by Louise Penny
Reine-Marie, alarmed, turned.
As did Tracey.
The only one who didn’t was Beauvoir, who was expecting Gamache to do something like this. Divert, just for a moment, Tracey’s attention.
Jean-Guy’s hand shot out and wrenched the rifle from his grip.
When Tracey lunged for it, Beauvoir pivoted and knocked him to the ground.
Gamache bent down and lifted the drunken man to his feet.
“We’re diverting the river,” he explained. “To stop the—”
“You have no right. This’s private land,” Tracey shouted. With a yank, he twisted away from Gamache and ran toward the backhoe, waving and shouting, “Arrêt! Arrêt! Stop.”
But, of course, Billy did not.
He hadn’t seen that Beauvoir had disarmed him. As far as Billy knew, a man with a rifle was running toward him. And might very well shoot.
But Billy didn’t care. Myrna was down there. The bags were shifting. And only he could stop it.
He pushed the shovel in deeper and dragged it forward into the field just as Gamache caught up with Tracey and, grabbing him around the waist, hauled the man around and away.
With a gush, the Bella Bella began pouring into the field.
“Hello?” came a tinny voice.
* * *
There was no deluding herself any longer.
The wall was coming down.
It was time to leave, Clara knew. Not just the bridge but her home. The village. Time to abandon Three Pines to fate.
Myrna and Clara quickly made their way off the bridge, half walking, half running.
The last of the villagers had to get out of Clara’s home, out of Three Pines, and up to the church.
From there they would witness the destruction.
“Wait,” said Clara, grabbing Myrna’s arm.
Every particle of Myrna’s being was straining forward. Telling her to flee. Now.
But she stopped. And waited, for a moment. Because Clara had.
Too afraid to even speak, she stared at the circle from Clara’s flashlight. It rested, trembling, on the now-askew sandbags. Some had fallen, some were preparing to slide away, pushed by the force of the water.
She had to make sure.
“Oh, shit,” she heard herself whisper.
* * *
Armand was physically holding Carl Tracey around the abdomen, while the man kicked and squirmed.
Jean-Guy hurried over to help contain him, but just as he arrived, Tracey slowly stopped thrashing, and a moment later he was standing still, clasped against Gamache’s body.
Both men were staring.
“Stop!” This time it was Gamache who was shouting at Billy.
The floodlight on the top of the backhoe was pointing at the bucket of debris Billy had just dropped onto the field, next to the water rushing out of the Bella Bella.
“What’s that?” asked Reine-Marie, taking a step closer.
Beauvoir saw then why Gamache had stopped the digging. Why Tracey had stopped fighting. And why he’d been so hysterical to stop the digging.
* * *
“What’s that?” Gabri shouted at Clara and Myrna. He tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “What’re you saying?”
The two women were waving their arms and yelling something about the river. If he had to guess, and it seemed he might have to, whatever they were shouting was not good news.
* * *
Billy went to dismount his machine, but Armand waved him to stay where he was. And told Reine-Marie the same thing.
Then he and Jean-Guy slowly approached the trench.
“Armand, Gabri’s saying something. Something’s happened.”
“What?” yelled Billy from the cab of the machine.
* * *
“What?” yelled Gabri again, completely forgetting he had Reine-Marie on the line.
“What?” came the tinny voice.
“The water level’s going down!”
Gabri and Reine-Marie heard it at the same moment. Clara’s shout. And then Reine-Marie heard shouts of joy. Even Ruth was cheering. At least she thought that cackling was a cheer.
* * *
“The water level’s dropping!” Reine-Marie reported. “It’s worked. It’s dropping.”
Billy gave a whoop. But while both Armand and Jean-Guy looked over, Armand smiling with relief and Jean-Guy nodding, they quickly looked away.
In the harsh beam from Billy’s backhoe, something pink was lying in the muck.
Armand knelt and reached out.
It was a bright pink duffel bag. With a name tag. A single embossed letter.
