A Better Man

by Louise Penny

  “Oui,” said Lacoste. “But if his prints are on that”—she pointed to the pill bottle—“we might have something. I think he tossed it in not knowing what it was.”

  “Not exactly a smoking gun,” said Beauvoir, but he could feel hope rising, if not faith and charity. This might be the first nail.

  * * *

  Lysette Cloutier sat in the Sûreté detachment. She’d chosen a desk with direct line of sight into the cells. Where she could watch Homer.

  The sandwiches and coffee she’d taken in were untouched.

  Lysette had stayed with him for a while, but he seemed lost in his own world. Oblivious to her presence. Even, she felt, a little annoyed by it.

  He clearly wanted just to be left alone.

  If she couldn’t comfort him, there was one thing she could do.

  Glancing around, making sure she wasn’t being watched, she went online. Found Carl Tracey’s Instagram feed. And typed.

  Reviewing it, going over each word. Changing one, adjusting another. Until it was just right.

  Then she hit send and tapped the pen on the desk, waiting for a reply.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  @NouveauGalerie: Hello @CarlTracey Love your ceramic pieces. Am a gallery owner looking for exciting new talent. Can we meet?

  The phone woke Armand with a start. He was instantly alert and grabbed it before it could wake up Reine-Marie.

  “Oui, allô?”

  “Sorry to disturb you,” said Beauvoir.

  “Not at all,” said Armand, rubbing his hand across his face and feeling the stubble. “You have news?”

  “The search warrant has come through.”

  “Excellent. I’ll meet you at the car in…” He checked the bedside clock. It was 9:40 in the morning. He’d been asleep for just over an hour, but felt refreshed. “Twenty minutes.”

  Armand quickly and quietly showered and shaved, not wanting to wake up Reine-Marie, though he did check and make sure she was okay.

  The bruise now spread across the left side of her face, but there was little swelling. Still, it hurt him to see it.

  She roused and opened her eyes, giving a start on seeing his face so close to hers.

  “Everything all right?” she mumbled, still half asleep.

  “I’m just going out. You okay? That must hurt.”

  He reached out but didn’t touch it. Not wanting to add to the pain he knew she must be feeling.

  “Well, I now have a much better idea, mon coeur, what you’ve gone through.”

  “Me? Oh, no,” he said with a smile. “Anytime a fist comes even close, I drop to the ground and play dead. Let Jean-Guy sort it out.”

  “Belly up, feet and hands to the ceiling, like a bug. Yes, I’ve seen that. You also do it when Ruth enters a room.”

  “I’ll get you a Tylenol,” he said, smiling, and returned a minute later with a couple of pills and a glass of water. She was sitting up in bed now, and he sat beside her.

  They talked about Annie and Jean-Guy’s news. A brother or sister for Honoré. Another grandchild for them. Yet one, neither said but both knew, who would grow up a continent away.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.” He did up his tie as he spoke. “I arrested Homer Godin.”

  “Yes, I know. You think he killed his daughter?”

  “No, but I need to keep him from Tracey. I charged him with assault. For that.”

  He pointed to her face.

  “But—” she began, bringing her own hand to her face.

  “I know. I won’t follow through. I just needed to get him off the streets, so he won’t go after Tracey.”

  “So this might’ve been a good thing.” She touched the bruise.

  “Non.” He kissed her before getting up. “Jean-Guy’s waiting for me.”

  “What will you do without him, Armand?”

  He opened his mouth, but there was no answer.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “No. It’s good to talk about it. Jean-Guy reminded me it’s less than two weeks away.”

  It wasn’t, of course, just losing Beauvoir as a colleague and friend, it was losing Annie and Honoré. And now the new baby. With their son, Daniel, and his wife and two daughters already in Paris, it meant they had no children or grandchildren close by.

  But, for Reine-Marie, the dread went deeper. Something she’d never admitted to Armand. For many years she’d felt that as long as Jean-Guy was close by, he’d protect Armand.

  They were meant to be together. Had been, in her opinion, for many lifetimes. As colleagues, as father and son. As brothers. As long as they were together, both would be safe.

  * * *

  Once downstairs, Armand flicked on the television to cable news and placed a call.

  As Radio Canada interviewed an increasingly agitated Deputy Premier about the terrible flooding, Armand waited for the phone to be answered.

  The phone rang, as the politician tried to explain that it could have been worse.

  The phone rang, as the journalist tried to explain that it was pretty damn catastrophic for those towns that were underwater.

  Both, Gamache knew, were right.

  The graphic on the screen showed where work was under way to divert floodwaters upriver.

  The phone rang. And rang. Then clicked over to voice mail.

  The RCMP commissioner wasn’t answering. Or couldn’t answer.

  Armand hung up. And decided that no news was good news. There was nothing he could do about it now, anyway.

  He grabbed his coat and joined Beauvoir and Lacoste.

  * * *

  “Knock, knock,” said Myrna.

  “Who’s there?” asked Clara, not looking up.

  “Me.”

  “Me who?”

  “No, this isn’t a knock-knock joke,” Myrna said, entering the studio. “I just didn’t want to startle you. We were supposed to meet at the bistro for breakfast, weren’t we?”

