by Louise Penny
THIRTY-TWO
The snow plows were out, with their flashing lights, as Gamache drove over the Champlain Bridge, off the island of Montréal.
The rush hour traffic was bumper to icy bumper and Gamache could see a massive plow in his rearview mirror, also trapped in traffic.
There was nothing to do but crawl along. His face had begun to throb but he tried to ignore it. Harder to ignore was how it had happened. But, with effort, he shifted his thoughts to his interview with André Pineault, the only person alive who knew the Quints, and their parents. He’d created in Gamache’s mind an image of bitterness, of loss, of poverty beyond economics.
The Ouellet home should have been filled with screaming kids. Instead, there were just Marie-Harriette and Isidore. And a home stuffed with innuendo and legend. Of a miracle granted. Then sold. Of girls saved from grinding poverty and greedy parents.
A myth had been created. To sell tickets and films and meals at the Quint Diner. To sell books and postcards. To sell the image of Québec as an enlightened, progressive, God-fearing, God-pleasing country.
A place where the deity strolled among them, granting wishes to those on bended, bloody knee.
The thought stirred something in Gamache’s mind, as he watched impatient drivers try to cut between lanes, thinking they could get through the bumper-to-bumper traffic faster. That a miracle, reserved for the other lane, would suddenly occur and all the cars ahead would disappear.
Gamache watched the road, and thought of miracles and myths. And how Myrna described that moment when Constance had first admitted she wasn’t a Pineault at all, but one of the Ouellet Quints.
Myrna had said it was as though one of the Greek gods had materialized. Hera. And later, Thérèse Brunel had pointed out that Hera wasn’t just any goddess, but the chief female. Powerful and jealous.
Myrna had protested, saying it was just a name she’d pulled out of the air. She could have said Athena or Aphrodite. Except she hadn’t. Myrna had named solemn and vengeful Hera.
The question that Gamache turned over and over in his mind was whether Constance wanted to tell Myrna about something done to her. Possibly by her father. Or something she’d done, or they’d all done, to someone else.
Constance had a secret. That much was obvious. And Gamache was all but certain she was finally ready to tell it, to drop the albatross at Myrna’s feet.
Suppose Constance Ouellet had gone to someone else first? Someone she knew she could trust. Who could that be? Was there anyone, besides Myrna, Constance might consider a confidant?
The fact was there really wasn’t anyone else. The uncle, André, hadn’t seen them in years and hardly seemed a fan. There were the neighbors, who were all kept at a polite distance. The priest, Père Antoine, if Constance was inclined to a confession or an intimate chat to save her soul, seemed to consider them as commodities and nothing more. Neither human nor divine.
Gamache went back over the case. Over and over. And what kept coming to him was the question of whether Marie-Constance Ouellet was really the last of her kind. Or had one of them escaped. Faked her death, changed her name. Made a life for herself.
It would have been far easier back in the fifties and sixties. Even the seventies. Before computers, before the need for so much documentation.
And if one of the Quints still lived, could she have killed her sibling to keep her quiet? To keep her secret?
But what was that secret? That one sister still lived? That she’d faked her death?
Gamache stared at the brake lights ahead, his face bathed in the glowing red lights, and he remembered what Father Antoine had said. They’d have to have buried someone.
Was that the secret? Not that one of the sisters lived, but that someone else must have died, and been buried.
He completely forgot he was on the bridge, meters from the long drop to the slushy river. His mind was now occupied by this puzzle. Again he went back over the case, looking for some elderly woman. Almost eighty. There were a few elderly men. The priest, Father Antoine. The uncle, André Pineault. But no women, except Ruth.
For a moment Gamache toyed with the thought that Ruth was indeed a missing Quint. Not an imaginary sister, as Ruth had claimed, but a real one. And maybe that explained why Constance had visited Ruth, had formed a bond with the embittered old poet who’d written a seminal poem about the death of whom? Virginie Ouellet.
