A Rule Against Murder

Gamache leaves the dock in search of Bean—he has gotten up early to find out why all of Bean’s alarms were set for seven o’clock. He finds the child in a meadow near the Manoir’s beehives. Bean is singing and dancing to their iPod, and he realizes that, despite the tumultuous and tense family, Bean is doing okay. When Gamache returns to the lodge, he sees Lacoste, who is at the crime scene, still wondering why Julia’s arms were opened to the statue when it fell.

Beauvoir is drawn to the kitchen, despite the fact that Veronique is clearly in love with Pierre. It makes him jealous, even as he knows it is ridiculous. He is standing in front of the door when Pierre opens it, hitting him in the face. When he loses his temper, however, Veronique defends Pierre, blaming Beauvoir.

When the team meets for breakfast, Lacoste reveals the reason that Julia was so upset by her brother’s references to public toilets. When she was a teenager, someone had written a disparaging comment about her in the toilet at a bar where Charles had been sure to see it. This comment, and the scandal it created, was the reason that she moved to Vancouver; her father had been more worried about the scandal than about whether or not it was true.