“I thought I was bringing this for a child,” said the voice that accompanied the hand, and Beauvoir looked up.
Anton stood there, in a blue apron with thin white stripes.
“The casserole’s just coming out of the oven. I can take it over in about five minutes.”
“I’ll be here.” Beauvoir took the cherry off the whipped cream. “With my cocktail. Let me know when it’s ready and I can help carry.”
“Thanks.” Anton hesitated. Then looked at the hot chocolate. “Nothing stronger?”
“Non,” said Beauvoir, popping the cherry in his mouth.
Anton hung there, but when Beauvoir didn’t offer more conversation, he left.
A few minutes later, the two men were walking carefully across the village green, their feet crunching through the layer of snow and freezing rain. Trying not to slip and drop the dinner. Beauvoir in particular was moving slowly, the precious cargo fragrant and warm in his gloved hands.
* * *
“So.” Isabelle turned to Myrna, who towered over her even in the seated position. “Let’s leave Prohibition behind. I came here to ask you about Madame Evans’s friends. Your friends. I’ve been over the interviews, but I wanted to speak to someone who knows them well.”
“I’ve known them for a while, especially Lea,” said Myrna. “But can’t say I know them well. I only see them once a year. Like everyone else.”
Myrna felt slightly guilty saying that, as though she was denying them, distancing herself from them. But it was the truth. She didn’t know them well. And there was a chance at least one of them she didn’t know at all.
“But you’ve known Lea Roux since she was four.”
“Yes. And now you think she might be a murderer?”
“I don’t think they’re blaming you,” said Clara.
“Even killers were children once,” said Isabelle.
“Even Eichmann,” said Clara.
“Eichmann?” asked Isabelle.
“The Nazi war criminal,” said Clara.
Isabelle stared at her for a moment, far from sure why Clara would mention a Nazi war criminal.
“Yes. Even Eichmann was a child,” agreed Isabelle, baffled but vowing not to be taken off piste again. She turned back to Myrna. “Let me start off with an easy question. They normally come in the summer. Any idea why the date for the reunion was changed?”
“I asked Lea and she said that it’s tough to fit everyone’s schedules. These were the only dates that worked this year.”
“Was it a last-minute decision?” she asked.
Myrna thought and shook her head. “No. Lea wrote me back in May that they’d be coming around Halloween.”
Isabelle nodded. “Did she ever talk about Katie?”
Myrna shifted a little. No one was comfortable giving out details of conversations that were understood to be private. But she knew this wasn’t gossip, this was a murder investigation.
“She talked about all of them, but not Katie in particular.”
“Did she like Katie?”
“Ahh, well, not at first. No one did. Like we heard last night, I think they were protective of the one who died. Edouard.”
“Did they blame Katie for what happened to him?” asked Isabelle.
“A bit, at first, I think. Katie dumped Edouard for Patrick and shortly after that he took his life. They all want to think it was an accident. He lost his balance and fell off the roof, but Lea says none of them really believe it. They think he jumped. While stoned.” She shook her head. “I doubt he really meant to kill himself. Probably momentarily overwhelmed. And the drugs took away any brakes he had. Fucking drugs.”
Off to the side, by the fire, Gamache took a breath so deep Reine-Marie looked at him. It was the sort of inhale someone takes before plunging headfirst into cold water.
“The one they really blamed was the pusher, but no one could find him after Edouard died,” said Myrna. “He took off.”
“Lea told us last night that the family did try,” said Clara. “Even hired a private investigator, but the guy had disappeared.”
Lacoste turned to Gamache. “Doesn’t that strike you as strange?”
“Which part?”
“Well, it always sounds so easy. To disappear,” she said. “But we both know it isn’t. And a good investigator should’ve been able to track him down.”
Gamache was nodding. She was right.
“Maybe he wasn’t such a good investigator,” Myrna suggested.
“And maybe,” said Reine-Marie, “it wasn’t drugs and it wasn’t an accident.” She turned to Armand. “Maybe he was pushed. You wondered that last night, didn’t you?”
“I always wonder that,” he said with a smile. But it didn’t fool her.
It was still on his mind.
Yes, it was tragically easy to imagine a distraught and fragile young man getting high and jumping