‘Oui?‘ said Beauvoir. No one had told him, and he thought he knew why. ‘Well, I think I’ll take Mademoiselle Morrow so she can get back to her …’ Beauvoir looked over at the attractive blond child on the window seat, reading. ‘Her child.’
He led Mariana into the library and sat her on a hard chair he’d brought in. Hardly torture, but he didn’t like his suspects too comfortable. Besides, he wanted the big leather chair for himself.
‘Mademoiselle Morrow—’ he began.
‘Oh, look, you have sandwiches. We’ve run out.’ She got up and took a large tomato and thick-sliced maple ham sandwich without asking.
‘I’m sorry about your sister,’ he said, timing the barb so that her fat, greedy mouth was too full to answer. Clearly, you’re not, he’d hoped to imply. But watching her shove the food into her mouth he thought his insult too subtle. He didn’t like this woman. Of all the Morrows, even that impatient one, this one he liked least. Sandra he understood. He hated to wait too. He didn’t like seeing others served first, especially when he’d arrived before them. He didn’t like it when people butted into grocery lines, or cut in on the highway.
He expected people to play fair. Rules meant order. Without them they’d be killing each other. It began with butting in, with parking in disabled spaces, with smoking in elevators. And it ended in murder.
True, he had to admit, it was a bit of a stretch but it was descended from the same line. Trace it back far enough and a murderer probably always broke the rules, thinking himself better than the rest. He didn’t like rule-breakers. And he especially didn’t like them when they came wrapped in purple and green and scarlet shawls with children named Bean.
‘I didn’t know her well, you know,’ said Mariana, swallowing and taking a spruce beer from the tray. ‘Mind?’
But she’d opened it before he could say anything.
‘Thanks. Yech.’ She almost spat it out. ‘Oh my God. Am I the first person to ever drink this stuff? Has anyone at the company tried it? It tastes like a tree.’
She opened and shut her mouth, like a cat trying to get something off its tongue.
‘That’s just disgusting. Like a sip?’ She tilted it towards him. He narrowed his eyes and was surprised to see a grin on her unlovely face.
Poor woman, he thought. So ugly in a family so attractive. While he was no fan of the Morrows he could at least see that they were handsome. Even the dead woman, crushed, had retained some beauty. This one, whole, had none.
‘No?’ She took another sip and winced again, but didn’t put it down.
‘How well did you know her?’
‘She was ten years older than me and had left home before I was twelve. We didn’t have much in common. She was into boys, I was into cartoons.’
‘You don’t seem sorry she’s dead. You don’t even seem sad.’
‘I’ve been raised in a family of hypocrites, Inspector. I promised myself I wouldn’t be like them. I wouldn’t hide my feelings.’
‘Quite easy when there’re none to hide.’
That silenced her. He’d won the point, but was losing the interview. It was never a good sign when the investigator was doing all the talking.
‘Why show all your feelings?’
Her smiling face grew serious. It didn’t make her more attractive. Now she looked glum and ugly. ‘I grew up in Disney World. It looked good from the outside. It was meant to. But inside everything was mechanical. You never knew what was real. Too much courtesy, too many smiles. I grew frightened of smiles. Never a cross word, but never a supportive one either. You never knew how people really felt. We kept things to ourselves. Still do. Except me. I’m honest about most things.’
Interesting how important a single word could become.
‘What do you mean, most?’
‘Well, it’d be foolish to tell my family everything.’
She seemed suddenly coy, almost flirtatious. It was revolting.
‘What haven’t you told them?’
‘Little things. Like what I do for a living.’
‘What do you do?’
‘I’m an architect. I design homes.’
Beauvoir thought he knew the kinds of homes she designed. Ones that impressed, that were all gaudy and shiny and big. Loud homes, that no one could actually live in.
‘What else don’t you tell them?’
She paused and looked around then leaned forward.
‘Bean.’
‘Your child?’
She nodded.
‘What about Bean?’ Beauvoir’s pen hovered over his notebook.
‘I haven’t told them.’
‘Who the father is?’ He’d broken the cardinal rule of interrogation. He’d answered his own question. She shook her head and smiled.
‘Of course I haven’t told them that. There’s no answer to that,’ she said cryptically. ‘I haven’t told them what Bean is.’
Beauvoir felt himself grow cold.
‘What is Bean?’
‘Exactly. Even you don’t know. But sadly Bean’s nearing puberty and soon it’ll be obvious.’
It took a moment for Beauvoir to appreciate what she meant. He dropped his pen and it rolled off the table to the carpeted floor.
‘You mean you haven’t told your family if Bean’s a boy or girl?’
Mariana Morrow nodded and took a long pull on her spruce beer.
‘It actually doesn’t taste too bad. I guess you can get used to anything.’
Beauvoir doubted it. For fifteen years he’d been with the Chief Inspector, investigating murders, and he’d never got used to the insanity of the Anglos. It seemed bottomless, and purposeless. What kind of creature kept the sex of her child a secret?
‘It’s my little homage to my upbringing, Inspector. Bean is my child and my secret. I can’t tell you how good it feels in a family of know-it-alls to know something they don’t.’
Fucking Anglos, thought Beauvoir. If he tried that his mother’d thrash him with a rolling pin.
‘Can’t they just ask Bean themselves?’
She roared with laughter, speckles of tomato hitting the pine table in front of him.
‘Are you kidding? A Morrow ask a question? Admit ignorance?’ She leaned forward conspiratorially and despite himself Beauvoir leaned forward to meet her. ‘That’s the brilliance of this. Their own arrogance is my best weapon.’
Beauvoir leaned back, then. Repulsed. How can a woman, a mother, do such a thing? His own mother would die for him, would kill for him. It was natural. This thing in front of him was unnatural.
‘And what will you do when it’s no longer a secret, mademoiselle? When Bean hits puberty, or volunteers the information one day?’ He was damned if he was going to ask Bean’s sex. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of admitting he cared.
‘Well, I always have Bean’s name to torture her with.’
‘Her?’
‘My mother.’
Beauvoir could barely look at this woman, who’d given birth to a biological weapon aimed at her mother. He was beginning to think the wrong Morrow was murdered.
‘Why would someone want to kill your sister?’
‘By someone you mean one of us, don’t you?’
It wasn’t actually a question and now Beauvoir chose to stay quiet.
‘Don’t look at me. I didn’t know her enough to kill her. She’d been gone for thirty years or more. But I can tell you one thing, Inspector. She could put as much distance between herself and us as she wanted, but she was still a Morrow. Morrows lie, and Morrows keep secrets. It’s our currency. Don’t trust them, Inspector. Don’t trust a word they say.’
It was the first thing she’d said he’d no trouble believing.
‘Julia had a falling out with Father,’ said Peter. ‘I don’t know what it was about.’
‘Weren’t you curious?’ asked Gamache. The two tall men had walked down the wet lawn of the Bellechasse and stopped at the shoreline. They looked onto the slate-grey lake and the mist that obscured the far shore. The birds were out, looking for insects, and every now and then a haunting loon called across the lake.
Peter smiled tightly. ‘Curiosity wasn’t something rewarded in our home. It was considered rude. It was rude to ask questions, rude to laugh too loud or too long, rude to cry, rude to contradict. So, no, I wasn’t curious.’