V.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“What’ve you done with her?” Gamache demanded.
“Nothing. I’ve done nothing. Maybe it isn’t hers.”
“It’s hers,” said Gamache. “It’s Vivienne’s, and you know it.”
Tracey recognized it. But Gamache also recognized something. The look on Carl Tracey’s face. He’d seen it before, when a piece of damning evidence, thought hidden, was found.
It was the unmistakable look of dread.
While he stayed with Tracey and the duffel bag, Beauvoir went to the river and was walking the banks. Shining his flashlight, to see if he could see something else. Someone else.
As he walked, Beauvoir’s heart thudded in his chest, in his wrists, at his temples, and in his throat. His skin tingled. His face, in the cold, was flushed.
He’d spent much of his adult life looking for bodies, at bodies. What was out there didn’t scare him.
What frightened him was what was in there. Inside himself. What dark thing had been aroused, awoken, when he realized he was in the presence of someone who’d almost certainly thrown his wife and unborn child into a freezing river. To die.
It was all Jean-Guy Beauvoir could do not to turn around. March back to Tracey. Tell Armand and Reine-Marie and Billy to look away while he forced Tracey to a kneeling position, took out his gun. Placed it at the base of the monster’s skull. And fired.
Jean-Guy paced. Pointing the flashlight this way and that. Trying to settle his mind and focus on the job at hand.
What he saw were shards of ice, rocks, roots uprooted. Debris. Rushing water. But no Vivienne.
At Beauvoir’s request, Billy had turned his backhoe so that its light faced the river.
From the cab, Billy Williams watched Jean-Guy pace. He knew torment when he saw it.
Then he looked over at Armand. Standing right up against Carl Tracey. Not side by side but facing him, in an act of extreme and ghastly intimacy.
Billy Williams knew that what he was witnessing was also an act of love. Not for Tracey, of course, but for Jean-Guy.
Armand had sent the younger man away to, on the surface, do the worst job. To look for the body of a young woman and her unborn child. But in reality, Armand was saving Jean-Guy. From himself.
Gamache was standing that close to Carl Tracey so that Beauvoir didn’t have to.
When Tracey backed up, Gamache moved forward. Not letting the weaselly man step away. Get away. Gamache was at least two inches taller, twenty pounds heavier, and twenty-five years older than Tracey.
He had the advantage of height, weight, control, and sobriety.
But Tracey had the greater advantage of knowledge. He knew where Vivienne was.
Gamache’s boots thucked in the mud as he stepped even closer to Tracey.
“Tell us,” Gamache repeated, his eyes not leaving Tracey’s. “Where’s Vivienne?”
“I don’t know. She went away,” said Tracey. “Ran away with some guy she was—”
“Enough,” said Gamache. “What did you do with her?” Then he modulated his tone. Corralling, with difficulty, his anger. His voice, when he spoke again, was unnaturally reasonable. Coaxing a brute to do one decent thing. “Tell us, Carl. Let us give her some rest.”
Behind them, the Bella Bella ran off into the mucky field. The night air was crackling with
“I have no idea where she is. Maybe she got drunk and fell into the river. Or maybe whoever got her pregnant tossed her in.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Armand saw Reine-Marie take a step closer. Her hand gripped the phone, as though it were a baseball bat.
Somehow this vile man had managed to stir up in Reine-Marie an outrage that bordered on violence.
Gamache’s own breath, through his nostrils, came out in long, warm puffs. Like a bull longing to charge.
He barely registered that behind him, Billy Williams was speaking.
“There’s no sign of her,” called Beauvoir. “Billy says he thinks the duffel bag came from farther upriver.”
“There’s an old logging road about a kilometer from here.” Billy waved behind him. “A bridge goes over the Bella Bella. It’s been closed for a while now, but hunters sometimes use it in the fall.”
Jean-Guy translated what was said.
Gamache turned and looked at the .22 leaning against the backhoe. A hunting rifle.
