Still Life

‘You just have to get better at keeping secrets,’ said Gabri.

‘I think it must have been a stranger,’ said Ben. ‘God knows, the woods are full of them right now. All those hunters from Toronto and Boston and Montreal, firing away like maniacs.’

‘But,’ Clara turned to him, ‘how would a hunter from Toronto know where to stand?’

‘What do you mean? They go into the woods and stand. There’s not much to it, that’s why so many morons hunt.’

‘But in this case the hunter knew exactly where to stand. This afternoon I was at the deer blind, you know, the one behind the schoolhouse, just by where Jane was killed. I went up and looked out. Sure enough, there was the deer trail. That’s why the blind was built right there—’

‘Yeah, by Matthew Croft’s father,’ said Ben.

‘Really?’ Clara was momentarily off balance. ‘I didn’t know that. Did you?’ She appealed to the rest of the table.

‘What was the question? I wasn’t listening,’ admitted Ruth.

‘Some detective,’ said Myrna.

‘Matthew’s father built the blind,’ said Clara to herself.

‘Anyway, Gamache is pretty sure it hadn’t been used for a while—’

‘Blinds aren’t generally used by bow hunters,’ said Peter in a flat voice. ‘Only guns.’

‘So what’s your point?’ Ruth was getting bored.

‘A stranger, a hunter visiting from somewhere else, wouldn’t know to go there.’

Clara let the implication of what she said sink in.

‘Whoever killed Jane was local?’ Olivier asked. Up until that moment they’d all assumed the killer had been a visiting hunter who’d run away. Now, maybe not.

‘So it might have been Matthew Croft after all,’ said Ben.

‘I don’t think so,’ Clara forged ahead. ‘The very things that argue for Matthew having done it also argue against it. An experienced bow hunter wouldn’t kill a person by accident. It’s the sort of accident he isn’t likely to have. A bow hunter standing by the deer trail would be too close. He’d know if it was a deer coming along, or—or not.’

‘Or Jane, you mean.’ Ruth’s normally flinty voice was now as hard as the Canadian Shield. Clara nodded. ‘Bastard,’ said Ruth. Gabri took her hand and for once in her life Ruth didn’t pull away.

Across the table, Peter laid down his knife and fork and stared at Clara. She couldn’t quite make out the look on his face, but it wasn’t admiration.

‘One thing is true, whoever killed Jane was a very good bow hunter,’ she said. ‘A poor one wouldn’t have got off that shot.’

‘There are a lot of very good bow hunters around here, unfortunately,’ said Ben. ‘Thanks to the Archery Club.’

‘Murder,’ said Gabri.

‘Murder,’ confirmed Clara.

‘But who would want Jane dead?’ Myrna asked.

‘Isn’t it normally gain of some kind?’ Gabri asked.

‘Money, power.’

‘Gain, or trying to protect something you’re afraid of losing,’ said Myrna. She’d been listening to this conversation, thinking it was just a desperate attempt by grieving friends to take their minds off the loss by turning it into an intellectual game. Now she began to wonder. ‘If something you value is threatened, like your family, your inheritance, your job, your home—’

‘We get the idea,’ Ruth interrupted.

‘You might convince yourself killing is justified.’

‘So if Matthew Croft did it,’ said Ben, ‘it was on purpose.’

Suzanne Croft looked down at her dinner plate. Congealing Chef Boyardee mini-ravioli formed pasty lumps in a puddle of thick, cold sauce. On the side of her plate a single piece of pre-sliced brown Wonder Bread balanced, put there more in hope than conviction. Hope that maybe this sickness in her stomach would lift long enough for her to take a bite.

But it sat there, whole.

Across from her Matthew lined up his four squares of mini-ravioli in a precise little road, marching across his plate. The sauce made ponds on either side. The children got the most food, then Matthew, and Suzanne took what was left. Her conscious brain told her it was a noble maternal instinct. Deep down inside she knew it was a more personal instinct for martyrdom that guided the portions. An unsaid but implied contract with her family. They owed her.

Philippe sat beside Matthew in his usual place. His dinner plate was clean, all the ravioli gobbled down and the sauce soaked up by the bread. Suzanne considered exchanging her untouched plate for his, but something stopped her hand. She looked at Philippe, plugged in to his Discman, eyes closed, lips pursed in that insolent attitude he’d adopted in the last six months, and she decided the deal was off. She also felt a stirring that suggested she didn’t actually like her son. Love, yes. Well, probably. But like?