by Louise Penny
“No, what?” Though she knew where this was heading.
“Even more shit. You’ll have their merde all over you, and you’ll be the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb—”
“All these farm animals, André. Is there something you need to tell me?”
He’d grown angry then. But then he was often angry. Not abusive, not violent. But he was a thirty-nine-year-old black man. He’d been stopped so many times by the cops, he’d stopped counting. They’d had to train their fourteen-year-old son, from the time he could walk, how to behave when stopped by the cops. When harassed. When targeted. When pushed and provoked.
Don’t react. Move slowly. Show your hands. Be polite, do as you’re asked. Don’t react.
André had a right to his anger, his cynicism.
She was also angry, enraged often. But she was willing to give it one last chance. As she’d been given one last chance.
“You might be right,” she said. “But I have to try.”
“Gamache is like all the rest,” he’d said. “Just wait. When the shit starts flying, he’ll step aside and it’ll hit you. That’s why he chose you.”
“He chose me because I’m very, very good at what I do,” she said, getting angry herself. “If you can’t see that, then we have to have another discussion.”
She’d glared at him, her anger heightened by her suspicion he was right.
And now she sat with Chief Superintendent Gamache, at a little wooden table, surrounded by laughing, chatting diners.
And he was asking her to build the ship mid-ocean. The shit ship was taking on piss, and he wanted her not just to repair it, but to redesign it?
Madeleine Toussaint looked across the table, into his worn face. If that was all she saw, she’d think him spent and those who followed him doomed. But she saw that the creases radiating from his eyes and mouth were made more from humor than weariness. And the eyes, deep brown, were not just intelligent, they were thoughtful.
And kind.
And determined.
Far from being spent, here was a person at the height of his power. And he’d reached down, into the muck, and pulled her up. And given her power beyond imagining. And asked her to stand beside him. To stand with him.
To run Serious Crimes.
“When you feel overwhelmed, come talk to me,” he said. “I know what it’s like. I’ve felt like that myself.”
“And who do you talk to, sir?”
He smiled, and the lines down his face deepened. “My wife. I tell her everything.”
“Everything?”
“Well, almost. It’s important, Madeleine, not to cut people out of our lives. Isolation doesn’t make us better at our job. It makes us weaker, more vulnerable.”
She nodded. She’d have to think about that.
“My husband says you’ve made me captain of a sinking ship. That this is an unsalvageable situation.”
Gamache nodded thoughtfully, and took a long, deep breath. “He’s right. In part. The situation as it stands is untenable, unwinnable. As I said in the meeting, the war on drugs is lost. So what do we do?”
Toussaint shook her head.
“Think,” he said, intense.
And she did. What to do when your position was unwinnable?
You either give up, or—
“We change.”
He smiled. And nodded. “We change. But not slightly. We need a radical change, and that, unfortunately, cannot come from the old guard. It needs bold, creative new minds. And brave hearts.”
“But you’re—”
She stopped herself just in time. Or perhaps, not quite in time.
Chief Superintendent Gamache looked at her with amusement.
“Old?”
“Er.”
“Er?” he asked.
“Older,” she said. “Désolé.”
“Don’t be. It’s true. But someone has to be in charge. Someone has to be expendable.”
Madeleine Toussaint knew then that her husband might’ve been right about many things, but he’d been wrong about one. She was not the goat tethered to the ground. To draw the predators.
Gamache was.
“We have a great advantage, Superintendent,” said Gamache, his voice crisp and businesslike again. “Several actually. Our predecessors spent most of their energy on breaking their own laws and covering up. They also spent much of their time on internecine wars. Firing at each other, sometimes literally. Crime got out of control, partly because the attention of the top Sûreté officers was on their own corruption, and partly because the cartels paid good money for blind eyes.”
“They blinded their own eyes,” said Toussaint. “For money and power.”
“Yes. Very Greek.” But he didn’t look amused. And she wondered if that was a joke or if he really did see it as an ancient tragedy playing out in modern-day Québec.
“And now?” she asked.
“You said it yourself. We change. Everything. While appearing to change nothing.” He looked at her, studying her. “The only reason we police as we do is because someone a century ago organized us this way. But what worked then doesn’t work now. You’re young. Use that to your advantage. Our adversaries are expecting the same old tactics.”
He leaned forward and lowered his voice. But it was filled with energy, awe even.
“Reinvent, Madeleine. Make it new and bold. Now’s our chance. While no one thinks we can do it. While no one’s looking. Your husband isn’t alone. Everyone thinks that the Sûreté is irreparably damaged. Not just in reputation, but that there’s rot. And the whole thing is teetering. And you know what? They’re right. So we can either spend our time and energy and resources propping up a mortally damaged institution, or we can begin again.”
“And what do we do?” she asked, swept up in his excitement.
He leaned back. “I don’t know.”
She felt herself deflate, but only slightly. Part of her was pleased to hear it. It meant she could contribute rather than just implement.
“I need ideas,” Gamache said. “From you. From the others. I’ve been thinking about it.”
