Chief Inspector Armand Gamache receives a phone call from Agent Nichol. Agent Nichol announces that a murder has been committed in a small village called Three Pines, which resides in the Eastern Townships, east of Montreal.
Gamache must put on hold his thanksgiving plans with his wife Reine-Marie to investigate the crime scene. Reine-Marie accepts the high demands of her husband’s job and supports him; this, in turn, creates a strong bond between these two characters. Penny discusses their 32-year marriage together, “After 32 years of marriage he still couldn’t get enough of Reine-Marie […] he trusted her.” (p.91-93, ch.2). The strong bond between husband and wife shows the ideal for a relationship.
Armand Gamache has a high-demand job, and Reine-Marie is proud of what he does. She would even like to hang his framed commendations, but this reminds Gamache, of memories, of the faces of the dead and the living they left behind. (p.96, ch.2). He doesn’t view his commendations as the happy formal Surete ceremony, and his commendations remind him of having a challenging job where he loses colleagues.
After receiving the phone call about the murder, the author introduces the rookie, agent Yvette Nichol. Yvette is seen as the youngest of her family, with high expectations from her father. “She exceeded every expectation, by qualifying for the Surete.” (p.98, ch.2). Her father, Ari Nikulas, even lied about her having an uncle, Saul, who was killed by the authorities. The author lets us know her father’s guilt for lying to her because there was no uncle Saul. This lie was supposed to make their lost family sound heroic, but also it encouraged his children to reach their goals. This led Yvette Nichol to work in a dangerous field for the Surete du Quebec.
Agent Nichol counts herself as fortunate to be working with Gamache because he is a senior inspector with an excellent reputation. Agent Nichol picks Gamache up at his house. They then head to Three Pines together. Penny then adds descriptive writing to engage the reader in the scene where Gamache and Yvette Nichol encounter, “After a tooth-jarring minute or two along the washboard dirt road, they saw the inevitable paradox. An old stone mill sat beside a pond, the mid morning sun warming its fieldstones. Around it the maples and birches and wild cherry trees held their fragile leaves, like thousands of happy hands waving to them upon arrival. And police cars. The snakes in Eden. Though, Gamache knew, the police were not the evil ones. The snake was already here.” (p.105, ch.2). Gamache and Agent Nichol arrive at the crime scene to meet a crowd of anxious individuals from the village.
Armand Gamache then introduces Jean Guy Beauvoir and meets the duty officer from the Cowansville Surete office, Robert Lemieux. Jean-Guy has been Gamache’s second in command for more than a decade. Gamache then asks questions to Robert Lemieux to figure out if anything was weird when he arrived at the scene. Robert Lemieux then answers this question with a stereotypical answer about the English while pointing out Ben Hadley. He announces that the English have weak stomachs and that Ben was the individual who found the dead body.
Agent Nichol then misses a detail about how Ben Hadley was in the family for Hadley Mills, which she took hard and wondered what else she had missed on the scene. She was trying to receive approval from Gamache herself; she didn’t like how Lemieux was doing the same. This is shown when she looks suspiciously at Lemieux and dismisses him. (p.113, ch.2)
Gamache then stares quietly at Jane Neal. Examining her, it seems as if Gamache and Jane were frozen in time. The reader then gets a glimpse of how Gamache feels about the dead when Penny writes how he feels a pang when looking at the hand of the dead imagining all the people those hands had once held close. The detectives then try to determine the cause of death of Jane, and they question whether it was a robbery or was she shot by a hunter.
Dr. Sharon Harris informs the detectives of how long Jane Neal has been dead; she announces by at least five hours. She also tells them that there is an exit wound. Penny then describes how Jean-Guy feels the thrill every time Gamache asks him, “ ‘Tell me what you know.’ It signalled the beginning of the hunt.” (p.118, ch.2).
In the next scene, we have the conflict of how Yvette Nichol is struggling to find her place within the team. To impress Gamache, she interrupts a senior officer by answering a question that wasn’t directed at her. Trying to impress the other detectives as the rookie was doing the opposite. She wants to be right about how Ben Hadley is faking throwing up and how he should have realized Jane Neal was dead right from the start. Gamache then suggests that Agent Nichol was wrong and Ben Hadley was most likely in shock. “Here Gamache was inviting her to argue against herself. She didn’t want to. She wanted to be right. Clearly he thought she wasn’t.” (p.121, ch.2).
Gamache questions Ben Hadley and takes the time to listen to what had happened with no judgment. He was trying to understand who Jane was and what had occurred on his arrival at the crime scene. Penny then writes how Ben Hadley feels about Jane Neal, “ ‘ She was a wonderful woman. I wish I was good with words, I could begin to describe her for you.’ Ben turned his face away, ashamed of the tears that came up again.” (p.127, ch.2).
Yvette Nichol, as the rookie, is completely dumbfounded by how Gamache is treating their first suspect. She waited for Gamache to “set this stupid man straight.” (p.135, ch.2). She looks at Ben Hadley as an idiot who ran around a crime scene contaminating the whole site.
In conclusion of this chapter, Gamache then gives the news about Jane Neal’s death to the group of anxious villagers. Peter (Clara’s husband) then goes back to the church where Clara had stayed after church service, and Clara receives the dreadful news of her best friend’s death.
Author:
Editor:
Alexandre McGovern
Beginning to End Table Books 