“Can you show us?” he asked.
“Yurz.”
“What about the bag?” Reine-Marie asked.
“We’ll take it with us,” said Gamache.
“You can’t,” said Tracey.
“Then we’ll open it here,” said Beauvoir.
Gamache asked Reine-Marie to use her phone to record the search of Vivienne’s bag while Billy took his place beside Tracey.
“No,” said Tracey. “Stop. It doesn’t belong to you. It’s on my property. It belongs to me.”
“It belongs to your wife,” said Beauvoir, unzipping it.
The duffel bag contained all the things you’d expect someone to pack who was going away for a few days. T-shirts, a pair of jeans. Some shorts. Pajamas. Underwear. Toiletries.
“What are these?” Gamache held up a bottle of pills and read off the label, “Mifegymiso.”
When the others shook their heads, Gamache held them out for Tracey to see.
“How should I know? Probably some street drug she picked up, the—”
“Enough.” Beauvoir got to his feet and took a step toward Tracey.
“Jean-Guy,” snapped Gamache.
The cold, the exhaustion, the find, the growing certainty of what had happened to this young woman and who’d made it happen, were all fraying their nerves.
Beauvoir glared at Tracey but managed to contain himself.
“We’re done,” said Gamache, zipping the duffel bag shut. “We’ll take this with us and give you a receipt.”
“I don’t want a receipt. I want the bag.”
“You’re coming with us,” said Beauvoir, and shoved him toward the car as they all trudged across the field. Leaving the backhoe to sink further into the mire.
When they reached the car, Beauvoir placed the duffel bag in the trunk, and Gamache, having removed the bullets, put the .22 back there, too.
Tracey stood beside the car.
“Get in,” said Gamache.
When Beauvoir went to get in beside him, Gamache held out the keys.
“Why don’t you drive? Can you get in the front seat?” he asked Reine-Marie, who’d stopped recording and slipped the phone into her pocket.
Gamache and Billy got into the backseat, with Tracey between them.
“She isn’t dead, you know. She’s messing with you all. Trying to get me into trouble. I bet she threw that fucking bag into the river herself. You wait. When she shows up, after a bender with some guy, I’ll be suing your ass.”
“Let’s hope,” said Gamache.
Beauvoir drove while Billy pointed the way to the old logging road.
They came to little more than a break in the trees. Turning in, Beauvoir felt the tires begin to sink. “We have to walk from here.”
The five of them followed the flashlight beams down the narrow lane through the trees.
The limbs of the trees loomed overhead, a tunnel of dead branches. Their flashlights created shadows so macabre that even Beauvoir, not given to fantasy, felt his skin crawl. This was how horror films began. Or ended.
And then it got worse.
Beauvoir’s stronger beam landed on something up ahead. Blocking the way. A car.
“Stay here,” Gamache said to the others while he and Jean-Guy approached.
It was Vivienne’s.
Gamache nodded to Beauvoir, who carefully walked around to the other side and shone his light through the rear window while Gamache looked in the front.
Nothing.
Opening the driver’s door, careful not to touch too much, Gamache played his light over the seat. The wheel. The footwells. There were assorted wrappers, some change. It smelled of stale cigarette smoke. He checked the ashtray and found stubs.
The same brand Tracey smoked.
There was a smear of blood on the steering wheel and another in the shift. The hair on the back of Gamache’s neck was standing on end. Something awful had happened here.
He pulled a lever and popped the trunk.
“Nothing,” Beauvoir reported.
Gamache closed the car door, and both investigators made for the wooden bridge.
“Don’t worry,” shouted Tracey. “It’s safe.”
“No it’s not,” called Billy. “It’s probably rotten.”
Beauvoir reached out and stopped Gamache, who was just about to step on the wooden boards. Armand had heard Billy but hadn’t understood.
Beauvoir turned and glared at Tracey, who was smiling.
“Worth a try,” Tracey said, his eyes cold. Calculating.
