The Nature of the Beast (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #11) - Louise Penny Page 0,19

A small stone with a line of pyrite through it. Fool’s gold. A chocolate bar. Broken. There were pine cone shards and dirt and a dog biscuit.

Then Gamache looked at the report on the boy’s hands. They were scratched, dirty. The coroner found pine resin and bits of plant matter under his nails. No flesh. No blood.

No fight. If Laurent was murdered, he didn’t have a chance to defend himself. Gamache was relieved by this at least. It spoke of a boy doing boy things in the last hours, minutes, of his life. Not fighting for that life, but apparently enjoying it. Right up until the end.

Gamache raised his brown eyes to Jean-Guy.

“Would you look into it?”

“Of course, patron. I’ll come back down for the funeral and try to have some definite answers by then.”

Beauvoir thought about where to start. But there wasn’t much to think about. When a child dies, where do you look first?

“You said his father wouldn’t look at the boy, at his body. Is it possible…?”

Gamache considered for a moment. Remembering the weathered, beaten face of Al Lepage. His back turned to his dead son and wailing wife. “It’s possible.”

“But?”

“If he killed Laurent in a fit of rage he might try to hide it, but it would be simpler, I think. He’d bury the boy somewhere. Or take the body into the woods and leave it there. Let nature do the rest. If it was murder, then someone put some thought and effort into making it look like an accident.”

“People do, of course,” said Jean-Guy. “The best way to get away with murder is to make sure no one knows it’s murder.”

They’d wandered into the kitchen and were pouring coffees. They sat at the pine table, hands cupped around the mugs.

Beauvoir missed this. The hours and hours with Chief Inspector Gamache. Poring over evidence, talking with suspects. Talking about suspects. Comparing notes. Sitting across from each other in diners and cars and crappy hotel rooms. Picking apart a case.

And now, sitting at the kitchen table in Three Pines, Inspector Beauvoir wondered if he was humoring the Chief by agreeing to investigate a case that almost certainly only existed in Gamache’s imagination. Or maybe he was humoring himself.

“If it was murder, why not just bury him in the forest?” asked Jean-Guy. “It would be almost impossible to find him. And as you said, the wolves and bears…”

Gamache nodded.

He looked across at Jean-Guy, the younger man’s brows furrowed, thinking. Following a line of reason. How often, Gamache wondered, in small fishing villages, in farmers’ fields, in snowed-in cabins in the wilderness, had the two of them struggled through the intricacies of a case? Trying to find a murderer, who was desperately trying to hide?

He missed this.

Was that why he was doing it? Had he turned a little boy’s tragic death into murder, for his own selfish reasons? Had he bullied Jean-Guy into seeing what didn’t exist? Because he was bored? Because he missed being the great Chief Inspector Gamache?

Because he missed the applause?

Still, Jean-Guy had asked a good question. If someone had in fact murdered Laurent, why not just hide the body in the deep, dark forest? Why go through the “accident” charade?

There was only one answer to that.

“Because he wanted Laurent to be found,” said Jean-Guy, before Gamache could say it. “If Laurent remained missing we’d keep looking for him. We’d turn the area upside-down.”

“And we might find something the murderer didn’t want us to find,” said Gamache.

“But what?” Jean-Guy asked.

“What?” Gamache repeated.

An hour later Reine-Marie returned from visiting Clara to find the two of them in the kitchen, staring into space.

She knew what that meant.

* * *

Laurent Lepage’s funeral was held two days later.

The rain had stopped, the skies had cleared and the day shone bright and unexpectedly warm for September.

The minister, who did not appear to know the Lepages, did his best. He spoke of Laurent’s kindness, his gentleness, his innocence.

“Who exactly are we burying?” Gabri whispered, as they got down once again to pray.

Laurent’s father was invited to the front by the minister. Al walked up, dressed in an ill-fitting black suit, his hair pulled back tightly, his beard combed. He held a guitar and sat on a chair set out for him.

The guitar rested on his lap, ready. But Al just sat there, staring at the mourners. Unable to move. And then, helped by Evie, he returned to his seat in the front pew.

The interment, in the cemetery above Three Pines, was private.