A Rule Against Murder

“No.” Patenaude looked at Gamache. They both looked very different from less than an hour ago, on the roof. The fear was gone from Gamache’s deep brown eyes, and the rage from Patenaude’s. Now they were two tired men, trying to understand. And be understood. “When I first realized who she was I felt kind of numb, but as the days passed I just got angrier and angrier. Her perfect nails, her styled hair, her teeth.”

Teeth? thought Beauvoir. He’d heard many motives for murder, but never teeth.

“Everything so perfect,” the maître d’ continued. As he spoke his voice sharpened and sculpted the gentle man into something else. “Her clothes, her jewelry, her manners. Friendly but slightly condescending. Money. She shouted money. Money my father should have had. My mother.”

“You?” Beauvoir asked.

“Yes, even me. I got more and more angry. I couldn’t get at Martin, but I could get her.”

“And so you killed her,” said Gamache.

Patenaude nodded.

“Didn’t you know who he was?” Beauvoir asked, pointing at the Chief Inspector. “You killed someone right in front of the head of homicide for Quebec?”

“It couldn’t wait,” said Patenaude, and they all knew the truth of it. It had waited too long. “Besides, I knew you’d come eventually. If you were already here it didn’t much matter.”

He looked at the Chief Inspector. “You know, all David Martin had to do was say he was sorry. That’s all. My father would have forgiven him.”

Gamache got up. It was time to face the family. To explain all this. At the door to the dining room he turned and watched as Pierre Patenaude was led through the back door and into a waiting Sûreté vehicle. Chef Véronique and Madame Dubois stared out of the screen door as it clacked shut behind him.

“Do you think he would have really thrown Bean off the roof?” Beauvoir asked.

“I believed it then. Now, I don’t know. Perhaps not.”

But Gamache knew it was wishful thinking. He was only glad he was still capable of it. Beauvoir stared at the large, still man in front of him. Should he tell him? He took a breath, and walked into the unknown.

“I had the strangest feeling when I saw you on the roof,” he said. “You looked like a Burgher of Calais. You were frightened.”

“Very.”

“So was I.”

“And yet you offered to come with me.” Gamache cocked his head slightly to one side. “I remember. And I hope you remember, always.”

“But the Burghers died, and you didn’t.” Beauvoir laughed, trying to break the unbearable moment.

“Oh, no. The Burghers didn’t die,” said Gamache. “Their lives were spared.”

He turned back to the door into the dining room, and said something Beauvoir didn’t quite catch. It might have been merci. Or mercy. Then he was gone. Beauvoir put out his hand to shove the swinging door and follow the chief, but hesitated. Instead he walked back to the table where the women stood still staring out of the back door and into the woods.

In the dining room he could hear raised voices. Morrow voices. Demanding answers, demanding attention. He needed to join the Chief Inspector. But he needed to do something first.

“He could have let them die, you know.”

The two women turned slowly to look at him.

“Patenaude, I mean,” Beauvoir continued. “He could have let Chief Inspector Gamache and Bean die. But he didn’t. He saved their lives.”

And Chef Véronique turned to face him then with a look he’d longed for, but no longer needed. And inside he felt a deep calm, as though some old debt had been paid.

THIRTY-ONE

“Paradise lost,” said Chief Inspector Gamache, taking his place, naturally, at the center of the gathering, a raised hand hushing the Morrows. “To have it all and to lose it. That’s what this case was about.”

The room was packed with the Manoir staff, police officers and volunteers. And Morrows. Reine-Marie had hurried over from Three Pines when she heard what had happened and was sitting quietly off to the side.

“What’s he talking about?” whispered Sandra loudly.

“A poem by John Milton,” said Mrs. Finney, sitting upright next to her husband. “It’s about the devil being cast out of heaven.”

“That’s right,” said Gamache. “The fall from grace. The tragedy in Milton’s poem was that Satan had it all and didn’t realize it.”

“He was a fallen angel,” said Mrs. Finney. “He believed it was better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. He was greedy.” She looked at her children.