by Louise Penny
Gamache didn’t, except that it proved what he already knew. His mentor was slowing down.
Now he and Henri descended two floors to the living room where the woodstove still burned and radiated heat. There he put on a single light, slipped into his warmest coat, hat, scarf and mitts and went out, not forgetting to take the most crucial item. The Chuck-it for Henri. Henri was in love with the Chuck-it. As was Gamache.
They walked through the deserted streets of old Québec, up St-Stanislas, past the Literary and Historical Society where they paused. Twenty-four hours ago Augustin Renaud lay hidden in the basement. Murdered. Had the telephone cable not been severed while digging the shallow grave the basement would have been cemented over and Augustin Renaud would have joined the countless other corpses hidden in and around Québec. It wasn’t all that long ago archeologists discovered skeletons actually inside the stone walls surrounding the city. The bodies of American soldiers captured after a raid in 1803. The authorities had quickly said the men were already dead when walled up, but privately Gamache wondered. After all, why put bodies into a wall unless it was a grotesque punishment, or to conceal a crime? Since Québec was built on bones and irony, the invading soldiers had become part of the city defenses.
Augustin Renaud had almost gone the way of the soldiers and become a permanent part of Québec, encased in concrete beneath the Literary and Historical Society, helping prop up the venerable Anglophone institution. Indeed, Renaud’s life was a mother lode of irony. Like the time he’d dug for Champlain on live television only to break through into the basement of a Chinese restaurant. Since Champlain had spent much of his life trying to find China it seemed, well, ironic. Or the time Renaud had opened a sealed coffin, once again convinced it was Champlain, only to have the pressurized contents explode into the atmosphere in a plumb of missionary fervor. The Jesuit inside, turned to dust, was sent to the heavens, immortal. Though not the sort of immortality he’d prayed for or expected. The priest tumbled back to earth in raindrops, to join the food chain and end up in the breast milk of the native women he’d tried to wipe out.
Renaud himself had narrowly escaped a similar fate, coming within hours of forming the foundation of the Literary and Historical Society.
Armand Gamache had hoped that after the initial interviews his obligation to Elizabeth MacWhirter and the rest of the Lit and His would be over. But he now knew that wasn’t true. Renaud had demanded to meet the board, the board had refused, then they’d purged the incident from the minutes. When word got out there’d be hell to pay. And it would be the Anglos who had to pay it.
No, Gamache thought as he and Henri trudged out the gates, he couldn’t leave them. Not yet.
The snow had almost stopped and the temperature was dropping. There was no traffic, not a sound except Gamache’s feet squeaking on the snow.
It was three twenty in the morning.
Every day Gamache woke at about that time. At first he’d tried to get back to sleep, had stayed in bed, had fought it. But now, after weeks and weeks, he’d decided this was it, for now. Instead of fighting, he and Henri would get up quietly and go for a walk, first around their Montreal neighborhood and now here in Quebec City.
Gamache knew that in order to get through the day he needed this quiet time with his thoughts at night.
He needed this quiet time with the voice in his head.
“My father taught me to play the fiddle,” Agent Paul Morin said, in answer to Gamache’s question. “I was about four. We have some home video of it somewhere. My father and grandfather playing the fiddle behind me, and me in front wearing these great big sagging shorts, they look like diapers.” Morin laughed. “I had my little fiddle. My grandmother was on piano and my sister pretended to conduct. She was about three. She’s married now, you know, and expecting.”
Gamache turned left and walked through the darkened Carnaval site at the foot of the Plains of Abraham. A couple of guards watched but didn’t approach. Too cold for confrontation. Gamache and Henri wound along the pedestrian walk, past attractions that would be filled with excited kids and freezing parents in just a few hours. Then the stalls and temporary buildings and rides trailed off and they were walking through thin forest toward the infamous open field and the monument erected where the English General Wolfe fell, and died, on September 13, 1759.
