Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

'True. His mother's also a piece of work, but he was better equipped. And still it was a nightmare. Then there were the snakes. One holiday Ben and Peter were playing cowboys in the basement when they came across a nest of snakes. Ben said they were everywhere in the basement. And mice too. But everyone has mice around here. Not everyone has snakes.'

'Are the snakes still there?'

'I don't know.' Every time Clara had gone into Timmer's home she'd see snakes, curled in dark corners, slithering under chairs, hanging from the beams. It might have been just her imagination. Or not. Eventually Clara had refused to go into the house at all until Timmer's last weeks when volunteers were needed. Even then, she only went with Peter, and never to the bathroom. She knew the snakes were curled behind the sweating tank. And never, ever into the basement. Never close to that door off the kitchen where she could hear the sliding and slithering and smell the swamp.

Clara upgraded to a Scotch and the two of them stared out the window at the Victorian turrets just visible above the trees on the hill.

'Yet Timmer and Jane were best of friends,' said Gamache.

'True. But then, Jane got along with everyone.'

'Except her niece Yolande.'

'That's hardly revealing. Even Yolande doesn't get along with Yolande.'

'Do you have any idea why Jane didn't let anyone beyond the kitchen?'

'Not a clue,' said Clara, 'but she invited us to cocktails in her living room for the night of the Arts Williamsburg vernissage, to celebrate Fair Day.'

'When did she do that?' Gamache asked, leaning forward.

'Friday, at dinner, after she'd heard she'd been accepted for the show.'

'Wait a minute,' said Gamache, leaning his elbows on the table, as though preparing to crawl across it and into her head. 'Are you telling me on the Friday before she died she invited everyone to a party inside her home? For the first time in her life?'

'Yes. We'd been to dinner and to parties in her home thousands of times, but always in the kitchen. This time she specified the living room. Is that important?'

'I don't know. When's the show opening?'

'In two weeks.' They sat in silence, thinking about the show. Then Clara noticed the time. 'I need to go. People coming for dinner.' He stood up with her and she smiled at him. 'Thank you for finding the blind.' He gave her a small bow and watched her wind her way through the tables, nodding and waving to people, until she'd reached Peter and Ben. She kissed Peter on the top of his head and the two men stood as one, and all three left the Bistro, like a family.

Gamache picked up The Boys' Big Book of Hunting from the table and opened the front cover. Scrawled inside in a big, round, immature hand was 'B. Malenfant'.

When Gamache arrived back at the B. & B., he found Olivier and Gabri getting ready to head over to the Morrows for a pot luck dinner.

'There's a shepherd's pie in the oven for you, if you want,' Gabri called as they left.

Upstairs, Gamache tapped on Agent Nichol's door and suggested they meet downstairs in twenty minutes to continue their talk from that morning. Nichol agreed. He also told her they'd be eating in that night, so she could dress casually. She nodded, thanked him, and shut the door, going back to what she'd been doing for the last half-hour, desperately trying to decide what to wear. Which of the outfits she'd borrowed from her sister Angelina was perfect? Which said smart, powerful, don't mess with me, future chief inspector? Which one said 'Like me'? Which one was right?

Gamache climbed the next flight to his room, opened the door and felt drawn toward the brass bed piled high with a pure white duvet and white down pillows. All he wanted to do was to sink into it, close his eyes, and fall fast and deeply asleep. The room was simply furnished, with soothing white walls and a deep cherry wood chest of drawers. An old oil portrait dominated one wall. A faded and well-loved oriental throw rug sat on the wood floor. It was a soothing and inviting room and almost more than Gamache could stand. He wavered in the middle of the room then walked determinedly to the ensuite bathroom. His shower revived him, and after getting into casual clothing he called Reine-Marie, gathered his notes, and was back in the living room in twenty minutes.

Yvette Nichol came down half an hour later. She'd decided to wear the 'power' outfit. Gamache didn't look up from his reading when she walked in.

'We have a problem.' Gamache lowered his notebook and looked at her, cross-legged and cross-armed across from him. She was a station of the cross. 'Actually, you have a problem. But it becomes my problem when it affects this investigation.'

'Really, sir? And what would that be?'

'You have a good brain, Agent.'

'And that's a problem?'

'No. That's the problem. You're smug and you're arrogant.' The soft-spoken words hit her like an assault. No one had dared speak to her like this before. 'I started off by saying you have a good brain. You showed fine deductive reasoning in the meeting this afternoon.'

Nichol sat up straighter, mollified, but alert.

'But a good brain isn't enough,' continued Gamache. 'You have to use it. And you don't. You look, but you don't see. You hear, but you don't listen.'

Nichol was pretty sure she'd seen that written on a coffee cup in the traffic division. Poor Gamache lived by philosophies small enough to fit a mug.

'I look and listen well enough to solve the case.'

'Perhaps. We'll see. As I said before, that was good work, and you have a good brain. But there's something missing. Surely you can feel it. Do you ever feel lost, as though people are speaking a foreign language, as though there's something going on which everyone else gets, but you don't?'

Nichol hoped her faced didn't reflect her shock. How did he know?

'The only thing I don't get, sir, is how you can dress me down for solving a case.'

'You lack discipline,' he persevered, trying to get her to see. 'For instance, before we went into the Croft home, what did I say?'

'I can't remember.' Deep down a realisation began to dawn. She might actually be in trouble here.

'I told you to listen and not to speak. And yet you spoke to Mrs Croft when she arrived in the kitchen.'

'Well somebody had to be nice to her. You'd accused me of being unkind and that isn't true.' Dear lord, don't let me cry, she thought, as the tears welled up. She put her fists into balls in her lap. 'I am nice.'

'And that's what that was about? This is a murder investigation. You do as you're told. There isn't one set of rules for you and another set for everyone else. Understand? If you're told to be quiet and take notes that is what you do.' The last few words were said slowly, distinctly, coldly. He wondered whether she even knew how manipulative she was. He doubted it. 'This morning I gave you three of the four sentences that can guide us to wisdom.'

'You gave me all four this morning.' Nichol seriously questioned his sanity now. He was looking at her sternly, without anger, but certainly without warmth.

'Repeat them for me, please.'

'I'm sorry, I don't know, I need help and I forget.'

'I forget? Where did you get that?'

'From you this morning. You said, "I forget".'

'Are you seriously telling me you thought "I forget" could be a life lesson? I clearly meant that I had forgotten the last sentence. Yes, I'm sure I said, "I forget". But think of the context. This is a perfect example of what's wrong with that good brain of yours. You don't use it. You don't think. It's not enough to hear the words.'

Here it comes, thought Nichol. Blah, blah, blah. You've got to listen.

'You've got to listen. The words don't just fall into some sterile bin to be regurgitated later. When Mrs Croft said there was nothing in the basement, did you notice how she spoke, the inflection, what went before, the body language, the hands and eyes? Do you remember previous investigations when suspects said the same thing?'