road. She loved it here. Nowhere else could she walk in the very middle of a road and trust no one would run her down. She could smell the earth and the sweet pine forest on either side of them.
‘Was Madeleine murdered?’ Clara asked. ‘Is that why you want to do this?’
‘Yes, she was.’
Myrna and Clara stopped.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Myrna.
‘Poor Madeleine,’ said Clara. ‘Poor Hazel. She does so much for others and now this.’
If kind acts could protect us from tragedy, thought Lacoste, the world would be a kinder place. Enlightened self-interest, perhaps, but at least enlightened. Is that what I’m about now? Trying to buy favor? Trying to prove how kind I am to whatever power decides life and death and hands out rewards?
The three women looked once more at their destination, rising over the village. Goddamned Hadley house, thought Clara as they trudged forward. Taken another life.
She hoped it was satisfied, hoped it was full. She was glad she hadn’t had breakfast yet and hoped she didn’t smell of bacon and eggs.
‘Why do you do this?’ Myrna asked Lacoste, quietly.
‘Because I think it’s possible the…’ She stopped and tried again. ‘Because you never know…’
Myrna turned and took her hand. Agent Lacoste wasn’t used to suspects and witnesses holding her hand, but she didn’t pull back.
‘It’s all right, child. Look at us. We’re two old crones, Clara and I. We lit a fucking great pole of sage and sweetgrass and fumigated the village for evil spirits. I think we might understand.’
Isabelle Lacoste laughed. All her adult life she’d been ashamed of her beliefs. She’d been raised a Catholic, but one cold, dreary morning while looking at a purple stain on the asphalt where a young man had died in a hit and run she’d closed her eyes and spoken to the dead man.
Told him he was not forgotten. Never forgotten. She’d find out who did this to him.
That had been her first. It had seemed innocent enough, but another sort of instinct had kicked in. It had told her to be careful. Not of the dead, but of the living. And when she was caught by a colleague her fears had proved well founded. She’d been mocked and ridiculed mercilessly. She’d been hounded through the halls of the Sûreté, laughed and sneered at for communicating with spirits.
Just as she was about to quit, when she actually had the letter in hand and was waiting outside her supervisor’s office, the door opened and out came Chief Inspector Gamache. Everyone knew him, of course. Even without the notoriety of the Arnot case, he was famous.
He’d looked at her and smiled. Then he did the most extraordinary thing. He put out his large hand, introduced himself and said, ‘I’d consider it a privilege, Agent Lacoste, if you’d come and work with me.’
She’d thought he was kidding. His eyes never left her.
‘Please say yes.’
And she had.
She suspected Chief Inspector Gamache knew that at each and every homicide scene, when the activity subsided, the teams had gone home and the air had closed back in around the place, Isabelle Lacoste was still there.
Speaking to the dead. Reassuring them Chief Inspector Gamache and his team were on the case. They would not be forgotten.
Now, standing in the fresh, gentle light, holding Myrna’s rough hands and looking into Clara’s warm blue eyes, she let her guard down.
‘I think Madeleine Favreau’s spirit is still there.’ She looked over to the desolate house on the hill. ‘Waiting for us to free it. I want her to know we’re trying and we won’t forget her.’
‘It’s a sacred thing you do,’ said Myrna, squeezing her hands. ‘Thank you for asking us to help.’
Isabelle Lacoste wondered if they’d be thanking her in a few minutes. Finally the three women stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the old Hadley house.
‘Come on,’ said Clara. ‘It’s not going to get easier.’
She plunged down the uneven walkway to the front door and tried the knob.
‘It’s locked,’ she said, images of returning to Myrna’s and feasting on maple-cured bacon and eggs over easy and warm toast and homemade marmalade rising in her mind. They’d tried, they’d done their best, no one could –
‘I have the key,’ said Lacoste.
Damn.
At that same moment Armand Gamache and Jean Guy Beauvoir were entering the Cowansville Hospital. A few people were lounging outside having cigarettes, one dragging an oxygen tank behind her. The two men gave her a wide berth.
‘What took you so long?’
Agent Yvette Nichol stood in