The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

“Well, as long as you’re fine,” said Myrna, getting up. After years as a psychologist she knew how to listen to people. And how to leave them alone.

He watched through the window as Myrna, Peter, Clara, Ruth and the duck Rosa got in the Morrows’ car. They waved at him and he waved merrily back. Myrna didn’t wave. She just nodded. He dropped his hand, caught her eye, and nodded.

He believed her when she’d said they loved him. But he also knew they loved a man who didn’t exist. He was a fiction. If they knew the real Olivier they’d kick him out, of their lives and probably the village.

As their car chugged up the hill toward the Brume County Fair he heard the words again. From the cabin hidden in the woods. He could smell the wood smoke, the dried herbs. And he could see the Hermit. Whole. Alive. Afraid.

And he heard again the story. That wasn’t, Olivier knew, just a story.

Once upon a time a Mountain King watched over a treasure. He buried it deep and it kept him company for millennia. The other gods were jealous and angry, and warned him if he didn’t share his treasure with them they’d do something terrible.

But the Mountain King was the mightiest of the gods, so he simply laughed knowing there was nothing they could do to him. No attack he couldn’t repulse, and redouble onto them. He was invincible. He prepared for their attack. Waited for it. But it never came.

Nothing came. Ever.

Not a missile, not a spear, not a war horse, or rider, or dog, or bird. Not a seed in the wind. Not even the wind.

Nothing. Ever. Again.

It was the silence that got to him first, and then the touch. Nothing touched him. No breeze brushed his rocky surface. No ant crawled over him, no bird touched down. No worm tunneled.

He felt nothing.

Until one day a young man came.

Olivier brought himself back to the bistro, his body tense, his muscles strained. His fingernails biting into his palms.

Why, he asked himself for the millionth time. Why had he done it?

Before leaving to see the coroner, the Chief Inspector walked over to the large piece of paper tacked to the wall of their Incident Room. In bold red letters Inspector Beauvoir had written:

WHO WAS THE VICTIM?

WHY WAS HE KILLED?

WHO KILLED HIM?

WHAT WAS THE MURDER WEAPON?

With a sigh the Chief Inspector added two more lines.

WHERE WAS HE MURDERED?

WHY WAS HE MOVED?

So far in their investigation they’d found more questions than clues. But that’s where answers came from. Questions. Gamache was perplexed, but not dissatisfid.

Jean Guy Beauvoir was already waiting for him when he arrived at the Cowansville hospital, and they went in together, down the stairs and into the basement, where files and dead people were kept.

“I called as soon as I realized what I was seeing,” said Dr. Harris after greeting them. She led them into the sterile room, brightly lit by fluorescents. The dead man was naked on a steel gurney. Gamache wished they’d put a blanket over him. He seemed cold. And, indeed, he was.

“There was some internal bleeding but not enough. This wound,” she indicated the collaped back of the victim’s head, “would have bled onto whatever surface he fell on.”

“There was almost no blood on the floor of the bistro,” said Beauvoir.

“He was killed somewhere else,” said the coroner, with certainty.

“Where?” asked Gamache.

“Would you like an address?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” said the Chief Inspector, with a smile.

Dr. Harris smiled back. “Clearly I don’t know, but I’ve found some things that might be suggestive.”

She walked over to her lab table where a few vials sat, labeled. She handed one to the Chief Inspector.

“Remember that bit of white I said was in the wound? I thought it might be ash. Or bone, or perhaps even dandruff. Well, it wasn’t any of those things.”

Gamache needed his glasses to see the tiny white flake inside the vial, then he read the label.

Paraffin, found in the wound.

“Paraffin? Like wax?”

“Yes, it’s commonly called paraffin wax. It’s an old-fashioned material, as you probably know. Used to be used for candles, then it was replaced by other sorts of more stable wax.”

“My mother uses it for pickling,” said Beauvoir. “She melts it on the top of the jar to create a seal, right?”

“That’s right,” said Dr. Harris.

Gamache turned to Beauvoir. “And where was your mother on Saturday night?”

Beauvoir laughed. “The only one she ever threatens to brain is me. She’s no threat to society at large.”