A Rule Against Murder

Gamache had ordered the crime scene team to withdraw until after Mrs. Finney had seen her daughter. Now they stood in a semicircle on the verge of the forest watching as the elderly woman, so tiny and pink, walked toward the hole in the ground.

As Mrs. Finney approached she saw only the gaily fluttering police ribbon. Yellow. Julia’s favorite color. She’d been the feminine one, the daughter who’d loved dressing up, loved make-believe and makeup, loved the shoes and the hats. Loved the attention.

She saw then the semicircle of men and women in the forest, watching. And above them the bruised and swollen sky.

Poor Julia.

Irene Finney slowed as she approached. She wasn’t a woman who understood the void, who’d given it any thought. But she knew, too late, she should have. She knew then that the void wasn’t empty at all. Even now, steps away, she could hear the whisper. The void wanted to know something.

What do you believe?

That’s what filled the void. The question and the answer.

Irene Finney stopped, not ready yet to face what she must. She waited for Bert. Not looking but sensing him there she took another step. One more and she’d see.

She hesitated then took it.

What she saw skipped her eyes completely and lodged right in her chest. In an instant she was pitched forward, beyond grief, into a wilderness where no anguish, no loss, no passion existed.

She heaved a breath up out of herself. Then another.

She used that breath to whisper the only prayer she could remember.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”

She saw Julia’s hands outstretched. She saw the fingers, pudgy and wet, grasping her thumb in the bath in the old kitchen sink, in their very first apartment. Her and Charles. Charles, what have you done?

“If I should die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

She offered the vesper to the void, but it was too late. It had taken Julia and now it took her. She looked up into the faces of the semicircle, but they’d changed. They were flat, like a reproduction. Not real at all. The forest, the grass, the Chief Inspector beside her, even Bert. All gone. Not real any more.

What do you believe?

Nothing.

Gamache walked them inside, remaining silent, respecting her need to be with her own thoughts. Then he returned to find the crane had arrived.

“Here comes the coroner.” Lacoste nodded to a woman in her early thirties wearing slacks, a light summer shell and rubber boots.

“Dr. Harris.” Gamache waved then turned back to watch the removal of the statue.

Beauvoir directed operations, batting away blackflies. It was confusing for the crane operator who mistook his flailing for directions and twice almost dropped the statue back onto Julia Martin.

“Fucking bugs,” snarled Beauvoir, looking around at the rest of the team, working away steadily and methodically. “Isn’t anyone else bothered? Christ.” He whacked himself on the side of the head trying to crush a deerfly. He missed.

“Bonjour.” Gamache inclined his head toward the coroner. Sharon Harris smiled a small greeting. She knew how the Chief Inspector preferred decorum at the site of a murder, especially in the presence of the corpse. It was rare. Most murder scenes were filled with smart-ass and often gruesome comments, made by men and women frightened by what they saw, and believing sarcasm and rude remarks kept the monsters at bay. They didn’t.

Chief Inspector Gamache chose men and women for his team who might also be afraid, but had the courage to rise above it.

Standing beside him and watching the statue sucked from the ground, and the woman, she caught the slight aroma of rosewater and sandalwood. His scent. She turned and watched the Chief Inspector for a moment, his strong face in profile. At rest, but watchful.

There was an old-world courtliness about him that made her feel she was in the company of her grandfather, though he was only twenty years older than her, if that. Once the statue was hovering over the flatbed truck Dr. Harris put on her gloves and moved in.

She’d seen worse. Far worse. Horrible deaths that could never be avenged because there was no fault, except fate. This might be one, she thought, as she looked at the mangled body, then back at the statue. Then at the pedestal.

Kneeling down she examined the wounds.

“I’d say she’s been dead twelve hours, maybe more. The rain makes it more difficult, of course.”

“Why’s that?” Lacoste asked.

“No bugs. The amount and type of insect help tell us how long a person’s been dead. But the heavy rain kept the bugs home. They’re like cats. Hate the rain. Now after the rain . . .”