A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2)

‘And the teachers?’ Gamache asked.

Nichol shook her head. ‘But there was something interesting. The tuition cheque bounced a few times. So I looked into their finances. Seems CC and her husband were living way beyond their means. In fact, they were a couple of months away from complete disaster.’

‘Was CC insured?’ Beauvoir asked.

‘For two hundred thousand dollars. Richard Lyon comes from a modest background. Gained a degree in engineering from Waterloo but never achieved professional status. Went to work at his current job eighteen years ago. He’s a kind of low-level manager. Organizes schedules. An under-achiever. He makes forty-two thousand a year, clears thirty. She hasn’t seen a profit in the six years she’s had her company. Does small interior design jobs here and there, but seems to have spent most of the last year writing the book and coming up with her own line of household items. Here.’ Nichol tossed a catalogue onto the table. ‘That’s the prototype for the catalogue she was planning to put out, the one the photographer was working on, I guess.’

Beauvoir grabbed it. Li Bien soaps, Serenity coffee mugs, Be Calm bathrobes.

‘CC had lined up a meeting for next week with Direct Mail Inc.,’ Nichol continued. ‘It’s the biggest marketer of catalogue items in the United States. She was planning to sell them on her line. If she had, it would have been huge.’

‘What do they say?’ Isabelle Lacoste asked.

‘I have a call in to them,’ said Nichol, a smile she hoped said thank you for asking on her face.

‘Any word from the lab on those pictures he took at the curling?’ Beauvoir asked Lacoste.

‘I’ve sent an agent to get the negatives developed. Should hear soon.’

‘Good,’ said Gamache, then told them about niacin, The Lion in Winter, and Psalm 46:10.

‘So who’s CC’s mother?’ Beauvoir asked the key question.

‘There’re a few women in Three Pines who’re the right age,’ said Lacoste. ‘Émilie Longpré, Kaye Thompson, and Ruth Zardo.’

‘But only one of them has the initial L,’ said Agent Lemieux, speaking for the first time. He was watching Agent Nichol closely. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t like her, didn’t like her sudden appearance and certainly didn’t like this newfound camaraderie with Inspector Beauvoir.

‘I’ll check them out,’ said Lacoste, and the meeting broke up.

Gamache reached for the wooden box on his desk, turning it over automatically to stare at the letters stuck to the bottom.

‘What’s that?’ Beauvoir pulled up a chair beside the chief.

‘A piece of evidence from another case,’ said Gamache, handing it to Beauvoir. As he took it Gamache suddenly had the impression Beauvoir would be able to see something he hadn’t. He’d look at the letters on the outside and inside and put it all together. Gamache watched the Inspector handle the box.

‘One of your Christmas cases?’

Gamache nodded, not wanting to break Beauvoir’s concentration.

‘Collected letters? What a nutcase.’ He handed the box back to Gamache.

Well, so much for intuition.

As he left Gamache bent down and spoke to Lacoste. ‘Add Beatrice Mayer to your list.’

The curling stone thundered down the rough ice and hit the rock at the far end with a huge bang that moments later bounced off the hills surrounding Lac Brume. It was a bitterly cold morning, the coldest of the winter so far and the mercury still falling. By midday their flesh would freeze in seconds. The sun, teasing them with light but no warmth, hit the snow and magnified, blinding anyone not wearing dark glasses.

Billy Williams had cleared the curling surface on Lac Brume for them, and now he, Beauvoir, Lemieux and Gamache watched tiny Émilie Longpré straighten up, her breath coming out in jagged puffs.

Not long, thought Gamache. We’ll have to get her in soon before she freezes. Before we all do.

‘Your turn,’ she said to Beauvoir, who’d been watching her with polite attention. Curling was not to be taken seriously. As Beauvoir crouched and stared at the other end of the ice, twenty-five feet away, he could see where this was going. He’d astonish them with his natural ability. Soon he’d be fighting off pleas to join the Canadian Olympic curling team. He’d turn them down, of course, too embarrassed to be associated with such a ridiculous pastime. Though maybe, when he could no longer do any real sports, he’d consider joining the Olympic curling team.

Clara slipped into the claw-foot tub. She was still pissed off at Peter for dumpster diving, but was beginning to feel better. She slid down into the hot scented water, her toes playing with lumps of herbal bath, a Christmas gift from Peter’s mother. She knew she should call to thank her, but that could wait. His mother insisted on calling her Clare and up until this year had given her cooking gifts. Books, pans, an apron once. Clara hated cooking and suspected Peter’s mother knew it.