“I didn’t know that,” said Gamache.
“I think they might have all bought into the belief that Frère André was their guardian angel. Hence,” she held up the tuque, “the hat.”
Gamache nodded. There were plenty of references to Brother André in the archived papers as well. Both sides had invoked the saint’s potent memory.
“But why would she give me the hat?” Myrna asked. “So that she could tell me about Brother André? Was he the key to their home? I don’t get it.”
“Maybe she wanted to get it out of her house,” said Gamache, rising to his feet. “Maybe that was the key. Breaking loose from the legend.”
Maybe, maybe, maybe. It was no way to run an investigation. And time was running out. If this crime wasn’t solved by the time he and the Brunels and Nichol returned to the schoolhouse, then it would not be solved.
Not by him anyway.
“I need to see the film again,” said Gamache, making for the stairs up to Myrna’s loft.
* * *
“There,” Gamache pointed at the screen. “Do you see it?”
But once again he’d hit the pause button a moment too late.
He rewound and tried again. And again. Myrna sat on the sofa beside him. Over and over he played the same twenty seconds of the recording. The old film, in the old farmhouse.
The girls laughing and teasing each other. Constance sitting on the rough bench, her father at her feet, lacing the skates. The other girls at the door, teetering on their blades and already holding hockey sticks.
Then their mother enters the frame and hands out the hats. But there’s an extra hat, which she throws offscreen.
Over and over, Chief Inspector Gamache played it. The extra hat was only visible for an instant as it whirled out of the frame. Finally, he captured it, frozen in that split second between when it left Marie-Harriette’s hand and when it left the screen.
They leaned closer.
The tuque was light in color, that much they could see. But in a black and white film it was impossible to say what the color was exactly. But now they could see the pattern. It was fuzzy, blurry, but clear enough.
“Angels,” said Myrna. “It’s this one.” She looked down at the hat in her hand. “It was the mother’s.”But Gamache was no longer looking at the frozen hat. He was looking at Marie-Harriette’s face. Why was she so upset?
“May I use your phone?”
Myrna brought it over and he placed his call.
“I checked the death certificates, Chief,” Inspector Lacoste reported in answer to his question. “They’re definitely all dead. Virginie, Hélène, Josephine, Marguerite, and now Constance. All the Ouellet Quints are gone.”
“Are you sure?”
It was rare for the Chief to question her findings, and it made her question herself.
“I know we thought maybe one was still alive,” said Lacoste. “But I’ve found death certificates and burial records for all of them. All interred in the same cemetery close to their home. We have proof.”
“There was proof Dr. Bernard delivered the babies,” Gamache reminded her. “Proof Isidore and Marie-Harriette sold them to Québec. Proof Virginie died in an accidental fall, when we now suspect that was almost certainly not the case.”
Inspector Lacoste took his point.
“They were extremely private,” she said slowly, getting her head around what he was saying. “I suppose it’s possible.”
“They weren’t just private, they were secretive. They were hiding something.” The Chief thought for a moment. “If they are all dead, is it possible there was more to their deaths than we know?”
“Like Virginie’s, you mean?” asked Lacoste, her own mind churning to catch up with his.
“If they lied about one death, they could lie about them all.”
“But why?”
“Why does anyone lie to us?” he asked.
“To cover up a crime,” she said.
“To cover up murder.”
“You think they were murdered?” she asked, not succeeding in keeping the astonishment out of her voice. “All of them?”
“We know Constance was. And we know Virginie died a violent death. What do we really know about that?” asked the Chief. “The official record says she died from a fall down the stairs. Corroborated by Hélène and Constance. But the doctor’s notes and the initial police reports had a different version.”