Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1)

‘Maybe there’s a door on the front, like a trick or a puzzle,’ suggested Clara, and they all searched. Nothing. Now they stood back and stared, Clara willing it to speak to her, like so many boxes seemed to recently.

‘Olivier would know,’ said Peter. ‘If there’s a trick to it, he’ll know it.’

Gamache thought for a moment and nodded. They really had no choice. Beauvoir was dispatched and within ten minutes he returned with the antiques dealer.

‘Where’s the patient? Holy Mary, Mother of God.’ He raised his eyebrows and stared at the walls, his lean, handsome face looking attractively boyish and quizzical. ‘Who did this?’

‘Ralph Lauren. Who do you think?’ said Peter.

‘Certainly no one gay. Is that the chest?’ He walked over to where the others were standing. ‘Beautiful. A tea chest, modeled on one the British used back in the 1600s, but this is Quebecois. Very simple yet far from primitive. You want to get in?’

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Gamache and Clara marveled at his patience. She was about to slap Olivier. The antiques dealer walked around the box, knocked on it in a few places, holding his ear to the polished wood, then came to rest directly in front of it. Putting out his hands he grabbed the top and yanked. Gamache rolled his eyes.

‘It’s locked,’ said Olivier.

‘Well, we know that,’ said Beauvoir. ‘How do we unlock it?’

‘You don’t have a key?’

‘If we had a key we wouldn’t need you.’

‘Good point. Look, the only way I know is to take the hinges off the back. That could take a while since they’re old and corroded. I don’t want to break them.’

‘Please start,’ said Gamache. ‘The rest of us will continue our search.’

Twenty minutes later Olivier announced he had the last hinge off. ‘It’s fortunate for you I’m a genius.’

‘What luck,’ said Beauvoir, and showed a reluctant Olivier to the door. At the chest Gamache and Peter took hold of either side of the large pine top and lifted. It came up and all four of them peered in.

Nothing. The chest was empty.

They spent a few minutes making sure there were no secret drawers then the disheartened group flopped back into their seats around the fireplace. Slowly Gamache sat up. He turned to Beauvoir, ‘What did Olivier ask? Who decorated this place?’

‘So?’

‘Well, how do we know it was Jane Neal?’

‘You think she hired someone to do this?’ asked Beauvoir, amazed. Gamache just stared at him. ‘No, you’re thinking someone else who stayed here did it. My God, what an idiot I am,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Yolande. When I interviewed her yesterday she said she’d been decorating here

‘That’s right,’ said Clara, leaning forward in her seat, ‘I saw her lugging in a step ladder and bags full of stuff from the Reno Depot in Cowansville. Peter and I talked about whether she planned to move in.’ Peter nodded his agreement.

‘So Yolande put up the wallpaper?’ Gamache got up and looked at it again. ‘Her home must be a real monstrosity if this is how she decorates.’

‘Not even close,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Just the opposite. Her home is all off-whites and beiges and tasteful colors, like a Decormag model home.’

‘No Happy Faces?’ asked Gamache.

‘Probably never.’

Gamache stood up and paced slowly, his head down, hands clasped behind his back. He took a couple of quick strides over to the Port Neuf pottery, speaking as he went, and was standing facing a wall like a naughty schoolboy. Then he turned to face them. ‘Yolande. What does she do? What drives her?’

‘Money?’ suggested Peter after a moment’s silence.

‘Approval?’ said Beauvoir, coming up beside Gamache, the chief’s excitement transmitting itself to everyone in the room.

‘Close, but it goes deeper. In herself.’

‘Anger?’ Peter tried again. He didn’t like being wrong but he was again, he could tell by Gamache’s reaction. After a moment’s silence Clara spoke, thinking out loud, ‘Yolande lives in a world of her own making. The Decormag perfect world, even though her husband’s a criminal and her son’s a thug and she lies and cheats and steals. And she’s not a

real blonde, in case you hadn’t figured it out. She’s not a real anything from what I can tell. She lives in denial -’

‘That’s it ’Gamache almost jumped up and down like a game-show host. ‘Denial. She lives in denial. She coveres things up. That’s the reason for all her make-up. It’s a mak. Her face is a mask, her home is a mask, a sad attempt to paint and paper over something very ugly.’ He turned to face the wall then knelt down, his hand on a seam of wallpaper. ‘People tend to be consistent. That’s what’s wrong here. Had you said’, he turned to Beauvoir, ‘that Yolande had this same wallpaper at hom, that’d be one thing, but she doesn’t. So why would she spend days putting this up?’