A Fatal Grace

Beauvoir looked down at his notes. He didn’t really know where to start. He certainly didn’t want to repeat that this was a bizarre, even possibly insane way to commit a murder. Chief Inspector Gamache already knew that. They all did. But Dr Sharon Harris had said it to him yesterday afternoon several times.

‘I don’t think you completely appreciate the situation, Inspector. Look at this.’ Dr Harris had taken the white sheet off the victim. There on the cold, hard gurney lay a cold, hard woman. She had a snarl on her face and Beauvoir wondered whether her family would recognize the look. Sharon Harris had spent a few minutes circling the woman, pointing out areas of interest like a necropolitan tour guide.

Now, in the morning briefing, he passed out more pictures, these ones taken by Dr Harris at the autopsy. The room grew silent as everyone went through them.

Gamache looked carefully at the images then passed them to Agent Lacoste. He turned slightly in his chair, crossed his legs and stared out the window. Snow was falling and gathering on the cars and houses and piling up on the branches of the trees. It was a peaceful scene, in sharp contrast to the pictures and conversation inside the old railway station. From where he sat he could see the arched stone bridge that connected their side of the Rivière Bella Bella with Three Pines. Every now and then a car would pass slowly and silently, the sound muffled by the snow.

Inside, the room smelled of wood smoke and industrial coffee in wet cardboard with a slight undercurrent of varnish and that musky aroma of old books. Or timetables. This had once been the railway station. Now abandoned like so many small stops along the Canadian National Railway the village of Three Pines had found a good use for the old wood and brick building.

Gamache brought his hand, warmed by his coffee, to his nose. It was cold. And a little wet. Had he been a dog it would have been a better sign. Still, the room was warming up and there was nothing quite like the comfort of being cold, then slowly feeling the heat approaching and arriving and spreading.

That’s how Armand Gamache felt now. He felt happy and satisfied. He loved his work, he loved his team. He’d rise no further in the Sûreté, and he’d made his peace with that because Armand Gamache wasn’t a competitive man. He was a content man.

And this was one of his favorite parts of the job. Sitting with his team and working out who could have committed the murder.

‘You see her hands? And feet?’ Beauvoir held up a couple of the autopsy pictures. ‘They’re charred. Did any of the witnesses report a smell?’ he asked Gamache.

‘They did, though it was very faint,’ Gamache confirmed.

Beauvoir nodded. ‘That’s what Dr Harris suspected. She thought there’d be a smell. Burning flesh. Most of the electrocution victims she sees these days are more obvious. Some are actually smoking.’

A few of the homicide investigators winced.

‘Literally,’ said Beauvoir. ‘Most people who die this way are killed by the high tension wires. They’re hydro workers or maintenance men or people just unlucky enough to come in contact with one of those wires. They blow down in a storm or get cut accidentally and pouf. Killed immediately.’

Beauvoir paused. Now Armand Gamache leaned forward. He knew Jean Guy Beauvoir well enough to know he didn’t go in for dramatics. Disdained them in fact. But he did enjoy his little pauses. They almost always gave him away. Like a liar who cleared his throat before telling a big one, or a poker player who rubbed his nose, Beauvoir telegraphed some big piece of news with a dramatic pause.

‘Dr Harris hasn’t seen a death by low voltage in more than ten years. The automatic shut-offs put an end to that. She says it’s almost impossible.’

Now he had everyone’s attention. Even the technicians, so busy in their work a moment earlier, had slowed down and stopped to listen.

A near impossible murder.

Doughnuts and coffee were arrested on their way to mouths, photographs were laid on the table, breathing seemed to have stopped.

‘Almost,’ repeated Beauvoir. ‘A number of things had to come together for this to work. CC de Poitiers had to have been standing in a puddle. In the middle of a frozen lake at minus ten Celsius she had to be standing in water. She had to have had her bare hands come in contact with something that was electrified. Bare hands.’ He brought his hands up, as though perhaps the homicide team needed the reminder of what hands looked like. ‘Again, in freezing cold temperatures she had to have taken off her gloves. She then had to touch the one thing in the whole area that was electrified. But even that wasn’t enough. The current had to travel through her body and out her feet, into the puddle. Look at your feet.’