43 pages • 1 hour read
Louise PennyStill Life
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Gamache visits Myrna’s bookstore. Seeing Gamache with a book called Being, whose theme is forgiveness, Myrna suggests the related book Loss and summarizes its thesis: that “life is loss” (138), and without a higher purpose and the ability to adapt to changes, misery sets in. Myrna explains that she left her work as a psychologist when she realized that most of her clients would rather lead “still” lives than make progress.
Myrna mentions Timmer. At Gamache’s request, she shares her impression of Timmer as an intelligent and perceptive woman and a good friend. Myrna reveals that, the day before Timmer died, she told Myrna that she didn’t like the Neals, Jane’s parents. Myrna is about to reveal something else Timmer said but stops herself. Thinking that the case is already solved, Gamache decides not to press her for more information.
After buying a book about hunting from Myrna’s store, Gamache returns to the bistro to read. The coroner appears and delivers the autopsy report. She points out that the arrow passed directly through Jane’s heart and suggests that only a skilled bow hunter could make such a shot. She also shares her appreciation for Peter and Clara’s art, as well as her recollection of stories Ben Hadley used to tell about his mother, some quite disturbing.
Gamache makes his way to the site where Jane died. After a few minutes’ search, he finds a treehouse or “blind” used by hunters to watch deer trails. Despite his fear of heights, Gamache climbs up to the blind and looks over the edge.
Back at home, Clara constructs a large wooden box as a new artistic project, then waits for inspiration to strike. Peter, by contrast, works methodically on his latest piece. Suddenly, an idea comes to Clara, and she leaves her house, walks across the village, carefully skirting her way past Timmer’s house, which she finds creepy, and enters the woods, where she hears a sound. She proceeds cautiously, then hears Gamache’s voice coming from above. She joins him in the blind. She soon arrives at the same conclusion as Gamache: Whoever shot Jane must have known the area well enough to make it look like an accident, but in order to shoot her with an arrow, that person must have been close enough to know Jane was the target. As they descend, Clara quotes a poem about repression of negative emotions, and Gamache recognizes that Ruth Zardo, whose work he associated with her maiden name, is one of his favorite poets.
Back at the bistro, Gamache notices Ben watching Clara. Clara shares her suspicion that Bernard was one of the boys who threw manure. She also explains that Bernard’s mother, Yolande, used to visit Jane’s home as a child, and that Jane would play a game with her, placing a Queen of Hearts on the table each night and telling Yolande to memorize the card, since it would change the next day, even though Jane never changed the card. Clara considers whether Jane would recognize Bernard. She explains that Bernard’s parents drop him off in Three Pines to catch the school bus. On cold mornings, Timmer used to let schoolkids wait in her house, but Clara doesn’t think she did so out of kindness. Ever since Peter met and befriended Ben at a boarding school, he developed a negative view of Timmer, which he passed on to Clara, who describes her as a “needy, manipulative woman” (156). Clara adds that Timmer’s basement is full of snakes. Gamache wonders at Jane’s friendship with Timmer. He is also surprised to learn that Jane announced her intention to hold a party in her never-before-seen living room shortly before she died.
At the hotel, Gamache invites Nichol to dine with him. She appears, dressed in an outfit intended to signal her high ambitions. Gamache opens by pointing out that Nichol has a keen intellect but her attitude is too prideful and that she lacks self-control, as when she broke the silence at the Crofts’ home. Gamache shares the fourth and final wise statement, which he received from one of his superiors as a rookie investigator: “I was wrong.” Gamache again asks Nichol how she learns, but she brushes him off.
Chapter 8 Summary
Guests arrive at the Morrows’ home for a potluck. Olivier and Gabri bring shepherd’s pie and various treats, which Clara receives with enthusiasm. Peter, who is upset because Clara ventured into the woods without him, welcomes the guests tersely. Everyone is surprised when Ruth appears with several alcoholic beverages, but when Peter tries to open one, she seizes it and the others and retreats into another room. Myrna and Clara haggle over some used books.
They begin to discuss the case. Ruth asserts that she would make an excellent detective, since she sees “the darkness, the anger, the pettiness” in people (168). Ben wonders whether Mr. Croft could have killed Jane, then run away. Myrna refers to the Wilde quote equating conscience with cowardice, and Clara states her belief that most people do have an intrinsic sense of morality. As she shares what she learned in the woods that morning, the group concludes that Jane must have been killed deliberately by someone local.
In the kitchen, Peter confronts Clara for going into the woods alone. After everyone leaves, Clara asks Peter to forgive her, and he does so. The next morning, Clara and Peter speculate about when Yolande, who was spotted carrying things into Jane’s house, will start living there. Clara, who is still surprised that Jane left her home to Yolande, remembers that Jane and Timmer considered revising their wills once Timmer realized her cancer was terminal.
