A Rule Against Murder

Beauvoir thought he knew the kinds of homes she designed. Ones that impressed, that were all gaudy and shiny and big. Loud homes, that no one could actually live in.

“What else don’t you tell them?”

She paused and looked around then leaned forward.

“Bean.”

“Your child?”

She nodded.

“What about Bean?” Beauvoir’s pen hovered over his notebook.

“I haven’t told them.”

“Who the father is?” He’d broken the cardinal rule of interrogation. He’d answered his own question. She shook her head and smiled.

“Of course I haven’t told them that. There’s no answer to that,” she said cryptically. “I haven’t told them what Bean is.”

Beauvoir felt himself grow cold.

“What is Bean?”

“Exactly. Even you don’t know. But sadly Bean’s nearing puberty and soon it’ll be obvious.”

It took a moment for Beauvoir to appreciate what she meant. He dropped his pen and it rolled off the table to the carpeted floor.

“You mean you haven’t told your family if Bean’s a boy or girl?”

Marianna Morrow nodded and took a long pull on her spruce beer.

“It actually doesn’t taste too bad. I guess you can get used to anything.”

Beauvoir doubted it. For fifteen years he’d been with the Chief Inspector, investigating murders, and he’d never gotten used to the insanity of the Anglos. It seemed bottomless, and purposeless. What kind of creature kept the sex of her child a secret?

“It’s my little homage to my upbringing, Inspector. Bean is my child and my secret. I can’t tell you how good it feels in a family of know-it-alls to know something they don’t.”

Fucking Anglos, thought Beauvoir. If he tried that his mother’d thrash him with a rolling pin.

“Can’t they just ask Bean themselves?”

She roared with laughter, speckles of tomato hitting the pine table in front of him.

“Are you kidding? A Morrow ask a question? Admit ignorance?” She leaned forward conspiratorially and despite himself Beauvoir leaned forward to meet her. “That’s the brilliance of this. Their own arrogance is my best weapon.”

Beauvoir leaned back, then. Repulsed. How can a woman, a mother, do such a thing? His own mother would die for him, would kill for him. It was natural. This thing in front of him was unnatural.

“And what will you do when it’s no longer a secret, mademoiselle? When Bean hits puberty, or volunteers the information one day?” He was damned if he was going to ask Bean’s sex. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of admitting he cared.

“Well, I always have Bean’s name to torture her with.”

“Her?”

“My mother.”

Beauvoir could barely look at this woman, who’d given birth to a biological weapon aimed at her mother. He was beginning to think the wrong Morrow was murdered.

“Why would someone want to kill your sister?”

“By someone you mean one of us, don’t you?”

It wasn’t actually a question and now Beauvoir chose to stay quiet.

“Don’t look at me. I didn’t know her enough to kill her. She’d been gone for thirty years or more. But I can tell you one thing, Inspector. She could put as much distance between herself and us as she wanted, but she was still a Morrow. Morrows lie, and Morrows keep secrets. It’s our currency. Don’t trust them, Inspector. Don’t trust a word they say.”

It was the first thing she’d said he’d no trouble believing.

“Julia had a falling out with Father,” said Peter. “I don’t know what it was about.”

“Weren’t you curious?” asked Gamache. The two tall men had walked down the wet lawn of the Bellechasse and stopped at the shoreline. They looked onto the slate-gray lake and the mist that obscured the far shore. The birds were out, looking for insects, and every now and then a haunting loon called across the lake.

Peter smiled tightly. “Curiosity wasn’t something rewarded in our home. It was considered rude. It was rude to ask questions, rude to laugh too loud or too long, rude to cry, rude to contradict. So, no, I wasn’t curious.”

“So she left home when she was in her early twenties. Thomas would have been a couple of years older and you were?”

“Eighteen,” said Peter.

“That’s precise.”

“I’m a precise man, as you know,” said Peter, this time with a genuine smile. He was beginning to breathe again, feel himself again. He looked down and was surprised to see crumbs on his shirt. He batted them off. Then he picked up a handful of pebbles. “Julia would have loved today,” he said, skimming the stones.