Page 4 of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

Soon Three Pines would begin to stir. The villagers would wake up to the scent of mud and spring flowers and strong, rich café au lait. But for now, the only lights belonged to the Gamaches’ home across the village green.

Armand and Jean-Guy hadn’t even turned the lights on in her home. They crept around it in the dark.

She pressed her face to the window but couldn’t see anything. Knowing she probably, definitely, absolutely shouldn’t, Clara reached for the door handle. And found, to her surprise, that Armand had locked her out of her own home.

Quietly, quietly, on stocking feet, the two Sûreté officers searched the small home.

Armand went upstairs. He quickly, but carefully, looked in closets, under beds. He whipped open the shower curtain.

More than once in his long career with the Sûreté, he’d opened a door and a suspect had bolted out.

It was terrifying. It was as if his childhood nightmare had come true. There really was a monster hiding in the closet, or under the bed, or behind the curtain.

And so, he always girded himself before throwing open the door. The curtain. Before peering under the bed. Holding his hands in tight fists, ready to fight should someone burst out.

But despite being in the Sûreté for more than thirty years, despite all his experience, he realized he could never be totally prepared for what might await him.

So far, though, there was no reason to believe whoever had called that morning meant him, or anyone, harm. In fact, they seemed to want to help. And except for the phone being registered here, there was little reason to think the man had called from here. Still, they had to be sure.

As they’d made their way through the light rain to Clara’s home a few minutes earlier, Armand had pointed this out to Jean-Guy.

“If whoever called was responsible for the body, I suspect it wasn’t planned. He sounded terrified.”

“He called on your personal line, Armand,” said Jean-Guy quietly. “From Clara’s phone.”

Armand had simply nodded. That was what was so unsettling.

Jean-Guy placed his hand on the butt of his gun. Prepared. To defend himself but, more than that, to defend his mentor, his boss, his father-in-law. Though both knew, if it came to that, if there was a monster under the bed, in the closet, hiding behind the curtain, it would be too late.

Twenty minutes later, Armand had searched the upstairs and now looked up at the trapdoor in the ceiling.

Putting on his flashlight, he saw that there was the tiniest bit of pink fluff stuck in the edge of the trapdoor.

It was insultation. Someone had been up there recently. Still might be.

He slowly backed away.

Jean-Guy had searched the main floor of the small cottage.

He’d opened all the kitchen cupboards, though the chances of someone squeezing into one were small. Still, he was a careful man.

He’d searched everywhere a person could hide, and some they almost certainly could not. His most thorough search was in Clara’s studio. It was crammed full of canvases, some empty, some partially finished. Some completed. One was still on the easel, a work in progress.

She specialized in portraits. This was of Myrna. He was certain of that. And while not physically recognizable, it was unmistakably their friend.

How Clara did it, Jean-Guy could not begin to guess. And fortunately, that was not his job. His job was, for the moment, seeing if whoever had called Armand that morning, and had used Clara’s phone, was still in the house.

Jean-Guy ended his search at the trapdoor in the floor of the kitchen. It looked as though it had once been painted shut, but the paint had been cracked. Someone had been down there recently. Maybe very recently.

It would lead, he knew, to the crawl space under the old home.

Cold, damp, dark. Home to things that crawled. Things that scuttled and hung from the low beams. It would smell of rot and cobwebs and dirt and decay and—

“Jean-Guy?”

The younger man gave a little “yip” and swung around, though within a split second, he knew who it was.

“Sorry,” Armand whispered. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”