Gamache scooped up a handful of snow and crushed it into a ball. Henri immediately dropped the tennis ball and danced around. The Chief cocked his arm, smiling at Henri, who suddenly crouched. Muscles tense. Waiting.
Then Gamache threw the snowball and Henri raced after it, catching it in mid-air. He was ecstatic for a moment then his jaws closed, the snow disintegrated and Henri landed, perplexed as always.
Gamache took the tennis ball encrusted with frozen saliva, put it in the Chuck-it and tossed. The brilliant yellow ball sailed into the darkness with the shepherd sailing after it.
The Chief Inspector knew every inch of the Champs-de-Bataille, in every season. He knew the changing face of the battlefield. Had stood there in spring and seen the daffodils, had stood there in summer and seen the picnickers, had stood there in winter and watched families cross-country ski and snowshoe, and he’d stood there in early autumn. On September 13. The exact day of the battle, when more than one thousand men had died or been wounded in an hour. He’d stood there and believed he heard the shouts, heard the shots, smelled the gunpowder, seen the men charging. He’d stood where he believed Général Montcalm had been when he realized the full nature of his mistake.
Montcalm had underestimated the English. Their courage and their cunning.
At what point did he know the battle was lost?
A runner had appeared in Montcalm’s camp, upriver from Québec, the night before. Exhausted, almost incoherent, he’d reported the English were scaling the 150-foot cliffs from the river and were on the field belonging to the farmer Abraham just outside the city.
Montcalm’s camp hadn’t believed him. Thought the man mad. No commander would issue such an order, no army would obey it. They’d have to have wings, Montcalm had laughingly told his generals and gone back to bed.
By dawn the English were on the Plains of Abraham, prepared for battle.
Was that when Montcalm knew all was lost? When the English, armed with wings, had done the impossible? The Général rushed there and had stood on the very spot Gamache now stood. From there he’d looked over the fields and seen the enemy.
Did Montcalm know then?
But still the battle needn’t have been lost. He could have prevailed. But Montcalm, the brilliant strategist, had more mistakes to make.
And Gamache thought about that moment when he’d realized his own final and fatal mistake. The enormity of it. Though it had taken him a few moments to grasp as everything unraveled, fell apart. With such speed, and yet it seemed now, so slowly.
“Homicide,” his secretary had said, answering the phone.
Beauvoir had been in his office when the call came through, discussing a case in Gaspé. She’d stuck her head in the door.
“It’s Inspector Norman, in Ste-Agathe.”
Gamache looked up. She rarely interrupted him. They’d worked together for years and she knew when to handle it herself, and when not to.
“Put him through,” said the Chief. “Oui, Inspector. What can I do for you?”
And so the battle had begun.
Je me souviens, thought Gamache. The motto of Québec. The motto of the Québécois. I remember.
“I was at Carnaval once,” Agent Morin said. “It was great. My dad took us and we even played fiddle at the skating rink. Mom tried to stop him. She was embarrassed, and my sister could have died, but Dad and I took out our fiddles and started playing and everyone seemed to really like it.”
“That piece you played for us? ‘Colm Quigley’?”
“No, that’s a lament. It gets faster, but the beginning’s too slow for skaters. They wanted something peppier, so we did some jigs and
reels.”
“How old were you?” Gamache asked.
“Thirteen, maybe fourteen. It was about ten years ago. Never went back.”
“Maybe this year.”
“Oui. I’ll take Suzanne. She’d love it. Might even take the fiddle again.”
Je me souviens, thought Gamache. That was the problem. Always the problem. I remember. Everything.
In the cabin in the woods Beauvoir lay awake. Normally he slept soundly, even after what happened. But now he found himself staring into the dark rafters, then at the glow of the fireplace. He could see Dr. Gilbert asleep on the two chairs he’d pulled together. The asshole saint had given Beauvoir the bed. Beauvoir felt horrible, having an elderly man who’d been so kind, sleep on a couple chairs. And he wondered, briefly, if that was the point. Why be a saint unless you could also be a martyr?
