A Better Man (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #15) - Louise Penny Page 0,60

wheel, the gearshift, a small smear on the trunk handle, and a drop on the backseat.”

“A drop, not a smear?”

“Exactly.” The agent showed Beauvoir. It had the telltale splatter of blood that had formed a drop, then hit. Maybe from a bleeding nose or lip.

“Prints?” Beauvoir asked.

“From at least three different people. There’re butts in the cigarette holder. We’ve bagged them, and we’ve taken dirt samples from the tires, of course. To see if we can work out where she’s been recently.”

“Tire tracks?”

“None. The rain washed everything away, including boot prints.”

“Damn,” said Beauvoir, looking around.

“Chief,” said an agent standing by the bridge. “We’re ready.”

* * *

“Chief?”

“Oui?” Gamache turned to see Agent Cloutier at the door to the living room.

“There’s something curious in the bedroom,” she said. “Something different from when we were here yesterday.”

He followed her through the rambling old farmhouse to the bedroom and saw immediately what Agent Cloutier meant.

When he was last there, the room was a mess. Now it was tidy. Not, perhaps, ready for a photo shoot in Country Living, but far neater than it had been.

He brought out his phone.

“There’s no reception, sir,” said the inspector in charge.

“Merci,” he said, and continued to scroll until he found what he was looking for. The photographs he’d downloaded the day before, from the first search of the Tracey home.

“Here’s what this room looked like yesterday when we came looking for Vivienne Godin.”

He turned the phone so that the inspector could see. The photo was taken from exactly the place where they now stood.

It showed a room in disarray. Clothing scattered on the floor and draped on a chair. Bed unmade and sheets dirty. Though not bloody. Which wasn’t to say traces of blood weren’t there. Just unnoticeable except by people trained to find them.

“Get Monsieur Tracey up here, please,” said Gamache, and Cloutier hurried away.

“We’ve looked, patron, and we can’t find any clothes that obviously belonged to Madame Godin.”

They heard footsteps on the stairs, and Tracey appeared.

“What do you want?”

“What did you do with your wife’s belongings?” asked Gamache.

“Well, she didn’t need them anymore.”

“How did you know? You haven’t been back here since her body was found. Which means you got rid of her things before you knew she was dead. Unless you did know.”

“All I knew is that she’d left me and I was pissed off. Before I went to bed last night, I took all her shit and burned it in the kiln.”

“I’ll get Scene of Crime to check the kiln,” said Cloutier, and left.

“You cleaned the place with bleach?” The inspector held up a swab.

“What can I say? Place was a shithole.” He turned to Gamache. “You saw it. What did you think?”

When Gamache didn’t answer, Tracey sneered. “I live in a pigsty and you judge. I clean it up and you judge. Well, fuck you. I’m finally free to live the way I want.”

They were, Gamache recognized, the words of either an extremely well-balanced person who didn’t care what others thought. Or a psychopath. Who didn’t care what others thought.

* * *

“Why in the world do you care what others think?” demanded Ruth as they sat in the bistro, in front of the warm fire.

“Because I’m human and live in the world,” said Clara. “With other humans.”

Part of her felt that Ruth was probably right. She shouldn’t care. But she also felt there was a criticism there, that Ruth was implying she was weak or needy. For caring.

“People are canceling their orders for my works,” said Clara.

“So?”

“So this’s my life, my career. My livelihood.”

“What do you need money for, anyway?” asked Ruth. “We live in a tiny village. We buy clothes from the general store, barter turnips for milk, and the booze is free.”

“Not free,” said Olivier, pouring her another shot of what looked like scotch but was actually cold tea.

There was a suspicion Ruth knew about the substitution but played along. Because, as with so much else in her life, she didn’t really care.

As she watched Ruth, Clara remembered that in the past few hours someone had gone onto Twitter and defended her.

You ignorant turd. Clara’s works are genius. #MorrowGenius

If it wasn’t Ruth, it was someone doing a damn fine imitation of the foulmouthed poet.

Those tweets were trending. Not because, Clara realized, they were insightful defenses of her creations but because the tweets were in themselves a form of genius.

There was now a Twitter account from someone calling themselves ignorantturd.

“You’re far too needy,” said Ruth, watching as Rosa dipped her beak into