A Fatal Grace

Gamache and Lemieux call on Peter and Clara for witness statements. The Morrows previously met Gamache when he was working on the murder case of their friend the year before. The inspector asks the couple to describe what happened the day of the killing. Clara mentions that CC claimed the chair closest to the heat lamp, even though it should have gone to Kaye. At the time, she felt CC was cruel and selfish.

Peter reports that he gave CPR to CC on the way to the hospital; it felt like pressing one’s lips to a frozen ski pole.

Gamache realizes that everyone loathed CC, which will make solving the murder more difficult: “Anyone so damaged as to cause this much harm led a life full of secrets and full of enemies” (100). 

Gamache and Lemieux question Ruth at her tiny cottage. Even though she’s rude and abrupt, Gamache likes her. Ruth pointedly tells Gamache that the house CC recently bought is the old Hadley house—the site of a previous case Gamache investigated. He feels a sense of dread at the thought of returning to a place where he nearly lost his life.

When Gamache asks Ruth’s opinion of CC, she calls the dead woman “bitter and petty and […] very cruel”; yet she believes there must have been a reason for CC’s behavior (102).

Ruth gives her account of events when CC died. Her report echoes Peter’s. Gamache shows her the book she autographed for the murdered beggar in Montreal. She inscribed the copy with, “You stink, love Ruth” (107). Ruth says she can’t recall the circumstances of the inscription. Then, she tells the two investigators to leave because she has a prior appointment.

Lemieux remarks that the method of CC’s murder was crazy. Gamache contradicts him: “‘You need to know this. Everything makes sense. Everything. We just don’t know how yet. You have to see through the murderer’s eyes’” (110). Lemieux is eager to know the secret to becoming a good detective. Gamache says one must learn to listen and sometimes admit to being wrong.

The investigators drive to the Hadley house to interview CC’s husband and daughter. Richard Lyon speaks all the right words of regret about the loss of his wife, but he doesn’t seem sorry that she’s dead. Crie doesn’t speak at all.

Gamache feels that tragedy lingers in the house. 

Lyon tells the investigators that he and Crie arrived at the curling tournament separately from his wife. He couldn’t recall where Crie was at the time of the murder. Lyon gives Gamache a copy of CC’s book. The inspector is put off by the cover photo: “It was artful and bizarre. The effect was repellent. The photographer, Gamache thought, must have despised her” (119-20). Lyon points out CC’s logo on the front of the book. It’s a screaming eagle, which Gamache finds equally repellant. Before Gamache leaves the house, he sits quietly by the catatonic Crie. He tries to convey the thought that life will get better if she gives it time.

Peter and Clara meet Myrna at the bistro. No one there seems the least bit upset by CC’s murder: “Three Pines was not diminished by her passing. She’d left behind a stink but even that was lifting. Three Pines felt lighter and brighter and fresher for its loss” (128).

Gamache returns home to Montreal. After a cozy dinner with his wife, he goes back to the case file on the murdered beggar. Her name is Elle; no last name. He still can’t make sense of her box of capital letters. He examines her autopsy photos and notices a small mark on her breastbone. Then he picks up his copy of Be Calm and starts reading.

The investigative team sets up an “Incident Room” in the Three Pines firehouse where Beauvoir conducts a briefing. The source of the electrical current has been identified as a generator on a truck belonging to a local, Billy Williams. On the morning of the curling tournament, Billy connected the heat lamp to his generator.

The coroner reports that CC was electrocuted, but a number of conditions needed to apply for the low voltage charge to kill her. She had to have taken her gloves off, and her hands had to come into contact with an electrified surface: the metal chair. The current also had to pass through her body to her feet, which meant she had to be standing in a puddle of melted ice.

Gamache objects and says that the rubber soles of CC’s boots must have provided grounding. Beauvoir counters by showing the group CC’s boots, which are made of baby sealskin with metal claws attached to the bottom. Gamache is disgusted: “Only brutes murdered babies” (146).