“How long have you been here?” Agent Lacoste asked Pierre.
“Twenty years,” he said.
“That’s a round figure,” Lacoste pointed out. “I need it exact.”
The maître d’ thought. “I came right out of school. It started as a summer job, but I never left.”
He smiled. It was something Lacoste realized she hadn’t seen. He always looked so serious. Granted, she’d only known him for a few hours, after a guest had been brutally murdered in his hotel. Not much opportunity for hilarity. But he smiled now.
It was a charming smile, without artifice. He wasn’t what she’d call an attractive man, not someone you’d pick out at a party or notice across a room. He was slim, medium height, pleasant, refined even. He carried himself well, as though born to be a maître d,’ or a multi-millionaire.
There was an ease about him. He was an adult, she realized. Not a child in adult’s clothing, like so many people she knew. This man was mature. It was relaxing to be around him.
He ran his Manoir in much the same way Chief Inspector Gamache ran homicide. There was order, calm, warmth about the Manoir Bellechasse, radiating from the three adults who ran it, and impressing the young adults who worked there. They learned more than another language from these people, Lacoste knew. Just as she learned more than homicide investigation from Chief Inspector Gamache.
“How long ago did you come here?” she asked again.
“Twenty-four years.” The number surprised him.
“About the same time the chef arrived.”
“Was it?”
“Did you know each other before coming here?” she asked the maître d’.
“Who? Madame Dubois?”
“No, Chef Véronique.”
“Chef Véronique?” He seemed puzzled and suddenly Agent Lacoste understood. She stole a look at the chef, large, powerful, cubing meat with fast, practiced hands.
Her heart constricted as she felt for this woman. How long had she felt this way? Had she lived almost a quarter-century in this log lodge on the edge of Lac Massawippi with a man who didn’t return her feelings? What did that do to a person? And what happened to a love that was spread over time and in such isolation? Did it turn into something else?
Something capable of murder?
“How’re you doing?” Clara put her arms around her husband. He bent down and kissed her. They were dressing for dinner and it was their first chance to talk.
“It seems incredible,” Peter said, flopping into a chair, exhausted. Beauvoir had dropped off the suitcase from Gabri but it was filled with underwear, socks, Scotch and potato chips. No real clothes.
“We might as well have asked W. C. Fields to pack,” Peter said, as they sat eating chips and drinking Scotch in their clean underwear. But, actually, it felt good.
Clara had found a Caramilk bar Gabri had thrown into their case and now ate it, discovering that it really went quite well with Scotch.
“Peter, what do you think Julia was getting at last night when she said she’d figured out your father’s secret?”
“She was ranting. Trying to cause an upset. It meant nothing.”
“I don’t know.”
“Honestly, Clara, let it go.” Peter got up and rummaged through their own carrying case. He pulled out the shirt and slacks he’d worn the night before. Unfortunately they’d scrunched up their clothes and shoved them into the overnight case, expecting not to need them again.
“Thank God Armand Gamache is here,” said Clara, eyeing her powder-blue linen dress, her good one. It looked like seersucker.
“Yeah, what luck.”
“What’s the matter?”
He turned to her, his hair mussed, his clothing dishevelled. “Someone killed Julia. And Gamache will find out.”
“Let’s hope.”
They stared at each other, not with strain or animosity, but each waiting for the other to explain.
“Oh, I understand,” said Clara. And she did. Armand Gamache would find out who killed Peter’s sister. How had she not thought of this earlier? She’d been caught on the barbed hook of Julia’s murder, thrashing over that shocking event. She hadn’t looked beyond why. To who.
“I’m so sorry.” Her normally composed, immaculate husband was falling apart. His stuffing seemed to be coming out. She looked at Peter, trying to find his necktie in the bottom of their case.
“Found it.” He held it up. It looked like a noose.
A few doors away Marianna Morrow gazed at her reflection. Yesterday she’d seen a free spirit, a creative, dashing, age-defying woman. Amelia Earhart and Isadora Duncan bound together, before they crashed to earth, of course. Marianna flung her scarf once more round her throat and gave it a little tug. Just to see how being throttled might feel.