The Crofts sit down to a dinner of canned ravioli. Over the last few months, Philippe’s relationship with his parents has deteriorated. Mr. Croft wonders why Philippe changed. As a sense of impending doom grows, he considers his family life to be, as W. H. Auden put it, “stuck on the stutter of a decimal point” (173).
The next morning, Gamache gets up early. Gabri surprises him with coffee and croissants. Gamache eats on a bench in the village green and watches the town wake up. After a while, he begins making his way toward the blind he visited the day before, and Beauvoir playfully sneaks up on him. Beauvoir, who left Nichol at the bed and breakfast, describes her as “dangerous because she’s divisive” (179). Arriving at the blind, Beauvoir climbs up, and Gamache follows reluctantly. Beauvoir wonders whether Jane could have been killed if she stumbled across someone’s crop of marijuana, but Gamache counters that an arrow would be an unlikely weapon of choice in such a case.
Gamache and Beauvoir return to headquarters at the fire hall. Lacoste reports on the Crofts’ background, noting that Philippe’s grades plummeted over the past 10 months. Gamache follows up with Nichol about the will, and she confidently reports that the will they saw was Jane’s latest, even though she failed to investigate, considering the case closed. At length, Gamache receives a call from the lab that analyzed the evidence they collected at the Crofts’ home.
Chapter 9 Summary
Shortly after 11 o’clock in the morning, Gamache, Beauvoir, and Nichol arrive at the Crofts’ home, accompanied by a public guardian assigned to represent Philippe. Gamache tells Mr. and Mrs. Croft that they found traces of Jane’s blood on the bow and some of Philippe’s clothing and explains that they think he killed Jane by mistake.
Gamache and the guardian visit Philippe in his room. Philippe takes off his headphones and listens as Gamache lays out the case against him, then denies killing Jane. Instead, he says that his father came home with bloody gloves and the bow on the day that Jane died, gave Philippe a hug, and told him to put the items in the basement and move his bike, which is how Jane’s blood ended up where it did. At Gamache’s request, he shows his arm, which is bruised in the same way as Beauvoir’s. Philippe implies that his father beat him. Mr. and Mrs. Croft first appear shocked when Gamache relays Philippe’s story. Then Mr. Croft seconds it and confesses to killing Jane.
Gamache and Beauvoir take Mr. Croft to the nearest police station and ask him to describe what happened on Sunday. Mr. Croft tells them that he went hunting, heard something, and then shot before he realized it was Jane. After retrieving the arrow, he went home in a panic. When Beauvoir asks him whether he beats Philippe, Mr. Croft looks offended but says nothing.
Following the interrogation, they meet with a prosecutor. Gamache remains unconvinced of Mr. Croft’s guilt, but Beauvoir thinks they have a strong case against him. When the prosecutor sides with Beauvoir and instructs Gamache to arrest Mr. Croft, Gamache calls his wife, explains his plan to her, and then calls his superior officer, a superintendent. Gamache explains that he will not arrest Mr. Croft, and the superintendent reluctantly suspends Gamache and tasks Beauvoir with arresting Mr. Croft. Gamache, who expected this outcome, is nevertheless shaken when Beauvoir takes his badge and gun.
Two days later, Gamache and Beauvoir see each other at Jane’s “short and anonymous” funeral service planned by Yolande and held in a different language (it is in French, although Jane was English) and church than those preferred by Jane (203). Clara invites Gamache to return for a memorial service in Three Pines on Sunday.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Gamache’s conversation with Myrna furthers Penny’s examination of the human capacity for change. Myrna offers a viewpoint different from Ben’s earlier assertion that people don’t change. Instead, she suggests that those who want to change manage to do so, while others remain stuck in their ways because they prefer to live that way. The dichotomy between those who adapt and those who remain stagnant can be applied to the novel’s characters. Characters such as Ben, Nichol, and Yolande demonstrate greater interest in controlling and protecting their own interests, while others, including Clara and Gamache, remain open to change, which requires vulnerability.
These chapters also feature additional allusions. Gamache quotes William Shakespeare’s famous declaration that “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves” (140), as well as Wilde’s assertion that “there’s no sin except stupidity” (142). Apart from their thematic relevance, these allusions reveal Gamache to be a man of letters. His established literary taste lends extra weight to his stated admiration for Ruth’s poetry, which only exists in the fictional world of the novel. Later, at the dinner party, Clara voices her disagreement with the Wilde quote, referenced in Chapter 1, equating conscience with cowardice. Auden is also referenced again, with a relevant phrase from his poetry occurring to Mr. Croft, himself an avid reader of poetry, as he waits for Gamache to return. Taken together, these allusions highlight the written word’s capacity to spark conversation and yield timely insights.
Gamache’s refusal to arrest Mr. Croft reveals another way in which he deviates from the norm of literary detectives, many of whom stress pure rationality above all else. Gamache resists arresting Mr. Croft because he has a gut feeling that Mr. Croft is innocent, regardless of Mr. Croft’s confession and the evidence that could be used against him. A man of principle, Gamache offers his refusal in the mildest terms possible.
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