiling. Someone like Monsieur Godin.

The Gamaches had replaced all the wiring and plumbing before they’d moved into the home. He did not need it fixed, nor did he need to know how it was done.

But he did need to know if Patricia Godin’s husband could remove a section of the bookstore ceiling and then repair it.

“You know, someone did come by,” said Monsieur Godin, “but it was a month before Patricia died. He was interested in old documents. Asked if we had any. Said it was the latest thing. All the antiques in old barns and homes had been picked over, and now people were interested in paper stuff. He was looking for old books and maps and deeds and photographs.”

And letters? thought Gamache, though he remained quiet.

“Asked us to get in touch, if we found any.”

“Did you meet him?” asked Gamache.

“Yes. He seemed nice. Though I can’t see there’d be much of a market in old deeds.”

“Can you remember his name?” It seemed a long shot and, indeed, it was. Godin shook his head.

“Can you describe him?” Gamache almost made the mistake he always warned his agents against. Leading the witness, guiding them to an answer.

He was tempted to describe Sam Arsenault, young, auburn hair, slender, and ask if that fit the man who visited. Instead, he remained quiet while Godin thought.

“I’m sorry, I’m not good at that sort of thing.”

“But it was a man?”

“Yes.”

“Young? Old?”

Gamache waited.

“Oh, older. About my age. But I can’t really remember anything else.”

“Was he a big man? Or slender?”

Godin shook his head. “Désolé.”

“Did he return?”

“Not that I know of. I think Pat would’ve told me.” Now he stared at Gamache. “You don’t think…”

“He said to get in touch. Did he leave a card or anything?”

Godin’s brow dropped in thought. “Well, he must’ve, don’t you think? But I can’t remember seeing one. Now that I’m thinking about it, he called himself a detective.”

“He was a police officer? A member of the Sûreté?”

Surely not, in his late sixties or early seventies. But age was hard to guess. He suspected some younger agents thought he himself was ancient. Maybe the man was a retired detective, and this was his hobby.

“I think he was a sort of private detective,” said Godin.

“That old letter, from Pierre Stone, was sent here by someone,” said Gamache. “Do you have any idea who?”

“Not a clue. I didn’t even know it came here.”

“And you say you didn’t have a forwarding address for Monsieur Williams?”

“No. I have no idea how Pat got it to him. I mean, how would she even know that he was related to this Stone fellow? Different last names.”

Yes, thought Armand as he got up. Good questions.

He left his card for Monsieur Godin, had a word with Beauvoir, then drove back to Three Pines to meet the conservator from the Musée in Montréal. Well aware that he was leaving with more questions than when he’d arrived.

“Alors,” Dr. Mirlande Louissaint said, cocking her head slightly. It tipped further and further over until she was actually leaning to one side. Then the other. Like a very large, very slow pendulum.

She and her assistant had watched as Gamache unrolled the giant painting on the floor of the Incident Room, using books to weigh down the corners. As more and more of the work was revealed, Dr. Louissaint had made a series of sounds. Increasing in their astonishment but decreasing in volume.

Until finally the entire thing could be seen, and she whispered, “Alors.”

Then repeated it. “Alors.” Well. Well, well.

At least, thought Gamache as he straightened up and stretched, the Chief Conservator from the Musée had graduated from guttural sounds to an actual word.

“A World of Curiosities,” she whispered.

“Pardon?”

“The Paston Treasure.” She motioned toward the painting. “It’s the nickname given to it. Alors.” She leaned over the canvas before straightening up. “But this isn’t the real thing.”

“No.”

“What exactly do you want from me?”

“Anything you can tell me about it. How long ago it was painted. If the technique reminds you of any artist. Is there a painting underneath?” He brought out a baggie with the nails. “And I’d like you to look at these. Are they genuine or reproductions?”

She took the bag, glanced at it, then handed it back. “They’re real.”

“You’re sure?”

There was a slight snort from her assistant, amused anyone would question her patron.

Dr. Louissaint stared at Gamache, but he just waited. A glare was not a reply. He needed the words.

“Yes, the nails are hand-forged and date from the era of the original Paston Treasure, the mid-1600s.” She widened her eyes, as if to say, Heard enough?

“Merci.”

“Is this”—Dr. Louissaint tilted her head toward the canvas on the floor—“part of an investigation, Chief Inspector?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure.”

This admission of doubt seemed to impress her.

“Your colleague, Inspector Beauvoir, was it?” When Gamache agreed, she continued, “Told me a little. Enough for me to bring some equipment and—” She pointed to the young woman now setting up what looked like a scanner. “Maryse.”

“Bonjour,” said Gamache.

“Bonjour, monsieur,” said Maryse, then went back to work.

Dr. Louissaint turned to Gamache. “I’ve seen copies of The Paston Treasure. And photographs. Read books on it. I even visited it in the UK.” She spoke of the painting as though it were a person. “It’s a masterpiece, one of the most studied works of art, and yet”—she leaned closer to the copy—“it remains a mystery.”

“How so?”

“It was painted in the great age of exploration, when ships and merchants were pushing the boundaries of the known world and bringing back their finds. The Pastons gathered a huge collection and then commissioned someone to paint at least part of it. But how did they decide which of the two hundred pieces would be in the painting? Why so much emphasis on music? On time? The hourglass, the timepiece, the clock. Does it say six o’clock or half past eleven? Is the time significant?”

“We studied the painting in art college,” said Maryse, piping in. “Partly as a work of art.”

“But also art history?” suggested Gamache.

“Not just that, but history itself. And natural sciences, and geography. It’s described as a portal into the past.”

He could hear the young woman’s excitement as she talked about the original.

“And yet, it left so much of itself unknown,” said Dr. Louissaint. “Including who even painted it. Must’ve taken months and months, and then not to sign it? Why? I see yours isn’t signed either.”

“No, that would be too easy.”

She smiled, then bent closer to the painting. “Do you mind if I take some samples?”

Gamache gave them both gloves and watched as the conservator, on hands and knees, scraped a corner. Then she put on headgear, like jewelers wore, and moved farther along. Examining closely. Closely. Maryse turned on the scanner and moved it back and forth across the work.

After a few minutes, Dr. Louissaint rose, shoved the magnifying glasses up onto her head, and went over to the monitor.

“This isn’t a copy.”

“If it’s not a copy,” asked Gamache, “what is it?”

He joined them by the screen, where a ghostly image of the original Paston Treasure appeared.

“A paint-by-number.”

Gamache gave a small grunt of amusement. “A local artist, Clara Morrow, said the same thing. Thought it must be that. Not a real paint-by-number, of course, but the same idea.”

“Clara Morrow lives here?” said the Chief Conservator and her assistant, as one. Both sounded like teenage girls being told their favorite actor was next door.

“She does.”

“I’d love to meet her.” Again the women spoke in unison.

“I did my thesis on her,” said Maryse.

“I went to her first solo show at the Musée d’art contemporain,” said Dr. Louissaint, as though trying to one-up Maryse.

“Perhaps…,” suggested Gamache, and tilted his head toward the painting on the floor.

“Right, désolée. Whoever did this just painted over the copy and added their own bits.” She pulled the loupe over her eyes again and turned to Gamache as though examining him closely. “Now why would anyone do this?”

He shook his head and hoped those glasses didn’t help her see his complete and utter bafflement. Though it was hardly hidden.

Dr. Louissaint knelt down again and minutely examined the canvas before struggling back up.

Gamache helped her to her feet, and she thanked him. “Too many years kneeling on cold floors or standing on scaffolding trying to save murals.”

“I know the feeling.” He did not say what he’d spent years kneeling beside. And that they were beyond saving.

Dr. Louissaint took off her headgear and stared down at the painting. Then she stepped back, taking in the full effect of the overpainted image.

“There’s something about it, isn’t there? And not just because of the deliberately modern touches, which are bizarre, and yet seem to fit in. It’s both compelling and”—Dr. Louissaint searched for the word—“offensive. I’m not sure that’s the right word. But close. It’s not just because of the young Black man as part of the Paston collection, or the fact they’ve ruined a masterpiece. It’s something else.”

Gamache felt it too. “Offensive” was, he thought, the right word. Offensive in all its meaning. It not only offended, but there was something aggressive about it. It seemed an attack, even as it just lay there on the cold concrete floor.

Dr. Louissaint wandered the room, walking off stiff joints. She stopped at the open door to the evidence locker, stared. And turned.

“What’s that?”

Gamache joined her. “The book?” He assumed she’d seen the grimoire.

“No, the elephant. Can I see it?”

Gamache put on gloves and brought the statue out. She took his elbow in an imperious way and walked him and the elephant over to a window. Re-donning her loupe, she bent close to the bronze sculpture. Getting Gamache to turn it this way and that.

“Nice, nice,” she mumbled. “Late eighteenth century. Maybe early nineteenth. Indian, of course. Solid?”

She peered at Gamache, who nodded. It was getting heavy in his hands.

“But these markings don’t make sense,” she continued. “Any work like this I’ve seen has had almost no etching. Besides”—she leaned closer, then lifted her headgear—“it’s recent. Someone’s put them on in the last couple of years, I’d say.”

He looked at the lines more closely. Then at Dr. Louissaint. “Do they look at all familiar?”

“No. They look like Sanskrit or…” She looked closer. “No, not hieroglyphics. But they do appear to be writing of some sort.” She turned to look back at the huge canvas. “There are similar marks on the painting.”

