A Trick of the Light

Peter wakes Clara in the middle of the night, desperate for her to discuss their problems. She remains furious and doubts his love for her. Peter privately rejoiced in the one negative review and is unable to quote the glowing ones when Clara asks. He finally admits to her, desperate, “it was far worse than your art. I wanted to be able to paint like you, but only because it would mean I’d see the world as you do” (182). Peter, unlike Clara, never paints people, only the natural world or objects.

Gamache and Beauvoir talk over their interview with Suzanne. She explained that step five of AA requires confronting past mistakes, with another person—a sponsor—and internally. Gamache recalls telling Suzanne somewhat sternly to find him once she is ready to give him the context he needs.

In Beauvoir’s apartment, Gamache finds the phone number for one of Montréal’s most expensive seafood restaurants, where Beauvoir claims he is hoping to take his mentor to dinner with Reine-Marie. The two discuss whether AA is truly what can heal people, and Gamache reminds Beauvoir that they know from their shared experience of the shooting that only fellow sufferers can offer real commiseration. Beauvoir insists he is ready to move past it, not discuss it. He admits, however, that he is haunted by who leaked the video of the event, which has made them all infamous. Gamache does not tell Beauvoir he is investigating who leaked the footage, as he does not trust the official report, but does not want Beauvoir to attract attention from their enemies.

Beauvoir, alone in his apartment, watches the video of the raid, torturing himself with the memories. He has also lied to Gamache: The restaurant phone number is part of his dream to have dinner with Annie there someday. He takes a narcotic and goes to bed, so “the OxyContin took everything. And Jean-Guy Beauvoir had no more feelings’” (189)

Clara wakes the next day, after talking with Peter all night, and wonders if they have a future. Peter nearly tells Clara the one secret he still holds: that he criticized her art in front of Lillian. Before Peter can confess, Clara sees Gamache and Beauvoir arrive and he resolves that there is “no need to tell her the rest” (193).

Over coffee and breakfast, Lacoste, Beauvoir, and Gamache review their recent discoveries. Lacoste agrees to search the newspaper archives to find the target of Lillian’s cruelest review. She has also researched Suzanne, who works as a waitress and has significant debt. Gamache watches Ruth wait for Rosa, asking himself, “how long did hope live?” (197). Gamache walks in the woods, alone.

The investigative team reviews the coroner’s report and Lillian Dyson’s personal history. Her killer was likely her height or taller and in relatively good health, so Clara remains a suspect. She was in recovery at the time of her death. Gamache discovers Suzanne and Chief Justice Pineault are both away from Montreal.

Gamache goes to the bistro to meet a man who just drove up: Denis Fortin. He also asks Gabri if Fortin is telling the truth about apologizing to him, which Gabri confirms. Fortin admits he is back in Three Pines to try to win Clara and Peter back as clients.

Clara calls Beauvoir to report there is a stranger in her garden. Beauvoir, Lacoste, and Gamache prepare to apprehend the intruder. Lacoste has a brief flashback to the warehouse raid. The team finds Suzanne in the garden, who apologizes for alarming them. She admits, “I had to come down, to see where it happened. You said you’d be here and I wanted to offer my help” (206). Gamache takes Suzanne in, wondering if she has other reasons for being present, or if the beginner’s chip he found was hers. Suzanne tells Clara she once had her own artistic goals. Gamache finds her later and says it is time for her to tell him all she knows.

Clara goes to the old railway station where the investigative team works. She asks Beauvoir if she should visit Lillian’s parents in a supportive gesture. He gives her the same advice Myrna did: that her presence would be an intrusion, given their bitterness toward her. Beauvoir reluctantly gives her the family’s address.

Suzanne tells Gamache that disclosure in AA is usually a long process, as people face their worst secrets gradually. She tells him, “Stopping drinking’s the easy part. Then we have to face ourselves, our demons,” which leads Gamache to wonder, “what happens if the demons win?” (214).

The text alternates between Gamache’s point of view and Clara’s: Clara debates whether to go to Montréal while Suzanne compares substance dependency to the nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” as an allegory for whether people can truly overcome the worst that happens to them. Gamache realizes, “she hadn’t fallen off the wall. She pushed others. Others had great falls, thanks to Lillian” (216).

Clara arrives and invites Gamache and Suzanne to add their prayers for Lillian to the stick in her garden. Soon after, Clara rushes off, presumably to go see the Dysons.

Gamache walks with Suzanne, who tells him that Lillian was likely in the village “to repair damage done” (220). Gamache shows Suzanne Lillian’s AA book, and her obvious recent interest in repaired relationships. Suzanne explains that the ninth step in the program requires offering sincere, repentant apologies to those harmed. Suzanne says this can be a dangerous part of the process.

Gamache is suspicious when Suzanne says she had decided not to see Lillian’s art. His curiosity intensifies when he realizes Suzanne joined AA during the period of Lillian’s harsh reviews. Suzanne admits they knew of each other but insists that her choice to pursue sobriety was her own. Suzanne claims not to know who the savage review was about.

In the bistro, Myrna tries to engage a taciturn Beauvoir. He resents her questions about Gamache’s recovery, and his own, insisting that he is “fine” to which Myrna ripostes, “fucked up, insecure neurotic and egotistical? Ruth’s definition of fine?” (226). The conversation turns sour when Myrna tries to tell Beauvoir that nothing about the shooting was his fault.

Gamache continues his conversation with Suzanne. Suzanne admits she was genuinely fond of Lillian, who had become warm and intelligent thanks to sobriety. Gamache wonders if people can truly change. When Gamache wonders how she found the village, Suzanne points to Pineault in the distance.

Clara arrives at the Dyson apartment, while Gamache and Beauvoir dine at the bistro with Pineault. Gamache is guarded, as the judge has chosen a table far from the other patrons and will not explain this, or why Suzanne asked him for help. In more alternating points of view, Clara stands outside, shocked as the Dysons have angrily rejected her. Denis Fortin has a similarly hostile exchange with an obviously intoxicated Castonguay.

Beauvoir has taken a Percocet, upset after hie exchange with Myrna. Over lunch, Gamache and Beauvoir debate whether people can truly transform their lives. Beauvoir insists the motive for Lillian’s murder will prove obvious: “I think she was killed by someone she screwed. End of story. A sad story, but a simple one” (236). Beauvoir maintains that Lillian’s sobriety did not change her core nature, relishing the debate with his mentor.

Gamache returns to the topic of change, pointing out that Beauvoir’s divorce would indicate that he himself evolved, or Enid did. Beauvoir argues his divorce was about discovering his true self after his near-death experience. He explains, “that man didn’t love Enid enough to stay” (237). Gamache explains the topic is on his mind because Annie is unhappy with David. Beauvoir is privately overjoyed at the news. Gamache recalls Annie asked what he would have done if he had been married when he met her mother. Reine-Marie suspects that Annie has feelings for another man.

Gamache turns back to the topic, wondering if the shooting has made Annie re-evaluate her own life, just as he and Beauvoir have done. Myrna joins Gamache after Beauvoir leaves. Myrna agrees that some people do evolve and, in a brief turn to her point of view, she considers that Gamache is as decent as always, though the shooting has changed him. Gamache turns to the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme again, thinking, “He was meant to be different. After all, an egg on the wall would always be in peril” (245). The point of view shifts briefly to Olivier and Gabri. Gabri urges his partner to reconcile with Gamache.

The final point of view in the chapter is Beauvoir’s. Alone in the railway station, he looks at the compiled case evidence and has an epiphany.