Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1)

‘Who are the executors of her estate?’ Gamache asked, taking the blow to their investigation in his stride, but inwardly cursing. Something wasn’t right, he felt. Maybe it’s just your pride, he thought. Too stubborn to admit you were wrong and this elderly woman quite understandably left her home to her only living relative.

‘Ruth Zardo, nee Kemp, and Constance Hadley, née Post, known, I believe, as Timmer.’

The list of names troubled Gamache, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. Was it the people themselves? he wondered. The choice? What?

‘Had she made other wills with you?’ Beauvoir asked.

‘Yes. She’d made a will five years before this one.’

‘Do you still have a copy of it?’

‘No. Do you think I have space to keep old documents?’

‘Do you remember what was in it?’ Beauvoir asked, expecting to get another defensive, snippy, answer.

‘No. Do you—’ but Gamache headed him off.

‘If you can’t remember the exact terms of the first will can you perhaps remember, in broad strokes, her reasons for changing it five years later?’ Gamache asked in as reasonable and friendly a tone as possible.

‘It’s not unusual for people to make wills every few years,’ said Stickley, and Gamache was beginning to wonder if this slightly whiny tone was just his way of speaking. ‘Indeed, we recommend that clients do this every two to five years. Of course,’ said Stickley, as though answering an accusation, ‘it’s not for the notarial fee, but because situations tend to change every few years. Children are born, grandchildren come, spouses die, there’s divorce.’

‘The great parade of life.’ Gamache jumped in to stop the parade.

‘Exactly.’

‘And yet, Maître Stickley, her last will is ten years old. Why would that be? I think we can assume she made this one because the old one was no longer valid. But,’ Gamache leaned forward and tapped the long thin document in front of the notary, ‘this will is also out of date. Are you certain this is the most recent?’

‘Of course it is. People get busy and a will is often not a priority. It can be an unpleasant chore. There are any number of reasons people put them off.’

‘Could she have gone to another notary?’

‘Impossible. And I resent the implication.’

‘How do you know it’s impossible?’ Gamache persevered. ‘Would she necessarily tell you?’

‘I just know. This is a small town and I would have heard.’ Point finale.

As they were leaving, a copy of the will in hand, Gamache turned to Nichol, ‘I’m still not convinced about this will. I want you to do something.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Nichol was suddenly alert.

‘Find out if this is the latest copy. Can you do that?’

‘Absolument.’ Nichol practically levitated.

‘Hello,’ Gamache called, poking his head through the door of Arts Williamsburg. After they’d been to the notary they’d walked over to the gallery, a wonderfully preserved and restored former post office. Its huge windows let in what little light the sky offered and that gray light sat on the narrow and worn wood floors and rubbed against the pristine white walls of the small open room, giving it an almost ghostly glow.

‘Boniour,’ he called again. He could see an old pot-bellied wood stove in the center of the room. It was beautiful. Simple, direct, nothing elegant about it, just a big, black stove that had kept the Canadian cold at bay for more than a hundred years. Nichol had found the light switches and turned them on. Huge canvases of abstract art lunged off the walls. It surprised Gamache. He’d been expecting pretty country watercolors, romantic and salable. Instead he was surrounded by brilliant stripes and spheres ten feet tall. It felt youthful and vibrant and strong.

‘Hello.’

Nichol started, but Gamache just turned around and saw Clara coming toward them, a duck barrette clinging to a few strands of hair, getting ready for the final flight.

‘We meet again,’ she said, smiling. ‘After all that talk about Jane’s art I wanted to come and see it again, and sit with it quietly. It’s a bit like sitting with her soul.’

Nichol rolled her eyes and groaned. Beauvoir noticed this with a start and wondered if he had been that obnoxious and closed-minded when the Chief talked about his feelings and intuition.

‘And the smell,’ Clara inhaled deeply and passionately, ignoring Nichol, ‘every artist responds to this smell. Gets the heart going. Like walking into Grandma’s and smelling fresh chocolate-chip cookies. For us it’s that combination of varnish, oils and fixative. Even acrylics have a scent, if you’ve got a good shnozz. You must have smells like that, that cops respond to.’