Gamache waited for the answer.
“Mama, of course,” said André.
They hadn’t gone two paces before Pineault stopped.
“Wait a minute. You said Constance died, but that doesn’t explain the questions. Why’re you asking all this?”
Gamache was wondering when Pineault would get around to asking. It had taken the older man quite a while, but then he was probably distracted by the stupid questions.
“Constance didn’t die a natural death.”
“How did she die?” He was watching Gamache with sharp eyes.
“She was murdered. I’m with homicide.”
“Maudit tabarnac,” muttered Pineault.
“Can you think of anyone who might have killed her?” Gamache asked.
André Pineault thought about that and slowly shook his head.
Before he left the kitchen, Gamache noticed Pineault’s dinner waiting on the counter.
A can of Alphagetti and hot dogs.
THIRTY-TWO
The snow plows were out, with their flashing lights, as Gamache drove over the Champlain Bridge, off the island of Montréal.
The rush hour traffic was bumper to icy bumper and Gamache could see a massive plow in his rearview mirror, also trapped in traffic.
There was nothing to do but crawl along. His face had begun to throb but he tried to ignore it. Harder to ignore was how it had happened. But, with effort, he shifted his thoughts to his interview with André Pineault, the only person alive who knew the Quints, and their parents. He’d created in Gamache’s mind an image of bitterness, of loss, of poverty beyond economics.
The Ouellet home should have been filled with screaming kids. Instead, there were just Marie-Harriette and Isidore. And a home stuffed with innuendo and legend. Of a miracle granted. Then sold. Of girls saved from grinding poverty and greedy parents.
A myth had been created. To sell tickets and films and meals at the Quint Diner. To sell books and postcards. To sell the image of Québec as an enlightened, progressive, God-fearing, God-pleasing country.
A place where the deity strolled among them, granting wishes to those on bended, bloody knee.
The thought stirred something in Gamache’s mind, as he watched impatient drivers try to cut between lanes, thinking they could get through the bumper-to-bumper traffic faster. That a miracle, reserved for the other lane, would suddenly occur and all the cars ahead would disappear.
Gamache watched the road, and thought of miracles and myths. And how Myrna described that moment when Constance had first admitted she wasn’t a Pineault at all, but one of the Ouellet Quints.
Myrna had said it was as though one of the Greek gods had materialized. Hera. And later, Thérèse Brunel had pointed out that Hera wasn’t just any goddess, but the chief female. Powerful and jealous.
Myrna had protested, saying it was just a name she’d pulled out of the air. She could have said Athena or Aphrodite. Except she hadn’t. Myrna had named solemn and vengeful Hera.
The question that Gamache turned over and over in his mind was whether Constance wanted to tell Myrna about something done to her. Possibly by her father. Or something she’d done, or they’d all done, to someone else.
Constance had a secret. That much was obvious. And Gamache was all but certain she was finally ready to tell it, to drop the albatross at Myrna’s feet.
Suppose Constance Ouellet had gone to someone else first? Someone she knew she could trust. Who could that be? Was there anyone, besides Myrna, Constance might consider a confidant?
The fact was there really wasn’t anyone else. The uncle, André, hadn’t seen them in years and hardly seemed a fan. There were the neighbors, who were all kept at a polite distance. The priest, Père Antoine, if Constance was inclined to a confession or an intimate chat to save her soul, seemed to consider them as commodities and nothing more. Neither human nor divine.
Gamache went back over the case. Over and over. And what kept coming to him was the question of whether Marie-Constance Ouellet was really the last of her kind. Or had one of them escaped. Faked her death, changed her name. Made a life for herself.
It would have been far easier back in the fifties and sixties. Even the seventies. Before computers, before the need for so much documentation.
And if one of the Quints still lived, could she have killed her sibling to keep her quiet? To keep her secret?
But what was that secret? That one sister still lived? That she’d faked her death?
Gamache stared at the brake lights ahead, his face bathed in the glowing red lights, and he remembered what Father Antoine had said. They’d have to have buried someone.
