And it had.
Old separated himself from the dark forest and approached the cabin, approached the elderly man. The Hermit backed into the cabin and said only one thing.
“Woo,” he whispered. “Woo.”
Old picked up the silver menorah and struck. Once. And into that blow he put his childhood, his grief, his loss. He put his mother’s sorrow and his sister’s longing. The menorah, weighed down with that, crushed the Hermit’s skull. And he fell, Woo clutched in his hand.
Old didn’t care. No one would find the body except Olivier and he suspected Olivier would say nothing. He liked the man very much, but knew him for what he was.
Greedy.
Olivier would take the treasure and leave the body and everyone would be happy. A man already lost to the world would be slowly swallowed by the forest. Olivier would have his treasure, and Old would have his life back.
His obligation to his father discharged.
“It was the first thing I ever made,” said Old. “I whittled Woo and gave it to my father. After he died I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore so I put it in the sack. But I brought it out that night. One last time.”
Old Mundin turned to his family. All his energy spent, his brilliance fading. He placed his hand on his sleeping son’s back and spoke.
“I’m so sorry. My father taught me everything, gave me everything. This man killed him, shoved him onto the river in spring.”
Clara grimaced, imagining a death like that, imagining the horror as the ice began to crack. As it did now beneath The Wife.
Jean-Guy Beauvoir went to the bistro door and opened it. Along with a swirl of snow two large Sûreté officers entered.
“Can you leave us, please?” Beauvoir asked of the villagers, and slowly, stunned, they put their winter coats on and left. Clara and Peter took The Wife and Charles back to their home, while Inspector Beauvoir finished the interview with Old Mundin.
An hour later the police cars drew away, taking Old. Michelle accompanied him, but not before stopping at the inn and spa to hand Charles over to the only other person he loved.
The asshole saint. Dr. Gilbert. Who tenderly took the boy in his arms and held him for a few hours, safe against the bitter cold world pounding at the door.
“Hot toddy?”
Peter handed one to Beauvoir, who sat in a deep, comfortable chair in their living room. Gabri sat on the sofa in a daze. Clara and Myrna were also there, drinks in their hands, in front of the fireplace.
“What I don’t get,” said Peter, perching on an arm of the sofa, “is where all those amazing antiques came from in the first place. The Hermit stole them and took them into the woods, but where did Old’s father get them to begin with?”
Beauvoir sighed. He was exhausted. Always happier with physical activity, it constantly amazed him how grueling intellectual activity could also be.
“For all that Old Mundin loved his father, he didn’t know him well,” said Beauvoir. “What kid does? I think we’ll find that Mundin made some trips to the Eastern Bloc, as communism was falling. He convinced a lot of people to trust him with their family treasures. But instead of keeping them safe, or sending people the money, he just disappeared with their treasures.”
“Stole them himself?” Clara asked.
Beauvoir nodded.
“The Hermit’s murder was never about the treasure,” said Beauvoir. “Old Mundin could care less about it. In fact, he came to hate it. That’s why it was left in the cabin. He didn’t want the treasure. The only thing he took was the Hermit’s life.”
Beauvoir looked into the fire and remembered his interrogation of Old, in the deserted bistro, where it had all begun months ago. He heard about the death of Mundin’s father. How Old’s heart had broken that day. But into that crack young Old had shoved his rage, his pain, his loss but that wasn’t enough. But once he placed his intention there his heart beat again. With a purpose.
When Olivier had been arrested Old Mundin had wrestled with his conscience, but had finally decided this was fate, this was Olivier’s punishment for greed, for helping a man he knew very well was at best a thief and at worst, worse.
“You play the fiddle?” Beauvoir had asked Old, when they were alone in the bistro, after the others had left. “I understand you perform at the Canada Day picnics?”
“Yes.”
“Your father taught you that too?”
“He did.”
Beauvoir nodded. “And he taught you about antiques and carpentry and restoration?”
Old Mundin nodded.