A Rule Against Murder

“Tell us,” said Gamache.

“You have to dig down at least six feet around here when you do construction, below the frost line. If you don’t, whatever you build will heave when the ground thaws in the spring. Get it?”

Gamache understood what the worker had meant about his boss. The man was a natural lecturer, though not a natural teacher.

“Madame Dubois at the Manoir never does anything unless it’s done right. I like that. I’m the same way myself. And she knows a thing or two about building.” It was his highest compliment.

“So what did you do?” asked Beauvoir.

“Keep your condom on, voyons. I’m getting there. She asked us to put in sona tubes so that the statue wouldn’t fall over, so we did. That was about a month ago. The thing hasn’t even been through a winter yet. Couldn’t have shifted.”

“You sunk the shafts,” said Beauvoir, “then what?”

A murder investigation, thought Beauvoir, was for the most part asking “then what happened?” over and over. And listening to the answers, of course.

“We poured the concrete, waited a week. It set. Then we put down that damned base, and yesterday I put the statue on. Huge fucking thing. Had to lift it carefully.”

The men were treated to a fifteen-minute explanation of how hard his job was. Beauvoir replayed the baseball game from the night before, thought about whether his wife would be angry again about his being away from home, had a small argument with the caretaker of his building.

Gamache listened.

“Who was there when you placed the statue?”

“Madame Dubois and that other fellow.”

“Pierre Patenaude?” asked Gamache. “The maître d’?”

“Don’t know who he was. In his forties, dark hair, overdressed. Must have been dying in the heat.”

“Anyone else?”

“Lots of people came by to see. Couple of kids were working in the gardens and watching. The hard part is getting it on right. Don’t want it facing the wrong way.” The operator laughed then launched into another five-minute monologue about positioning. Beauvoir treated himself to a fantasy involving Pierre Cardin and a shopping spree in Paris. But that got him thinking about the men of Calais, and that got him thinking about Charles Morrow and that brought him back to this long-winded bore.

“. . . put the canvas thing over him that Madame Dubois gave me, and left.”

“How could the statue have come off the pedestal?”

Gamache asked the question as he might ask any, but everyone in the room knew it was the key question. The operator shifted his gaze to the statue, then back.

“The only way I know is with a machine.” He was unhappy with his answer, and looked guilty. “I didn’t do it.”

“We know you didn’t,” said Gamache. “But who did? If it wasn’t done by a machine then how?”

“Maybe it was,” said the operator. “There coulda been a crane there. Not mine, but someone else’s. Maybe.”

“It’s a possibility,” said Gamache, “but I suspect Julia Martin would have noticed.”

They nodded.

“What did you think of the statue?” Gamache asked. Beauvoir looked at him with amazement. Who the hell cares what the crane operator thinks? Might as well ask the fucking pedestal.

The crane operator also looked amazed, but he thought about it.

“Wouldn’t want it in my garden. Kinda sad, you know? I prefer happy things.”

“Like pixies?” asked Beauvoir.

“Sure, pixies or fairies,” the crane operator said. “People think they’re the same, but they’re not.”

Dear God, not a lecture on pixies and fairies.

Gamache shot Beauvoir a warning look.

“Course, the bird helped.”

The bird?

Gamache and Beauvoir looked at each other.

“What bird, monsieur?” asked Gamache.

“The one on his shoulder.”

His shoulder?

The crane operator saw their confusion.

“Yeah, up there.” He stalked across the floor, his muddy boots thudding on the concrete. Stopping at the statue he pointed.

“I can’t see anything,” said Beauvoir to Gamache, who also shook his head.

“You got to be close to see it,” said the crane operator, looking around the garage. Spotting a ladder he brought it over and Beauvoir climbed.

“He’s right. There’s a bird drawn here,” he called down.

Gamache sighed silently. He’d hoped the crane operator had hallucinated. But no. There had to be a bird and it couldn’t be on Morrow’s foot. Beauvoir descended and Gamache stared at the ladder, knowing he had to see for himself.