The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

Gamache knelt down and looked closely at the old man’s face again. It was weathered and withered. An almanac face, of sun and wind and cold. A seasoned face. Gamache gently rubbed his thumb across the dead man’s cheek, feeling stubble. He was clean shaven, but what might have grown in would’ve been white. The dead man’s hair was white and cut without enthusiasm. A snip here, a snip there.

Gamache picked up one of the victim’s hands, as though comforting him. He held it for an instant, then turned it over, palm up. Then he slowly rubbed his own palm over the dead man’s.

“Whoever he was he did hard work. These are calluses. Most tramps don’t work.”

Gamache shook his head slowly. So who are you? And why are you here? In the bistro, and in this village. A village few people on earth even knew existed. And even fewer found.

But you did, thought Gamache, still holding the man’s cold hand. You found the village and you found death.

“He’s been dead between six and ten hours,” the doctor said. “Sometime after midnight but before four or five this morning.”

Gamache stared at the back of the man’s head and the wound that killed him.

It was catastrophic. It looked like a single blow by something extremely hard. And by someone extremely angry. Only anger accounted for this sort of power. The power to pulverize a skull. And what it protected.

Everything that made this man who he was was kept in this head. Someone bashed that in. With one brutal, decisive blow.

“Not much blood.” Gamache got up and watched the Scene of Crime team fanning out and collecting evidence around the large room. A room now violated. First by murder and now by them. The unwanted guests.

Olivier was standing, warming himself by the fire.

“That’s a problem,” said Dr. Harris. “Head wounds bleed a lot. There should be more blood, lots more.”

“It might’ve been cleaned up,” said Beauvoir.

Sharon Harris bent over the wound again then straightened up. “With the force of the blow the bleeding might have been massive and internal. And death almost instantaneous.”

It was the best news Gamache ever heard at a murder scene. Death he could handle. Even murder. It was suffering that disturbed him. He’d seen a lot of it. Terrible murders. It was a great relief to find one swift and decisive. Almost humane.

He’d once heard a judge say the most humane way to execute a prisoner was to tell him he was free. Then kill him.

Gamache had struggled against that, argued against it, railed against it. Then finally, exhausted, had come to believe it.

Looking at this man’s face he knew he hadn’t suffered. The blow to the back of the head meant he probably hadn’t even seen it coming.

Almost like dying in your sleep.

But not quite.

They placed him in a bag and took the body away. Outside men and women stood somberly aside to let it pass. Men swept off their damp caps and women watched, tight-lipped and sad.

Gamache turned away from the window and joined Beauvoir, who was sitting with Olivier, Gabri and Myrna. The Scene of Crime team had moved into the back rooms of the bistro, the private dining room, the staff room, the kitchen. The main room now seemed almost normal. Except for the questions hanging in the air.

“I’m sorry this has happened,” Gamache said to Olivier. “How’re you doing?”

Olivier exhaled deeply. He looked drained. “I think I’m still stunned. Who was he? Do you know?”

“No,” said Beauvoir. “Did anyone report a stranger in the area?”

“Report?” said Olivier. “To whom?”

All three turned perplexed eyes on Beauvoir. The Inspector had forgotten that Three Pines had no police force, no traffic lights, no sidewalks, no mayor. The volunteer fire department was run by that demented old poet Ruth Zardo, and most would rather perish in the flames than call her.

The place didn’t even have crime. Except murder. The only criminal thing that ever happened in this village was the worst possible crime.

And here they were with yet another body. At least the rest had had names. This one seemed to have dropped from the sky, and fallen on his head.

“It’s a little harder in the summer, you know,” said Myrna, taking a seat on the sofa. “We get more visitors. Families come back for vacation, kids come home from school. This is the last big weekend. Everyone goes home after this.”

“The weekend of the Brume County Fair,” said Gabri. “It ends tomorrow.”

“Right,” said Beauvoir, who couldn’t care less about the fair. “So Three Pines empties out after this weekend. But the visitors you describe are friends and family?”