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There was a slight squeaking as the elderly woman moved back and forth in her rocking chair.

“Have you ever been there?” the young interviewer’s voice asked.

“Went looking for the cemetery once. Hard to find. Bet I walked right by it lots of times without even knowing it was there. Must be even more difficult to find now. But I did find it once. Seemed, what’s the word?” There was a pause. “Pleasant. Not scary. No. Not scary at all. They seemed happy for the company.”

Ask it, thought Armand, sending a message to an interviewer who might herself be long gone. Ask about the gravestones.

Did Flossy notice one from 1914? Could she read the name?

If Lost Nation pretty much died back in the late 1800s, who could be in that grave?

But there was just silence except for the rocking. And then even that stopped.

“That’s it,” said the archivist. She reached out to stop the tape. Her finger was on the button when the thin voice came out of the speaker.

“And then there was the murder.”

CHAPTER 14

Aimée Lagacé was making all sorts of sounds, but no actual words, as she examined the tiny seeds in the small plastic evidence bag.

Still, Lacoste and Beauvoir were hanging on her every grunt and hum and whistle. Trying to decode them.

The chief botanist from the Montréal Botanical Gardens had screwed what looked like a jeweler’s magnifying lens into her right eye and was turning the seeds over. And over.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she finally said, looking up and opening her eye wide so that the lens fell into her waiting palm.

Dr. Lagacé was in her fifties, Isabelle guessed. Maybe forties. Perhaps sixty. Her hair was grey and cropped short, and her skin was tanned, like hide, from years in the elements. That made it difficult to age her. Not that it mattered. It was instinct on Isabelle’s part.

The blue of the botanist’s eyes looked all the brighter for being in that leathery face. And no doubt even brighter for her obvious interest.

Tall and sturdily built, not unlike a tree trunk, there was dirt under her fingernails that might have been there for years. Her hands were large, expressive, strong. They too seemed permanently stained with soil. It was as though this senior scientist was slowly, and happily, turning into the things she studied. There was even a leaf stuck to the sleeve of her sweater. Maybe, Isabelle thought, it was growing there.

She thought this prominent botanist could very well be Clara Morrow’s sibling. Just trading food for flora. Like Clara, this woman was bursting with energy, with an enthusiasm that was contagious.

Here was a scientist completely immersed in her field. Probably lots of fields, thought Isabelle.

“Where did you find this?” asked Dr. Lagacé as she handed the plastic bag back to Isabelle.

Lacoste and Beauvoir both knew the question would be asked. There was no need to hide the truth.

“It was at the scene of a crime,” said Isabelle.

“I see. I wish I could help you, but those seeds alone tell me nothing.”

“What if you saw an entire plant?”

“Alive? Healthy?”

The two senior officers exchanged glances.

“Excusez-moi.” Jean-Guy stepped away and sent off a quick text.

Armand’s phone buzzed with an incoming text, but he ignored it. Like everyone else, he was staring at the tape machine. In shock. Willing it to spit out more.

But the tape had run out, and the machine clicked itself off.

“Murder?” Gamache raised his eyes to the archivist, who looked the most surprised of all. “What murder?”