Reine-Marie took a step away from this creature while Beauvoir wondered if all five of them would make it out of the woods.
From the safety of solid ground, Gamache and Beauvoir shone their beams along the old logging bridge. Then stopped. The two circles of light converged on a single spot.
A section of wooden handrail was missing. The side opened up to thin air.
Gamache pointed his beam down. Into the drop-off. Twenty feet below, maybe more, was the churning river. Grabbing, dragging, swallowing all that it could.
They played their lights over both shores, but there was nothing. Then Beauvoir’s beam stopped.
“Wait, I think I see something.”
Gamache swung his flashlight over to the far shore.
“What is it?” called Reine-Marie. “Have you found something?”
“No, it’s nothing,” said Beauvoir, relieved. “Just branches. They looked like a body for a moment.”
He moved his flashlight away. “We can’t search the bridge or shoreline right now. Too dangerous. It’ll have to wait ’til morning.”
But Gamache’s light hadn’t moved. In the beam, he saw what Beauvoir had seen. Tree branches, bobbing slightly in the current. Nothing more.
He could see why Beauvoir would mistake—
Opening his mouth, Gamache took a sharp breath, almost a gasp.
“What is it?” asked Beauvoir. “Do you see something?”
Once more he swung his light over, to join Gamache’s, until the two became one bright spot.
Beauvoir looked more closely at the clump of debris on the opposite bank. But still saw nothing. Certainly not anything that would explain the expression on his father-in-law’s face.
It was one of surprise. Shock, even.
“Vivienne’s not here,” Gamache said, then looked at Beauvoir. “But I think I know where she is.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The two men ran along the path, the river on one side, the forest on the other.
Jean-Guy skidded once and went down on one knee in the mud. Armand grabbed his jacket and hauled him to his feet.
And then they continued on. Their flashlights bobbing wildly ahead of them, illuminating trees, path, rocks, river.
They didn’t have far to go. Just to the bend in the river.
When they’d arrived back in Three Pines, they’d taken Carl Tracey to the bistro, where they found Olivier and Gabri, now that the danger of flooding had passed.
“Keep him here,” Gamache had instructed them. “Billy will stay with you. Homer?”
“At your place,” Olivier said. “Clara and Myrna took him there hoping he’d get some sleep. They’re staying with him.”
“What time is it?” asked Reine-Marie.
“Two thirty,” said Gabri.
“That late?”
“That early,” he said. “The wee hours, as Ruth calls it.”
“Where is she, by the way?”
“She went home. Had to wee.”
Reine-Marie glanced at Tracey. He was in the far corner, where he’d been placed by Jean-Guy. Far away from the warmth and soft light of the fireplace.
Then she turned to Armand. “I’ll make sure Homer doesn’t come over here. You go.”
And Armand and Jean-Guy did.
Even though both men knew there was no need to rush, still they ran. Down the path. Beside the wall of sandbags. They ran behind the general store, the boulangerie, past the back of the bistro and the bookstore. The Bella Bella on one side, forest on the other.
And then they were there.
Gamache was panting and holding his flashlight out in front of him with both hands, like a gun. Aiming the beam, steadying it as he stood beside Beauvoir.
Their lights, pointed in the same direction, merged.
And then they saw it. Her.
Gamache had been there earlier, when he and Olivier had checked the river levels.
They hadn’t come quite this far, but still, he’d seen it then as he’d leaned out. Olivier holding on to him.
The growing dam.
He’d noted the pale tree limbs and leaves bobbing up and down in the current. Trapped in the broken ice and debris that was forming.
He’d hesitated, trying to get a closer look. But Olivier’s grip had been slipping, and he was pulled away.
Now he was back. And he saw, in the bright circle of light, his mistake.
At the logging bridge, Beauvoir had momentarily taken trees for a body. And in that moment, Armand Gamache realized he’d done the same thing, only in reverse.
He’d mistaken a body for trees.
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