Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

'Not that. That's for Clara.' Everyone looked at Clara with alarm, especially Peter. Olivier looked relieved. Gabri reached in again and gingerly extracted the thick book.

'The Collected Works of W. H. Auden.' Gabri tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. But not too hard. 'I don't know him.'

'Oh, Gabri, you're in for a treat,' said Jane.

'All right, I can't stand it any more,' Ruth said suddenly, leaning across the table to Jane. 'Did Arts Williamsburg accept your work?'

'Yes.'

It was as though the word triggered springs in their chairs. Everyone was catapulted to their feet, shooting toward Jane who stood and accepted their hugs with enthusiasm. She seemed to glow brighter than any of the candles in the room. Standing back for an instant and watching the scene, Clara felt her heart contract and her spirit lighten and felt fortunate indeed to be part of this moment.

'Great artists put a lot of themselves into their work,' said Clara when the chairs had been regained.

'What's Fair Day's special meaning?' Ben asked.

'Now, that would be cheating. You have to figure it out.

It's there.' Jane turned to Ben, smiling. 'You'll figure it out, I'm sure.'

'Why's it called Fair Day?' he asked.

'It was painted at the county fair, the closing parade.' Jane gave Ben a meaningful look. His mother, her friend, Timmer, had died that afternoon. Was it only a month ago? The whole village had been at the parade, except Timmer, dying of cancer alone in bed, while her son Ben was away in Ottawa at an antiques auction. Clara and Peter had been the ones to break the news to him. Clara would never forget the look on his face when Peter told him his mother was dead. Not sadness, not even pain, yet. But utter disbelief. He wasn't the only one.

'Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table,' Jane said almost under her breath. 'Auden,' she explained, nodding to the book in Gabri's hand and flashing a smile that broke the unexpected, and unexplained, tension.

'I might just sneak down and take a look at Fair Day before the show,' said Ben.

Jane took a deep breath. 'I'd like to invite you all over for drinks after the opening of the exhibition. In the living room.' Had she said 'In the nude' they wouldn't have been more amazed. 'I have a bit of a surprise for you.'

'No kidding,' said Ruth.

Stomachs full of turkey and pumpkin pie, port and espresso, the tired guests walked home, their flashlights bobbing like huge fireflies. Jane kissed Peter and Clara good-night. It had been a comfortable, unremarkable early Thanksgiving with friends. Clara watched Jane make her way along the winding path through the woods that joined their two homes. Long after Jane had disappeared from view her flashlight could be seen, a bright white light, like Diogenes. Only when Clara heard the eager barking of Jane's dog Lucy did she gently close her door. Jane was home. Safe.

TWO

Armand Gamache got the call Thanksgiving Sunday just as he was leaving his Montreal apartment. His wife Reine-Marie was already in the car and the only reason he wasn't on the way to his grand-niece's christening was because he suddenly needed to use the facilities.

'Oui, allo?'

'Monsieur l'Inspedeur?' said the polite young voice at the other end. 'This is Agent Nichol. The Superintendent asked me to call. There's been a murder.'

After decades with the Surete du Quebec, most of them in homicide, those words still sent a frisson through him. 'Where?' he was already reaching for the pad and pen, which stood next to every phone in their flat.

'A village in the Eastern Townships. Three Pines. I can be by to pick you up within a quarter hour.'

'Did you murder this person?' Reine-Marie asked her husband when Armand told her he wouldn't be at the two-hour service on hard benches in a strange church.

'If I did, I'll find out. Want to come?'

'What would you do if I ever said yes?'

'I'd be delighted,' he said truthfully. After thirty-two years of marriage he still couldn't get enough of Reine-Marie. He knew if she ever accompanied him on a murder investigation she would do the appropriate thing. She always seemed to know the right thing to do. Never any drama, never confusion. He trusted her.

And once again she did the right thing, by declining his invitation.

'I'll just tell them you're drunk, again,' she said when he asked whether her family would be disappointed he wasn't there.

'Didn't you tell them I was in a treatment center last time I missed a family gathering?'

'Well, I guess it didn't work.'

'Very sad for you.'

'I'm a martyr to my husband,' said Reine-Marie, getting into the driver's seat. 'Be safe, dear heart,' she said.

'I will, mon coeur.' He went back to his study in their second-floor flat and consulted the huge map of Quebec he had tacked to one wall. His finger moved south from Montreal to the Eastern Townships and hovered around the border with the United States.