He’d spent many autumn mornings and evenings, Henri and Gracie at his feet, sitting on the bench above Three Pines. The one inscribed Surprised by Joy and, above that, A Brave Man in a Brave Country.
He’d looked at the tiny village, going about its life, and then beyond that, the mountains and forest and ribbon of golden river. And he’d thought. And he’d thought.
He’d turned down the job of Chief Superintendent of the Sûreté, Québec’s top cop, twice. Partly because he didn’t want to be the one on the bridge when a ship he’d once so admired went down. And he couldn’t see any way to save it.
But the third time he was asked, he again took himself up to the bench, and he thought. About the corruption. The damage done.
He thought about the Sûreté Academy and the young recruits. He thought about a life of peace. Of quiet. Here in Three Pines. Off the map. Off the radar.
Safe.
Reine-Marie had often joined him. They’d sit side by side, quietly. Until one evening, she’d spoken.
“I was just thinking about Odysseus,” she’d said.
“Oddly”—he turned to her—“I was not.”
She’d laughed. “I was thinking about his retirement.”
“Odysseus retired?”
“He did. As an old man he was tired. Of war. He was even tired of the sea. And so he took an oar and walked into the woods. He walked and walked, until he found a people who had no idea what an oar was. And there he made his home. Where no one would know the name Odysseus. Where no one would have heard of the Trojan War. Where he could live out his life anonymously. In peace.”
Armand had sat very still and very silent for a long time, looking at Three Pines.
And then he’d gotten up, and returned home. And made a phone call.
Odysseus’s battle was done. His war won.
Gamache’s wasn’t yet won. Or
And now here he was in a bistro in Old Montréal with a very young superintendent, talking about ships.
“My husband was right about the leaky ship. But he was wrong about something else. I’m not alone.”
“No, you’re not.”
She nodded. She’d felt alone for so long she’d failed to notice that was no longer the case. She had colleagues. People standing not behind her, but beside her.
“We need to commit totally,” she said. “Burn our ships. No going back.”
Gamache stared at her, then sat back in his chair.
“Patron?” she asked, just a little afraid he was having a petit mal. Or maybe, as the moments went by, a grand mal.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and drew a napkin toward him.
Taking a pen from his breast pocket, he scribbled a few words, then looked up and smiled, beamed, at her. He folded the napkin and put it in his pocket. And leaned toward her.
“That’s what we’ll do. We won’t repair the ship. We’ll burn it.”
He gave one firm nod.
When Superintendent Toussaint arrived back after lunch, she was reenergized. Invigorated. By his words. And she tried not to think about the hint of madness that had played on the edges of Chief Superintendent Gamache’s tone.
Madeleine Toussaint might have been the first, but before it was over she’d be far from the last person to think that the new head of the Sûreté had lost his mind.
CHAPTER 13
The first meeting of the afternoon was with Inspector Beauvoir, who wanted to discuss a suggestion that the Sûreté form a ceremonial drill team.
“Like in the military,” said Beauvoir. “Those close marches.”
Chief Superintendent Gamache listened, unconvinced. “Why would we do that?”
“Well, now, this isn’t my idea, one of the senior officers came to me with it. When I stopped laughing, I started to think.”
He gave his boss a stern look of warning not to be a smart-ass. Gamache lifted his hand in surrender.
“It could start in the academy, with training,” Beauvoir continued. “It would be, I think, a great way to bond, but it’d also be something we could take into communities. You’re always saying we need to rebuild trust. We could go into schools and community centers and put on shows. Maybe as fundraisers for local food banks or rehabs.”
Now Gamache was leaning forward, nodding.
“You know, that’s a terrific idea.”
They discussed it for a few minutes.
When they’d finished, Gamache got to his feet. He was tempted to show Jean-Guy the napkin from lunch. And the words scrawled there.
But he didn’t.
It wasn’t time yet. He needed to sit quietly, and think.
“I’m glad that thing on the village green has gone,” said Beauvoir, walking to the door. “But you still have no idea why he was there?”
“None. And he’s taken up more than enough of my time.”
Jean-Guy adjusted his glasses. They were new to him, and the younger man found it humiliating to need them. The first sign of decrepitude.
It also didn’t help that the chief, a good twenty years older than Beauvoir, only needed his for reading, whereas Jean-Guy had been told he needed to wear his all the time.
“Honoré grabbed them last night at bath time,” said Jean-Guy, taking them off and examining them again. “Pulled them right into the water. That kid’s strong.”
“Are you sure it was Honoré who threw them into the water?” asked Armand, taking the glasses from Beauvoir and quickly adjusting them.
He’d had years of experience with twisted and damaged frames.
He handed them back.
“Merci, patron. What are you suggesting?”
“Sabotage, sir,” said Gamache melodramatically. “And then you have the temerity to blame your infant son. You’re a scoundrel.”
“Jeez, Annie said the same thing. Are you colluding?”
“Yes. We speak endlessly about your glasses.”
