How the Light Gets In

As Beauvoir drives Francoeur to Three Pines, the group in Three Pines continues reading the letter. Gamache’s letter indicates that one of the sisters killed Constance. Myrna remembers that when Constance said hockey was “Brother André’s favorite sport,” (354), she was talking about her brother, not the dead priest. The initials in the hat were not for “Mama,” but for Constance’s killer, whose initials are “MA.” They realize that the Ouellet parents had another child, but the government insisted they keep it hidden, since “it was critical to their story that Madame Ouellet be barren” (358). The child, “MA,” was hidden like something shameful and killed Virginie. The group concludes that Constance’s killer must be one of the neighbors, Annette, or Albert. When Nichol asks where the story began, they realize that Frère André would be the person that the Ouellets would name a son after. MA is Marc André Pinault, not the sisters’ uncle, but their hidden brother. He killed Constance to keep her from sharing about Virginie’s murder with Myrna.

Gamache uses the Villeneuve’s neighbor’s computer. He realizes that the target of the construction conspiracy wasn’t the tunnel, but the Champlain Bridge. Gamache emails the report to Lacoste as proof and tells Audrey’s husband to hide.