Page 106 of A Better Man

Bob Cameron.

Left tackle’s hands. And what did a left tackle do? He pushed and shoved. Violently. Perhaps, at this stage, instinctively. When threatened.

“Any idea how long she’s been dead?” asked Beauvoir.

“Two, maybe three days. The water was cold, so that has to be taken into account. This is Tuesday? I’d say she went into the river on Saturday night, maybe at a stretch early Sunday morning.”

Gamache was nodding. Thinking. And finally asked the question Jean-Guy Beauvoir did not seem willing to ask.

“Is there any evidence, any proof, that she was murdered?”

Sharon Harris paused before answering. “I’m sorry. I looked. Hard. But I can’t find anything. It could’ve been suicide. It could’ve been an accident. I think she was murdered. I think that she was hit so hard in the chest she fell off the bridge. But as for absolute proof?”

She raised her hands. No.

“And the blood work?” Beauvoir asked.

“Very preliminary. None of the more detailed results yet, but I can tell you that she’d been drinking.”

“She was drunk?” asked Beauvoir.

“No, but she’d had a few ounces of alcohol shortly before her death. No sign of drugs. But if there’re just traces, that won’t show up until I get the detailed report. I’ve put a rush on it, and we should have something by later this afternoon.”

“Can you ask them to check for this?” Beauvoir brought out the pill bottle in its sterile baggie.

Dr. Harris examined it while Gamache walked back to Vivienne’s body.

He looked down at her, at the wounds caused by the river. By the fall. By her husband. And by the coroner. Who’d cut into this young woman in an effort to find out who’d caused the other wounds.

He picked up her hand, to tuck it next to her body and draw the sheet over her.

The hand was, as he expected, cold. It would have shocked him to the core had Vivienne’s hand been warm.

He held it for a moment and realized he was, unconsciously, trying to comfort her. He noticed then that there was a gash on her palm.

“Doctor, what’s this? It looks like a defensive wound.”

“Not from a knife,” she said, joining him. “Too jagged.”

“Could it have been caused by reaching out for the railing,” Gamache asked. “And having it break?”

Dr. Harris lifted up Vivienne’s hand to take a closer look.

Then, stepping away from the body, Dr. Harris stood straight and lifted both hands in front of her.

Anyone would have thought she was being threatened by the two Sûreté officers.

Her face was intent. Her body rigid in feigned alarm. Then she leaned away from them and reached behind her. With her right hand.

“What height is the railing?”

“Ninety-eight centimeters,” said Beauvoir.

Dr. Harris adjusted her hand to just over three feet off the floor. Then she nodded and walked over to her desk.

Doing quick calculations of Vivienne Godin’s height. The height of the railing. The angle of the cut on her hand and the likely trajectory of her body. The coroner then returned to the metal slab.

“What’s the thickness of the handrail?”