‘His mother’s still alive?’ Gamache asked, trying to do some quick calculations.
‘Ninety-two,’ said Lacoste. ‘Pickled, by all accounts, but breathing. An old tartar. Probably outlive them all. Family lore has it she found her husband next to her one morning, dead, and she rolled over and went back to sleep. Why be inconvenienced?’
‘We only have Mrs Morrow’s word for it that they didn’t know what was in the will,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Miss Neal might have told them they’d inherit, n’est-ce pas?’
‘If they needed money, wouldn’t they have gone to Miss Neal for a loan instead of murdering her?’ Gamache asked.
‘Maybe they did,’ said Beauvoir. ‘And she said no. And, they had the best chance of luring her to the woods. If either Clara or Peter had called her at 6.30 in the morning and asked to see her without the dog, she’d have gone. No questions asked.’
Gamache had to agree.
‘And’, Beauvoir was on a roll, ‘Peter Morrow’s an accomplished archer. His specialty is the old wooden recurve. He says he only target shoots, but who knows? Besides, as you found out, it’s easy enough to replace the snub-nosed tip with the killer tip. He could have gotten them from the clubhouse, killed her, cleaned the equipment and returned it. And even if we found his prints or fibers, it’d mean nothing. He used the equipment all the time anyway.’
‘He was on the jury that chose her art work,’ Lacoste was warming to the possibility, ‘suppose he was jealous of her, saw her potential and, I don’t know, flipped out or something.’ She sputtered to a stop. None of them could see Peter Morrow ‘flipping out’. But Gamache knew the human psyche was complex. Sometimes people reacted to things without knowing why. And often that reaction was violent, physically or emotionally. It was just possible Peter Morrow, having struggled with his art and his family’s approval all his life, saw brilliance in Jane Neal’s work and couldn’t take it. Was consumed with jealousy. It was possible, not probable, but just possible.
‘Who else?’ asked Gamache.
‘Ben Hadley,’ said Lacoste. ‘He’s also a good archer, with access to the weapons. And trusted by Miss Neal.’
‘But without a motive,’ said Gamache.
‘Well, not money, anyway,’ admitted Lacoste. ‘He’s worth millions. All inherited from his mother. Before that he was on a generous allowance.’
Nichol snorted. She hated these ‘trust fund’ kids who did nothing with their lives except wait for Mommy and Daddy to die.