Was it possible? Could Ruth Zardo be Virginie? Who hadn’t thrown herself down the stairs, but down a rabbit hole, and popped up in Three Pines?
As much as he liked the idea, he was forced to dismiss it. Ruth Zardo, for all her snarling demands for privacy, was actually fairly transparent in her life. Her family had moved to Three Pines when Ruth was a child. As much fun as it would be to arrest Ruth for murder, he had to grudgingly give up that idea.
But then another thought settled. There was one other elderly woman on the periphery of the case. The neighbor. The one who lived with her husband, next door, and who’d been invited onto the porch for lemonade. Who’d befriended, as much as that was possible, the very private sisters.
Could she be Virginie? Or even Hélène? Escaping the life of a Ouellet Quint? Tunneling out through the grave?
And he realized they only had the neighbor’s word for it that she hadn’t been invited further into the home. Perhaps she was more than a neighbor. Perhaps it was no coincidence the sisters had moved into that home.
Gamache was finally off the bridge. He took the first exit and pulled off the road to call Lacoste.
“The medical records check out, Chief,” she said from her home. “It’s possible they were forged, but we both know that’s a lot more difficult than it sounds.”
“Dr. Bernard could have arranged for it,” said Gamache. “And we know the weight of the government was behind the Ouellet Quints. And that might explain why the death certificate was so vague, saying it was an accident, but hinting at possible suicide.”
“But why would they agree to such a thing?”
It was, Gamache knew, a good question. He looked at the dry cheese sandwich on the seat next to him. The white bread curled up slightly on the cellophane. The snow was piling up on the windshield and he watched the wipers swish it away.
Why would Virginie want to fake her death, and why would Bernard and the government help?
“I think we know why Virginie would want to do it,” said Gamache. “She seemed the most damaged by the public life.”
Lacoste was quiet, thinking. “And the neighbor, if she really is Virginie, is married. Maybe Virginie knew the only hope for a normal life was to start again, fresh. As someone else.”
“What’s her name?”
He heard clicking as Lacoste brought up the file. “Annette Michaud.”
“If she is Virginie, then Bernard and the government must have helped her,” said Gamache, musing out loud. “Why? They probably wouldn’t have done it willingly. Virginie must have had something on them. Something she was threatening to tell.”
He thought again of that little girl, locked out of her home. Turning a wretched face to the newsreel camera, begging for help.
If he was right, that meant Virginie Ouellet, one of the miracles, was also a murderer. Perhaps a double murderer. One years ago that let her escape, and one days ago, to keep her secret.
“I’ll interview her again tonight, patron,” said Lacoste.
In the background Gamache could hear shrieks of laughter from Lacoste’s young children and he looked at his dashboard clock. Six thirty. A week before Christmas. Through the half moon of cleared snow on his windshield he saw an illuminated plastic snowman and icicle lights out in front of the service station.
“I’ll go,” he said. “Besides, it’s closer for me. I’m just across the bridge.”
“It’ll already be a long night, Chief,” said Lacoste. “Let me go.”
“It’ll be a long night for both of us, I think,” said Gamache. “I’ll let you know what I fin
d. In the meantime, try to find out as much as you can about Madame Michaud and her husband.”
He hung up and turned his car back toward Montréal. Toward the congested bridge. As he slowly made his way back into the city he thought about Virginie. Who might have escaped, but just to the house next door.
Gamache exited the bridge and negotiated the smaller back roads until he arrived at the Ouellet home. Dark. A hole in the cheerful Christmas neighborhood.
He parked his car and looked at the Michaud house. The walk had been shoveled, and one of the trees in the front yard was decked out in bright Christmas bulbs. Lights were on, though the curtains were drawn. The house looked warm, inviting.
A home like any other on the street. One among equals.
Is that what the famous Quints had yearned for? Not celebrity, but company? To be normal? If so, and if this was a long-lost Quint, she’d achieved it. Unless she’d killed to do it.
