by Louise Penny
He’d stared at her, his deep brown eyes thoughtful. There was no madness there. No fevered ego. But there was power there. And certainty.
The next day, he’d accepted the job. And now, months later, he was back investigating a crime. A murder. Right on his own doorstep.
Myrna sat side by side with Clara on the sofa, as though waiting for a bus, and considered.
Yes, there was reason for Armand’s anger. She was angry too. She was also afraid, and she wondered if Armand was too.
Myrna glanced down at the floor, where Leo was curled on the mangy piece of rug, with his chew toy. A more adorable image would be hard to find.
Then she looked at Clara’s painting of Leo. Of Gracie. Of the savagery they might be capable of. Might be hiding. And she knew that it wasn’t just a portrait of the puppies.
“Bonjour?”
The unfamiliar voice drifted into the studio. The two women struggled out of the low sofa, and walking into the kitchen, they saw a young man in a Sûreté uniform standing there.
“There’s no doorbell,” he said, slightly defensively. “I did knock.”
“That’s okay, everyone just comes in,” said Clara. “You’re here about Katie. What can we do to help?”
“Jesus, is Gamache hiring fetuses now?”
The young agent turned to the tall, thin, old piece of work framed in the doorway. Holding a duck.
“Chief Inspector Lacoste told me to find a Ruth Zardo,” he said, looking down at the wet piece of paper in his hand. “She wasn’t at her home or in the bistro. Someone said she might be here. I was told to look for a crazy old woman.”
He examined all three. From the great distance of twenty-five, they all looked old. And more than a little crazy. But what could you expect? he thought. Poor things. Stuck in this backwoods village. He should count their fingers and see if there were any banjos lying around.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said the duck, while the three old women stood together and stared, as though he was the strange one.
*
Jean-Guy called Myrna’s bookshop and left a message, asking if she had a copy of Lord of the Flies.
Then he turned back to the synopsis online.
He read about schoolboys stranded on a deserted island. He read about happy, healthy, decent kids away from rules and authority, slowly turning into savages.
And he thought about his son, Honoré, and what he might do in a situation like that.
But mostly Jean-Guy remembered what Matheo Bissonette had said. That their first year at the Université de Montréal had been like Lord of the Flies.
With the cruel hunter, Jack. The rational, disciplined Ralph. The “littluns,” the youngest. Conjuring their fears. Creating beasts where none existed.
And Piggy, whose only value to the group was that his glasses made fire.
Beauvoir adjusted his own glasses and read on. Tensing, tightening up, the further he got.
He read about the boys’ growing certainty that there was a beast on the island. One they needed to hunt down and kill.
Taking off his glasses, Jean-Guy rubbed his eyes.
Matheo Bissonette had likened university to Lord of the Flies, but he’d made it sound like fun, a wild romp.
Had those four friends, five counting the unfortunate Edouard, turned into savages? Then, in the confines of the university, turned on each other?
And what about Three Pines? It was a sort of island.
And now one among them was dead. And one of them had done it.
And the Conscience was nowhere to be found.
Beauvoir took a deep breath, chuckling at his overactive imagination.
But he decided to put reading about Lord of the Flies on hold and, pulling up another search, he typed in the words he’d seen that afternoon on the napkin that had fallen from Gamache’s pocket.
Burn our ships.
*
“May I join you?” Armand asked, gesturing to the closed toilet seat as though it were an easy chair.
“Please,” said Reine-Marie, and accepted the glass of red wine he passed her, a stalactite of bubbles from the bath she was soaking in hanging from her arm. “Nothing for you?”
“I’m afraid I’m still working,” he said, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable.
“Any closer to finding out what happened?”
“Isabelle’s doing interviews. She’ll join us later for dinner. I’ve asked her and Jean-Guy to stay overnight.”
“I should get things ready.” Reine-Marie put the glass down and made to get out of the tub, but Armand waved her to stop.
“Olivier will bring something over for dinner, and I’ve checked. The beds are already made and towels out.”
“Auberge Gamache is open for business?” she asked, gliding back down, deeper into the suds.
The hint of roses from the bubble bath mixed with the steam, and Armand had the strange impression that the fog from outside had permeated their home. And as he did when he walked through the mist, he had an intense feeling of comfort.
“You okay?” he asked.
“This helps,” she said. It was clear she meant the company more than the bubbles. Or even the wine.
“Would you like to talk about it?”
“It was awful, Armand. There was blood everywhere.”
She was trying not to cry, but tears streamed down her face, and he knelt beside the tub and held her hands. As she described, again, what she’d seen.
She needed to talk about it. And he needed to listen. To comfort.
“Who killed her, Armand? Was it the cobrador?”
She knew he wouldn’t have the answer, but she hoped, in the extreme privacy of their own bathroom, he might have an idea he could share with her.
“I think he’s at the center of it, yes. Whether he himself did it, I’m not sure.”
She looked into his eyes. “There was nothing you could do.”
“And that’s exactly what I did do. Nothing. But I’m not here to talk about me. I’m here for you.”
