But then another thought struck Gamache. Maybe Myrna wasn’t the only wedding guest. Maybe Constance had confided in someone else.
The rest of the meal was spent talking about Christmas plans, menus, the upcoming concert.
Everyone, except Ruth, cleared the table while Gabri took Olivier’s trifle out of the fridge, with its layers of ladyfingers, custard, fresh whipped cream and brandy-infused jam.
“The love that dares not speak its name,” Gabri whispered as he cradled it in his arms.
“How many calories, do you think?” asked Clara.
“Don’t ask,” said Olivier.
“Don’t tell,” said Myrna.
After dinner, when the table was cleared and the dishes done, the guests took their leave, getting on their heavy coats and sorting through the jumble of boots by the mudroom door.
Gamache felt a hand on his elbow and was drawn by Gilles into a far corner of the kitchen.
“I think I know how to connect you to the Internet.” The woodsman’s eyes were bright.
“Really?” asked Gamache, barely daring to believe it. “How?”
“There’s a tower up there already. One you know about.”
Gamache looked at his companion, perplexed. “I don’t think so. We’d be able to see it, non?”
“No. That’s the beauty of it,” said Gilles, excited now. “It’s practically invisible. In fact, you can barely tell it’s there even from right under it.”
Gamache was unconvinced. He knew those woods, not, perhaps, as intimately as Gilles, but well enough. And nothing came to mind.
“Just tell me,” said the Chief. “What’re you talking about?”
“When Ruth was talking about killing that bird, it made me think of hunting. And that reminded me of the blind.”
The Chief’s face went slack from surprise. Merde, he thought. The hunting blind. That wooden structure high up in a tree in the forest. It was a platform with wooden railings, built by hunters to sit comfortably and wait for a deer to walk past. Then they’d kill it. The modern equivalent of the Ancient Mariner in his crow’s nest.
It was, for a man who’d seen far too many deaths, shameful.
But it might, this day, redeem itself.
“The blind,” whispered Gamache. He’d actually been on it, when he’d first come to Three Pines to investigate the murder of Miss Jane Neal, but he hadn’t thought of it in years. “It’ll work?”
“I think so. It’s not as high as a transmission tower, but it’s on the top of the hill and it’s stable. We can attach a satellite dish up there for sure.”
Gamache waved Thérèse and Jérôme over.
“Gilles’s figured out how to get a satellite dish up above.”
“How?” the Brunels asked together and the Chief told them.
“That’ll work?” asked Jérôme.
“We won’t know until we try, of course,” said Gilles, but he was smiling and clearly hopeful, if not completely confident. “When do you need it up by?”
“The dish and other equipment are arriving sometime tonight,” said Gamache, and both Thérèse and Jérôme looked at him, surprised.
Gilles walked with them to the door. The others were just leaving, and the four of them put on their parkas and boots, hats and mitts. They thanked Clara, then left.
Gilles stopped at his car. “I’ll be by tomorrow morning then,” he said. “À demain.”
They shook hands, and after he’d driven away Gamache turned to the Brunels.
“Do you mind walking Henri? I’d like a word with Ruth.”
Thérèse took the leash. “I won’t ask which word.”
* * *
“Good.”
Sylvain Francoeur glanced from the document his second in command had downloaded, then went back to the computer. They were in the Chief Superintendent’s study at home.
As his boss read the report, Tessier tried to read his boss. But in all the years he’d worked for the Chief Superintendent, he’d never been able to do that.
Classically handsome, in his early sixties, the Chief Superintendent could smile and bite your head off. He could quote Chaucer and Tintin, in either educated French or broad joual. He’d order poutine for lunch and foie gras for dinner. He was all things. To all people. He was everything and he was nothing.
But Francoeur also had a boss. Someone he answered to. Tessier had seen the Chief Superintendent with him just once. The man hadn’t been introduced as Francoeur’s boss, of course, but Tessier could tell by the way Francoeur behaved. “Grovel” would be too strong a word, but there’d been anxiety there. Francoeur had been as anxious to please that man as Tessier was to please Francoeur.