Gamache rang the doorbell, and it was answered by a man in his early eighties, Gamache guessed. He opened the door without hesitation, without worry that whoever was on the other side might wish him wrong.
“Oui?”
Monsieur Michaud wore a cardigan and gray flannels. He was neat and comfortable. His moustache was white and trimmed and his eyes were without suspicion. In fact, he looked at Gamache as though expecting the best, not the worst.
“Monsieur Michaud?”
“Oui?”
“I’m one of the officers investigating what happened next door,” said Gamache, bringing out his Sûreté ID. “May I come in?”
“But you’ve been hurt.”
The voice came from behind Michaud and now the elderly man stepped back and his wife stepped forward.
“Come in,” said Annette Michaud, reaching out to Gamache.
The Chief had forgotten about his face and bloody shirt and now he felt badly. The two elderly people were looking at him with concern. Not for themselves, but for him.
“What can we do?” Monsieur Michaud asked, as his wife led them into the living room. A Christmas tree was decorated, its lights on. Beneath it some gifts were wrapped, and two stockings hung off the mantel. “Would you like a bandage?”
“No, no, I’m fine. Merci,” Gamache assured them. At Madame Michaud’s prompting he gave her his heavy coat.
She was small and plump and wore a housedress with thick stockings and slippers.
The home smelled of dinner, and Gamache thought of the dry cheese sandwich, still uneaten, in the cold car.
The Michauds sat on the sofa, side by side, and looked at him. Waiting.
Two less likely murderers would be hard to find. But Gamache, in his long career, had arrested more unlikely killers than obvious ones. And he knew the strong, wretched emotions that drove the final blow could live anywhere. Even in these nice people. Even in this quiet home with the scent of pot roast.
“How long have you lived in this neighborhood?” he asked.
“Oh, fifty years,” said Monsieur Michaud. “We bought the home when we married in 1958.”
“1959, Albert,” said Madame.
Virginie Ouellet had died July 25, 1958. And Annette Michaud arrived here in 1959.
“No children?”
“None,” said Monsieur.
Gamache nodded. “And when did your neighbors move in, the Pineault sisters?”
“That would’ve been twenty-three years ago,” said Monsieur Michaud.
“So accurate,” said Gamache with a smile.
“We’ve been thinking about them, of course,” said Madame. “Remembering them.”
“And what do you remember?”
“They were perfect neighbors,” she said. “Quiet. Private. Like us.”
Like us, thought Gamache, watching her. She was indeed about the right age and right body type. He didn’t ask if she had the right temperament to kill. It wasn’t about that. Most murderers were themselves surprised by the crime. Surprised by the sudden passion, the sudden blow. The sudden shift that took them from good, kindly people to killers.
Had she planned it, or was it a surprise to both her and Constance? Had she gone over there, only to discover Constance’s intention to return to the village, to tell Myrna everything, not out of spite, not to hurt her sister, but to finally free herself.
Virginie had been freed by a crime, Constance would be freed by the truth.
“You were friends?” Gamache asked.
“Well, friendly. Cordial,” said Madame Michaud.
“But they invited you over for drinks, I understand.”
“A lemonade, once. That hardly makes a friendship.” Her eyes, while still warm, were also sharp. As was her brain.
Gamache leaned forward and concentrated fully on Madame Michaud.
“Did you know that they were the Ouellet Quints?”
Both Michauds sat back. Monsieur Michaud’s brows shot up, surprised. But Madame Michaud’s brows descended. He was feeling, she was thinking.
“The Ouellet Quints?” she repeated. “The Ouellet Quints?” This time with the emphasis on “the.”
Gamache nodded.
“But that’s not possible,” said Albert.
“Why not?” asked Gamache.
Michaud sputtered, his brain tripping over his words. He turned to his wife. “Did you know this?”
“Of course not. I’d have told you.”
Gamache sat back and watched them try to absorb this information. They seemed genuinely shocked, but were they shocked at the news, or the news that he knew?
“You never suspected?” he asked.