  “Sorry. I lost track of time.”

  Myrna sat on the low sofa, her considerable derriere hitting the concrete floor, as it always did. She groaned, more in annoyance than pain. Would she never learn?

  From her vantage point, essentially on the floor, Myrna could see that Clara was staring at a series of miniatures on her easel.

  “I’ve been sitting here trying to decide if the tweeters are right,” Clara explained. “If these’re shit.”

  “I believe we call those people twats, and no, they’re not right. And you think that’s bad, you should see what they’re saying about Armand’s return to the Sûreté. Madman with a gun. At least you only have a paintbrush. How much damage can you do?”

  “You’d be surprised, apparently.”

  Myrna brought out her phone. “Listen to this.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Strange, intense, feverish,” Myrna read.

  “Is that about me or Armand?”

  “It’s about van Gogh. Here’s another. The museum could have saved a good chunk by getting the plan and having the thing run off by the janitors with rollers. That was a review of an early Barnett Newman. I looked it up. One of his paintings just sold for eighty-four million.”

  “Dollars?”

  “Dog biscuits.”

  At that, Leo got to his feet, tail wagging. Myrna dug into her pocket and brought one out before returning to her phone. “He’s a madman, desperate for conquest.”

  “Picasso?”

  “Gamache.”

  Clara made a retching sound. “Just shit. Lies.”

  “So if you know the tweets are wrong about Armand, why don’t you know they’re wrong about you and your art?”

  “Because one’s objective and one’s subjective,” said Clara. “The record proves that Armand didn’t do any of what he’s accused of. And what he did do was to save greater pain. He’s been investigated, exhaustively, and cleared. But what I do”—Clara returned her gaze to the easel—“is op

en to interpretation. I had an email from my gallery in Montréal. A few collectors are asking about returning the paintings they bought, some from years ago. They’re concerned that the value has fallen through. That I’m not a real artist at all but … what did one tweet call me? A poseur.”

  Actually, thought Myrna, that was one of the more polite descriptions she’d seen.

  “Those are just mean people.”

  “Just because it’s mean doesn’t make it wrong,” said Clara, tilting her head this way and that. Examining her works on the easel.

  “All truth with malice in it,” said Myrna.

  “What did you say?”

  “Just a quote, from Moby-Dick,” said Myrna. “Something Armand said yesterday.”

  “You think there’s truth in those tweets?”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean that.” Myrna’s arms were pinwheeling as she tried to back up the conversation. “There’s no truth in them. Believe me. Just malice.”

  But Clara was shaking her head. Her confidence shaken.

  “Come on over for lunch later,” said Myrna, lugging herself off the sofa with a groan. “You need to get out of the studio. And out of your own head.”

  “Or someplace lower?” asked Clara.

  “All truth…” said Myrna, and heard her friend laugh. “You know, Moby-Dick was also savaged when it first came out. Now it’s considered one of the great novels of all time.”

  Clara didn’t answer. She’d gone back to staring at the miniatures on her easel.

  Myrna almost pointed out that what had happened to Vivienne Godin, what her father was living, was a tragedy. What Clara was going through was a setback. Nothing more.

  But she didn’t. Myrna understood how damaging it was to compare pain. To dismiss hurt just because it wasn’t the worst.

  As she walked back across the bright village green, her feet squelching in the soft turf, Myrna thought about those miniatures Clara had painted.

  Perhaps, she admitted to herself privately as she walked past the wall of sandbags, not Clara’s best work.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  @CarlTracey: Cannot meet you now @NouveauGalerie. What exactly do you want?

  Agent Cloutier smiled. Had she been an angler, she’d have recognized a nibble on the bait.

  She was also amused, and reassured, by the cautious, even terse, response.

  But mostly it was the speed of the response that grabbed her attention.

  This was Carl Tracey’s Instagram account, but it was not Carl Tracey she was communicating with. He had no cell phone. And no cell phone coverage.

  “Best not to discuss business publicly,” she typed, having already composed this response in her head. “Do you have a private account?”

  Her phone was ringing the Bonanza theme, and she answered it but continued to stare at the screen. Trying not to see the amused looks of the other Sûreté agents in the open room.

  “Cloutier,” she said.

  “It’s Beauvoir. The search warrant’s come through. Meet us at the Tracey place.”

  “On my way, patron.”

  But still she stared at the screen, and then, just as she was about to shut it down, a single word appeared.

  “No.”

  Far from being disappointed, Cloutier smiled. It was the response she’d expected. Hoped for.

  A normal potter, approached by a gallery about representing them, would be falling all over themselves to invite them into the private address. To talk business. But Carl Tracey or Pauline Vachon or whoever Cloutier was communicating with, was not.

  Now, why was that?

  Only one answer. They didn’t want anyone else to see what was on the private account. Posts. Photographs.

  She had them in her sights now. It would just take a little time. A little teasing. A tastier bait. But she’d get there. She’d get them.

  With effort, she didn’t type the response she’d already formulated.

  Let them stew.

  Before leaving, she checked on Homer.

