A Great Reckoning (38 page)

“You don't think…” began Lacoste.

“That Gélinas is right?” asked Beauvoir. “That Monsieur Gamache killed Serge Leduc?
Non
.” Jean-Guy gave one firm shake of his head. “He would never kill an unarmed man, and he sure as hell would never do it in the school.
Non.
It's ridiculous.”

“But suppose Leduc found out where Gamache lived, and had the map to retrace his route,” insisted Lacoste. “So he could find his way back to Three Pines.”

Beauvoir stared straight ahead, blinkered.

But Isabelle Lacoste pushed forward, into territory Beauvoir was refusing to enter. Deeper into the darkness.

“Suppose he knew that Gamache was about to expose him. Suppose the two men met later in Leduc's rooms, and Leduc threatened Madame Gamache. Or…”

“Annie.”

The very suggestion of anyone even thinking of harming his pregnant wife made Jean-Guy white with rage.

And he knew then that the scenario Lacoste was putting forward was possible. Not probable. But possible. Just.

Because he could see himself doing the same thing.

“I don't think Monsieur Gamache killed Leduc,” said Beauvoir. “But if he did, in a moment of madness, to protect his family, he'd admit it.”

Isabelle Lacoste nodded. She tended to agree. But then, who knew what people would really do in that situation? Gélinas was right about one thing. If anyone could stage a murder scene to misdirect, it would be Armand Gamache.

“Something else is strange, Jean-Guy.”

When she used his first name, he knew it was serious. And off the record.

“Oui?”

“Deputy Commissioner Gélinas said in the meeting this morning that Monsieur Gamache had asked for him specifically.”

Beauvoir had forgotten about that, in the press of other issues raised in the meeting.

“But I thought you put in the request,” he said.

“Yes, I thought so too. But Monsieur Gamache admitted it. He even said he'd asked for Gélinas because he admired him.”

“So Monsieur Gamache went behind your back?” asked Beauvoir. “And arranged for the RCMP Deputy Commissioner to come down and be the independent observer?”

“Yes.”

“But why?”

So much of what his father-in-law was doing seemed out of character. Could murder possibly be one of those things?

“I have a bad feeling about this, Jean-Guy.”

Beauvoir remained mute. Unwilling to agree, but unable to disagree.

The world ahead of them disappeared. The distorted shadows, the snowbanks, even the road. There were just stars and the night sky. And for one giddy moment it felt as though they'd floated off the end of the world.

And then the nose of the car dipped down, and out of nothing there appeared the cheerful little village of Three Pines.

 

CHAPTER 30

“What would you call a group of Sûreté cadets?” asked Myrna, nodding across the crowded bistro to the four students drinking Cokes and hungrily grabbing fries from the mounded platter in the center of their table.

“What do you mean?” asked Ruth, speaking into her glass so that the words came out muffled in a Scotch mist.

“Well, there's a cackle of hyenas,” said Myrna, watching the cadets feed.

“A litter of puppies,” said Olivier, delivering two more bulbous glasses of red wine to their table by the fireplace. “These are for Clara and Reine-Marie. Don't touch them.” He gave Ruth the stink eye, and got one in return. “They just finished walking the dogs. I expect them any moment.”

“Dogs?” said Gabri. “Aren't you the optimistic one,
mon beau
.”

The Gamaches had had Gracie for a couple of days and she was not looking any more like a puppy. Nor, truth be told, was she looking like anything else. Except Gracie.

Gabri reached for a piece of baguette with aged Stilton and a dab of red pepper jelly on top, narrowly avoiding Rosa, who'd decided to peck him every time he went for food or drink.

“A flight of butterflies,” said Myrna.

“A
confit de canard
.” Gabri glared at Rosa.

“I see,” said Ruth, putting down her glass and picking up a red wine. “You've finally said something that interests me.”

“I can die happy now,” said Myrna.

Ruth looked at her expectantly and seemed disappointed when Myrna didn't keel over.

“So what would you call a gathering of students?” asked Myrna.

