The Beautiful Mystery (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #8)

The abbot gave the benediction over the food. When he’d finished, they all sat, and one of the monks walked to a podium, cleared his throat with a little cough, then began to sing.

Again, thought Beauvoir with a sigh, and looked longingly at the fresh bread and cheese, so tantalizingly close. But mostly, as the monk sang, Beauvoir thought about this straight-talking, no-crap monk beside him. Who was one of the prior’s men. And who considered the abbot a disaster. And worse. A murderer.

When the monk finally stopped singing, other monks brought vats of warm soup to the table, made from the vegetables Beauvoir had helped harvest that morning.

Beauvoir took a hunk of warm baguette and smoothed whipped butter onto it, and watched it melt. Then he cut a slab of blue and Brie from the cheese board making the rounds. As Brother Raymond continued his liturgy of the faults in the monastery, Beauvoir took a spoonful of soup, with carrots, peas, parsnips and potatoes bumping together in the fragrant broth.

While he found it difficult stopping the near biblical flood of words from his companion, Beauvoir noticed that the Chief was having difficulty coaxing just a few words out of Brother Simon.

*   *   *

Gamache had met many suspects who refused to speak. Mostly they sat cross-armed and belligerent across a hacked-up old table in some far-flung Sûreté outpost.

Eventually the Chief Inspector had gotten them all to talk. Some had confessed. But at the very least, most had finally said far more than they expected or certainly intended.

Armand Gamache was very good at coaxing indiscretions out of people.

But he wondered if he might have met his Waterloo with Frère Simon.

He’d brought up the subject of the weather. Then, thinking that might be too mundane for the abbot’s secretary, he asked about Saint Cecilia.

“We found a statue to her in Frère Mathieu’s cell.”

“Patron saint of music,” said Simon, concentrating on his soup.

It was at least a start, thought the Chief, as he cut a piece of Camembert and smoothed it onto a hunk of warm baguette. And one mystery solved. Frère Mathieu prayed every night to the patron saint of music.

Sensing a small opening, Gamache asked about Gilbert of Sempringham. And the design of the robes.

That brought a reaction. Frère Simon looked at him as though he’d lost his mind. Then went back to eating. As did Gamache.

The Chief took a sip of the cider.

“Nice drink,” he said, replacing his glass. “I understand you trade blueberries for it from a monastery in the south.”

He might as well have been speaking to the Camembert.

Had this been just a stunningly awkward social occasion, Gamache would have given up and probably turned to the monk on his other side, but this was a murder investigation. He didn’t have that option. So the Chief Inspector turned back to Brother Simon, determined to breach his defenses.

“Rhode Island Red.”

Frère Simon’s spoon lowered into the broth, and his head slowly turned. To look at Gamache.

“Pardon?” he asked. His voice was beautiful, even in that single word. Rich. Melodic. Like a full-bodied coffee, or aged cognac. With all sorts of subtleties and depth.

Gamache realized, with surprise, that he hadn’t heard more than a dozen words from the abbot’s secretary their whole visit.

“Rhode Island Red,” Gamache repeated. “A lovely breed.”

“What do you know about them?”

“Well, they have fantastic plumage. And are, in my opinion, dismissed far too easily.”

Gamache, of course, had no idea what he was saying except that it sounded good and might appeal to this man. For a small miracle had occurred. The Chief Inspector had remembered a single sentence from all the conversations he’d had with the abbot.

Frère Simon had a fondness for chickens.

Gamache, who did not have a fondness for chickens, could remember only one breed. He’d been about to say, “Foghorn Leghorn,” when the first miracle occurred and he remembered just in time that that was a cartoon character not a breed of chicken.

Camptown racetrack’s five miles long. To the Chief’s horror the cartoon character’s favorite song had insinuated itself into his head. Doo-dah. He fought it off. Doo-dah.

He turned to Frère Simon, hoping this conversational sally had worked. Doo-dah, doo-dah.

“It’s true that they have nice temperaments, but be careful. They can get aggressive when annoyed,” said Frère Simon. With those three magic words, “Rhode Island Red,” Gamache hadn’t simply breached the monk’s defenses, the gates were now thrown wide open. And the Chief Inspector was marching in.