He stared at her for a moment, then both of them almost ran back to the canvas and knelt beside it.

He couldn’t see them, but when she handed him her special glasses, they popped out. There they were, passing as wood grain. As texture in the heavy curtains. Etched into the trumpet.

What had looked like random lines to the naked eye now came into focus. They were shapes. He looked up and down, left and right. Scanning the immense canvas. They were everywhere.

It was as though the painting were screaming at him. Trying to tell him something.

While Dr. Louissaint continued her examination, Armand placed a call to a former colleague, now retired and living in Vancouver.

Thérèse Brunel had been a senior officer in the Sûreté. She worked well past retirement, partly because she was so valuable to the force and partly because no one had the guts to have “that” conversation with her.

She’d come into policing later in life after a career as a senior curator with the Musée des beaux-arts. An investigation into art theft brought her into contact with the Sûreté, and she discovered a fascination with, and aptitude for, crime. Solving.

Over the years she and her husband had become good friends of the Gamaches.

“Thérèse? Armand.”

“Armand, it’s just after seven in the morning here.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Do you care?”

He smiled at her reply.

“Something’s happened,” she said. “What is it? The family?”

“Is fine. It’s a case. At least, I think it’s a case.”

“Could you be more vague?”

He laughed. “I need your help and probably Jérôme’s. It’s about The Paston Treasure.”

“Really? One of my favorite paintings. Now why would it be involved in a homicide case in Québec? That is what we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

“So you know the painting?”

“I do. A real curiosity.”

He explained what they’d found, and where. At first, there were sounds as people make when they’re absorbing information. But after a while, she fell silent.

“I’m glad you called in Mirlande,” said Thérèse when he’d finished. “She’ll be able to help. But I suspect the one you really want to talk to is Jérôme.”

“Eventually, yes, but I’d like to hear what you can tell me about The Paston Treasure.”

“Let me think.” There was silence down the line while she gathered her thoughts. “It was painted in the 1670s, or thereabouts, and shows many of the curios collected by the Paston family in Norfolk. That in itself would make the painting worth noticing, just as a historic record of the times. But there are a number of mysteries surrounding it, not least of which, why didn’t the artist, who clearly put a huge amount of time and effort into the thing, sign it?”

“Theories?”

“He died before he could. Or he didn’t want to be associated with it.”

“Why—”

“—wouldn’t he? I don’t know, Armand. Wish I did. It was a strange and dangerous time in England. Political unrest. Religious unrest. Talk of witches.”

“Witches?”

“Yes. One of the stranger details in the painting is almost hidden. Look closer at the roses around the neck of the cello.”

“Okay.” Armand was bending over the painting. “I don’t see anything.”

“Look closer. Though it might not be there in the version you found.”

“May I borrow your glasses?” he asked Dr. Louissaint, who, while surprised, handed them over. He looked again, then pulled back sharply. It was as though he’d been plunged into the folds of the plump white rose.

And then he saw it. Lifting off the loupe and handing it back to the conservator, he said into the phone, “It’s a ladybug.”

“Right. An exquisitely rendered one, at least in the original.” She paused, then said, almost to herself, “Interesting that your artist chose to copy such a tiny detail.” Then her voice returned to lecture mode. “In England, the bug was, at the time, known as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. But in Norfolk, where it was painted, that bug is called something else. A bishop-that-burneth.”

“Why?”

“Well, what were bishops burning at the time?”

“Witches.”

“Right. It’s possible there’s something in the painting—maybe the ladybug, maybe something else—that made it dangerous for the artist to be associated with it. It might be something lost to our modern eyes. There’re other oddities about the original, like why it was painted. Is it meant as a statement of wealth and prestige? Or perhaps a memento mori.”

“A remembrance after death?”

“Yes. Something that would immortalize the Pastons. But that’s another mystery. We don’t know if it was the father, William, who commissioned the work, or the son, Robert. This might interest you, Armand. Robert was an alchemist.”

Thérèse was rattling off other secrets, other mysteries, contained in the painting and, so far, unreleased. Like who the figures were. The humans but also those carved into the chair and the head of the cello.

“It seems the painting, or painter, was trying to say something. I wonder if those lines and symbols are in the original, but we just never noticed. I’ll have a look.”

And that brought Armand back to the main purpose of his call. “Is Jérôme there?”

“I’ll get him. Jérôme? Où es-tu?”

Thérèse’s husband had been an emergency room physician, but his hobby and passion were codes. He’d solved at least one for Gamache in the past and was on the team of volunteers trying to crack Dickens’s Tavistock letter and other literary works written, for reasons that might never be known, in coded markings.

While waiting, Gamache sent them pictures of the painting and the elephant. Overviews, but mostly close-ups of the markings and other details, including the bug. The bishop-that-burneth.

When Jérôme Brunel got on the phone, Armand explained.

“Oui, Armand, I’m looking at what you sent. Fascinating. Let me get back to you. Can I consult my group?”

“Other decoders? Not yet. Thérèse knows, of course, but otherwise, please keep this to yourself.”

“Tell Armand there are no markings on the original,” Thérèse shouted in the background.

“I heard,” he said.

Jérôme laughed. “So did all of Vancouver.”

After he’d hung up, Armand put on a pot of coffee. As the room filled with the welcome aroma of the rich, strong drink, he stood at the window, one hand clasping the other behind his back.

It was a beautiful, bright morning, sun gleaming off the moisture from the rain the day before. It would soon evaporate, but for now, it gave an otherworldly look to a village that already appeared out of time and place.

He saw Harriet leave the B&B and wondered if she’d been home last night. And wondered what Myrna would say to her niece.

Then he saw Fiona leave their home. As he watched, he realized that over the years of visiting her in prison, of trying to soften the judicial blow he’d helped land, he’d come to think of her as a sort of niece. Not, of course, with the depth of love he felt for his real nieces, but a member of the extended family nevertheless.

And now, after Amelia’s report the night before and other evidence, he was forced to confront something else.

Matthew 10:36.

It was something his first mentor, his first chief in homicide, had told him.

“Oh, one other thing, Armand.” He’d stopped the young agent as he was leaving a meeting with the other officers. This was shortly after he’d joined homicide. Shortly after the shootings at the Polytechnique that were to haunt him for the rest of his life.

“Matthew 10:36.”

Agent Gamache had stood at the door waiting for more. But that was it. He was dismissed. A week or so passed before Armand, in a quiet moment, remembered and looked up the reference in the family Bible.

A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.

Agent Gamache hadn’t believed it. Had dismissed it as the sad perception of a highly effective officer who’d grown cynical with age.

But Matthew 10:36 had proven true. If the definition of “household” included the wider extended family of colleagues within the force. That was what his first boss had been trying to tell him. To warn him.

Almost too late, Gamache, by then the head of homicide himself, had seen it.

Armand watched as Fiona began walking. The bistro, he sent out the plea. Go there. Or the bookstore. Or the bakery.

Anywhere but—

She walked straight to the B&B. To join her brother.

—there.

Now he had to face the possibility that Jean-Guy was right, and his foes were literally within his own household.

And yet, his mind said, why shouldn’t she spend time with her brother? Was it so wrong?

Was he doing to Sam Arsenault what had been done to Anne Lamarque and so many others? Judging and condemning without evidence. He believed the boy, the young man, was mentally ill. And yet, there was no proof beyond two winks and the subtle movement of one finger. And a lingering chill in his core. Was that enough to condemn? Surely not.

Could he have been wrong about him? About her? Did he, as Jean-Guy believed, have it backward? That yes, there was a psychopath in that family, but it wasn’t the boy.

Once again, he remembered the conversation Amelia had described. It had been Fiona who’d asked about the grandchildren. Not Sam.

A cold resolve settled into his core.

Earlier that morning, in the car over to the Stone house with the search warrant, he’d told Jean-Guy about sending Amelia away, and what she’d said to him in Clara’s garden. What Sam and Fiona had asked her the night before. About the family. About the grandchildren.

Beauvoir was silent, then finally said, “They could just be interested.”

“For God’s sake, Jean-Guy, you know it’s more than that. Sam Arsenault’s clever. He’s doing this to get back at me, and God knows how far he’ll go.”

“What I know, patron, is that you’re obsessed with him. You’ve had it in for him from the first moment you met. I don’t know what that’s about, but it’s blinding you to the real threat.”

“You mean Fiona. I arrested her. Hardly the act of a blind man.”

“And you vouched for her, got her parole. Invited her into your home.” Beauvoir took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried if there really is trouble, we’ll be looking in the wrong direction. You remember that day when we first met them? When you told them their mother was dead?”

“Of course.”

“One of them cried. One of them did not. Which one is most likely to be a psychopath?”

That gave Armand pause. Though he also knew one of the great skills of a psychopath was the ability to feign appropriate emotions.

“Let me talk to Sam,” said Beauvoir. “See what I can find out.”

“The children, Jean-Guy. Whether it’s Sam or Fiona or both, they’ve brought in the children. You’d better be sure.”

Now back in the Incident Room, while Beauvoir led the search of the Stone house, and the conservators examined the painting, Gamache went over reports.

When they’d finished, Dr. Louissaint approached him.

“We’ve taken samples of the paint and the canvas. I can tell you that, judging by the brushstrokes, more than one person worked on it.”

“More than one? Two? Three?”