“A disappointment?” asked Ruth. “No, wait. That's children. Now, students? What would you call a group of them?”

“Hello,” said Reine-Marie, as she and Clara joined them. “A group of what?”

Myrna explained, then excused herself, returning a few minutes later with a thick reference book from her shop. She sat down heavily on her side of the sofa, almost catapulting Ruth into the air.

“I always suspected Ruth would end up a stain on the wall,” Gabri said to Clara. “But I never thought the ceiling.” He turned to Myrna. “I'll give you five dollars to do that again. Maybe we can make this a game at the next fair. You win a stuffed duck.”

“Fag,” muttered Ruth, wiping red wine off Rosa. Not, they suspected, for the first time.

“Hag,” said Gabri.

“Do you know these people?” Clara asked Reine-Marie.

“Never met them before in my life,” she said, settling into the armchair and handing Clara the remaining glass of red wine.

“And to think,” said Clara, “we could've been having a quiet drink in my studio.”

That had in fact been the plan. Henri and Gracie and Leo would play together, while Reine-Marie went through a box of archival material from the historical society and Clara painted.

Until Reine-Marie had arrived and seen what Clara had done to her portrait.

It was, apparently, a self-portrait. But something had happened. It had shifted, evolved. And not in a Darwinian direction. This was not, Reine-Marie had to admit to herself, an improvement on the species.

For the first time since knowing Clara and seeing her astonishing portraits, Reine-Marie had the sinking feeling that Clara had lost her touch.

For a few minutes they sat in silence in the studio. Clara painted while Henri crawled onto the sofa, exhausted by the puppies, and laid his head on Reine-Marie's lap. She kneaded his extravagant ears as they watched Gracie and Leo play.

Clara's self-portrait looked not at all like Clara anymore. What had been brilliant was now distorted. The nose was off, the mouth was set in a strange expression, and there was something wrong with the eyes.

There was cruelty in them. A desire to hurt. They looked out at Reine-Marie as though searching for a victim. She looked at the mirror leaning against the armchair and wondered what Clara had seen there, to produce that.

“What do you think?” Clara asked, before putting the brush between her teeth like a bit and staring at her work.

Clara had said her portraits began as a lump in the throat, but it was Reine-Marie who felt like gagging.

“Brilliant,” she said. “Is it for a show, or for yourself?”

“For myself,” said Clara, getting off the stool.

Thank God for that, thought Reine-Marie, and had to remind herself that art is a process. Art is a process.

Art is a process.

“Let's go over to the bistro,” she said, lugging herself off the sofa, unable to watch what Clara was doing anymore. “Armand's on his way back and he'll probably be looking for me there.”

“Does he even know he has a home here?” asked Clara, putting her brush down and wiping her hands.

Reine-Marie laughed and picked up the small box of old photographs she'd planned to go through. “He thinks our place is just another wing of the bistro.”

“He's not far off,” said Clara.

While Clara washed up, Reine-Marie took Henri and Gracie back home, then met her friend just outside the bistro.

Through the window, they could see the four students gobbling fries and gesturing, arguing, the map on the table between them. They looked like generals arguing over a battle plan.

Very young generals, and a very strange plan.

“Has Armand told you why he has the cadets chasing down that map?” asked Clara.

“No. I think it started as a kind of lark. An exercise. But after the murder, it became something else.”

“But what?” asked Clara. “I don't see what the map could possibly have to do with the killing of that professor.”

“Neither do I,” admitted Reine-Marie. “And I'm not sure Armand knows. Maybe nothing.”

“It's funny how often nothing becomes something when Armand is around. But it's at least kept the students busy. They were off all day.”

The two women had continued to watch the cadets through the windows. But Reine-Marie realized that Clara wasn't watching the cadets. She was looking at just one. Closely.

“Is it much of an imposition, Clara? Putting her up?”

“Amelia?” Clara was quiet for a moment. Studying the girl. “I wonder how old she is.”

“Armand would know. Nineteen, twenty, I'd guess.”

“In certain light she looks very young. Maybe it's her skin. But then she'll turn and her expression will change. She's like a prism.”

