Page 88 of Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

“I wouldn’t need to be asking you these questions if you’d been honest in the first place.” Gamache’s voice became reasonable. Kindly even. “Look, I know it’s natural to lie, or at least withhold the truth when the cops come calling. You don’t want to get yourself or anyone else in trouble. You’re afraid of saying the wrong thing.”

Charles now clasped hands together in his lap and drew his elbows into his side.

“I’ll let you in on a secret.” Gamache dropped his voice ’til he was almost whispering. “Everyone does it. I probably would too.” He gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh. “I’m not judging you for that, believe me. But you must know that whatever you’re hiding, we will discover. I know you want to tell me. I can see it. Make it easy on yourself, Charles. There’s no need to prolong this. Please. Tell me the truth.”

Gamache’s voice was calm. Soothing. Mesmerizing.

The head of homicide knew that yelling and threatening worked on some people, but not many. Most clammed up or got defensive when challenged. Or told them what they thought the cops wanted to hear, just to make it stop.

But most people, Gamache knew, really did want to tell the truth. To unburden themselves. Guilt was a terrible weight to lug around. Except, of course, to narcissists and psychopaths. But those were mercifully rare, though he had run into a few.

Will that be fries with your burger?

His mind flashed back to the security camera from that first restaurant the gang had hit. That question was the last thing the young server at the cash register said before the shots rang out. Before she fell.

That sentence had become the gang’s calling card. One used over and over to taunt the Sûreté. To taunt Gamache. As they continued to hit fast-food restaurants, spraying them with gunfire. For fun.

Will that be fries with your burger?

Gamache’s team, with hard work and perseverance, using every informant, every resource, had tracked them down to a bunker in Châteaugay. Gamache himself had planned and led the attack. A raid that would have worked, but for …

Armand dug his fingers into his thigh, pinching himself, the slight pain bringing him back to the present. And Charles Fillmore. Who might, or might not, have killed his brother.

The thing about murder, the very sad thing, was that it was often committed by people who did have a conscience. But something inside them had twisted, some emotion had turned rancid and had eaten away at their good sense. Eaten away at their options, until murder was the only one left.

Gamache, as the head of homicide, had to find the way past their defenses, past their denials and their terror, to the truth.

It took patience. And unwavering focus. He could not let the sudden appearance of Gaston Comeau, Comeau, Comeau, distract him.

Charles Fillmore was silent. No longer meeting Gamache’s eyes. He was clinging on to the last tattered thread of delusion. That he could somehow wheedle out of this.

“The murdered man was found on a grave in a place called Lost Nation.”

Armand spoke as though telling one of his grandchildren a bedtime story. Not Winnie-the-Pooh or Le Petit Prince. This one would have been written by the Brothers Grimm.

Still, his voice was almost singsong. Hypnotic. Inviting. Once upon a time …

“There was once a thriving village there, but the community has been abandoned for many years. More than a century. Forgotten. Even by those who live nearby. It is now, at best, a distant memory.”

As he spoke, Armand heard again the frail voice of Flossy Fuller. He watched, again, the brown ribbon of tape glide through the machine as she related for the oral history archives in the little country historical society, the story of the itinerant preachers who had damned the villagers. Giving the community its name.

And then there was the murder, she’d said.

The next day, Flossy and the woman recording the oral history were dead. Possibly themselves murdered.

“The forest has reclaimed Lost Nation,” he continued, pulling Fillmore into the story. “Including the cemetery. But the man found it and stood at one particular grave. A peculiar grave. And there he died. Was killed. His body lay there for months. Then, in spring, as the earth warmed up, something wonderous happened.”

Charles Fillmore leaned forward, toward the pleasant voice.

“Miss Wolcott’s Ghost appeared.”

“A ghost?” Charles whispered, in much the same tone Armand’s grandchildren might use.

“A plant. Not one native to Québec. To Canada. It has never been found here. In fact, it was thought to be extinct. But there it was, growing wild through and around the dead man. As though embracing him.”

At that word, “embracing,” so carefully chosen by the head of homicide, a small sound escaped Charles’s throat.

His lips compressed, and his dimpled chin trembled, and his head dropped.