by Louise Penny
“Nothing, not then. I gave her my card and asked her to call.”
“Did she?”
“Not me. But she did call 911 again. I went out, and again she refused to let me into the house. I could see him. I could smell the booze. But there was nothing I could do. I asked her to meet me that night, after he went to bed. At the bridge.”
“You knew it?”
“From hunting. Yes. It was close to her home and private.”
Gamache said nothing. They were almost there. Almost.
“It was summer. Dark. Hot. She was there when I arrived.”
“You had sex?”
“We made love.”
But that wasn’t the end. Not yet. Not even close.
“You confronted Tracey outside the bar in town,” said Gamache. “More than once.”
“Yes.” Cameron was defiant, still far from willing to admit it was wrong.
“You told him to stop hurting his wife.”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t work, of course. As she predicted, it only made it worse,” said Gamache.
“Yes.”
“When did your affair start?”
“Last July.”
“How often did you meet?”
“Every Saturday night. At midnight. By then Tracey was drunk and passed out.”
“And your wife? Didn’t she suspect?”
“I always took the Saturday-night shift at work. No one else wanted it. It was quiet, so I could get away.”
“Last Saturday night?”
“No, no, you don’t understand. I broke it off. In the fall.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t want to lose my family. My job.” He paused. “Have I lost them?”
“Why didn’t you tell us this?”
“I knew you suspected—”
“You knew because I came right out and asked, and you denied it.”
“Because I knew how it would look. And I knew I hadn’t killed her. Vivienne was gone. Carl Tracey killed her. Admitting the affair would just muddy things. Hurt the investigation.”
“You mean hurt you.”
“No.”
“She was calling you.” Gamache pushed. “You’d given her your private cell-phone number. You told her only to call in an emergency. And she hadn’t called. Hadn’t needed to, until that night. She told her husband she was going to meet her lover—”
“Not me.”
“The father of her child—”
“Not me.”
Hearing the anger in Cameron’s voice, Henri got to his feet and turned to face him. A low, low growl in his chest. Little Gracie stood beside him, all eyes. Barely larger than Cameron’s boot, she tried to stare down the man who loomed over them.
“Stop lying.” Gamache dropped his hand to Henri’s head. To reassure him. “It was your number she was trying to call. The affair wasn’t over, was it?”
“It was.”
“She wanted to meet you earlier. That’s why she called.” Something about that statement gave Gamache a moment’s pause. But he had to press on. “She didn’t get through to you, because she’d written your number down wrong. One digit was off. So she showed up at the prearranged time. Midnight. And there you were. For the regular assignation.”
“No.”
“Expecting sex. Instead she told you she was pregnant and the child was yours. She might even have believed it. She told you she was leaving her husband, for you. She had her duffel bag over her shoulder. All packed. Had been for months, waiting for the right time. And this was it.”
“No.” Cameron shot to his feet.
Gamache could see the veins throbbing on Cameron’s forehead as the big man tried to control his anger.
“It was over. I wasn’t there.”
Gamache also got up. And got right into Cameron’s space. Into his face. “What did she do? Threaten to go to your wife? Your work? And when she refused to just go away, you pushed her.”
“No.”
“You pushed a pregnant woman to her death.”
“No, never!”
Cameron heaved off and gave Gamache a mighty shove. Propelling him backward.
Henri barked and crouched, prepared to lunge.
“Henri, stay!” Gamache commanded as he regained his balance.
And Henri did. As did Gracie. Just. It clearly went against their every instinct.
Because he was prepared for it, had intentionally provoked it, Gamache had staggered but managed to keep to his feet, despite the force of the blow.
Which was far more than a young woman taken by surprise could possibly have done.
* * *
“Vivienne happened,” said Lysette Cloutier.
Lacoste recognized the look in Cloutier’s eyes. It was the expression of someone who’d made up her mind to walk off a cliff. And was just about to do it.
Still, Isabelle coaxed her forward. “Go on.”
“Homer and I hadn’t been intimate yet, but it was close. We finally admitted our feelings. I wonder if you know what that’s like? To be in love with someone for years, maybe decades, and then, in your forties, to have those feelings returned. It felt like a miracle. It was a miracle. But Homer said he owed it to Vivienne to tell her, before we took it further.”
Lysette lowered her head and narrowed her eyes. Then she raised her head. High. And looked directly at Superintendent Lacoste.
“I didn’t kill her.”
“What happened?” Lacoste asked.
She noticed that Beauvoir had turned back to his laptop and was reading something. A message. But she kept her focus on the middle-aged accountant–cum–homicide agent. Cum suspect. In front of her.
“Vivienne told him to break it off.”
And there it was.
“Why?”
“Why did she do anything?” Long trapped deep inside, Cloutier’s demons finally split the sinews and came tumbling out. “Because she was weak and afraid and needy and manipulative.”
“What was she afraid of?”