Perhaps it was the peaceful cabin, perhaps it was exhaustion after pushing himself too far, or the little half pill, but Beauvoir’s defenses were down.
And over the wall swarmed the memories.
“Homicide,” the Chief’s secretary had said. Gamache had taken the call.
11:18 the clock had said. Beauvoir had looked around the room, letting his mind wander, as the Chief spoke on the phone with the Ste-Agathe detachment.
“Agent Morin’s on the phone.” Gamache’s secretary appeared again at the doorway a moment later. The Chief covered the mouthpiece and said, “Ask him to call back in a few minutes.”
Gamache’s voice was hard and Beauvoir immediately looked at him. He was taking notes as Inspector Norman spoke.
“When was this?” Gamache’s sentences were clipped. Something had happened.
“He says he can’t.” The Chief’s secretary hovered, uncomfortable, but insistent.
Gamache nodded to Beauvoir to take the Morin call, but Gamache’s secretary stood her ground.
“He says he needs to speak to you, sir,” she said. “Now.”
Both Chief Inspector Gamache and Inspector Beauvoir stared at her, amazed she would contradict the boss. Then Gamache made up his mind.
“Désolé,” he said into the receiver to Inspector Norman. “I have to give you to Inspector Beauvoir. Wait, I have a question. Was your agent alone?”
Beauvoir saw Gamache’s face change. He waved for Beauvoir to take the other phone in his office. Beauvoir picked up the receiver and saw the Chief take Agent Morin’s call on the other line.
“Oui, Norman, what’s happened?” Beauvoir remembered asking. For something had, something serious. The worst, in fact.
“One of our agents has been shot,” Norman said, obviously on a cell phone. He sounded far away, though Beauvoir knew he was only about an hour north of Montreal, in the Laurentian Mountains. “He was checking out a car stopped on the side of a secondary road.”
“Is he—?”
“He’s unconscious, on his way to the Ste-Agathe hospital. But reports I’m getting aren’t hopeful. I’m on my way to the scene.”
“We’ll be right there, give me the location.” Beauvoir knew not only was time crucial, but so was coordination. In a case like this every cop and every department was in danger of descending and then they’d have chaos.
Across the room he could see Gamache standing at his desk, the phone to his ear, his hand gesturing for calm. Not to anyone in the room, but to whoever he was speaking with, presumably Agent Morin.
“He wasn’t alone,” Norman was saying, the transmission cutting in and out as he raced through the mountains to the scene. “We’re looking for the other agent.”
It didn’t take a homicide detective to know what that meant. One agent shot, the other missing? Lying dead or gravely wounded in some culvert. That’s what Inspector Norman was thinking, that’s what Beauvoir was thinking.
“Who’s the other agent?”
“Morin. One of yours. He’s on loan to us for the week. I’m sorry.”
“Paul Morin?”
“Oui.”
“He’s still alive,” said Beauvoir, and felt the relief. “He’s on the phone with the Chief Inspector.”
“Oh, thank God for that. Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Gamache took Morin’s call, his mind racing in response to what he’d heard from Inspector Norman. An agent gravely wounded, another missing.
“Agent Morin? What is it?”
“Chief?” The voice sounded hollow, tentative. “I’m sorry. Did you find—”
“Is this Chief Inspector Gamache?” The phone had clearly changed hands.
“Who is this?” the Chief demanded. He gestured to his secretary to get a trace and make sure it was being recorded.
“I can’t tell you.” The voice sounded middle-aged, perhaps late middle-aged, with a thick country accent. A backwoods voice. Gamache had to strain to understand the words.
“I didn’t mean to do it. I just got scared.” And the man sounded scared, his voice rising to near hysterics.
“Easy, softly. Calm down. Tell me what this is about.”
But in the pit of his stomach he knew what this was about.
An agent injured. An agent missing.
Paul Morin had been seconded to the Ste-Agathe detachment the day before, to fill in for a week. Morin was the missing agent.
At least he was alive.
