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“I can resist everything except temptation.”
“Poverty can grind a person down,” said Gamache quietly. “But so can privilege.”
Finney’s wild eye roamed the room and his hair stuck out at odd angles so that his head looked like a damaged sputnik, fallen too fast and too hard to earth.
It’s named after Eleanor Roosevelt, you know.” “I didn’t.” “Hmm,” said Julia, contemplating the rose and nodding. “She said she’d been flattered at first until she’d read the description in the catalogue. Eleanor Roosevelt rose: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.”
Ingenious, thought Gamache. It doesn’t dare show itself for what it really is, for fear of being killed. What had Thomas just said? Things aren’t as they seem. He was beginning to believe it.
She’d taught him that order was freedom. To live in chaos was to live in a prison. Order freed the mind for other things.
Even as a child Pierre knew he was being groomed.
She stepped back, closed her eyes, and placed the invisible wall round Bean. There, safe.
“A lady is always understated, Julia,” he’d said. “A lady never shows off. She always puts others at ease. Remember that.”
She coiled the strand of pearls, like a young snake, onto its soft blue velvet bed then took off her earrings, wishing she could also remove her ears. But she knew it was too late.
Clara was reluctant to let go, but did, and watched as the Gamaches strolled across the lawn toward the lake. She felt a trickle down her neck. Reaching up to wipe the sweat away she was surprised to see blood on her fingers.
His clothes never wrinkled, the creases crisp, never a stain nor a fault. What was that thing on Star Trek? The tractor beam? No, not that. The shields. Peter went through life with his shields raised, repulsing attack by food or beverage, or people. Clara wondered whether there was a tiny Scottish voice in his head right now screaming, “Cap’n, the shields are down. I canna git them up.”
Not everything needed to be brought into the light, he knew. Not every truth needed to be told. And he knew she was right. He’d seen their faces as she’d fled. She’d said too much. He didn’t understand it, couldn’t see it, but he knew something foul had just come to light, come to life.
Inspector Beauvoir was the alpha dog, the whip-smart, tightly wound second in command who believed in the triumph of facts over feelings. He missed almost nothing. Except, perhaps, things that couldn’t be seen. Agent Lacoste also stared at the scene. But unlike Beauvoir she could become very still. She was the hunter of their team. Stealthy, quiet, observant.
But tea was all she could give them.
Chief Inspector Gamache chose men and women for his team who might also be afraid, but had the courage to rise above it.
He’d seen that transition almost every day of his working life. He often felt like a ferryman, taking men and women from one shore to another. From the rugged, though familiar, terrain of grief and shock into a netherworld visited by a blessed few. To a shore where men killed each other on purpose.
“What happened here last night isn’t allowed.” It was such an extraordinary thing to say it actually stopped the ravenous Beauvoir from taking another bite of his roast beef on baguette. “You have a rule against murder?” he asked. “I do. When my husband and I bought the Bellechasse we made a deal with the forest. Any death that wasn’t natural wasn’t allowed. Mice are caught alive and released. Birds are fed in the winter and even the squirrels and chipmunks are welcome. There’s no hunting, not even fishing. The pact we made was that everything that stepped foot on this land would be safe.” “An
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It was inconceivable that fat, stupid, lazy Marianna had managed to have a baby. It gave Sandra some comfort to think Bean was screwed up. But then sometimes she forgot to hate Bean. And terrible things happened.
“We eat our young.”
Beauvoir stared at Madame Gamache, as though for the last time. She was about to be devoured by Ruth Zardo, who ground up good people and turned them into poetry.
Beauvoir had dropped off the suitcase from Gabri but it was filled with underwear, socks, Scotch and potato chips. No real clothes. “We might as well have asked W. C. Fields to pack,” Peter said, as they sat eating chips and drinking Scotch in their clean underwear. But, actually, it felt good.
With each savage stroke of her make-up, Irene Finney filled the void with a child not loved then lost, but first lost, then loved.
“Letter B, Letter B.”
The Morrows could be counted on to choose the right fork and the wrong word.
Causing a scene was so much worse than causing pain.
“You’re in my prayers.” It was the insult she reserved for people beyond hope, and Peter knew it.
“A bean is a seed,” said Gamache. “It’s an old allegory for faith. I have a feeling Bean is a very special child. Nothing is impossible with Bean.”
The less gracious she became the more gracious he grew.
Isabelle Lacoste dabbed fresh raspberry jam on a buttery croissant and looked at Beauvoir as though he was a bear of very little brain.
A panicked, cornered murderer was a terrible thing, and the only thing worse was a calm one.
Who, honestly, didn’t want to kill a Morrow every now and then?
It was the most devastating thing Finney could have said. Not that Peter was hated by his father. But that he’d been loved all along. He’d interpreted kindness as cruelty, generosity as meanness, support as tethers. How horrible to have been offered love, and to have chosen hate instead. He’d turned heaven into hell.
You can’t tell me God doesn’t have a home on this lake.”
