How the Light Gets In (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #9) - Louise Penny Page 0,31

It was a sunny day, but the home felt dull, as though the color was draining from it.

“I left him in Three Pines with Clara. They both seemed pretty happy about that.”

He’d assured Henri he’d be back, and the shepherd had believed him.

Gamache and Lacoste sat at the kitchen table and went over the interviews and forensics. The Montréal police had been thorough, taking statements and samples and fingerprints.

“Only her prints, I see,” said Gamache, not looking up as he read the report. “No sign of forced entry and the door was unlocked when we arrived.”

“That might not mean anything,” said Lacoste. “When you get to the statements by the neighbors, you’ll see that most don’t lock their doors during the day, when they’re at home. It’s an old, established neighborhood. No crime. Families have lived here for years. Generations in some cases.”

Gamache nodded but suspected Constance Ouellet had probably locked her doors. Her most valued possession seemed to be privacy, and she wouldn’t have wanted any well-meaning neighbor stealing it.

“Coroner confirms she was killed before midnight,” he read. “She’d been dead a day and a half by the time we found her.”

“That also explains why no one saw anything,” said Lacoste. “It was dark and cold and everyone was inside asleep or watching television or wrapping gifts. And then it snowed all day and covered any tracks there might’ve been.”

“How did he get in?” Gamache asked, looking up and meeting Lacoste’s eyes. Around them the dated kitchen seemed to be waiting for one of them to make a pot of tea, or eat the biscuits in the tin. It was a hospitable kitchen.

“Well, the door was unlocked when we arrived, so either she left it unlocked and he let himself in, or she had it locked, he rang, and she let him in.”

“Then he killed her and left,” said Gamache, “leaving the door unlocked behind him.”

Lacoste nodded and watched as Gamache sat back and shook his head.

“Constance Ouellet wouldn’t have let him in. Myrna said she was almost pathologically private, and this confirms it.” He tapped the forensics report. “When was the last time you saw a house with only one set of prints? No one came into this home. At least, no one was invited in.”

“Then the door must’ve been unlocked and he let himself in.”

“But an unlocked door was also against her nature,” said the Chief. “And let’s say she’d gotten into the habit of keeping her door unlocked, like the rest of the neighborhood. It was late at night and she was getting ready for bed. She’d have locked the door by then, non?”

Lacoste nodded. Constance either let her killer in, or he let himself in.

Neither possibility seemed likely, but one of them was the truth.

Gamache read the rest of the reports while Inspector Lacoste did her own detailed search of the house, starting in the basement. He could hear her down there, moving things about. Beyond that, though, there was just the clunk, clunk as the clock above the sink noted the passing moments.

Finally he lowered the reports and took off his glasses.

The neighbors had seen nothing. The oldest of them, who’d lived on the street all her life, remembered when the three sisters moved into the home, thirty-five years ago.

Constance, Marguerite, and Josephine.

As far as she knew, Marguerite was the oldest, though Josephine was the first to die, five years ago. Cancer.

The sisters had been friendly, but private. Never having anyone in, but always buying boxes of oranges and grapefruit and Christmas chocolate from the children when they’d canvassed to raise money, and stopping to chat on warm summer days as they gardened.

They were cordial without being intrusive. And without allowing intrusion.

The perfect neighbors, the woman had said.

She lived next door and had once had a lemonade with Marguerite. They’d sat together on the porch and watched as Constance washed the car. They’d called encouragement and jokingly pointed out areas she’d missed.

Gamache could see them. Could taste the tart lemonade and smell the cold water from the hose as it hit the hot pavement. He wondered how this elderly neighbor could not have known she was sitting with one of the Ouellet Quints.

But he knew the answer to that.

The Quints only existed in sepia photographs and newsreels. They lived in perfect little castles and wore impossibly frilly dresses. And came in a cluster of five.

Not three. Not one.

Five girls, forever children.

The Ouellet Quints weren’t real. They didn’t age, they didn’t die. And they sure