He caressed her skin with his thumb.
“You did do something,” she said, ignoring what he’d just said. “You warned him. You can’t arrest someone for standing on a village green. Thank God.”
“Thank God,” murmured Armand.
He knew she was right. But he could also feel his own conscience stirring. Accusing him of following the law, in lockstep. And marching right past common sense.
Katie Evans was dead. The cobrador was missing. And Reine-Marie was soaking in the bath, the blood long gone but the stain remaining.
“The law is sometimes an ass,” he said, squeezing her warm hand.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do. There are some laws that should never be upheld, enforced.”
“But you can’t be the one who decides,” she said, sitting up straighter and looking at him. “You’re the head of the Sûreté. You have to follow the law, even if it’s uncomfortable.” She held his eyes and spoke slowly, clearly. “You can’t kick someone off the public park in front of your home, Armand, just because you don’t like it.”
She made it sound so clear, so reasonable.
“What I don’t understand is how the killer knew the root cellar was there,” said Reine-Marie. “Hardly anyone ever goes in it.”
“Why did you?”
“I had some of those Chinese lantern flowers. Long stems. I wondered if there might be a vase there, even a chipped one, I could use.” She thought for a moment. “You think that’s where the cobrador went, when he disappeared at night?”
“It’s possible. Probable. The forensics report will tell us more, but it makes sense. It’s a pretty good hiding spot. There’s a bathroom, a kitchen. No windows in that little root cellar.”
“Did you find a weapon?”
He looked at her, confused. “What do you mean?”
Now she looked confused. “Do you know what killed Katie?”
“The bat, of
course.”
“Of course?”
In silence he regarded her, then his eyes widened.
“Can you describe again what you saw when you found the body?”
She sat up straighter in the bath, picking up on the shift in tone. She cast her mind back. “When I turned the light on I saw something dark, like a shadow, in the corner. It looked like a pile of black clothes. And then there was the blood.”
He squeezed her hand, and let that sit.
“What else was in the root cellar?” He hated doing this, but had to.
She frowned. “Jars of preserves on the shelves. Some vases, mostly chipped or cracked. Some broken candlestick holders. Things we couldn’t even sell in the rummage sale.”
“Anything else? On the ground?” It was as far as he could go. She had to tell him herself. Or not.
She scanned the room in her mind.
“Non. Why? What should I have seen? Did I miss something?”
“Non, but we almost did. Do you mind?” He got up.
“No, go.”
Armand bent down and he kissed her.
“It’s not your fault,” she whispered.
As he left, he reflected on how many times he’d heard that from others.
It’s not my fault. Though it almost always was.
CHAPTER 20
“What’re you looking up?” asked Gamache, pausing in the doorway to his study.
“Lord of the Rings,” said Beauvoir.
He closed the search, shutting down the page.
“Flies?” asked Gamache.
“Right, right, Lord of the Flies. I just got to the part where Frodo and Ralph find the magic ring in the pig’s head. But I’m not sure why the pope is on the island.”
“Wikipedia,” muttered Gamache, as he walked toward the front door. “I need to take another look at the root cellar.”
“Why?” asked Beauvoir, following.
“Something Reine-Marie just told me.”
“What?”
Jean-Guy listened as Gamache recounted his conversation. “You’re kidding,” he said, though it was clear Gamache was not. “I’ll come with you.”
“Madame Evans’s sister and parents don’t know what happened, and it would be helpful to take a look at the Evanses’ home in Montréal.”
Beauvoir paused, then gave a curt nod. “I’ll go. You need to stay here with Madame Gamache.”
“Merci, Jean-Guy. We’ll probably need a court order for the home. I suspect Monsieur Evans is still asleep.”
“Don’t you mean passed out?” Beauvoir asked as they put on their field coats. “That was more than one tranquilizer. He was right out of it. Gone.”
“Dr. Harris thinks it was at least two. And it might not have been Ativan.”
“An opioid?”
“Don’t know.”
“Did Lea Roux give him more than he could handle on purpose? Or was it a mistake?” asked Beauvoir.
That, Gamache knew, was the real question.
The two men walked down the front path, turning up their collars against the drizzle and sleet.
“Save me some dinner,” said Jean-Guy.
As he drove toward Montréal, Jean-Guy thought about why he’d lied to Gamache just then about what he was looking at on the computer.
He’d been reading about Lord of the Flies, yes. But that had been earlier. The search he’d hidden from Gamache was for the words the chief had written on the napkin that had fluttered to the floor.
Burn our ships.
Beauvoir now knew what that referred to. But not why the words, the phrase, had so struck Chief Superintendent Gamache that he’d had to write them down. And keep them.
It must’ve been just this past lunch hour. Who did the chief have lunch with?
Toussaint. Madeleine Toussaint. The new head of Serious Crimes.
Burn our ships.
*
Armand Gamache walked through the late afternoon darkness. The lights from the cottages were made soft by the mist that still hung over the village. Three Pines felt slightly out of focus. Not quite of this world.
