A Rule Against Murder

The statue of Charles Morrow arrives and is revealed. When Elliot wants to take Julia’s drink to her, Pierre takes the tray to Julia himself. After he leaves, Elliot claims that Pierre took it because he is attracted to her. He doesn’t notice that Chef Veronique is nearby, listening. Chef Veronique understands that Pierre cares deeply about the staff—young people working there for the summer—but that Elliot may have pushed him too far.

That evening, Gamache and Reine-Marie discuss their amazement over the statue as they watch the storm approach. They tell Peter and Clara the story of their courtship, and Peter tells them about the note that his father put in his suitcase when he left for boarding school that said: “Never use the first stall in a public washroom” (76). The rest of the family join them, and talk turns ugly between the siblings. When Thomas brings up toilets to Julia, she loses her temper and berates Thomas, Marianna, and Peter. Then she tells them that she has figured out their father’s secret, but when she realizes that the Gamaches are still there, she runs out of the room.

Gamache and Reine-Marie follow her outside and find her sitting in the grass near the statue. She tells them she is leaving the next day and refuses to talk to her siblings. Gamache believes that she has brought something dangerous to the surface among the family.

In the middle of the night, the storm arrives. Gamache and Reine-Marie are awake when the electricity goes out, and they go down to the porch to enjoy the storm. Gamache thinks of the statue out in the garden. When it was unveiled, he was surprised by its stooped and defeated nature.

As the storm gets closer, they retreat inside, where the staff is closing storm shutters and barring doors. In the morning, the storm has passed, but the weather is still gray and rainy. They are all at breakfast when they hear a scream. Gamache and Pierre follow the sound to the attic, where Bean is terrified by the taxidermy that has been stored there since the Duboises bought the lodge. They all return to the dining room, and when they hear another scream, they assume it is Bean again. Once again, Gamache and Pierre follow the sound. They find Colleen, the gardener, crying in the garden. The statue of Charles Morrow has been knocked over, and Julia is dead underneath.

Gamache takes control of the situation, telling Pierre to inform everyone that there has been a death and to contact the police. He also directs Pierre to gather the staff and keep them together. He decides that he will tell the family about Julia’s death himself. After Pierre goes inside, Gamache examines the body, wondering how the massive statue had been toppled. When he returns inside, he tells Reine-Marie what happened and then calls an inspector, Jean Guy Beauvoir, who immediately leaves to join them at the lodge.

The local Sûreté officers arrive, and Gamache introduces himself to them. They are surprised to find him—a respected and well-known Sûreté officer—there. He is still not sure if Julia’s death is murder but knows that if it is, the killer is likely one of the family. When he tells the family of Julia’s death, they are in disbelief. Irene wants to go to Julia, but he refuses her because they have yet to determine whether her death was accidental or murder.

Chef Veronique makes tea for the family, sending Elliot and another waiter in to serve it. The rest of the staff remains in the kitchen as per Gamache’s instructions. Pierre reflects that, when he told the staff of Julia’s death, someone had cried out.

Two members of Gamache’s Sûreté investigative team, Inspector Jean Guy Beauvoir and Agent Isabelle Lacoste, arrive at Manoir Bellechasse, and they examine the crime scene together. A young local officer comes out of the lodge to join them, saying that she has a suspect. She overheard Thomas and Sandra talking, and they think that the killers are the other couple staying at the lodge, the shopkeeper and his cleaning-woman wife: “Armand and Reine-Marie something” (97). This moment of humor makes Gamache and his team smile.

The family has gathered in the lodge’s great room and are each processing Julia’s death. Clara seems to be the only one who realizes that, beyond losing Julia, the family is about to be irrevocably changed by her death. When Gamache enters the room, they become angry, insisting that he be arrested, until Beauvoir shocks them by introducing him as Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide for the Sûreté.

Gamache takes Irene outside to view Julia’s body. As she approaches the body, she considers death for perhaps the first time, questioning what she has always unconsciously believed. After he escorts her back to the lodge, he discovers that the coroner has arrived, as has the crane operator, to remove the statue from atop Julia. After examining the body, the coroner tells Gamache that, due to the dry dirt under the body, she can tell that Julia was killed before the storm. This negates the possibility that the statue was dislodged by the storm. Her conclusions are also supported by the fact that Julia had no raincoat or umbrella, showing that she had been outside, and killed, before the storm.

Lacoste questions Julia’s position—instead of crouching or turning, her arms are open, and she is turned toward the statue as if welcoming it. Gamache also notices that the pedestal, rather than being scratched by the statue’s displacement, is unmarked. They now know that Julia’s death is murder.

Gamache goes into the kitchen, where the staff is still gathered, and introduces himself as chief inspector. He asks if anyone had seen Julia the night before. He sees movement in the corner of his eye, while everyone else is too shocked to move, and looks to where Colleen, Elliot, Madame Dubois, and Chef Veronique are standing together. He then returns to the library, where Beauvoir and Lacoste are waiting to meet with him. Reine-Marie is waiting as well—she has spoken to Daniel, who is still set on naming his child Honoré if it is a boy, despite what Gamache thinks.

As he and his team discuss Julia, Reine-Marie is able to add to the discussion, as she has been in close contact with her over the past few days. She shares that Julia seemed manipulative toward men and tells Beauvoir and Lacoste about Julia’s outburst the night before. When Madame Dubois and Pierre bring refreshments, Pierre tells them that he believes the storm started before one o’clock, as that was when the power went out. Madame Dubois tells them that they must find the murderer, as she and her husband made an agreement with the forest’s inhabitants that no unnatural death would be allowed and that they would be safe on their land.

Clara tries to console Irene but knows that the other woman has never liked her. She settles into conversation with Bean, who is reading their mythology book. Marianna sits at the piano, and Clara is stunned by her talent and passion, as the family has always disparaged her as flighty. She realizes that Peter is treated the same—a talented artist who is disrespected by the family—and so it is not surprising.

When Gamache decides to interview Peter, Sandra asks why she and Thomas are not first. She is more upset when she finds out that Beauvoir, not Gamache, will interview them. Gamache leaves with Peter, more convinced than ever that the murderer was in that room. Peter tells him that he was 18 when Julia left home after a disagreement with their father. He hasn’t seen her often in the 30 years since. When she did get in touch, he saw it as a manipulation.

Further, Peter tells Gamache that his father had crushed Julia and had crushed them all. He claims that it is the reason that none of them have children. When Gamache reminds him of Bean, Peter tells him that Bean doesn’t jump; the child’s feet never leave the ground at the same time. Gamache wonders about that. He decides that it is time to call Daniel.

Beauvoir interviews Marianna and is disgusted that she eats a sandwich while he questions her. She barely knew Julia, who was 10 years older and had left home when she was young. She has decided that, contrary to her family, she will be honest. Further, she tells him that she has kept Bean’s father’s identity, and Bean’s sex, a secret from her family in order to hurt her mother. When Beauvoir interviews Thomas, he brings up the confrontation of the previous night, but Thomas says that Julia was just upset about the statue. Beauvoir doesn’t believe him.

Sandra finds Bean in the dining room, licking marshmallow cookies and sticking them to the ceiling. She laughs, surprising both of them, and Bean teaches her how to do it. When Sandra returns to the great room, she tells the family that she overheard Peter’s conversation with Gamache in which he said that Julia was greedy and cruel and that it would be better if their mother died. Upon hearing this, Irene reflects that Peter is continuing the destruction that Charles had wrought on the family.