How the Light Gets In

“Dead.”

Myrna tilted her head at the Chief. “Pardon?”

“Virginie,” said Gamache. “She died in her early twenties.”

“Of course. I forgot.” She scoured her memory. “It was an accident, wasn’t it? Car? Drowning? I can’t quite remember. Something tragic.”

“She fell down the stairs at the home they shared.”

Myrna was quiet for a moment before she spoke. “I don’t suppose it was more than that? I mean, twenty-year-olds don’t normally just fall down stairs.”

“What a suspicious mind you have, Madame Landers,” said Gamache. “Constance and Hélène saw it happen. They said she lost her footing. There was no autopsy. No obituary notice in the paper. Virginie Ouellet was quietly buried in the family plot in Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu. Someone at the mortuary leaked the news a few weeks later. There was quite a public outpouring of grief.”

“Why hush up her death?” asked Myrna.

“From what I gather, the surviving sisters wanted to grieve in private.”

“Yes, that would fit,” said Myrna. “You said, ‘They said she lost her footing.’ There seems a bit of a qualifier there. They said it, but is it true?”

Gamache smiled slightly.

“You’re a good listener.” He leaned forward so that they looked at each other across the coffee table, their faces half in the firelight, half in darkness. “If you know how to read police reports and death certificates, there’s a lot in what isn’t said.”

“Did they think she might’ve been pushed?”

“No. But there was a suggestion that while her death was an accident, it wasn’t altogether a surprise.”

“What do you mean?” asked Myrna.

“Did Constance tell you anything about her sisters?”

“Only in general terms. I wanted to hear about Constance’s life, not her sisters’.”

“It must have been a relief for her,” said Gamache.

“I think it was. A relief and a surprise,” said Myrna. “Most people were only interested in the Quints as a unit, not as individuals. Though, to be honest, I didn’t realize she was a Quint until about a year into therapy.”

Gamache stared at her and tried to contain his amusement.

“It isn’t funny,” said Myrna, but she too smiled.

“No,” agreed the Chief, wiping the smile from his face. “Not at all. Did you really not know she was one of the most famous people in the country?”

“OK, so here’s the thing,” said Myrna. “She introduced herself as Constance Pineault and mentioned her family, but only in response to my questions. It didn’t occur to me to ask if she was a quintuplet. I almost never asked that of my clients. But you didn’t answer my question. What did you mean when you said the youngest Quint’s death was an accident but not a surprise?”

“The youngest?” asked Gamache.

“Well, yes…” Myrna stopped herself and shook her head. “Funny that. I think of the one who died first—”

“Virginie.”

“—as the youngest, and Constance as the oldest.”

“I suppose it’s natural. I think I do too.”

“So, Chief, why wasn’t Virginie’s death such a surprise?”

“She wasn’t diagnosed or treated, but it seems Virginie almost certainly suffered from clinical depression.”

Myrna inhaled slowly, deeply, then exhaled slowly, deeply. “They thought she killed herself?”

“It was never said, not so clearly, but the impression I got was that they suspected it.”

“Poor one,” said Myrna.

Poor one, thought Gamache, and was reminded of the police cars on the Champlain Bridge and the woman who’d jumped to her death the morning before. Aiming for the slushy waters of the St. Lawrence. How horrible must the problem be when throwing yourself into a freezing river, or down a flight of stairs, was the solution?

Who hurt you once, he thought, looking at the photo of the newborn Virginie on the harvest table, crying next to her sisters, so far beyond repair?

“Did Constance tell you anything about her upbringing?”

“Almost nothing. She’d taken a big step in admitting who she was, but she wasn’t ready to talk about the details.”

“How did you even find out she was one of the Ouellet Quints?” asked Gamache.

“Wish I could say it was my remarkable insight, but I think that ship has sailed.”