“I don’t know. The painting’s so big it’s hard to tell on a short exam. The scans might tell us more.” She turned back to the painting. “What I don’t get is how someone managed to print a life-sized copy of The Paston Treasure onto this canvas.”

“Would it be difficult?” asked Gamache.

“I can’t think of any machine that could do it.”

“I’ve heard of one,” said the young apprentice. “Or at least there was a proposal for one a few years ago. They came to my art college for advice, since we also have a big printer, but not this size.”

“Who was asking?” asked Gamache.

“Corrections Canada.”

“The prison system?” said Gamache.

“As part of art therapy, I guess. They wanted inmates to copy some masterpieces. Kenojuak Ashevak. Group of Seven. A few Morrows. Clara, not Peter, of course.”

Of course, thought Gamache, and felt a pang of pain for the man. No memento mori for Peter Morrow.

“Why would they need advice from your college?” he asked. “Surely that’s easily done with existing technology.”

“For those smaller works, yes, but they were interested in larger canvases too, so that the inmates would have to work in teams. Learn to work together,” said Maryse.

Gamache looked at Dr. Louissaint. Two or three artists …

He knew that choirs had been formed in penitentiaries for that same purpose. To literally create harmony. Teams of inmates had also been trained to work with puppies to become guide dogs.

Was it possible this was painted by inmates, as part of art therapy? But that raised a whole lot of other questions. Not just how it got into the attic, but how it got out of a prison.

And why didn’t the inmates just copy the original, which would have been the assignment, but put their own spin on the masterpiece? Why these particular modern touches?

“Alors, it is puzzling,” said Dr. Louissaint. “A joke perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“Will you let me know what the markings say, if anything? Maybe they’re just random.”

“Could be.”

But he doubted it. And he knew she did too.

After seeing them off, he pulled a chair over in front of the painting. And stared. Trying to enter it. Trying to enter the mind of the person who’d conceived it.

Was there, perhaps like the original, something dangerous here?

Gamache picked up the phone.

“Come back,” he said to Beauvoir. “And bring that book with you.”

“On my way.”

Gamache then walked over to Robert Mongeau. “Why were you singing that song?”

“‘By the Waters of Babylon’?” said the minister, surprised by Armand’s tone. “It’s a hymn.” He waved toward the painting. “There. The sheet music by the girl. That’s what it is. Why? What’s wrong?”

There was obviously something very wrong. His hazel eyes searched Armand’s, but found no answer there. Just more questions.

“Can you help me roll up the painting? It needs to go back into the evidence room.”

“Yes, but, Armand, what’s wrong? Was it the song? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Mongeau himself seemed upset now.

“It’s all right,” said Gamache, even as he tried to steady the slight tremble in his right hand. The one that shook, since the shooting, since the grievous head wound, whenever he was especially tired or stressed. It, along with a small limp when exhausted, was his “tell.”

“What a strange painting,” said Mongeau. “Is that the Québec Bridge?”

The minister pointed to a jug, almost obscured by the other items on the table. It was painted in relief, and so the image was doubly difficult to make out.

Armand stared, then looked more closely.

It was the bridge. Painted at the very moment it collapsed. Tiny flailing figures were dropping into the cold waters of the St. Lawrence River below.

He reached into his pocket and felt the old ring. This could not, he knew, be a coincidence.

“Armand?” said Mongeau. “Everything okay? Is it the Québec Bridge?”

Gamache nodded, only partly hearing the minister. His mind occupied with an old hymn, and an old bridge. And an old ring.

He locked the door to the evidence room, and double-checked. More afraid that whatever was in there would get out than that anyone could get in. He knew it was insane, but he also, now, had some inkling who was behind all this. And yes, “insane” was the word that sprang to mind.

Gamache and Mongeau stepped into the shiny midday, as though emerging from a cave. Armand took a deep breath of the fresh air, turned his face to the sun, and felt his hand steady. Then the two men walked over the stone bridge across the Rivière Bella Bella and back into the village.

“What is it, Armand?” said Mongeau.

Gamache was sorely tempted to tell him about the last time he’d heard that song. The last person who’d hummed it. But he could not. Mostly because it might be a vital piece of the puzzle, but also because, well …

Armand Gamache knew how powerful words could be, and he did not, yet, want to utter them. That name.

“It’s nothing.”

“Something to do with the song?”

“It’s nothing, Robert,” Gamache repeated, his voice firm. The message now clear. No further. You will go no further.

And it was clear by his expression that Mongeau got the message.

To soften it a little, Armand said, “I heard that you defended me to Sam Arsenault. Thank you for that.”

“Troubled young man.”

“Oui. I also heard that you said you could see goodness in him. Is that true?”

Mongeau smiled. “I see goodness in most people. I think you do too.”

“Most, but not all. Do you see it in his sister, Fiona?”

Mongeau took a few steps in silence. It was a lovely spring day. The air was soft with the scent of sweet woodruff, and the lilac that flourished in Three Pines. Plants that appeared to die each fall but came alive again each spring. It always seemed a miracle.

But Gamache knew that resurrection was not always a blessing. Not everything dead should come back.

“My sight is imperfect. I see through the glass darkly,” Mongeau quoted in answer to Armand’s question about Fiona. “Sorry. Easier to take someone else’s words. Makes me sound smart.” He smiled. “What St. Paul said happens to be true. I only see part, not the whole.”

“And what do you see when you look at Fiona Arsenault?” Gamache pressed, knowing his own sight was almost completely obscured when it came to those two young people.

Mongeau stopped. “This is where I leave you. If you ever do want to talk, about yourself, let me know.”

Gamache watched the man head to the church. To his sanctuary. Where his wife was healthy and would outlive him.

Armand longed to spend a moment, just a moment, sitting on the bench on the village green. To close his eyes and tilt his face to the sun. A quiet moment of peace next to the three huge pines. These particular trees were planted more than a century ago by three brothers just before they headed off to war. They were still saplings when all three returned, as stained-glass figures.

Armand didn’t stop. There was no time to rest. No peace yet.

“Monsieur Beauvoir.” Sam got to his feet. “Is this table okay? I asked for the best one.”

“It’s fine. It’s perfect.”

Jean-Guy tried, he really did, to keep up that professional wall between them. To be courteous but cool to this young man. But as soon as he’d spotted Sam sitting alone at the far end of the bistro by the bathrooms, at the worst table, his resolve began to crumble.

By the time he greeted the young man, the wall was rubble. He once again felt the child in his arms, clutching his new Sûreté-issue coat. The small face buried in it to stifle the sobs.

Those tears, of a ten-year-old whose mother had just been murdered, had stained the coat so that each day, for years, when Agent Beauvoir put it on to go with the Chief Inspector to investigate other murders, he saw the marks.

Every day Agent Jean-Guy Beauvoir was reminded that, as Gamache had said, this was not a puzzle. It wasn’t an exercise. It wasn’t even a job. This was a sacred duty. To the dead, and those who wept.

“What would you like?” Sam asked. “And please, you’re my guest.”

“No, of course not. The Sûreté will pay.”

“Are you sure—” Sam stopped suddenly.

“What?”

“No, never mind.”

“Say it.”

Sam shifted uneasily, then leaned forward and said, “I just don’t think Monsieur Gamache would approve.”

Beauvoir didn’t know where to begin with that. The idea that he needed the Chief Inspector’s approval to put a lunch on a tab. Sam’s comment made him wonder if that was everyone’s perception. That he was that much of an underling.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, picking up the menu. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I do. I don’t want you to get into trouble because of me.”

“I won’t,” snapped Beauvoir.

They both ordered steak frites. The most expensive thing on the menu. But what the hell. He was allowed.

Snapping the menu shut, he said to Sam, “Did you go into the Gamache home the other night?”

“No, of course not. Is that what this’s about?”

“I need the truth.”

“Why would I go into the home of someone who doesn’t want me?”

Exactly, thought Jean-Guy, studying the man, the man-child, across from him. Why would he?

“Did Monsieur Gamache say I did? Why would he even think that?”

“Some objects were moved. It seems someone was there. And you made some sort of gesture to him the next morning. Like the clicking of a camera.”

Sam looked puzzled. Then Jean-Guy showed him, lifting his hand and moving his index finger up and down.

“That’s not a camera,” said Sam. “This’s a camera.” He mimicked hitting the red photo “button” on a smartphone. “I don’t know what this”—he did what Jean-Guy did—“is. And I can’t think when I would’ve even done it.”

“Yesterday morning, when you and Harriet were standing outside here, and the Chief Inspector was getting into his car.”

Sam thought for a moment, then his brow cleared and he laughed. “Oh, you mean this.”

He made another gesture, close but not exactly what Gamache had shown Beauvoir.

“I was pointing to Harriet and smiling. I think I even winked, so he’d know I was happy, am happy. Being with her makes me happy and I guess I wanted to show him.” Sam heaved a sigh and looked bashful. “I think I want his approval. Pathetic, isn’t it?” He looked up at Jean-Guy. “You know?”

It was a rhetorical question. But yes, Jean-Guy Beauvoir knew.

And Sam had explained it all. Of course that gesture, for a kid his age, would not be a camera. He’d probably never held a real camera in his life. When lunch was over, he’d have to tell Armand that he could relax, at least about that. Sam had not been in their home.

If anyone had violated the Gamaches’ privacy, it was Fiona, though Sam had not thrown his sister under the bus.

