Until I started the Hardwood Cafe, I didn't realize just how many people come through our area. We're so centrally located. We get people going to Ironwood, Escanaba to Houghton and to Marquette. Many of them are out of Wisconsin or Illinois going to Canyon Falls or the Ottawa National Forest. Plus, this is a very busy traffic area for Canadians.

My dad and his brother had just started a log home franchise, Whisper Creek it's called, and he was building a demo on my highway property when the Do Drop closed. And we thought, why not put a restaurant inside of it.

At the cafe we serve food for people on the go, you know, burgers and fries. This will be more of a place to kick back and relax with your family. Our breakfasts and lunches will be along the lines of a regular menu, but in the evening we will have fine dining.

Me and my stepfather were sitting in the truck, and this guy just walked up and started shooting. I thought maybe he was going to ask for directions or something. He just turned and walked into McDonald's.

We got real stagnant and started sitting in our zone. We weren't guarding people in our area, and they were attacking, and we didn't respond to that challenge. . . . The assignments that we were taking care of the first 30 minutes, we just forgot about the last 10.

The bistro was his secret weapon in tracking down murderers. Not just in Three Pines, but in every town and village in Quebec. First he found a comfortable café or brasserie, or bistro, then he found the murderer. Because Armand Gamache knew something many of his colleagues never figured out. Murder was deeply human, the murdered and the murderer. To describe the murderer as a monstrosity, a grotesque, was to give him an unfair advantage. No. Murderers were human, and at the root of each murder was an emotion. Warped, no doubt. Twisted and ugly. But an emotion. And one so powerful it had driven a man to make a ghost.

Gamache's job was to collect the evidence, but also to collect the emotions. And the only way he knew to do that was do get to know the people. To watch and listen. To pay attention, and the best way to do that was in a deceptively casual way in a deceptively casual setting.

Like the bistro.