Bury Your Dead

In Three Pines, Myrna is increasingly suspicious of Clara’s new habit of asking questions. Clara reluctantly admits to her collaboration with Beauvoir. Myrna is delighted to hear that Olivier may not be guilty. Beauvoir arrives and reports Gamache’s conversation with Elizabeth MacWhirter, including that Carole Gilbert’s maiden name was Woloshyn—a possible clue as to the meaning of “Woo” (401).

Back in Québec City, Gamache walks along the boardwalk, festive for the city’s winter Carnaval. He watches couples toboggan down an ice cascade, recalling doing so himself as a younger man with his beloved wife, trusting her with his fear of heights. He walks further and sees the ice-canoe teams practicing, discovering that Ken Haslam has a booming voice as he calls to the other rowers, in contrast to his whispering voice in their earlier conversations.

Gamache arrives back at the Chateau Frontenac, finding that though he is early, the others have already been meeting and are in a heated discussion. He will later declare openly that Émile has, for unknown reasons, lied to him about the start time, presumably to alert his compatriots of case developments.

As Émile silently stares out a window, Gamache tells the assembled men about Chiniquy’s passion for temperance and the night he met two Irish laborers in a bar. The two men, O’Mara and Patrick, had recently dug up a metal coffin they hoped was valuable. Chiniquy heard them mention the Bible in the coffin and bribed the men to meet him at the Literary and Historical Society the following night. Ignoring his ringing phone, Gamache continues: James Douglas gave the two men a massive sum to bring the coffin to the building’s basement, which explains how Sean Patrick now lives in a wealthy part of the city. Gamache reveals the missing books as the source of his story: Chiniquy’s diary and Champlain’s Protestant Bible, buried with his body. The murderer hid them at the library after Renaud’s death to disguise his motive. The assembled men are stunned.

Gamache leaves them to their astonishment, realizing he has missed calls from virtually all his colleagues, friends, and family. He reaches Beauvoir, who tells him that a video has been leaked to the internet; it depicts the attempt to rescue Morin and the near deaths of Gamache and Beauvoir in the ensuing firefight. The officers had all worn body cameras as official policy to verify their actions and procedures. Gamache recalls that day, leaving Nichol behind to monitor the situation, outraging her. In the present, he and Beauvoir express regret that they cannot watch the footage together.

Gamache calls his wife, Reine-Marie, telling her he will return home soon and not to watch the video without him. She remembers being unable to reach her husband, followed by media reports of dead and injured Sûreté officers at an abandoned factory. They were told Gamache had been shot in the head and had a stroke, while Jean-Guy was hit in the abdomen.

In the present, Gamache calls the families of the officers involved, warning them of the video’s existence. Émile asks Gamache how he is doing, but Gamache is angry about his friend’s lie. He is angrier still when he says he has realized that Renaud’s meeting with “SC” was not with the archeologist Serge Croix but with the Société Champlain. Gamache contemplates walking away and abandoning his years of friendship. He reconsiders, and the older man explains that Renaud had asked for the meeting to extort the society: He would conceal his evidence of Champlain’s Protestantism if he were offered membership and given public credit as Champlain’s discoverer. Émile says that he called the society together to urge them to report the truth: that they had refused Renaud membership and thought him a fanciful conspiracist.

Émile asks Gamache how he found the books, and Gamache explains that it was likely Renaud carried more than a map with him when he died. He finally realized that the missing books were camouflaged and placed in the library after the murder. He tells Émile that they should go there next, to uncover the fate of the coffin.

At the Literary and Historical Society, Gamache explains to the assembled board members that the search for Champlain is resuming. Langlois wants to discuss the video, but Gamache tells him he will watch it later and returns to the task at hand.

To placate Serge Croix, Gamache shows him Champlain’s Huguenot Bible and explains its discovery. Croix realizes that previous searchers would have dismissed the Old Homestead as a possible burial site because it was outside a Catholic cemetery, but Champlain’s secret Protestantism makes it entirely likely. Croix thinks this also explains Champlain’s lack of titles and honors, as well as his need to leave most of his fortune to the Catholics: a kind of recompense in exchange for burial with his Bible. Gamache reflects that Champlain was thus “an outsider in a country he’d created, a world he’d built” (431). Those who found him in 1869 wished to hide this truth for the same political reasons that concern the novel’s other characters: the possibility of an independent Québec. The assembled men dig for the coffin, and Croix reveals another surprise: The skeleton inside is that of a woman.

The narrative shifts to Three Pines, where Beauvoir has assembled all the suspects, along with Gabri, Myrna, and Clara. He is uncomfortably aware that they now see him in light of the leaked video. In this chapter, the narrative switches rapidly back and forth between Beauvoir and Gamache.

The narration shifts once more to Gamache, who has assembled his suspects, the Literary and Historical Society board. He, too, realizes that they regard him with less suspicion and more sympathy, no doubt because they have seen the video. Out of curiosity, he begins by asking Haslam why he is normally so silent despite his carrying voice. At his loudest volume, Haslam explains he would pay any cost to avoid the social ostracism that came from drowning others out.

Beauvoir meanwhile explains to the suspects why he has gathered them: He now believes that the Hermit’s cache of antiques led the murderer to his whereabouts and that Olivier is innocent.

Gamache explains what he has just found in the basement. The board is dismayed, as the story from the distant past implicates Anglophones in a desire to hide the truth from the Francophone community, even if the current board is not implicated. Gamache also hears Paul Morin reflecting on the strength of broken things, applying the metaphor to the members, newly brought together by adversity.

Beauvoir explains that the killer found one of the Hermit’s priceless items in the same Montreal antiques shop Olivier used, tracing it back to Three Pines. He posits that only Vincent Gilbert would be wealthy enough to ignore the treasure, reflecting privately that constructing hypotheticals for long enough to spark a confession is “exhausting, like landing a huge fish, only one that could eat the boat” (450). Beauvoir finally explains that the motive is the loss of a family, leading Old Mundin to declare, at last, that the Hermit “killed my father” (450).