The meals arrived. Their steaks were charbroiled and covered in chimichurri sauce. The frites were thin and seasoned. Jean-Guy’s mouth was actually watering.

As Sam moved aside to let the server put down his plate, his phone fell to the floor. He bent to get it, but Jean-Guy beat him to it.

The phone, on recognizing Sam’s face, had popped open revealing a photo. Of Armand and Reine-Marie’s bedroom.

“What the hell is this?” Jean-Guy gripped the phone, practically shoving it in Sam’s face.

Fiona Arsenault guided Harriet out the back door of the B&B and into the garden.

“Come. Sit. What’s wrong?”

They were alone.

“Where’s Sam?” Harriet looked around, hoping, but not hoping, to see him there. Hoping he’d take her in his arms and wipe away her tears. And reassure her. She’d made the right choice.

“He’s having lunch with one of the cops.”

“Gamache?”

“No, the other one. The younger one. Beauvoir.”

Harriet took a few shuddering breaths and calmed herself.

The garden was private and peaceful. The old lilac bushes were thick with blooms, the crab apples were full of bright pink flowers. Some petals had already fallen, creating what looked like pink snow on the grass.

It felt a world away from the turmoil in Harriet’s head.

“I’m thinking of staying here.”

“Of course, but why?”

“My aunt says Sam’s sick. Mentally.”

Fiona smiled. “Well, he’s my brother, so of course I’m going to agree with that.”

Harriet looked at her, then gave one unexpected laugh.

“Brothers,” said Fiona, “are a pain in the ass. And Sam more than most. He’s taking his sweet time growing up. I grew up too quickly. Had to. I can see how people like your aunt, like Monsieur Gamache, might misinterpret Sam’s immaturity. But believe me, he’s okay. He cares a lot about you. You’re the first woman he’s felt that way about.”

“So you don’t think Sam is … unwell?”

“Do you? ’Cause if you do, you really shouldn’t be with him. For your sake, but also for his.”

“No, no, I like him, a lot. I think Auntie Myrna put things in my head.”

“She loves you. She just got the wrong end of the stick. She has a lot of respect for Monsieur Gamache, and for good reason, so she listens to him. And I think there’s a chance she’s overprotective of you. I’m sure she doesn’t mean to keep you away from other relationships. She just enjoys having you to herself.”

That had not occurred to Harriet, but it made sense. Auntie Myrna was clearly, now that she could see it, trying to come between her and Sam. Was she jealous?

“It’s a generational thing,” Fiona continued. “They get scared of anyone who’s a little different. I’m sure they don’t want to hurt you, or Sam. We just have to stick together, and they’ll come around.”

Harriet gripped Fiona’s hand. She hadn’t had that many women friends, that many friends period. Now she saw what she’d been missing.

It looked farcical.

The villagers stood in front of The Paston Treasure, each of them holding a magnifying device to their face.

After inviting them over, Armand had gone into Monsieur Béliveau’s shop. It was a true “general store,” selling everything from fish and oranges to rubber boots and … magnifying glasses.

Clara held her grandmother’s blue enamel opera glasses. Myrna and Billy had their own glasses. Ruth peered through binoculars. No one had the courage, or the will, to ask what she used them for.

Olivier, Gabri, Robert and Sylvie Mongeau, and Reine-Marie each accepted magnifying glasses from Armand.

They were examining something none had noticed before. The small markings that the art conservator had found.

Reine-Marie was the first to lower her magnifier. “They’re everywhere.”

“It’s so strange,” said Gabri. “What do they mean?”

“Don’t you think if he knew,” snapped Ruth, shoving Rosa toward Gamache, “he wouldn’t need us?”

The duck nodded.

Now that they could see them, it seemed, like the roofline and the hidden room, so obvious. These weren’t marks to simulate texture, these were symbols.

“Lots of paintings have hidden messages,” said Clara. “Even the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted an angel essentially giving the pope the finger.”

“And writers do it all the time,” agreed Reine-Marie. “They’re only just now decoding Dickens’s Tavistock letter.”

It was the letter Jérôme Brunel was working on as part of his hobby. Armand still hadn’t heard back from the retired doctor and made a mental note to follow up.

“You know the Voynich manuscript?” Myrna asked Reine-Marie.

“Is that the Jesuit one?” she asked. She had a vague memory of reading about it.

“Right. Voynich was an antiquarian bookseller. In 1912 he bought a collection of books from some Jesuit college, and among them was a manuscript from the 1400s. It’s more than two hundred pages all written in this unknown language, with illustrations and graphs. No one knows who did it, or why. Or what it means.”

“It’s strange that the marks would be put on the elephant,” said Olivier.

“Elephant?” asked Sylvie. “There’s no elephant in the painting, is there?”

“No, I mean the bronze statue. A guest took it from the B&B,” said Gabri. “It was in the attic too, with the same markings etched in. I tried to track down Madame Mountweazel but couldn’t find her.”

“Mountweazel?” said Reine-Marie. “Lillian Virginia Mountweazel?”

They turned to her, amazed.

“Oui,” said Gabri. “You know her? You weren’t even here when she was.”

“Who is she?” asked Armand.

Reine-Marie looked torn between amusement and concern. “She doesn’t exist.”

“Then how do you know her name?” asked Jean-Guy.

“And she does exist,” said Gabri. “We met her.”

“No, I mean the name, Mountweazel. It’s a code too.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sylvie. “Code for what?”

Reine-Marie was quiet for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Years ago, before the internet and electronic ways to investigate intellectual property thefts, publishers would put traps into books. Fictitious entries in reference books, to catch copyright thieves. Lillian Virginia Mountweazel is the most famous.”

“Well,” said Gabri, “famous?”

“Among archivists, yes. She’s almost a folk hero. Lillian Virginia Mountweazel is a fake biographical entry in The New Columbia Encyclopedia. She was described as a fountain designer who died in an explosion while on assignment for Combustibles magazine.”

The minister, Robert Mongeau, was the first to break the silence, with a laugh. Soon the others were chuckling too.

“If something’s called a mountweazel, it means it’s a fraud,” said Reine-Marie.

“Shit,” said Gabri. “I wish you’d been around when she was here.”

“Maybe that’s why she came when she did,” said Sylvie. “So you wouldn’t be here.”

Armand was nodding. It was a thought. And a disturbing one. It meant that someone really was feeding information about his family, their travels, their habits and interests. Someone close.

He was happier than ever that Reine-Marie was going away. Though they had to make sure that person did not know where.

“It’s not that funny,” Gabri said to Ruth, who was still chuckling.

Ruth was staring at the painting through her binoculars.

“It’s not that,” she said, lowering them. “It’s that.” She gestured toward the painting.

“What?” asked Armand.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“For fuck’s sake, you old drunk,” said Gabri. “If it was obvious, we wouldn’t be here.”

“I just said that to you.”

“I know. Do you never listen to yourself?”

He turned to Armand. “She doesn’t see anything in the painting. The duck has a better chance of decoding those marks.”

Rosa nodded. But then, ducks often did. Though they almost never broke codes.

“I see a DVD,” said Ruth.

“So do we.” Olivier waved toward the painting.

“But do you see its title?”

They all leaned forward and brought their magnifiers back up to their faces.

“‘Tire’?” suggested Olivier.

“A movie about a tire?” asked Billy. “Or maybe it means tired? Exhausted?”

“No, ‘tire,’” said Olivier. “French. It means shoot.” He turned to Armand. “Shoot? A gun? Is that the message?”

“My God,” said Ruth. “You’re all idiots. How is it I can see what it says and you can’t?”

“It’s because you’re looking through a telescope,” said Gabri. “You could see the markings on Jupiter with that thing, you old witch.”

“Bitch,” she said to him.

“Children,” said Armand. Though he knew they were not really fighting. This was their own code, baffling, sometimes offensive to others, but their way of showing affection. The more Ruth insulted a person, the more she cared about them.

“‘Tiro,’” said Sylvie Mongeau, then repeated it. “‘Tiro.’ That’s what it says.”

“There,” said Ruth. “She got it.”

“‘Tiro’?” said Myrna. “What does it mean?”

“Those markings?” Ruth pointed Rosa at the painting. “They’re not code. They’re shorthand. Almost no one uses it anymore. Technology has killed it.”

“Video killed the radio star,” Clara said to Gabri.

“The Buggles,” he agreed.

“So what’s Tiro?” asked Robert.

“Tironian notes?” Ruth looked from face to face, skipping by Gabri. “He was Cicero’s secretary?” Again, she looked at them. “Anything? Nothing?”

“Cicero?” said Jean-Guy. “My mother bakes with that.”

“That’s Crisco, numbnuts.”

“Got it,” said Reine-Marie, who’d looked up Tiro on her phone. “He was Cicero’s secretary.”

“I just said that,” said Ruth.

“Part of his job was to write down all of Cicero’s speeches when he spoke in the Roman senate or elsewhere,” Reine-Marie said. “And to take notes at meetings. But Tiro had trouble keeping up, so he invented—”

“Shorthand,” declared Ruth. “It’s all over the damned painting—”

“And the elephant,” said Gabri.

“Holy shit. Sorry,” Jean-Guy said to Robert.

“No need. I’m beginning to agree with you.”

“Do you read shorthand, Ruth?” Armand asked.

“A bit. I worked as a personal assistant for a while.”

