Lacoste was haunted by the sight of the body. She’d been in homicide for several years and had seen bodies in far more gruesome shape. What disturbed her, though, hadn’t been the stare on the victim’s face, or even the statue imbedded in her chest. It was Julia Martin’s arms. Flung out, open.
She knew that pose. She saw it each time she visited her mother. There on the steps of her modest east end Montreal home, her mother would be standing. Carefully turned out, always clean and proper. When they pulled up she’d open the door having stood just inside, waiting. She’d step onto the stoop and watch them park, then as Isabelle got out her mother’s face would break into a smile. And her arms would open wide, in welcome. It seemed involuntary, as though her mother were exposing her heart to her daughter. And Isabelle Lacoste would head down the walk, picking up speed until finally she was enfolded in those old arms. Safe. Home.
And Lacoste did the same thing when her own children raced down the walk, and into her open arms.
It was just such a gesture Julia Martin had made in the moments before she died. Had she welcomed what was coming? Why had she opened her arms as the massive statue tilted on top of her?
Agent Lacoste closed her eyes and tried to feel the woman. Not the terror of her last moment, but the spirit, the soul of the woman. During each investigation Lacoste quietly went to the site of the murder, and stood there alone. She wanted to say something to the dead. And now, silently, she assured Julia Martin that they would find out who had taken her life. Armand Gamache and his team wouldn’t rest until she rested.
So far they had a near perfect record, and she’d only had to apologize to a few spirits. Would this be one? She hated to bring negative thoughts to this moment, but this case disturbed Agent Lacoste. The Morrows disturbed her. But more even than that, the walking statue disturbed her.
Opening her eyes she saw the chief walking across the lawn and above the buzzing insects and chirps of birds she heard him humming and singing in his baritone.
“Letter B, Letter B.”
Jean Guy Beauvoir had slept fitfully. After putting in a few calls to British Columbia and getting some interesting answers he’d done what he knew he shouldn’t. Instead of going to bed, or into the library to make more notes, on notepads, for God’s sake, he’d gone into the kitchen.