The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

Gamache handed the vial back to the coroner. “Do you have any theories?”

“It was buried deep enough in the wound to have been either on the man’s head before he was killed or on the murder weapon.”

“A jar of pickles?” asked Beauvoir.

“Stranger things have been used,” said Gamache, though he couldn’t quite think of any.

Beauvoir shook his head. Had to be an Anglo. Who else could turn a dill pickle into a weapon?

“So it wasn’t a fireplace poker?” asked Gamache.

“Unless it was a very clean one. There was no evidence of ash. Just that.” She nodded to the vial. “There’s something else.” Dr. Harris pulled a lab chair up to the bench. “On the back of his clothes we found this. Very faint, but there.”

She handed Gamache the lab report and pointed to a line. Gamache read.

“Acrylic polyurethane and aluminum oxide. What is that?”

“Varathane,” said Beauvoir. “We’ve just redone our floors. It’s used to seal them after they’ve been sanded.”

“Not just floors,” said Dr. Harris, taking back the vial. “It’s used in a lot of woodworking. It’s a finish. Other than the wound to the head the dead man was in good condition. Could’ve expected to live for twenty-five or thirty years.”

“I see he had a meal a few hours before he was killed,” said Gamache, reading the autopsy report

“Vegetarian. Organic I think. I’m having it tested,” said the coroner. “A healthy vegetarian meal. Not your usual vagrant dinner.”

“Someone might’ve had him in for dinner then killed him,” said Beauvoir.

Dr. Harris hesitated. “I considered that, and it’s a possibility.”

“But?” said Gamache.

“But he looks like a man who ate like that all the time. Not just the once.”

“So either he cooked for himself and chose a healthy diet,” said Gamache, “or he had someone cook for him and they were vegetarian.”

“That’s about it,” said the coroner.

“I see no alcohol or drugs,” said Beauvoir, scanning the report.

Dr. Harris nodded. “I don’t think he was homeless. I’m not sure if anyone cared for this man, but I do know he cared for himself.”

What a wonderful epitaph, thought Gamache. He cared for himself.

“Maybe he was a survivalist,” said Beauvoir. “You know, one of those kooks who take off from the city and hide in the woods thinking the world’s coming to an end.”

Gamache turned to look at Beauvoir. That was an interesting thought.

“I’m frankly puzzled,” said the coroner. “You can see he was hit with a single, catastrophic blow to the back of his head. That in itself is unusual. To find just one blow . . .” Dr. Harris’s voice trailed off and she shook her head. “Normally when someone gets up the nerve to bludgeon someone to death they’re in the grip of great emotion. It’s like a brainstorm. They’re hysterical and can’t stop. You get multiple blows. A single one like this . . .”

“What does it tell you?” Gamache asked, as he stared at the collapsed skull.

“This wasn’t just a crime of passion.” She turned to him. “There was passion, yes, but there was also planning. Whoever did this was in a rage. But he was in command of that rage.”

Gamache lifted his brows. That was rare, extremely rare. And disconcerting. It would be like trying to master a herd of wild stallions, thundering and rearing, nostrils flared and hooves churning.

Who could control that?

Their murderer could.

Beauvoir looked at the Chief and the Chief looked at Beauvoir. This wasn’t good.

Gamache turned back to the cold body on the cold gurney. If he was a survivalist, it hadn’t worked. If this man had feared the end of the world he hadn’t run far enough, hadn’t buried himself deep enough in the Canadian wilderness.

The end of the world had found him.

TWELVE

Dominique Gilbert stood beside her mother-in-law and looked down the dirt road. Every now and then they had to step aside as a carful of people headed out of Three Pines, to the last day of the fair or into the city early to beat the rush.

It wasn’t toward Three Pines they gazed, but away from it. Toward the road that led to Cowansville. And the horses.

It still surprised Dominique that she should have so completely forgotten her childhood dream. Perhaps, though, it wasn’t surprising since she’d also dreamed of marrying Keith from the Partridge Family and being discovered as one of the little lost Romanov girls. Her fantasy of having horses disappeared along with all the other unlikely dreams, replaced by board meetings and clients, by gym memberships and increasingly expensive clothing. Until finally her cup, overflowing, had upended and all the lovely promotions and vacations and spa treatments became insubstantial. But at the bottom of that cup filled with goals, objectives, targets, one last drop remained.