They shook their heads, still apparently unable to speak. For this generation it really would have been akin to hearing their neighbors were Martians. Something both familiar and alien.
“I saw them once,” said Monsieur Michaud. “My mother took us to their home. They came out every hour on the hour and walked around the fence, waving to the crowds. It was thrilling. Show him what you’ve got, Annette.”
Madame Michaud got to her feet, and both men rose as well. She returned a minute later.
“Here. My parents bought this for me in a souvenir shop.”
She held out a paperweight, with a photo of the pretty little cottage and the five sisters in front.
“My parents took me to see them too, right after the war. I think my father had seen some terrible things and he wanted to see something hopeful.”
Gamache looked at the paperweight, then handed it back.
“They really did live next door?” asked Monsieur Michaud, finally grasping what Gamache had said. “We knew the Quints?”
He turned to his wife. She didn’t seem pleased. Unlike her husband, she seemed to remember why Gamache was there.
“Her death couldn’t have been because she was a Quint, could it?” she asked.
“We don’t know.”
“But it was so long ago,” she said, holding his eyes.
“What was?” Gamache asked. “They might have grown up, might have changed their name, but they would always be the Quints. Nothing could change that.”
They stared at each other while Monsieur Michaud muttered, “I can’t believe it. The Quints.”
Armand Gamache left the warmth of their home. The aroma of pot roast was embedded in his coat and followed him out the door and into his car.
He drove back across the Champlain Bridge, the traffic now thinned as the worst of the rush hour ended. He wasn’t sure he’d gotten any closer to the answer. Was he creating his own myth? The missing Quint? The one who rose from the dead? Another miracle.
*
“Where is he now?” Francoeur asked.
“He’s over the Champlain Bridge,” said Tessier. “And heading south. I think he’s heading back down to that village.”
Francoeur leaned back in his chair and regarded Tessier, but the Inspector knew that look. He wasn’t really seeing him; the Chief Superintendent was mulling something over.
“Why does Gamache keep goin
g back to that village? What’s in that place?”
“According to his case file, the Quint, the one who was killed, had friends there.”
Francoeur nodded, but in an abstract way. Thinking.
“Are we sure it’s Gamache?” Francoeur asked.
“It’s him. We’re tracking his cell phone and car. When he left here he went to see some fellow named”—Tessier consulted his notes—“André Pineault. Then he called Isabelle Lacoste, I have the transcript here. He then returned to the home where the murder happened and spoke to the neighbor. He just left. He seems focused on the case.”
Francoeur pursed his lips and nodded. They were in his office, the door closed. It was almost eight in the evening, but Francoeur wasn’t ready to go home. He had to make sure everything was set. Every detail was taken care of. Every contingency thought of. The only blip on an otherwise clear horizon was Armand Gamache. But now Tessier was saying that blip had disappeared into that village, into the void.
Francoeur knew he should be relieved, but a sick feeling had settled into his stomach. Maybe he was so used to being locked together with Gamache, so used to the struggle, he couldn’t see that the fight was over.
Francoeur wanted to believe it. But Sylvain Francoeur was a cautious man, and while the evidence said one thing, his insides told him something else.
If Armand Gamache went over the edge, it wouldn’t be willingly. There’d be claw marks all the way over. This was a trick, somehow. He just didn’t know how.
It’s too late, he reminded himself. But the worry remained.
“When he was here at headquarters, he went to see Jean-Guy Beauvoir,” said Tessier.
Francoeur sat forward. “And?”
As Tessier described what happened, Francoeur felt himself relax.
There were the claw marks. How perfect this was. Gamache had pushed Beauvoir and Beauvoir had pushed Gamache.
And both men had finally fallen.
“Beauvoir won’t be any trouble,” said Tessier. “He’ll do anything we say now.”
“Good.”
There was one more thing Francoeur needed Beauvoir to do.
“There’s something else, sir.”
“What?”
“Gamache went to the SHU,” said Tessier.