“Of not being the center of Homer’s life. She’d managed to come between Homer and Kathy, and now she came between us. I should’ve seen it coming, but I thought it was specific to her mother. A teenage thing. She was all grown up now. Married. It never occurred to me she’d tell him it was her or me.”
“Is that what she said?”
“Yes.”
“And what did Homer do?”
“You know what he did. He broke it off.”
“He chose his grown married daughter over a woman he loved?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Obviously he didn’t love me enough. Didn’t love me as much.”
“As much as Vivienne?”
“As much as I loved him.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. He just said we couldn’t see each other anymore.”
“And you accepted that?”
“What could I do?”
Lacoste looked at her. They both knew what she could’ve done. Might’ve done.
“How long ago was that?”
“Almost a year ago. We haven’t seen each other since then. Until he emailed and told me Vivienne was missing.”
“Where were you on Saturday?”
“It was my day off. I was at home doing laundry. Chores.”
“Alone?”
Lysette nodded. Always alone.
“Did you go down to see Vivienne? To confront her?”
“Of course not. It was over and done with almost a year ago. Why would I do it now? What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying things grow. Fester. Time doesn’t always heal. Sometimes it makes things worse. Is that what happened to you, Lysette?”
“Of course not.”
“Did you think about it, about him, every day?”
“No.”
“Did you think about what might’ve been, if Vivienne hadn’t done that? How your life would be so different?”
“Did you arrange to meet her? Offer her something she wanted?”
“No.”
“Money, maybe?”
“No.”
“Did she suggest the bridge?”
“No.”
“Did you push her off?”
“No!”
“Did you want her dead?”
Pause.
“Yes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
As soon as Reine-Marie walked into the kitchen, she could see she was interrupting.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stopping at the door. “Is something wrong?”
“Non,” said Isabelle. “We were just chatting.”
Though that was clearly not true.
“I was going to make breakfast,” said Reine-Marie, going to the fridge. “Why don’t you continue your chat in the study?”
Isabelle Lacoste smiled and nodded. “Merci. I think we will.”
“Where’s Armand?”
“Out for a walk. He took the dogs. Is Monsieur Godin still asleep?”
“Yes,” said Reine-Marie. “I looked in but didn’t want to disturb him. Is Jean-Guy with Armand?”
“Non,” came the familiar voice.
Jean-Guy had gone to the study to print something and now returned to the kitchen holding the papers. “But I do need to find him. Be back soon. Don’t let Isabelle eat everything. You know what she’s like.”
Reine-Marie smiled and watched him go.
The home settled. The bacon sizzled and popped. The coffee perked. The fire in the woodstove roiled as the women went into the study to continue whatever they were talking about, and Jean-Guy left to find Armand.
* * *
A mist was rising from the thinning layer of snow. The air warmer now than the ground. Giving the pretty village an otherworldly feel. Except for the mud.
Beauvoir’s boots made a thucking sound as he walked quickly toward the bridge and the sandbags still in place against a threat no longer there.
The three huge pines, around which all life in the village revolved, stood in front of him now. Partly obscured by the mist. As though they existed in both this world and the other.
Whenever he and Annie visited with Honoré, Jean-Guy would bring him to the green to play. Sometimes, as he sat on the bench and watched his son, Jean-Guy had the oddest feeling that the little boy was playing not among the trees but with them.
He was almost at the bridge on his way to the incident room, where he expected Gamache had gone, when he noticed movement up on the ridge of the hill out of town.
Gamache and Cameron were standing, facing each other. It looked natural enough. But it was the posture of the dogs that alerted Beauvoir that this was not a pleasant discussion. For any of them.
And he knew what they must be talking about.
Picking up his pace, thuck, thuck, thuck, he headed up there. As he approached, he heard Cameron shout, “No. Never.”
He saw Gamache get right up into Cameron’s face.
While he couldn’t hear what the Chief Inspector said, he could hear Cameron’s reply. Another “No” blasted.
Cameron raised his hands.
Henri crouched.
Gracie barked.
And Armand braced.
When the blow landed, he staggered back.
Beauvoir shouted.
But neither heard.
They continued to stare. Cameron at the man accusing him of murder. Gamache at a man who could so easily be provoked into an act which, under different circumstances, would prove fatal.
* * *
“Are you going to lay charges?” Beauvoir asked as he and Gamache walked a dozen paces away from Agent Cameron.
Gamache looked behind him.
Cameron wasn’t watching them. Instead, he gazed, dazed, out over the village.
Gamache wondered what he saw. The forests and mountains, the shifting reds and purples of the sunrise, with the mist rising pink-tinged below?
Did he see Vivienne? As she hung between the bridge and the water.
Cameron’s huge hands were grasping the back of the bench. So that the words etched there now read “SURPRISED BY—”
The joy had disappeared.
“For assault? Non,” said Gamache. “We’re after bigger fish.”