“To Cicero,” mumbled Gabri, while the rest of them spent a beat imagining Ruth assisting anyone in anything. Though that could explain the fall of the Roman republic.

“I was trained in Gregg shorthand, this looks like Pitman. Or a combination of the two.”

Armand stepped away and placed a call to Jérôme Brunel.

The code breaker was deeply embarrassed. “I can’t believe I missed that. One of the dangers in what we do. We’re looking for the obscure, expecting it. But if something is simple, we can miss it. We see the forest, but not the trees.”

“Do you know shorthand? Can you translate it?”

“Actually”—Jérôme gave a short laugh—“I don’t, but I can look it up. I’m sure I can work it out.”

“You know,” said Olivier after Armand had hung up, “it’s strange that each of us recognizes something in that room. Gabri and I recognized the elephant. Clara the painting.”

“I recognized the music,” said Robert.

“And Ruth knew Tiro,” said Myrna.

“The hidden room’s in your loft,” Clara said to Myrna.

“I knew the grimoire,” said Reine-Marie. “It’s as though each of the elements is meant for specific people.”

“Except you,” said Ruth, looking at Armand.

Though Gamache was far from sure that was true. There was the sheet music. Had that been put there for him? But it was far from specific. It might have been meant for the minister.

No, if there was something in that painting just for him, he hadn’t yet found it. Like Jérôme, he could see the forest, but not the one specific tree.

Armand placed the call.

“Special Handling Unit,” said the bored voice.

“This is Chief Inspector Gamache of the Sûreté.”

“Yessir.”

Gamache had the call on speakerphone in the car. He could almost see the fellow sit up straight.

“I need to speak to the head guard.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it’s five thirty-five in the morning. He doesn’t come on until nine.”

“Get him on the phone.”

“He’s at home.”

“Then transfer me to his home. Now.” He pulled to the side of the road.

“I’m not allowed—”

“Do it!”

“Yessir.” The rattled guard rattled off the number, then transferred the call.

“What is it?” said the sleepy voice on the line a few rings later.

“This’s Chief Inspector Gamache, of the Sûreté.”

There was a groan and some rustling. “Fucking hell. It’s”—there was a pause as he checked the time—“five forty. Who gave you my number?”

“I need to know about one of your prisoners.”

“Call me at the office after nine. Au revoir.”

“John Fleming.”

The line sounded dead, but Gamache could hear breathing. Sure enough, a moment later the head guard said, “Why?”

“Is he still in the SHU?”

“Of course he is.”

“You don’t have to look him up?”

“You don’t forget or lose track of a prisoner like John Fleming.”

“I’m on my way. Meet me at the SHU in half an hour.”

“It’s five—”

“I know what time it is,” barked Gamache. “Be there.”

“Of course it’s him,” said the warden as they sat in his office. “Look.”

He skidded the file across his desk. Gamache stopped it from sliding right over the edge. He was also trying to keep himself from falling over an edge. He realized that his rage was not helpful. It was also, he knew, rooted in fear. In terror, in fact, that John Fleming was no longer in the SHU. He was out. Somewhere.

And Gamache could guess where.

After confronting the imposter, who refused to speak, Gamache had left the interview room.

“I need to search the prison for Fleming,” he told the head guard. “You need to come with me.”

“But there’re hundreds of inmates.”

Gamache turned on him. “Do you have any idea who John Fleming is? What he’s capable of? What it means if he’s not here?”

“But he is.” The guard gestured toward the closed door of the interview room, where the false Fleming was still chained to the metal table.

“I’ve met Fleming,” snapped Gamache. “I helped put him here. He’s unmistakable. I don’t know who that is”—he gestured angrily toward the door—“but it’s not Fleming.”

“Fine. We’ll look. But it’s a massive waste of time.”

Before starting the search, Gamache called Beauvoir. “You spoke to the warden of the SHU yesterday.”

“Yes,” said Beauvoir. He didn’t tell the Chief he was in the car on his way to the prison, for fear Gamache would order him back to Three Pines.

“Call him again. Tell him to come right away and meet me in his office.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

Gamache told him.

“Fucking—” was as far as Beauvoir got before the line went dead. “—hell.”

“Let’s go,” said Gamache, stuffing the phone back into his jacket pocket.

Through the locked barriers they went. One, two, three doors. They were searched and scanned. Gamache’s phone was taken away. Finally, there was a screech of an alarm as the last barrier between them and bedlam closed. They were locked in.

Gamache had been in any number of prisons, but no other was even remotely like the SHU. It was fairly new but felt ancient and derelict. A ruin.

The very air was heavier here. Denser. As though guilt and gravity had partnered, pressing the weight of the accumulated crimes down on them.

Along the concrete corridor the two of them strode, Gamache looking into the cells, looking into the eyes of every madman in the prison. Many he’d put there. Word spread through the population that Chief Inspector Gamache was there, and an uproar ensued. Men, barely more than beasts, screamed his name. Screamed abuse.

They shook and rattled the bars, dragging anything they could find across them.

The head guard began to breathe heavily, his eyes moving this way and that. Trying to keep himself from panicking.

Prisoners spat as Gamache walked past. They tried to piss on him. But Gamache walked through it all, laser-focused on finding, or not finding, John Fleming.

Halfway through, Jean-Guy arrived.

“What’re you doing here?” Gamache asked, though Jean-Guy detected a note of relief.

“What? You’d be lost without me.”

Around them the air was putrid with threats and sweat and the smell of piss. And worse.

Beauvoir took it all in, then said, “Feels like dinner with Ruth.”

Gamache smiled and held Jean-Guy’s arm, in gratitude for that small respite. Then he said, “Go to the warden’s office. Tell him you need the file on Fleming, but don’t open it. I’ll join you when I’ve finished.”

But instead of moving, Beauvoir just stood there. “Non. I’m staying with you.”

“Inspector Beauvoir—”

“Non. You can fire me, but I’m not leaving. Not this time.”

Jean-Guy Beauvoir, lashed to the mast, would sink or swim with this man. Their fates were bound together, as the winds howled, and the storm descended, and they traveled deeper into Hell.

They looked into each of the cells. Into the faces of any number of lunatics. But not the one they were searching for.

John Fleming was no longer there.

Outside the warden’s office, Gamache turned to the head guard. “How long have you been at the SHU?”

“Two and a half years.”

“That long.” Gamache sighed.

“Do you think Fleming’s been gone since then?” asked Beauvoir.

Gamache nodded. “What happened to the former head guard?”

“He retired.”

“I’m guessing suddenly.”

“Yes.”

“And he moved away?”

“To Florida.”

“Can you get us his address?” asked Beauvoir.

It was clear that the head guard was about to object, to say he’d need the warden’s approval. Then he changed his mind. He’d watched these men be verbally abused. Spat on, almost pissed and shit on. And they kept going.

If they could do that, he could do this. Besides, he was beginning to believe them.

He knew John Fleming. At least, he knew his crimes. He’d familiarized himself with the details of each prisoner when he got the job. And no prisoner was more famous than Fleming.

Like everyone else, the head guard knew the broad strokes of his crimes.

Over the course of seven years, John Fleming had kidnapped and murdered seven people, men and women, young and old. One a year. His victims were completely random, from a clerk at the Hudson’s Bay Company, to a bridge builder, to a fisherman, and more. Each in a different decade of their life.

That he knew. That everyone knew.

What wasn’t said was what this madman had done with the bodies.

On arriving at the SHU, the head guard had read the file. Seen the photos. And then spent every hour of every day wishing he had not.

His job now was to make sure these men stayed behind these iron doors. And none more than Fleming.

It became clear to him that this was not just a job, it was a sacred duty. The Special Handling Unit was filled with murderers, mass murderers, child murderers. Serial killers.

The deranged, the criminally insane, lived out their lives within those walls, waiting for their own deaths. No family, no friends ever came. Not even the Grim Reaper wanted to visit. Many of the inmates lived to a ripe old age. Some were over one hundred years old. Unable to live. Unable to die.

Of all these criminals, John Fleming was the worst. The head guard knew that. And now, standing outside the warden’s office, staring into the deep brown eyes of the head of homicide for the Sûreté du Québec, he’d begun to suspect that the worst had happened.

“I’ll get it for you,” he said.

“Merci.”

With that, the Sûreté officers walked into the warden’s office.

Reine-Marie saw the man looking around, and waved.

The docent at the Norwich Castle Museum waved back and walked across the flagstone floor to greet them.

The castle was a huge cube dropped, nine hundred years earlier, onto the highest point in the city of Norwich. It was now a public space that included an art gallery and museum.

Reine-Marie and a revived Amelia had turned off their cell phones, as per the request on the noticeboard.

“Madame Cloutier?” the smiling guide said.

“Yes, that’s right. And this is my assistant, Amelia Choquet.”

He looked at Amelia as though trying to decide where in the gallery she should be placed.

“My name is Cecil Clarke, I’m the head docent here. I understand you’re interested in The Paston Treasure?”

He gestured for them to follow him.

He was in his late sixties or early seventies, Reine-Marie guessed. Of average height. Slender. His head was shaved close, as many balding men do. He had a trim white beard and cheerful blue eyes.

He sounded mid-Atlantic. Neither British nor North American.

They strolled by glass cases displaying a wide and wild variety of animals, including a polar bear.

Amelia paused to stare at the great auk, then ran to catch up to Madame Gamache and the docent.