  “Do you need anything?”

  There was no answer. He was staring straight ahead.

  She wondered what he was seeing, though she could guess. The image he would see for the rest of his life.

  “We’re searching the home. I’m heading there now. We’ll get him.”

  That penetrated, at least a little. Homer turned to her and smiled weakly.

  “Merci, Lysette.”

  Her fingers were around the bars, and he reached out and touched her hand.

  * * *

  It took most of the day to go over the Tracey property.

  Where the earlier search was for Vivienne, today they were looking for her killer. And the evidence to convict him.

  It had been decided that Lacoste would stay behind in the incident room, to coordinate the information as it came in and assign agents as necessary.

  Beauvoir dropped Gamache off at the Tracey house, while he himself continued to the dirt road and the car. And the bridge.

  His team had been there for hours, calling in engineers to first secure the bridge so they could walk on it safely.

  While one crew did that, another went over the car.

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “There’re smears of blood on the outer and inner door handles, the steering wheel, the gearshift, a small smear on the trunk handle, and a drop on the backseat.”

  “A drop, not a smear?”

  “Exactly.” The agent showed Beauvoir. It had the telltale splatter of blood that had formed a drop, then hit. Maybe from a bleeding nose or lip.

  “Prints?” Beauvoir asked.

  “From at least three different people. There’re butts in the cigarette holder. We’ve bagged them, and we’ve taken dirt samples from the tires, of course. To see if we can work out where she’s been recently.”

  “Tire tracks?”

  “None. The rain washed everything away, including boot prints.”

  “Damn,” said Beauvoir, looking around.

  “Chief,” said an agent standing by the bridge. “We’re ready.”

  * * *

  “Chief?”

  “Oui?” Gamache turned to see Agent Cloutier at the door to the living room.

  “There’s something curious in the bedroom,” she said. “Something different from when we were here yesterday.”

  He followed her through the rambling old farmhouse to the bedroom and saw immediately what Agent Cloutier meant.

  When he was last there, the room was a mess. Now it was tidy. Not, perhaps, ready for a photo shoot in Country Living, but far neater than it had been.

  He brought out his phone.

  “There’s no reception, sir,” said the inspector in charge.

  “Merci,” he said, and continued to scroll until he found what he was looking for. The photographs he’d downloaded the day before, from the first search of the Tracey home.

  “Here’s what this room looked like yesterday when we came looking for Vivienne Godin.”

  He turned the phone so that the inspector could see. The photo was taken from exactly the place where they now stood.

  It showed a room in disarray. Clothing scattered on the floor and draped on a chair. Bed unmade and sheets dirty. Though not bloody. Which wasn’t to say traces of blood weren’t there. Just unnoticeable except by people trained to find them.

  “Get Monsieur Tracey up here, please,” said Gamache, and Cloutier hurried away.

  “We’ve looked, patron, and we can’t find any clothes that obviously belonged to Madame Godin.”

  They heard footsteps on the stairs, and Tracey appeared.

  “What do you want?”

  “What did you do with your wife’s belongings?” asked Gamache.

  “Well, she didn’t need them anymore.”

  “How did you know? You haven’t been back here since her body was found. Which means you got rid of her things before you knew she was dead. Unless you did know.”

  “All I knew is that she’d left me and I was pissed off. Before I went to bed last night, I took all her shit and burned it in the kiln.”

  “I’ll get Scene of Crime to check the kiln,” said Cloutier, and left.

  “You cleaned the place with bleach?” The inspector held up a swab.

  “What can I say? Place was a shithole.” He turned to Gamache. “You saw it. What did you think?”

  When Gamache didn’t answer, Tracey sneered. “I live in a pigsty and you judge. I clean it up and you judge. Well, fuck you. I’m finally free to live the way I want.”

  They were, Gamache recognized, the words of either an extremely well-balanced person who didn’t care what others thought. Or a psychopath. Who didn’t care what others thought.

  * * *

  “Why in the world do you care what others think?” demanded Ruth as they sat in the bistro, in front of the warm fire.

  “Because I’m human and live in the world,” said Clara. “With other humans.”

  Part of her felt that Ruth was probably right. She shouldn’t care. But she also felt there was a criticism there, that Ruth was implying she was weak or needy. For caring.

  “People are canceling their orders for my works,” said Clara.

  “So?”

  “So this’s my life, my career. My livelihood.”

  “What do you need money for, anyway?” asked Ruth. “We live in a tiny village. We buy clothes from the general store, barter turnips for milk, and the booze is free.”

  “Not free,” said Olivier, pouring her another shot of what looked like scotch but was actually cold tea.

  There was a suspicion Ruth knew about the substitution but played along. Because, as with so much else in her life, she didn’t really care.

  As she watched Ruth, Clara remembered that in the past few hours someone had gone onto Twitter and defended her.

  You ignorant turd. Clara’s works are genius. #MorrowGenius

  If it wasn’t Ruth, it was someone doing a damn fine imitation of the foulmouthed poet.

  Those tweets were trending. Not because, Clara realized, they were insightful defenses of her creations but because the tweets were in themselves a form of genius.

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