away.
Though he suspected that had actually happened long ago. Caroline might drift close but would always be separate. And vulnerable to currents and undertows. To the ebb and flow of opinions and judgments.
Probably since childhood.
Behind them he could see the photographs on the bookcase. And while it was too far away and his eyes still too blurry, he could make out the small silver frame and the vague suggestion of three grinning kids. Wet, sagging bathing suits. Tanned arms slung easily over one another’s shoulders.
Caroline in the middle, bookended by her brothers.
Had she been happy then? Happy once?
Or had the cracks already begun to form? The cooling, the hardening. The distancing.
Was it in her nature, or had something happened?
And always, always, in the background of Gamache’s thoughts, the main question.
Why was one of them dead?
“Your brother,” Beauvoir said, looking first at Caroline, then to Hugo. Before moving his gaze to Adrienne. “Your former husband.” She gave him a slight acknowledgment. “Wasn’t killed in an accident. His death was deliberate.”
He paused for a moment, then went on.
“He was murdered.”
It was a short, sharp statement.
Both Beauvoir and Gamache knew that people’s minds couldn’t easily grasp the fact of murder. It was too big, too foreign. Too monstrous. Most just stared, as they stared at him now. As the word and its meaning sank in. Then sank further, from their heads to their hearts.
And there it would live forever.
Murder.
Caroline stiffened, and Hugo, after a pause in which his pudgy face opened in shock, reached out. And took his sister’s hand.
In, it seemed to Gamache, an automatic, unscripted, instinctive act of mutual support.
Adrienne, sitting alone in a wing chair, closed her fingers over the arms of the chair. And pressed until her knuckles were as white as her face. She looked, Gamache thought, as though she might pass out.
Beauvoir got up and went to the kitchen, returning with glasses of water. But not before going to the front door and signaling Inspector Dufresne.
Gamache could hear the murmurs of voices in the front hall and the rustling as the Sûreté homicide team entered the house.
The postmortem had begun.
Hugo had abandoned his glass and gone to the bar.
“Screw water,” he said, pouring three scotches. His hands trembled as he gave them to Caroline and Adrienne.
Adrienne took a great swig of the scotch, color returning to her face. Hugo downed his in a single shot. But Caroline simply took the glass and held it, as though she’d forgotten how to do everyday things. Like drink. And breathe.
“How?” she asked.
“Why?” asked Hugo.
“Are you sure?” Adrienne asked.
This last was the most natural of questions. Even though she knew the answer. Of course Chief Inspector Beauvoir was sure. He wouldn’t have said it otherwise. But still, she had to ask.
And yet the other two had not.
They’d asked other natural questions. How? Why? But what the other two hadn’t done was question the statement that someone had murdered their brother.
“We’re sure,” said Beauvoir. “Do you know of anyone who might want him dead?”
* * *
At that moment, on another continent, Kontrollinspektor Gund sat back in his chair.
It was getting on for midnight. A quiet evening in his precinct, and he’d had time to noodle around for the senior Québec cop.
He’d thought it would be a routine search into albeit a very old will.
An elderly event. He smiled as he remembered the epic struggle that poor man had had with the language.
But his smile faded as he read his screen. Then scrolled down.
Further. Further.
It was then he’d sat back and marveled.
* * *
“No life is blameless,” Caroline began, her voice prim. “But I can’t think that Anthony hurt anyone so badly they’d want him dead.”
“It’s not necessarily that he’s hurt someone,” Chief Inspector Beauvoir explained. “Motives can be”—he searched for the word—“complex. Your brother might have had something someone else wanted, badly. He might have stood in someone’s way at work, for instance. Or have found something out.”
Gamache sat quietly on the periphery of the circle and listened. And observed. Searching for some insight. Some reaction.
But all three were shaking their heads.
“Monsieur Baumgartner worked for Taylor and Ogilvy Investments,” said Beauvoir. “As an investment adviser, I believe.”
“That’s correct,” said Caroline.
“He invested people’s money.”
“He acted as a sort of money manager,” Hugo clarified. “He’d design a portfolio, get the client’s approval, and then others would do the actual trades.”
“I see.”
An agent, off to the side, was taking notes.
“We’ll follow up, of course,” said Beauvoir, “but was there anything at his work that was