“So many mysteries,” Clarke said as they walked through the museum. “It’s captivated people for years.”

“A World of Curiosities,” said Reine-Marie.

“Exactly that. So many secrets. What’s your interest in the painting?”

“I’m writing a paper on it,” Reine-Marie explained. “I’m retired now but spent my life as a historian in Québec. I want to branch out into art history.”

“Well, you couldn’t find a more fascinating place to start than”—they turned a corner—“here.”

And there before them was an immense canvas. The Paston Treasure.

Reine-Marie stood in awe and Amelia actually gasped.

The painting was overwhelming, almost shocking in its display of opulence. And yet it was also deeply human, almost innocent. As though it surprised itself.

“Captivating, isn’t it?” Cecil said, clearly enjoying the reaction. “I’ve studied it for years and am still enthralled.”

“It feels as though we can walk right into it,” said Amelia.

He turned and looked at her with interest. “Yes. I often feel I have. In fact, I play a game with myself. I try to imagine which objects I’d bring with me, to add to those already there. What treasures. Trophies.”

“And what would you?” Reine-Marie asked, keeping her voice light.

“Oh, it changes every day.”

“Today?” she asked.

“Probably a favorite piece of music. Maybe a film, definitely a book. If I could get the great auk in, I would.”

Reine-Marie smiled and returned her gaze to the canvas and said, casually, “It does lend itself to that thought. Do you know of anyone who’s actually done it?”

“Walked into the painting?”

She laughed. “No. I mean made a copy but added some modern touches.”

He considered. “There probably are some, but none I’m aware of.”

She brought out her phone and showed him a photo of the one in the attic. “What do you make of this?”

He stared at it, enlarging the image and moving it about on the screen.

“Now this is a curiosity. How fun.” He looked from her phone to the original, and back. “An interesting choice of modern objects. Did you do this?”

She closed her phone and laughed again. “No. I just found this copy. I actually became interested in The Paston Treasure when a friend invited me to an exhibition here a few years ago. I couldn’t make it, but I looked up the work. Were you here for that show?”

“The one three years ago or so? I’d just arrived. I’m Canadian too, from New Brunswick. Retired.”

“Art history?”

“No. Engineering, actually.”

Harriet and Sam went for a hike through the forest, along the trail that led up to François’s Seat, the highest point of the mountains that surrounded and protected and hid Three Pines from the outside world.

The trail was steep enough to leave her winded.

“Why’s it called François’s Seat?” Sam asked, catching his own breath.

They sat down on sun-warmed boulders and admired the view, which fanned out 360 degrees. From there they felt they could reach out and touch the Green Mountains of Vermont.

“I asked Auntie Myrna once, but she didn’t know.”

The mention of her aunt gave Harriet a pang. Of sadness. Perhaps guilt. She’d turned her back on the woman who’d been an important part of her life all her life in favor of a man she’d just met.

How could that happen, she wondered, that Sam could get so deep into her heart so quickly? And eclipse loved ones?

He seemed to understand her. She wasn’t afraid with him. He’d even shown interest in her odd hobby of collecting bricks, saying he had one himself.

“A hobby?” she’d asked.

“No, a brick. One I’ve had since I was a kid. I’ll show it to you sometime.”

He brought egg salad and peanut butter sandwiches wrapped in a damp dish towel out of his knapsack, and she pulled a large thermos of ice-cold water out of hers. They ate in silence, enjoying the view.

The warmth of the day was hitting the pines and balsams, bringing out the sweet fragrance of their new needles.

Harriet looked over the endless canopy of forest and saw unimaginable beauty. It was enchanting, bewitching. And if you weren’t careful, it would kill you.

A few steps off the path, perhaps to pick up pinecones or look at a wildflower, and you were lost. You’d turn around. And around. And the path would have disappeared.

At first there’d be disbelief, even perhaps mild amusement. And then, as the minutes turned to hours, there’d be a quickly mounting awareness. This was trouble. Then, as the sun went down, anxiety turned to fear turned to panic.

This can’t be happening.

Was that how Anne Lamarque felt when the priest turned her in, as the witnesses against her piled up? As her husband testified about the grimoire? Did her amusement turn to disbelief, turn to panic, turn to terror?

She’d strayed too far from the prescribed path, and this was her punishment.

Harriet looked over the forest and imagined a woman in long, torn skirts and a rough blouse, clutching a shawl to her breast with one hand and a burlap sack with the other.

Anne Lamarque’s face and hands were torn and bloody. Her clothing encrusted with muck and stinking of sweat and piss and shit. Her wild hair was thick with leaves and twigs, as though she were turning into the forest itself.

She finally looked like what she’d been accused of.

Before I was not a witch / But now I am one …

The witch woman was on the run, chased through the wilderness by beasts hungry for her body and demons hungry for her soul.

Every sound became a threat. The howls of the wolves, the scrambling and shrieking of strange creatures, the bright eyes staring at her in the moonlight. Flesh-eating flies buzzed around her head, tormenting her, biting her, driving her mad. Sending her running through the forest, over the edge of the known world and into insanity.

Until she’d finally fallen to her knees. Her head in her hands. Bent over small, like a child who’d seen the closet door drift open in the night. And knew the nightmare was real.

Anne Lamarque surrendered to her fate.

What then? Harriet wondered.

Had Anne heard the soft babble of the river and raised her head? Had she lifted her face from her filthy hands and seen soft light in the sky? Had she seen a clearing just ahead? A meadow with herbs and sweetgrass?

Had she, like so many after her, recognized in this hidden place a home?

Anne Lamarque had defied her tormentors. Instead of being damned, instead of dying, she’d made a home. Here. Found a home here. Built a home here, from stones pulled from the earth, and from trees that once seemed so fearsome, but now offered themselves as shelter.

According to Ruth, two other women eventually found their way to Anne. But Harriet suspected there were more. Many more.

A bouquet of them, perhaps. Young and old. Their common crimes were breasts and a womb. And a mind.

With the help of the grimoire, they survived, built a community where all were welcome. That was the real magic.

“What’re you thinking?” Sam asked, his voice soft, gentle.

“I was thinking that maybe it’s not so bad being a witch.” She glanced down at his knapsack. “What else have you got in there?”

It wasn’t quite empty, and she hoped maybe he’d brought a cake. It was the right shape for a lemon loaf, though it looked too heavy for that.

She reached for it.

The two men sat quietly. One silenced by grief, the other by knowing there were no words.

Armand could not even offer companionship. The man beside him was alone. Standing on an island in some vast ocean, no mainland in sight.

And so Armand sat quietly, also bathed in the brilliant boys. He’d have to leave soon to meet Jean-Guy, but for another few minutes Armand could sit with his friend. And hope and pray that a bridge, or a boat, might one day appear that would take Robert to a place of peace.

“She’s gone.” The words caused the dust caught in the sunshine to swirl about.

“Oui.” Armand waited a moment. Two. Before saying, “Would you like to talk?”

Armand assumed the silence was the answer, but then …

“She was fine when we went to bed.” Robert spoke to the Bible in his hand. “I gave her her meds, then I read to her until she fell asleep.” He continued to stare straight ahead. “We weren’t even halfway through the book.”

It seemed a non sequitur, but Armand understood. It was no longer a book, it had become a symbol.

He remembered finding, at the age of nine, the book his father had been reading. It was on the bedside table with a bookmark where he’d stopped. Where he’d expected to continue. But never did.

Young Armand took the book into his own bedroom and placed it in a drawer. Safe for when they came back. So that his father could pick up the story where he left off.

It had taken Armand more than forty years to finally open the book. He’d sat on the bench above Three Pines, day after day, holding it but not yet daring. And then, one day, he dared.

Armand, a grandfather by then, read to the end, finishing what his father had started. He hoped that one day Robert would too. But the minister did not have forty years to wait for the bridge, or the boat.

Myrna was getting more and more worried. She’d texted Harriet and called. Emailed and sent a WhatsApp.

But no reply.

“I’m sure she’s fine,” said Clara. She was on the stool in front of her easel. Myrna was on the sofa, her bum on the floor and her knees up around her ears. “She’s just ignoring you. She’ll calm down eventually. Give her space.”

“Yeah, maybe. I’m going over to the B&B.” She groaned in an unsuccessful effort to get up.

Clara sighed. “Did you hear a word I just said?”

“I did,” said Myrna, finally rolling off the sofa. “I don’t agree.”

“Look, why don’t you call Gabri. Ask if Harriet’s returned. She’s staying there now, right?”

“Yes.” It was a good idea. As the phone rang, she looked at the painting Clara was working on.

It was a swirl of giddy colors. It looked like a hot mess.

After speaking to Gabri, she hung up and sighed. “She’s back. Harriet and Sam returned to the B&B a few minutes ago. They ordered an early dinner from the bistro.”

“Good,” said Clara, turning back to the canvas. “See? Safe and sound.”

Though Myrna was far from certain that was true.

Chief Inspector Gamache stared at Agent Choquet in disbelief.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I came back to help—”

“You disobeyed orders,” snapped Beauvoir, striding over. Blood was traveling up his cheeks, like a cartoon thermometer. Half of her expected his head to explode. The other half was aware that blood was also mounting her own cheeks.

Beyond Amelia, Armand saw Fiona and Sam walking to the bistro. His mind worked quickly.