He could hear tapping, as water rolled off leaves and hit branches further down. It sounded like rain, but wasn’t. It was a faux rain. Not quite real. Like so much else in this village. Like so much else in this murder. One foot in the here and now, and the other in some other world. Of a Conscience that walked. And killed.
The air smelled earthy and the cold and damp seeped through his canvas coat.
Lights were on in the church and he could see the stained-glass window, illuminated, and the village boys, the doughboys, captured there. Forever moving forward into some battle long ago won. Or lost. Moving so far forward they could never come back.
As Gamache moved forward.
Once in St. Thomas’s, he took the stairs to the basement.
A conference table had been set up at one end of the room, with desks filling in the middle. Technicians were working to install phone lines and computers and other equipment.
Chief Inspector Lacoste and an agent were at the conference table conducting an interview. Gamache caught her eye and she nodded imperceptibly.
“Who’s there?” asked Ruth, turning stiffly in her seat.
The old poet seemed to miss the obvious but catch the imperceptible.
“Oh, it’s only you.”
The agent taking notes stood, and the Sûreté technicians stopped what they were doing to stare, wide-eyed, at the new Chief Superintendent.
“Patron,” a few of the older ones said, nodding to the man.
The younger ones, including the agent who’d escorted Ruth up to the Incident Room, just stared.
The veteran agents knew Gamache from when he’d been head of homicide. From when he’d cleaned out the corruption, at enormous personal cost.
And now he was back, running the whole thing.
There’d been a huge sense of relief when he’d stepped up to take the job.
He could be seen walking down the corridors in Sûreté headquarters, often with people around him, briefing him on the fly between meetings.
There was a sense of urgency, of purpose, that had been missing in those corridors for many years.
But sometimes Chief Superintendent Gamache could be seen in the hallways, or an elevator, or the cafeteria, alone. Deep in some dossier. Like a college professor reading an obscure and fascinating text.
It was an oddly comforting sight, for men and women who’d been immersed in brutality. Who’d worn their guns more proudly than their badges.
Here was a man with a book, not a weapon, and no need to prove his bravery. Or descend into savagery.
It became okay to stop the swaggering, to cease the bullying that was excused as an appropriate way to treat the populace.
They could be human again.
This chief didn’t hide away, plotting and dividing. Chief Superintendent Gamache was in full view, though no one expected to view him in the church basement in this obscure village.
Their GPS had warned them they were literally in the middle of nowhere and the woman’s voice had advised them, in tones their mothers once used, to recalculate.
Gamache nodded to the agents and subtly gestured to them to continue what they were doing. He’d had no intention to disrupt, but he was learning that whenever the boss appeared, disruption was inevitable.
“S’il vous plaît.” Isabelle Lacoste gestured to an empty chair, a hint of desperation in her voice. “Join us. You’re just in time.”
“Hello, Clouseau,” said Ruth, loudly enough for all the agents in the room to hear. “I was telling her that I didn’t kill that woman.” Then she lowered her voice and leaned toward the Sûreté officers. She spoke out of one side of her mouth like a gangster. “But I can’t vouch for the duck.”
She leaned back in her chair and gave them a meaningful look. Rosa glanced from one to the other with her beady little eyes.
They knew that, if need be, Rosa would take
the fall for Ruth. Though surely Ruth didn’t have that much further to fall.
“You were here this morning, I understand,” said Lacoste. Ruth nodded. “Did you come down here?”
“No.”
“Did you notice anything different about the church?” asked Lacoste.
Ruth thought. Then slowly shook her head. “No. Everything seemed normal. The church was unlocked, like it always is. I turned on the lights, then I sat in the pew by the boys.”
They all knew which bright, brittle boys she meant.
“No strange noises?” asked Lacoste, and braced for the caustic, sarcastic reply.
Like a murder happening downstairs?
But none came. The elderly woman just thought some more, and shook her head again.
“It was quiet. As always.”
She brought her elbows to the table and her hands to her face, and held Isabelle Lacoste’s steady eyes.
“She was down here then, wasn’t she? Already dead.”
Lacoste nodded. “We think so. Did you know about the root cellar?”
“Of course. I’m one of the church wardens. It was once used by rum runners, you know. During Prohibition. To get booze across the border.”
Gamache didn’t know that about the church, but it did explain why Ruth considered it an exceptionally sacred place.
Ruth looked over at the small room with the dirt floor and the crime scene tape. “It’s a terrible thing, to take another life. And somehow, it seems even worse to do it in a church. I wonder why that is?”
Her wizened face was open, genuinely seeking an answer.
“Because we feel safe here,” said Lacoste. “We feel God, or decency, will protect us.”
“I think you’re right,” said Ruth. “And maybe He did.”
“He didn’t protect Katie Evans,” said Lacoste.
“No, but maybe He protected us from her.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Look, I didn’t know her, but that conscience thing was here for a reason.”
“You mean the cobrador?” asked Lacoste. “You think the reason was Madame Evans?”
“I do. And so do you.”