“All right, what’ve we got?”
Beauvoir was standing by the paper tacked to the wall next to a map of the village.
“We know the victim wasn’t murdered at the bistro,” said Lacoste. “But we still don’t know where he was killed or who he was.”
“Or why he was moved,” said Beauvoir. He reported on their visit to the Poiriers, mère et fils. Then Lacoste told them what she and Morin had learned about Olivier Brulé.
“He’s thirty-eight. Only child. Born and raised in Montreal. Father an executive at the railway, mother a homemaker, now dead. An affluent upbringing. Went to Notre Dame de Sion school.”
Gamache raised his brows. It was a leading Catholic private school. Annie had gone there too, years after Olivier, to be taught by the rigorous nuns. His son Daniel had refused, preferring the less rigorous public schools. Annie had learned logic, Latin, problem solving. Daniel had learned to roll a spliff. Both grew into decent, happy adults.
“Olivier got an MBA from the Université de Montréal and took a job at the Banque Laurentienne,” Agent Lacoste continued, reading from her notes. “He handled high-end corporate clients. Apparently very successfully too. Then he quit.”
“Why?” asked Beauvoir.
“Not sure. I have a meeting at the bank tomorrow, and I’ve also set up an appointment with Olivier’s father.”
“What about his personal life?” Gamache asked.
“I talked to Gabri. They started living together fourteen years ago. Gabri’s a year younger. Thirty-seven. He was a fitness instructor at the local YMCA.”
“Gabri?” asked Beauvoir, remembering the large, soft man.
“Happens to the best of us,” said Gamache.
“After Olivier quit the bank they gave up their apartment in Old Montreal and moved down here, took over the bistro and lived above it, but it wasn’t a bistro then. It’d been a hardware store.”
“Really?” asked Beauvoir. He couldn’t imagine the bistro as anything else. He tried to see snow shovels and batteries and lightbulbs hanging from the exposed beams or set up in front of the two stone fireplaces. And failed.
“But listen to this.” Lacoste leaned forward. “I got this by digging into the land registry records. Ten years ago Olivier bought not just his bistro, but the B and B. But he didn’t stop there. He bought it all. The general store, the bakery, his bistro and Myrna’s bookstore.”
“Everything?” asked Beauvoir. “He owns the village?”
“Just about. I don’t think anyone else knows. I spoke to Sarah at her boulangerie and to Monsieur Béliveau at the general store. They said they rented from some guy in Montreal. Long-term leases, reasonable rates. They send their checks to a numbered company.”
“Olivier’s a numbered company?” asked Beauvoir.
Gamache was taking all this in, listening closely.
“How much did he pay?” asked Beauvoir.
“Seven hundred and twenty thousand dollars for the lot.”
“Good God,” said Beauvoir. “That’s a lot of bread. Where’d he get the money? A mortgage?”
“No. Paid cash.”
“You say his mother’s dead, maybe it was his inheritance.”
“Doubt it,” said Lacoste. “She only died five years ago, but I’ll look into it when I’m in Montreal.”
“Follow the money,” said Beauvoir. It was a truism in crime investigations, particularly murder. And there was suddenly a great deal of money to follow. Beauvoir finished scribbling on his sheets on the wall, then told them about the coroner’s findings.
Morin listened, fascinated. So this was how murderers were found. Not by DNA tests and petrie dishes, ultraviolet scans or anything else a lab could produce. They helped, certainly, but this was their real lab. He looked across the table to the other person who was just listening, saying nothing.
Chief Inspector Gamache took his deep brown eyes off Inspector Beauvoir for a moment and looked at the young agent. And smiled.
* * *
Agent Lacoste headed for Montreal shortly after the meeting broke up. Agent Morin left for home and Beauvoir and Gamache walked slowly back over the stone bridge and into the village. They strolled past the darkened bistro and met Olivier and Gabri on the wide veranda of the B and B.
“I left a note for you,” said Gabri. “Since the bistro’s closed we’re all going out for dinner and you’re invited.”
“Peter and Clara’s again?” asked Gamache.
“No. Ruth,” said Gabri and was rewarded with their stunned looks. He’d have thought someone had drawn a gun on the two large Sûreté officers. Chief Inspector Gamache looked surprised but Beauvoir looked afraid.
“You might want to put on your athletic protector,” Gabri whispered to Beauvoir, as they passed on the veranda steps.
“Well, I’m sure as hell not going. You?” asked Beauvoir when they went inside.
“Are you kidding? Pass up a chance to see Ruth in her natural habitat? Wouldn’t miss it.”
Twenty minutes later the Chief Inspector had showered, called Reine-Marie and changed into slacks, blue shirt and tie and a camel-hair cardigan. He found Beauvoir in the living room with a beer and potato chips.
“Sure you won’t change your mind, patron?”
It was tempting, Gamache had to admit. But he shook his head.
“I’ll keep a candle in the window,” said Beauvoir, watching the Chief leave.
Ruth’s clapboard home was a couple of houses away and faced the green. It was tiny, with a porch in front and two gables on the second floor. Gamache had been in it before, but always with his notebook out, asking questions. Never as a guest. As he entered all eyes turned and as one they made for him, Myrna reaching him first.
“For pity’s sake, did you bring your gun?”
“I don’t have one.”
“What d’you mean, you don’t have one?”
“They’re dangerous. Why do you want it?”
“So you can shoot her. She’s trying to kill us.” Myrna grabbed Gamache’s sleeve and pointed to Ruth who was circulating among her guests wearing a frilly apron and carrying a bright orange plastic tray.
“Actually,” said Gabri, “she’s trying to kidnap us and take us back to 1950.”
“Probably the last time she entertained,” said Myrna.
“Hors d’oeuvre, old fruit?” Ruth spotted her new guest and bore down upon him.
Gabri and Olivier turned to each other. “She means you.”
Incredibly, she actually meant Gamache.
“Lord love a duck,” said Ruth, in a very bad British accent. Behind Ruth waddled Rosa.
“She started speaking like that as soon as we arrived,” said Myrna, backing away from the tray and knocking over a stack of Times Literary Supplements. Gamache could see saltine crackers sliding around on the orange tray, smeared with brown stuff he hoped was peanut butter. “I remember reading something about this,” Myrna continued. “People speaking in accents after a brain injury.”
“Is being possessed by the devil considered a brain injury?” asked Gabri. “She’s speaking in tongues.”