“Come with me,” he said to Amelia, then turned to Jean-Guy. “Stay here and make sure Robert is all right. We’ll be at the bistro. You’re armed?”

“Oui.”

“I won’t be long.”

As they walked down the path toward the road and the village green, Amelia could feel the Inspector’s eyes boring into her back.

“You promised,” said the Chief, not looking at her as he strode across the green.

“Pardon?” she said, jogging beside him.

“You said you’d protect Madame Gamache, but you didn’t. You left her.” His voice was soft, calm. It was this very calm that chilled her core.

“Désolée,” she said. “But Madame Gamache—”

He stopped abruptly and turned to her, on her, as she skidded to a halt. “Is not the head of homicide. Madame Gamache does not have the information I have.” The effort to keep his voice down, and keep his anger in check, made the words raspy. “Madame Gamache does not give you orders. Madame Gamache”—he paused, marshaling himself—“must. Be. Protected.”

The Gamaches’ feelings for each other were plain for anyone to see, but in that instant Amelia saw more. She saw into his soul. And there, smiling, her arms open, was Madame Gamache.

And Amelia almost burst into tears, so painful was the thought of one losing the other. And it being her fault.

Madame Gamache had told her to return. To protect her husband.

And Amelia had done it. Partly because Madame Gamache had insisted, and partly because of what she owed this man. But now she realized her great mistake.

If “Désolée” ever described anyone, it was Amelia Choquet at that moment.

“I’ll leave right now,” she said. “I’ll go back up.”

“You’ll stay right here until I tell you to leave.”

Gamache stepped away, turned away, and brought out his phone.

Robert Mongeau was right. While he often told Reine-Marie that he loved her, he hesitated to say that he missed her, out of fear she’d feel guilty when she left to visit family or friends.

He never, ever wanted her to feel that. And so he’d kept that last bit to himself. But now he saw he’d been wrong. Whatever happened, and Armand knew that it would be soon, he wanted nothing left unsaid.

I love you, he typed. I miss you. Terribly.

He erased the “terribly.” Then put it back in and quickly hit send before he spent half the night erasing and adding, erasing and adding that one word. And never sending the message.

Then he turned back to Agent Choquet. “Let’s go.”

Myrna and Clara were standing by their table, and Myrna glanced at Gamache and Choquet when they arrived in the bistro, but her eyes were drawn to Sam Arsenault, who was sitting with his sister.

“Don’t,” said Clara. “You’ll just make it worse.”

But it was too late. Myrna was already on the move.

“Where’s Harriet?” she demanded when she was only halfway across the room.

Seeing her weaving between tables, patrons lurched forward to protect their wineglasses and plates from the juggernaut.

Sam stood up, looking confused. “She’s at the B&B. I thought you knew.”

“Why isn’t she here?”

“She didn’t want to come over. She was afraid to see you. You know her. She hates confrontation.”

“I’ve been texting and calling.”

Fiona stood beside her brother. “She just needs time. We’ve both encouraged her to reach out to you. No one knows better than we do how important family is.”

Myrna glared at Sam, hesitated, then turned to Fiona. “Please, tell her I’m sorry. Ask her to just send an emoji, anything.”

“I will,” said Sam. “Don’t worry. She really is fine.”

“How’s Robert?” Armand asked a few minutes later when Beauvoir joined him in the living room. A vantage point from which they could see both the front door and the French doors into the back garden.

“Last I looked his pupils were slightly dilated, but he roused and knew his name. Oh, and Fiona’s home.”

“You saw her come in?”

“I heard her and checked. She went upstairs to her bedroom. We said good night but that was all.”

Armand had considered telling Fiona she had to stay at the B&B but had decided against it. It would be difficult to justify without giving away their suspicions. Besides, while having her under his roof might be dangerous, not having her there was worse.

At least he knew where she was.

Instead of running the risk of being overheard, Armand and Jean-Guy sat a few feet apart and exchanged texts. Like teens.

We need to lock Robert’s door, in case she tries anything, Armand wrote.

Already done.

Armand looked up and smiled at his second-in-command. Of course it was. Though both knew an inch of wood would not stop Fleming if his goal was a second attack on the minister.

When Mongeau woke up, Gamache would have to have a serious talk with him. What he’d seen or heard. What he knew that had put him and Sylvie in the crosshairs of a killer.

Typing again, Armand sent, You saw the message from the coroner?

Yes. We need a clean sample for Boisfranc.

Agent Choquet’s taking care of that.

Armand’s phone pinged with the message from his agent back in Montréal. The pin showed that Harriet’s phone was in the B&B. Armand forwarded the message to Myrna and got a heart emoji reply.

The worst had happened. Harriet was being eaten alive. Not by animals but from the inside out.

Fear, her lifelong companion, had finally consumed her.

Her body still functioned as she raced wildly through the woods, but she’d lost her mind. She’d become the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion, all rolled into one.

And now even her body was giving up. Soon she’d stop running, stop walking, stop crawling, and just lie still. Waiting for death.

She did not have to wait long. A moment later, Harriet Landers ran right into it.

She fell to the forest floor and stared up.

Death hung suspended above her, arms out, wrists bound. The man’s feet slowly swinging like some gigantic clock pendulum signifying that time was up.

From deep inside Harriet Landers came every shriek she’d ever swallowed. All the fear, the frustrations, the anger and buried resentments. The wounds, the pain, the losses and humiliations. The times she’d been ignored, marginalized, diminished. Judged and found wanting. The parties not invited to, the boys who’d mocked her. The girls who’d left her out.

All her insecurities, loneliness, hurts, and rage from birth to this, her last moment, came rushing out.

There was no reception. No signal. No signal.

Amelia kept stopping to check.

She had to get to the Chief Inspector. She’d seen the message from the coroner telling him that Boisfranc was Fleming. But he wasn’t.

The caretaker, now disemboweled, was one of his victims.

She knew what must’ve happened. The glass she’d picked up from the caretaker’s room had someone else’s DNA. The only other person who used the basement kitchen was the minister, Robert Mongeau.

Could he have done it on purpose? Handling things in the caretaker’s small bedroom so his DNA would be on it and forensics would mistake it for Boisfranc’s? They’d see the match with Fiona and assume Boisfranc was Fleming.

That’s exactly what had happened.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Robert Mongeau was the escaped serial killer. He was in Gamache’s home and the Chief Inspector had no idea.

No signal. No signal.

She and Harriet raced, then stopped. Raced forward through the forest, then stopped to check her phone.

No signal. No …

One bar.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” said Amelia, her hands shaking so badly she could barely hit the right icon for Gamache’s number.

It rang. And rang.

No answer. No answer.

“Ffffffuck.” She called headquarters and spoke to the duty officer. Giving him the information even as she ran.

He already knew. Had received a message from the Chief Inspector minutes ago saying Robert Mongeau, the minister, was John Fleming. Amelia then found the same message on her phone.

Gamache knew, so there was a chance …

But the message said no more. If the Chief Inspector could, he would have issued orders. Instructions. More information.

But there was nothing beyond those few words: Mongeau is Fleming.

Fortunately, Agent Choquet knew exactly where John Fleming was, and she told the duty officer.

“His home?” said the agent, unable to conceal his shock. “The serial killer is in Chief Inspector Gamache’s home?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, shit. I’m sending every agent down and alerting the local detachment. I’ll trace his phone and let you know where the Chief is.”

But Amelia feared it was already too late. Feared what the silence from the Chief Inspector meant. Feared what they would find once there. Not just Gamache, but Beauvoir and Madame Gamache as well.

As soon as she’d gotten to the lake house, Amelia had been told that Madame Gamache had returned to Three Pines. Amelia had immediately rushed back.

Now she could feel the panic rising, threatening to overwhelm her. She tamped it down.

“My aunt,” said Harriet. “We can call her. She can go over.”

“And then what?” They were running again. Tripping, helping each other up. Holding each other’s arms as they ran through the forest toward the car. “If she goes over there, she’ll be killed.”

She’d almost said “too.” Killed too.

“Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit,” said Harriet, as she greeted the month of July.

She got up, stretched, then went for her early-morning run before the day got too hot.

By the time she got back, the villagers had gathered on the bistro terrasse for a late breakfast.

“Happy Canada Day,” said Harriet, kissing her Auntie Myrna on the top of her head.

“You stink,” said Ruth when the young woman sat down beside her.

“Merci,” she said. “And you look like crap.”

Ruth laughed. Then, lifting her middle finger, she waved to Armand and Reine-Marie, who were just stepping off their front veranda, Henri, Fred, and Gracie tumbling after them.

“Welcome home,” Clara called.

After greeting everyone, Armand and Reine-Marie sat down.

“Who’s that?” Harriet pointed to a young man, shirt off, placing logs in a teepee pattern in the firepit on the village green. Ready for the Canada Day bonfire that evening.

“My nephew,” said Billy. “He’s just started working with me.”

They all looked over. The young man was glistening in the mid-morning sun.

While the others turned back, Myrna noticed that Harriet had not. Myrna and Billy exchanged glances. Ahhhh, to have that many pheromones again.

Olivier placed French presses on the table for the Gamaches, along with jugs of hot, frothy milk.

“Merci, mon beau Gabri,” said Reine-Marie. She plunged, then poured the coffee while servers took their orders.

“How was the cabin?” Gabri asked.

It was a delicate way to ask how they were. And, just possibly, to dig for information.