“I didn’t mean to shoot him, but he surprised me. Stopped behind my truck.” The man seemed to be losing it. Gamache forced himself to speak slowly, reasonably.
“Is Agent Morin hurt?”
“No. I just didn’t know what to do. So I took him.”
“You need to let him go now. You need to turn yourself in.”
“Are you nuts?” The last word was shrieked. “Turn myself in? You’ll kill me. And if you didn’t I’d spend the rest of my life in jail. No way.”
Gamache’s secretary appeared at the door, giving him the “stretch it out” sign.
“I understand. You want to get away, is that right?”
“Yes,” the man sounded uncertain, surprised at Gamache’s response. “Can I?”
“Well, let’s just talk about it. Tell me what happened.”
“I was parked. My truck had broken down. Blown tire. I’d just replaced it when the police car pulled up behind.”
“Why would that be upsetting?” Gamache kept his voice conversational and he could hear the stress, the panic, on the other end subside a bit. He also stared at his secretary who was looking into the large outer room where there was sudden, frantic, activity.
Still no trace.
“Never you mind. It just was.”
“I understand,” said Gamache. And he did. There were two big crops in the backwoods of Québec. Maple syrup and marijuana. Chances were the truck wasn’t loaded with syrup. “Go on.”
“My gun was sitting on the seat and I just knew what would happen. He’d see the gun, arrest me and you’d find . . . what I had in the truck.”
The man, thought Gamache, had just shot, perhaps killed a Sûreté officer, kidnapped another, and yet his main concern still seemed to be concealing that he either had or worked for a marijuana plantation. But it was so instinctive, this need to hide, to be secretive. To lie. Hundreds of thousands of dollars could be at stake.
Liberty was at stake.
For a woodsman, the idea of years behind bars must seem like murder.
“What happened?”
Still no trace? It was inconceivable it should take this long.
“I didn’t mean to,” the man’s voice rose again, almost to a squeal. He was pleading now. “It was a mistake. But then it happened and I saw there was another one, so I pointed my gun at him. By then I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just shoot him. Not in cold blood like that. But I couldn’t let him go either. So I brought him here.”
“You must let him go, you know,” said the Chief Inspector. “Just untie him and leave him there. You can take your truck and go, disappear. Just don’t hurt Paul Morin.”
Vaguely, in the back of Gamache’s mind, he wondered why the hostage-taker hadn’t asked about the condition of the officer he’d shot. He’d seemed so upset, and yet never asked. Perhaps, thought the Chief, he didn’t want to know. He seemed a man best suited to hiding from the truth.
There was a pause and Gamache thought maybe the man would do as he’d asked. If he could just get Agent Morin safely away they would find this man. Gamache had no doubt of that.
But Armand Gamache had already made his first mistake.
Beauvoir drifted back to sleep and in his sleep he replaced the receiver, got in the car with the Chief and raced up to Ste-Agathe. They found where Morin was being held and rescued him. Safe and sound. No one hurt, no one killed.
That was Beauvoir’s dream. That was always his dream.
Armand Gamache picked up the ball and chucked it for Henri. He knew the dog would happily do this all day and all night, and it held its attractions for Gamache. A simple, repetitive activity.
His feet crunched on the pathway and his breath puffed in the crisp, dark air. He could just see Henri ahead and hear the slight wind knocking the bare branches together, like the fingers of skeletons. And he could hear the young voice talking, always talking.
Paul Morin told him about his first swimming lesson in the cold Rivière Yamaska and losing his trunks to some bullies. He heard about the summer the family went whale watching in Tadoussac and how much Morin loved fishing, about the death of Morin’s grandmother, about the new apartment in Granby he and Suzanne had rented and the paint colors she’d chosen. He heard about the minutiae of the young agent’s life.
And as Morin talked Gamache saw again what had happened. All the images he kept locked away during the day he let out at night. He had to. He’d tried to keep them in, behind the groaning door but they’d pounded and pressed, hammering away until he had no choice.