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Staring at the screen, Chief Inspector Gamache, Inspectors Beauvoir and Lacoste could see the metal table behind Sharon Harris, and the white sheet.

“So the victim is definitely a man?” asked Isabelle.

“Yes. And before you ask, it’s impossible to definitively establish date of death. Been too long. But I’d say it was, as I said at the scene, after the hard frost and about the time of the first snow that stayed on the ground.”

“November 15,” confirmed Isabelle. “About six months ago.”

The coroner made a guttural sound. “Ugh. Such a long winter.”

“They all are,” said Jean-Guy. Having to struggle to put snowsuits on wiggly children did not make the winter feel shorter.

“And then there’s the inevitable March thaw,” said Isabelle. “Why do we always get sucked in, thinking this time winter will be over? And it only gets worse. What?”

She’d noticed Jean-Guy smiling.

“Sugaring off,” he said. “The best part of the March thaw. I remember taking Honoré and Idola—”

“Maybe focus,” their grandfather suggested, though he too was smiling.

Florence and Zora had joined their cousins, and they’d all gone to the cabane à sucre deep in the maple forest, to pour warm sirop d’erable on snow and watch it turn into sweet tire. They used twigs to roll the toffee—

“Focus, Armand,” said Dr. Harris. “The murder? Remember that?”

“Right, désolé. What else can you tell us about the man?”

He’d used that word deliberately, “man.” This was a person, not just a body. Not a puzzle or a lump of flesh to be prodded for clues. He was a human being whose life had been stolen. It was their job to do right by him.

Where other cops often found it necessary to dehumanize victims by using dark humor, Gamache shut that down fast. No crude jokes at crime sites. No laughter. There was nothing amusing about a murder. To dehumanize not only did the victim a disservice, it made it far more difficult to get to the bottom of what had happened.

Not everyone could be a doctor. A first responder. A firefighter. An ambulance driver.

A homicide cop.

Those who couldn’t take it needed to step aside and make room for the women and men who could. Which was why Armand Gamache’s homicide department was made up of the unusual, the rejects. Those about to flunk out of the Sûreté. For being all too human.

They were not the favorite child.

“I can tell you he was a white male, late forties, going slightly to fat. He almost certainly had an office job, through did a fair amount of walking.”

“He was in good health?” asked Gamache.

“Hard to tell. His internal organs have decomposed. But his bones are strong.”

“Is there anything else we need to know?”

Dr. Harris hesitated.

“What is it?” asked Gamache.

“There is one thing. It’s hard to explain. I need to show you.” She moved to the sheet and all three veteran homicide officers prepared themselves. Though nothing quite prepared them for what they were about to see.

“What is that?” asked Isabelle.

Beside her, Jean-Guy lowered his date square.

Isabelle had arrived back in Three Pines an hour earlier. In time for Olivier and Gabri to take them cold avocado soup, a warm baguette, and croissant sandwiches, along with date squares and a pitcher of iced tea.

Her arrival was, perhaps, not a complete coincidence.