I’m often asked where I get my ideas from. It’s a very good question and one I always feel I should be able to answer. And yet, I struggle.

How can I not know?

I think it’s because there are many ways, some clearer than others. I walk around with a notebook, and for many months before writing a book I observe and listen, taking down turns of phrase, single words, quotes from poems or books, snippets of conversation, or clipped articles from magazines and news reports. I often liken it to a pointillist work of art. Putting a dot of an idea here, another there. Some large, some tiny. Some to do with characters: Armand and Reine-Marie, Jean-Guy, Clara or Myrna, etc. Some are plot points. Some practical, some silly, some intuitive, some nutty. Some destined to become major themes, many destined to be ignored or used in another book. Or used as unexpected inspiration in later drafts.

For A World of Curiosities, I could not tell you exactly where the idea began. Where the major theme of “forgiveness” emerged. I have the feeling it wasn’t really until near the end when I realized how often, unconsciously, the characters struggled with it.

How often I’ve struggled with the need to forgive. To let go.

I’ve loved exploring that theme in this book.

I can tell you exactly when the idea for the painting, The Paston Treasure, hit me. I was in London reading a feature in one of the newsmagazines where prominent people talked about their favorite work of art.

This particular personage said, “The Paston Treasure,” then proceeded to say why. It was a revelation. I’d never heard of it, but what a wealth of ideas for a writer! I knew then it was going to be my Trojan horse that would allow all sorts of clues, all sorts of ideas, themes, references to past books, to enter into the lives of the Three Pines characters.

I’m not sure when the idea came to look at the case that first brought Armand and Jean-Guy together. Until I started writing those scenes I actually had no idea what that case was.

From there it was natural to also consider Armand’s “origin” story. At least, how he came to be in the homicide department. Again, I did not really know how it happened, until I went for a long, long walk. And the idea came to me.

To be honest, it was troubling. To use a real, tragic event—the murders at the École Polytechnique—and fictionalize elements?

I was a young journalist working in Québec City that day. December 6, 1989. I remember going into work early the next morning. I hosted the current affairs program for CBC Radio and needed to try to get clear on what happened at the École Polytechnique before going on air. The reports were still garbled. The researchers did amazing work, and through the morning I interviewed police, students, teachers, politicians. Trying to make sense out of a senseless act.

Fourteen young engineering students murdered. All women.

To my shame I initially believed, and gave airtime to, the politicians (all men) who insisted that this was the work of one lunatic, and not an indictment of society. There was no need to look at institutionalized misogyny. To examine equal rights, or lack of them. To have stronger gun control.

This was sad, a tragedy, but the targeting and murders of fourteen women and the wounding of thirteen others held no greater lesson.

It took me several days to hear, beyond their shouts, the quieter, more insistent, more thoughtful, far-more-compelling arguments of the families of the victims and the survivors.

To believe them when they said that the act was made possible because of hundreds of factors over hundreds of years that diminish, marginalize, sexualize, stigmatize women. It was an act of misogyny, as were the angry denials of the politicians, journalists, and gun advocates.

Yes, even as a woman, a journalist, I was so used to the status quo, it took me far too long to believe what these families, these women, were saying.

The deaths of those young women changed Canadian society. It brought about much stricter gun legislation (though it could be tougher still) and forced a long, hard, often painful examination of equal rights. Of human rights.

In deciding to look at the mass shooting at the École Polytechnique, and the reverberations that have changed Canadian society, I faced another issue.

How to write about this event without turning a tragedy into entertainment?

Before I began, I contacted Nathalie Provost.

Nathalie is one of the survivors who became—along with others, including the remarkable Heidi Rathjen—a passionate, indefatigable proponent for tight gun control, as well as an advocate for human rights that extends beyond equal rights for women.

I asked Nathalie how she felt about me including her and what happened at the École Polytechnique in a Gamache novel. And by necessity, since Nathalie would become a character in the novel and meet Armand, fictionalize elements.

Fortunately, she reads and likes the books. That helped. We corresponded about boundaries, and I said I would send her the final draft. If there was anything she objected to, I would change it. If I got facts wrong, I would either change them, or make it clear here in the acknowledgments where I chose fiction.

The day came when I sent Nathalie the book. Have to admit, I was afraid.

It took a few weeks for her to get back, partly because the École Polytechnique was giving her an honorary doctorate for all her work. An honor well deserved, at a terrible price.

Nathalie was beyond gracious in her comments. She wanted me to make it clear that the first calls for gun control, the first insistence that this was not the random act of a lunatic but the natural and grotesque consequence of widespread and often subtle misogyny, came not from her but from the families, for the most part. Nathalie herself, along with other survivors, was far too traumatized at first to be able to collect her thoughts.

That came later. And when it did, it was seismic. Nathalie, Heidi, and others brooked no dissent. They were articulate, passionate, and unrelenting in their calls for gun control. For equal rights. For human rights. For Québec, for Canada, to take a long, hard, fearless look at itself. And change.

Nathalie also wanted to make it clear that, for her, one of the horrors was when the media blamed the young male students for leaving when the gunman told them to. I remember how those young men were pilloried. Hounded. As though there was anything they could have done. As though the journalists would have rushed an armed man. It was a public hanging of innocent young men.

Nathalie also pointed out that many students stayed behind, hid, and when the shooting stopped they were the first to rush forward to help the wounded and dying. And yet, they got no mention, no credit.

They are heroes.

She also wanted to say that while Canada has strict gun laws, they should be tighter. I agree. Not surprisingly, so does Armand.

And, while the story of the engineering rings in Canada is true, Nathalie said they are actually given out at a special ceremony later. But I decided, for plot reasons, to go with the fiction.

Thank you, Nathalie, for helping me with the book, for being so very gracious, and for so much more than my story. For saving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives with your work with others on gun control.

If I have offended anyone in my use of the shootings at the École Polytechnique, especially the families of the murdered women and the survivors, I apologize. Profoundly and unreservedly.

On the issue of fact versus fiction, I want to point out that Anne Lamarque was a real person, tried as a witch, and accused of owning a grimoire, which she defended as a book on herbs and medicine. In real life she was acquitted and never banished.

Many, many others helped with this challenging book.

I want to thank my assistant, Lise Desrosiers, for always being there for and with me. She has not only made the writing life possible by lifting so much off my shoulders but she makes it huge fun!

Thanks to Linda in Scotland. To Shelagh Rogers. To Danny and Lucy at Brome Lake Books.

Kelley Ragland, my editor at Minotaur Books, along with Andy Martin, Sarah Melnyk, Paul Hochman, and the CEO of Macmillan, Don Weisberg. Thanks to Jo Dickinson and her team at Hodder in the UK; Louise Loiselle, head of Flammarion Québec; David Gernert, my agent; and all the great people at the Gernert Company, especially Rebecca and Will, who do foreign sales. Thank you, Jamie Broadhurst, and the fine folks at Raincoast Books.

Thank you Rocky and Steve, The Hovey Gang, Kirk and Walter, and all my friends and family, who are so generous in their support. What would any of this mean without you?

And I want to thank you, for not only reading the Gamache books but for embracing the characters, the village. Me. I feel it, and it means the world to me. You have given me the most amazing life.

I do want to say that Nathalie Provost is not the only real person in the book.

Inspector Linda Chernin is inspired by Michael and my close friend Linda Chernin Rosenblatt. Linda, I love you.

Agent Hardye Moel is based on my amazing friend, Hardye—you guessed it—Moel. One of the wisest, kindest, funniest, and bravest people, along with her husband, Don, that I know.

Hardye, being a therapist, also helped me with some of those issues in the book. Thank you, Hardye, my love.

Finally, I want to return to the question of where I get the ideas for the books. I mentioned being magpie-like in picking up thoughts, articles, quotes, etc. But there is something else.

I honestly don’t feel I can take full credit for the books. There is, finally, an element of magic, of inspiration that seems to come out of nowhere. I have my own theories about where it comes from. I wanted, at the end of this, the eighteenth novel, to make it clear that in writing the Gamache books there is more than meets the eye. And always has been.

The Madness of Crowds

All the Devils Are Here

A Better Man

Kingdom of the Blind

Glass Houses

A Great Reckoning

The Nature of the Beast

The Long Way Home

How the Light Gets In

The Beautiful Mystery

A Trick of the Light

Bury Your Dead

The Brutal Telling

A Rule Against Murder

The Cruelest Month

A Fatal Grace

Still Life

LOUISE PENNY is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Globe and Mail bestselling series of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels, and coauthor with Hillary Rodham Clinton of the #1 New York Times bestselling thriller State of Terror. She has won numerous awards, including a CWA Dagger and the Agatha Award (eight times), and was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel. In 2017, she received the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian culture. Louise lives in a small village south of Montréal. You can sign up for email updates here.

Excerpts from “Half-hanged Mary,” “Up,” and “Waiting” from Morning in the Burned House: New Poems by Margaret Atwood. In the U.S.: Copyright © 1995 by Margaret Atwood. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. In Canada: Copyright © O. W. Toad. McClelland & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited.

“Twelve Songs: VIII, At last the secret is out,” copyright 1936, 1937, and © renewed 1964 by W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood; from Collected Poems by W. H. Auden, edited by Edward Mendelson. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from Vapour Trails by Marylyn Plessner (2000). Used by permission of Stephen Jarislowsky.