Page 21 of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

“And how did he get your number, Armand?” asked Myrna.

“And why didn’t he call back? If it’s so innocent, wouldn’t you expect him to?”

“I don’t know. People have their reasons, often ones we don’t understand. But will.”

Armand took a quick look at his phone. He was awaiting word from Dr. Harris. The first step was knowing if they were looking at a murder. Either way, they needed to identify the dead man.

An agent had been assigned to sift through missing person reports going back to mid-November, when they thought the person died.

“Do you have that list of people who visited you?”

“Here.” Clara handed it to him. “Let’s move into the garden. I feel the need for fresh air and sunshine.”

Just then Gamache’s phone rang. “I’ll meet you out there. Oui, allô?”

“Whoever called you,” the head of cybercrimes reported, “was almost certainly using a burner phone, which might also explain why the connection was so bad. They’re notoriously unreliable. But he’d have to sign up to a service to get online. He’d just have to give a name and some form of address.”

“Untraceable?”

“Pretty much. We’re playing catch-up with the black hats, I’m afraid.”

Gamache considered that. “Could he just choose a name and address at random from listings?”

“Or even make one up. As long as he pays, they don’t care.”

“Merci.” Gamache hung up and stood still, in the comfortable and familiar kitchen.

What that conversation told him was that whoever called could have chosen any name, any address, when registering for service.

And he chose Clara Morrow of Three Pines, Québec.

The caller knew about this little village that wasn’t even on the map. A place only ever found by accident. By people lost.

It was, in many ways, its own lost nation.

More than that, the caller knew who lived here. Including Clara. Including him.

This was something, someone, close to home.

Armand stepped outside and took a seat in the dappled sunshine of Clara’s garden, surrounded by her perennial beds of early blooming flowers. Fresh, young, fragrant. From there, he could hear, but not quite see, the Rivière Bella Bella flowing by.

“You look worried,” said Clara.

“Baffled more than worried. But then I often am.”

“You and Rosa,” said Myrna. Armand raised his brows. He had not expected to be compared to a duck. Myrna seemed to think it was a compliment.

He put on his glasses, took a sip of the pink lemonade Clara had placed on the arm of the Adirondack chair, and studied the list she had carefully drawn up.

He was pretty sure whoever had called him was on it.

He also suspected whoever was now in the morgue was also there, since killer and killed must be connected.

The rain had long since stopped, and the late June sun had already evaporated the beads of moisture on the large wooden chairs.

This wasn’t just a catalog of names. Beside each one, Clara had written contact information, dates of the visit, and their relationship to her.

Taking out his pen, Armand drew a line, demarking those who visited before December, when the coroner felt the man had died, and those who visited her after.