Feeling chilled standing in the damp March evening, the two women had gone inside to join the others around the fireplace.

“A clowder of cats?” said Gabri, reading the huge reference book open on Myrna's lap.

“A misery,” said Ruth.

“
Pardon?”
asked Reine-Marie.

“The students,” said Ruth, cocking her wineglass in the direction of the cadets, who were talking animatedly among themselves. “A misery of cadets.”

“I think that's a misery of poets,” said Gabri.

“Oh, right.”

*   *   *

“What're we going to tell him?” asked Huifen, reaching for another fry, even though she was now feeling overstuffed and a little nauseous. One fry over the line, sweet Jesus. “It's almost seven. He's going to be here any minute. Oh, shit.”

Headlights flashed through the window.

“He's here.”

The light caught their faces, and Reine-Marie, a few tables over, saw what Clara meant. There was anxiety in Huifen's face. Nathaniel was clearly afraid. Jacques looked defensive, marshaling his excuses.

And Amelia looked resigned. Like she knew what was about to happen. Had been waiting a long time, a lifetime, for it. Perhaps even longer.

She looked old. And very, very young.

She looked a bit like the boy in the stained-glass window.

And she looked a bit like the portrait Clara was painting. Reine-Marie turned to her friend in astonishment.

*   *   *

Jean-Guy and Isabelle got out of the car. The snow, which had been melting during the day, was now freezing again as the sun and the temperature dropped.

“The sap'll be running,” said Jean-Guy, knocking his gloves together in the chill. He turned to look back up the hill, where a car's headlights had appeared, shining like eyes.

“A good year for maple syrup,” said Isabelle. “We're taking the kids to a
cabane à sucre
this weekend.”

Jean-Guy felt a moment of utter joy, like a breath on his face. Next year, he and Annie would be taking their child to a maple sugar shack for the annual sugaring-off celebration. They'd get in a horse-drawn sleigh and go deep into the woods, to a log cabin. There they'd listen to fiddle music and watch people dance, and eat eggs and bacon and baked beans and sweet, sticky
tire d'érable
, the boiled maple sap poured over spring snow and turned into toffee. Then rolled onto a twig, like a lollipop.

Just as he'd done as a child. It was a tradition, part of their
patrimoine
. And one they would pass on to their child. His and Annie's son or daughter.

He glanced toward the bistro and saw the cadets, someone else's sons and daughters, staring at them.

And he felt an overwhelming need to protect them.

“He's here,” said Isabelle, and Jean-Guy turned to see that the car had pulled up right behind theirs.

Deputy Commissioner Gélinas and Armand Gamache got out. Gélinas was walking toward them, his feet crunching on the refrozen ice and snow, but Gamache had paused to tilt his head back and look into the night sky.

And then he lowered his eyes and looked straight at Jean-Guy.

And in an instant, Jean-Guy understood how Chief Inspector Gamache must have felt for all those years when he was head of homicide. Commanding young agents.

And losing some of those agents, until the loss had become too great. Until his heart had finally broken into too many pieces to be cobbled together again. When that had happened, he'd come here. To find peace.

But Monsieur Gamache had traded in his peace for the cadets' safety. He'd left here to go clean up the academy, so that the next generation of young agents might survive long enough to brush gray hair from their faces. And to one day retire, to find their own peace and enjoy their own grandchildren.

Jean-Guy Beauvoir watched Armand Gamache approach, and had the overwhelming need to protect him.

He immediately dropped his eyes, staring at his feet until he could control his emotions.

Hormones, he thought. Damned pregnancy.

*   *   *

Gamache and Gélinas had made small talk in the car on the drive down, until it had petered out and both men had been left to the company of their own thoughts.

Paul Gélinas had no idea what was going through Gamache's head, but he himself was preoccupied with what he'd found. And what it meant. And how it could be pertinent, and useful.

Gélinas had spent the afternoon researching the backgrounds of Michel Brébeuf and Armand Gamache. It was like archeology. There was digging and there was dirt. And there were broken things.