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“He’d have some ID on him if it was a natural death, wouldn’t he?” asked the coroner.

“You’ll make a homicide investigator yet,” said Gamache.

“Joy.”

“First snow that stayed on the ground was on November 15,” reported Lacoste. “Could he have died just before that? Then was covered with snow and preserved, as you said?”

Dr. Harris did the math and nodded. “I’d say there was an excellent chance.” She looked around. “How in the world did you find him here?”

This was not a place people just strolled by.

Gamache explained.

“It’s called Lost Nation? I wonder why.”

“So do I,” said Gamache.

“And you have no idea who called you?”

“No, though I had the impression the voice was familiar.”

“They must know you, to use your private line.”

Gamache nodded.

“And what’s with the plant?” asked the coroner. “Not the sort of thing normally put on the grave of a loved one.”

Just the opposite, really. The sort of prickly unwanted species placed on the grave of an unloved one.

Silence fell over the small group grouped around the grave.

There’s a body in Lost Nation.

The coroner’s people were waiting. Isabelle Lacoste had a word with the forensics team, who indicated they should be finished with the body in a few minutes.

“I’ll go back to Montréal with them, patron,” said Isabelle.

“Bon. A report as soon as you can, please,” Gamache said to Dr. Harris, then turned to Lacoste. “And I want to know what this plant is.”

“Why?” asked Dr. Harris.

“Because I’ve never seen it before.”

Sharon Harris laughed. “Not surprising. You’re hardly a botanist.”

The Gamaches had recently joined the local Lac Brome Garden Club, of which Sharon Harris was also a member. While they were enthusiastic gardeners, Armand and Reine-Marie often “weeded” perfectly good perennials and left weeds to flourish.

“Who’s to say what a weed really is?” Reine-Marie had asked at a recent meeting.

“We are,” said the doyenne of the club.

Myrna, an experienced and exuberant gardener, told Reine-Marie to pay no attention. “Do what you want. A garden should be an expression of who you are, no one else.”

And so the Gamaches’ garden was filled with dandelions and wild clover, roses and hollyhocks and nettles. Believing that diversity in a garden, as in life, was healthy.

“It looks to me like it was deliberately planted around him,” said Dr. Harris. “Now why would someone do that?”

It was but one of a number of questions that were springing up around the body in Lost Nation.