Page 55

“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you anything,” said Gamache. “Thank you for your help.”

At the door, Jean-Guy paused then returned to the gallery owner. “Do you know an artist by the name of”—he took out his notebook and double-checked—“Jeanette Bouchard?”

Provost considered for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m sorry. Though of course I don’t know every Québécoise artist.”

“Out of interest’s sake, does anyone ask for works by Peter Morrow these days?”

“Clara’s husband? No. We used to represent him too, but…”

But.

“Is it likely an art magazine would be doing an article on him?”

“I can’t think why, but I suppose it’s possible. Much more likely to be writing about her. Have you seen the one she did of the aging Virgin Mary?”

Thanking the owner, Gamache spared a thought for the tall, handsome, talented, and broken man he’d known. How this simple exchange would have hurt him.

Jealousy. Such a self-inflicted wound, and one that would eventually kill Peter Morrow.

“Réunion?” Beauvoir asked, when they got back into the car.

“Not yet.” Gamache checked his messages. “Eidinger has the information on Réunion. We need to hear what they’ve dug up.”

CHAPTER 22

At first, Isabelle Lacoste thought the sound coming through the forest might be squirrels playing in the dried leaves.

Then she thought maybe a deer, though they made very little sound, apparently walking on tiptoes. And for good reason. The truth was, she knew perfectly well what the sound was, she just preferred not to admit it.

She’d met the team of technicians as their Sûreté SUV descended the hill into Three Pines. Then she’d guided them to the trail into the cemetery. As the team got to work on the old headstone, carefully uncovering the worn engraving, Isabelle had wandered the graveyard, reading the other stones.

They were all in surprisingly good shape. Though older than the one where the body was found, most were easily legible.

In front of a tiny marker, without name or date, Isabelle saw something lying almost completely buried. Taking out her tools, she cleared around it. Then, after taking photos, she placed it in an evidence bag and held it up to better see what was inside.

It was a bunch of twigs, tied together. And on the twigs were what had been tiny flowers. Now brown. Dead. It was not possible to tell what they had been.

This was what her grandmother’s generation would have called a posy. A tiny offering of flowers.

She walked around the marker, then knelt down to better study it. It was, to all appearances, a gravestone. But much smaller than the others and without anything written on it. A baby, perhaps. A stillbirth or miscarriage. Unnamed but mourned.

The burial must have been more than a century ago. And yet the posy was fairly recent. Who put the flowers there? And why? Could it have been the dead man?

Taking crime scene tape out of her pocket, Isabelle stuck it around the tiny marker, then examined the other graves.

But there was nothing else. No other offerings.

That was when she heard the footsteps. She turned and, sure enough, standing at the edge of the cemetery, just outside the police cordon, were Clara, Myrna, and Ruth.

In the climb up, their hair had been snagged by tree limbs, giving each an untamed look. Their faces were smeared with dirt. Myrna had a small pine frond stuck to her cheek, which surely Ruth could see but had not removed.

They looked for all the world like something Mother Nature had birthed. Like the three tall pines. Or the witches from Macbeth. Or the Three Graces. It came to the same thing, Isabelle knew. Witches. Graces. Same women. Just different interpretations.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

“Too late,” said Ruth. “Here we are. Rosemary.”

Isabelle had a moment of panic as she held those rheumy eyes. Was the elderly poet losing her mind? They always joked that she was demented. Suppose it was finally true?