That was when the very gentle ding was heard from Gamache’s laptop.
The vast majority of his mail went through Madame Clarke to sort and prioritize. There was a shocking amount of it, but Gina Clarke had proven up to the task, and then some. Even organizing the Chief Superintendent, as though he was just one more email to be replied to, forwarded or sometimes deleted.
Jean-Guy often sat in the chief’s outer office just to watch him be bossed around by the young woman with the pierced nose and pink hair. It was as though Tinker Bell had turned.
But this email had been sent to his private work account.
Gamache got up and walked to his desk. “Do you mind waiting for a moment?”
“Not at all, patron.”
Jean-Guy stood by the door and checked his own messages.
Gamache clicked on the email. It was the report from the lab on the drugs found on Paul Marchand the evening before. But the chief was interrupted by a call on his cell phone.
“Oui, allô,” he picked up the phone, while studying the computer screen, his face grim.
“Armand?”
It was Reine-Marie.
Something was wrong.
* * *
“So she called you first, before dialing 911?” asked the Crown.
“She did,” said Gamache. Was it getting even hotter in the courtroom? He could feel his shirt, under his jacket, sticking to his skin.
“And what did she tell you?”
* * *
Reaching out quickly, instinctively, as though for the woman herself, Armand touched the speaker button, while across the room, Jean-Guy turned toward him.
“Are you all right?” Armand asked.
“I found the cobrador.”
There was a moment’s pause, just a moment, while the world shifted. Her words, and the men, felt suspended in midair.
“Tell me,” he said, getting to his feet and staring at Jean-Guy.
“He’s in the church basement. I went down to the root cellar to get vases for fresh flowers, and he was there.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“Non. He’s dead. There was blood, Armand.”
“Where are you?”
“At home. I locked the church door and came here to call.”
“Good. Stay where you are.”
“I haven’t called 911 yet—”
“I’ll do that now.” He looked over at Beauvoir, who was already on his phone.
“Do you have blood on you?”
“I do. My hands. I leaned over and touched his neck. He still has his mask on, but he was cold. I probably shouldn’t have touched him—”
“You had to find out. I’m sorry—”
“It’s not your fault.”
“Non, I mean I’m sorry about what I’m about to do. I’m going to have to ask you not to wash.”
There was silence as Reine-Marie took that in. She thought to ask why. She thought to argue. To beg even. For a moment, a brief spike, she was angry at him. For treating her like any other witness.
But that passed. And she knew, she was any other witness. And he was a cop.
“I understand,” she said. And she did. “But hurry.”
He was already out the door, Beauvoir right behind him.
“I’m leaving now. Cancel my appointments,” he said as he hurried through the outer office, past Madame Clarke.
She didn’t question, didn’t hesitate. “Yessir.”
Gamache and Beauvoir walked swiftly down the long corridor to the elevators.
“Jean-Guy has called 911, there should be agents there within minutes. Get Clara or Myrna to come over and be with you. I’ll get there as quick as I can. Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?”
“No, I need to call Clara and Myrna. Hurry, Armand.”
“I am.” He hung up and said to Beauvoir. “Call Lacoste.”
“Already done. She’s sending a team.”
Beauvoir rushed to keep pace with Gamache.
He’d stood beside the older man through countless investigations. During arrests and interrogations and shootouts. During horrific events, and celebrations.
At funerals, at weddings.
Jean-Guy had seen him joyous, and devastated. Angry and worried.
But he’d never seen Armand Gamache desperate.
Until now.
And there was rage there.
That Reine-Marie should have blood on her hands.
They raced down to Three Pines with the siren on, communicating with the local Sûreté detachment. Instructing them not to enter the church, but to secure it.
“And I want an agent in front of my home,” said Gamache, describing which home it was.
Beauvoir cut the siren as they turned off the secondary road onto the small dirt road. He drove more slowly because of the potholes, and the deer that were prone to jump straight into the path of oncoming cars.
“Faster,” said Gamache.
“But patron—”
“Faster.”
“Madame Gamache is fine,” he said. “She’s safe. No harm will come to her.”
“And would you say that, Jean-Guy, if it was Annie who’d found a body, and had blood on her hands? Blood you told her not to wash off?”
Jean-Guy sped up. Feeling his fillings loosen and his glasses bounce as they jolted along.
* * *
“So your own wife found the body?” asked the Crown Prosecutor.
“Oui.”
“And she touched it.”
“Oui.”
“Your wife is obviously different from mine, monsieur. I can’t imagine her touching a dead body, never mind one with blood all over it. It was clear, wasn’t it, that this was murder?”
The already steaming courtroom grew even hotter as Gamache felt a flush rise out of his collar and up his neck, but he kept his voice and his gaze steady.
“It was. And you’re right, Madame Gamache is extraordinary. She had to see if she could help. She left only when it was clear there was nothing she could do. I suspect your wife would be equally courageous and compassionate.”
The Crown continued to stare at Gamache. The judge stared. The courtroom stared. The reporters scribbled.
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