Gamache nodded slowly. “Doing what?”
“Cutting wood.”
“And yet we heard no saw.”
“I’d already cut it and was just stacking it.” Now the boy’s eyes moved more quickly from Gamache to his father and back.
Gamache got up, walked a couple of steps to the door to the kitchen, bent down and picked something up. He sat back down and placed it on the polished table. It was a wood chip. No. A shaving. It curled back on itself.
“How did you afford this house?” Gamache asked Roar.
“What do you mean?” Roar asked.
“It would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The materials alone are worth that. Add in designs and specifications for such an unusual house, then labor? You say you built it about fifteen years ago. What happened then that allowed you to do it? Where’d you get the money?”
“What do you think happened?” Roar leaned in to the Chief Inspector. “You Québécois, so insular. What happened all those years ago? Let’s see. There was a sovereignty referendum in Quebec, there was a huge forest fire in Abitibi, there was an election in the province. Nothing much else to report.”
The shaving on the table trembled as his words brushed past on their way to Gamache.
“I’ve had it,” Roar said. “God, how can you not know what happened back then?”
“Czechoslovakia broke up,” said Gamache. “And became Slovakia and the Czech Republic. That actually happened twenty years ago, but the impact can take time. Those walls came down, and these ones,” he glanced at the bank of glass, “went up.”
“We could see our families again,” said Hanna. “So many of the things we left behind we could have again. Family, friends.”
“Art, silver, heirlooms,” said Beauvoir.
“Do you think those things mattered?” asked Hanna. “We’d lived without them for so long. It was the people we missed, not the things. We barely dared hope it was real. We’d been fooled before. The summer of ’68. And certainly the reports we were seeing in the West were different from the stories we heard from people back home. Here we only heard how wonderful it was. We saw people waving flags and singing. But my cousins and aunts told a different story. The old system was horrible. Corrupt, brutal. But it was at least a system. When it went they were left with nothing. A vacuum. Chaos.”
Gamache tilted his head slightly at the word. Chaos. Again.
“It was terrifying. People were being beaten, murdered, robbed, and there were no cops, no courts.”
“A good time to smuggle things out,” said Beauvoir.
“We wanted to sponsor our cousins but they decided to stay,” said Roar.
“And my aunt wanted to stay with them, of course.”
“Of course,” said Gamache. “If not people, what about things?”
After a moment Hanna nodded. “We managed to get some family heirlooms out. My mother and father hid them after the war and told us they were to be kept for barter, for bargaining, if things got bad.”
“Things got bad,” said Gamache.
“We smuggled them out and sold them. So that we could build the home of our dreams,” said Hanna. “We struggled with that decision a long time, but finally I realized both my parents would understand and approve. They were only things. Home is what matters.”
“What did you have?” asked Beauvoir.
“Some paintings, some good furniture, some icons. We needed a house more than we needed an icon,” said Hanna.
“Who did you sell them to?”
“A dealer in New York. A friend of a friend. I can give you his name. He took a small commission but got a fair price,” said Parra.
“Please. I’d like to speak to him. You certainly made good use of the money.” The Chief Inspector turned to Roar. “Are you a carpenter too?”
“I do some.”
“And you?” Gamache asked Havoc, who shrugged. “I’ll need more than that.”
“I do some.”
Gamache reached out and slowly pushed the wood shaving along the glass table until it sat in front of Havoc. He waited.
“I was in the woods whittling,” admitted Havoc. “When I finish my work I like to sit quietly and shave down a piece of wood. It’s relaxing. A chance to think. To cool off. I make little toys and things for Charles Mundin. Old gives me chunks of old wood and showed me how. Most of the stuff I make is crap and I just throw it away or burn it. But sometimes it’s not too bad, and I give it to Charles. Why do you care if I whittle?”
“A piece of wood was found near the dead man. It was carved into the word Woo. Jakob didn’t do it. We think the murderer did.”
“You think Havoc—” Roar couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I have a search warrant and a team on the way.”
“What’re you looking for?” asked Hanna, blanching. “Just the whittling tools? We can give them to you.”
“It’s more than that, madame. Two things are missing from Jakob’s cabin. The murder weapon and a small canvas sack. We’re looking for them too.”
“We’ve never seen them,” said Hanna. “Havoc, get your tools.”
Havoc led Beauvoir to the shed while Gamache waited for the search team, who showed up a few minutes later. Beauvoir returned with the tools, and something else.
Chunks of wood. Red cedar. Whittled.
It was agreed that Beauvoir would direct the search while Gamache returned to the Incident Room. At the car the two men talked.
“Which of them did it, do you think?” Beauvoir asked, handing the keys to Gamache. “Havoc could’ve followed Olivier and found the cabin. But it might’ve been Roar. He might’ve found the cabin when he was clearing the trail. Could’ve been the mother, of course. The murder didn’t take a lot of strength. Anger, yes, adrenaline, but not strength. Suppose Jakob stole from the Parra family back in Czechoslovakia then when he came here they recognized him. And he recognized them. So he took off into the woods and hid there.”
“Or perhaps Jakob and the Parras were in it together,” said Gamache. “Maybe all three convinced friends and neighbors in Czechoslovakia to give them their precious things, then disappeared with them.”
“And once here Jakob screwed his partners, taking off into the woods. But Roar found the cabin as he cut the trails.”
Gamache watched the search teams start their methodical work. Before long there wouldn’t be anything they didn’t know about the Parras.
He needed to gather his thoughts. He handed the car keys to Beauvoir. “I’ll walk.”
“Are you kidding?” asked Beauvoir, for whom walking was a punishment. “It’s miles.”
“It’ll do me good, clear my mind. I’ll see you back in Three Pines.” He set off down the dirt road, giving Beauvoir a final wave. A few wasps buzzed in the ripe autumn air but were no threat. They were fat and lazy, almost drunk on the nectar from apples and pears and grapes.
It felt a little as though the world was on the verge of rotting.
As Gamache strolled, the familiar scents and sounds receded and he was joined by John the Watchman, and Lavina who could fly, and the little boy across the aisle on Air Canada. Who also flew, and told stories.
This murder seemed to be about treasure. But Gamache knew it wasn’t. That was just the outward appearance. It was actually about something unseen. Murder always was.
This murder was about fear. And the lies it produced. But, more subtly, it was about stories. The tales people told the world, and told themselves. The Mythtime and the totems, that uneasy frontier between fable and fact. And the people who fell into the chasm. This murder was about the stories told by Jakob’s carvings. Of Chaos and the Furies, of a Mountain of Despair and Rage. Of betrayal. And something else. Something that horrified even the Mountain.
And at its heart there was, Gamache now knew, a brutal telling.