“A whale, even?” asked Beauvoir. “Look at this.”
Gamache took the paper, then reached into the breast pocket of his coat and brought out his reading glasses. But they were broken.
Wordlessly, he replaced them and squinted to read the printout.
He made a guttural noise that sounded like “Huh.” Then his eyes focused on the man in front of him. “What do you think it means?”
“I have an idea, but I think we need to ask him.”
* * *
Homer Godin looked down at the printout.
He’d stared at it for a while, clearly trying to focus his mind.
They’d left Cloutier and Cameron in the kitchen while the senior officers met with Homer in Gamache’s study.
“Viv’s bank statements,” he finally said, raising his eyes to Lacoste, then over to Beauvoir.
“Yes. They show that every month since last July you transferred two thousand dollars into her account.”
“True.”
“Why?”
“She asked for it. Said they needed it to pay their mortgage. I didn’t want her to be homeless.”
“And yet, it just sat there, accumulating,” said Beauvoir. “There’s eighteen thousand dollars in that account.”
Homer shook his head. “Maybe she didn’t need it after all.”
“Then why did she keep taking it?” asked Beauvoir. When Homer didn’t answer, Jean-Guy went on. “I think she was saving up. To leave Tracey. I think that was her plan for a long time.”
“Could be,” said Homer.
“I think with a baby on the way, she decided now was the time to get out and start a new life, with the money you’d given her.”
“I hope so.” Homer seemed confused now. As though what Beauvoir described were still possible.
Beauvoir looked over at Gamache, then to Lacoste, all thinking the same thing.
Homer Godin was not a rich man. He’d labored all his life. Had a modest home he’d paid off. Lived a modest life in a small Québec town.
These sorts of sums would almost certainly clean him out. And then some.
He seemed to follow their thoughts. “She said she’d pay me back. She’d get a job when she could. What would you do?”
And there was that question again. Variations on the theme that had haunted them since this case had begun. How would they feel, if…?
What would they do, if…?
If Honoré came to his parents, in distress, and needed more money than they had?
If Annie went to her parents…?
If money would solve the problem?
They’d pay it. And more. To save their child? They’d give all they had. And more.
As Homer had.
“She called you on Saturday morning, telling you she was finally going to leave Tracey, is that right?” said Lacoste.
“Yes.”
“Think carefully, Monsieur Godin,” said Lacoste. “Did she say she was coming to you or going to someone else?”
“Me. Who else was there?”
“Tell us about your relationship with Lysette Cloutier,” said Lacoste.
Homer was shaking his head. “Vivienne wouldn’t go to Lysette. They barely knew each other.”
“No, I don’t mean that,” said Lacoste. “Your relationship with her.”
“How’d you know about that?”
“She told us.”
“She shouldn’t have. It was private.”
“She didn’t want to,” said Gamache. “She had to be pushed, hard. But she finally told us.”
“What did she say?”
“I think you need to tell us what happened,” said Beauvoir.
“Why didn’t it work?” asked Gamache.
“It just didn’t. I thought of her as a friend. She wanted more, but I didn’t. Couldn’t.”
“Did you talk to Vivienne about it?” asked Lacoste.
Homer looked surprised. “About Lysette? No, why would I? There was nothing to talk about.”
Beauvoir looked at Gamache, then to Lacoste.
* * *
“So who’s telling the truth?” asked Lacoste. “Lysette or Homer?”
The senior officers had walked to the incident room, where they could talk without fear of being overheard.
“Maybe Homer gave Lysette the impression that Vivienne wouldn’t approve,” said Beauvoir. “Without actually saying it.”
“You mean he blamed his daughter?” asked Lacoste. “Is he that much of a coward?”
Beauvoir remained silent, not bothering to tell her how often he’d made up all sorts of far-fetched stories to get out of relationships. Granted, that was when he was younger.
“Could happen” was all he said.
“Or maybe Homer didn’t outright blame his daughter,” said Gamache, “but Cloutier did. Maybe it was easier on her feelings to think Vivienne forced it, rather than that the man she loved rejected her.”
“Easier to blame someone she already didn’t like,” said Lacoste. “And she might’ve even believed it.”
“If she really got it into her head that Vivienne stood between her and Homer,” said Beauvoir, “that sort of thing can eat away at a person. You said it yourself, patron. It’s a simple, clean motive. Most are.”
It was true. When the mist and smoke and fireworks dissipated, what was left in a murder investigation could be rendered down to a few words. Greed. Hate. Jealousy.
But really, it was even simpler than that. Even those words had a common parent.
Fear.
Cameron was afraid of losing his family.
Cloutier was afraid of losing Homer.
Pauline Vachon was afraid of losing her ticket out.
Carl Tracey was afraid of losing his home, his studio, his pottery.
If Vivienne lived.
“But how would they set up the meeting?” said Beauvoir. “There’s no record of a call between Cloutier and Vivienne.”
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